Shards of the Silve Flame -- IC Thread

[SelcSilverhand]

Drue stands before the bars and observes the fiend for a few moments. I've never seen a live Rakshasa before. Drawings, tavern tales, but never a flesh and blood speciman. Cracking this one will take some work. He turns and nods a signal to one of the guards who picks up a bucket of cold water and dashes the contents through the bars over the prisoner. "Awaken fiend, it is time for us to speak." He makes a show of looking around the cell. "I presume this is the first time you've been on the other side of iron bars, it suits you. I am Drue, your keeper. I'd usually like to know who I am addressing before we get to the unpleasentries."

 

[drothgery]

"My name will be of little use to you, gnome, so you may have it." The rakshasa warrior said. "Know that it will be R'tal of the Sartian Warband of Zakya Rakshasa that will end your pathetic little life."

 

[drothgery]

Unfortunately, further interrogation of the Rakshasa warrior yielded little (intimidate, bluff v. sense motive, and opposed diplomacy all failed); he knew all too well that nothing he could say would cause you or Lady Kahlia to desire his death any less, and that any slip might derail the entire scheme. More importanly, though, the warrior (and the other one) were apparently little more than hired muscle; it seemed like even though he told you nothing, he knew little more than that.

Kahlia had more luck with Lord Alistair's journal. "If I haven't discovered a false pattern, it is written in a very complex cipher. I doubt anyone could break it without access to my father's library. With it, completely decrypting it will still be a very slow process."

 

[SelcSilverhand]

Drue refreshes himself after a long day spent matching wits with the fiend. He was clever, he saw right through my schemes to make him slip up and reveal something. Drue paces, listening to Kahlia's report and turning things over in his mind. I hope the others are having better luck than we are...

 

[drothgery]

Drue/Hariel/Oz

When you awoke the next morning, it wasn't a surprise to find Kahlia in the library, leaning over a table and asleep, with notes all around her.

Saalin/Dain

Finding someone with a scry scroll on hand was not too difficult for Saalin; the his disagreements with city's current rulers normally kept him of Thaliost, but he still knew where to find things in the city. And so by midday they were on their way back to ir'Indari manor, with a scroll in hand, and without 700 gold pieces.

 

[stonegod]

Saalin pushes the horses as hard as he can reasonabily afford to, given Brother Dain's inexpreience with the reins. It is pushing into evening by the time the arrive back at the manor. I hope we bear good tidings, he thinks to himself.

 

[drothgery]

Hariel/Drue/Oz

Eventually your host awoke.

"I couldn't sleep last night," She said over a late breakfast. "So I went back to work on deciphering the book we found in father's lab. I can't believe I let myself fall asleep. It seems like it is a journal of his work for the Argentum; once I discovered that much, I tried to work backward from the last entry. I think he was planning on sending you to recover some items currently in the possession of agents of the Lords of Dust."

 

[SelcSilverhand]

"Kahlia, is there any information in there about what the item was, where it was held, or who he was in contact with? If there is anything you need to help you decipher it tell us and we will assist you as best we can."

 

[drothgery]

"It looks as if this group had a crystal ball with telepathy in their possession, which would be bad enough, but father believed they intended to use it as a component in some sort of eldritch machine." Kahlia said. "As for where they might be -- there's a name given for a location, but I don't recognize it; more eyes to seach maps of Thrane, Karrnath, Aundair, what was once Cyre, and anywhere else in range might help. If we assume the sorcerer was going there and was barely capable of teleporting, he could have taken father a thousand miles from here.

"I have yet to see who father has been communicating with; I am not willing to credit that the Lords of Dust could have determined father's place on their own -- I think someone must have betrayed him."

 

[Anax]

Hariel frowns, and asks "If they have such an item, should we be concerned about protecting our own activities from prying eyes?"

"Unless and until we have a solution to that problem, however, I would be happy to look over maps and try to find some clue to the location. Could the name possibly be archaic?"