Before leaving Wriem for Holst, the party sees the city properly for the first time. Caspian calls them through a sending stone to the markets, where they take a job worth a thousand gold to recover relics stolen from a rich Beaumondian — and Orrin makes a wager with a rival adventurer, Lauren, who looks like his ex-wife. On the way, Orrin mails his report to the Magisterium through the temple of the Postmaster, and a doomsayer calls Gabriel Landaluce the true disease behind the Hollowing Plague. The changeling fence Anise sells them the thief’s location under a binding Vormondian slip, and after talking their way past his guards the party fights the thief, Kendrick, and knocks him out without killing him. They have just found the relics when Lauren’s party steps out of the shadows.
Details
The recap
The players recap the story so far. The GM adds that, along with the pills, Mikhail Asimi also gave the party a stone (e05 00:07).
Wriem
The party flings open the door of Willy’s Wards and, for the first time, gets to look around without a kaiju or a superhero battle overhead (e05 00:07, e05 00:07). From certain angles, Wriem is the most beautiful city in the world (e05 00:08). Wyrmrest, the queen’s keep, sits at the top of it, behind three rings of wall, massive towers and fortifications, and gates that seem mostly unused, because so few come in or out (e05 00:08, e05 00:08, e05 00:08, e05 00:08). The largest fortification, the Watchtower, is the Queen’s Guard barracks, and the only tower taller than Wyrmrest (e05 00:08, e05 00:08). To its west, Beau Monde is a pearly-gated community of metamortals, with mansions, gardens, fountains and art, running its own wall along a ridge; past that, the castle district and Central spill downhill in marble and gold leaf — beautiful architecture, clean roads, 200 years of peace built in marble, broken up only by the eclectic architecture of the temple district (e05 00:08, e05 00:08, e05 00:08, e05 00:08).
Past Central, the money runs out fast (e05 00:08). Merchant Row is one long street of awnings and carts pressed against the wall where Central stops, where the Queen’s Guard walk in pairs collecting stall fees; Bayside is salt, scrap wood, rope, and shipwrights at work (e05 00:09, e05 00:09). At the head of the canal sit the Guild Hall and many weapon- and armorsmiths, essence surveyors, and the loot tax office (e05 00:09, e05 00:09). Then there’s everything else: the Stacks, piles of tenements; Old Wriem, a city beneath the city where it isn’t very safe to go; and the South District, above the canal, a dozen little cities with their own shops, often self-policing, because a Queen’s Guard patrol is rarely a good thing (e05 00:09, e05 00:09, e05 00:09, e05 00:09).
Across town, at Crown Central Bank, an obscenely rich Beaumondian hero withdraws a massive clear, diamond-shaped essence crystal, humming with power (e05 00:09, e05 00:10). His son died to a beholder last Tuesday; he has fired the guide, paid off the guild administrator who found his son had no business being licensed for a delve of that tier, and is resurrecting his son for the fifth time (e05 00:10, e05 00:10, e05 00:10, e05 00:10). Across the street, in Trade Alley, a woman reassures her weeping child as a Queen’s Guard pulls her arm out over a block, and a Vormonde Arbiter reads out her crimes (e05 00:10, e05 00:10). He asks if anyone will pay for her crime; no one offers, everyone averts their eyes, and a sword takes off her hand (e05 00:10, e05 00:10). Leaving the bank, the Beaumondian wrinkles his nose at the sound the child makes, and asks what she did. “Stole bread, sir.” He rolls his eyes: “Anything but a hard day’s work” (e05 00:10, e05 00:11, e05 00:11).
The sending stone
Caspian’s voice comes out of the stone (e05 00:11, e05 00:11). Asimi says they’ll be traveling together, he tells Rue; he’s at the markets getting supplies, and asks them to meet him there, since he doesn’t have much gold himself (e05 00:11, e05 00:11, e05 00:11). For the first time, the party hears him laugh (e05 00:12, e05 00:12). The Nightforge guild, he says, is not exactly flush with gold right now, and Asimi is in more debt than anyone he has ever met, and not the hardest worker in the world (e05 00:12, e05 00:12, e05 00:12, e05 00:12). If they need to earn some cash, there’s a board at the market (e05 00:12). He ends the call with a click — the word that turns a sending stone on and off (e05 00:13). Orrin has catalogued many of these stones and has never heard of that before (e05 00:13).
The Postmaster
On the way, Orrin wants to drop off his report somewhere to be delivered to the Magisterium without going back there himself (e05 00:13, e05 00:14). There are many beings more powerful than even Gabriel in Elysium, involved in the everyday of Edyrea; temples worship them, and worshipers get real benefits in trade for being stewarded into whatever afterlife they choose (e05 00:15, e05 00:15, e05 00:15). Wriem’s mail goes through the temple of one of them, the Postmaster, who is depicted as a crazy pigeon lady (e05 00:19, e05 00:19). Its followers swear the Oath of Speedy Delivery (e05 00:16), which is, word for word, the oath of the United States Postal Service on Ternia, Orrin’s world — so he has seen it in two places (e05 00:18, e05 00:18). Orrin tells the others that no one has ever seen the god; its messengers are recruited and then blip out, and packages simply disappear from in front of doors (e05 00:16, e05 00:16). The couriers are top tier, he says: never step in front of one delivering on shift, and they are never late, because they can’t be — “you don’t want to know what happens if they are late” (e05 00:22, e05 00:22, e05 00:22).
Inside the temple is the normal pile of mail where people drop things off, and, at a desk holding just three or four letters, the biggest, buffest valkyrie of a woman, wings folded up behind her, a sword bigger than Wisp’s, and more aura than any of them have ever seen (e05 00:19, e05 00:19, e05 00:19). She stands, drops to a knee before Orrin, and bows deeply (e05 00:20, e05 00:20); he taps her on both shoulders like a knighting (e05 00:20), and she swears on her existence, “this letter, neither snow nor rain…” (e05 00:20). A tear rolls down her cheek as she sets his letter on the smaller pile (e05 00:21). Delivery gets expensive fast with danger, distance, or time; across town costs one gold, not something an ordinary worker can afford regularly (e05 00:21, e05 00:21, e05 00:21, e05 00:21). They seal it with a forearm grasp, and a tattoo of a package appears on the back of each of their hands; Orrin will know the moment it’s delivered, because the tattoo will fade (e05 00:22).
The report repeats the party’s original story: things got wild down there, he utilized the subject, lost his items in an explosion, and closed the portals as best they could (e05 00:23, e05 00:23, e05 00:23, e05 00:23). It ends, “in line with recent promotion and additional responsibilities,” by saying he is continuing to pursue some threads and will report back, so the Magisterium won’t be surprised when he doesn’t come back, without giving a date, time, or place of return (e05 00:23, e05 00:24).
The valkyrie, in awe of Wisp, sees no religious iconography on him and asks which god he worships (e05 00:25, e05 00:25). His mom always told him not to worship gods, he says, and his soul’s already spoken for (e05 00:25). Her eyes go wide: then his soul will just float endlessly in the overflow of the keeper, with no afterlife — has he ever considered the Oath of Speedy Delivery (e05 00:25, e05 00:25, e05 00:25)? He says he’ll do it for one of those swords, until the others promise to find him eight or nine (e05 00:26, e05 00:26, e05 00:26).
The job board
At the West market, where some of the nicer shops are, the Queen’s Guard are present, and Caspian stands at a large message board among other people in adventuring gear (e05 00:28, e05 00:28). There isn’t much good on it, he says, but one job pays a thousand gold to reclaim a couple of relics from a thief (e05 00:29). They’ll be gone a while and need potions and protection; improved armor and weapons cost about 500 gold apiece, and potions hundreds — a normal healing potion is 50 gold, a good one about a hundred (e05 00:31, e05 00:31, e05 00:31, e05 00:32). Vargus, “a man with a herbalism kit and a will to make money,” proposes brewing potions to sell (e05 00:31). On his ship, he says, the crew paid for the cabin, refitting, food, and keeping the weapons clean, and then got their cut (e05 00:29, e05 00:29, e05 00:29).
Lauren
A woman about two inches taller than Orrin pushes past, bumps his shoulder, and rudely snatches the paper from Caspian (e05 00:32, e05 00:32). She looks very, very familiar to Orrin, though there’s no way it could be her (e05 00:33, e05 00:33). She has heard the Nightforge guild isn’t doing too well, and tells Orrin he’s kind of cute (e05 00:33, e05 00:34). Her name, she says, is Lauren (e05 00:34). Orrin tells her she looks exactly like someone he knew in a previous life, and asks whether she knows someone by the name of Maren; she doesn’t (e05 00:34, e05 00:34, e05 00:34). She suggests the party look for missing cats instead (e05 00:34).
Her party stands nearby, whispering and snort-chuckling: a large bugbear with a shortsword and shield, a priest-looking human, and a tiefling dressed rather like Orrin, some kind of magic user (e05 00:35, e05 00:35, e05 00:35). It’s tough to make money around here right now, she says — too much peace, and the Queen’s Guard really cracking down lately (e05 00:35). When she asks for his number, the GM rules that sending stones have unique codes; Orrin writes down the number three (e05 00:35, e05 00:36, e05 00:36). Caspian snatches the paper back — there’s no other quest that will get them what they need (e05 00:37).
The bugbear offers to fight for it (e05 00:37). Instead Lauren proposes that each party puts in an extra hundred gold, and whoever completes the quest takes the thousand and the other’s hundred (e05 00:37, e05 00:37). Orrin adds a term: if his crew wins, she has dinner with him; if hers wins, he has dinner with her (e05 00:38). She loves the deal, winks, and walks off with a full twirl and hair flip (e05 00:38, e05 00:39). Caspian looks at Orrin with ice: what is he doing (e05 00:39)? She looks like somebody he used to know, Orrin says (e05 00:39); he later tells the others she looks like his ex-wife from his past life (e05 00:59).
Kendrick and the Prophecy of the Snake
The thief is Kendrick, who stole a couple of relics, probably magic items, from one of the rich Beaumondians; the posting says he’s an ex-guild member, something to do with the Prophecy of the Snake (e05 00:41, e05 00:41). They aren’t snakes, Caspian says; it’s just the name of the guild (e05 00:42). Old Wriem is too low for black market business — real bad, with overflow monsters — so for that they’ll want Trade Alley or the Stacks; there are levels to this in Wriem (e05 00:46, e05 00:46, e05 00:46, e05 00:46). Caspian knows some sellers and buyers there and says he’ll fit in in the lower parts of town: it’s not easy being an orphan in Wriem (e05 00:44, e05 00:47, e05 00:47).
The doomsayer
Wisp‘s attention is caught by a growing crowd around a man in dark robes who has climbed up on a fountain holding a set of weighing scales (e05 00:47, e05 00:47, e05 00:48, e05 00:48). “Hear me, Wriem, hear me,” he shouts: the Forgotten Depths are angry, the balance of Edyrea is tilted, and the creatures from the deep come for a debt that must be paid — the oldest law, older than the queen, older than the walls, given by the great counterweight who holds the beam of the world (e05 00:48, e05 00:49, e05 00:49, e05 00:49, e05 00:49, e05 00:49). On the other side of the scale stands Gabriel Landaluce, “the hand of the queen, scourge of the deep, the one who walks in the dark and kills thousands, a mountain in a world built for men,” a metamortal too strong for the world; the deep must be filled with something heavy enough to answer for him (e05 00:49, e05 00:49, e05 00:49, e05 00:49, e05 00:49). The Hollowing, he says, is the grand correction: “The Hollow King is not the disease. Gabriel is the disease. The Hollow King is the fever, and more will rise until the balance is restored” (e05 00:49, e05 00:50, e05 00:50). Gabriel must climb the tower and take his weight to Elysium, where it belongs (e05 00:50, e05 00:50, e05 00:50).
The Queen’s Guard push through the crowd in lockstep and grab him (e05 00:50, e05 00:50, e05 00:51). As they drag him off, his eyes lock with Wisp’s; he breaks free, runs to Wisp, falls to his knees with his hands on Wisp’s shoulders, and says: “A gift. You, a great appendage for the wound. Come to me, little gift” (e05 00:51, e05 00:51, e05 00:51, e05 00:51). The Guard slap an iron mask over his head that folds down and muffles him, and drag him away (e05 00:51, e05 00:52). Wisp calls it the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to him (e05 00:52).
For a lot of people here, the GM says, weird things happen all the time, and they aren’t bothered the way Orrin is (e05 00:52, e05 00:52). Caspian snorts: the tower is a lie to keep everyone in order — when was the last time someone ascended (e05 00:52, e05 00:55)? Elysium has no reason to take Gabriel or anybody, and why would anyone in power share it (e05 00:55, e05 00:55)? Climbing the tower and completing its challenges grants immortality in Elysium, but that’s for beings much bigger than them (e05 00:56, e05 00:56, e05 00:56). Rue thinks Gabriel should be killed and put into the depths, and calls immortality an absolute sin: people need to die (e05 00:53, e05 00:56, e05 00:56). Vargus thinks his captain, if he ever ended up here, would have problems with the status quo; he likes to break wheels (e05 00:56, e05 00:56, e05 00:57). Orrin now thinks there may be a small chance the captain is here, given Lauren (e05 00:57, e05 00:57). Asked about the man she wants to kill, Rue says he was a golden boy, and an asshole (e05 01:02, e05 01:02).
Anise
In Trade Alley — not slum level, but not nice either — armed people sit outside a shop, and Lauren walks out, winking at Orrin: “running a little behind?” (e05 01:00, e05 01:00, e05 01:01, e05 01:01). Caspian asks them to act normal, since these people spook easily, to let Wisp not talk, and to leave out that they’re working for a Beaumondian (e05 00:59, e05 01:00, e05 01:00). Inside is something like a pawn shop, an eclectic selection of magical potions, crystals, weapons, armor, and gems (e05 01:02, e05 01:02, e05 01:02, e05 01:03). Behind the counter, muttering to herself, is a woman with an eye patch who knows Caspian: Anise (e05 01:02, e05 01:03, e05 01:03). It’s a popular question today, she says; what’s the information worth (e05 01:03, e05 01:03)?
Orrin offers scrolls he has never checked (e05 01:04). Putting on a headband with a lens, she casts something like detect magic over them, and asks for more, until she has five (e05 01:03, e05 01:04, e05 01:04, e05 01:05). As she talks she shifts between forms: she isn’t an elf but a changeling (e05 01:05, e05 01:05). She writes up a Vormondian agreement — five scrolls for true and accurate information on Kendrick’s current whereabouts — and slides it across for a signature (e05 01:06, e05 01:06, e05 01:07, e05 01:07). Such slips are used for very important trades where truth is paramount: Vormonde is the god of oath, law, and vow, and an Arbiter, a priest whose whole job is to kill people who break their oaths, could come after anyone who went back on it (e05 01:07, e05 01:07, e05 01:07, e05 01:08). Vargus, from a place where a deal with the Lady of the Deep always comes out worse for you than for her, and who already has one, finds it far too much for a trade like this (e05 01:09, e05 01:09, e05 01:09, e05 01:10). She has the clause added that she’ll also tell them truthfully what she told the last people who asked, for a few more gold; she turns into a cat-like shifter, licks her paw, and shakes on it (e05 01:11, e05 01:12, e05 01:12, e05 01:12).
Once Orrin signs, she sighs with relief and gingerly rolls up the scrolls, treating them as obviously very valuable (e05 01:12, e05 01:12, e05 01:13). Kendrick is in the South District along the canal: he came to her trying to sell the items, too hot for her, and she told him to come back in a couple of weeks if he was still alive (e05 01:13, e05 01:13, e05 01:13). She told the others exactly the same; they should hurry, and expect a fight — he doesn’t have much to lose anymore (e05 01:13, e05 01:13, e05 01:14).
The canal
At the address — a seedy part of town of lean-tos, broken windows, and ruins — two armed guards stand near a little bridge across the canal (e05 01:15, e05 01:15, e05 01:15, e05 01:16). Vargus blows on a pinch of sand and rose petals, whispered words on his breath, and puts them both to sleep in each other’s arms (e05 01:17, e05 01:17, e05 01:19, e05 01:19). Rue kicks in a door looking for Kendrick and finds Billy, a man who works with dyes, halfway through a sandwich; he slams the door in her face and mutters that he works all day and just wanted a sandwich, until Orrin hands him a gold piece and he gives them the sandwich — walrus, maybe (e05 01:21, e05 01:21, e05 01:21, e05 01:22, e05 01:23, e05 01:24, e05 01:24). Vargus swallows his half without chewing (e05 01:24).
Rue fills the house the next two guards are watching with the smell of smoke and embers (e05 01:25). They go in to look, terrified of fire; Orrin, “sanctioned by the Magisterium,” asks if it’s another case of the invisible flame sweeping the city’s southwestern quadrant and pretends to put it out, and Rue drenches him with water (e05 01:26, e05 01:26, e05 01:26, e05 01:27, e05 01:27). The grateful pair, Barkley and Ridley, tell them Kendrick, “the boss,” is just down the way (e05 01:28, e05 01:28, e05 01:29, e05 01:29).
Kendrick
Kendrick looks well-to-do and out of place, sitting on a barrel with a thousand-yard stare; Vargus has seen that look before, in someone deeply traumatized, who jumps and reaches for his sword when a door shuts in the distance (e05 01:30, e05 01:30, e05 01:30, e05 01:30, e05 01:31). He doesn’t have the coin to hire good help right now (e05 01:32). Vargus tells him he isn’t looking for a fight, but scarier people are coming, and offers him a way out (e05 01:32, e05 01:32). Kendrick can’t match a thousand gold — the relics are worth a lot more than that — and spits: “fuck Beau Monde, fuck this fucking place” (e05 01:33, e05 01:33, e05 01:33, e05 01:33). He could pay in a couple of weeks once the heat’s off; when Vargus can’t wait, he draws his sword and asks whether there’s any chance of a fair fight (e05 01:34, e05 01:34, e05 01:34). “Where I come from, this is a fair fight,” Vargus answers, with a sad smile, and draws his cleaver (e05 01:34, e05 01:34, e05 01:35).
Kendrick fights in a trained form, and gives Vargus a small nod of respect (e05 01:35, e05 01:35, e05 01:35). Vargus sprays a cloud of poison from a bottle; Rue tries to grapple him and he slips away (e05 01:37, e05 01:37, e05 01:37, e05 01:38). Orrin plucks a floating rune from the air, whispers “melt” into it, and throws it to coat Kendrick’s sword in sizzling acid, blunting it (e05 01:40, e05 01:42, e05 01:42). “Mages first,” Kendrick mutters, and fires a hidden hand crossbow at Orrin, whose runes knit into a veil that blocks the bolt (e05 01:43, e05 01:43, e05 01:43). When his bandits come running, he waves them off (e05 01:45, e05 01:46). Vargus points his cleaver and a solemn horn tolls, which Kendrick shrugs off (e05 01:46, e05 01:46, e05 01:47). Wisp’s magic sense picks out the barrel Kendrick was sitting on (e05 01:47, e05 01:48), and Rue lets go of him and cracks him across the head with her maul (e05 01:48). Bleeding from his nose and ears, he doesn’t waver; “should have been this way anyways,” he mutters, and cuts Rue badly (e05 01:50, e05 01:50, e05 01:51, e05 01:51). Wisp, something malevolent and eager behind his eyes, blinks at the last moment and turns his blade to hit with the flat; Kendrick falls unconscious (e05 01:52, e05 01:53, e05 01:53).
Vargus pays the four bandits five gold each to get Kendrick out of town alive by the end of the night — “retirement money,” one says (e05 01:53, e05 01:53, e05 01:54). He has given four desperate people a lot of money, but talks them out of stabbing each other over it; walking off, they marvel at something they’ve heard about called honor (e05 01:54, e05 01:54, e05 01:55, e05 01:55). In the barrel are a magical cloak, four magical potions, and a glowing silver amulet with a red button in its center (e05 01:55, e05 01:55, e05 01:55, e05 01:55). From the shadows comes a slow clap, and Lauren’s voice: “You’re just such a gentleman. We really appreciate you doing all of that work for us.” Her party steps out of the corners (e05 01:56, e05 01:56, e05 01:56, e05 01:56).
Still open
- The stone Mikhail Asimi gave the party is how Caspian reaches them; it isn’t said who carries it (e05 00:07, e05 00:11).
- Mikhail Asimi’s debts are mentioned but not explained (e05 00:12).
- What happens if a courier of the Postmaster is late isn’t stated (e05 00:22).
- “The overflow of the keeper,” where a soul without a god floats endlessly, isn’t explained (e05 00:25).
- Lauren looks like Orrin’s ex-wife from Ternia; she says she doesn’t know anyone named Maren (e05 00:34, e05 00:59).
- Kendrick’s past with the Prophecy of the Snake isn’t explained (e05 00:41).
- The doomsayer calls Wisp “a gift” and “a great appendage for the wound” (e05 00:51).
- What the five scrolls Orrin traded to Anise were isn’t stated; she treats them as very valuable (e05 01:12).
- Which of the items in Kendrick’s barrel are the stolen relics isn’t stated (e05 01:55).
- The wager with Lauren’s party, and Orrin’s dinner, are unresolved when the episode ends (e05 00:38, e05 01:56).
- Mikhail Asimi’s Hollowing Plague question — why the party is immune — and the trip to Holst carry over from e04 – A Spot to Rest our Pot.
Episode history
- e05 — the party sees Wriem; Orrin mails his report through the Postmaster’s temple; Caspian takes a relic-recovery job and Orrin makes a wager with Lauren; a doomsayer calls Gabriel the disease; Anise sells Kendrick’s location; the party knocks Kendrick out and finds the relics as Lauren’s party arrives.