Session 15 covered the night of 1 Nightdeep to the morning of 3 Nightdeep, 1714 PSF, in Argentum. Daisy nearly killed Rhysaene in her apartment before Iva drove her out through the window. Temerity beat Emeric Vael in a sparring match, and the party staked out Rhysaene’s apartment for the assassin’s return. At a meeting with Silas Wintermist, Iva agreed to break Miles Quickstep out of prison.
Synopsis
Daisy
Daisy’s playful, flirtatious manner did not go away as she drew her two blades, but it took on a sinister air, with bloodlust in her eyes.1 Her first blow caught Rhysaene completely off guard, and the wound was brutal.23 Rhysaene’s hardiness kept the poison on the blade from taking hold.3 A shield spell turned the next strike, and Daisy danced around her and jumped up onto the bed for the high ground.45
In the living room, Iva heard heavy footfalls and the sounds of a fight. “Really?” she said, and charged through the bedroom door shoulder first.678 She found Daisy on the bed with a shortsword in each hand, one dripping with a clear fluid and the other with Rhysaene’s blood, and a brutal wound in Rhysaene’s shoulder.9 Iva hit her hard with her handaxe, found an opening, and called on Rhysaene to strike.101112 Rhysaene drew her greatsword from her chest and hit Daisy with it, adding a burst of force.131415
Daisy’s playful manner was gone. “Two of you. No one said you were a magic user. This is going to cost extra.”16 Iva pressed in again, and Rhysaene, cold with anger at being attacked in her own home, kept swinging. Daisy was covered in wounds and badly bloodied.171819 She got to her feet, poisoned her other blade with a flourish, and struck Rhysaene twice more. The poison took hold, and Rhysaene fell.20212223 Daisy leapt over her and put herself between Iva and the door.2425
Iva could see she was not the target, but she was a witness to a murder, and Daisy had moved to keep her from fleeing.26 She could also see that Daisy was badly hurt, and would run if Iva kept the upper hand.27 Iva kept attacking. Daisy saw that without surprise, against two people, she was outmatched, and chose to get out alive.2829 Iva stepped between her and the door with a smirk.30 Daisy smashed the window with the hilt of a shortsword and climbed out, dropping the sword.3132 From the window she shot Iva with a poisoned hand crossbow bolt, and ran.323334 The wound stung far more than a crossbow bolt should have, and Iva’s vision began to blur.35
Iva had seen enough of Daisy’s face to take it for her own.3637 Then she went to Rhysaene. The poison was weak and already wearing off, and the real danger was bleeding out. Iva’s rough bandage was enough.38 Rhysaene lay unconscious for two hours.39 Daisy’s footsteps faded out of hearing within a few seconds, and she was gone.40
Two Hours
Rhysaene’s apartment is more of a little townhouse, on the ground floor.41 Iva watched over her, and pushed Rhysaene’s desk, covered in papers and a couple of closed books, up against the broken window.424344 When Rhysaene woke, Iva was beside her.45 “I just wanted a fucking bath,” Rhysaene said.46 Iva helped her up, and said she did not know who that person was and did not think this one was her fault.47 Rhysaene thought she was the one who had dragged Iva into it. Iva said that she was already looking over her shoulder anyway, so one more did not matter.4849
Lathiel had never given Rhysaene a ledger. Rhysaene remembered her mentioning one only once, in a particular context, and it was not a great leap to think someone feared Lathiel had made a copy. If she had, she never told Rhysaene.50515253 Rhysaene has lived in the apartment for a few years, and alone for about the last one, and in that time she had searched it several times for anything hidden.54 Lathiel would not have hidden something where Rhysaene often went. They were close, but Lathiel kept her secrets from her too.555657 The search found no ledger.58 By the window lay the shortsword Daisy had dropped. It was perfectly average in every way, marked only by Rhysaene’s blood and a dried crust of poison.5960 Iva showed Rhysaene that she could take Daisy’s face.6162 They stayed the night, and rested.63
Luma’s Apartment
At Luma’s apartment, where Hazel had stayed the night, Beepo was learning to dance.64 In the morning Rhysaene and Iva decided to find the others, and left Temerity to her training.656667 Luma saw them coming on her map and tidied her already tidy apartment.6869 When she opened the door, it was clear someone had beaten Rhysaene badly.70 “I didn’t do anything this time. It wasn’t me,” said Iva.71 Asked who had done it, she changed her face to Daisy’s.72
Rhysaene told them about the woman who called herself Daisy, the ledger, and the poisoned blades.7374 She thought the ledger was something of Lathiel’s. Lathiel had made it her business to know other people’s business, and Rhysaene thought it connected to House Sterling.757677 Whatever was in it, she thought, was a lot of dirt.78 Luma offered to report it to the guards, and Rhysaene did not want to.7980 Hazel suggested tracking the assassin down themselves; the guards, as far as she had seen, were not very good at their jobs.8182 Rhysaene would not abandon her home for Luma’s.8384 Luma suggested finding the ledger, and using it as bait.8586 Daisy had said magic users cost extra, so someone had hired her.878889 Rhysaene had meant to sell her painting that day.90
It was 2 Nightdeep, a working day. Luma went in to the Bureau of Infrastructure & Mapping for about an hour, found nothing amiss and no new work waiting, and left a note on her desk saying she was working from home. Kessa Tumblebrim gave no sign that anything was wrong.9192939495
Sparring
On Temerity’s second day of training, the recruits went through more physical evaluation and drills, and began to learn Draconic.9697 They learned it the way a tourist would, from the words they would need, since the Dragoons use Draconic in the field to give orders.98 By the end of the day she knew the words for forward, retreat and quiet.99
Rhea Larnas called the cadets together. Push-ups and rope climbing every day for three months would not tell her what she needed to know, so they would pair off and spar.100101 Temerity approached Emeric. “Suppose I have to pick someone, don’t I?”102103 He is fairly well muscled for his lean build.104 He searched the rack of training weapons for a long time without finding what he wanted, took a wooden quarterstaff, and said, “I guess this will have to do.”105106 He added a wooden baton about the length of a shortsword for his off hand. Temerity took a big, almost comical wooden mallet.107108
Emeric was faster.109 He used the staff like a spear, jabbing, and went for Temerity’s knee with the baton to knock her down, but she held her feet.110111112 Her blows were too heavy for him to parry with wooden weapons.113114 Circling her, he asked why she was really there. “To fight against the Sorrow,” she said.115116 “No. That’s something to do. It’s not a reason to do it.”117 He jabbed her precisely between two ribs.118 She knocked him down, and let him get up.119120 He cracked her across the side of the head.121 “I didn’t ask what you came here to do, I asked why you came here to do it.”122 “What else am I supposed to do? Go out into the Sorrow and fight it on my own?”123 With each answer, a little more anger crept into his detached expression.124 He drove three jabs home in quick succession, pressed the staff up under her chin, and said, “You can’t be that naive.”125126
Temerity would not give up. A silvery flicker showed in her eyes as she found a second wind, and Emeric clocked it.127128129 She knocked the staff away and brought the mallet up into him.130 He did not look ready to give in, and there was real disdain in his eyes.131 She struck him again, dazing him, then grabbed him by the collar and headbutted him unconscious.132133 She laid him down gently.134
Of all the pairs, only Temerity and Emeric had taken it to the level of a real fight.135 “It’s good work with that hammer,” said Rhea, and had Emeric taken to the medics.136137138 Kyren Lenara had a badly bloody nose, and was telling his partner he was fine.139140 Rhea told Temerity she had thought Emeric had the most combat potential of the recruits, and would have to think again.141 Temerity said she thought Rhea would find her quite adequate.142 “Quite a bit more than adequate,” said Rhea. “I’m really starting to think you have what it takes.”143 Emeric would be out for hours, and Rhea dismissed the cadets.144
The Sword
Temerity found the others at Luma’s apartment at about three in the afternoon, with Iva in Daisy’s face reenacting the stabbing. She stopped when she saw that it upset Rhysaene.145146147148149 Temerity thought Rhysaene should not stay at her own place for the next few days.150 She asked whether Hazel could track Daisy by scent from the sword.151
Hazel smelled blood on it, and a faint, sweet smell.152 It was a fairly basic poison, made from a particular combination of plants and not hard to come by for anyone who brews poisons. Hazel could make it herself.153154 Tracking by scent would have to start from Rhysaene’s apartment, and the smell would fade.155156157 Luma cleaned out her bag of holding, which still reeked of darkmantle and cloaker, and made a container to keep the sword in it.158159160
Rhysaene’s Apartment
The party went to Rhysaene's apartment.161 It was as Iva and Rhysaene had left it. Broken glass lay mostly outside, around the open window.162 Hazel scraped dried blood from the floor into vials, for a rainy day.163164 The bedroom window looks out over a little plaza park, and past it a main road and the canals.165166 It is an incredibly nice apartment, the kind it takes money to live in. It was a hand-me-down, Rhysaene said.167168
At Rhysaene’s request, Luma used her wand of secrets, a tattoo on her finger.169170171 It pointed to a painting in the entryway, behind which is a hidden panel Rhysaene has known of since Lathiel was alive.172173 There are several such hiding places in the apartment, and none held anything new to her.174
Luma asked who Lathiel had been.175 A friend, Rhysaene said, someone she got in with when she came to the city.176 Lathiel made it her business to know other people’s business. Rhysaene looked uncomfortable, and put a hand over her heart.177178 Lathiel was a kind of arts patron, with her toes in everything, and she had secrets. That, Rhysaene said, was why she thought House Sterling had sent Daisy. She knew the house was dirty: Lathiel had told her that much.179180181182183 Luma’s family had just gone into business with them.184 Hazel pointed out that Rhysaene had nearly sent her into their service.185
Luma collected the broken glass and mended the window with mending, leaving no sign it had ever been broken.186187 Rhysaene asked whether the others were willing to go after Daisy, knowing it was dangerous.188 Luma meant at least to capture her and turn her in to the authorities.189 “I fear no man or beast within the Vale,” said Hazel.190 Iva had been helped with her own troubles, and Daisy had shot her.191192 Temerity would not let it go unanswered.193 Rhysaene offered to pay them.194
Beepo’s eye alone had cost ten dragons, Luma said.195196197 He makes no sound but the slosh of his ink and the clink of his parts, and if he opens his mouth, ink pours out. He was not built very well, and it is not clear whether he can see through the ruby jammed in his head.198199200201202 He always seems to be staring at Temerity, which unsettles her.203204
The Trail
Hazel took the shape of a bloodhound and, with Sage beside her, picked up a scent from the sword.205206 Drops of blood fell thickly right out of the window and quickly spaced out as Daisy ran across the grass of the park, away from the house.207 At a tree her stride changed from long to small and quick: she had stopped running and hidden there.208 From there the trail went on into a main road, where too many other smells and footprints broke it up, and the blood grew infrequent.209 Daisy had rested against the tree for a moment, and in the grass at its base Hazel found a small vial of clear liquid.210 Luma identified it as basic poison.211 It was worth a good deal to the right buyer, and she kept it, as evidence or profit.212213 Beyond the road the scent was lost, too many hours and too many people later.214
The Stakeout
They decided to wait at Rhysaene’s for Daisy to come back.215216217 Hazel thought Daisy would not try the same way again, now that she knew Rhysaene could fight.218 The apartment is full of hiding places: a pantry, a bathroom with two doors, a big walk-in closet, desks and tables.219220221 There are windows in every room but the bathroom and the closet.222223 Luma called it a kill box.224 Temerity took the closet.225 Luma set alarm rituals on every entryway and window, and they drew all the curtains.226227228
Iva’s meeting with the Syndicate was that evening.229230 She needed men’s clothes, so Temerity borrowed the simplest dress in Rhysaene’s closet and gave Iva hers.231232233 “Feels weird not wearing pants,” said Temerity. “It’s very drafty. I like it.”234235 Iva came out of the closet as the gruff man she had used with the Syndicate before. “I was really hoping not to be this again.”236237 Temerity told Iva to get disentangled from them if she could, but said it was her life.238 Hazel went along, keeping her distance.239240
The Ferryman
The meeting was at the square where Iva had handed her nephew to Miles Quickstep, under the same tree, at nearly six, with dark coming early so late in the year.241242243244 Hazel climbed the tree as a squirrel.245 A man was leaning against it: a human with scruffy black hair and a beard, in a long, heavy coat, whittling a piece of wood with a little knife.246247 He looked Iva up and down, said nothing, and walked off to the north.248 Five minutes later a figure in a nice pale cream coat came out of the dark with the hood up. Close to, Iva recognized the silvery white, almost icy blue hair and pale eyes of Silas Wintermist.249250251
“Emilio, or is it Iva D’Aquino?” he asked.252 Emilio would do fine for this conversation, Iva said. “For this conversation, sure. But I think we both know that’s not who this conversation is going to end up being about.”253254 She had asked for work, and said she had hoped to help people get out of the city.255 Iva was not the Syndicate’s only contact inside the Order of the Lantern, he told her.256 There was a buzz about a Warden who had gone missing about the time young Brundun did.257 Harwick Stoll, a frantic up-and-coming Light Warden, was reporting that he and his squad had met a group of mages up north. Iva’s description was not among them, but four others were, and they were accurate.258259260 His commanding officer, Petra Ashford, was not the one making noise, and had so far talked him out of filing an official report, but he wanted to.260261 He was trying to go around his chain of command to find someone who would hear it.262
That was not Silas’s chief concern. A mage escaping the Order’s custody was being taken seriously, and there was another inquiry that could be connected to it.263 Julia Valerius was investigating forged documents that named her disgraced brother, Marcus Valerius, on orders he could not have been given, since he was no longer a Light Warden.264 Gavril Valerius, the Lantern Commander before the current one and Marcus’s father, had taken a great interest in his disowned son’s name turning up again.265266 Gavril is no longer in the Order, but he has considerable resources and is known to be ruthless.266 None of these loose ends was a problem alone, but connected, they could be.267
Silas proposed that Iva help him keep a promise to Miles Quickstep and get him out of prison and out of the city. “You wanted to get people out of the city, Iva, and I’ve got someone who needs to leave.”268269270 In the process, Iva D’Aquino would meet an unfortunate end. If she died breaking Miles out, the Order would know who had done it and stop looking for her, and every investigation into that identity would end.271272273 No one would be murdered. The Order would get a body, a corpse dug out of the ground if need be, and would not think to identify it further.274275 Asked whether they would be blowing up another lamp, he said not this time: he had experts in alchemy and someone who could craft a convincing illusion, to fake an explosion, a death and a charred body.276277278 As an extra favor, he would make sure Stoll’s report on her friends never became official.279280
Iva looked up. Through a gap in the clouds she could see stars, and at the top of the square the lava lamp that had exploded at the Festival of Bells was repaired and glowing again.281282283 She agreed to get Miles out, because she was worried about her friends’ safety. He was too, Silas said: they all seemed remarkable, and he would hate to see their potential snuffed out so early.284285 Once the investigations into Iva D’Aquino were dropped, it would be easier to find her the work she wanted, helping mage children escape purification.286 “Just the Miles thing for now,” Iva said.287 His plan was in its early stages, and she was to keep checking her dead drops.288 He left, and Iva went the other way.289290
Iva sat down and cried.291 She told Hazel she had to break Miles out, and that if she did not, the others would probably be reported for using magic up north.292293 Had the party told Hecate the Wardens were there, the Wardens would never have made it back to Argentum.294 Hazel thought Iva was choosing what was best for the group, even if the others would not see it.295 Iva had seen no sign that Silas was lying. His plan made real sense, but he had built his offer knowing she could not say no to it.296297298299 Hazel preferred it to the other way out, which was killing Order Wardens herself. The others, she said, would not like it.300301
Telling the Others
They were back by about seven.302 Hazel had Iva tell them.303304 “I’m breaking Miles Quickstep out of prison.”305 Luma had planned to do that herself once, and decided not to.306307 Iva explained that one of the Wardens they had saved was trying to report the party’s magic, and that the Syndicate would keep it from getting out if she did the job.308309 She would hear when the plan was ready through her dead drops.310 It was Silas Wintermist she had met. Hazel knew him as the Ferryman.311312 Iva said he had not been lying, and that some not-so-friendly superiors were looking for whoever had framed Marcus Valerius.313314 She had told him this was the only job she would do.315
“I’m really glad that we’re putting faith in the words of a criminal,” said Luma.316 Rhysaene found it convenient that he could make everything go away.317 Hazel would not kill Stoll now: it had been kill them all, including the one who was decent to them, or let them go, and killing him now would turn the commanding officer against them.318319 Luma did not want to be responsible for anyone dying.320 She had known them a few days, she said, and she was already going to lose her job and was a criminal.321 Hazel reminded her that her interest in magic had made her a criminal before they met. “Yeah, but nobody knew.”322323
The Closet
Temerity woke in the closet around midnight.324 Iva knocked. “Did you accept a job?” Temerity asked. Iva said yes, and that she was breaking Miles out of prison. “Don’t tell me about it,” said Temerity, and shut the door.325326327328 Luma knocked next, to tell her the Light Warden thought she was a mage.329 Hazel opened the door, dropped a rabbit’s foot into Temerity’s hand, nodded, and shut it again.330331332 Returning her clothes, Iva asked whether she was sure she did not want to know. If Iva told her, Temerity said, she would get mad, and she did not want to be mad at her in the middle of something so serious.333334335 “No promises,” she said, when Iva asked if she would be less mad later.336337
Rhysaene brought her a cup of tea.338 “Don’t drink it, Temerity. It’s poisoned,” said Hazel, and Rhysaene winked at her.339340 Temerity decided to tell them all. Rhysaene’s close call made it relevant.341342 Having died once and come back, she believed their souls went to no afterlife, but somewhere dark, alone and sorrowful. She thought they returned to the Sorrow.343344 It was something to weigh as things grew more serious, and it was why she was so determined not to let Rhysaene die that night.345 Rhysaene kissed the top of her head, and Temerity blushed.346347 It made her more grateful, Rhysaene said, and she would have to make her mark on the world before she passed.348349 Iva said she had not been planning on dying any time soon anyway.350 Temerity hoped they would clear up the Sorrow before then.351 Asked whether that was even possible, Hazel did not think so. No one had ever eradicated it, so no one knew.352353354
At two in the morning Iva was asleep beside Rhysaene, Hazel was in trance, and Rhysaene went to bed.355356357358 Luma and Temerity kept watch.359360 The night passed without incident, and morning came on 3 Nightdeep.361
Featured Characters
Player Characters
New
- Gavril Valerius (mentioned)
Returning
Mentioned
Quotations
- “Two of you. No one said you were a magic user. This is going to cost extra.” Daisy.16
- “I just wanted a fucking bath.” Rhysaene.46
- “That’s something to do. It’s not a reason to do it.” Emeric Vael to Temerity.117
- “You can’t be that naive.” Emeric Vael to Temerity.126
- “I’m really starting to think you have what it takes.” Rhea Larnas to Temerity.143
- “I fear no man or beast within the Vale.” Hazel.190
- “You wanted to get people out of the city, Iva, and I’ve got someone who needs to leave.” Silas Wintermist to Iva.270
- “I’m really glad that we’re putting faith in the words of a criminal.” Luma.316
- “Don’t tell me about it.” Temerity to Iva.328
Inventory
- One of Daisy’s shortswords, stained with Rhysaene’s blood and dried poison, kept in a container in Luma’s bag of holding.
- A vial of basic poison, found by Hazel and kept by Luma.
- Vials of dried blood, scraped from Rhysaene’s floor by Hazel.
- A rabbit’s foot, given to Temerity by Hazel.
Speaking Time
| Speaker | Time | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Dungeon Master | 1:39:17 | 35% |
| Temerity | 51:50 | 18% |
| Iva | 48:23 | 17% |
| Rhysaene | 40:54 | 14% |
| Luma | 25:25 | 9% |
| Hazel | 21:40 | 8% |