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Message: <blockquote data-quote="skotothalamos" data-source="post: 6335088" data-attributes="member: 83398">Limping into DrakrThe train got underway again after the attack. Malia and some of the other guards did a quick check of the cargo and said nothing obvious had been stolen by the bandits; “TitanFist” and “Mister Mapple” had scared them off. However, some twenty third-class passengers had perished when the gigantic malice beast attacked. One of the undamaged passenger cars was converted to a temporary morgue, and lower-class passengers were allowed into the second- and first-class cabins for the remainder of the day. After several long, crowded hours, the damaged train finally entered the nation of Drakr and stopped at the city of Trekhom. The dead were conveyed to a nearby theater hall where Rock Rackus’s show had originally been scheduled. Instead, there would be a memorial service for those who had died on the train. Alienor insisted that Ottavia and Luc attend the service, even though Ottavia protested (through Luc’s translation) that they had urgent business elsewhere. The memorial was attended by the constables and many of the passengers along with locals who had heard of the attack. To the surprise of the constables, the founder of the Heid Eschatol movement, Vlendam Heid, had been brought in to speak. In typical Eschatologist fashion, Heid began by telling everyone that they were going to die, and that nothing they did would change that. He began to move into a typical Eschatology lecture on making sure everything is ended properly, including life, when he caught sight of railroad entrepreneur Damato Griento, who was visibly shaken by the events of the day. Heid interrupted his prepared program and sat at the edge of the stage to address the Beran face-to-face. Heid asked Griento if he had any questions for him. Griento, tears in his eyes, said, “The people who died today don’t have a chance to change anything anymore. I do. I hurt my family, and I can’t stand myself now. I want to change things. I saw I could die out of nowhere, so I guess I should make amends while I have the chance.” “I have dealt with this before,” Heid said. “Life has many chapters, and if you want the book to end properly, you must choose the path of each chapter well too.” “Oh.” Damato slumped. “It’s hard, because I think if I try to fix anything, I’ll getmyself killed.” Damato Griento told the story of how he’d been swindled by a fake investor in his railroad business. His family were proud warlords, but he was more interested in the exciting technological advances of the modern age. A smooth-talking human had come into his village in Ber and convinced to go into business with him developing railroad service throughout Ber. Damato had a decent amount of money to invest from his own real estate business, but it wasn’t enough, so the human had teleported Damato to Flint to do fundraising at a series of lavish parties. Before Damato knew what happened, his “partner” had spent most of Damato’s money throwing parties and the only fundraising they had achieved was a loan from a group of Crisillyiri businessmen who called themselves The Family. Damato’s partner disappeared shortly thereafter, leaving Damato with no business, no money, and no way to pay back the Famiy loan sharks. The Family told him to steal the ancient artifacts and heirlooms of his clan, and bring them to Nalaam, and that would settle his debt. Unfortunately, when Damato lied to his wife Ejeka about why he was going to travel the Avery Coast Railroad (he said it was research for his own railroad) , she insisted he bring her and the kids along for a family vacation. Now, with a Suitcase of Holding full of the stolen treasures of his clan, and his family in tow, he was stuck with the prospect of either giving the treasure to The Family, and then having his clan kill him when he returned to Ber, or skipping out on the meeting in Nalaam and then being killed by Family hit men. After much discussion with Vlendam Heid, who encouraged him to find “the truth” of the situation and told Griento that no one could choose the right way for him to face death, Damato decided that he owed more to his clan and his ancestors than he ever would to The Family. If he was going to die either way, the proper way to end his life would be to honor the memory of his ancestors by digging into the treasures for some ancestral weapons, putting on some warpaint, and slaughtering the Family when they came to collect. He even started casting about the audience, looking for the people who had fought so well defending the train. Heid congratulated Griento on making an “authentic choice” in his life, while the eschatologists in the back furiously scribbled notes on what they had just seen. The memorial, such as it was, broke up, and Heid and Griento went off arm-in-arm, headed for the hotel bar. James and Verzubak and some of the other constables joined them. During the course of conversation, the topic of passing around a collection hat to help out came up, and Griento revealed that he owed 34,000 gold pieces to The Family. Verzubak immediately donated a thousand gold from his gambling winnings. Not to be outdone, Rock Rackus made a huge spectacle of himself while “loaning” fifteen thousand to Griento. He told the orc that he would have to work that off later, so he’d better be alive to do it. Cardiff Hengehill had agreed to a dinner date with Cazara after the memorial, but he stood her up. Cazara broke into his hotel room and found that he had changed clothes and left in a hurry. Such a hurry, in fact, that he left a scrap of paper behind with the name of a warehouse scribbled on it. Cazara asked the concierge for directions and went off into the night in search of one of the twitchier characters the group had yet encountered. Verzubak excused himself from the philosophical revels at the hotel bar, and held a carriage for Ottavia and Luc, who were headed out for the night. Verzubak joined them in the carriage, and Summer once again invisibly rode along on the top. Luc and Ottavia met with a wealthy dwarf who had maps of various lighthouses and spires around Drakr. They demonstrated Luc’s lantern without a hitch, and seemed to make a good impression on the dwarf. Alienor had gone down to the harbor to check in with her dwarfservant Balincord, who had been managing the ship in her absence. On her way back from the docks, she encountered Cazara, who asked if she wanted to tag along to deal with Hengehill. They both had the impression that he was too obviously a spy for Risur who tried to get Danoran secrets, so they suspected he must be up to something even more nefarious. Truth be told, Alienor would have been happy just taking out a Risuri spy working against Danor; she needed no extra incentive. Luckliy for them both, however, Cardiff Hengehill was up to no good. He was selling the Danoran secrets that he had stolen for Risur, and selling them to the Drakran military. He handed over his briefcase full of documents and collected a sack of money, which he transferred to his own dufflebag. He then left the warehouse and made his way for the docks, with a giant bag of cash over his shoulder, unaware that he was being shadowed by two very patriotic representatives of the two governments he had most recently betrayed…</blockquote>

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