Session 163 - Chasing Hedrons (6th December 2018)

- Grant has been training with the Blue Crane for two months. He keeps in regular contact with Lady Sophia and occasionally contacts Ethan. Ethan doesn’t seem to be achieving very much. Worse, he still hasn’t spoken to Abbie. Drake contacts Grant from time to time. He asks about Turadok and Sybelle - neither have been seen in a while. 
- At last Grant departs Neo-Yokohama to return to Marindar for a few weeks, then is off to the Green Dragon inn for the next poker game with some of his fellow Lords of Gossamer. Eric (Drake’s son), Cal, Jessamyn, Yaeger and Jacob are there. Eric has a shapeshifting ‘pet’ which is oddly distracting. Yaeger has bags of Bloodstone gems for his stake which he got from ‘The Bloodstone Witch’. Jacob has a contraption that he built - a small clock with legs. During the game, Grant tries asking Yaeger about the hedron that Ethan won in one of the last rounds. Suspiciously, Yaeger brushes him off and tells him to check in Nexopolis as they ‘turn up there’ from time to time.
- Cal, Jessamyn and Grant talk pleasantly but Yaeger gets more obnoxious as the night goes on. Jacob cleans Yaeger out, leaving Yaeger even more irritable and he ends up stomping out, calling Jacob a cheat. Grant wonders why Yaeger is acting so strangely and Cal comments that it’s probably a new girl in his life.
- Returning back to Marindar, Grant has the odd feeling that something is wrong. He contacts Ethan to ask why he was not present at the card game. Ethan says that he forgot but that seems unlikely. Ethan says that he has run out of ideas looking for Bastiano’s stuff and he couldn’t find the person who built the Tower in Angylne. He tried going back to the Legendary Realm but found Abbie gone and the entire Bloodstone army missing. Abbie apparently took the entire army with her. Grant asks if he knows who ‘The Bloodstone Witch’ is and Ethan has no idea. Ethan is depressed and sick of this. He doesn’t know what to do. Grant asks when Ethan saw her last and Ethan admits that she effectively accused him of seeing Isabelle behind her back. Grant doesn’t tell Ethan that he has seen Abbie more recently than Ethan has. Instead he asks Ethan whether he plans to find Abbie, and is dismayed when Ethan again brushes it off, telling Grant that she can take care of herself.
- Grant tries to wayfind to more hedrons that Abbie was interested in. There is a vague direction back to Nexopolis but when he tries to find Abbie, it feels like she is off the Stair in a place not easily reachable. Grant contacts Ethan and tells him to find a hedron as they attract one another and may lead them to Abbie. Ethan sets off for Nexopolis.
- Back on Marindar, Grant organises a ball - he has not had a party in a long time. The ball lasts a few days and everyone is invited including Grant’s family and Ethan’s family. An immaculately dressed draconian named Aurelius attends on behalf of the Draconian Empire as a gesture of friendship. The Sorcerer-King Harlick the Red with an interest in trade also attends.
- Isabelle also attends. Even though Ethan joins in and enjoys Isabelle’s company, it is more than a little awkward. Even Ethan’s parents are asking about Abbie. It seems that no one, not Isabelle, not Lady Sophia, not Ethan have heard from her in some time. Feeling that something is seriously wrong, Ethan leaves the party early and heads to Meridian, Abbie’s homeworld, but she is not there. He begins hunting for her.
- After the party, Grant heads to Nexopolis to hire a deeva like Steeeeve to locate him another hedron. By this time, Ethan and Isabelle already have a lead. They have located Sybelle in Nexopolis and she has a hedron that she is willing to let them inspect Grant stays in a good hotel called Pinnacle while Bradley (another deeva) locates him a hedron. He is led to a shop owned by a four-armed green-skinned creature called Hox. This creature has large eyes and very little hair. This hedron is big - almost a foot long. Much larger than the other hedrons that one could palm in their hands.
- Grant asks Hox about the people who sold it to him. Apparently, this is not the first time that he has acquired a hedron. There were four humans, one with a cape - all in colourful attire. They didn’t identify with any of the Nexopolis Guilds so they came from outside. Another deeva named California facilitated the trade. 
- Hox warns that they sometimes ‘disappear’ - it is part of their charm. Grant buys the hedron from Hox and heads to the Pinnacle to inspect it. There, Grant reports to Drake that Sybelle is safe in Nexopolis. 
- Meanwhile Ethan spends time inspecting Sybelle’s hedron. Isabelle determines the name of the hedron using Invocation. It’s called a Zhedron. After comparing notes with Grant, they all decide to head to Isabelle’s own research laboratory which is a technomagical place clad in brass, ivory and white ceramic. Research continues and the decide that the Zhedron is part of something bigger. There is residual power within but not enough to trigger any effect as it stands. Ethan could give it a kick but he doesn’t know what would happen. Using Divination, Ethan determines that it would transport them somewhere else. 
- Grant decides that he needs to talk to Yaeger further about this and find out what he knows. He is clearly holding back information.