Half a crisp spring

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Half a crisp spring (Sequel to Liberty of County Palatine of Borovia. Also references A large concern)
GM: Jono
Season: Spring 819 wk
Night: Monday night Albany at Kelsies place
Area: Alusia
Level: High+
Info: Information from players for Jono
Playtest: 47 - Thief - Version 3.0 A and 33 - Assassin skill 3.0 A1 Healer skill 3.0B

Dramatis Personae

• Caprice - Thaumaturge - played by Kelsie
• Roderigo
• Cher
• Keshah
• Starflower - played by Jacqui
• Aqualina - Aquamancer - played by Keith

Employer

Two agents for the Summer King - Mr Wheat, & Miss Ink.

Mission

A group of adventurers, in good standing, skilled in the art of shaping time is needed to assist the Summer King.

Something has happened to the elemental twins.

Understanding, recovery and restoration may be needed.

To steal a potion from a Drow leader on a date.

To place the stolen potion in a specific teapot in a house in Seagate on a date at a time in the near past.

To stop one of the Drow spies (who works for Sitri) in Seagate on a date at a time in the near past.

To deliver a message to the Elvish Ambassador in Seagate on a date in the past.

Payment

Training of special skills. A small bar of silver (5,000sp).

Scribe Notes

Session 1

Our party employers for this mission were Mr Wheat and Miss Ink – not their real names but that was necessary. They told us that we were going to take a rune portal to appear within a ring of standing stones in Brandenburg then travel north, roughly twenty miles to meet up with their boss – Ambrus, the current incarnation of the Summer King.

Discussions resulted in Starflower being the Military Scientist, Caprice being the Party Leader, and I took on the role of Scribe (nobody else wanted to do it). Rodrigo threw his hat into the ring for leader which forced a vote. Cher also admitted she ‘glowed’ in dim light conditions that could mess up being stealthy.

After the meeting I obtained a Rank 15 Greater, in all areas, from Hirkim, picked up a six pack of Waters of Healing that I had made earlier, before finding the others in the Guild Courtyard where the usual Guild Day hawkers were in attendance. Rodrigo was attempting to get me to give him Waters of Healing in exchange for doing my tribal tattoos. Meanwhile Starflower purchased four restoratives, then got attracted to a halfling selling what he claimed were ‘luck kittens’. Nature of Magic – Misdirection. I would have gotten one but, because of Rodrigo, I missed out. Caprice, Starflower and Rodrigo got one each and I also discovered there were no restoratives left. Sigh.

Caprice covered us in illusions of ourselves(R20 disguises), except Cher who was given an illusion of a human and we set off out of the Guild along with our employers. Other buffs we had on were Waterbreathing(R20), Waterproofing(R8), Cold Resistances(R12), Ice Traversals(R20) while Starflower ensured we were all in a Mind Speech network.

The rune portal was located not far from the Guild and hidden in a copse of trees. Touching the portal zapped us to the standing stones The area was covered with fog but that soon parted revealing a landscape of rolling hills and meadows. Going through the portal had been rather draining so we stopped near a brook in the long grass and Starflower started making some refreshing tea. Rodrigo offered to share some ‘special sausages’ he had.

While tea was brewing up, we could hear the sounds of horses hooves. What we could see were horsemen that appeared to be sweeping the long grass as if looking for something. The odd thing was that the grass had withered a bit in their wake and ... did part of the horse momentarily vanish? Once we had determined they were some sort of spectral vampires, we carefully abandoned that area and snuck more northwards a few hundred or so yards.

It looked they were preparing to battle so we carefully prepared for combat as well. I even gave Keshah a Waters of Strength. However, it turned out they wanted to parley. So Rodrigo spoke to them using Ventriloquism.

It appears they want our assistance and told us that they were from our future and wanted to talk to us about people we were yet to kill. They explicitly referenced ‘the short one’ and a fate that he can avoid. Once we agreed to parley, the rest of the spectral horsemen backed off and a crack of thunder was heard as he dismissed his ‘minions’.

He introduced himself as Mellum and told us he had a master, and his master is (will be?) at odds with Rodrigo. The master lairs in Morgor’s Fortress and it was decided that we would refer to this entity as ‘The Mistress’ Seems to have something to do with Time Travelling Tunnels.

He them told us that we should attack on W’ansday instead of Th’rsday in order to survive. To illustrate that he held up a very familiar looking head. When Rodrigo saw that, he nearly fainted on the spot and his kitten died. Seemed it took the death that he would have got, caused by meeting his future dead self. It was decided we would meet up again with him after we spoke with our employer in case there proved to be a conflict of interest.

We continued north. Three hours of walking through grassy meadows we reached the back of a two story inn sitting on an east/west road. It was the only building here but there were corrals nearby. This was the Ambruse Inn. Before we went in, Caprice handed out amulets that would prevent us ‘from freezing if she backfires but don’t wear them in the time tunnels’.

Going through the door, we stepped down a few steps to floor level into a large room that had a ten foot ceiling stud. We met up with a small wizened woman called Heddy but when Cher started glowing from the waist down, she immediately threw her out. I wasn’t too happy with that and ‘volunteered’ to sit outside with Cher to keep her company. Meanwhile Rodrigo was told he needed his crassness fixed while she served the others summer beer.

While we sat outside, a young man floated down from the sky and, even though I had never seen him before he seemed to think I had. His past my future? He told us he was one of the Elemental Twins before entering the inn and joining the others at their table. He told them that the other twin is missing, or will be in two hours or maybe they’re missing now. So he wanted them to go and observe the other twin go missing. That was when Starflower discovered they weren’t currently on Alusia and maybe outside of the normal timeline. The twin here also seemed to be interested that I’m here. Meanwhile people at the other table were planning an event to occur in a few days, some sort of festival. A travelling carnival was due in a few days as well and it sounded like that they were catering for several hundred people.

After they were conducted to rooms, Cher and I were conducted around the side of the inn and to a patio where the others were. Six young men were there assembling the spits.

Ambrus and the twin showed up and we were told that he had a problem which had occurred by now. We had to find out what happened and fix it. We were also supposed to go back to are particular point in time and recover an item. Fortunately the date fell on a W’ansday. Ambrus believed that the disappearance is an attack. He then explained that we had to obtain an extremely slippery potion and which was in a teapot. To make the situation more interesting, the potion itself wasn’t actually there and contained a Great Lie. He had a small bottle which we had to leave in the teapot when we steal the Great Lie. There is also a drow priest lurking in Seagate that we need to get rid of – preferably by Caprice. The priest was hanging around to see who does the potion swap in order to go back and do something about it. We also need to pick up luggage for Kitty and Purr (I’ve been wanting to meet those two). Finally we were told to take some strands of ‘stuff’, which I suspected were something to do with the Fates. Then the twin slid some sort of lock mechanism over to Roderigo.

Session 2

Starflower, Cher, and Caprice noticed that the physical characteristics of the twin have been changing over time, presumably for the worse. That was when and elvish ranger, Rabbo, arrived. He told us that his Queen had sent him to help us. He was also known as Fleetfoot, and was versed in E&E magic, mountains and giants.

Anyway, the twin, told us his name was Carase, although that may be a name given to the both of them. Individually, he had been called Verity, Custard (by his father), and Gwyllian. The other twin was also a Charm but more of a muse so her names were Dance, Cass, Raven, Betsy and Twister. All that he knew that he had woke up one morning and felt everything had changed. He was in Seagate at the time and it was only a bit later that he realised his twin was missing. The last time that they had been together was in their Temple. To make matters worse he was cursed with aging,

Rodrigo tried a Locate on the missing twin, outside of the inn so that we were actually on Alusia, and got an arrow that pointed roughly north and the range had to be within 150 miles. That put the target somewhere in Glissom, maybe in the foothills of the Pagan Mountains. Out there was also Morgor’s Lair, the Time Dragon, and the Time Tunnels.

After that, we went to see those undead we had met up with before. It was past dusk by now and, we soon discovered a group of three people staring at a scarecrow. One of them looked rather menacing. That turned out to be the one we had spoken to before, but, as the conversation went, I wasn’t sure that he had seen us before today. I could be wrong though. Anyway, he threw a bag at us and told us that his Mistress had already captured the 13th, 14th, and 15th and removed all the weights. We thought they were talking about legions for a bit until we suddenly realised they were dates, presumably now blocked off from accessing from the tunnel. However, they had ‘acquired’ the weights for the 15th and they were in the bag, blocked from detection by the beating hearts of six toads. There was also something inside that would be useful for the ranger. He then said that the Mistress feared that we would travel to these dates and cause trouble while the dragon was seeking those weights. If we tried the 9th, 10th or 11th, his men would be waiting to ambush us in the tunnel and surrounding areas. There was also something to do with me being wounded. There was also the ghost of a powerful creature lurking in the tunnel wanting to steal lifeforce to re-integrate itself. Plus he didn’t want us to try for the 11th as he would lose two personal friends. Checking the calendar, assuming they meant this month, the 12th is a Reapsday and the 15th is a Duesday. He also tossed a ring at Rodrigo.

After explaining to them what a scarecrow is for they departed. Caprice then mentioned that there’s a statue sunk in Freetaun Harbour that she needs to retrieve. A divination on the twin told us that the Janx have been using Chaos magic on the twins for revenge. There was no magic on the ring but its four engravings made it rather recognizable. Maybe they had accepted Rodrigo into their ‘club’. Caprice put it in her pouch of undetectability in case they were going to use it to track us with a Locate.

Caprice then told us that the statue was a petrified Purr she had hurriedly tossed in the harbour. To help locate the statue, I was illusioned to look like Purr and while the others memorised that, I was admiring the illusion in the mirror. Looked really really cute. Much to Caprice’s annoyance and my disappointment, the resulting locate put it in roughly the same place as the missing twin. Plus someone said that Freetaun had a problem with necromancers at the moment.

The bag was then examined, very carefully. Inside was a mass of bloody tissue in which we could see beating hearts, some black objects – presumably the weights, and a blood soaked hairy pouch. The tissue turned out to be the amalgamated mass of the toads that looked like they had been turned inside out and they Daed as Vampire Toads. Caprice went to see Rabbo to see if he knew anything. All she learnt was there was a spate of missing children in Glissom. Meanwhile Starflower had discovered that the pouch was the skin from a stone giant’s testicles. It’s also enchanted with the Nature of Magic being Protection. The toads’s blood also had the magical property of distraction

Before retiring for the night, we were treated to a display of Caprice’s nude gypsy dancing. We must swap moves sometime. I had arranged for a large tub of water in my room and, since I wasn’t going to be plumbing the depths of Freetaun Harbour, I slept in that rather than the bed. For some strange reason I dreamt I was running through the forest all night. Most unusual.

The next morning, I woke up rather refreshed. I also purified before joining the others for breakfast. Turned out Rabbo had a ‘fast running’ spell which was employed upon us. Four and a half hours later of that, we had reached the foothills of the Pagan Mountains. The spot we had stopped at was next to a lake surrounded by a cliff with waterfalls tumbling over the edges into the lake. On the other side were rolling hills, some covered with trees, others with grass etc, stretching out to the south. I thought it was a rather pretty view and I said so. Caprice then complained of a headache and deduced that there was a temporal copy of her in the area, presumably from the future. Maybe future her was leaving a message for present her. So we searched the area and discovered a map of Morgor's Lair. (c.f. A large concern)

Rabbo said we had to be more cautious travelling through here as this was giant country – and sure enough, six invisible giants turned up and attacked us. Fortunately, I saw signs of their presence and warned the others through mind speech before being set upon by two of them, one wielding the sword and another some sort of mace with six skull heads. The skull heads all bit at me and all managed to hit, two of them managing to inject poison. I then got stabbed and basically fell unconscious before I had a chance to do anything.

Next thing I know I was in the body of my puppet golem look-alike which was back at the Guild. Obviously one of the giants had also got in a killing blow. Naturally I wasn’t very pleased about this and told everyone in hearing range about my displeasure at the situation. Once I had calmed down I reflected that I really needed better armour as my best wasn’t good enough – even my eog armour wouldn’t have been able to save me plus it was obvious that those giants were trained as assassins. I hoped the others would be alright.

Fortunately, they did turn up an hour or so later after defeating all those giants and I was put back in my own body. My plan now was to do some research in the Guild Library in order to research the background so I had a better idea what was going on, but we were distracted by the arrival of a chest which contained a bloodstained book as well blood with a small bloodworm in it.

Buffs and Mil Sci

Long Term (assumed always on)

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	*Dur	Ca	Ro	Ch	Ke	St	Aq
Ice Traversal (Ch)	20	Travel over ice and/or snow without slipping or sinking in. (+7 TMR)	7 Hrs
Disguise Illusion (Ca)	20		21 Hrs
Water Breathing (Aq)	20		21 Hrs
Waterproofing (Aq)	8		27 Hrs
Cold Resistances (Aq)	12		13 Hrs
Mind Speech (St)
Mind Shield (St)	8		17 Hrs
Rune Armour (Ke)	20	+25 Def, +5 AP, SG	10.5 hrs
Willow Healing (Ke)	7	3 end per pulse	14 Hrs
Smite (Ke)	20	Resist or D+21, knocked prone, stunned	21 h
Greater Heart Rune (Ke)	18	heals 12 end	19 days
Self Only
Instil Flight (Ch)	20	60mph, 650lbs limit	10 hrs	-	-	Y	-	-	-
Wraithcloak (Ch)	20	+32% to defense, not magical/silvered -6 from damage, +21% to Stealth	21 hrs	-	-	Y	-	-	-

Short Term / On Demand

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	*Dur	Ca	Ro	Ch	Ke	St	Aq
Rune Weapon (Ke)	20	+[D-5]+7 Acid dam x D pulses	25 mins
(Name of Spell)