After the Fall

5S: “A Moment to Think”

5S.1: Hunt

Everyone meets up in Shaun’s office. He informs them that two days have passed since they entered the Tower, and they catch him up on what happened inside. He gives them the rewards they had agreed for visiting Mantovani, and for saving Hana — including a frightening four-armed suit of armour for Godric, that once belonged to the legendary knight Moneta.

Godric’s armour. Art of the Shrike from Dan Simmons’ Hyperion.

A message arrives from Howard telling the group to return to the guild at once, as the Rusty Duckling was robbed while they were away. They return to the pub and search the building, each finding something missing from their room: Godric’s fedora, a set of rigged dice belonging to Marvello, and a scroll of pedigree proving Maximus’s nobility, along with various sentimental items belonging to the other guild members.

In the morning, Mati and Maximus thoroughly search the grounds. They find, among various clues, a single shoe on the grass in the garden. Mati wild-shapes into a hyena and uses the shoe’s scent to track its owner. They follow horse tracks away from the Rusty Duckling, down the road towards Aemilia. About an hour’s travel into the forest they find signs of a recent campsite near the road and search it for clues but fail to find anything. They conclude the thief continued on to Aemilia, and finding them in the city would take too long. Maximus suggests paying someone in the city to scry using the shoe, but the party votes not to. He assesses the campsite, deducing the thief had military training and was used to living in forested environments. They head back to the guild.

“Oh, you guys are more magic than I thought. Meow.”

— Salazar, on detect magic.

Marvello heads into the city centre to meet Christian Lennox — owner of Christian and Son, the trading guild Marvello has been working with. Christian informs Marvello that they have made a lot of money from the stolen information Marvello gave them, and gives him a cut of the profits. He mentions that he received a threatening letter the day before, warning him not to deal with insider information. Marvello then takes some of the party with him to search shops around the city for their stolen items. They fail to find anything of them, but do find a trail of information pointing towards an individual asking around the underworld for anyone willing to target an adventuring guild. None of them recognise the description immediately, but talking to Howard later he identifies the man as Richard Pagan, owner of Pagan & Pagan Trading — the main competitor of Christian and Son.

Marvello leaves the others, wandering the city for some time before finding a tiny old bookshop. He enters and heads immediately for the third floor. He takes a random book from a random shelf — a small leather-bound diary, empty apart from a signature on the first page: ‘Phillip Allen’.

5S.2: Payback and Plot

Mati and Maximus go shopping together. Talon visits an armoursmith, and places an order for a set of plate armour with a custom silver and blue trim.

Later, the party assemble outside Pagan and Pagan trading. Marvello disguises himself as Richard Pagan’s doppelgänger to frighten the man and they enter. Marvello and Godric pretend to want to invest with his firm, and interrogate him about the firm’s dealings. Maximus asks if he has invested in any clothing businesses, and Godric starts crossing through random lines in Pagan’s files. Marvello brings up Christian and Son, and asks what Pagan’s opinion is of them — he replies that he thinks they’ve been using dishonest methods to play the market. Maximus mentions they have heard rumours the Pagan and Pagan company has been using intimidation tactics against their rivals. Godric loudly slams the door, and Pagan suddenly stands up, frightened and trying to flee. He runs into an adjacent room and tries to close the door, but Marvello stops it with his foot. Maximus casts suggestion, forcing Pagan to write a written confession for hiring someone to rob them. He tells them that the criminal was named Crag Hathson, a member of the Wayfarers, a criminal guild willing to risk the wrath of powerful adventuring guilds.

‘I, Richard Pagan, profusely apologise for hiring a man to steal a bunch of stuff from you.’

— Richard Pagan, on his crimes.

Marvello buys a very expensive pen, engraved with a quote from Theories on Metaphysics. He goes to a self-publishing organisation in the city and orders twenty-five copies of the book to distribute with an additional foreword of his own.

Everyone meets up back at the Rusty Duckling, and they decide to have a party to celebrate their recent successes. Maximus and Salazar sit down over a drink to talk. Salazar explains that he stays at the guild because he owes Howard for saving his life. He can’t remember how long he’s been alive, and dodges the question of why he can talk.

“How long? In terms of years, I’d say… longer than you’ve been alive, meow.” He laughs; a soft, airy chuckle more befitting of a Cheshire cat than a witch’s familiar. “Of course, I’ve only been me as long as I remember. But, in a sense, I was someone else before.” His eyes betray an amusement beyond that normal feline self-satisfaction. “In a sense, I suppose… a cat used to be me — and then, one day, I realised I was me. Meow.”

— Salazar, on immortality.

Marvello spends three hours talking to Howard about his theories on metaphysics. Towards the end of their conversation, a drunken Marvello notices something temporally significant about the Bag of Holding Mati is carrying. He climbs inside it and searches through the contents, eventually pricking his finger on a needle which transforms into a knotted tentacle tattoo on his arm — a spellwrought tattoo containing contact other plane.

As the sun sets, a raven-shaped form of hovering black smoke rattles the glass of Talon’s window with a scream. He open the window cautiously, and it speaks in an echoing voice: “Come! To the Tower! SQUAWK!”. He heads downstairs to the others, the party still going: Mati sits under a dartboard with an apple balanced on her head while Maximus tries to lap whiskey out of a cat bowl. He herds them out the door, and summons his glowing horse. They head to the Tower.

Shaun greets the party as they enter his office, telling them that Hana is awake. They find her sitting on the floor, leaning against a bookshelf, conscious but unresponsive. Shaun explains the information he gathered in Kolle: the city is preparing for war with Mercy Kamau, and the Tower Lord has been funding magical experiments at a site in the Adjacency — Altum Fortress. He argues with the party, intent that Maelor should be preparing for war too. Godric suggests allying with Silas, Talon suggests attempting diplomacy with Mercy Kamau, and Marvello suggests assassinating him — but Shaun dismisses them all, angry. He says talking to Mantovani could be useful, but still pressures the party into helping the city’s military prepare in any way they can. Hana suddenly speaks up, angrily telling him that mundane military preparation will never win them the war. Shaun storms out of the room.

“I don’t want to win, Godric. I want to not lose.”

— Shaun, on war.

“Would you shut up?! There’s more to war than building a fucking castle.”

— Hana, on Shaun, on war.

Talon asks Hana what she thinks they should do, and, moments later, realising that Shaun is gone, she explains: she thinks the best chance they have starts with investigating Silas. She explains that Shaun spoke with him from behind a paper screen, and he wanted to know why they hadn’t come to see him before, and why they hadn’t answered his letters. She says that they had been arguing about what to ask the party to do next before they arrived. Finally, she reports that Silas invited her, or any representatives of hers, to visit Altum Fortress and see their experiments. Marvello, hearing this, insists on going immediately, and some of the others agree to go with him. They decide to split the party, with another group going to Aemilia to check up on the Mantovanis and organise a defensive pact.