2 Eleint 2993

Tippletoe

On the 26th of Highsun, Tippletoe sets out for the Hill of the Gods in the northern part of Gosterwick. Knowing that the four large independent temples are dedicated to Mitra, Heschius Ban, Lucreon, and Demma, she enters the gigantic building known as the House of the Gods. There she finds the stall set up for propitiation of Nicetorean and speaks to the lay priest, who tells Tippletoe that the resident cleric in town, mortician Kendrick Impalo, manages the Gosterwick cemetery (eponymously labeled on map) and would be happy to meet her and speak about training. Tippletoe makes a 50 gp donation, thanks the lay sister, and walks to the cemetery through a warm and drizzly morning.

Arriving at the cemetery, Tippletoe is stopped by a small girl who introduces herself as Cisha Impalo, daughter of the mortician. She cocks her head to one side and asks in a very precocious voice and manner if Tippletoe is there to see about the open graves. Concerned, Tippletoe continues on to the residence of the mortician and gravediggers and meets the elder Impalo. He agrees to train her for seven days in the arts of body preparation, burial rites, and grave maintenance. When asked about the latter in light of the information from his daughter, the mortician states that several graves were found two days ago, dug up with the bodies now missing. More disturbing is that the graves look like they were dug out from the inside rather than from above and that one of the gravediggers, Clem, stated that he heard chanting that night along with the, strangely, the dirge of lute and shawm. Tippletoe spends that day and the next six learning the trade and skills of a Nicetorean Grave Cleric.

On her off hours during these seven days, Tippletoe seeks out the jewelry dealer Chairduster at his shop in the upper market on the hill south of the Azure Keep. She finds that the shop Chairduster’s Fine Metallurgy is run by Chairduster’s wife Tabring as his workshop is not on the premises of the sales shop. Tippletoe sells a necklace she found in Arden Vul worth 75 gp for 67.5 gp and next walks around the upper market and finds a store called Feywild Fabric & Mercantile, in which she finds the find the following magical items for sale:

• Slippers of Sure Footing (Wondrous Item, Uncommon [requires attunement]) - These soft shoes are made from tan leather and are engraved with mountain goat horns. While wearing them, difficult terrain doesn’t cost you extra movement and you cannot be knocked prone. 8,000 gp.
• Socks of Fiendish Protection (Wondrous Item, Very Rare [requires attunement]) - These black-and-red woolen socks are embroidered with a flame pattern. While wearing them, you have resistance to fire damage, you cannot be possessed, and you are immune to the Charmed and Frightened conditions. 40,000 gp.
• Stockings of Superior Speed (Wondrous Item, Uncommon [requires attunement]) - These silk stockings are dyed bright orange. While wearing them, your walking speed increases by half. 4,000 gp.
• Cloak of the Bearfolk (Wondrous Item, Uncommon [requires attunement]) - While wearing this cloak, your Constitution score is 15, and you have proficiency in the Athletics skill. The cloak has no effect if you already have proficiency in this skill or if your Constitution score is already 15 or higher. 2,000 gp.
• Cloak of the Eel (Wondrous Item, Uncommon [requires attunement]) - While wearing this rough, blue-gray leather cloak, you have a swimming speed of 40 feet. When you are hit with a melee weapon attack while wearing this cloak, you can use your reaction to generate a powerful electric charge. The attacker must succeed on a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 lightning damage. The attacker has disadvantage on the saving throw if it hits you with a metal weapon. The cloak can’t be used this way again until the next dawn. 3,000 gp.

Next, after buying a primer for Mithric at Astableon’s bookstore and noticing across the way the Silver Cloud Casino, Tippletoe descends the hill to the Underkeep area and stops by Hestannia’s Studio, a magical tattoo shop, (drawn by the advertisment in the Gosterwick Gazette) and finds the following magical tattoos for sale:

• Hidden Armament (Weapon [any melee weapon that is not two-handed], Uncommon [requires attunement]) - While holding this magic weapon, you can use an action to transform it into a tattoo on the palm of your hand. You can use a bonus action to transform the tattoo back into a weapon. 500 gp.
• Tattoo of Absorption (Wondrous Item [Tattoo], Uncommon [requires attunement]) - This magic tattoo wards against one of the following types of damage: acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, necrotic, poison, psychic, radiant, or thunder damage. When you take damage of that type, the tattoo takes that damage instead. If this damage reduces the tattoo to 0 hit points, you take any remaining damage and the tattoo disappears. The tattoo has 10 hit points. 50 gp.
• Tattoo of Devastation (Wondrous Item [Tattoo], Uncommon [requires attunement]) - Before you make an attack, you can choose to make the attack roll with advantage, and the tattoo disappears. If you do, and the attack hits, it is a critical hit. 100 gp.
• Tattoo of Freedom (Wondrous Item [Tattoo], Uncommon [requires attunement]) - When spells and other magical effects would reduce your speed to 0 or cause you to be paralyzed or restrained, this effect is negated against you, and the tattoo disappears. You can also speak the tattoo’s command word as a bonus action to automatically escape from non-magical restraints, such as manacles or a creature that has you grappled. Once you do so, the tattoo disappears. 100 gp.
• Tattoo of Heroism (Wondrous Item [Tattoo], Uncommon [requires attunement]) - When you become frightened, or when you speak the tattoo’s command word as a bonus action, you become imbued with bravery and the tattoo disappears. You gain temporary hit points equal to your character level and you are immune to being frightened for 1 minute. 100 gp.

On the 27th of Highsun, Tippletoe attends Crestion’s Market day in the central market square and purchases a set of thieves’ tools for 25 gp.

On the 3rd of Eleint/The Fading, Tippletoe wakes up a second-level Grave Cleric.

Uffda

After getting into Gosterwick on the 25th of Highsun, Uffda seeks out Grexes and inquires as to his training for second level. Being told of the fighting pits beneath the Bailiff’s Truncheon, Uffda attends the contests every night for seven nights starting on the 26th of Highsun, where she wins four of the seven fights and like Grexes learns to harness her anger to not only rage but attack recklessly and to heighten her senses. During the day, she visits a local tailor and leather worker and designs and purchases a leather and cloth dummy she can affix to a tree to allow her to walk to the outskirts of town to the west and practice with the Rod of the Imperium in apparent seclusion.

On the 28th of Highsun, Uffda travels to Chairduster’s Fine Metallurgy and shows the coronet of Uriel Basileon to Tabring, whose eyes widen. Agreeing with Uffda’s appraisal of 1500 gp for the diadem, Tabring quickly pays over the money without remembering to deduct the customary 10% from the purchase price that Uffda learns is usual after speaking to Tippletoe later that night.

Spending time at the Bailiff’s Truncheon and asking about the history of Arden Vul, Uffda gets a lot of funny looks, but late in her week of training, several days after selling the coronet, a person takes her aside and tells her that her taste in jewelry and ancient knowledge has gathered attention. As this person walks away, Uffda notices a tattoo of a black tower with a single window shining forth light into the darkness on his right hand between his thumb and first finger.

Looking into history about the civil war between the Sortians and the Theosophs, Uffda finds a book at Astableon’s called Great Villains of Archontos, part V: Priscus the Traitor. She reads this colorful work, appearing more than a decade after the last installment, and finds that it offers a fairly simplistic ad hominem attack against Priscus Pulcher, here described as a foul sorcerer who betrayed the emperor’s personal trust. The picture painted of Pulcher is of a cartoonish villain: a hunched back, warts, fetid breath, and a morbid fascination with death. According to the text, Pulcher intended the destruction of the empire from the start, using his vile sorcery to bewitch noble Archonteans before turning them against each other. In the author Yeng’s telling, Pulcher is abetted by a wretched crone named Isadora, who is both his lover and follower. The text culminates in an epic battle at Arden Vul in which Pulcher is slain, Isadora vanishes in a puff of smoke, and much of the city is leveled. Yeng concludes with some hortatory passages warning readers to be on the alert for “sons of evil” who seek to emulate or venerate the evil Pulcher.

Finally, Uffda, on the last day of her training, and remembering her maternal grandmother Ixol, a warrior general among the Wiskin people of the north and how her nickname was “The Cleansing Flame,” visits Hestannia and commissions a tattoo of a flame down the right side of her neck to mid-bicep on her right arm. This tattoo cost 50 gp. On this last night, Uffda dreams of Ixol and the many other ancestors that protected and fought for her family, who tell her, “We are coming.”

Uffda wakes up on the 3rd of Eleint/The Fading a second-level barbarian.

Nubbins

Nubbins wakes on the 26th Highsun and sees the warm drizzly weather as a sign of hope and promise of a good day. Nubbins spends part of the morning walking around town with Wooshhh, looking for clues on how to find a druid to train with. In the process, Nubbins and Wooshhh stop at a local musical instrument purveyor and impulsively buy two wooden flutes (4 gp) so they can play impromptu duos in the central market on market days. They play as they walk back to their lodgings and are encouraged by the clapping of townsfolk to the harmonies they create while playing the local favorite “A Thorcin Lad.” By lunch, bored, Nubbins decides to head out of town towards the Fenn to find and collect mushrooms. Having read the Gosterwick Gazette for the 21st of Highsun and knowing about the two missing merchants associated with the Fenn, Nubbins takes extra precautions and is on the alert.

Searching throughout the afternoon, Nubbins finds three plants and fungi he has never before encountered and on this trip finds enough of each to make one dose/portion of each:

• Acid Drops: The thalli of these lichens are relatively fragile. While not toxic to the touch, they ooze a potent, yellow acid if the thalli are snapped or crushed. The acid inflicts 2-5 HP per round of contact with any mammal. (Type: giant, fruticose lichen; Color: sickly yellow-green; Size: up to 12’ tall and 5’ in diameter; Environment: very damp, humid, marsh-like conditions)
• Red Lotus Blossoms: Inhaling the smoke of this mild narcotic reduces the will of the inhaler, resulting in a -1 penalty to all saves against mind-affecting attacks. However, with repeated use, the red lotus blossom strengthens the inhaler’s will, providing a +1 bonus to all saves against mind-affecting attacks. The transition from negative to beneficial requires several months of exposure. (Type: lotus blossom; Color: deep scarlet sticky mass; Size: one dose is ½ oz; Environment: warm and temperate shallow and murky waters)
• Velvet Capped Mushrooms: A liquid tasting of anise, one drink brings the imbiber into a state of hyper-awareness. They gain a +1 bonus to initiative rolls, cannot be surprised, and gain a further +1 bonus to the following: AC, Attack rolls, and Rolls made to locate secret or hidden objects (like traps, or secret doors). The effects last for 1d4 turns. Upon wearing off, the user finds themself dull of wit and sense, suffering a –2 to all rolls until they are able to get a full night’s rest. (Type: mushrooms; Color: inky purple caps and web-like gills; Size: 6” tall, 3” diameter cap; Environment: growing in marshes near or on spoor of giant spiders)

That first night, making camp in the Fenn, a figure approaches and asks to join Nubbins’ fire. Nervous but feeling one with the swamp, Nubbins nods and bids the visitor enter the fire light. As chance would have it, the night’s companion is Fael Valdorsdot, member of the Druid Circle of the Old Forest and unofficial ombudsperson tasked with investigating the goings on in Gosterwick. She tells Nubbins about her contact at the Grain Hall in town and how that person can contact her so that she can be available to meet with Nubbins 2-6 days after word is sent. When asked, Fael agrees to train Nubbins for the next days in exchange for a donation to the Druid Circle’s outreach program based in Gosterwick, Camp Giggletopia, whose mission it is to introduce Gosterwick’s youth to the fun and excitement of the outdoors. Nubbins donates 50 gp, and for six more days is shown around the Fenn by Fael, taught to communicate and listen to the beasts of the forest and to read and speak Sylvan. (Toward this learning, Nubbins’ proclivities seem prodigious to Fael.)

On the 1st of The Fading, during their night in the Fenn, Fael suddenly hushes Nubbins’ conjugation of Sylvan verb stems and seems to listen to the night. After five minutes of silence and stillness, Nubbins hears what sounds like a snort of derision in the dark and footsteps retreating. Fael’s face is sad as she mumbles something about “poor Druzzah” but will speak no more on the subject other than to say that they are safe because, “He recognizes our desire to be balanced with nature.” On the topics of giant wasps with livery or tadpoles Fael says she knows nothing but will keep her eyes and ears open in the future. She also tells Nubbins to seek out the Circle in the Old Forest for further training in the future.

Returning to Gosterwick on the afternoon of the 2nd of The Fading, Nubbins watches Uffda’s final night of fighting at the Bailiff’s Truncheon and then wakes on the 3rd of Eleint/The Fading a second-level Circle of the Shepherd Druid.

Wooshhh

Driven by his many travels before and during his time with the R3C and the fact that he gets easily bored and so likes to learn new things, Wooshhh spends his downtime bouncing from one member of the R3C to the other, asking them for help learning all the skills they seem to be proficient in so Wooshhh can become better. Working hard for the seven days of downtime and spending 15 gp on various items to help practice his new crafts, Wooshhh corners the following R3C members for the following skills and then spends a lot of his time practicing what they taught him:

• Uffda gives him pointers on Athletics, showing him how to better initiate a grapple and escape one using brute strength while he gleans his own tips watching some of her fights at the Bailiff’s Truncheon.
• Tippletoe teaches him pointers on Medicine, mostly through washing, cleaning, and binding of Wooshhh’s own wounds sustained in training for other skills throughout the seven days.
• Nubbins teaches him about Survival, Nature, mushrooms, and outdoor living on the 26th of The Fading before Nubbins disappears to seek his own training.

Asking Fenpenny Copperleaf about the Collegium of Macrina, Fen helps Wooshhh fill out the membership paperwork in triplicate and send it off to Archontos by way of Narsileon to formalize his membership in this group of scholars, researchers, and academics. In exchange for helping him to learn Medicine, Wooshhh works with Tippletoe on the more basic tonal inflections of the ancient language of Mithric. After all, the difference between mā, má, mǎ, and mà are important, and mistakes at the wrong times are embarrassing. While out with Huzzah!, Wooshhh buys a lute for 35 gp and starts to develop lullaby-like songs of rest and other calm, healing songs after being shown the basic forms by Huzzah!. One of the days, Wooshhh visits Creon’s pawnshop and sells a number of items worth 37 gp, receiving back 29.6 gp. (Creon buys at 80% of value of sale). On two of the days, Wooshhh travels to the New Forest on collecting trips and spends the nights in the wilds.

Two activities, however, take the bulk of Wooshhh’s time: reading The Book of Night Maneuvers, including finding that one of the purported hiding places of stolen loot is located within Burdock’s Valley, and speaking and practicing with Jellicose.

With respect to the former, the clues in the book, including the name “The Ibis’s Roost,” and his skills with cartography tools lead Wooshhh to believe he knows where the Fife of Dragonsong and the Celestial Circlet of Crinius the Rector rest. Wooshhh is able to make a map to a location hidden in a hill just north of Table Rock but across the Imperial Road at the opening of Burdock’s Valley. The clues in the Book of Night Maneuvers hint at powerful protections around these famous artifacts of power. With respect to the two items stolen during the famous heist at the Archontean Museum of Antiquities, they are described in full:

Fife of Dragonsong (Weapon [blowgun], Rare [requires attunement by a bard])

This magical fife can be played as an instrument or wielded as a deadly weapon. You are proficient with the Fife of Dragonsong as both an instrument and blowgun while you’re attuned to it. You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon, and any target hit by it takes an extra 1d6 thunder damage from the attack.

Dragonsong. As an action, you can expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration to play a powerful note that repels foes and empowers allies. The note is audible out to 100 feet. Hostile creatures within a 15-foot cone must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 2d6 thunder damage and is pushed 10 feet away from you. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage and isn’t pushed. An ally within the cone that can hear the note is bolstered by it instead. A friendly creature affected by the note has its speed increased by 10 feet until the end of its next turn and gains 2d6 temporary hit points that last for 10 minutes.

Celestial Circlet of Crinius the Rector (Wondrous Item, Very Rare [requires attunement by a cleric of good alignment])

This golden circlet radiates holy energy. A thin halo hovers above your head while you wear it, emitting bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for another 20 feet. Small motes of holy light swirl around the apex of the circlet. While you wear the circlet, you are always under the effects of the protection from evil and good spell. This effect only applies to one creature type (other than celestials) though, and you can choose a new creature type to be protected against daily at dawn.

The circlet has 7 charges. As an action while wearing the circlet, you can expend 1 or more of its charges to cast either cure wounds (1 charge per spell level, up to 4th) or spirit guardians (3 charges) from it, using your spell save DC and spellcasting ability modifier. Immediately before or after you cast a spell from the circlet in this way, you can use your bonus action to fly up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks. When you do, you are carried away on a pair of angelic wings. The circlet regains 1d4 + 3 expended charges daily at dawn. If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the halo vanishes and the circlet becomes mundane and nonmagical.

But of all the week’s tasks, none is more frustrating than speaking and training with Jellicose. Talk about conceited! One would think that after laying quiescent for 1,200 years that one would want to speak of something other than one’s self. Wooshhh finds that the sword is quick with critiques of Wooshhh’s swings, stabs, parries, and ripostes but that the sword seems to know nothing about the history of Arden Vul or the last days of Uriel Basileon other than what was communicated initially in the Plaza Mayor. Maybe Jellicose is just traumatized by his last act and the time alone and will open up over time.

Wooshhh wakes on the morning of the 3rd of The Fading a second-level bard.

Vincent

Vincent is on a mission. (Who wants to be an orphan? Without parents, Vincent’s only measure for self sufficiency was gainful employment.) He makes a bee-line to Astableon, Scribe and Bookseller, walks in, and in a confident voice asks Astableon for a job. The surprised Astableon, in hindsight, Vincent thinks, probably asleep, jumps to his feet and knocks a pile of books to the floor. Vincent bends down to pick up the books, and Astableon, seeing no one, promptly puts his head on his chest and nods back off to sleep. Vincent, finding himself with a tender spot for this old man, busies himself for the next several hours tidying up the bookstore, using his knowledge of the Vulian decimal system to start arranging the books into subject matter groupings. On his way out of the store, with Astableon still seemingly asleep, Vincent takes a book he found during his cleanup called The Matrix: Is life just an illusion, which details the Ethereal and Astral Planes, the many worlds within the Astral Sea, and speculation that what we see in the “material” plane is just a shadow of the true physical plane, the Ethereal Plane.

After heading to a green space west of the Hill of the Gods and upon the banks of the Long Run before it enters Totey Lake, Vincent starts to read the book and go through his daily strength and balancing exercises. He then sees walking towards him an old tabaxi woman leaning on a length of wooden stave. A voice behind Vincent says, “What are you reading, little orphan boy?”

Wheeling around, Vincent sees the woman right behind him, but looking back, he sees no one.

“You have potential, but will you be too grounded by what you think you know, or do you have the ability to learn that which may not even be real?”

Turning back to the women’s new position, Vincent again sees no one but notices a small, blue, leather-bound codex in the grass. Looking around and now finding himself truly alone, Vincent picks up the codex, spine blank; opens it to the title page; and sees written there, “The Way of the Astral Self.” Studying the book for most of the rest of the day, Vincent reads about all manner of exercises, meditations, queries, postulations, and ruminations regarding fitness, flexibility, and dedication to a way of life Vincent never thought possible.

The next day, going back to Astableon’s bookstore, Vincent once more asks for a job, but Astableon again seems asleep, so once more Vincent spends the morning cleaning and organizing books into sections. Placing additional money on the counter to borrow a book on fighting styles that use no weapon, only the body, Vincent spends the rest of his day reading this book and The Way of the Astral Self.

On the seventh day of these repeated actions, Vincent finds in his room a purse with twice as much gold as he left in Astableon’s shop over the course of the week and a note thanking him for his work and telling him that he will be paid 5 sp for each day he comes in during downtime to work. Vincent makes 7 gp over the week and, following the precepts in The Way of the Astral Self, awakens on the 3rd of The Fading a second-level monk.

Fernweh

Fernweh, having solidified a breakthrough with Rowan Fairbrow and unlocking his latent sorcerous powers, turns back to the Benevolent Brotherhood for his next level of training. Setting up a new date for meeting Anders the Snake on the 26th of Highsun, Fernweh prepares himself for all the things he cannot anticipate and focuses his mind for the training to come. In the end, the training is straightforward but physically difficult. For eight hours each day, Anders chases Fernweh around Gosterwick trying to thwack Fernweh with a bundle of sticks teaching him to speed up his ability to dodge, disengage, and even hide from Anders. Adding to the welts and indignity of being pummeled publicly when he cannot move fast enough, Fernweh has to pay the Brotherhood 100 gp for the training.

Exhausted by the end of the day, Fernweh still finds the time to haul his bruised carcass to Under Keep and goes after-hours gambling with workers from and vendors to the Residence and Azure Keep at Poor Larry’s. His favorite new game is called Jack’s Knife Juggling, where a person who is to juggle knives makes a bet as to how many knives they can juggle successfully and for how many rounds. At first Fernweh wins a few games to get noticed as a person worth meeting. Then he takes on the tactic of losing when the people to whom he wishes to ingratiate himself bet he will lose or winning games when those same people bet he will win. Fairly quickly he meets and befriends Euwin, under ostler for the Azure Keep; Jerikko, garden manager for the Residence; and Mikkelman, dairy vendor to both locations. Fernweh ultimately ends his week down 15.36 gp–in addition to his training fees–and also learns of the existence of the Silver Cloud Casino in the Upper Market, where the higher class visitors, citizens, and more successful adventurers gamble exclusively.

Fernweh wakes on the 3rd of The Fading a second-level rogue and first-level Divine Soul Sorcerer.

Fenpenny

On the morning of the 26th of Highsun, Fenpenny heads toward the cemetery to visit the Arcane Practitioner’s Club, where he is greeted warmly by Lyssandra Astorion and her partner, Pelteon Greywand. As an unsanctioned and still fairly new town, Gosterwick has no official branches of any of the Collegia, and so these fine entrepreneurs set up a gathering spot for local arcane wielders to be able to train safely and without having to travel the many weeks to Narsileon and their actual Collegia branches. Fenpenny agrees to pay the 100 gp for the seven days of access to the Club to allow for his arcane progression. Other benefits he receives are access to the Club’s substantial components library at the special Club member price as well as to the Club’s large arcane library to help with new spell acquisition. Thumbing through one such book, The Tides of Chaos, Fenpenny finds two new possible spells:

• Undermine Armor
• Timely Distraction

During his time at the Club, Fenpenny meets a number of other arcane practitioners, including Heliagabulus of Dalton’s Darlings training into fifth level and Idris One-Eye, a member of the Bad Neighbors Company training for third level.

Heliagabulus is a member of the Collegium of Cinders, is thin and ascetic, with greasy black hair and a long, Roman nose. He is distant, unpleasant, and socially insecure. Heliagabulus lets slip that there is a secret entrance on the face of the cliff above the fourth switchback from which Dalton’s Darlings have heard simian calls and grunts.

Idris lost her right eye in an apprentice’s hazing ritual, so she wears a violet colored eye-patch that has provided her nickname. She bears an abiding hatred towards the Collegium of Macrina, which she blames for her injury. When she found out that is the Collegium to which Fenpenny belongs, she stopped talking, turned around, and walked away.

Fenpenny also takes time during his seven days of training to visit the Rarities Factor. Needing a minimum of 150 gp on deposit with a 0.75% fee per month, Fenpenny opens an account into which he places the R3C’s group funds, a separate account for himself, and one for Vincent. Over the course of his training, he takes each of current members of the R3C in Gosterwick to the Rarities Factor so the staff know who is able to access the funds. A minimum of two people from R3C must be present to do so.

Looking for a hireling who can use his two-wheeled cart, hold a lantern, run errands, and also be able to read and write, Fenpenny heads towards the Stone gate and visits Twyla’s Temp Service. After considering several candidates, Fen decides to hire on Callum Rivers, a Thorcin human youth, for 5 gp a tenday. Untrammeled by life to this point, Callum is an artisanal candlemaker and big-time dreamer who seems overly confident in others. He comes with clothing, a leather apron, work knife, and three scented candles.

Fenpenny spends every moment of his remaining time that seven days reading and writing Thorcin in the process of learning the language. This is the third week of his progress, after which he has exhausted the primer he purchased and will need more advanced materials for future study.

Fenpenny wakes on the 3rd of The Fading a third-level Lore Bard.

Grexes

Grexes spends the first few days after the 25th of Highsun working in secret with his alchemist’s supplies. In gaining full proficiency with these tools, Grexes believes he has made a breakthrough in the alchemical formula of his Creature serum (patent pending). Unwilling to risk disturbing others with the effects he knows already transform him, Grexes travels to a copse of trees outside of Gosterwick and imbibes the fluid. Immediately changing as before but now with increased power, his limbs extend as he is now able to reach farther, hit harder, and swing faster.

With newly heightened senses, Grexes spends two days living in the woods and fields around Gosterwick, becoming proficient in Survival. Believing his gifts in alchemy are bestowed by the gods, Grexes spends a portion of the rest of the seven days on the Hill of the Gods, locating not only the Temple to Heschius Ban but also the stand-alone temples to Mitra, Lucreon, and Demma. Studying at each in turn he gains proficiency in Religion.

In anticipation of his upcoming examination at the House of the Thesmothete on the 29th of Highsun as a prerequisite for attaining a pass to the library at the Residence, Grexes studies Thorcin and Archontean history with Fenpenny and Vincent. The preparation pays off as the day arrives, and Grexes sits for his examination and passes with flying colors. In keeping with Archontean bureaucracy, the chartoularii that administered the examination tells the room that all library cards will be available for pick up on the 9th of The Fading, a tenday away. With utter disappointment, Grexes realizes that not only the library will have to wait, but so will his entry into the Residence proper.

Grexes spends the rest of this seven days of training learning to harness the power of the creature, honing his new skills in Survival and knowledge of Religion, and using his new found proficiency in this alchemical supplies. He wakes on the 3rd of The Fading a third-level Path of the Fractured Barbarian.

Huzzah!

Having learned that Ace is a member of the Plumthorn Gang that extorts money from adventuring groups wishing to use the Pyramid of Thoth as their entrance to the Halls of Arden Vul, Huzzah! spends time trying to pin down when Ace comes into Gosterwick and where he buys alchemical supplies and why. Seeking a trainer on the 26th of Highsun, Huzzah! gives in to his instincts and predilections for travel and adventure and on a whim and a feeling, leaves Gosterwick and heads south, down the Imperial Road to Thorham. In town he visits Din at the Drachedandion Manor and makes sure that she and her new family are doing well. In speaking to her about Ace, whom she has forgiven, she mentions that many halflings hail from Beretun further to the south on the Imperial Road and west under the New Forest before the road reaches the Gold River and the southern road from Deepton. Knowing that it would take the rest of the day to reach this hamlet, Huzzah! sets out. As he nears the small village, as the dark begins to descend, he comes upon a campfire around which he finds a halfling and a human. They rise and motion to Huzzah! who cautiously approaches. In speaking to the duo, named Fenfina Thornkettle and Yonwin, respectively, he learns that they are clerics of two adventurous and traveling gods. Fenfina worships Alder Lightfingers, halfling goddess of stealth, thievery, wanderlust, and adventure, while Yonwin is a peripatetic priest of Thrufor, thorcin god of travel, trade, and the disabled. He spends the night by their fire and recounts many of the R3C’s adventures and they offer to help train him learn a clerical adventuring talent to bestow temporary health on his colleagues and to teach him how to inspire others with pastoral care such that they can help each other after being inspired by Huzzah!. The next day they join him on his way to Beretun and the three spend the next five days ministering to the people of the hamlet while Huzzah! continues to train under their tutelage.

The first full day that Huzzah! spends in Beretun, he finds the Elemental Alchemy Solutions shop. Thinking it cannot be coincidence that there is an alchemy shop in a heavily halfling hamlet, Huzzah! enters and asks about Ace. The owner, Gidal Leonhart, a halfling himself, tells Huzzah! that not only does he know Ace, but that Ace is from Beretun. He says that Ace always struck Gidal as a treacherous sort of lad, but that he had been back several times in the last year to buy alchemical supplies. It seemed odd to the owner, since he never thought that Ace was smart enough to engage in alchemy, but he sold him the supplies. When he asked Ace what the supplies were for he mentioned something about spider venom. He remembered that Ace had paid partly in these odd, thick gold coins that when described match gold solidi that the ancient Archonteans used in Arden Vul.

After training for five days, Huzzah! makes a 50 gp donation to each of the clerics that trained him and spends all of the 2nd of The Fading hiking back up to Gosterwick, arriving late in the evening, tired and ecstatic with the new information about Ace he acquired and his new training. He wakes on the 3rd of The Fading, a 3rd level College of the Adventurers Bard.

Axle

On the 26th of Highsun, Axle “wakes” from a particularly long and pleasant system reboot algorithm. Looking to start construction on an idea he had for a metal canine that would help defend his comrades in battle, Axle heads to Under Keep, to the small workshop run by Logim Huggens from whom he took a seven day course the prior month. Master Huggens recognizes Axle immediately because he was impressed with Axle’s intuitive skill and curiosity, and after listening to his plan, agrees to help Axle create what Axle dubs his steel defender. They start the process that day, Axle eagerly spending 100 gp for supplies and for buying time at the workshop.

It quickly becomes apparent to Logim that some aspects of the creation need expertise that he lacks and which Axle has not learned yet. On the 29th of Highsun, Logim leaves Axle at the shop and is gone for some time. Coming back in the afternoon, he brings an orc in their sixth decade into the shop. Introducing Axle to Shuaz the Vivid, head engineer of the Azure Keep, they lose themselves in several hours of brainstorming and shop talk that leads eventually to the breakthrough needed to create the steel defender’s more potent attributes. Finishing the steel defender–dubbed The Marqck II–on the 30th of Highsun, a messenger comes into the shop with a message for Axle from Shuaz the Vivid, seeking Axle’s attendance at his fortifications and siege weapons workshop and engineering studio at the Azure Keep in a tenday. The note says that Shuaz would like to speak to Axle about helping up at the keep some days.

Elated with the news, Axle responds affirmatively to the messenger and heads to Astableon’s bookstore to look for books on transmutation magic and mechanical men. Leafing through a codex containing instructions for general transmutation enchantments, Axle comes across three spells with sufficient detail to learn quickly. Axle pays Astableon 10 gp for this book. Axle can add the following spells to his list of available spells:

• Chronal Lance (1st-level transmutation)
• Quicken (transmutation cantrip)
• Gear Barrage

Axle reboots on the 3rd of The Fading a 3rd level Battle Smith Artificer with an invitation to the Azure Keep on the 10th of The Fading.