Session 33 - "Southwards" Report

Venen 5, 1247

The next morning, high winds begin to kick up, scattering the hard packed dirt across the ground. Micaiah pulls out another one of his scarves to wrap around his face, while the others brave the stinging earth.

As they head out across the plains southward, they come across a small hut. In front of the hut is a gate made of a single board on a hinge, which does indeed block the road, but makes no other attempts to block anyone attempting to walk around the barrier.

A small sign leans against the hut with a bucket sitting next to it. It reads “Tol 1sp pr persun”, which Foenix takes offense to. He hides himself inside Thais's cloak before casting invisibility on himself and sneaking around the side of the house, letting himself into the house with on astronomically quiet feet (natural 20).

Micaiah and Olena are rather perplexed at the uproar over one silver, no matter how much of extortion it may be - they choose to pay the one silver, and as Thais does the same she calls out to the old man that lives in the hut (whom Foenix finds watching the party through his curtains and quickly snags the old man's dagger with another critical success). She asks for directions, and he comes out of the house to open the gate and begrudgingly tells her about Ghani's Ground - a small village down the way a bit.

Thais is surprised, as she was in this area during The Cactsian Expansion War, and does not recall any village here. But she thanks him for his time.

Inside, Foenix looks around for any coin that the old man may have, eventually finding a shallow bowl with four silver pieces and a belt buckle sitting in it. The belt is crafted from silver with gold trim, and has a solid flat face carved to represent the night sky. There are five stars etched into it to form an L shape, with the moon floating above. Foenix leaves the coin, but takes the buckle, and scrambles back onto Thais's horse invisibly while she concludes her conversation with the tollman.

He lies as he comes out of his invisibility, claiming he found/took nothing, but as Olena notices a trio of riders coming towards them, hides under Thais' cloak (with another critical success).

The riders are two knights and a well-dressed noblewoman, who introduces herself as Princess Analonté, from across the sands. Thais clarifies if she means Ilatros, which she agrees with, but gets shorter and snippier as they attempt to ask her about the great sand wurm that they are hunting, claiming to have never heard of such a creature.

Her questions are also odd - asking if they are adventurers and if so, if they have had good fortune as they plunder dungeons. But still, there is nothing outwardly threatening about her, and so the party parts ways with her.

The most interesting thing, however, is as they ride, the high winds blow up the capes that the knights are wearing, exposing that the capes are clasped backwards to make them look solid blue - when in fact, they are silver with a blue dog in the center and the lining is blue.

Micaiah recognizes the blue dog: it belongs to the Vallée family . They're one of the more important families in the River District, with a profitable ore and mining operation in the southern hamlet outside of Brillante proper.

But they don't have much time to think about that, as the party is waylaid by a group of highwaymen and soon enough by Princess Analonté and her knights, who are revealed to be a forward scouting party for this gang of thieves and work to head off any attempts to flee by their quarries, turning around as soon as they were far enough away and heading back towards the location that the highwaymen had staked out.

The Fate-Steppers, of course, do not back down from the fight - and even though it is hard won (with Thais knocked unconscious and several members of the party heavily wounded), they succeed and emerge victorious, with only Princess Analonté still alive. Micaiah turned one of her own tricks on her: the apparently magically-gifted scoundrel tried to banish Olena, and Micaiah instead banished her.

When she reappeared, it was to an immediate gag and bindings on her hands to stop her from casting any more spells.

Micaiah spots a ring upon her finger: worked copper, with three entwined leafy branches running around and in and out that surround a small, perfectly round red bead in the center. He recognizes it as her spell casting focus and so relieves her of that before they begin to question her.

The first few questions reveal the strategy of the thieves, and when asked about her magic, she reluctantly reveals that she truly is of royal blood, but that was long ago. The magic and nobility still flow through her veins, but her family is no better than paupers now.

The party forces her to give up the location of her and the thieves' stash, which she tells them is located in Siphone-Kett, in the Theurgy of Flame. The priests there know that if you say you are "working with the princess," that they are to show you where the cache is - but Thais is unable to tell if she's telling the truth or not.

Instead of killing her, they instead decide to pull a bag over her head and tie her hands before sending her off into the plains on horseback. She'd either make it or she wouldn't.

Foenix, holding her saddlebag, searches it and discovers three small sacks each of which is full of coins. Two of them contain ordinary gold and silver pieces while the third holds copper coins minted in ages past. These coins are quite tarnished and feature a wide range of unusual designs.

Then the Fate-Steppers begin to search the bodies of the thieves. It's not much, but they get a bit of coin off their bodies.

Olena finds two encoded letters, which she pockets for later...