Today, we celebrate two things. First, Tim (Antok of the Storm Tribe) will be returning to us in only one week! Second, we welcome some new people: Billy (Sai'aggo) and Breanna. And of course, all of the usual criminals show up: Chris (Gruul), Paul (Marik), Chuck (Galen) and Bruce.
The session starts on the 118th day of the 3085th Stay.
The session starts as the characters walk up to the gates of Doorway City, having covered most of the journey by flying carpet. Along the way, they have a discussion on why any Faian would ever want to work for the thrux, particularly considering that Gua Far agents have apparently carried off and enslaved many Faians. Galen suggests that they might be operating on the same philosophy as black military units fighting for the confederacy. Nobody else understands what he's talking about, highlighting the cavalier way public education in Yaggo's Boat ignores the importance of the American Civil War.
Marik is uninterested in political discussions, and entertains himself by chatting with other folk on the road. He comments to one passer-by, "Would you say you're a coward? My friend hates cowards. He kills them." He offers a meaningful glance up towards Gruul. The traveler quickens his step to get away from the characters.
The characters find that the Doorway City gates are guarded by effective-looking guards, backed up with archers and three fellows wearing the insignia of Aspirants of the Ecularium. The sergeant on duty takes quick note of the fact that the characters are armed to the teeth and ushers them aside. He explains that the Electors of the city have recently issued a decree requiring all visitors who are skilled in arms or sorcery to sign a pledge asserting that they will not work against the persons, interests and sovereignty of the Electors or of Doorway City during their stay. He indicates a scribe sitting off to one side of the gate and orders them to sign the pledge.
Nobody gives the sergeant or the scribe any trouble except Gruul, who asks if "Mournful Sara" is one of the Electors. The scribe says that she isn't. Gruul makes his mark, whereupon Marik comments, "Maybe that's just a nickname!" Gruul slaps his head: "Doh!" Gruul then goes on to explain that his mark isn't legally binding because demeks normally sign contracts with their scent glands...
The characters decide to head to Jomon's townhouse to stay. On the way, they continue to debate: should they kill Mournful Sara, or give her the Gyre? Marik, rather surprisingly, suggests that storming into her night-dark lair and getting through her armies of undead would be much too difficult. Gruul, who had thought that Marik's fondness for the Gyre would put him firmly in the "Kill them all!" camp, offers the more diplomatic plan of asking her for some additional consideration when the characters bring her the Gyre. Marik, whom everyone now realizes is just spooked by the idea of fighting things that are already dead, waffles: "What if she says, 'That's not the deal we agreed to' and has her minions kill us?" Gruul suggests that personal danger could be avoided by having someone else deliver the message. Galen's sarcastic tones bring a touch of reality back to the discussion, as he asks the others, "And who exactly would we hire as a messenger? Who around here is going to want to take a trip up into the spooky necromancer's place to drop off a letter?"
Jomon is quite happy to see the characters back in Doorway City, even if his servants aren't. He feeds them leftovers and recent news, and asks them about their adventures. The characters entertain Jomon with two-fisted tales of their adventures in Parcyclus' Castle. They pointedly refrain from mentioning the Gyre or the Maker-Thing. The omissions don't seem to bother Jomon much. In return, he tells the characters all the local news, which amounts to everything in the section below. Jomon goes on and on about the filth-collectors who have vanished, as it's getting much harder for him to find good help. The characters are much more concerned about the requirement that they place their names upon the Militia List.
Jomon indicates that he'd be happy to have one of his servants take them down to the Electors' Palace in the morning. Marik cautions that the characters probably shouldn't threaten the scribes at the Palace when they sign their names.
Everyone has a peaceful night, except Gruul, who was first forced to wash, and then to sleep in a bed. And then there were the terrible, terrible dreams.
The next morning, the characters follow one of Jomon's servants to the Electors' Palace to sign their names to the Militia List (they enter Jomon's house as their current address), then head off to talk to the bausker smith Ulgutulgun.
The characters ask Ulgutulgun if he can find relatives who can make a detailed drawing of an object, and possibly an exact copy. Specifically, a drawing and a copy of the Parcyclan Gyre. They also ask if he knows anyone who would be willing to act as a messenger up to Mournful Sara's lair. They suggest that flellings would be nice, as their previous dealings with the creatures have convinced them that the creatures are none too bright. Ulgutulgun says he can find someone who do the artisan and draftswork, but it'll take him a day. He also promises to try and find some flellings for the characters, even though he thinks they're mean and harsh. Gruul reassures him, "We're mean and harsh too..."
Ulgutulgun is eventually able to tell the characters that it will cost them 100 clavars to get a quality diagram and a bill of materials for the Parcyclan Gyre, and another 200 clavars for the replica. He promises that the replica will be good enough that it won't be distinguishable from the original except in a side-by-side comparison. Gruul and Galen quickly hand over the money.
Their business with Ulgutulgun finished, the characters head over to his grandmother Yachircuchek's shop to buy some potions. They notice that there are quite a lot of sick bauskers outside the building. They deduce from the creatures' horrible liquidly wheezy breathing that they are afflicted by the lung-sucker plague. Some of the characters have heard rumors that the foul-robed magicians from the Red Tower have been prowling through the poor neighborhoods of Doorway City, spreading the disease.
It takes the characters a while to actually talk to Yachircuchek. Once inside, they find out that her stock consists of:
Marik buys two Chiron potions at Gruul's insistence (he is concerned that he might not have enough money for a suitably nice cloak pin if he spends it on healing magic first), then promptly rushes off on his own business. Galen buys the Achilles, one Hermes and one Chiron potion. Gruul buys two Heracles potions, one Hermes potion, and five Chiron potions. They thank Yachircuchek, pay her handsomely, and head out on their way.
Galen happens to hear an interesting story in a café: a Faian archer named Joven arrived in the city with a couple of mean-looking Yaggo's Ascendancy monks ten days ago. One of the monks got into a fight at the Leaping Pandith and demonstrated some spells nobody had ever seen before.
Marik can hardly wait to get on about his own shopping expedition. He first finds himself at a paurkend jeweler's, looking for a new cloak-pin. He is examining the stock when he encounters a Yaggo human trying to pass off a piece of cheap paste as a valuable brooch. Marik notices that the jeweler is making jokes at the fellow's expense. Marik finds that he cannot resist walking over to take a look at the piece. It is a cheap bit of work, without style or artistry and worth at most three clavars. The Yaggo human, who introduces himself as Sai'aggo, is asking twenty-five. It takes Marik only a moment to agree to his terms. He then turns about and starts discussing how to improve the piece with the paurkend jeweler, who still doesn't understand that Marik is serious. By the end of it, the paurkend has agreed to encrust the piece with gold and gemstones, mount it on a gold plate adorned with a little propeller, and hook the whole thing to three gold chains so it can be worn as a necklace. Marik cheerfully pays the 1000 clavars the paurkend asks, and frets over whether or not he will be able to wait the five days it will take to complete.
Listening to his story later on, Gruul asks Mari "Let me get this straight. This is a paurkend jeweler? With the stubby fingers?" Marik: "Yes." Gruul: "The only way he could be worse at his job is to have no hands at all." Galen is barely kinder: "Maybe he's just a salesman, and he pays bauskers to do the work."
Marik explains to his newfound friend that he needs to go buy a new wardrobe now, as his current clothing is covered in blood, shredded, and covered with zombie bits, soot and dirt. He invites Sai'aggo to come along.
Sai'aggo explains that he's currently unemployed and thus shy of funds. Marik mentions that he's just come back from the Garden, where one of his companions was killed by an acidic mud-creature. Sai'aggo, who has seen his own share of disaster recently, reacts strongly: "How tragic!" Marik is dismissive, much more interested in finding a suitable tailor: "Yes, whatever."
The two of them go off to buy a new wardrobe for Marik, who spends 1200 clavars on five sets of clothing. Rather surprisingly, Sai'aggo helps restrain Marik's spendthrift tendencies, keeping the total expenses low.
In the course of shopping, Marik tells Sai'aggo that he and some of his friends are planning on venturing up to talk to Mournful Sara, and would be interested in having someone else along for support. He also suggests that if Sai'aggo can convince his other companions of his worth, he might be able to persuade them to let the Yaggo human join in their future escapades. In spite of the obvious hazards of the job, Sai'aggo finds himself offering to join up with Marik.
Sai'aggo tells the characters his story over dinner at Joven's townhouse. He explains that he was a resident of a town in the Garden, a town predominantly inhabited by Yaggo humans. He was wakened from hibernation only a few days ago to find a band of vicious raiders carting off everyone in town. He thinks that they were working for the thrux. He hates the thrux. He fled the town, only barely managing to escape their clutches.
Galen listens to this story, then whispers to Gruul, "Let's not mention that we just sold a lot of weapons to those guys." Marik offers the more useful comment that the characters saw that happening to the city of Dith Lun. Marik then launches off into a strange philosophical tangent, suggesting that a Yaggo human shouldn't have to join the militia because he is "of the boat", and beyond the petty troubles of Outsiders like the paurkend, gaurmen and Sangorn humans. Jomon asks if Marik hurt himself in his last trip into the Garden.
The conversation moves towards how the characters should prosecute their grudge against Joven. Sai'aggo asks why the characters hate the fellow so much. He is told that it mainly has to do with the fact that he planted a bunch of arrows in their chests, and that they subsequently killed his employer.
The group eventually heads out of Jomon's place to check out the Leaping Pandith. The place is a public house set directly on the Electors' Plaza, but it doesn't appear to be the sort of public house that features happy people, merry musicians, and pleasant open-air seating on the plaza. Instead, it seems to cater to demoralized foreigners, many of them apparently Sangorn refugees from Prince Gufteng's recent conquest of Sayoch Bounty.
The characters decide to send Sai'aggo in first to scout the place out. He is easily able to recognize Tulg and Bok, the two Yaggo Ascendancy monks, from their distinctively-colored robes and odd skin decorations. Both of them are Sangorn humans. He watches as they play an exceptionally slow-moving game involving a series of black ivory octagons arranged on the table between them. He can see that each octagonal piece is painted with unfamiliar runes. Ever so often, one of the monks reaches out to move one of the octagons. Even less often, one of them picks up an octagon and removes it from the table.
He watches until he gets bored, then reports back to the rest of the group (who are busily enjoying themselves at a much happier tavern down the plaza). Marik listens to his description of the monks' activities then exclaims, "I know that game! That's a really boring game!" It turns out that the runes on the pieces are representations of phrases taken from the Yaggo Scrolls. The entire game is based on assembling ritualized challenge-and-response sequences from the positions of the octagons. The best thing that can be said about it is that it develops a keen sense of theological discipline.
Sai'aggo returns to the Leaping Pandith to chat with some other folks. He quickly determines that talking to the Sangorn refugees is very, very depressing. He runs through several of them before managing to get into a conversation with a bausker stonecarver. In contrast to the refugees' endless stories of woe and despair, the bausker's enthusiastic descriptions of his swarming relatives are a positive joy. Sai'aggo finally manages to get the bausker to describe what happened when the monks first arrived. The bausker claims that a local goon tried to hassle the two monks as they played their game. They ignored him until he took some of their game pieces and walked away. One of the monks stood up, adopted a martial pose, and crossed the room to strike the goon down so fast that nobody saw him move. After that, nobody bothered the monks. The bausker also recognizes Joven from Sai'aggo's description. He says that the Faian archer seemed very unhappy, and talked about joining the city militia.
The Yaggo Ascendancy are not nearly as popular as more mainstream faiths like the Church of Yaggo the Redeemer. The Yaggo Ascendants believe that Yaggo is specifically manifest in certain people, items and places. They are often very severe in their outlook, and normally practice ascetic disciplines. Most Yaggo Ascendant monasteries are in isolated, desolate areas. They are particularly opposed by the slightly more prevalent Yaggo Hidden faction, who believe that the essence of Yaggo is hidden in all things, and with true faith and discipline it can be seen and embraced by all.
With a relatively promising lead on Joven's whereabouts, the characters decide to put off their trip to see Mournful Sara for another day so they can go talk to Captain Umuk at the Tower of Seven Shouts.
They find that the recruiting apparat of Doorway City's military is in full display. They arrive at the tower to find that the soldiers manning it are practically expecting them. They merely wave the receipts they got at the Electors' Palace for signing the Militia List at the guard and are shown to the second floor of the tower, where the Captain maintains an office in a converted storeroom.
Captain Umuk turns out to be a square-jawed Yaggo human. He is very blunt: the first thing he asks the characters is, "You want to hire into the militia?" It turns out that Doorway City pays it's soldiery 10 clavars a day, or 30 clavars to masters. The characters are none too impressed with this pay scale, even though Marik (clad in a green striped tunic and an orange cloak) tries to claim, "I am a master of camouflage!" Galen backs up his assertion, stating that, "We couldn't find him at all during Mardi Gras." Captain Umuk is not impressed.
The characters finally admit that they're really just looking for an old army buddy named Joven, who probably signed up in the last ten days or so. Captain Umuk consults his books and tells them that Joven did enlist as a Master Archer, and has been assigned to the Iron-Talon Eagles under Captain Turo. His unit is guarding the Great-Crossing Bridge.
The characters thank the Captain and depart. They debate the wisdom of continuing to hunt Joven down until Gruul decides that they've already ruined the guy's life. After all, he's sunk so low as to have to join the Doorway City militia to make ends meet. The characters go on their way.
Having put off their trip to the Sours as long as they can, the characters finally decide to go and see Mournful Sara. They take the same route they took the last time they went to see her, and notice that the disheveled Turk is still lolling about at the foot of the first stairway. When he sees where they're heading, he once again calls out, "Yer gwan' get yerselfs fuckn' kill'd..." He gets no farther, as Marik cuts him off with a quick Madness spell, driving him into a catatonic stupor.
The walk up to the eighth level of the Stack is miserable and spooky. As before, the characters first see the occasional undead rat and skeletonized lizard scampering about in the shadows, then see a few zombie guardsmen, then are finally surrounded by a milling horde of armored zombies. They wait until one of the spider-constructs appears and agrees to take them to see his mistress.
The spider-construct leads the characters up to the undead forge. Marik makes a point of telling Sai'aggo all about how Mournful Sara uses zombies to fashion various crude iron objects. He is almost gleeful when he sees yet another zombie catch fire at one of the forges, making sure that Sai'aggo sees the creature stand about stupidly as it burns into ash. The characters notice that Mournful Sara has become concerned with this problem, as there are several zombies equipped with large whisk brooms moving through the chamber, sweeping up the remains of their incinerated comrades. Gruul grumbles, "Her concern is heartwarming."
Two spider-constructs escort the characters beyond the forge into her outer audience chamber. Marik tells the other characters, "I'm not concerned! I'm much more powerful now!" Gruul whispers back, "That's the gyre talkin', boy!"
The characters are finally stopped by a strangely rotund fellow who seems to slosh back and forth as he moves. He introduces himself as Abbek Choff, one of Mournful Sara's lieutenants. He verifies that they have the Gyre, then holds out an arm that seems a poorly-fitting glove of fluid-filled skin worked over his skeleton. He gashes himself on one of the Gyre's spines. Blood oozes from the wound and sags down the sides of the Gyre with molasses slowness. Abbek Choff explains to the characters that he knows the nature of the Gyre, and has just discharged whatever power they might have left in it. He explains that it will be left in the outer chamber while the characters speak to Mournful Sara in the inner chamber, for her safety. Marik reflects that he no longer has any desire to cut himself upon the Gyre, at least until it is washed.
Mournful Sara proves to be quite happy to see that the characters have brought her the Gyre, and offers them a choice of gifts by way of thanks. The characters are allowed to select two of the items she offers. They pick Chiugu's Axe and a set of five Tongue-Twisting Circlets. She suggests that she might be willing to offer them some of the other items in exchange for future tasks (the other items offered include the True-Stepping Sandals of Ulla and the book Victorious Steps of Chungon Hof).
She also agrees to interrogate Igway Rufo's pickled head if the characters will take a message down to the Electors' Palace for her.
Chiugu's Axe is a Fine Axe enchanted with +1 Accuracy and +1 Puissance, originally made for the gaurman noble Chiugu.
A Tongue-Twisting Circlet looks like a simple copper circlet, it's surface decorated with strangely ornate carvings. The wearer becomes able to speak and understand a strange, long-dead language (thought to be the speech of the Chutu people, vanished from Yaggo's Boat before the 2000th Voyage), but loses the ability to speak or understand any other language. The wearer's skill in Chutu is equal to her best language skill, and she gains literacy in Chutu as well if she possesses the Literacy advantage. The wearer is also completely immune to language magics (e.g., translation or borrow language spells). The effect vanishes the instant the Circlet is removed, with all of the wearer's former skills returning and all understanding of Chutu vanishing. Several Tongue-Twisting Circlets are known to exist, and they are often found in groups.
Mournful Sara uses her necromantic powers to call back Igway Rufo's anima into his severed head. Thanks in part to the power of the Gyre, she is able to sustain the spell long enough to let the characters ask three questions:
The session ends as the characters depart Mournful Sara's realm. Each character gains three experience points (except for those characters who are still gaining at double rate to catch up with the rest of the group). It is nearing the end of the 121st day of the 3085th Stay.