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Message: <blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8217104" data-attributes="member: 7016699">Session 34: In Which Taman Thinks About Doing Something Stupid...Mo, TooDramatis Personae:Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/WizardMo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)GM - Everyone ElseBefore we went to bed, or back to the inn for Mo’s awesome performance of “I’m A Little Pork Roast”, the bawdy Draconic drinking song, we had a bit of shopping to do.Orryk found a shop selling some magic items in Oldwalk. The shopkeeper had a few things of interest.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Joybell bought a bag of holding which was offered at a deeply discounted price because it was frayed and stained around the opening. Before she bought it, she did some careful questioning of the shopkeeper, and asked Fiona to cast identify in the shop, to make sure it was really a bag of holding.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Thneed bought 5 “Designating” arrows, which put a Faerie Fire effect on a target on a hit.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Taman bought a Key of the Keepers, which will lock or unlock something once a day, with some other effects.</li> </ul>After that, Mo went off on a personal Mo-project. Joybell suspected he was buying pipe-stuff, but he never said.Then we returned to the Inn, Mo did his awesome performance, and we went to bed. The night passed without incident.Festival of Firstfruits (Campaign day 91)We went downstairs for breakfast. People seemed generally festive and happy. Despite the dilyarli coming to take their babies. Joybell was confused. The tavern’s breakfast spread was lavish and had many baked goods, egg dishes, and fruit dishes.Orryk: Good breakfast.While we were eating, we discussed our plans for the day. Taman used his Ranger Senses to detect Fey -- as he had the day before, he picked up 40 or 50 of them right at the edge of his 5 mile range, outside the city to the north.Mo: What’s our objective?Taman: I’m just trying to find the one guy who killed my family.Mo: So the genocide…?Taman: The genocide can wait for later.Joybell asked the barkeep if there was temple of the Lightbringers in town. She was told where to find one in New Walk. She had some questions about how the “giving over babies to become dilyarli” thing worked and figured the Lightbringers would be a good place to ask.Thneed went to the bartender to ask about dangers in the area.Thneed: I was supposed to meet someone outside of town to the north. Is there anything dangerous up there?Bartender: Well, this is the time of year when the cold beings do a lot of non-violent harrassment.Thneed: How non-violent?Bartender: They don’t start actually interfering with or hurting people until after the Festival Of Stars, now it’s just taunting and pranks. Though some of them can get a little over-enthusiastic about it and get violent.Thneed: What kind of cold beings are we talking about?Bartender: Fey with cold powers. Some frost giants come down from the mountains to play in the cold with the fey as well.Mo, sauntering over: Are there any people who are more vocally unhappy with the fey situation? Any who’ve lost their children, maybe?Barkeep: There are some people who complain. There was one family who lost the lottery 3 years in a row….Thneed: The lottery?Barkeep: This is the day they have a lottery in the city square. Each family with a kid or kids of the right age, eight to ten, registers for it. They put one ball in a bag for each family. Three of the balls are blue, the rest are gold ore.(Note: Gold ore is reddish brown. Hence the red-brown and blue colors of the ribbon decorations.)The bartender told us that no child is at risk more than once and only one child from any family is at risk in any given year. Three children are chosen in the lottery but the Tundra Queen doesn’t always take all three of them. Sometimes she doesn’t take any. No one in Auriqua has ever been able to figure out a pattern or what her reasons might be.The lottery is held just before sundown in the town square, which is just on the south side of the blue gate. The children are selected in the lottery at the Feast of Firstfruits. They don’t get taken away until the Feast of Stars, when the Tundra Queen comes to the city in person. The children are presented to her then and she takes the ones she wants.Mo started talking to Thneed and Taman about possibly hooking up with the discontented contingent in town to derail the lottery and prevent any kids from being selected in it.After breakfast we broke up into groups. With no library in town, we had Team Temple (Joybell, Orryk and Fiona) going to the Temple of the Lightbringers and Team Malcontents (Mo, Taman and Thneed) looking to find people unhappy with the situation in town and maybe stir up trouble.We agreed to meet up again at the North Gate so we could head out to see if Taman could talk with some fey and maybe get a line on Ildna.At the Temple of the Lightbringers, we found a water genasi cleric named Tolrin who was available to talk to us and answer our questions. Joybell hemmed and hawed and ummed a bit, trying to figure out how to talk about the city’s deal with the Tundra Queen. After a moment, Orryk jumped in to the rescue.Orryk: What were people offered to give up their children to the Tundra Queen? Were they threatened?Tolrin explained at some length. When the deal was originally made, 200 years ago, Auriqua was much smaller and under a lot of attack. In addition to the cold fey, there were frost giants, ogres, orcs, and goblinoids all besetting the city on a regular basis. Some people from the city set out to see what they could do to moderate it. They met the Tundra Queen and in speaking to her made a deal. Originally the deal was for one child every year to become a cherished and treasured servant of the Tundra Queen, a dilyarli. She’s obligated by the contract to neither harm the children she takes nor to cause them to come to harm.Since the deal, Auriqua is no longer under attack by her forces and her forces appear to have stopped the other attacks.Orryk: Can the city get out of the deal?Tolrin: Yes -- they can theoretically walk away at any time, and have done so a couple of times, most recently 70 or so years ago. Every time, within a decade, the attacks on the city have gotten to a point where they renegotiated and reinstated the deal. That’s why she takes three children now.Joybell: It sounds a little like extortion. You know -- That’s a nice city you have there, it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.Tolrin told us that the Tundra Queen, per the terms of the deal, takes human children between the ages of 8 and 10. The children of other races are entered into the lottery at an equivalent developmental stage. There’s a three year window of danger, but each child can only be in the lottery once.Orryk: Who protects the city now? Does Auriqua have its own guard or army?Tolrin: Auriqua has been growing so rapidly, because of the mines in the Ice Rasp, that the guard and the watch can’t keep up. They’re very overtaxed for the size of the city and we have crime problems as a result.(Note: Think gold rush town...only 30 days away from the mines.)Joybell: If the Tundra Queen was found to have harmed one of the children, what would that do to the deal?Tolrin: I don’t know.Joybell: Is there a written record available to the public?Tolrin: I think there is a record in the city hall somewhere, but it’s not available to the public.Orryk: We’re not the public.Joybell thanked Tolrin and we left.Meanwhile, Team Malcontents headed deeper into the city toward the Throat, looking for a seedy bar. Since that’s the seediest part of the city, finding an appropriate bar was not difficult. Once inside, Mo looked for someone who was angry drinking, or maybe an angry drunk. First thing in the morning. On a festival day.He found someone right off. Mo ordered a drink for himself and sat down next to him.Mo: It’s all naughty word.Drunk: Yeah. It’s all naughty word!Mo: Have you lost someone to the lottery?Drunk: That’s not the naughty word I’m talking about. I’m talking about how we’re the ones who risk our lives. We go into the mines, travel the roads. The naughty word is that we have to fight the ogres and the fey out there as we go to and from. We bring back gold and get paid copper! That’s naughty word!Mo: Yeah. That’s naughty word.Mo then finished his drink and left, rejoining Taman and Thneed.Mo: Well. That was the wrong guy.They then figured that maybe they needed to go to a more family-friendly part of town and a more family-friendly bar. They went over to the Greenside part of town and found a middle class bar there. Mo went inside and looked for someone who appeared not to fit in.He found a sullen looking dwarf.Mo, in Dwarvish: Hi. You seem not to be enjoying the festival.Dwarf: No. Not really.Mo: Why?Dwarf: Do you see any other dwarves around?Mo, looking around the bar: No.Dwarf, grumpily into his beer: Too much sky.Mo: Why are you up here?Dwarf: I heard there was gold mining going on and I thought I could help. Maybe get paid for my expertise. I’m good at mining. But it’s too easy up there in the mountains, they don’t need my help. The gold is practically lying on the ground -- you can just pick it up. It’s more like farming than mining.Mo: Do you know anyone who does odd jobs?Dwarf: Maybe me…Mo: It might be considered unethical.Dwarf: Whose ethics?Mo: That’s the question, isn’t it? Mine…Dwarf: Then if you think it’s okay, it’s not unethical.Mo, appreciating that answer: We may be looking for a bit of a distraction at the lottery. What’s your name?Dwarf: Tallok. What kind of distraction?Mo: Just something loud and attention-grabbing on the other side of the square. We’re not sure we’ll need it.Mo arranged to meet with Tallok just before the lottery outside the square to let him know if his services would be needed.As Team Malcontents walked to the North Gate, Mo explained that he had an idea to use prestidigitation or other magic to change the colors of the balls and mess with the lottery, so that no family draws a blue ball.Team Temple and Team Malcontents met up at the gate to head out of town.Orryk: Why are we doing this?Taman: We’re scouting.Orryk: Okay. What about Joybell?Joybell: Well, he wants to talk to the fey. They can’t talk to us if they don’t know we’re there. I don’t think we need to be sneaky about this.Orryk: We have never had an ambush that you haven’t messed up by standing in the road.Joybell: I didn’t know we were trying to ambush those times.Orryk explained that ambushes don’t work when one person is standing in the road. Joybell nodded and took that in.We headed out of town in the directions where Taman had earlier sensed a lot of fey. We were surrounded by low grass and scrub (the forests had been cleared in the early days of Auriqua as a city and never grown back) and there was a gentle roll to the land. We’d learned from research that the Tundra Queen was pushing the tundra further south and we could see the effects of that here.After a couple of hours, we spotted two very large figures, frost giants, some distance away. They had clearly spotted at least some of the party members and were heading in our direction.Orryk moved off the side of the road and hid in the scrubby bushes. Joybell, seeing that and having just been fussed at, moved off the road and hid (poorly) under Scooby’s belly. Mo also hid in the brush, with his giant weasel, Checkers. Taman, who wanted to talk to them, stayed in the road, as did Thneed.The two giants approached Taman.Giants (in broken Common): Hello, Small One.Taman: Hello, Big Ones. I seek the servants of the Tundra Queen.Giant: Why?Taman: To parlay.The giants had to think about that for a moment.Giant: You mean, like, deal?Taman: Sure…Joybell (still hiding under Scooby): No…Giant: Hmmm. Uh. We can maybe find someone. You and your friends in bushes wait here.Taman: Okay.Everyone but Orryk came out of hiding after they left.They were gone for about an hour, during which time we took a short rest, relaxing and hanging out.Mo spent 10 minutes of the time casting comprehend languages. He spread out a line of small whiskey glasses in front of himself on the ground and filled each one from his bottle of whiskey. Casting the spell involved drinking a shot and singing and drinking and singing until he got to a lovely stage of charismatic-tiddly drunkenness where he could understand everyone.The giants came back with a beautiful young woman with stark white hair and skin the pale porcelain color of a frozen corpse. She was definitely not a dilyarli. At least some of the party thought she might be the Tundra Queen herself, but Taman knew that was almost certainly not the case.Good.Mo, sidling up to Taman as they approached: Do you know what you want to talk about?Taman: No. I’m winging it.Mo: You’re looking to find out about the people who killed your family. That’s your motivation in this scene.Then he inspired Taman with some MOtivation (bardic inspiration).Taman recognized the woman as one of the Tundra Queen’s Ice Maidens.Taman: Word of me may have spread to you. I am Taman.Ice Maiden: I am not aware…Taman: Ah. Then I am not as important as I thought. I’m looking for one of your brothers. Ildna.Ice Maiden: You’re looking because he killed someone who lived up to a deal, then.Taman: I’ve no idea what deal my mother or father would have made. But yes.Ice Maiden: I don’t have that information.Taman: Where is he? How can I find him?Ice Maiden: He’s usually up in the Ice Rasp. Usually.She told us that Ildna is usually up in the mountains, though he does like to go after people who have completed deals with the Tundra Queen. The Queen herself is conflicted about him -- he’s one of her treasured servants and she can’t hurt him without violating the contract with Auriqua. But she has respect for the people who live up to the bargains she makes with them and doesn’t like that he’s killing them, and the deals she makes often include a promise of safety. When asked if the Tundra Queen would hold a grudge against us if we killed him, she said probably not. But we probably wouldn’t be rewarded or thanked either.Joybell: Do you know how or why he went rogue?Ice Maiden: Other dilyarli have interacted with him since he broke. They said he mostly wanted to talk to them. One mentioned that he said something about an epiphany. Another said he talked about a machine. Some of those he spoke to were able to walk away. Others of the Tundra Queen’s servants, including a sister-dilyarli named Allina, broke as well. It’s possible he’s broken a giant with his words of epiphany.When the Ice Maiden mentioned that Ildna talked to people and broke them, Joybell immediately thought of the Servants of the Hunger.Joybell: Maybe he ran into a crazy book.Taman: Did he talk about books?Ice Maiden: I’ve heard nothing about books. Just about him speaking many words.Joybell: Words in many languages?Ice Maiden: Yes.Joybell: Oh, boy.Orryk mentioned that though we hadn’t heard anything about a machine in connection to the Servants of the Hunger before, we did know a little bit about the machine in the Forge. That didn’t make Joybell feel much better.Taman, to the Ice Maiden: Okay. So what’s a quick and dirty deal to make with you?Joybell: Oh, not with her. With the Tundra Queen.Ice Maiden: I do not make deals. But I can take you to my Queen.Orryk: I’m not going to the Feywild and losing a thousand years.Joybell: I’d love to go to the Feywild. I mean I don’t want to lose time there. But I’d love to see it.We decided that we wanted to get back to Auriqua for the lottery and agreed to meet the Ice Maiden back at this spot the next day to go to the Tundra Queen to talk about a deal.Mo, to Taman: Do you want to think about this plan?Taman: No.Fiona: You might want to think about the deal you want to offer?Taman: That I am thinking about.He was trying to think about a deal that could be completed quickly so that Ildna would possibly come find him. But Ildna doesn’t come after everyone who completes a deal with the Tundra Queen. And we don’t know the details of any of the deals involved to know if he has a pattern.Orryk reiterated his stance that he wasn’t going to go into the Feywild and risk losing years of time there. We all agreed that we didn’t want that. However, we figured that if the Tundra Queen makes a deal that’s time sensitive, it’s in her interest for the people she’s dealing with to get out of the Feywild without losing that time. So maybe we’d be okay.Orryk didn’t really seem persuaded.We went back to talking about possible deals -- and whether we could set up a deal with her where we could force her to default on it and the consequences of her default would be that she no longer could take children from Auriqua but still had to protect the city.This led to the observation that the frost giants we’d spoken to were working with the fey, possibly for them. And frost giants were among the attackers that fall upon Auriqua when it is not under the Tundra Queen’s protection (and she is not getting children from the city every year). It really does smack of extortion.Someone said that we needed to talk to a 700 year old lawyer.Joybell: Do we have any information we can trade to the Keeper of Secrets?While we were still on the road walking back to the city, Orryk pulled out the Orrery. Slowly, very slowly, each spinning ring began to point north toward the Ice Rasp. Like there was a very distant signal in that direction. However, if we were getting a signal from that far away, it had to be a VERY strong one.We decided that teleporting to the mountains might be the best approach after all. The orrery could then possibly guide us in the direction we needed to go. That meant returning to Embernook so Tulmor or Barnett could teleport us to the Masks’ Circle in the mountains.We turned our attention back to the lottery in Auriqua. Mo tried to sound out whether the party was interested in disrupting the lottery. Joybell was very torn -- absolutely opposed to the children being taken away, so she wouldn’t stand in Mo’s way, but we don’t know what the consequences would be of the city breaking the deal with the Tundra Queen. At best they’d have to renegotiate it and would probably wind out having to give over four children a year instead of three. Orryk didn’t think it would lead to a good result. Fiona kept her counsel to herself, but didn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea. Taman and Thneed seemed like they’d back Mo’s play but weren’t totally on board either.We got back to town without running into anything on the road. Once there, we headed toward the Town Square where the lottery would be held.Mo, disappointed that no one was entirely with him on his plan to disrupt the lottery, went to the bar to tell Tallok, the shady dwarf, that his distraction would not be needed. And to pay him a couple of gold for his time and willingness.Taman, to Tallok: We’re all agents of chaos. You could just do it…In the square, we saw all kinds of families -- all races, all classes -- stepping up to put their names into the lottery. We learned from the crowd that even the richest families participate and even the richest families have had their children taken. We got the sense that everyone in the city was aware that it made for too much social unrest if the children of the wealthy and the ruling classes weren’t at as much risk as those of the working classes. Some of the wealthier families will take their children out of Auriqua “for the winter”, but it is frowned upon and socially stigmatized for them to do it more than once in the life of any child. A considerable amount of effort appeared to be put into keeping the lottery actually fair.The Town Square is shaped on one side by the City Hall, which has a balcony about 15 feet up. The guard were keeping a clear perimeter around the entrance to the hall (under the balcony) so that people could leave and enter freely. And so that order was maintained among the crowd. The city’s leaders were on the balcony -- one with a list, one holding the bag of balls, one making a record. Each family’s name was called. Someone from that family would step out onto the balcony and draw a ball. There were only townsfolk present, no dilyarli or other fey. There were also no kids of the relevant ages in the square -- it was as though the families protected the children from the process.Joybell realized that it would have been really hard to get Mo into a position to be able to mess with the lottery such that no kids got selected this year. They had good precautions against shenanigans in place. (At the very least, we would have needed to know more about what was going to happen -- we might be able to plan something for next year….)Joybell watched carefully to see how the families who drew the blue balls reacted -- they looked sad, but not as gutted as she would have expected. The ones who drew brown balls showed relief, but there was no happy exultation either (because that would be pretty awful to the folks who’d just drawn blue ones).Taman and Joybell took note of which families drew blue balls - a tiefling family, a half-orc family and a human family were the losers of the lottery.After the draw, people dispersed to other neighborhoods to go home. Joybell followed the half-orc family, just sort of going along in the same direction, trying to be a bit deceptive about not really following them. She was not successful. When they noticed her behind them, she peeled off and spotted Taman, who’d been following her, curious about what she was up to. Joybell waved for him to continue following the family.He followed them to their home and made note of where it was.They met up again, with the rest of the party, at the Platinum Arrow. He told her that the family had gone straight home.Joybell: Oh, man.Taman: Come. Get drunk. It’ll make you feel better.Joybell: No it won’t.Taman: Always has for me.Orryk: It makes you feel less…Joybell waved the rest of the party off and left the inn. She found her way to the guard house.Joybell, to guard: Do you go through this with the lottery every year?Guard: Yeah.Joybell: Does it make you sad?Guard: A little.Joybell: Is there anyone here I can spar with? I want to fight. Is there someone here?Guard, looking sympathetic: Yeah.Joybell worked out and sparred with members of the town guard until she was exhausted, then she returned to the inn, where people were engaged in their usual sorts of activities.The rest of the evening and the night passed.1 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 92)The next morning we headed out to go talk to the Ice Maiden again. The decorations for the festival, including the blue and brown ribbons, were mostly already taken down. As we walked through the city toward the gate, Joybell took a little detour to go by the house of the half-orc family that had lost the lottery. Like everyone else, the decorations had been taken down. There was nothing to distinguish the house -- no obvious mark that they had lost the lottery.As we walked along the road, we went back to talking about what kind of deal Taman should make.Orryk: If you want to make a deal that gets attention, make it something where the town still gets protection but no longer has to give up children.Taman: But she probably won’t take that deal. She’s like a thousand year old lawyer.We decided along the way that there wasn’t any deal that Taman could make that would be likely to get Ildna’s attention and also be something we could do without danger.However, we did have some information we could offer to Nicolana, the Keeper Of Secrets, in exchange for information that would help us find Ildna. And also that might help us get Auriqua out from under having to give children to the Tundra Queen, without losing her “protection” over the city.The Ice Maiden met us again at the same place on the road we’d encountered her the day before. Once again, she was escorted by the two frost giants.Taman: We have returned. The group has come to an agreement that making a deal isn’t in our best interest. But we thought to show up to tell you personally.Ice Maiden: We appreciate the courtesy.Orryk: Could the Tundra Queen guarantee that time passes there for us as it would here?Ice Maiden, to Orryk: She can ensure that.Ice Maiden, to Taman: You are under no obligation to make a deal.Joybell, before she could leave: Ummm... I’ve heard that the Feywild...I used to have a friend, a pixie named Wren, you probably don’t know her. Anyway, she told me that the Feywild is beautiful. I’d love to see it, but we don’t want to lose lots of time. Can I just maybe peek through a portal and see it?Ice Maiden: I could, but I probably shouldn’t.Joybell: Is it as beautiful as I’ve heard?Ice Maiden: More.Joybell, shoulders slumping: Yeah, I thought so. Okay.WIth that we headed back toward the city and arrived there without incident. Mo headed off to follow up with his personal mission from a couple of days ago.We went to the boat to talk to Captain Lamerin about heading back to Embernook. He wanted to leave in the morning, rather than this close to sundown, which made sense. So we made plans to spend one more night in Auriqua.Back at the Platinum Arrow, Thneed asked the innkeeper if the town somehow recompensed those who lost the lottery. Apparently they do not do anything for those who merely draw the blue balls. Those who actually lose children do get some support from the community.Over dinner we talked about Fiona doing a sending spell to talk with Nicolana about whether we can make a deal for information about Taman’s parents deal with the Tundra Queen. Fiona couldn’t do that until the next morning though.2 Harfastin 748 (Campaign day 93)The next morning, while we were at the inn eating breakfast, Fiona sent a message to Nicolana.Fiona, through the spell: What information do you want in exchange for Taman’s family’s deal? We think we may know what happened to Ildna.Nicolana, after a short pause: We’ll have to negotiate. I’ll be there.Fiona, to the party: She’s apparently coming to negotiate.Joybell, knowing that the Captain was expecting us to leave on the Gellyan first thing, ran to the docks to tell him that there would be a bit of a delay, but hopefully not too much. She got back to the inn about half an hour later -- just in time to see Nicolana, still appearing to be a human woman of about 25 years old, walk into the bar.She sat down at the table with us.Nicolana: What do you have?Orryk: We have Turnik Steeltear’s information on how he made Masks. And his lists of jobs and contacts.Nicolana: Do you have that information here?Orryk: It’s in Embernook.Nicolana: I can’t go to Embernook. When you get back there let me know and we can meet somewhere else.We told her about buying Kalmarn and having a whole village outside of Embernook at our disposal. She appeared to be amused.Orryk: What is this information worth? Is there anything else we can ask for?Nicolana, dodging that question: What do you think happened to Ildna?We told her what the Ice Maiden had told us about him speaking in many languages and his mention of having an epiphany and something about a machine.Joybell: We think he may have gotten exposed to the Hunger Between Worlds, like with that book we gave you.Nicolana: Do not under any circumstances go into the machine. The Epiphany Machine tells nothing but lies. It is a connection to the Hunger Between Worlds.Joybell: We think we might be able to find it and destroy it.Nicolana: It is probably not still where Ildna found it, if that is what happened. It doesn’t stay in one place for long but moves around on its own. It gives people epiphanies that change them, or reverse them, perhaps.Huh.We agreed that we’d send to her from Kalmarn once we had the books there and she left out the door of the inn. We did not attempt to follow her.We headed to the Gellyan, about an hour after our intended departure, to sail back toward Embernook.Mo: This will certainly be a consequence-free boat ride!As we boarded the boat, Joybell asked if we could please stop at the stone circle on the way to see if it was used during the festival. The others in the party, and the captain, agreed.</blockquote>

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