- This session was originally run on 23rd August 2018 but I’m running behind in the writeups. Again, I’m going to keep the session writeup short.
Major Characters
- Macavity, Abbie
* Image by Haryarti on DeviantART
Adversaries
- None
Adventure Hook
- The poor quarter in Harbourtown has just ‘exploded’ in a cloud of blue smoke. Ethan and Macavity escaped just in time.
Adventure Summary
- People are fleeing the poor quarter. It is pandemonium in the streets. The blue cloud seems to strike people dead, sucking the life out of them, and leaving their bodies completely unmarked. Structures are unharmed. Slowly, the smoke dissipates. By the time the smoke has gone completely, there are hundreds dead.
- Ethan and Macavity watch from one of the walkways above street level. There is nothing that they can do. A shaken Ethan contacts Abbie via Icon. It is the middle of the night and she was asleep in their palace in Bloodstone (Legendary Realm). She listens and they talk for some time. She understands that he needs to find out what was being traded here - whatever it is has just killed a lot of people. Ethan explains that he saw a number of caskets. He plans to acquire them and transport them to the Legendary Realm. Abbie agrees to help but points out that any magical enchantment is likely to be many times more powerful in the Legendary Realm. She urges Ethan to take care.
- Steeling himself, Ethan tells Macavity that they have work to do. They go back to the night market to investigate. It is deathly quiet. Everyone is too afraid to return there. A number have popped their tops and one is sitting open. Inside there is padded packaging to hold globes but they are missing. Ethan waits for moonlight to shine through the clouds and it looks like a lot of the invisible items have been badly damaged in the explosion. Of the chests which were being sold, Ethan counts that some are missing.
- Ethan contacts Abbie and then opens a sorcerous portal through to Heliogabalus (the capital of Bloodstone in the Legendary Realm). He then transports all of the chests through and warns Abbie to be exceptionally careful. (He has it in mind that he’s just given her a consignment of ‘atomic weapons’ which will be significantly more destructive in the Legendary Realm).
- Everything else in the night market which was of value is either dead or destroyed. Ethan takes a piece of debris which is only visible under moonlight in order to study it later. Oddly enough, non-magical china cups and saucers are still intact. The blast didn’t affect those but did leave some residual static in the atmosphere.
- Ethan uses Wayfinding to hunt the remaining chests. He finds a hatch in the floor but the boat beneath has gone. Someone is still dangling from the rope ladder down to the water. Dead. Ethan takes a moment to study the body - the corpse is physically intact but the spark of life has been magically removed.
- Ethan and Macavity find a skiff and it takes Ethan about an hour to locate another hatch under the pier where he is sure that the other chests have been taken. Ethan listens at the hatch to the sound of voices arguing. There are four different parties. They are angry and upset. The gist of the conversation is that they have recovered goods which were stolen from them but they had no idea that the thieves who stole them didn’t know how to store them properly. All four parties appear to be local as they sound genuinely upset as to how many people they personally knew have died.
- Macavity is bored on the skiff whilst Ethan listens in on the conversation above. Macavity points out that it will be dawn in a few hours. Ethan decides to use a Sleep spell on the people above him. He hears them slump and he opens the hatch. One is an older, burly man. The second is a younger boy whom Ethan has seen before. The third is a young man with a wiry build. The fourth is a woman in her mid-twenties. There are five chests here, all locked, bound with red sashes and wax seals. There are also seven stacks of empty chests.
- Exploring, Ethan finds their record books. They have kept a trading diary of incomings and outgoings for the last two years (which pre-dates Bastiano’s death). It appears to be legitimate enterprise. The workshop here appears to be putting the padding into the chests, embroidering the sashes and putting the wax seals in place. There is a residual trace of magic here.
- Hunting around, Ethan finds a hidden compartment in the writing desk. The journey within appears to be written in Bastiano’s handwriting, with the last entry only 3 days before Bastiano disappeared. Ethan pockets the diary.
- Contacting Abbie once more, Ethan transports all of the chests, including the empties, to Heliogabalus in the Legendary Realm. It is the middle of the night but Abbie is nonetheless pleased to see Ethan - she is dressed in comfortable clothes of elven make. Together they inspect one of the open chests and find well packed cannonballs that can only be seen in moonlight. Each feels completely solid but they are invisible without the moonlight. They talk, wandering what possible use these devices could have and what Bastiano could be doing with them. Where did they come from? And if these are weapons, how could they be safely deployed?
- Both of them recognise the danger of keeping them here, so Ethan transports them using sorcery to a field more than twenty miles away. This field was once fought over during the Bloodstone Wars. No one farms here. Ethan uses sorcery to excavate a large area and then buries the chests. Ethan notes that the grass seems to be growing quickly over the buried chests, almost as if the Legendary Realm itself is seeking to hide these cannonballs.
- Ethan takes Abbie’s hand and thanks her for helping. Abbie smiles and suggests that they go home. They return to the palace together. Macavity finds a fireplace in the palace to warm himself and he goes to sleep.
- Ethan does not wake at dawn. He sleeps in a little and takes pleasure in having breakfast with Abbie before returning to Boraelis with Macavity.
- In Boraelis, on the ‘morning after’, people are in shock. No one can quite believe what has happened and that so many people have died. There are many funeral rites being performed. Ethan and Macavity pretend to have slept through the previous night’s explosion. Ethan asks questions and listens in on the conversations between various merchants. No one seems to know what has happened. There is talk of Bastiano’s ‘old business’ but it is not clear as to what that means.
Other Impacts
- A large quantity of ghostly cannonballs with the potential for mass destruction have been stored in the Legendary Realm where they will many times more powerful. No doubt Ethan will come to rue this decision but where else could he have put them?
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