Moonlight [Chris], Huilam [Jamie], Burrito [Darryl], El Cid [Shane], Tylin [Ian], Argile [Richard] and Lammy [Kevin] stood around the draw-bar of Carte Blanche. The suspicious attachment on the cart was worrying them, so they finally relented and took the cart to the Wizards' Guild to get an Identify spell on the suspect beam. This cost one COIN. Daisy Crown was the wizard who was tasked with the spell; four hours later, she reported the bad news.
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| Suspicious cart chassis beam (marked in orange) |
"It is a tracking device," she said. "But's also magically trapped, so unscrewing either of the two bolts to the chassis, or the two coach screws will set it off. Same's if you cut it, or drill a hole in it, or break it. It's been in-situ for many weeks. My spell does not say who's tracking. My spell also doesn't tell the effect of the magical ... uh ... discharge. Oh, and it's not evil too."
Carte Blanche would no longer be parked in the secret garage, but instead would be stored outside on the street. The party base was no longer secret, so they weren't particularly worried on being tracked. They did not want to dump the cart; new carts were rather expensive.
In the marmalade room, Ronny's lifeless body floated in the waist-deep marmalade. Dee Dee was drifting around floating on an inflatable life-buoy. Sorrow had joined her.
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They all went to the Panadine temple to check up upon the analysis of the plague poison. Priestess Greta said her team had some preliminary results, and it did not look good. She suspected that the Wraith King was involved. But to prove that, she needed a sample of the foundation dust or sand. This would need to be collected from the source, so she wanted to group to venture to the very centre of the Scabport Graveyard. And to collect a sample: "Just a handful is all I need."
Greta gave them a vial of magical reagent, and an eyedropper. They were to put one drop on a "seam of sand. Or dust." If it turned blue, bromothymol blue, then they were to collect the sample from there. She also gave them 7 vials of holy water (in a smart bandolier).
But the Panadines could not afford to pay for this dangerous mission ("And don't go after dark!"), but she suggested that, since this would affect the city itself, they should go see the Knives to sponsor the trip.
So, the entire group (sans Moonlight) went to Knives, and were shown down to Lieutenant Chung's conversation pit. Chung listened to them patiently, and then just said no way, and shooed them away. The party was taken aback.
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So, they headed off towards the Wizards' Guild.
During that trip, party P.A. Esme intercepted them in the streets with two jobs from the Luscious Pixie noticeboard. One was from Panadine (already done), and one was a scrawled note from the Canker temple (god of Death)
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| Canker Priest |
So, before visiting the Wizards' Guild, they decided to go direct to the Temple district and to the Canker temple. El Cid, Tylin and Moonlight were the only ones brave enough to venture inside the skull-shaped temple. (Plus Huilam still had the Protection from Evil field on him from the Panadines, which would last until the end of that day, so he would not be allowed inside any way.)
They were taken by guards deep into the stinking temple, and had to trudge through the slippery, ankle-deep muck on the floor, to be presented to the Canker Head Priest.
The Cankers had a job for some suitably discrete low-moral mercenaries. They wanted two Kliban priests assassinated. Priest Brandon Stapleton and Priestess Slimy Douche. They had to get the Canker priest to repeat that latter name several times with his papery voice. Yes, they had that name correct - poor girl; obviously it was fate.
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| Black Napper |
Tylin negotiated: 5 COIN each murder. The contract required at least one to die.
The Canker priest gave El Cid a small chest with a split lid.
"Inside," he rasped. "Are two black nappers. These are magical spiders with a fatal bite. After the bite, they turn into a mist, and return to us."
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Then they went back to the Wizards' Guild. Daisy was manning the front desk and performing as the liaison officer today (Sly Dunbar was out). They told her about the Panadine theory and how Chung was reluctant to pay for the Graveyard mission. Daisy listened and just said "Interesting." Then she had some relevant news for them:
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| Daisy Crown |
In eight days time, there was to be a Council Meeting. This meeting had been delayed many times due to the recent city troubles. There was a controversial item on the agenda: the Knives wanted to increase the size of the council from 16 to 19, adding three more seats. The current 16 seats were apportioned: 5 Knives, 3 TGP, 3 WG, 1 REAL, 1 IMAG, 3 to other temples on a rotation, changed each season via lots drawn a year in advance. The three new seats were proposed to go to 1 Knives, 1 TGP and, very controversially, 1 to the Wraith King to give the Dead some say*. The WG strongly disagreed with this.
Currently, the "Rotated" three temples are Vingt-et-un (Luck), Hob (Fire) and Funken Wagnall (Knowledge). But at the next meeting, they'd been decided to go to Nuke (War), Caribou Gorn (Nature) and Kliban.
To change the council size was a constitutional amendment and that required a two-thirds majority, i.e. 11 of 16. The Knives, and TGP and IMAG would be pro. WG and REAL would be anti. Nuke would be pro. Caribou Gorn would be anti. Kliban would be anti - Kliban always voted for the status quo ("that's fate"). This only gave 10.
The party did not reveal their contact with the Cankers, but did ask Daisy who the Kliban delegates would be. Daisy had to consult her Scabport Almanac and revealed it was Priest Brandon Stapleton with a backup of Priestess Slimy Douche.
"Now we know," muttered someone. Maybe, if the Kliban delegate never turned up, there'd be 15, and two-thirds of 15 was 10. But surely they'd still need 11.
Daisy went upstairs and consulted with some other wizards, and returned to the group. The WG would pay 8 COIN for the group to do the Graveyard trip to help the Panadines with the plague poison research. The money would not be paid in tangible chests, but instead would be in services. The party was happy for this. (And being in the form of services, it meant that they did not need to worry about storing the actual chests.)
* = The Wraith King's recent thesis on Critical Death Theory stated that the living-impaired were oppressed by the "cis-living", and discriminated against for the immutable characteristic that they were no longer alive. This was called "mortism". The living-impaired had difficulty expressing themselves, both orally and ambulatory (common symptoms were paralysis and soft-tissue decomposition), so there was a power dynamic between them and the living, adding to the mortism. Mortism was responsible for living-impaired individuals, without their enthusiastic consent, forcibly locked into air-tight containers ("coffins"), and buried or locked into stone prisons ("tombs" and "mausoleums"), or incinerated in pyres ("cremation"). Ironically, such blatant mortism was done by kin, loved ones and well-meaning friends, and they would even exacerbate such mortism with a celebration ("funeral" or "wake"). Finally, institutional mortism occurred later, when the living-impaired's estate and possessions were stolen and distributed to kin via a mortist contract ("will").
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Tylin, Huilam and Argyle went to the Kliban's temple. Argile managed to book a meeting with Priestess Slimy Douche, which would be tomorrow at 1 bell (one hour before dark).
There were a few hours left of the day, so they decided to do a graveyard trip immediately. In the Skull district, there were more than the normal number of Knives patrols wandering around, and they were actively stopping anyone with weapons from entering the actual graveyard. But the graveyard walls were not very intact, so it wasn't hard for the party to avoid the guard patrols by entering through a random property's backyard. Then the group went straight to the very centre and found a large crypt. Sure enough, inside was a wide passage descending deeper into the ground.
And so they went down, and down, and down.
They encountered some skeletons, and a few ghouls. But these were dispatched with sword, arrow and Panadine holy water.
Their main danger was being stuck down here after dark, so Lammy watched the clock like a hawk. (All wizards carry a Wizards' Chronometer, supplied by the Guild, which shows the exact time. It also has an arrow which points directly towards the Great Kliban Temple at the centre of the Known World, so acts as a compass. This is why that direction is called "Klib".)
At every level, Huilam got out the vial and eyedropper and put a few drops on the dust and sand to see if it changed colour. They got down three levels, with no blue marks from the drops, before Lammy signalled that it was time to go, and so they made their way out to the sunlight, and out of the graveyard. Just as night fell.
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Next morning, they went back to graveyard. To a different catafalque and began the trek downwards again.
They got deeper this time, four levels this time, but they met consequently more undead.
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| Ghoul |
[By this stage, party Stress was looking bad. They had spent a lot of Stress to help the missile combat and throwing holy water vials.
Argile had to make his Resistance roll to save his life, but got to 9 Stress (8+ is bad). This zonked Argile and gave him the COLD trauma.
El Cid, Tylin and Lammy were all on 7 Stress. Huilam 6. Burrito 5.]
To add insult to injury, as they rushed out of the cemetery, a patrol eight of Knives stopped them.
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| Generic Corporal |
"Do that again and there'll be trouble," said El Cid.
The corporal poked him again.
El Cid stepped forward and punched him in the face. El Cid hadn't really tested his new improved black IMAG fists (well, not against a living opponent). The poor corporal's face just caved in, right to the back of his skull, as brains, blood and spinal fluid spattered out. The rest of the squad gasped as the corporal's lifeless body sagged to the ground, and drew their swords. The party groaned.
Lammy cast a Sleep spell and Moonlight a Hold on the men, and they all dropped like nine-pins. The group beat a hasty retreat to their base.
Leave the cart with the keys in the ignition outside a disreputable tavern.
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