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Message: <blockquote data-quote="skotothalamos" data-source="post: 6229040" data-attributes="member: 83398">Catching up on two sessions from over a month ago:The constables returned to RHC Headquarters after the events on Cauldron Hill and the rough night at Sechim’s Alkahest. They pulled in some favors to get Mort cured of his murderous impulses, which had been brought on by exposure to the energies of Cauldron Hill. Delft met with the squad to go over the results of their search of Macbannin’s estate. His main concern focused on Macbannin’s assistant, Cillian Creed, who also used the alias Roger Porter. The constables had good evidence that the man had killed Nilasa Hume. The constables had uncovered a smuggling conspiracy that seemed to endanger the city, and that was too much to deal with immediately, but surely they could arrest one man for one murder. He ordered them to make an arrest.The constables were beginning to suspect that Chief Inspectress Margaret Saxby was protecting Macbannin, so instead of arresting him on behalf of Risur, Mort talked to Danoran Consulate Security Chief Julian Lebrix about getting extradition papers. The murder of Nilasa had technically taken place on Danoran soil (at the Danoran Consulate), so Lebrix was happy to write up the papers. The other constables took care of the RHC extradition paperwork, and they were all off to Cauldron Hill again. At the estate, Macbannin met them at the gate and told them that Creed had fled to Parity Lake. The constables asked to search the grounds, which Macbannin consented to. As he escorted them to the house, however, he pulled out Creed’s trademark chrome pistol and started firing. The constables were able to subdue the man and identify him as Cillian Creed (wearing yet another face). Once the Mage Cuffs were on, his illusory appearance could not be sustained without pain, and Creed’s true face was once again revealed; exposed muscle tissue and a viscous black goo replaced his skin.With the Nilasa case wrapped up, the constables were put back onto everyday duty. Saxby brought in another team – one more likely to follow her orders – to continue the investigation of Reed Macbannin and the smuggling operation.A week later, the skyseer Nevard died. His state funeral was an overblown affair, much more ostentatious than the old sage would have liked. Later in the Summer, Guy Goodson got married. Gale snuck into the affair, delivered a gift to the new couple, and then flew away without a word. Toward the end of Summer, a new string of serial murders caught Ironpeak’s attention. Five victims in the Central District had their brains removed through their palates. Other events around town included the continued construction of the new subrail system, a new affliction known as Distant Madness, which causes the victim to be unable to gauge distances, and the opening of the Kaybeau Arms and Technology Exposition.The arms expo started with the beginning of Autumn, as did the seasonal afternoon rains. The constables were assigned to work the fairgrounds, arriving early every morning and keeping an eye out for weapons smuggling, espionage, organized crime and the like. Every day, the expo died out around 3:30, when the afternoon rains rolled in as if by clockwork and dispersed the crowd.The constables took in the sights at the expo. Mort bought some new advanced bullets while Ironpeak and James were drawn in by new technologies. Ironpeak found a booth run by a fellow Goliath named Nock who was developing an enormous seven-barreled musket which would be unwieldy for humans but just right for her. James found a pair of entrepreneurs who were working out the kinks on a new suit of armor which was too heavy to be moved by its wearer, but had a built-in steam engine to assist in its movement. Malkie was mostly distracted by the fact that famed entertainer Rock Rackus had a stage set up for daily performances. As Malkie handled PR for the man in addition to her work for the RHC, she found herself very busy trying to do two jobs at once.A few days into their security gig, something unusual happened. A young mage with a staff of solid gold seemed to be summoning extra-dimensional beings near Rock Rackus’s stage. The beings were bizarre things that none of the constables had ever heard of before, and they seemed to be fading in and out of reality. Sometimes they were translucent and sometimes they were solid. Some of them were like fleshy dragonflies with beaks on the ends of long trunks, while a large beast seemed to be nothing more than a maw and some tentacles to shove food into the maw. Even weirder, the maw was like a toothy ring. If “eaten,” a person would just fall out the other side. The thing demonstrated this by picking up a bystander and shoving him into its maw. The experience was fatal enough, however, and the constables sprang into action to deal with this madness.Ironpeak charged straight at the caster, who looked as confused as Ironpeak about the summoned beasts. Ironpeak demanded her golden staff, and the mage gave it up, saying she’d just recently gotten it from a shady dealer at a nearby trinket tent (where she’d had to give a password) and she just wanted to try it out at the shooting range and she didn’t know it was going to cause so much trouble. Ironpeak decided the woman was harmless and moved on to fight the main threat: the giant tentacle-maw thing. James donned the nearby suit of steam-powered armor and made for the seven-barreled musket stall. The small flying things drained thoughts from their chosen victims, and Ironpeak got first-hand experience at being devoured by the maw. Her consciousness seemed to leave her body and become trapped inside the beast, but only for a moment, as Malkie managed to finish it off before it could consume Ironpeak’s thoughts.When the dust settled, Mort and Ironpeak were down, as were the caster who had started the incident, and several other bystanders. Mort and Ironpeak were only injured, but the bystanders and mage were dead. A pair of civilians had pitched in with the fighting: Rock Rackus had fired a few golden bullets from his solid gold, diamond-encrusted pistol; and a Dwarven Eschatologist named Kvarti Gorbatiy, who fought using a long rifle with a spyglass mounted on the top.Flint PD secured the scene, followed swiftly thereafter by some additional RHC constables. Everything in the area was taken into custody as potential evidence, including the steam suit, the seven-barreled musket, and all of Rock Rackus’s stage props. As Cazara investigated the dead bystanders, she noticed that one of them had been shot by a golden bullet. She concealed this evidence, but encouraged Malkie to talk to Rackus about not firing his weapon irresponsibly. Malkie talked to Rackus about going to the shooting range the following afternoon. At first Rock agreed, since the police had confiscated all of his stage props, and therefore he didn’t “have a job.” When Malkie suggested that he try a minimalist approach (no distractions to keep any eyes off of Rock himself), Rackus changed his mind, saying he needed to work on his new approach for the next day’s show.After a few minutes, the solid gold staff turned to wood. Summer checked it out and said she recognized it as an ancient design. The civilization now known only as “The Ancients” possessed little in the way of metalworking, except where gold was concerned, and Summer remembered learning about their magic during her childhood in Elfaivar, over 500 years prior. Many of their magical implements were said to turn to solid gold when arcane power was channeled through them. The group found it odd that the dead mage would find so rare an artifact at a trinket stall, and decided to investigate for an antiquities black market.Upon investigating the trinket tent, they found nothing more than what would be typical of a craft fair: hand-made jewelry and baubles dominated the various tables and stalls. Summer did pick up a strange pattern in the crowd, however: several people went to a stall in particular and asked for an anniversary gift for their wife, Ethel. Surmising that this might be a password, but unwilling to expose their faces to the vendor, Summer had her new raven familiar, Snow, do the dirty work.Snow squawked “Ethel” to the vendor, who provided the bird with a note. The note said to meet at a nearby under-construction subrail station at 4:00 the following day… Two more sessions to catch up on still. Coming soon to an internet near you!</blockquote>

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