Date & Time (ET): 2024-01-11T20:15:00.000-05:00

Summary

Emilia, Lei, Runato, and Sylo were offered a special dispensation to explore the Temple of Hanno if they investigated and dealt with a series of bandit raids on caravans to the northwest of Kesh. The Fellowship located the "bandits," who turned out to be a band of deserters from the Urt Unakha.

The Fellowship attempted a nonviolent - if underhanded (according to Runato) - resolution. Combined efforts from Sylo and Lei threw the camp into total disarray and scattered the Unakh-Drakken's mounts. Runato apprehended a shifty Roadwarden the deserters had taken prisoner. Emilia, noticing a Triumvirate mage, took the opportunity to swipe some documents from her tent while the camp was in chaos.

Notes

On a rainy day in the wilderness...

• The group watches over the camp of the Unakh-Drakken, debating how to deal with these bandits(?) that have been stealing shipments coming out of Kesh.
• Runato and Emilia scout around the encampment, getting a rough estimate of their numbers.
• The Fellowship decides to send in Emilia and Lei to try and distract/negotiate with the bandits, with Sylo, Runato, and Emilia's crew ready to swoop in if something goes wrong.
• As they approach, pretending to be a lost hunter and minstrel, Emilia and Lei notice the discipline and armaments of the guards far exceed what would be expected of a group of outlaws. They are quickly spotted, taken captive, stripped of weapons, and interrogated.
• Lei recognizes an crest on one of their shields - a rider on an alogotaur - as the banner of the Urt Unakha, the military of the nomadic Kareta.
  • She recalls a story she's heard recently, Into the Land of Mor, telling of a Kareta siege and takeover of Arred, a city in the west of Iskander. She recognizes these folks as likely deserters.
• Runato, Sylo, and Alise, observing from a distance, debate whether intervention is needed. With some encouragement from the others, Sylo petitions his god to allow him to take flight so he can survey the camp from above. Tsuan Bi agrees and blesses Sylo with the form of the falcon.
• Sylo quickly notices from the air what was invisible from the ground - an open-air pen keeping the wyrms of the Unakh-Drakken from wandering around the camp.
• Lei weaves her arcane art to enthrall and [distract] the soldiers in the camp with a ballad of heroism.
• Meanwhile, Emilia speaks with some of the soldiers to try and understand why they're this far east and attacking random merchant caravans.
  • She learns that they're driven by an ideological tenet that people should be in harmony with nature, traveling through it, rather than dominating and cultivating it (as a city does). She gets the impression that they believe, or have been led to believe, that they're having a much bigger impact than they really are - that stealing shipments from the occasional supply caravan will eventually force people to leave Kesh, or even make the city collapse.
• Sylo reconvenes with Runato and Emilia's crew, relaying (as best he can) the situation. Again, the forces of chaos win the battle for Sylo's soul, and he sets off to bait the wyverns on a destructive tear through the camp. He succeeds handily.
• As order breaks down, Runato and Alise watch as an apparent prisoner escapes. They intercept him, and recognize by a sign on his bangle that he's a local Roadwarden.
  • While they initially move to free him from his bonds, Runato quickly grows suspicious as the man lies about his experience, and Runato tries to intimidate him into giving straight answers. Kifle reveals that he swiped Emilia's gun on his way out of camp, and takes a member of Emilia's crew hostage as he tries to retreat.
• Sylo leads the wyrms off into the distant wilderness, losing them in the trees on a long loop back around to reconvene with the group.
• Lei breaks off her performance and sneaks out of the camp, spotting Kifle (+hostage). She sneaks up and disarms him without injury or incident.
• In the wake of the near-collapse of the camp, Emilia spots a hooded Trium in close conversation with Tai'chaar while Vir'iq dispatches soldiers to search out the wayward wyrms. She takes the unexpected opportunity to search the mage's tent for anything of use.
  • She finds cyphered documents - one she recognizes as an encrypted map (that she will later learn points to the Kesh chapter house of the Triumvirate), alongside a stack of personal correspondence - and swipes them, quickly disguising the theft before making an exit.

While the camp is in disarray, neither letter nor spirit of the Fellowship's task has been completed, and it won't be long before the jig is up...

Notable People

• Orr Dradesh, the Varanid Kesh council representative who tasked the Fellowship with investigating the attacks
• Tai'chaar, the Tytonid leader of this band of Unakh-Drakken
• Vir'iq, the Human lieutenant of the band
• Dahlia the Crescent, the Viverrid Triumvirate mage inexplicably among the bandits
• Kifle Bain, the Human Roadwarden who escaped captivity
• Alise, a Human troublemaker and crack shot on Emilia's crew
• Alicia, a Felid member of Emilia's crew

Ephemera

Notes

• Lei's Journal, Session 01

Other