Thug Muggers in the City 12/10 & 12/24/23
Table Talk:
I explained to the players my thoughts on what i think of as the balancing-act to keep the world up and going as we play. Because i really do envision it like an old-school plate-spinning bit. Each player is a plate and i’m doing my best to keep the area they’re in ‘alive’ in my mind.
Sorin walked into his dorm; Okay, I need to visualize and recreate his dorm; who is there? Is there another note? Who is missing? Does someone walk in? What are the new plants being grown by Herbert? etc. And, i try to keep that space ‘alive’ while thinking about Cypress under a tree; is there a snake in the tree? What is his god saying? What details does he feel? All of this while i try to visualize: the gently swaying grass, shorter under the tree and longer in the distance, it’s a black brich so it has small horizontal lines but deep vertical gashes, wait, no, make it more fantasy, it’s a cousin of the black birch a ‘red birch’ a dark maroon skin halfway between maple bark and the color of fresh blood. Hear the soft distance chirp of the birds, deep at first then shrill… Okay, no snap back to Ari and Rae in the market, the noises of people talking and shuffling feet…
Reader, you might think that most of the descriptions in these summaries are details i added in later, but for the most part, i try to write them ahead of time and/or express them on the spot in the session. So there are times where i feel like an overloaded Minecraft server. With multiple areas loading in, buffering, and rendering all at once. Those are all the plates i have to keep balanced and spinning. Then on top of that i have to be mindful of basic rules and game play; that’s like the poles i’m balancing the plates on. Then on top of that i have to think about the session/setting plot; what do the players need to get done here and now in this area? and how can i keep them on track? Do i need to give them a clue or take an action? Then on the next level up i have to think about the real world; is this still fun for everyone? What is our time limit? How is our pacing, Am i drinking enough liquid to keep lubricated and talk for another hour straight? etc… All of that was to explain why sometimes i get snarky about cross chatter, or why, like last week, i need to take a second to step outside and rest for a minute and reset.
A small side note here, that the character Willow, Fledgling of the Royal Family, and Seed to the City of Nibiru, is actually based off of a friend of mine also named Willow. And xir creation was a direct line to my friend who has been struggling with some people around them choosing to not understand or respect their gender identity. So, please send them some love.
Lastly, a note to the reader. This summary is broken into two parts, because we had two shorter sessions. It is stitched together to reflect the entire second half of that day and everything that we did, without being two separate, very short, summaries. Enjoy.
“[S]avagery, pure and simple. Slaughter, hatred. Devils with dead eyes and shark smiles. And one day, you're gonna get married and have kids, and when you look at them, their faces, you need to see what's good in the world, 'cause if you don't, how you gonna live?”
-Lou Solverson —Noah Hawley, “The Rooster Prince”
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿
Chapter 3: Rest (cont.)
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿 Chapter 3: Rest (cont.)
After an extensive and personal interview, the monogram artist leans over and sets down his paper. He takes a sip of now lukewarm tea.
“So what happens now?”
“Now,” the artist explains, “I will spend a bit of time researching symbols and puns, though I will admit, to already having a few ideas in mind.” They start doodling letters on a piece of old scrap. “Then I will work on placement, staging and blocking,” they gesture behind them to the open staging area in the middle of the room. It is full of boxes and stands and mechanical armachers scattered to arrange various sized items to be aligned in forced perspective.
Then pointing at the camera-lucida attached to his table, “I will get together some props and arrange them to paint your still life.” They clip the scribbled letters to an upper arm of the easel, “From that I will derive your stylized, or ‘fancy’ monogram and your simplistic monogram. Then one of our chasers will do your stamp.” They pull their own stamp from his drawer under the desk. It is a simple wooden rod, turned in slightly in the middle for easy grip, either end is capped with shiny but well worn brass. One end is a positive impression for ink stamping and on the other a negative impression of the same symbol for wax stamping. “Then one of our runners will take our work to…” he trails off and checks his note, “Your suite at the Nort Gate Inn.”
Cypress hands over the 75 gold for the job, and he and Sorin walk back out into the street.
While Ari and Rae head to the apothecaries, Cypress and Sorin head to the Church of Glorious Gods. But first they help tZulèe climb up Cypress’s back to perch on his shoulders. Its little paws on Cypress’s head so that they can pass up little bits of ground grog like a popcorn snack for a kid riding on their parents shoulders at a carnival.
When Ari and Rae get to the main front of the apothecaries, they see one of the Brewen Brother’s carts outside as the dwarf barks up business for another blind box deal. Ari lifts an eyebrow and nods.
Rae shrugs, then as they start to walk over she grabs Ari’s elbow, “Wait shouldn’t we get regular supplies first, health potions and that?”
“Yeah.. you’re right.” Ari sighs then stops and thinks, “Wait what all do we need? What should we be looking for?”
We’ll leave Ari and Rae there googling potions like they could’ve been doing all week, and go look at Sorin and Cypress.
As we approach the church Sorin scratches Akris’s chin, “Remember what happened last time I took you in here, you almost died so I need to wait out here.”
“Of courssse. And, do you want my to sssspy on more childrensss for you thisss time asss well, Masssster?” He asks in an overly loud stage whisper.
A couple passersby turn to stare.
“WHAT!? No! It wasn’t! - Though we do still need to talk about that later,” Sorin snaps back to the matter. “No, just do circles or something.”
The snake flies up to the tall “Church of Glorious Gods" sign, loops his take around a post and starts swinging back and forth spitting raspberries at his ‘masssster’.
Out front is the now familiar dwarf in white robes with her beard braided into a thick chin-rope and a monkey’s fist knot at the bottom. This time she’s splashing some water on the door and scrubbing away the graffiti that now just faintly reads “The real God will rise again!” with the same symbol we keep seeing on the Thug’s writings.
We walk in in a thoughtful silence and see that the church is almost deserted. The last time we were here it was packed and now… It feels like the only person around is the acolyte at the far alter sweeping.
Sorin, intent on getting a message to his brother, walks up to the acolyte. They are wearing a sort of half dress half robe made from woven blades straw. It looks itchy and uncomfortable. They stop their sweeping and look down at Sorin.
“Hi, yeah ‘scuse me, I need to talk to someone about, uhh… a church.”
The acolyte just looks confused.
“Do you know someone named Matteo?”
The acolyte shrugs.
Karen- Sorin tries again, “Is your Boss around, can I talk with them?”
The acolyte’s shoulders slump in a silent sigh and they look up at the ceiling. They begin to pantomime looking at their broom pointing to Sorin and then the handle, then pointing to themself, flipping the broom over and pointing to the… lack of bristles on the end. They wave and motion and flap, then rest their hands and look questioningly at Sorin.
The wizard just looks confused.
Nymbus, “Oh, do they have a vow of silence?”
Close enough.
In fact, the acolyte is of the fickle God Waukeen, and has done something to offend them recently, so they are going through the penance of ‘Suffrage Earning’. This means that until their god is pleased with them again they must find new and creative ways of doing everything in the most annoying way possible. Wear itchy clothes, sweep with no broom, try to help without speaking, etc.
Cypress gently pulls Sorin away and takes him upstairs.
Ari and Rae walk into a generic looking building. The store sign, “Concoctions, Ungwents & Salves” uses the old fashion V instead of a U in Ungwents, but it seems reliable enough. The walls are all simple white wash with whitewashed shelves as well.
As Rae looks around, Ari goes up to the side counter. She smiles and reads the name plague on the counter, “Mr. Green, can you help me fin-”
“Please, just Wallace is fine. What can we do for ya?”
Back at the front of the hall, Cypress taps on the shoulder of the dwarf as she scrubs at the wall, “Excuse me, is anyone on the desk right now?”
“I supposed, technically, that’d be me.” She says bracing her knees and standing back up. “We’re a bit short staffed at the moment, forgive the joke.” Then, walking back inside, “What can I help you with?”
Sorin resists the urge to point and giggle at Cypress’s quarter staff… maybe an eighth staff really. Cypress just nods. “I need to find out who to talk to about a permanent position. I just found out I’ll have to take up residence in the city, so naturally I need a place to live and a regular job.”
The dwarf nods and rather than scratching her beard, just sort of tosses and catches the knot on the end. The way it falls gives a hint that something heavy is lurking inside. “Right… well then you’d need to speak to the Glory.” She puts a hand out to stop Cypress turning. “Hold on now, I’ll tell you they left a few days ago. We have a visiting Glory coming. In fact she was supposed to be here before the Glory left, but hasn’t shown up yet.” She points to the stairs, “I’d talk to the senior priests, it might get something started, but I don't know if they can do anything official.”
A few minutes later we’re back on the third floor of the Church of Glorious Gods. The rafters for the crane are still and silent with the ropes tightly bound at the other end. Both of the small libraries are empty, and the doors to the two study rooms are both closed. Both the ritual office and the meeting office are open, with sounds of voices coming from both.
Cypress decides to try the meeting office first, to avoid interrupting any religious ceremonies.
We see a door frame.
We see a wooden hand in the middle of the door frame.
We see a wooden face slide into view above the hand.
We see a door frame with a wooden face in the middle.
We see a small hand in the bottom of the door frame.
We see a hobbit face slide into view above the hand.
We see a door frame with a wooden face in the middle and a hobbit face down below.
We see another hand in the top of the door frame.
We see a wizard face slide into view above the hand.
We see a door frame with a wooden face in the middle and a hobbit face down below and a wizard face above.
“Knock, knock?”
In the potion shop Ari and Rae work through their list, their fingers dancing along the shelves.
Some bottles are cubes with short necks in the middle and ingredients that have settled into layers. Some are spheres with only a stopper in the top and the ingredients never stop swirling. Some shelves are full of baskets, padded with straw and simple vials and drams in them. Some racks have protruding rungs like wine glass holders, holding triangular pyramid bottles by the neck. Near the bottom are crates of simple plain bottles lined up in rows. Along one wall are a few pegs holding pulled glass ampules with long tails twisted into circles.
Click to learn about these awesome cans!
After a few minutes shopping, Ari and Rae count off their findings on their fingers in front of the counter, “3 basic Health Potions, ‘cause we have the water that just needs heated up and, well, Cypress. 3 Potions of Water Breathing, ‘cause Cypress can be a fish, and Sorin can use a spell. And, 3 climbing potions, ‘cause Sorin can spider climb, and Cypress can just be a spider.”
Wallace adjusts his pince nez and tallies, “So that’s nine total and all basic adventuring potions,” he ticks away at a small board. “At 45 gold each, that's 405 total.”
Inside the meeting office are the two priests we’ve worked with in the past. They’re standing by the desk looking over some papers and books.
We walk in and-
Ashley: “Sorin tries to read what they’re looking at.”
Roll Stealth and Perception then, i guess.
Sorin can’t make out the full message on top, but he can identify parts of the letter. Phrases like “delayed” and “travel conditions”.
As usual, before any pleasantries, or normal conversation, Sorin just blurts out the first thing on his mind. “Hey, how do I get a message to Matteo?”
The priests blink at Sorin.
The priests blink at each other.
The priests blink at Sorin.
“You could try sending a message in a parcel with one of the Forager runners?”
“Honestly, last time he came to us. I assumed you all would’ve arranged something by now. “
Sorin bites his lip. “Yeah we have to meet up with him again.”
“Wait,” one of the priests says, “you all have met with him by now right? … Right?!”
Cypress sighs and lifts tZulèe off his shoulders. The gargoyle jerkily climbs up the stone wall and peers outside. “Maybe the first thing should be for us to fill each other in.
Enjoy these animations while Cypress recounts our whole tale to the priest. Reader if you need caught up, just click here.
Welcome back. Cypress has just finished up with our story so far.
The darker skinned priest nods and scratches his chin. That makes a lot of sense.” Then in response to Cypress’s raised eyebrow, “Clerics have become a bit of a hot commodity lately. Hence why we’re so empty today, business and families all across the city have been asking for priests, paladins, and clerics of all kinds to come round and Purify their Water. Some have even gotten regular jobs just working taps and pumps at high pay.”
Sorin takes a turn to scratch his chin. “So the sewers are really failing.”
“Yeah, for the most part the east and south areas were doing alright, but now it seems to be everywhere.” The priest nods, then turns to Cypress. “So, what’s next?”
“Will, after meeting them I’m here trying to get things worked… out… to…” He stops and looks at the lighter skinned priest.
During Cypress and Sorin’s explanation, they pulled a few bits out for show and tell: the priest garments, the written sermon, the wanted flyers, and Zaanth’s note. Now Cypress, Sorin, and the darker skinned priest are noticing that the other one is just standing there and muttering to himself as he stares at the red splotch in the middle of the note. Now he’s taken out a pen of his own and pushed it into his arm without flinching or making a sound, and he's scribbling his own blood in a red blob on top of the nearest letter.
Cypress first makes meaningful eye contact with Sorin and the darker priest, then ever so slowly begins to cover up the red splotch on Zaanth’s note with his hand.
As soon as they do, the pale priest lunges forward to swipe the sharp brass nib at Cypress.
Our cleric dodges out of the way, swiping up Zaanth’s note. Then the priest overbalances, stumbles, and collapses to the floor.
Outside the potion shop, Ari nudges Rae and points. A couple buildings down, the other Brewin Brother is now in full swing. He’s barking out a story of witches and trickery and almost dancing as he riles up the crowd. “Should we do it?”
“I don’t know…”
“Come on, you did so good yesterday!”
“Yeah, but…” Rae hesitates.
“Well I want some cool stuff so I'm doing it!”
“Okay fine I’ll do it.”
A moment later, Rae unwraps a paper packet to find a round brass bottle with a lead stopper that seems to be leaking steam.
The crowd oos, and the Brewin gnome coos, “Awe, the Eversmoking Bottle!”
A moment later, Ari unwraps a paper packet to find a basic glass bottle of red-orange bubbling liquid with a small fired ceramic tag tied to it.
The crowd oos, and the Brewin gnome coos, “Awe, a Potion of Cold Resistance!”
While a few more strangers upwarp different colored bottles and cheer, Ari tries to pressure Rae, “Come on! You’re so lucky! Look at all the good stuff you got! And I only got this basic resistance potion! You need to go again! Do it, do it, do it!”
With a grown Rae give in and a moment later she unwraps a bulbous, lumpy ampule.
The crowd oos, and the Brewin gnome coos, “Awe, a Potion of Fire Breath!” (I had them draw cards again, and it was totally fair, i did not influence Sarah to take that one at all. Not at all, ask again and i’ll make a boulder fall on you!)
Back at the Church of Glorious Gods, the darker priest is helping his colleague back up to his feet, and Cypress is tucking Zaanth’s note away out of sight. Then they both start casting Protection from Good and Evil on him.
Now reader, Sorin is about to do something very stupid. I want to make it clear about why though, because this time it’s about dice rolls and not, well, just because, Sorin. He rolled two critical failures back to back. This means that he first thought they’d be safe from whatever the red scribe thing is here because this is a holy place (see: “church” in “Church of Glorious Gods”). But then he remembered Cypress saying that whatever it was it felt like weird god energy. Now he thinks that it’s easier for this thing to get at them in here (see: “God” in “Church of Glorious Gods”). Furthermore, he believes that since this church is dedicated to hosting lots of beliefs (see: the plural “gods” in “Church of Glorious Gods”), that it is even easier for this thing to get at them. Due to his second critical failure, he is now capital F Frightened, and afraid of this building. He must now use his full movement and actions to get away from it.
Sorin shrieks, “Oh gods! Waitnonohgodsanythingelsecrap! Don’tyousee! It-can-get-us-in-here!” Then he casts Gaseous Form on himself and flies out the third story window.
While he’s done many stupid things before, Sorin has never cast this spell on himself before, and everything about this is a new experience.
Feeling his skin melt and expand is a new experience.
Feeling his body billow out in all directions is a new experience.
Feeling his organs separate from each other, each maintaining a uniquely colored mist is a new experience.
Feeling the breeze blow between the cells of his spinal column is a new experience.
Feeling the breeze move him is a new experience.
Feeling Akris flying THROUGH him, circling and licking his bones and his brain from the inside is a new experience.
Now down by The Arena, Ari and Rae walk up to one of the permanent little shop stands. The area is like a wharf or a pier with those temporary carnival stands that have just sat so long they become fixtures. Looking for adventuring gear they walk up to a likely enough one. The hanging sign shows a yellow dire wolf holding a sword with the words, “Adventure Time,” around it, and, “Supplies,” in small letters underneath (Hey this time the players named it, so don’t look at me). The young lad working the counter is wearing a strange white hat and a blue shirt and darker blue pants. He is scrubbing the counter to a shiny clean, taking obvious pride in how clean it is… while behind him the back wall is just a crammer so full of mess of items wedged and tertis-ed together that it’s now become just a solid surface. At his feet a tame yellowish dire wolf snores.
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They buy three sets of climbing gear, because again, “Sorin can spider climb, and Cypress can just be a spider” and those are on sale for only 5 gold each! (Because i remembered an old 1992 school computer video game and thought this was hilarious.) Then they bought a full bundle of Silk Rope for 10 gold, and some glass bottles for Rae to be gross with for a few silver each. (If anyone is curious about the prices i’m using for their own DMing this is the table i most commonly use as a quick reference.)
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Then, this is where we ended for that week’s session.
“There should have been toughs on the street. Cities were full of them. That was practically one of the bloody requirements for a city. A town hall, a few inns and a tavern, and several blunt-faced fellows whose only desire was to pound you into the mud and spend your coin on drink and women.”
-Matrim Cauthon —Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson “Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time book 13): Chapter 22”
And, this is where we picked back up the following week.
After i remind Sorin of how weird his body and mist-organs feel, he glides to the ground and transmutes himself back to a half elf. Then he spends some time patting himself down trying to make sure all of his distinct meaty flesh sponges are in fact where they belong inside his goopy skin sack casing. *chef’s kiss* i love when i get to write sentences like that. I can just feel my players’ shoulders twitching.
After a moment Cypress closes the window.
Back to his senses now, the paler priest looks worried, “Is he gonna be okay?”
“Yeah, probably,” then, making a meaningful pause and eye contact that all priests recognize as a kind of code about science types, “he just gets a bit dot dot dot nervous dot dot dot around religion.”
“Ah I see.”
“Are you all right, though?”
“Yeah,” The priest answers, rolling his shoulders, “whatever it was seems to have left me.”
“It is concerning though,” The darker priest says with a hand on his chin.
Cypress nods, “Can I ask you two to do some looking into this for me?” They reach into their bag, but the priests lay a hand on their arm.
“Yes, but maybe you shouldn’t leave the paper here with us… at least not yet.”
Cypress nods and thin lists off any specific details they’ve found while the pale priest takes note to research later.
Ari and Rae are using their turn to decide what to do next, and Sorin is just walking to the Arena, so let's stick with Cypress here.
“I’d like to talk about my residence. Specifically, the possibility of me taking permanent residence here in the church and becoming ingrained with the Church of Glorious Gods.”
The two priests eye each other nervously, hemming and hawing, both obviously trying not to be impolite.
Now reader, Cypress is about to do something very smart, and learn a LOT all at once, so i want to explain that they had two rolls (religion and history) each with advantage. Religion, because they are cleric and have been in and out of the world in various places and churches and around many other religions. And Knowledge, because when coming to Nibiru and staying in the Church of Glorious Gods, he absolutely would have done some looking into things.
Cypress takes a second to really look at these two. They’re wearing the standard neutral white robes of the Church of Glorious Gods, with the rainbow colored hem, but the closer he looks the more he sees. The darker priest on the left has a ring with the the candle eye of Deneir, next to a ring made of jagged lightning bolts, the symbol of Talos, and around his neck is a red ribbon that Cypress knows must lead the two bound hands of the crying God Ilmater under his robes. The paler priest’s right hand has a leather band around it and now Cypress can see the faint Ra-like eye of the god Helm marked in it. His other hand has a ring of blank parchment, surely a sign of the Oghma the binder and singing bard God. The belt around his robes is held together with a bone charm of two carved scales, the token of Kelemvor, Judge of death. On the desk in the books being studied Cypress can see the holy book of Gond, oily and smudged, probably loaned from someone in Ironton. There is also a barely covered manuscript of Lastai showing various positions of people with titles like “the wheelbarrow” and “lotus opening” and “the bridge of pleasure”. And finally a lantern and the “Extreme Teen Guide to Astral Projection” from the church of The Traveler (one of my own making, so no link, but one that crops up from time to time).
Dipping into mechanics here, Cypress realizes that these two are each approximately level 9 clerics, where they have essentially multi classed as 3 classes of level 3 cleric under 3 different gods. So, 6 gods with distinct skills, abilities and powers between them, and they’re studying more. Truly, these two Priests are quite powerful in their own right and together they make a mighty force.
This jives with what Cypress learned about the Church of Glorious Gods before, that on the ground level it is a very good and civic enterprise. The core tenet being that it is important in this new modern world of immigration and emigration, that no religious belief of practice should be overlooked or cast aside, and that all peoples have a right to a holy space as they see it. Again, a very civic minded goal. But like so many things, the further up you go, the more opportunities there are for power and corruption.
Members of the Glorious Order of Gods (the formal religious organization structure), all practice several religions, even some that seem extreme opposites. They have explained that is because they worship people and humanity (elfmanity, dwarfmanity, gnomantity, etc. included), and they note that in order for these churches to exist the priests must be accepted by multiple gods, or how else could they do the needs ceremonies for the different religions?
But of course, there are rumors…
Rumors that the Glorious Order is a pyramid scheme for spiritual powers. That each level increases their power by magnitudes. The rumors say that that is why the priest and priestesses are often sent all around the world; not merely to bring gods with traveling people groups, but to learn each and every God absorbing their powerful blessings!
For the time being though, it seems like these two are just in it to serve the community.
Cypress looks up at them with all this new knowledge. “It’s that I’d have to serve another God isn’t it?”
“Well…” one of the stammers, “Well yes that’s a big part of it.”
“I don’t ha-”
“And the time,” the other one says, “If you were to be a part of the Church you would also have church duties.”
“And frankly”
“And frankly I’m on a quest-ish thing and I need to focus on that.” Cypress finishes.
Ari and Rae have decided to go to the Artificer’s Mall and look for magic bows. Just as a remind, here is the description i gave way back in “Thug Mugger in the City 11/6/22”
The main building of the Artificer’s Quarter is the Artificer Mall. It is four stories tall, in a large rectangular block. Each of the floors run in a loop around an open hole in the middle where someone at the top can look down. And someone standing at the bottom can look up through all the floors to the giant sky lights in the roof. This hollow center atrium is lined with pipes from every shop, all funneling together towards the sky. Most of the shops are fronted with iron bound wood, and the building is accented in bronze railings. The floor is mostly ceramic tiles, pinned down by brass tacks. The whole thing looks like a fancy Victorian train depot had a baby with the Mall of America inside a small office building.
Sorin Goes into the Arena and looks around, knowing it has to be here somewhere…
AHHA! There!
Did you know that when you have a Word already and then reverse engine an acronym for it, that's called a backronym?
Along one of the stone walls is an archway with the sign “MARCH in here for MERCH,” a joke that we can all agree is really reaching. When he walks in, Sorin can see all the walls plastered in posters of the champions, “Terance the Tyrant of Tavrin”, “Sarah the Snake Slayer”, “The Grave Digger”, “Big Van Vader”, “Mr. Perfect”, Golddust”, “The Sad Mummy”, “Braum, The Heart of Freljord”, “Garen the Mighty”, and of course Sorin’s one true hero, “Barb the Beefcake Smasher”! (Here’s a fun game: try and figure out which of those are League of Legends characters, which are old Conan-era comics, which are WWE characters, and which I just made up).
Sorin goes over to Barb's section. He stares up at her retired and preserved signature B.E.E.F.F. M.A.U.L. (Bringing Eternal & Everlasting Fear For Murdering All Uther Losers), the raw beef meat sledgehammer looks so huge, heavy, and wet up close! Sorin can’t help but whisper-chant the roar of the crowd under his breath, “Beef! Maul! Beef! Maul!”
Under it are the little figurines of Barb in various victory poses with some stock names painted on them. He looks, and there’s Sokal, Sommer, Sondra, and Sorkin, but no Sorin. Then he turns to the posters, the real reason he’s here. There is one plain poster of her in a champion victory pose, and two animated posters of ‘gif’’s (glamored image flyers). The animated ones are either Barb waving her arms and pumping up the crowd, or her just smashing the same dude’s face into the ground over and over again on loop. Sorin surprises no one by going for the latter.
He grabs one of the super aggro posters and goes up to the counter where a huge blonde man in goggles is flexing.
“An animated gif of Barb the Beef Smasher, OH YEAH!” he shouts. Sorin reaches into his wallet, then hesitates as the man continues, “Or it’s free if you can land just ONE HIT on my face!”
Sorin places the gold on the counter and man’s enormous hand slams down, pulling the coins back. “That's the coward's way, but I respect it, Brother!”
“I see,” Cypress says as he reconsiders his options, “Is there a way to just rent the room from you, just to officially be living here.”
The priests look apologetic, “I’m sorry but no.”
“Talk to Erho.”
“Huh?”
“Some of the clerics who do work for the church live in a place nearby. I don’t know all the details, but I think she lives there.”
And with that, Cypress goes back downstairs to talk to the Dwarf.
“Erho?”
“Yes?” she answers.
Cypress coughs, “I was told you could maybe help me.”
Awkward sIlence.
“I’m looking for a place to live.”
“Oh!” The dwarf grins under her thick beard, “Yeah, some of us priests live just off the plaza. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes,” Cypress’s shoulders sag with social relief.
“Yeah, it's a place called ‘Club of God’. It’s actually a dance hall and a bit of a party place at night, but the nobles who run it let out rooms in the upper floors and attic.”
“Do you know how much the rooms are?”
“Modest, 1 Gold a day.”
Cypress does some quick maths, “Yeah that’d work.”
The dwarf nods and asks “You had a room here yeah? Do you need help moving your things over?”
“No I don’t really have much, to be honest, I just need it to be on paper that I'm living somewhere now, but it’s gonna be a while before I can really ‘move in’ and settle myself.”
With a gleam in her eye the dwarf cautiously touches Cypress’s arm, “Listen, if that’s all you need why don’t you move in with me? You and I can share the room, it’s not much, but it’ll do. Then you have a place when you need it, and the cost will be cheaper for both of us!”
And just like that, giving it perhaps less thought than it deserves, Cypress now officially has a roommate (and maybe a potential backup character if anything bad were to happen maybe…).
Ari and Rae see two likely stores in the Artificer’s Mall that might have the kind of enchanted bow they’re after. One is ‘Bonus Weapons and Armor’, a simple name that says it all, and seems to be geared towards adventuring. The other is ‘The Trophy Collector’, a store with more hunting style supplies; slingshots with scopes, bows with silencers, and high capacity quivers.
Confused by the silencer bows, Ari and Rae go into ‘Bonus Weapons and Armor’.
The room is set up as a workshop with a store more or less built around it. In the middle is a large 4x8’ workbench scattering with tools and various bits of equipment locked into vices along the edge. Then the walls around the table are all lined with a french cleat system holding various racks and holsters of weapons and armor.
A goblin is working on a mechanical spider they have locked into a vice, poking and prodding some long lit match sticks into its open glowing under belly. “Oh, Hello. What can I do you for?”
“I’m looking for a bow upgrade,” Ari says, “nothing fancy, I just want something with maybe a +1 to it?”
“Hmm, +1’s are not my area of expertise I'm afraid… I specialize more in added enchantments rather than just straight enhancing, like they do over at The Trophy Collector.” Then, as Ari and Rae look about to go he tries, “Things like this Bow of Warning that tells you if danger is near, prevents you from being Surprised, and helps you get the first action in a fight.” (advantage on initiative rolls)
What actual fire arrows looked like.
Ari’s horns perk up and she looks at Rae, “Not being surprised could be useful…”
“125 gold.”
“Would you take some off if I gave you my old bow?”
Roll persuasion for me.
“Ee gawds! Look at that thing! Holy Callarduran’s Hands, no! Did you take care of this thing at all? Is that a sting slice, or just matted fur and mud!”
Rae stiffles a giggle and Ari blushes “I, uh, was never really shown how to care for bows…”
“Ugh, fine then I’ll give you a few Fire Arrows just to rescue the poor thing, but only if you swear to me to take care of my work on that one!” They say pointing to Ari’s new bow.
“Deal! Um… can you just show me how?”
We’ll leave Ari getting bow maintenance lessons, and go check in with Sorin to see what weird socially inept thing he’s doing now.
“Do you also sell, like… gladiator sweat?”
I regret this already.
“Like sweaty rags from the fighters?”
The macho cashier looks affronted and confused, “Gross, get outta my store, you, little pervert!”
Huh, good call my dude.
“Okay, yeah, fair enough.” and Sorin leaves with no explanation to him, me, or the table at large.
Outside, he puts the poster up against the wall and writes
“Matteo,
Will be descending
into the dark
to bring light.
Don’t look for us
In the middle.
P.S. Hot right?”
Then he curls the poster back up. Looking around he spots an alley with some kids playing dice. “Hello comrades.”
“Hello sucker.”
“Hey!”
“Sorry, sorry, let me try again,” The leader of the youths says, looking at his clothes, “Hello student sucker.”
The other youths laugh and Sorin crosses his arms, “Fine, then I’ll take my money somewhere else.”
“Woah, money, hey now, you’re no sucker, you’s a boss! What do you need, boss?” Behind his back the leader makes a hand sign to the others who all nod up at Sorin eagerly.
“That’s more like it.” Sorin says with his hands on his hips, “I need you lot to take a little parcel to the Church of Shadows for me.”
“And how much is this little parcel worth?”
“4 copper, that’s one for each of you.”
The leader grimaces then grins at his mates, “Sure, we'll TAKE your package for you.”
Sorin hesitates and then as one of them grabs a length of pipe he runs off into the crowd.
Cypress heads to The Office of Registrars.
Outside Bonus Weapons and Armor, Rae points up a floor and across the opening to a sign. “I want to check up there, to see if they can charge my mask.”
After walking clear to the other end to find the stairs and then all the way back, we now stand in front of a truly gorgeous sign. In golden letters that permanently glitter and swirl it reads, “Artificers to Royals and Nobility”. Standing in front and to the side of the entrance is a tan drow elf in a complete ensemble that probably cost more than all of our gear. He is holding a perfectly balanced silver tray and looking down his long nose at us.
“Ehm, pardone me I’m sure, uh ... good people…” he starts, pronouncing it ‘pard-own’ and ‘sh-hure’ with an h in the middle, “are you in need of assistance? Perhaps one needs directions… to the rake store?” He raises a single eyebrow impossibly high and his tone is divisive but in a strange way that somehow still isn’t offensive as if he really does believe that would help us.
There is a tense moment before Rae steps up with a ‘try me buddy’ face on. “Yes, you could help us. We’re on royal errand and are on the lookout for a royal artificer.”
The drow brightens up, “Why yes indeed,” he says, managing to pronounce ‘yes’ with an extra h in it, “I am a royal artificer!”
Ari and and Rae look over his servant garb, “You’re royalty?”
“Why no madam, I could never hope to rise so far.”
“Right, but we need a royal artificer.”
“Precisely madam, I am an artificer and a servant to all nobility.”
Raelle-The-Annoyed tries again, “No I need a ROYAL artificer.”
“Yes,” the man says, this time confused enough to forget the added h, “I AM a royal artificer.”
“So you are royal?”
“No, I cater to royalty.”
Raelle-The-Angry tries again, “No I need a ROYAL artificer.”
“Madam, i don’t not understand the issue, I am a royal artificer.”
“Where can we find an artificer who is also a royal!”
“Not here I’m afraid-”
Raelle-The-Irate-And-and-Tired-Of-This-Bit punches the wall and stalks away.
But wait, Rae, i didn’t get to tell you his name… It was Who.
Trying a different approach now, Sorin heads to the southern foragers. Across Arena Row, down the South road, past the Inn Line on the River road, and around the back by the gate tower; Sorin comes up the the plain wooden building strung all around with various bundles of drying grasses, herbs, and bundles of flowers. He pushes open the saloon style door to see a store that's really just a warehouse with a money box bolted to an iron post in the middle. The walls are lines with buckets, wet rags, and crates all showing different varieties of natural and unnatural scavenging. Damp rags growing desert mold, snow mold, and corpse blossoms; repaired cracked pots growing cacti and upside down flowers; and bundles of drying grasses in all the colors of the spectrum, including some invisible to the human eye. In the center is a long farm-style table and benches where some younglings and some old timers work at sorting, clipping, smushing, mashing, thwacking, and stringing odds and ends in little piles. The myth of the noble savage who uses every part part of the kill has nothing on these people, we get the feeling that they’d even collect the dying breath of the buffalo in a jar, and the grass the wildebeest died on, just in case it could be sold later to some potion maker.
Sorin’s first thought is, “never let Rae find out about this, or she’ll be carrying half a house full of stuff with her like the gnolls…” At that thought he sees a gnoll in the corner curled up and sleeping. ‘Back on task,’ he thinks and starts looking around muttering, “Something that won’t be out of place… something the church might need, something that makes shadows, something bright…”
After a bit of searching, Sorin brings up some Spark Grass (a short rocky-plains grass that absorbs magnesium as it grows and burns bright white), and some Night Light Flowers (a type of blue bell found near cave mouths and on the edges of dark forests, it hangs down for most of its life, but creeps up, opens, and phosphoruses every night that the moon if more than half full) in bundle up to the table. “I’d like to pay for these and have them sent over to the Church of Shadows, please.”
“Right, ‘ch’you are then, you’g man.” One of the old times says and walks over to the iron money box. As Sorin pays he takes a tall leather duffle bag off a hook on the metal post and puts the bundles of grass and flowers inside.
“And can you take this as well?” Sorin asks, “I picked it up on my way here.” He hands over the rolled up poster.
“Suz’long as ya dun’ mine if it gets grass an’ flowers on it, i’s no charge.” The old man says, sliding the rolled tub in and looping the bag’s straps over his arms.
“No, that shouldn’t matter, thank you, old timer.” Sorin smiles politely.
And with that, the old man sets off at a comfortable jog.
I made the decision not to write up a whole thing with Cypress going through bureaucracy, because i deal with that enough already in my actual life, and this is supposed to be an escape. So, we’ll pick back up with them leaving.
Aware of their growgrling stomach, they look around for food.
Just down Beam street, near Pivot end and the little Jar Street garden there are a couple of dwarves. One is calling out “Meat! Meat on a stick! Hot and Tangy, Jerky and Sauced! Meat on a Stick!” While the other stands around in full battle armor with poles and trays of hot sauced meat kabobs looking about like a samurai bannerman, or those people who sell summit bread off their backs in Cairo, but with hot dripping meat sticks.
As the table waits in apprehension, Cypress goes up and buys a few skewers for 4 copper.
… Roll a Con Check for me, there Cypress.
Nymbus: “You bastard…15.”
The meat tastes a bit off… but honestly it’s fine. About what you’d expect from street meat. Ask anyone who ever bought a Hot dog off a cart in Chicago in December… It’s not good, but it probably won’t hurt you… probably… you added mustard right? Yeah you should be fine then.
Nymbus (under their breath): “Double bastard.”
Ari and Rae are putting their brain cell together to think about how they want to get back to the sewer. Both roll investigation checks and-
“Pfft,” Rae scoffs, “we just need to take that same ladder back down. Boom! Problem solved.”
Clearly Ari has the brain cell this time.
“Rae… that room was locked and barricaded from the outside.”
“Oh yeah… well-”
“And it would mean sneaking back into that office.”
“Truuuue…”
“Plus it was basically destroyed as we left.”
“Oh yeah…”
Sorin heads up the River Road and around the Wizards’ Tower to Palace Street and the front of the Magic Quarter.
There are four spires here in the Magic Quarter. Obviously the massive Wizards’ Tower stands head and shoulders above the rest, but then there are the three smaller towers where most of the magic is sold. The stout, wide Tower of Higher Magic (spells of fifth to tenth level), the medium wide and medium high Tower of Basic Arcana (spell of second to fifth level), and the impossibly high skinny Tower of Mundane Magicks (household spells, cantrips, and first level spells). Then of course the stalls to the side selling various other bits of magic tripery; everything from mundane tarot cards to scrolls of powerful spells like Prismatic Spray.
Sorin goes up to the medium tower and starts flipping through one of the jukebox-style catalogs along the bottom.
This mega-summary is already around 16 pages so i’m gonna try to go a little bit fast on these last bits.
Cypress uses the sending stones to touch base with Ari and Rae as they digest the last of their [UNKNOWN] meat kabobs. And then joins them in trying to think of the best way to get back down to the sewers unnoticed.
With a 9, the only thing that immediately comes to mind is a now infamous well at the corner of the North Road and the Main Way. Instinctively they just know Raelle-the-Ex-Con is not going to go for any idea with that well.
Raelle-the-Ex-Con also gets a low roll and gets the same idea about her least favorite well. Raelle-the-Ex-Con decides not to even share the thought because Raelle-the-Ex-Con won’t be doing anything with that well.
Ari rolls a nat’ 20 and has a moment of pure inspiration. “Guys wait!”
“Yeah?” asks her friend next to her.
“Yeah?” asks her friend in her ear.
“I think.. I think we can map it out. If we each split out and kinda map out this part of the city… We can lay it over or I guess next to the maps we have of the sewers… Then we can see where things line up and pick what entrance we want!”
“Brilliant!” says her friend next to her.
“It’s a good idea.” says her friend in her ear.
After all this discussion, Sorin hops on coms to ask about what spells he should get and how much of the group money he should spend. Spell books cost 111 gold per level (111 gold for a 1st level spell, 222 gold for a 3rd level spell, 333 gold for a 3rd level spell, etc.).
With a long discussion and bunch of waffling back and forth he buys Misty Step for 222 gold, and Haste for 333 gold, mostly at Rae’s prodding and insistence.
Rae, Ari and Cypress each spend a few turns walking around and drawing out bits of a city map. They all roll several times until eventually they roll collective 20’s in Perception (seeing the area), History (knowing what's there), and performance (drawing it out on paper).
And so, with everyone heading back to the Nort Gate Inn, I can finally end this one.
Phew…
…
… And with that nice break over, it’s tIme to start writing the intros for the next session.
“I thought the thieves were not out tonight. A city without cutpurses, well, that’s like a field without weeds. And if there were no weeds, what would you need a farmer for? Bloody inhospitable, I tell you.”
-Matrim Cauthon —Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson “Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time book 13): Chapter 22”
Table talk:
This was our last day in the city. Next, our heroes will create and look over their map to decide on a plan to get back to the sewers and back to the adventure. I reminded them that they still have a few things left to do in the second level of the sewers before making their way with Bostra to the underdark city of Eka.
I also explained that Bostra won’t be traveling with them constantly, he will be a kind of ‘camp follower’. Whenever they rest, he will stay there (unless told to come with them) and then someone will have to come and get him and bring him and the camp to wherever the next camp is.
