2025/12/12: Exploring Rael-Aestra

Buzz, Knight, Aetheril, Kal'vus
  Doyle gave a briefing to the collected party members that evening in the museum's back rooms. (He also arranged rooms for the party members in the museum, in case they didn't have other arrangements.)
  Briefing notes:

Hasn't found the guy yet. He is still in the city, though. He's changed his appearance. We don't know his name yet.

There are some 20,000 wizards of his power level in this city. There are quite a few with higher levels. There are major magical academic institutions teeming with archmages.

Suspect he's a member of one of the major academic institutions.

Current dilemma: Very large city. Scale is an obstacle.

Things in the city are a lot more tense and on-edge than they appear. The current crime and violence suppression is because shadowy forces were fighting enough that it spilled out into public and caused damage and danger.

At least two major conspiracies, probably three. These are at odds. There's a shadow war going on.

Unclear how effective the anti-violence wards really are. Very complex, not fully explored, space for loopholes.

Legal code is fairly standard. Harsh penalties for slander and other business-related crimes. Fairly laissez-faire beyond that.

Have to be a citizen to join most guilds. The adventuring guilds are an exception: Joining one is one of the main paths to citizenship.

The city makes most of its money through a large influx of adventurers and wealth people coming in to do magical research and magical research-based advances in business. They do practically all varieties of research here.

The city really wants to be seen as part of Concordia, but they aren't nearly on that level yet. They're strongly pushing for stronger people and better magic for that purpose.

A bunch of the spellcrafting guilds in the city, in conjunction with legal guilds and the town guard, set up the ward. It's being actively kept up and worked on and presumably fixed.

The city's money really comes from adventurers coming various magic items and relics from out of the city to be researched, decoded, and dissected to make new and profitable things from. Also, there are dungeons appearing outside the city regularly, with the lands outside the city "resetting" about every two months. This is part of the point of the city. Harvesting those. Every time there's a new ancient civilization, a new set of dungeons full of magical loot and monsters.

Explorers Guild locates the dungeons, adventurer guilds go into them.

The dungeons are sort of a lawless area. That's a place where lethal dangers may be exploited and turned to our ends. There are rules that only the guilds can go dungeon-delving, but there's only so much enforcement they can do there.

An assassination attempt is going to be made just outside the city in the Grayscale Tower later this day. Heavily planned out, killing a captain in the adventurer's guild. Highly professional setup and planning. A prominent, well-liked person in town. Helping him may be a way to new contacts. Reason for assassination is unknown.

Technomancy is formally banned, but as long as it isn't made too prominent people aren't likely to notice. It hasn't been seen in some 125 years. Buzz calling himself a gunmage would probably get him a complete pass as long as he doesn't do anything obviously technomantic.

"The Rainbow Key". Several underworld factions were hunting for it, and the resulting fighting was the cause of the wards. A powerful relic, possibly from Concordia. There are people ready to spend fortunes just for information on it. A literal key to Heaven would be less valuable.

Doyle made up three identities just to arrange things so he could pickpocket some of the underworld info-hunters. They're very powerful and experienced and coordinated. Roughly on par with the party in level. Best to avoid them.

On top of the other shadowy organizations, there's a third group. At least attempting to resist the other organizations. Gives Doyle a "home team" secret police vibe. The envoys or summoned minions of a "secret ruler" of the city. Someone who rules things behind the scenes, if not in any obvious way. The only name Doyle has come in contact with in relation to this person was some standardized invites to some events around the city. This person is invited to absolutely everything, regardless of how much sense it makes. Lady Blackstone. Getting more information about this person may be helpful; a secret monarch, secret guardian, etc. Guild higher-ups may have more information.

Adventuring guilds have been suffering high turnover of late.

There are six major adventuring guilds. About 70 adventurer guilds in total, and total that does adventuring on the sides is 110. The lieutenant who needs rescuing is part of one of the big ones, the Cerulean Shields.

It is believed that someone recently stole/acquired the Rainbow Key and is currently quietly looking for a buyer. They're able to disguise themselves magically/undetectably and have been in the city a little over two weeks. Doyle believes the current holder is hiding somewhere south of the city.

There's the matter of the Animus Society. Doyle believes they have multiple representatives in the city, and at least some of them want Grey dead as well. Two names of the factions in town: One belongs to a lady named Rose, the other to a gentleman named Kessen.

  The party opted to go try to save the adventuring guild lieutenant. Ril needed to rest. There were some six hours before the planned assassination.
  The assassination was supposed to look like an accident. Supposed to have a soul-sucking crystal snuck into his inventory to prevent resurrection. Subtle magic to prevent the friendlies from interfering. Funnel some monsters in to fight him, then have assassins with ranged weapons kill him while he's fighting the monsters and defending his party.
  Cerulean Shield: ranked 4 adventurer guild in Rael-Aestra.
Arkus Winsley, lieutenant of the Guild
  The party made a plan that involved a mix of stealing and replacing the murder-crystal, intercepting attacks, and potentially rewinding time to prevent the man's death from ever happening.
  The spears the town guard have are strange. They have dull crystal spearheads. They are in place to guard the outer gates.
  Doyle led the party out of the city to the south. With some help from divine intervention, the party set up in hiding in the area where the assassination was set to occur.
  The party heard noises of combat from where the adventurers were, outside line of sight. Buzz turned himself into an invisible stalker (noticing that there was an odd pull, possibly the same thing drawing the monsters to dogpile the adventurers) and flew invisibly to investigate. The adventurers were being attacked by a swarm of giant dire bears. The leader had an anime-style broadsword/bastard sword. Cutting a swathe through the monsters, calling for coordination. The rest were bumbling and clearly having their coordination magically suppressed.
  The party successfully intervened after the lieutenant went stiff (he'd been shot through the chest with multiple crossbow bolts mid-fight with giant dire bears). Buzz gave the go signal, and Knight dove in to protect the adventurers while Buzz and Kal'vus slew the bears. Ril came in a second later to reverse time on the dead lieutenant and return him to life. Knight went to join Doyle and try to kill the assassins, but they were gone by the time Knight got there. They'd vanished. Doyle reported they were invisible the whole time. He'd still managed to replace all of the man's quivers with bolts Buzz had manufactured. In the stolen quivers, there were a bunch of creepy black bolts, and then one pure darkness thing that looks and feels like a sphere of annihilation made into a bolt, even if it doesn't hurt a person who picks it up.
  The visiting heroes convened with the rescued adventurers.
  The rogue is some sort of hawk man. (Like a larger, sturdier version of Kal'vus.) Very depressed, since he spent all that time scanning for traps and gathering info and now they're abandoning the run and going back to the city. Others: a tortle wizard, a person who's colored gold, several humans, some others. The lieutenant is human, though he does have somewhat bluish hair.
  The group safely made it back to the city, chatting along the way and keeping an eye out for further problems. The rescued party scattered after that, with the lieutenant leading the rescuers to the local safety office to make his report and have them give their statements. After about two hours of Doyle having fun interrogating the police, the party headed out. It was now late morning. Arkus invited the party to fill out paperwork and do some testing to join the Cerulean Shield, possibly waiving the fees. This was a great opportunity for the party; new friends, and improved city access!
  The mages were tested by showing their most powerful offensive magic. Buzz did very well at this. Ril also managed to pass, despite having very little offensive magic to show.
  The warriors were tested by Zarl, a dwarven monk-trainer for the Cerulean shield. Both Knight and Kal'vus impressed him in different ways. He commented that Knight was exceptionally fast and annoying to fight, though would have potential trouble in formation fighting. Kal'vus managed the single fastest strike Zarl had ever seen, though might have trouble with endurance. Both received high marks.
  After that it was a matter of paperwork. There was some deliberation over the loyalty clauses (prioritizing the guild over all other organizations, that sort of thing), but the terms for amicably leaving the guild were more than acceptable, so everyone eventually signed on. The warriors then headed back to the training arena go "get to know" their new compatriots.