The normal group is all in attendance: Nick (Mungo), Chris (Pawnbroker), and Tim (Laerynthe). In addition, Doug has rejoined the group. He is playing Lascivious Bosst, a sorcerer from Paiden.
Lascivious was an aspiring member of the Bosst Family and a talented mage until the rise of Anpago Bosst crushed his ambitions. He is now a marginal member of the Bosst Family, still able to impress and influence those outside the Family with his name, but functionally powerless within the Bosst Family itself. His magical powers are divided between healing and elemental spells, with a particular emphasis upon electrical effects (Lightning Bolt and Ball of Lightning).
As the session begins, it is the middle of the High Hot Season of Abbatine Year 856. The characters are in Hegger, in their relatively low-rent dwelling, when Peppis Akowa and Lascivious Bosst appear on their doorstep, near dead of exhaustion. Peppis Akowa is a courier (ranked as a Translator) of the Translator's Guild who knows the Quick March spell. The two of them had departed from Paiden some ten days earlier and mercilessly used Peppis' skills to reach Hegger in near-record time.
Peppis brings news of unrest and troubles in Paiden, and a specific request. He says that hundreds of folk from Mardaka have appeared around Paiden, but that the reasons for their appearance are not known. Tharrish and Qell speakers are needed badly to unravel the mystery and learn if there is any serious threat to Paiden. Because Pawnbroker is both a known speaker of Tharrish and once a resident of Mardaka, he is requested to return to Paiden immediately and report to the Translators' Guild to render aid. As a further inducement, Tolodio Abbas sends word that there are 1500 challock waiting at Riveredge for Pawnbroker and Laerynthe.
The characters consult with the local Abbas Family factor. He tells them that a boat is scheduled to leave Three Stones Ford bound for Riveredge in four days. If the characters can reach Three Stones Ford before it leaves, they can get passage upon it. The characters give Peppis and Lascivious a day to rest, then head out towards Three Stones Ford.
The characters arrive in Riveredge on day 290 of Abbatine Year 856, some four weeks into the Low Hot Season. The find Riveredge much changed from their last visit, over two years ago. The settlement now has a wooden pier with space for several boats, and a few permanent warehouses. It also has a stone Counting-House at the center of town. However, most of the town is still composed of ramshackle wood and mut huts. Even worse, an area almost four times the size of the settlement proper has been rudely deforested and is now occupied by hundreds, possibly thousands, of Holy City human refugees.
The characters meet with Tolodio Abbas, who still runs Riveredge, in his office at the Counting-House. Tolodio calls a turgosk servant for refreshments, then leave the characters for a moment to fetch their money from the vault.
While Tolodio is gone, Pawnbroker gets into a fight with Tolodio's somewhat disrespectful turgosk servant by insulting and goading him. Pawnbroker waits until the turgosk charges him with claws bared, then uses judo to throw him around. Laerynthe ends the fight by wrapping the servant's head in the coma blanket. After this, Pawnbroker beats the servant severely until Tolodio appears with two heavily-armed turgosk guards. Laerynthe plays the voice of reason, persuading Lascivious to heal the turgosk and Pawnbroker before removing the blanket. Laerynthe gives the turgosk 20 challock before Tolodio dismisses him.
After this incident, Tolodio is much more reserved towards the characters, and makes certain that he is always accompanied by two heavily-armed and armored turgosk guards while he is in the characters' presence. He brings 1500 challock for the characters (proceeds from the trade route). The money is split three ways among Pawnbroker, Laerynthe and Mungo (who gets Messerbad's share).
Tolodio tells the characters about his triumphs (notably the stone Counting-House) and his challenges. He bemoans the fact that his Counting-House had to be built like a fortress. He is also troubled by the crowds of Holy City humans in camp outside Riveredge. Their Food-maker had them uproot trees, then converted the trunks into food with magic. Since their arrival, fights with Dellemoi adapoi have killed some refugees, but nobody knows really how many. Tolodio was initially tolerant to the Holy City humans' presence, but then was forced to order his turgosk to kill refugees in Riveredge on sight after he found them stealing food and causing trouble.
During the characters' meeting with Tolodio, a great flash of light is seen outisde, from the direction of the Edge of the World. Tolodio mentions that this has become a fairly regular phenomenon, but nobody knows what is causing it. The first flash was seen a few days after the first groups of refugees arrived around Riveredge.
Tolodio provides the characters with an escort of four turgosk to beyond the edge of the refugees' camps to ensure that there is no trouble. The actual trip to Paiden takes three days and is fairly uneventful, save for an encounter with two Dellemoi adapoi trailing the group. The two adapoi are also concerned about the presence of the Holy City humans, and enquire as to what action the characters intend to take. The characters promise to take word of the adapoi concern to Paiden.
The characters do note that the trail has become much more heavily-used than it was on their last trip. There are now distinct wagon-ruts and indications of many caravans passing.
As the characters approach Paiden, they note that there are huge muddy flats of refugees around the city, on both sides of the river. A cloud of soot hangs over whole city, created by the peat fires burned by the refugees. The outlying plantations have been fortified, and are surrounded by paranoid-looking guards in sentry posts. The characters also pass one plantation (formerly owned by the Faiai) that has been wrecked & occupied by refugees. There are Bosst troops guarding the ferry docks and troops on the ferries. The charge to cross the river is 2 challock, plus 10 challock "Public Safety Tax". The characters complain about the cost, but pay the money. Pawnbroker speculates that the additional tax may simply be intended to pay for the guards necessary to protect the ferry dock, but that it may instead be a cynical effort on the part of the Bosst Family to use the current crisis situation to increase their own power and influence.
The characters' home in Paiden is still intact. The cook greets them, and inquires how many they'll have for dinner. Pawnbroker gives her 30 challock, tells them that there will be six or seven for dinner, and asks for a meat stew. She comments that there are some leaks in the roof, so Pawnbroker gives her another 20 challock to fix them (not currently a problem, given that it's the end of the Hot Season).
After stopping by their home, the characters proceed to the Translators' Guild and an audience with Kobus Akowa, the Senior Master Translator (and the right hand of the Guildmaster). Kobus is missing some teeth, and is fairly elderly. He speaks with a whispering lisp, due to his missing teeth. Peppis fetches food: stewed mushrooms, fried sparrows and jaya, while Kobus goes through the current situation facing Paiden:
Pawnbroker tells Kobus about the Holy City and some of the unique aspects of the place. In particular, he describes how the Holy City itself is nothing more than a huge collection of stone ruins and debris, inhabited by human wreckage who depend upon their Food-makers to magically synthesize food from the dirt itself.
Kobus (and, he claims, the Patriarch's Council behind him) needs the characters to investigate and communicate. He wants them to do this as a service to the city of Paiden. Pawnbroker asks for some help: food, supplies, a dozen houga and four heavily armed turgosk that don't mind eating people. Kobus explains that the best place to find such vicious turgosk is from among the miners hired by the Veka Family. It will take about a week for the Veka to get them.
Over the next week, Lascivious makes five doses of blade venom. 50 challock in materials, inflicts 1d damage, or 3d if a HT roll is not made. The effects of the poison manifest in 2d seconds.
Laerynthe searches the prisons to talk to Holy City humans in the jails beneath the city walls. He interviews one Living Weapon and a Food-maker in a tower jail. The Living Weapon attempts to throw Truthsayer upon him several times (failing due to Laerynthe's Magic Resistance), but does tell Laerynthe how Holy City society works: Food-makers guide their Plazas, with Living Weapons as their arms and the Folk (or, to the Living Weapon's eyes, the Scum) at the bottom. The Living Weapon insists that his people can live anywhere, and is generally fairly unreasonable. The Living Weapon does cast Truthsayer upon the guard standing nearby, causing the guard to utter some surprisingly embarassing things. Laerynthe gives the guard permission to kill him for this. The guard cheerfully obeys.
After the guards drag off the dead Living Weapon, they bring in the "fat one" (a female Food-maker named Abanga). She is very patient. She explains that the Tale-tellers don't really fit into the Holy City society proper. Instead, they travel between Plazas bearing news, stories and information. She describes how the Living Weapons have a very narrow, focused view of the world. Laerynthe strives for an understanding with her. She talks of the succulent beasts and plants of Paiden, but says that her people have lost the arts of building their own Plazas. Laerynthe wants to relocate her people to a new city that they can build, and wants them to make a new life away from Paiden.
Abanga also tells the characters about Lindo, of Lindo's Plaza, who was definitely a Spyral Devotee, in response to Laerynthe's questions about how to recognize Spyral Devotees. Abanga also knows that Lindo was killed by Mardaka's Angels, but she thinks many of the people of Lindo's Plaza are also Spyral Devotees.
Curras' shantytown has been swallowed by Holy City humans. Pawnbroker and Mungo try to locate Curras the Esoteric. They start by examining Curras' old dwelling and find that it has been appropriated by a lot of Holy City folk. They don't find much of Curras' stuff, and don't find a body. One of the residents tells Pawnbroker that the original resident did a lot of damage before he went to the city.
Pawnbroker then returns to Paiden and hires a lot of urchins to go through the streets calling Curras' name. Two days later, he shows up just before dinnertime. Pawnbroker gives him a place in the attic. Curras offers to identify non-threatening items for them for free in return (and do other minor magical tricks). Curras thoroughly enjoys dinner ("I haven't eaten like this for thirty years!").
The characters meet with their four turgosk aides: Shokek, Kuchok, Pakak and Takok. All four are tough-looking customers, and two of them (Kuchok and Takok) admit that they'd eat a dead human before they'd eat a duck. They formerly worked for the Veka Family as miners.
The characters, escorted by their four turgosk, head out into the refugee camps and start asking about folk from Lindo's Plaza. They quickly find that a group of them have occupied a destroyed plantation near the lower edge of the refugee camps.
The characters approach the complex, painfully aware of the fact that the whole area is dominated by crude huts and tents occupied by Holy City folk. They find a total of fifteen lobrun slaves, still chained in their outbuildings (with a couple of nearby bodies indicating that the Holy City folk did attempt to remove the lobrun, without much success). The fields around and behind the complex have been completely ravished and are now occupied by masses of Holy City folk.
The characters quickly encounter a group of Living Weapons who gather around them with an attention to cover that suggest that they have already encountered troops from Paiden armed with crossbows. The Living Weapons attack in two waves, first by sneaking behind one of the slaves' outbuildings, then by using their powers to turn invisible and using Stun spells to disrupt the characters' defense. Their attacks are generally unsuccessful.
Pawnbroker then identifies one Living Weapon near the back of the group with a strange look to him. Theorizing that he is probably a Spyral Devotee, Pawnbroker taunts him into accepting a challenge to single combat. The Living Weapon accepts. Pawnbroker then proceeds to cheat, slowly backing the Living Weapon into the other characters who incapacitate him by cutting his leg off and wrapping him in the coma blanket.
After their leader is captured, the remaining Living Weapons charge. Eight of them are put to sleep by Lascivious' Mass Sleep spell, and several of the the remainder are slain by Mungo and Laerynthe, while the turgosk beat a rapid retreat with the characters' captive. By the end, the remaining Living Weapons retreat into a mass of Holy City folk while the characters make a fighting retreat back to the river and the safety of Paiden.
The characters go back to the Translator's Guild in Paiden with their captive wrapped safely in the coma blanket. They know that he has been badly wounded (reduced to -17 HT, needing to make two HT rolls to avoid death). Kobus Akowa arranges for two more magicians with Major Healing. They help Lascivious to throw three Major Healing spells on him the instant the coma blanket is removed, returning him to health (admittedly less one leg).
The characters give each of the turgosk five challock and let them know that they may be needed again in the near future. Each character gains four experience points.
| ST 11 | Move/Dodge 5 |
| DX 13 | PD/DR (2+3)/2 |
| IQ 10 | Parry/Block 7 (spear)/7 (shield) |
| HT 12 |
Turgosk race (claws, enhanced move, night vision, +1 acute vision, others)
Spear-14, Shield-14, Stealth-13, Brawling-15
Spear (imp 1d+2), Medium Shield (PD 3), Leather Armor (PD 2, DR 2)
| ST 12 | Move/Dodge 5 |
| DX 12 | PD/DR 0/0 |
| IQ 13 | Parry/Block 11 (karate) |
| HT 11 |
Holy City Human race (magery), Combat Reflexes, High Pain Threshold
Acrobatics-16, Karate-15
Feint-17, Hit Location-14 (+2 to hit target location)
Invisibility-12, Lend ST-12, Might-12, Pain-12, Resist Pain-12, Shield-12, Stun-12
none
Lead Living Weapon has Karate-16 and skill-15 in all spells.