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Message: <blockquote data-quote="skotothalamos" data-source="post: 8009015" data-attributes="member: 83398">After the Coaltongue was saved, Kind Aodhan held a ceremony where he gave medals to Joe Actual, Zamfir, Joe Virtual, and Geoff Massarde for saving his life.The constables took that day off after the ceremony and came back on Wednesday to make plans for the future. They hadn’t been able to follow up on any of the von Recklinghausen leads yet, but decided getting a meeting with Gale was more important, so they made preparations to go to the Cloudwood and see Nevard Sechim, as he seemed to know how to get ahold of her.The trip would take about eight hours, so they decided to wait until the following morning and head out early, so as not to be traversing the rainforest at night. The trip was easy enough, and they met with Nevard at his mountaintop skyseer commune on the evening of Thursday, the 12th of Summer.Nevard divined that they were there to talk to him about seeing Gale, and he said he could do that favor for them if they could do a favor for him. He had foreseen his own death this year, and wanted to be able to go up on Cauldron Hill one last time for a clear view of the night sky. He would need the constables’ help with this as the area is under tight government control through the mayor of the Nettles, Reed Macbannin. Further, the mountain was haunted and he would need protection.The constables agreed to partake in a ritual that would bind their life-force to Nevard, giving him the strength to make the hike, and protecting him from injury for 24 hours. They stayed the night at the commune and did the ritual the following morning, each donating a small amount of blood to a cup of milk that Nevard drank while he asked the constables about their visions for the future.The clock had begun. They now had until morning dawned on Saturday the 14th to get Nevard to the peak of Cauldron Hill. On the way back down the mountain, Joe Actual suffered numerous bites from the various wildlife of the Cloudwood (Giant Spiders, swarms of hummingbrids, etc.), but everyone else was fine. When they got back to Flint, Dr. Aubrey and Nevard and Nevard’s entourage headed to HQ for final preparations, while Joe and Zamfir headed up to Mayor Macbannin’s mansion on Cauldron Hill to gain the proper permissions to guide the old man up the mountain.And so it was, just after sunset on Friday, the 13th of Summer, in the year 500 After Our Victory, that Joe Actual and Zamfir found themselves halfway up the most haunted site in all of Risur, idly chatting with a horse courier as he smoked and looked out over the slums of the Nettles.The courier, who introduced himself as Nic, busied himself with prepping his horse and smoking a cigarette. He idly mused to the constables about the “chaos” in the city below: the fires in the factory district, the riots, protests, and lock-ins in Parity Lake and the Strand, and just the general chaos of scraping by a meager existence in the Nettles. He asked them what they thought of it, and Zamfir engaged him in conversation along these lines.Zamfir, clearly going with the mood of the day, asked Nic what his vision of the future was, and Nic asked Zamfir to imagine that there were no countries. Zamfir said “no religion, too?” and Nic nodded enthusiastically, adding that he thought it would be great if all people were equal and knew exactly where they fit in the world and knew that they had a purpose. As Zamfir seemed interested, Nic expounded on these ideas, saying he knew a lot of like-minded people who were hoping that the current chaos in the streets could be used to help tear down the current structure of society, so that it could be rebuilt in a new and better way. Nic asked Zamfir where he could send more information, and Zamfir shared his home address.At that point, it was time for the constables to see the governor, so Nic hopped on his horse and left. The door was opened by Macbannin’s butler, who had the same face as the shadowy man they had fought a week ago at the apartment of Lynn Kindleton and Xambria Meredith. The man did not react to the sight of the constables, so they assumed that he thought he had not shown his face to them. It had only been for an instant, but Zamfir and Joe knew that face and now knew that they were in much deeper than they expected.They had a conversation with Mayor Macbannin, during which Joe was able to sense that the mayor was under the effects of a similar bonding spell as they had done with Nevard that morning. There were faint arcane connections between Macbannin and his entire house staff.Macbannin went over the logistics of the rusted-iron amulets the constables would need, and the four buckets of goats’ blood they would also need to keep themselves safe on the mountain. The two constables said they needed to get back to HQ and retrieve their guest. Macbannin promised to have everything ready for them when they returned.Joe and Zamfir left in a hurry, worriedly cursing all the way down the mountain…</blockquote>

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