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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 7295747" data-attributes="member: 6816692">Going after a monsterSession 16We ask the pretty confused and frightened Weber to accompany us to the estate's salon so we may discuss the matter of Dr. Xambria Meredith more discreetly. There, we talk about the contents of Dr. Meredith's letter. We try to make sense of her message but cannot really agree whether this is just another trick of Sijhen or whether the message is a genuine call for help. After a bit back and forth, we decide to give Meredith a chance as she might still be out there somewhere. Our first assumption is that Sijhen might be from a place called Gidim and that he/she might be searching for a people or place called Obscurati. As it seems intrigued by the word “Obscurati” we cannot be really sure though.While we further examine the message, Hans Weber drops the ball and tells us about the upcoming and already announced Gala of the Ancients in the Museum. We are kind of shocked that he didn't immediately cancel the event and more so shocked that he wanted to exhibit the three artifacts without getting an all-clear from us. Unfortunately, he sees no way to cancel the Gala without worrying the populace of Flint, so we urge him to forge replicas of the artifacts and exhibit these instead (they'll be hidden behind glass anyway, so no one will be able to tell the difference)We also point out that it would be wise to be more cautious and heed the warnings of the RHC regarding the dangers of certain artifacts. (Mr. Carlyle basically gave him a big speech about responsibility and the dangerous greed for attention he put on display. And he was dead serious. Does anyone ever bother to take a look at the bigger picture? Or even take our advices to heart?Oh and "dead serious scolding Carlyle" is one of his scarier modes. He despises people who act irresponsibly and endanger others while doing so.)Next, we meet up with our colleagues at the RHC HQ. We agree that the search for Sijhen has to be top priority and that we should talk to Rock Rackus about the expedition to the ziggurat of Jiese. After that, Auryn gives a small speech about the events on the La Inspiracion. She says that no one but Sijhen is to blame for what happened there. The creature managed to fool them all by using methods they didn't think to be possible at all. Still they'll always have to consider this in the missions to come, especially when dangerous or alien creatures are involved. Plus they all should never leave a suspect without surveillance.Then we visit the seer Dr. Ricewind again as he was previously able to locate Dr. Meredith in the middle of the sea. We ask him for another vision of Sijhen/Xambria and he starts his rituals immediately. However, the ritual strains him a lot this time and it takes him about four hours to complete. He's still able to get a pretty scary and confusing vision of a sort of ritual circle in what must be a forsaken warehouse. His description of lighting, materials and style of interior are fortunately enough to narrow Sijhen's possible locations down to a handful of warehouses. We find the room from Ricewind's vision in a warehouse not too far from the one where we found the three bodies before our trip to Ber. But there is no sign of Dr. Meredith or the Sijhen creature Finona saw and the blood stained ritual circle is left completely forsaken. We examine the circle and find that Sijhen was about to do something that's completely violating our laws of magic as this seems like a hasty attempt to open up a portal to another world. We find visible trails of a heavy cart in front of the warehouse, so we assume that the seal of Apet must have been here as well. As we muse that Sijhen might have relocated after Dr. Ricewind's divination attempt, we ask Margit and Flying Spark to go to land registry to check the register for any kind of property owned by either Caius Bergeron or Jules' transport business in this district. Meanwhile, Auryn and Mr. Carlyle pay the still imprisoned Rock Rackus a visit.We come across Rock's lawyer first who tells us that Rock might be released from prison soon as he accepted to pay a good sum to the victim of his stray bullet. We continue to said Mr. Rackus and find him being his usual carefree self in a pretty cozy cell. He's pretty happy to see us though and thanks us again for saving him from his “rabid fans” at the KATE (he's kidding, right?). When we ask him about his adventures with Mr. Bergeron he's more than eager to talk about his exploits.It turns out that it was Rock himself who stumbled across old teleportation scrolls when he was visiting the ruined library of Pala. He says that these scrolls were strange indeed as they pointed to very specific locations near ancient ziggurats (he said something like “circle-lads” if I remember correctly). He knew that a closer look inside would probably warrant a fully fledged expedition, so he came across the Tiefling Caius Bergeron and planned a team up to go to the ziggurat of Jiese which is located near Sid Minos. He found some artifacts there (“like your amulet?” we asked. “Oh yeah, so THAT'S were that came from...” he answered.) and also saw the golden seal of Jiese. To our surprise he can offer us a pretty detailed description of the seal and its inscription. He then adds that Mr. Bergeron bought the seal from him as he had no use for that heavy object, but he kept the other artifacts. Oh and we can totally keep the amulet as it is completely out of vogue anyway. We'd have to ask the wardens though as they took all of his stuff!When we ask Rock about the other teleport scrolls he says that he's still some of them left in his house and would be more than pleased to go on an adventure with the RHC for a change. We're not really sold on going on an adventure with Rock, but we'd surely love to take a closer look at the scrolls once we finish the whole “New Ragman” stuff.Unfortunately, our search for Sijhen isn't really successful. So we turn to our tried method of planar detecting the nearby areas. After a bit back and forth we find some seemingly hot trails which turn out to belong to a red haired woman in a barge named “Apet”. She says she's been hired by another redhead named Xambria to hide a bottle in her boat. And the bottle is full of Apet ectoplasm. (“Now that's ridiculous! Sijhen's totally crazy anyway and now it's making stupid puns to annoy us?!” Carlyle said while shaking his head in disbelief)Still the bottle gives us a brilliant idea. We use the bottle's contents to give our now finished fake-artifacts of the ancients their final polish as we plan to use them as bait for Sjihen. We know that the creature wants the artifacts and probably plans to steal them once they are exhibited at the gala. As we don't want to endanger innocent bystanders and also don't want to risk the real artifacts falling into Sijhen's hands, we ask our press department to announce a nighttime transport of dangerous goods in the common newspapers and have some roads closed off for that occasion. We then place the three fakes and ourselves in the carriage in hope to lure the wanted creature out of hiding.  It seems like we got lucky this time as Sijhen totally takes the bait and tries to raid our secure transport carriage with its mind monsters. “Dr. Meredith” mind controls one of our carriage drivers who in turn attacks his colleague. To prevent casualties, Auryn jumps out of the carriage (seems like we get a pattern here), puts two flying stingers to sleep and sings an enthralling song which turns both drivers' attention solely to her. Margit whispers a short prayer to the primal spirits which turns the thoughtform beasts tangible and which are then roasted by Flying Spark's fiery blasts. This leaves the job of handling their leader to Mr. Carlyle and his martial prowess. Dr. Meredith surrenders surprisingly after only a few hits with the Kukris' blunt sides as she seems to regain control over her body. To show her sincerity, she reveals alien eyes on her arm, concentrates on them and kills off the remaining monsters. She then lets herself get arrested and loses consciousness shortly after. As Sijhen fooled us before, we make sure to not go into the creature's trap once again and so we make sure to lock the still unconscious archaeologist up in the most secure antimagic cell the RHC has to offer. We also agree to have at least two members of our team present to guard her day and night until she eventually wakes up. (Hah! Seems like we've finally scored our 1:1 there!)</blockquote>

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