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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 8165007" data-attributes="member: 6816692">Shipping Fools           We continue our focus on the conglomerate while Xambria Meredith and Vitus Sigismund take on the singular ghosts. After a while, we manage to dissolve all ghosts and the conglomerate. This Council, it seems, would a thing of the past. Macbannin thanks us for our support and the opportunity to get out of this mess without losing his unlife.We then move to the interior of the Lighthouse in search for Luc Jierre or Ottavia. Unfortunately, neither of them appears to be present. We spot a faint aura of teleportation magic and understand that someone must have brought them away from here earlier. So it is up to us to understand this planar mechanism and find a way to bring all of us back to our plane. Fortunately, we got quite the bunch of tech experts with us and so we manage to configure the lights in a way that would transition us back to where we came from. Which turns out to be easier than we thought -  by simply using witchoil and reversing the process.As this takes some time however, we use this time to gather all information, evidence and notes we can find inside the lighthouse. After a while, the darkness of the Bleak gate vanishes and we're standing in bright light once again. As soon as we're back in our world, we spot a vessel approaching the island.But what appears to be our rescue at first glance turns out to be one of the Crisillyiri vessels we spotted patrolling the area. Ships which most likely are affiliated with the Obs. And soon we remember that we asked the Impossible to come to the Bleak Gate side, so we make hasty contact with our ship and ask the crew to come to our aid on the “real world” instead.Some Ob officers among our group remember these ships as well and suddenly start running off towards the shore as they seem to wish to avoid capture at the hands of the RHC. We call them to stop their approach as this ship is clearly preparing for battle and run after them to stop the fugitives. Simultaneously, we also start hurling long-range spells at the ship to keep it from reaching the shore. Unfortunately, our worst fears come true and the vessel starts firing its cannons at the fleeing Obs officers."Come back, you fools! They want to eliminate all witnesses, no matter whose side you were on!” we shout after them and do our best to catch the more oblivious ones one by one and bring them back.Still the Obs ship massacres several of the Obs officers without hesitation. This gives us at least a pressing argument for the rest of the group to stay with us as we promise to protect them from any killer squads the Obs (or more likely Nicodemus) may deploy next. Some officers are panicking however and so we fall back to calming magic and soothing songs to keep them all together.After what feels like an eternity under heavy fire, we finally spot the Impossible emerging from the Bleak Gate. At the same time, the Crisillyiri ship sends landing troops who advance to our temporary hideout. So we team up with those Obs officers who seem capable of defending themselves and form a defense line for the more vulnerable targets. And as soon as we see that our ship is close enough to board it, we call for a swift retreat.This time, we really thank our gut instinct that we planned with the fastest ship in the risuri fleet for our extraction route as the Impossible quickly catches on speed thanks to the help of the wind magic of several druids. The enemy vessel tries to keep up with Captain Smith, but we outmaneuver them easily. After a while, we can also spot several undersea vessels trying to follow our ship, but they cannot even come close. We do instruct the captain and his crew about these strange boats though and explain that one of our rescues might be able to tell us more about them.It takes some time, but as soon as we're on the high seas, we appear to be safe for now. We first thank our dear Captain Smith for this swift evacuation and are then hailed by Vitus Sigismund, who'd like to talk about his safe passage to Crisllyir now that we're out of danger. Unfortunately for him, we have to decline his request as we cannot simply make a detour on what could be enemy waters as the last ships under Crisillyiri flag clearly wanted to kill us. Also, we would like to have some answers from him first and would prefer to question him alongside the other Obscurati at the RHC.Of course, Sigismund is not too happy about the prospect of “being treated like a criminal”. But we just reply that after saving his life, he could at least try and help us bring some light into this shadowy conspiracy. Also, considering the fact that there were a lot of Crisillyiri among the Obscurati, we believe that taking a direct route to Crisillyir wouldn't be safe for him as well.“How can you know what is safe for me and what isn't? This is the holy nation of Crisillyir you're talking about and I have to report to my senior Geneu Credetos. I have to protest this treatment!”In return, Carlyle tries to calm Vitus Sigismund down by explaining that we, too, do have to abide the chain of command and it wouldn't be our place to decide on what to do with him as mere RHC agents. This, he says, is to be solved via an official, but safe diplomatic channel between our two nations as the situation is more than just delicate.The Godhand cannot say much against this obviously logical objection. However, he is quite concerned about the security onboard, especially as several of the Obs might try to flee and he really doesn't want anyone of them to escape justice. Being quite unnerved at this point, we promise him that we're quite capable of keeping people prisoner on a vessel we're quite familiar with, thank you. But if he insists, we can offer him to walk freely onboard (under surveillance of course!) and keep an eye on the other prisoners. Regarding their future treatment, we explain that we'll jail the Risuri and will contact the other nations regarding a possible rank of conspirators among their populace. After all, we say, as long as we cannot prove that they did commit crimes against Risur or its citizens, we'd better let their officials handle the legal affairs as the last thing we'd want is a war over a couple of imprisoned Obs.“Well, the Crisillyiri will face the swift and just punishment of our Judicars, that's for sure”, Vitus says.To which we respond that he surely does have a stern belief in the system and structure of his nation. And also add that he maybe should think about the fact that a lot of Ob officers do indeed stem from Crisillyir. So if that many people wish for a better world, then that might actually mean something. Also, we found at least one Cardinal, a librarian, and a nobleman among the Obs, so maybe the Obs have already taken deeper roots than he thought.(Backing out of the choice to release Vitus Sigismund was a really clever intervention from Carlyle. We didn't want him to get off leash too quickly after him showing that he's just as ungrateful and arrogant as all the other Clergymen we've met so far. So maybe lettimg him cool down in our cells while the diplomats handle this situation - slowly - will humble him a bit.)During our trip home, we contact our own harbor in Flint, as well as Delft and the officials in Slate. We make sure to stress out that Han Jierre is among the Ob leadership and that therefore all of Danor might be an integral part of the Conspiracy. Also, we got Catherine Romana, who is another high-ranking Ob officer, as our prisoner.Then we send a sending to Asrabey and warn him that the Obscurati managed to track him to his presumed hiding spot, so he'd better be on alert for Nicodemus' agents trying to get back Kasvarina as the Ob leader hasn't given up on her yet. Asrabey is grateful for this warning, but replies that they are currently residing in a very safe space right now.Last but not least, we send a magical message to Luc Jierre and ask him if everything is alright as we just found out that Nicodemus tried to kill all participants of the Obscurati Convocation and we're being worried for his safety. Luc replies that his situation is rather complicated right now, but he is alive and well. Still he cannot give us more details right now. We really don't know what to do with this message as he could be either extremely worried but under pressure from his family, be too afraid to just join us, or still be delusional about the Obscurati's true intentions.So we decide to play it safe and not give him any more information. Still we got hope that he may some day have a change of heart and call us once the dust has settled.(Luc's stance just remained a big mystery for so long. Honestly, I would have crossed my fingers for him being terribly afraid of his family for Luc has genuinely good intentions, he knows Andrei from our railway trip and wouldn't be content with Nic abusing him like that, and he doesn't have any reason to believe we were lying to him about the attempted massacre on Mutravir)</blockquote>

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