Session 13 - Downtime

[LaraCooper]

Having come out of hiding, our adventurers find that suddenly everyone in town knows their names and faces, and the shift in justice at The Rock has it's effects on the crew.

Maevdora absolutely hates the attention and does everything she can to downplay her role in The Rock. The crew thinks there must be something she is hiding from, but no one presses a grumpy dwarf! Reparations are offered to the newly freed tieflings in the form of houses built for them in the city, or outside it's walls, but understandably, many tieflings want to be well beyond the sight of the might walls of the city and wish to leave. Mave commits to traveling with them, complete with caravan of basic supplies, further up the mountain chain to help establish a village, heal the sick, and offer counselling and rationalizations to reduce any likelihood of vengeful acts. Mave is missed by her friends.

Vale focuses on his running of Sunflow Solutions, where Mouse is regularly buying alchemical ingredients for her broadening knowledge of potion-making. He finds the shop a raging success and himself even more of an integral part of the halfling community. He also finds himself a regular guest at the palace, where he has many opportunities to sing at court, meet travelers from far kingdoms, and find quiet time to write epic songs of goblin wars and armies of the dead.

Tzapps spends some time tending to the hobos and orphans of The Rock. Converting Miss Kaylen's home into a fortified resource center, the dragonborn supervises the feeding of children and carefully recruits a network of informants among the less fortunate of the city. He dedicates a great deal of time in creating a magic staff, integrated with magic wands. There is no opportunity to bond or exchange information with one of the court magic-casters and city's other dragonborn, Smokebeard, as he also disappeared from Luciferium.

Shak and Hush engage in sustained tomfoolery, heavy drinking, entertaining, street brawls, and stickball tournaments. They are frequent annoyances in the palace kitchen, but also a good source of mirth and laughter. None of the adventurers knows when they are going to roll over for a slow morning stretch whether Hush will be curled up on a corner of the bed, with or without stolen goats in tow, or whether they will find Shak, covered in flour, reeking of drink and hiding meats under his cloak.

Mouse finds herself overwhelmed by court duties, appointing minor officials in the government to replace corrupt ones, entertaining foreign visitors, and learning to rule tactfully. She and Boris are closer than ever, and even her mother sees her differently. She still experiments with her alchemy, and reads voraciously now that the library is no longer off limits. Her mother makes it clear that she is still expected to marry, but that she will have an active part in the process.

Other information through the kingdoms dribbles in with trade caravans. Now that this plant can be grown, an elixir produced and transported, humanity is less restricted and this has is shifting the landscape of Ni'Hal. Ruling families no longer have the power or influence they once had, as people are no longer confined to the city-states. The capital has become restless and it is decided that Tiberius should come home to finish training with his father.

A church is built to Amok. The tenants include that humans are essentially weak, that strength is it's own reward, and that battles are being fought among followers to determine who is "fittest". Richard becomes a known cult leader of the small following and encourages others to spread the word, as followers will be rewarded.

Humans are sailing again. They are leaving Ista and Silverburg and Dolnan, and taking short excursions in and around the Great Bay.

There are rumors that the Elves are worried there will be a land grab in the Westfold where human villages were once commonplace.

A new silver mine has opened at Saint's Cross.

Also, it appears as though a vein of the rare mineral orchillium, a mixture of gold and mithril, has been discovered in Three Hammers Doom and opportunists from Lucifirian Rock are rushing to the old ruin to try to change their fates. Rumors of giants in the area are of a concern, and it appears as if a slap-dash mining community has been snowed in without enough supplies for Winter and is in critical danger of all starving to death.

It is upon the edge of Winter's chill that our adventurers receive an interesting offer...