Session 2 covered the evening of 24 Coldrise and the morning of 25 Coldrise, 1714 PSF, in Argentum. The party drank together for the first time, were interviewed over the explosion at the Festival of Bells, and came out of it hunting Miles Quickstep with Temerity holding Iva against a wall.

Synopsis

The Dancing Sword

Rhysaene led the party to the Dancing Sword. Temerity thought she had found her first friends in the city. Hazel came reluctantly. Varna Haln, the server, brought wine, ale, a bowl of water for Sage and an offer of scraps for him.

They traded histories over the drinks. Luma spent the early part of the evening hunting for an actual dancing sword and was disappointed to learn the name was probably figurative, then explained how her maps had been taken. Iva said she had been ordered to watch a new member of the Order of the Lantern, and Temerity said she was shadowing Iva as a trial by fire. Hazel placed herself as a hunter and fur trader from near Silverthorn, and mentioned that she had stayed in Temerity’s old room at her father’s house. Rhysaene laid out her artwork, the “Magnificent Treats” sign she had painted for Miri Wetherlite’s stall among it.

The wine was poor. “Drinks aren’t supposed to fight back,” Luma said, and later claimed victory on the grounds that her tongue had gone numb. She inked Tarnar Syndicate thieves’ cant symbols onto the table to show them, then took them off with solvent from her alchemist’s tools. She told them she intends to map the whole world, which she reckons will take two or three hundred years with breaks, and the Silver Vale alone in thirty months. When the bread arrived she informed Temerity that breaking bread made them friends, and that friends explore the Sorrow together.

Rhysaene asked where Iva’s nephew had got to. Iva said he had been at her mother’s and that she had handed him on to a cousin, and neither Rhysaene nor Hazel caught the lie. A group of Stone Shields came in around nine. Hazel and Rhysaene agreed to go with Luma to her interview the next morning, and Iva offered to testify that none of them had been involved.

Parting for the Night

Hazel slipped out. Rhysaene followed and found her, and they agreed to meet back at the Dancing Sword later.

Temerity walked out with Rhysaene, who remarked on how certain of herself Temerity had been in the fire. Temerity put it down to the Silver Flame: blessed by it, she has no reason to fear death. They parted near the Order of the Lantern barracks.

The Morning

Luma arrived at the Stone Shields headquarters at six to add the route to her maps, an hour and a quarter before Hazel and Rhysaene. While they waited she slipped one of her artificer maps into each of their bags without telling them. Hazel did not care for being touched. Cassia Brightshield called Iva and Temerity into her office to ask about the festival before sending them on.

The Interview

The party walked in on Mave Dul arguing jurisdiction with High Inquisitor Westra Saelis. The device used under the plaza had been a Tarnar Turnstone, and because it was magical the case belonged to the Order of the Lantern. Saelis called them all in and had Iva report first. Iva gave an account that included leaving her post to collect her nephew Brundun and hand him on to family.

Saelis explained that a Turnstone opens a temporary secret door that is very hard to find. She described Miles Quickstep and produced a rough sketch of him: arrested a year ago for pickpocketing, placed at the festival by witnesses, and now believed to have Tarnar Syndicate ties. The likeness was poor, though the armor was exact.

Iva said she did not recognize him, which confused and frustrated Temerity. Luma also said she did not recognize the man in the sketch, on the grounds that the sketch was inaccurate. Saelis took her literal answers for sarcasm and came close to striking her before Mave Dul stopped her. With Saelis turning to Temerity, who was on the point of exposing Iva’s lie, Luma cut in and redrew the sketch to match Miles properly. It covered for Iva and Temerity both, annoyed Saelis further, and made Miles suspect number one. Saelis ordered Iva and Temerity to hunt him through the maintenance tunnels and conscripted Luma to navigate and to find secret doors.

Luma’s Apartment

Luma took them back to her apartment. Temerity, who had just watched Iva lie to the High Inquisitor about a man who had taken a child from her hands, pinned Iva to the wall in a rage and demanded to know who the child was and where Miles had gone. The shutters and doors flew open, the room shook and her voice boomed, and she came away from it able to cast thaumaturgy.

Iva gave it up: the child is a mage, his parents paid the Tarnar Syndicate to smuggle him out of the city, and she does not know where Miles is now. She and Temerity then argued over what purification is. Temerity holds that it suppresses magic. Iva holds that the purified are executed. Temerity told them she had died and been brought back, and that the Silver Flame blessed her. Luma, Iva and Hazel tried to get her to see that what she was describing is magic.

Rhysaene and Hazel left. Iva stepped out for air and talked with Rhysaene about why she had become a Light-Warden, which came down to wanting to help people. Rhysaene then went looking for Hazel, found no tracks, and simply knew where she was, which was the doing of the map Luma had planted on her.

Mama Kora

Hazel went to the Canal Markets to find Mama Kora, who told her that Miles Quickstep still had her reagents and that replacing them would be very difficult. The session ended at about noon on 25 Coldrise.

Player Characters

New

Returning

Mentioned

Quotations