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Tizbiz Zeitgeist Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Tizbiz" data-source="post: 7119704" data-attributes="member: 6874057"><p>Session 7</p><p></p><p>During our talk with Delft, he mentions that a further member from the special department was assigned to our team: Margit Stenz. He also explains that should we keep up our good work, he'd see a chance to establish a new Team 3. (<span style="color: #0000ff">As the players moved into the rooms of team three they felt their team was small. Preparing to start the campaign I made a List of Staff of the RHC and concluded that the constables which were mentioned in the adventure are the most senior agents and are working in teams one, two and three. Margit Stenz was an extra who was mentioned as a forensic expert in my notes and my players suggested that she would be suitable.</span>)</p><p></p><p>When we return to the office, we welcome our new colleague who has previously been occupied with medical examinations and pathology. We find out that she was dissatisfied with the initial result of Porter's blood test. When we ask her to explain her dissatisfaction she mentions that the conducting lab assistant might be corruptible due to his passion for gambling. We therefore ask her to repeat the analysis in a timely fashion and forward her suspicion to Delft. We make sure he understands that it is only a suspicion and that the unclear blood test result could easily be caused by a lapse or a lack of competence. Meanwhile, Margit begins reading up our files on the investigation in the case of Gale. We tell her that we plan to accompany Nevard to Cauldron Hill on the same day and ask her to come with us. To our surprise, Margit seems fascinated rather than frightened by the idea of traveling to this historical place. She just leaves her little dog, Ripper, with Delft and he promises to take care of her pet (<span style="color: #008000">Delft doesn't seem to bother taking care for a dog? Maybe Ripper will catch him some Mimics? </span><span style="color: #0000ff">The players wanted Delft to be a more life filled character, so i started working on that part.</span>).</p><p></p><p>We go to Nevard's contact person and the druid and the old Skyseer show us an ancient scroll, which is left over from the times of the witch war: With the help of the stored ritual on the scroll the vitality the ritual's participants can be transferred to a specified target, thus protecting this person like a shield. Also, the target is empowered by this combination of life force. We all feel a bit queasy at the thought of using this "evil" ritual. Margit and Auryn agree to support Nevard for the "greater good" under the condition that he keeps himself out of trouble and stays in the background. Carlyle, however, does not feel at ease with the thought to have someone like him, who has already been "revived" and infused with the essence of another being, participate in this ritual. Nevard's druid companion agrees to take Carlyle's place in the ritual and to accompany us on our journey. </p><p></p><p>We start our the ascent with a pack mule and our previously bought equipment and rations. Our first stop during the journey is the estate of Mayor MacBannin. The mayor hands us old rusty amulets, which are supposed to prevent becoming possessed by spirits and he advises us to never put them off. (<span style="color: #0000ff">I really hoped they would take the amulets off *grin*</span>) After a few hours of climbing we actually reach the top of the mountain which towers above Flint. We sense that the atmosphere is dense with ancient spirits, and ask ourselves what the night might bring. Since we arrived very early, we use the time to search the hill for signs of danger or abnormalities and erect the camp for the night. We take a good distance from the old ritual stones and our investigation gets us an old, magical cauldron, which was apparently not used for dark rituals, but rather for cooking food (<span style="color: #008000">Carlyle seems to be interested in this relic for his alchemy</span>). At dusk, we draw two protective circles around our camp (<span style="color: #008000">just in case...</span>) and arm ourselves with blankets and spells against the expected cold.</p><p></p><p>After nightfall, we can observe the clear starry sky for the first time in a long time. But this peaceful aspect of our night at Cauldron Hill is rather short-lived as the spirits seem to come to life alongside the shadows. Strange creatures approach our camp, but are fortunately distracted by the circles of blood. Likewise, we are disturbed by haunts, mysterious noises and images which appear in front of us, but we manage to defend ourselves against their influence. Suddenly, a red curtain appears in the middle of our camp, through which the phantom of Nilasa speaks to us. She warns us that the man who killed her will come to us soon and then disappears.</p><p></p><p>After a while, a two-dimensional, shadowy creature arrives on the hill, which seems to easily get rid of the spirits and smells like burnt machine oil. To our surprise, this figure begins to throw ignited sunrods in the direction of our camp. We try to throw them back to where they came from before the rods' light draws too much of the spirit's attention towards us. Auryn shoots an arrow at the creature, but it does not seem to do much harm. When the figure appears once more at the edge of our circle wards and takes on physical form, its haunted existence is ended by two focused slashes of Carlyle's kukris. (<span style="color: #0000ff">I intended to quickly undo the circle of blood and have Mr. Creed vanish into the night. But two incredibly brutal critical hits killed the poor witch oil infused “Porter” despite adding a ridiculous amount of hit points to this stats. I was really worried what this will do to the adventure but it was not so bad an event. My dear Storytellers: beware of him getting near the blood circle because players will kill him!</span>) The remains of the sunrods, the smell, and Nilasa's warning make us conclude that this figure must have been Porter.</p><p></p><p>Because of the turmoil, the other spirits are now drawing attention to us and start to head towards the circles. However, thanks to Margit Stenz's nature magic (<span style="color: #008000">channel energy)</span>, we are able to let them dissipate. Bigger enemies are brought down by well-aimed blows of Auryn and Carlyle. After the fight, all who were connected to Nevard via ritual share a vision of dancing flames which set fires to Parity Lake and some of the adjacent factories (<span style="color: #008000">including Heward Sechim's chemical factory</span>). In all this chaos, some workers are caught in the collapsing factories. It becomes instinctively clear to us (<span style="color: #008000">except Carlyle</span>) that this event might take place the next morning, so we hurry down the mountain, fend off some stray spirits and directly head to MacBannin's manor. The mayor is surprised that we are back this early and performs the necessary cleansing ritual on us in his dressing gown. He doesn't ask any further questions though. We part from Nevard and his companion, and Nevard promises to send word to us as soon as he has learned more about the meaning of his visions.</p><p></p><p>We run to Parity Lake as fast as we can and hurry to Sechim's factory. There we find the some of his workers, as well as an utterly tired Sechim, who is wondering what all this commotion is about. We tell Heward about the vision of his grandfather and he spontaneously agrees to help us to search the factory for explosives. As Auryn enters the factory hall with Sechim, Carlyle takes much more interest (and suspect) in the morning cabbage delivery (<span style="color: #0000ff">my players made continuously puns about cabbages after this incident which is a reoccurring joke in some anime</span>), and wants to examine the crates in front of the factory. He is very surprised when a man wants to stab him in the back. (<span style="color: #008000">My cabbages! At first I thought that Carlyle searching the cabbage crate was meant as a joke for the cabbage man/Cabbage Corp. from the Avatar-verse but he was actually being serious</span>).</p><p></p><p>It turns out that the supposed fire devils are actually two dragonborn and one human. One of them had been hiding on the roof of the factory and is about to throw a kind of fire bolt. As he sees the danger ahead, Carlyle teleports up the roof, despite the fact that two guys with a knife and a greatsword still loom around the cabbage crate, and deals with the wizard. Auryn, who has quickly come to his aid, takes care of the fighter with the greatsword in his stead and together they take care of the last attacker. (<span style="color: #008000">Carlyle throwing his kukri at one of the thugs as part of his dual wield attack after downing the wizard to save Auryn from an imminent stab was pretty awesome in retrospect </span>) (<span style="color: #0000ff">I hoped that attacking the single player at the cabbage cart would add some pressure but the fight was really short and I could not even scratch the players once</span>). </p><p></p><p>The arsonists are sent to the RHC for interrogation, and we encourage the local police to rigorously search the surroundings of Parity Lake on a large scale. Since we can now credibly proof the acute danger, we arrange to evacuate all workers from the factories until further notice. (<span style="color: #0000ff">the players used this excuse to free the workers in the factories who were kept prisoners by the factory owners.</span>)</p><p></p><p>Totally overtired, we head back home, but we agree to climb up Cauldron Hill again the next day as soon as possible in order to interrogate Porter's spirit with the help of Carlyle's spirit conversation.</p><p></p><p>The next morning, Auryn takes one of her newly grown plants to her favorite cafe. She gives the flower to a waitress and asks her to hand it over to the cafe's owner (<span style="color: #008000">Don Cippiano</span>) as a means to thank him for his gift. After that the three constables meet up in the office and Margit Stenz performs another examination of the blood of Porter (<span style="color: #008000">this time with a fresh sample</span>). Her results surprises us, as she writes down a long list of names – people from which "Porter" must have been composed. (<span style="color: #0000ff">thank you, Ranger Wickett! I actually wrote 150 names on a paper *grin*</span>) We suspect that Porter (<span style="color: #008000">or whoever the man originally was</span>) took the spirits and their energy from Cauldron Hill, and used their essence to strengthen his own. (<span style="color: #0000ff">his powers coming from being strongly infused with witch oil was largely the players brain child and resulted from their inquiries about human augmentation</span>) We arrange to compare the names of Margit's list with the data of the registration offices to the last few centuries, in order to differentiate between old and new names (<span style="color: #008000">and perhaps to clarify Porter's original identity</span>).</p><p></p><p>Next we go back to the place where we camped last night. MacBannin is surprised to see us again this soon, but nonetheless prepares us for the ascent. On top of the hill, Carlyle connects with Porter's spirit. He tells us that he has worked together with "the true patriots and the greedy" and wanted to help them build "a weapon for the king", but would not know any other plans … (<span style="color: #0000ff">MacBaninn's words coined the term “true patriots” as the name of the conspiracy and the players asked themselves if there might be a connection to the incident in the first adventure</span>)</p><p></p><p>His statements suggest that he must have been part of a much bigger plan. We head back to the RHC to interrogate the guys we arrested the night before. Since the dragonborn wizard appears to be the most intelligent of the three, we begin our interrogation with him. We quickly realize that the guy is a grown pyromaniac. With the prospect to receive the minimum penalty for arson, he tells us that he has carried out precise arson on various buildings over the years. Because he mentions the fact that he had to make sure to not damage sensitive equipment in the factories (<span style="color: #008000">and this objects were often heavy machinery</span>), we conclude that these actions should press the original owners into selling their damaged factories. (<span style="color: #0000ff">Gale was credited for most of the sabotage anyways and the arsons were an addition to the crimes she is accused of</span>) After a while, he names us a certain dwarf, Eccleston, as his contact and describes a veteran ring, which this man would always carry with him. Further research shows that the damaged factories were all bought by different people. However, some of the buyers are people we would not consider to be creditworthy. Carlyle is horrified when finds that six of the factories have previously been property of Lord Vantrys, and thus his Lord, too, is a victim of the conspiracy. We mandate a complete check of the buyers and decide to personally look for the dwarf. In addition, we order that the pyromaniac must be kept under observation after serving his prison sentence, since we consider a subsequent offense to be very probable.</p><p></p><p>In front of the RHC building, we meet a small, magical canary which is sent to us as a messenger from Gale. We tell the birdie that we would suggest meeting Gale the next morning, which in turn makes the bird follow us inconspicuously (<span style="color: #008000">Auryn jokes about the fact that Carlyle must somehow exert a certain attraction to birds ...</span>).</p><p></p><p>In the evening we go to a harbor pub in Bosum Strand, where Eccleston used to meet with the two dragonborn brothers. Unfortunately, the dwarf does not appear (<span style="color: #008000">we assume, because Sechim's factory did not burn down</span>). To our surprise, we meet Pietro again who has come here to look for more clues about our missing Dr. von Recklinghausen. He tells us about rumors that the "wanted person" could be hiding in a building in the Nettles, but he also invites us to his (<span style="color: #008000">hopefully successful</span>) engagement party. We wish him good luck with his engagement and tell him that we will contact him or his people after an important date tomorrow and that we are really grateful for his efforts.</p><p></p><p>The next morning we ask the canary to take us to his mistress. The animal takes us far out of town past the wedding falls (<span style="color: #008000">Mr. Carlyle remembers arranging several of his former Lords weddings near the waterfall</span>) up to an idyllic river. There Gale is already looking out for us and she seems initially very wary. Auryn first makes it clear that they do not plan to arrest her and that they also do not believe that she is responsible for all terrorist attacks which happened over the last time (<span style="color: #008000">in fact, the factory fires have to be accounted to the pyromaniac ...</span>). We still advise her not to pursue her goals so aggressively and destructively, and Auryn also mentions that there are "people" who are loyal to the old values and true ways of Risur and who want to promote the peaceful coexistence of Fey and humans and who may have different, more subtle ways to protect the people she cares for. She gives her the mirror she received from Old Stag, but she can not explain exactly how to use the mirror to make contact with him.</p><p></p><p>About Nilasa, Gale tells us that the half-elf wanted to investigate a worrying suspicion: some time ago, Gale had contact with a creature named Elik, who took her to the Bleak Gate to show her something strange. There she saw heavy activity and lights in the shadow realm version of the Nettles, although the actual inhabitants of this plane would not need any light. She guessed that the people came from our world and would use the secrecy of the Bleak Gate to build something in secret. Nilasa would then take a closer look at the Danorans for her, since her initial suspicion had fallen upon them. Gale does not know much more about the Gate, but she knows a spell which allows us to track and detect increased concentrations of planar energies. She offers to share this magic with us.</p><p></p><p>Under these circumstances, Auryn expresses a suspicion that she has had for several days now: that a group of Danoran industrialists (<span style="color: #008000">Goodson is dismissed from suspicion because the purchases of the factories are too subtle to be his work</span>) might be working on a war weapon despite the official political position of Danor of making peace with Risur. Apparently this plan plays out at the expense of Risuri entrepreneurs and workers (<span style="color: #008000">the witchoil which needs sacrifices to be fueled</span>). Because of her personal history, she suspects the involvement of Fordren, especially because of his company's books they found in an abandoned factory on Axis Island. Carlyle does not consider her idea too far-fetched, but adds his suspicion that "greedy Risuri" might also have an interest in stirring conflict and encouraging rearmament of both Danor and Risur. What makes them even more worried is the fact that, right now, they can not even leave out their own governor of their theory. (<span style="color: #0000ff">The players later analyze the sort of goods the burning factories where producing and got a hunch that the “true patriots” are building a second iron clad warship.</span>)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tizbiz, post: 7119704, member: 6874057"] Session 7 During our talk with Delft, he mentions that a further member from the special department was assigned to our team: Margit Stenz. He also explains that should we keep up our good work, he'd see a chance to establish a new Team 3. ([COLOR=#0000ff]As the players moved into the rooms of team three they felt their team was small. Preparing to start the campaign I made a List of Staff of the RHC and concluded that the constables which were mentioned in the adventure are the most senior agents and are working in teams one, two and three. Margit Stenz was an extra who was mentioned as a forensic expert in my notes and my players suggested that she would be suitable.[/COLOR]) When we return to the office, we welcome our new colleague who has previously been occupied with medical examinations and pathology. We find out that she was dissatisfied with the initial result of Porter's blood test. When we ask her to explain her dissatisfaction she mentions that the conducting lab assistant might be corruptible due to his passion for gambling. We therefore ask her to repeat the analysis in a timely fashion and forward her suspicion to Delft. We make sure he understands that it is only a suspicion and that the unclear blood test result could easily be caused by a lapse or a lack of competence. Meanwhile, Margit begins reading up our files on the investigation in the case of Gale. We tell her that we plan to accompany Nevard to Cauldron Hill on the same day and ask her to come with us. To our surprise, Margit seems fascinated rather than frightened by the idea of traveling to this historical place. She just leaves her little dog, Ripper, with Delft and he promises to take care of her pet ([COLOR=#008000]Delft doesn't seem to bother taking care for a dog? Maybe Ripper will catch him some Mimics? [/COLOR][COLOR=#0000ff]The players wanted Delft to be a more life filled character, so i started working on that part.[/COLOR][COLOR=#008000][/COLOR]). We go to Nevard's contact person and the druid and the old Skyseer show us an ancient scroll, which is left over from the times of the witch war: With the help of the stored ritual on the scroll the vitality the ritual's participants can be transferred to a specified target, thus protecting this person like a shield. Also, the target is empowered by this combination of life force. We all feel a bit queasy at the thought of using this "evil" ritual. Margit and Auryn agree to support Nevard for the "greater good" under the condition that he keeps himself out of trouble and stays in the background. Carlyle, however, does not feel at ease with the thought to have someone like him, who has already been "revived" and infused with the essence of another being, participate in this ritual. Nevard's druid companion agrees to take Carlyle's place in the ritual and to accompany us on our journey. We start our the ascent with a pack mule and our previously bought equipment and rations. Our first stop during the journey is the estate of Mayor MacBannin. The mayor hands us old rusty amulets, which are supposed to prevent becoming possessed by spirits and he advises us to never put them off. ([COLOR=#0000ff]I really hoped they would take the amulets off *grin*[/COLOR]) After a few hours of climbing we actually reach the top of the mountain which towers above Flint. We sense that the atmosphere is dense with ancient spirits, and ask ourselves what the night might bring. Since we arrived very early, we use the time to search the hill for signs of danger or abnormalities and erect the camp for the night. We take a good distance from the old ritual stones and our investigation gets us an old, magical cauldron, which was apparently not used for dark rituals, but rather for cooking food ([COLOR=#008000]Carlyle seems to be interested in this relic for his alchemy[/COLOR]). At dusk, we draw two protective circles around our camp ([COLOR=#008000]just in case...[/COLOR]) and arm ourselves with blankets and spells against the expected cold. After nightfall, we can observe the clear starry sky for the first time in a long time. But this peaceful aspect of our night at Cauldron Hill is rather short-lived as the spirits seem to come to life alongside the shadows. Strange creatures approach our camp, but are fortunately distracted by the circles of blood. Likewise, we are disturbed by haunts, mysterious noises and images which appear in front of us, but we manage to defend ourselves against their influence. Suddenly, a red curtain appears in the middle of our camp, through which the phantom of Nilasa speaks to us. She warns us that the man who killed her will come to us soon and then disappears. After a while, a two-dimensional, shadowy creature arrives on the hill, which seems to easily get rid of the spirits and smells like burnt machine oil. To our surprise, this figure begins to throw ignited sunrods in the direction of our camp. We try to throw them back to where they came from before the rods' light draws too much of the spirit's attention towards us. Auryn shoots an arrow at the creature, but it does not seem to do much harm. When the figure appears once more at the edge of our circle wards and takes on physical form, its haunted existence is ended by two focused slashes of Carlyle's kukris. ([COLOR=#0000ff]I intended to quickly undo the circle of blood and have Mr. Creed vanish into the night. But two incredibly brutal critical hits killed the poor witch oil infused “Porter” despite adding a ridiculous amount of hit points to this stats. I was really worried what this will do to the adventure but it was not so bad an event. My dear Storytellers: beware of him getting near the blood circle because players will kill him![/COLOR]) The remains of the sunrods, the smell, and Nilasa's warning make us conclude that this figure must have been Porter. Because of the turmoil, the other spirits are now drawing attention to us and start to head towards the circles. However, thanks to Margit Stenz's nature magic ([COLOR=#008000]channel energy)[/COLOR], we are able to let them dissipate. Bigger enemies are brought down by well-aimed blows of Auryn and Carlyle. After the fight, all who were connected to Nevard via ritual share a vision of dancing flames which set fires to Parity Lake and some of the adjacent factories ([COLOR=#008000]including Heward Sechim's chemical factory[/COLOR]). In all this chaos, some workers are caught in the collapsing factories. It becomes instinctively clear to us ([COLOR=#008000]except Carlyle[/COLOR]) that this event might take place the next morning, so we hurry down the mountain, fend off some stray spirits and directly head to MacBannin's manor. The mayor is surprised that we are back this early and performs the necessary cleansing ritual on us in his dressing gown. He doesn't ask any further questions though. We part from Nevard and his companion, and Nevard promises to send word to us as soon as he has learned more about the meaning of his visions. We run to Parity Lake as fast as we can and hurry to Sechim's factory. There we find the some of his workers, as well as an utterly tired Sechim, who is wondering what all this commotion is about. We tell Heward about the vision of his grandfather and he spontaneously agrees to help us to search the factory for explosives. As Auryn enters the factory hall with Sechim, Carlyle takes much more interest (and suspect) in the morning cabbage delivery ([COLOR=#0000ff]my players made continuously puns about cabbages after this incident which is a reoccurring joke in some anime[/COLOR]), and wants to examine the crates in front of the factory. He is very surprised when a man wants to stab him in the back. ([COLOR=#008000]My cabbages! At first I thought that Carlyle searching the cabbage crate was meant as a joke for the cabbage man/Cabbage Corp. from the Avatar-verse but he was actually being serious[/COLOR]). It turns out that the supposed fire devils are actually two dragonborn and one human. One of them had been hiding on the roof of the factory and is about to throw a kind of fire bolt. As he sees the danger ahead, Carlyle teleports up the roof, despite the fact that two guys with a knife and a greatsword still loom around the cabbage crate, and deals with the wizard. Auryn, who has quickly come to his aid, takes care of the fighter with the greatsword in his stead and together they take care of the last attacker. ([COLOR=#008000]Carlyle throwing his kukri at one of the thugs as part of his dual wield attack after downing the wizard to save Auryn from an imminent stab was pretty awesome in retrospect [/COLOR]) ([COLOR=#0000ff]I hoped that attacking the single player at the cabbage cart would add some pressure but the fight was really short and I could not even scratch the players once[/COLOR]). The arsonists are sent to the RHC for interrogation, and we encourage the local police to rigorously search the surroundings of Parity Lake on a large scale. Since we can now credibly proof the acute danger, we arrange to evacuate all workers from the factories until further notice. ([COLOR=#0000ff]the players used this excuse to free the workers in the factories who were kept prisoners by the factory owners.[/COLOR]) Totally overtired, we head back home, but we agree to climb up Cauldron Hill again the next day as soon as possible in order to interrogate Porter's spirit with the help of Carlyle's spirit conversation. The next morning, Auryn takes one of her newly grown plants to her favorite cafe. She gives the flower to a waitress and asks her to hand it over to the cafe's owner ([COLOR=#008000]Don Cippiano[/COLOR]) as a means to thank him for his gift. After that the three constables meet up in the office and Margit Stenz performs another examination of the blood of Porter ([COLOR=#008000]this time with a fresh sample[/COLOR]). Her results surprises us, as she writes down a long list of names – people from which "Porter" must have been composed. ([COLOR=#0000ff]thank you, Ranger Wickett! I actually wrote 150 names on a paper *grin*[/COLOR]) We suspect that Porter ([COLOR=#008000]or whoever the man originally was[/COLOR]) took the spirits and their energy from Cauldron Hill, and used their essence to strengthen his own. ([COLOR=#0000ff]his powers coming from being strongly infused with witch oil was largely the players brain child and resulted from their inquiries about human augmentation[/COLOR]) We arrange to compare the names of Margit's list with the data of the registration offices to the last few centuries, in order to differentiate between old and new names ([COLOR=#008000]and perhaps to clarify Porter's original identity[/COLOR]). Next we go back to the place where we camped last night. MacBannin is surprised to see us again this soon, but nonetheless prepares us for the ascent. On top of the hill, Carlyle connects with Porter's spirit. He tells us that he has worked together with "the true patriots and the greedy" and wanted to help them build "a weapon for the king", but would not know any other plans … ([COLOR=#0000ff]MacBaninn's words coined the term “true patriots” as the name of the conspiracy and the players asked themselves if there might be a connection to the incident in the first adventure[/COLOR]) His statements suggest that he must have been part of a much bigger plan. We head back to the RHC to interrogate the guys we arrested the night before. Since the dragonborn wizard appears to be the most intelligent of the three, we begin our interrogation with him. We quickly realize that the guy is a grown pyromaniac. With the prospect to receive the minimum penalty for arson, he tells us that he has carried out precise arson on various buildings over the years. Because he mentions the fact that he had to make sure to not damage sensitive equipment in the factories ([COLOR=#008000]and this objects were often heavy machinery[/COLOR]), we conclude that these actions should press the original owners into selling their damaged factories. ([COLOR=#0000ff]Gale was credited for most of the sabotage anyways and the arsons were an addition to the crimes she is accused of[/COLOR]) After a while, he names us a certain dwarf, Eccleston, as his contact and describes a veteran ring, which this man would always carry with him. Further research shows that the damaged factories were all bought by different people. However, some of the buyers are people we would not consider to be creditworthy. Carlyle is horrified when finds that six of the factories have previously been property of Lord Vantrys, and thus his Lord, too, is a victim of the conspiracy. We mandate a complete check of the buyers and decide to personally look for the dwarf. In addition, we order that the pyromaniac must be kept under observation after serving his prison sentence, since we consider a subsequent offense to be very probable. In front of the RHC building, we meet a small, magical canary which is sent to us as a messenger from Gale. We tell the birdie that we would suggest meeting Gale the next morning, which in turn makes the bird follow us inconspicuously ([COLOR=#008000]Auryn jokes about the fact that Carlyle must somehow exert a certain attraction to birds ...[/COLOR]). In the evening we go to a harbor pub in Bosum Strand, where Eccleston used to meet with the two dragonborn brothers. Unfortunately, the dwarf does not appear ([COLOR=#008000]we assume, because Sechim's factory did not burn down[/COLOR]). To our surprise, we meet Pietro again who has come here to look for more clues about our missing Dr. von Recklinghausen. He tells us about rumors that the "wanted person" could be hiding in a building in the Nettles, but he also invites us to his ([COLOR=#008000]hopefully successful[/COLOR]) engagement party. We wish him good luck with his engagement and tell him that we will contact him or his people after an important date tomorrow and that we are really grateful for his efforts. The next morning we ask the canary to take us to his mistress. The animal takes us far out of town past the wedding falls ([COLOR=#008000]Mr. Carlyle remembers arranging several of his former Lords weddings near the waterfall[/COLOR]) up to an idyllic river. There Gale is already looking out for us and she seems initially very wary. Auryn first makes it clear that they do not plan to arrest her and that they also do not believe that she is responsible for all terrorist attacks which happened over the last time ([COLOR=#008000]in fact, the factory fires have to be accounted to the pyromaniac ...[/COLOR]). We still advise her not to pursue her goals so aggressively and destructively, and Auryn also mentions that there are "people" who are loyal to the old values and true ways of Risur and who want to promote the peaceful coexistence of Fey and humans and who may have different, more subtle ways to protect the people she cares for. She gives her the mirror she received from Old Stag, but she can not explain exactly how to use the mirror to make contact with him. About Nilasa, Gale tells us that the half-elf wanted to investigate a worrying suspicion: some time ago, Gale had contact with a creature named Elik, who took her to the Bleak Gate to show her something strange. There she saw heavy activity and lights in the shadow realm version of the Nettles, although the actual inhabitants of this plane would not need any light. She guessed that the people came from our world and would use the secrecy of the Bleak Gate to build something in secret. Nilasa would then take a closer look at the Danorans for her, since her initial suspicion had fallen upon them. Gale does not know much more about the Gate, but she knows a spell which allows us to track and detect increased concentrations of planar energies. She offers to share this magic with us. Under these circumstances, Auryn expresses a suspicion that she has had for several days now: that a group of Danoran industrialists ([COLOR=#008000]Goodson is dismissed from suspicion because the purchases of the factories are too subtle to be his work[/COLOR]) might be working on a war weapon despite the official political position of Danor of making peace with Risur. Apparently this plan plays out at the expense of Risuri entrepreneurs and workers ([COLOR=#008000]the witchoil which needs sacrifices to be fueled[/COLOR]). Because of her personal history, she suspects the involvement of Fordren, especially because of his company's books they found in an abandoned factory on Axis Island. Carlyle does not consider her idea too far-fetched, but adds his suspicion that "greedy Risuri" might also have an interest in stirring conflict and encouraging rearmament of both Danor and Risur. What makes them even more worried is the fact that, right now, they can not even leave out their own governor of their theory. ([COLOR=#0000ff]The players later analyze the sort of goods the burning factories where producing and got a hunch that the “true patriots” are building a second iron clad warship.[/COLOR]) [/QUOTE]
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