At miss Cardamum’s request and to quell Hovan‘s discomfort, we returned to Brymdale. I parted ways with the group to wait outside of the town until they needed me. I’m sure important information was exchanged with the old priest man, but nothing I needed to hear. There wasn’t anything of interest left in that tiny town for me.
When they regrouped with me outside of town, I noticed the old priest tagging along with them. I gathered that Nohl and the spider dwarf convinced Hovan that he’d be an asset of sorts for information while Hovan was less than pleased about that but understood his old man might be useful. Poor boy was probably worried about his safety, but oh well.
From there, Cardamum and our group made our way along the river towards the capital city of Loramon, a city I’ve been through in the past. A bustling city now dimmed by a fog of smoke from now-constant torches lit to fend of the dark of the reddened sky. The life of the city still flourished despite wary eyes fixed upwards.
We continued our way through the city to the den of magic users. A finely polished building that seemed unnecessarily large and extravagant for some strangely pompous people who can make flashy lights. Cardamom requested an audience with what sounded like the higher ups and was given so… after an hour long wait. The antsy old priest was immediately restless and made his way to the tavern for coffee. I followed, to get my own drink while Hovan and the spider dwarf trailed after us. Nohl ran off in a hurry. Probably nerves from summoning a giant death monster with a stupid knife in our last encounter…
At the tavern, the old priest downed a whole mug of hot coffee in one gulp and started talking serious to me, mentioning that talking to the big men at the magic building might be pointless and that they probably have the key (I gather the key that the corpse of Draxis and the giant demon monster was asking for before…). So he plotted that I go in and steal it myself. I agreed it possible, but before I could ask what was in it for me, the priest man rushed out… without paying for his coffee. I stewed a moment, then drank up whatever drink I had, tossed a few coins on the counter and ran out after the old man, certain that Nohl would be devastated if he lost his only real friend at the moment.
It took me quite a while to find this crazy old man, but when I did find him, he was tucked into a rather conspicuous alleyway with two conspicuous men, whispering to him, while he talked back at them in a very audible voice about how he wanted to buy a map from them. I quickly pulled him away from an obvious con deal, but as soon as he mentioned they had the map to the magical people building, I re-approached them. Nohl, who happened to be conveniently passing by, was in their way, and I barked for him to grab them, which he did for a second, until they pulled a knife on him. I pushed my way through them to distract them while stealing the map they were selling before. Oblivious, the men ran off and gave the map to the old man before we ran back to the magic men building for that audience.
When we returned, we noticed the ever patient Cardamom, Aoife, Hovan, and the spider dwarf missing. From the receptionist’s information, they had already gone inside and we were late. I was ready to sneak on in past her desk, but gave away my presence and was unable to…
After some minutes, our companions returned, looking disappointed and less than happy with whatever might’ve occurred with their audience. They mentioned that those higher-power magic men were probably holding the key somewhere in a vault, possibly in the very building we stood, but the receptionist (the lovely Joyora) overheard and informed us that the vault wasn’t even in the building, but in the capitol building. Leaving Joyora with an extra black pearl I still had, we wished her well and went on our way to the capitol.
Upon reaching the capitol, there was a crowd of people flowing through the walkways. It seemed the capitol was a bit of a tourist stop and the terrible sky wasn’t going to stop these tourists from getting their fill. Spider dwarf found some way down below the building for a way in while I suggested Aoife send up her dragonling pet to check the roof of the building. It let us know the top of the building was nice. Very useful information.
Spider dwarf returned with rather detailed information about the interior vaults we sought. Hovan and Nohl haplessly returned with information on past kings. Cardamom pointed that she could get a few of us inside with her badge, but needed the one of us to look like they had something important to bring inside. While Hovan picked up a rock, I extracted a simple but finely crafted wooden box that I had been storing a few things in, told Hovan to make it look important. I don’t know how his logic meant for “important” to be “heavy”, but he pretended to carry that thing as if it weighed a million pounds. Before I could correct him, Nohl and Spider dwarf did magic things and made the box reek and sprout vines and other sorts of things. I was planning on getting that box back later but I might have to reconsider… Cardamom and I were about ready for this to fail, but Hovan playing up the weight and strangeness of this box caused a crowd to gather. As Cardamom knocked on the entrance doors to what could be the vault, demanding to be shown inside to fix something, the crowd watched Hovan and the box in awe, causing whoever opened the doors to be immediately uncomfortable and dragged them in before the crowd got worse. I slipped in behind Hovan and Spiderdwarf unnoticed while Aoife stayed behind to keep an eye on things outside, sending her pet dragonling along with us.
As the three of us walked along with a guard towards our destination, convincing the guards that Cardamom was going to check on the “poofer”, I was suddenly pulled aside by what looked like a guard—but was Nohl disguised as a guard. After convincing another guard that I was necessary for opening the terrible and smelly box, we were pointed to a shortcut to reunite with out group.
We entered some strange small room that travels up and down and descended towards our destination, continuing further in, through a vault that seemed to be housing small creatures and “strange objects”. We passed through with ease to the more guarded vault. The deeper vault was dark, hardly anything visible to my eyes, but some of the others pointed out a circle on the ground, as well as man sitting at a desk in the corner, seemingly reading a book. Hovan and Cardamom approached the man to see about putting away the box and “fixing the poofer” or “circle” or whatever, the man was immediately onto them. However, after exchanging some words, the man was willing to just let us into the vault, telling us which one even had the key. As Hovan entered, he found no key in it’s place, but instead a note signed with an “~F” attached to an amaryllis flower. Everyone debated who the mysterious “~F” person could be. I took the note and flower to inspect it further while we all exited the building, but as we emerged, we found some of the men from the magic people building crowding around outside, claiming that they were about to cure the sky…