Session S.5-W-12

1629, Fire Season, Fertility Week, Wildday to Godday

Dramatis Personae

Events

(Thank you to Finarvi, for notes.)

While Serala was in Wilmskirk, a messenger found her. Issaries courier handed her an oilcloth wrapped package of ‘dental paste’.* He wouldn’t say who the sender was. Serala felt criticised for her pointy teeth. 

On Wildday, Finarvi rebalanced his harmony and understood how he was led into disorder by others’ anger. 

Four days to get to Whitewall. That should be fine!

Inpira got hold of Xenofos in order to transcribe the Ernalda Chooses A Husband myths she had learned. They fell into two types. But Ernalda must choose only one husband. 

Walking through town, the party encounter a group of librarians. They seem nervous or uncertain. Xenofos recognises Jitteril among them. He has a question – did Xenofos pick up any writings while in Wilmskirk, sacred or otherwise? A bearded sage tells them he has some unknown knowledge on him belonging to their temple. Xenofos has no idea what they are talking about. 

They’ve been divining for looted tablets – a green square tablet so big should be in his belongings. Xenofos checks his belongings. Rajar sidles up to them to give Xenofos backup, assuming he has stolen something as Rajar would have done. There, neatly wrapped in his travelling cloak is a beautiful piece of green stone he has never seen before. He studies it while the librarians sidle in closer.

A treatise on Sartarite manners, ‘written by Wilms, for the Feathered Horse Queen’. And it’s etched on the back. ‘Notes about hospitality and the personal deeds Of Sartar while wooing the FHQ and a small miracle he performed.’**

The librarians want him to come to the temple and explain why he has this. Xenofos agrees affably. The librarians are still nervous of Rajar and Inpira. Xenofos is too curious about the tablet to notice. The librarians are careful to make clear that nobody is accusing Xenofos of theft. Jitteril takes the relic with a bow and thanks Xenofos, and they all head to the Earth Temple, which is not far.

The queen is there, and she is not impressed. She accepts Inpira vouching for Xenofos’s honesty, but wants to know how it got into his saddlebags. A green lady needs to ask a favour and if this gets official it will be awkward, so she asks Varanis to look away for a moment while she asks Xenofos for help. This was a sacred item entrusted to the library because it is info on Ernalda and the library does not have much to put in it. She asks Xenofos to investigate how it got into his saddlebag but what she really wants is to recover as much of the looted material from the library as possible. They need to get their pride back. 

She asks them to be guests of her husband – she will let him know he has invited us – and tells Rajar if he steals anything, Inpira will skin him. We spend another day in Wilmskirk while Xenofos works his magic. 

Godsday.

Xenofos reads the history of the tablet, its making, its giving to Sartar, to  FHQ as treasure, inherited by her children and ends up in Wilmskirk’s Earth Temple, who decided it would be kept by the Library, then a pirate picks it up and stuffs it into a bag. Darkness, then it is in a treasure room being divvied up as spoils, it is handed to another pirate who later drops it in the street, panicking while reading it. It is picked up by a lay member of the library, who knows he’s got an important relic. He works at an inn, is friends with Silor’s people, chats with them and Xenofos notes he is getting a curious amount of information from this spell. Then stables, and the tablet is slipped into a cloak and put in the saddlebag – oddly dark. Less information about this part, oddly. 

Jitteril says divinations for other items have not worked – either the spell did not take or the objects are hidden. 

Varanis takes Serala for a walk to Silor’s place. Someone got into his household in order to put the tablet in Xenofos’s belongings. Serala looks around for the young man matching Xenofos’s description of the lay member – 19-20, acne-scarred, truth rune on cheek, wispy beard.

Silor is playing sad Orlanthi songs on his lute when Varanis comes to speak to him. She walks and talks about the tablet in Xenofos’s packs.

Silor knows the lad. It’s Tindil at the Praxian inn. A hayseed. A lass in the kitchen keeps bringing him around. Not kin, not even tribe. Yelmoring? Zethnoring? Ex-Colymar? That would explain things.

Varanis now has to explain why she is not allowed in the Praxian Inn. She suggests  Serala take Rajar and Inpira and Xenofos and go find him. Varanis will wait on a rooftop in case he runs.

Rajar lingers out back, Inpira the stable exit. We go into the Praxian Inn’s main room. Xenofos spots someone exiting out into the courtyard via the stables. 

Inpira sees a young man scuttle out, and gives chase. Rajar hears sounds of pursuit. Finarvi decides to hang back in case he dashes back through, but Serala joins the hunt like she isn’t heavily pregnant. 

Rajar sees him rabbiting and grapples him with an arm round the neck. He hugs the stringy lad who squeals “I didn’t steal it!” He holds him out for the others. Arm’s length, off the ground.

Xenofos has to calm Tindil down before he can talk. He found the sacred text from the library and put it in a librarian’s satchel. He didn’t take it to the library for fear they would think he had stolen it. 

Serala points out he hasn’t got the details quite right. It wasn’t in a satchel. When asked where he put it, he says Cracks-Rock’s house. Serala gets him to talk through the process of from finding to leaving. He asked his cousin to help. Anyanda – he flinches when he says it. She’s good at sneaking. Not all of his family are good people. 

Rajar intimidates and Finarvi persuades Tindil to let us bring him to the library and explain what happened. Finarvi won’t mention the cousin and will tell the librarians he rescued a sacred artifact from being destroyed and put it somewhere safe where it would be returned to the library.

Now the crisis is over, Tindil is far more afraid of his cousins than Rajar and Inpira. They’re not nice people and they would cut his balls off if they knew he’d ratted them out. Serala feels protective of the lad and doesn’t like him trapped in such an unhealthy situation. He comes with us to the Lightbringers’ Temple where the library is housed.

Tindil gives the librarians a proper Orlanthi apology, telling the story of how the tablet came to be in Xenofos’s bag. He stumbles a little over how the tablet got in the bag, but they look at the Truth and Death people in our party and sit him down with a hot drink. Serala asks if there is anyone looking out for him. The librarian says they understand the problems he faces and are doing their best to help him. His family do feed him occasionally when he messes up. 

Meanwhile, Varanis is still on her rooftop, having failed to notice everyone leaving. She descends and asks one of the Praxians lurking outside if he knows  Rajar Chaoskiller. He goes in to the inn to look for Rajar.  Comes out and says he hasn’t been in all day. There was a bison rider but he wasn’t foaming. He went out the back.

She thanks the helpful Wahaite and offers to buy him a drink. When she says she does not want to cause the innkeeper the inconvenience of having to throw out a windlord, he thinks this will be a good party so they both go in. The innkeeper calls her stranger and serves them drinks. She downs her kumiss and leaves to find where they went. Finding no trace in the street she takes to the rooftops. They manage to find each other. It’s getting late, and Varanis has kumiss-breath. Varanis and Rajar takes them drinking in the Praxian Inn. Serala and Finarvi help a rather drunk Varanis back to Silor’s house. Varanis is in the love-everybody stage and gives Silor a big bear hug. 

After Serala has taken her to bed, Finarvi asks if Silor knows the name Anyanda. He makes the signs of disorder and illusion – the Eurmali. She is a known quantity and knows better than to mess with Silor. Xenofos tells him that she was the one who placed the tablet in his bags.

Tindil is fine – he’s just from a crime family. They do look after him and out for him but would not tolerate him betraying them, but they are proud of what he’s trying to make of himself.

Footnotes

*Will apply over pointy, missing or broken teeth and harden into a reasonable facsimile of real teeth. 3 applications worth if she does all her teeth, more if she just does the front. Can be shaped for about the first 5 minutes after application, hardens within 10, lasts a couple of days before crumbling and is as hard as real teeth while it lasts.

** Notes on the back about the hospitality and personal deeds of Sartar wooing her; at a private feast he offered to eat first from every dish, and when she refused, their dishes would turn to copper, indicating the source of food. When she accepted, the dishes turned to bronze and the winecups to glass, as a reminder of the power of trust.