Date & Time (ET): 2024-04-05T20:15:00.000-04:00

Summary

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Notes

• Cedarven, an aide to Orr Dradesh, calls on the Fellowship early in the morning and reminds them that they need to formally report to Orr (the implication: Alise's account of the Unakh-Drakken encounter is not exactly credible since she was arrested).
• Determined to secure Alise's freedom, Lei and Emilia investigate the scene of the crime where Kifle was murdered. They question several residents and shopkeeps about what they heard or saw on the night of the attack, learning that nobody saw the assailant.
• A Murid woman approaches Emilia offering information, but saying it's "not safe to talk here," leading her through an under-construction district of the city and eventually ambushing her in an alley.
• Sylo sets off to talk with Orr, finding their office buried in the back of a trading company warehouse. He navigates the conversation successfully and secures the Fellowship's dispensation to explore the nearby ruins, but there is clearly political context a little beyond a recent arrival's ken.
• He asks if Orr knows anything about Aphodii Cantel, and detects immediate suspicion and reluctance; they suspect many of the powerful in Kesh are under her thumb, though not in a way typical of a merchant-aristocrat. When Sylo reveals he's caught her interest, Orr asks him to quietly investigate what she's up to.
• Runato wakes up late after a rather trying day. Following his otherworldly dreams, he pays a visit (Theo in tow) to the Kesh branch library of the Chronicled Elephant... or at least, the place where it used to be. Much of the land has been reclaimed by the city for construction, with only the main building still standing - and that long since looted. But even the walls here hold memories, and Runato begins some uncharacteristically-controlled demolition to pull whatever records he can from the stone of the place.
• The Murid woman fires on Emilia, forcing her to take cover in a doorway. She's almost frenzied, demanding to know why Emilia and Lei are asking questions and what they want. Lei, trailing behind and hearing the gunshot from the direction Emilia was going, decides to sneak around the back through an abandoned building and get the drop on the woman, wresting the rifle from her grasp.
• She pulls out a knife and charges at Lei, who steps aside. Emilia gives chase through the abandoned quarter of the city, up and down and across rooftops, before finally landing atop her quarry in a daring leap.
• Runato's search is interrupted by their interrogator-turned-dubious-ally Vana Meirlies, responding to a complaint about trespassing from a nearby narc concerned citizen. Runato convinces Meirlies that, as an Elephant, he has a right to be there. The latter concedes the point but reminds Runato that the clock is ticking on Pierra, who will be released by the end of the day unless Runato delivers proof of their complicity in a crime.
• After searching for an hour or two, Runato feels called to investigate one particular piece of the structure... and, on freeing the brick from the surrounding wall, finds an ancient account of an archive vault maintained by the Chronicled Elephant in the city of Arred. It predates Runato's time in the order and may have escaped destruction.
• Sylo, emboldened by one successful social interaction, decides to pay a visit to the upper rung of the city and call on Aphodii. He reaches out to Xsinbi for moral/mendacious support and enters the manor, where he is simultaneously put at ease and grilled by the lady of the house.
• She eventually reveals that she's seeking other mages for an expedition to The Scintilla to retrieve a heartstone, which she believes she could use to remotely extract the exceedingly rare ore therein. She claims to want it for all the same banal reasons the wealthy gather their hoards, but in a moment of greed Sylo and Xsinbi are able to pierce the illusion and see a bit of the truth underneath: Aphodii, like Sylo, is bound to a deva, and plans to work a great magick.
• Emilia and Lei interrogate the terrified woman, but their questions are frustrated by the fact that she believes she'll be killed as soon as she reveals anything of value. Switching tactics, they offer her safe harbor - and possibly passage out of the city - aboard the Solstice. She eventually caves, and returns with them to the ship.
• In the galley of the Solstice, Emilia and Lei reunite with Runato and Theo, and the woman introduces herself as Serrico Andel. She claims she was hired by Cheshire to kill Kifle in a specific way at a specific place and time, and was compensated suspiciously well for it. She performed her work, but worry began to eat at her, and she dug into her hitherto-anonymous employers - the now-familiar Unicorns. She found herself visited in the night by a strange apparition who perforated her neck with black glass in the shape of star anise, and since then has felt hunted, haunted, and tenuously grasping for sanity.

Notable People

• Serrico Andel, the Murid thief and run-of-the-mill thug Cheshire hired to kill Kifle
• Orr Dradesh, a Varanid Kesh council representative
• Cedarven Awan, the Human aide to Orr
• Theo, Emilia's uncle
• Vana Meirlies, a member of the Kesh city watch conducting their own investigation into the recent killing
• Aphodii Cantel, a Human member of the Cognoscenti and apparently a sorcerer of some talent

Ephemera

Notes

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