Through the gate, to the left and right, large large fields, lots of farmland, lots of cows, a couple mages using Shape Water to water the crops, smell cows and milk, smell fresh crops, see someone plucking carrots out, make it to centralized tower, see a receptionist who walks out
Receptionist: “Hello are you checking in”
Nim: “I want to cash in the deposit”
Receptionist: “Origin?”
Nim: “Ashfall”
Receptionist: “I’m going to do a routine inspection, this’ll take 5 minutes”
We all get out, the lady walks around and checks stuff
Receptionist: Gives deposit back to Nim
“Tours of the Amber District over yonder”
People from trading guilds in Hyritia come over very often
“Shopping district is Ruby, through this gate”
Bloo wanders off and sees a giant sign that says “Golden Hill Ranch”, everyone follows
Also has a picture of a golden cow on it
There’s a nice concrete building, opens, and sees a massive wall of glass milk bottles and a burst of cold air
See a dude at the end talking to another man, sees a handshake
The shorter man starts to leave, the taller man
“The market share for yogurt is small”
We talk about it, Bloo gives the yogurt man’s name card to him, and he says he’ll message the yogurt man
Bloo tells him their name is Green
He’s only the milk farmer in town so he sets the price, he gauges prices based on appearance, and he thinks Nim looks smarter so harder to scam
Nim buys a jar of milk for 2 copper
Sarah: “Do you sell the first for cheap and the next ones more expensive?”
Milkman:
Thought: “I swear if she figures me out…”
Nim tells Sarah to drink a cheap jar of milk, Sarah bets Milkman that Sarah drinking it won’t have negative effects, bets 100GP
Milkman slides card to Sarah, business card for casino in town
Thought: “Shit shit shit I don’t wanna screw my friend’s business”
His friend is the one running the milk business
The government is subsidizing the farm, it covers his cost of labor
Milkman drinks the milk and nothing happens
Milkman unlocks a drawer after asking us if anyone knows how to lockpick
Milk dude: “My friend will be back tomorrow you can just ask him”
Bloo drags Sarah out as she yaps
Sarah uses an arrow and tacks a message to the door saying that this guy is a scammer
Parli city description
The Aquamarine Castle is in the center, three inner districts and four outer districts
We entered from the south gate, where the carriages go, it’s the Amber district, is the farming district
To the right of Amber, is Ruby district, the outer commercial district
To the left of Amber, the Citrine district is the military district
In NE is Lapis district, outer residential district
Three inner districts, connected by bridges separated by moats from outer district
Emerald district is the academic sector, NE third sector, it’s where the large library is, and where the university is, where the Parli Academy of Wizardry is, as well as the Prism, a 10 floor tall library
The Rosaline district is the entertainment district, the night life, the high-end stuff
The Opal District in SW, the inner residential, upper upper class, and shops and stuff
Fusilla has exports of ore
Aquamarine castle, always closed gates, very secured, only one major entrance, most ppl who work there stay there, only entrance into castle is Opal district
Along the walls, there’s stone railings, there’s more walls within the city is parcel transportation which moves with gusts of wind on rocks
Party walks to Ruby District
Smell warm fresh bread, fresh bakery, see some farmers running to their booths, see road with lots of food stalls, fresh veggies, roasted fish on a stick, see people making lettuce wraps, fresh beef, and a baker frantically running in and out of their shop, shellfish, squid
We walk into the bakery, greeted by a frantic baker, holding a piping hot tray of garlic bread and other breads, and loaves of sourdough, and juggling bread “Hot hot hot hot hot”
Baker drops the tray
Mar repairs the gloves
Baker: “Oh thank you, I didn’t have time this morning, I ripped it 5 minutes ago”
Nim: “What happened to the gloves?”
Baker: “I’m a bit clumsy, and when I was removing this tray, it snagged on that piece of broken wire”
Mar fixes the broken wire thing
Baker: “TY”
Sarah just wants salmon on the side
Bloo wants garlic bread
Lyra wants cheesy garlic bread
Nim wants cheesy garlic bread with the cheese from Bloo’s bread
Lyra wants bagels with chives and cream cheese
Derrick gets cheesy garlic bread
Bloo glorps the garlic bread
Bloo: “Can I have seconds”
Baker: “Sure”
Bloo: noms slowly
Sarah: “I heard there’s a special event in the Opal district, have you heard about it?”
Baker: “No”
Sarah: “We have a meeting in the Opal district, do you have any good hotel recommendations”
Baker: “Hotel 7 is very popular, very tourist-y, there’s also a very tall hotel but I forget where it’s called, I think it’s near the Rosaline district, it’s generally out of the way”
Baker: “I wish I could offer more, I can offer some more information, IDK how relevant, but I assume you have any meetings in the castle, the queen is not here right now, she is on a diplomatic mission somewhere, didn’t say where, but 2 days ago they made an announcement, Queen L’Dore herself is not here. I know that in the event the queen herself isn’t here, the prime minister is here”
Sarah says we’re meeting with the queen
Sarah: “We can sort it out at the castle”
Baker: “Recommend a tea parlor in the Opal district, they specialize in jasmine teas, recognize the shop by the dragon icon”
Sarah gives 2GP
We sit around eating breb
We leave the bakery, we see a man with many heads of cabbages, everything is perfectly stacked
Sarah asks about young monks
Man just sold a cabbage to a monk a couple minutes away
Also hear some music a couple blocks away, accordions and flutes, a nice relaxing sound
We wander around and see a fruit stand and see a tropical fruit stand
Sarah goes to the squid stall for some squid
Sarah wants one uncooked squid for 1 silver piece
There’s mangos, papayas, watermelons at the fruit stand
Strawberries are hard to come by in this region, strawberries are from Hyritia
Yul wants 4 bananas for 1SP
Yul puts bananas into hat
We walk through the town, see a person in a hurry, holding their hands close to themself, he bumps into Yul
Sarah runs after him on a horse
Yul Naruto runs after him, faster than Sarah on a horse
He was clenching his fist really tightly
He goes inside of a building, the baker’s building
See him sit down and take deep breaths
Sarah walks in, alone, and asks the running dude “Who are you”
Dude: “What”
Sarah: “You bumped into one of my friends, what’s in your hands”
Dude: “I’m trying to return the fish to someone, but also stole the fish from someone”
He’s trying to return the fish to whomever the league stole it from
Sarah: “i’ve been collecting them, I have 7”
Dude: “There’s only 7”
Sarah: “People keep stealing my fish >:|”
Dude: “Do you understand the significance of this fish”
The party walks in at this point
Bloo reads his mind:
Dude thought: “This paladin might be part of the league, idk why this person is trying to claim the owner of the crystal”
Nim leans over and quietly whispers in his ear “The order shall prevail”
Dude thought: “SHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT” and runs and Sarah grabs him by the nape
Nim: “He’s not working for the fish cult”
Dude thought: “Nonononononono they’re not with the league they’re with the order which is worse”
Sarah grapples him
Dude thought: “Oh shit nooo after all that I went through”
Sarah grabs the orange fish crystal from the dude and gives it to Nim
Nim: “Can you tell us what the order is”
Sarah lets him go
Nim gets him a garlic bread
Nim: “We know the fish order”
Bloo: “We literally got attacked by them”
Dude: They belong to the Order of the Fish
Dude: “I’m trying to give this to Duke Navil (The Prime Minister)”
Nim: “What’s the order”
Dude: “This is to protect a potential imminent coup”
Dude: “I just don’t want to implicate the baker, plz stay in the back”
Dude: “I’m Hugo Starling”, he’s a human
Hugo: “I’m a professor at the Parli college of wizardry, I teach history”
Nim: “I’m a professor too! I study archaeology, can you please tell me more about the weird fish cult”
Hugo: “Wait where are you a professor?”
Sarah casts Zone of Truth
Nim: “I teach at Alvar University”
Hugo: “o you’re Dagdran, that makes a lot of sense”
Bloo uses Minor Illusion to make sure no one can hear us
Hugo: “I’m a prof of history, I study a bit of magic but I’m not very good, I studied under Frostdir, I lived near Yeldan near Lake Novis, I moved to the capital, I became targeted” specializes in military and political history
Hugo: The Order of the Fish is a political faction based in Windrest and I had a bit of a run in with a couple operators in the League because I managed to snatch the orange fish crystal
Hugo: The Order is a purely political operation that hires the League
Hugo: The League is self-serving, according to some notes, it appears the League is a front for a particular wing of the political Order
Hugo: The order blames Fusilla for the assassination of emperor beryth, however, from what I’ve heard, it was the Order that assassinated the order, it was an inside job, and they wanted this as an excuse after Duessel was subjugated and independent Dagdra, they wanted Dagdra to conquer the rest of the continent
Hugo: The League is going to attack Parli, the Queen is in an unknown safe location right now
Hugo: The fish crystals, I believe, are keys, I’m blacklisted from the country of Dagdra cause I’ve been getting threats from the Order for a long time now
Hugo: pulls out a journal and starts sketching, “I’ve seen pedestals that look like this and the fish are to be inserted, I believe they’re in Windrest”
Nim: “Crescent Grove?”
Hugo: “No”
Sarah: “Do you want to come with us to the duke?”
Hugo: “Sure”
Sarah: “I’m here for a meeting with the Duke”
Nim: “Who’d you steal it from?”
Hugo: “I was attacked by a halfling woman”
Nim: “Do you have a student named Petra?”
Hugo: “Idk”
Hugo: “This weird figure whispered to me “The Order will Prevail”, I think someone from the Order is in town”
Nim: “Why r u walking thru the Ruby District”
Hugo: “I was trying to get food, and then this tall slender figure whispered to me, it was a tiefling Tiefling Dude
Nim: “Have you heard of N”
Hugo: “Yeah”
Nim: “Have you heard anything interesting about it”
Hugo: “Personally no, the tall slender man was the most recent instance of that”
Hugo: Upper ranks of the Order have markings on their face
Hugo: Tiefling is from Order, and the Order follows N, the League might just be a front, not many people survive encounters with them, the League is either employed or part of the Order
Hugo sketches out markings of the man who he stole the fish from : Dude 2
Nim: “Why rainbow colored, connected to god of death??”
Hugo: “Well, from very vague things I know, N trying to usurp the power of the original progenitor power”
Hugo: “Idk exact iconography, I do know there are 7”
Nim: “The orange one is my fourth”
Hugo: “Damn, is that why I’m feeling a weird aura from Yul”
Nim: “I found Yul in ruins”
Hugo: “OH? ” pulls out notebook and asks Yul how she’s feeling thru the window
Hugo: Frostdir, my supervisor, told me that he worked with Lady Novis on something about keeping a seal intact, did you break said seal?
Nim: Why?
Hugo: “It’s linked to the council of archmages”
Sarah: “We’re ”
Nim: “I propose we replace Derrick with Hugo”
Bloo: “No”
Nim: “Do you know what’s in the vault in the castle”
Hugo: “I felt space distorted so I was running, I felt an urge to run”
Is the Duke with the Order?
Hugo: “everyone in fusilla is against the order”
Bloo: “Is there a coup”
Hugo: “Idk”
Hugo will travel with us
ANOTHER NPC ACQUIRED!
Hugo needs to go see Frostdir, cause it’s his supervisor
Hugo: “Among you five, who do you trust the most to not lose things”
Sarah: “Nim won’t lose things, Nim will gain things”
Hugo tosses a key to Nim, it’s an ordinary key and it has text inscribed on it, with the number 307
Hugo: “This is the place I’m staying, it’s a really large room, I’m staying at the Hotel de Aqua”, it’s close the Rosalind District, it’s blue on the outside, meant to look like the smaller version of the castle, if you need a place to crash, that hotel has large rooms
It’s about noon now, we cross the bridge to the Emerald district, we pass the library, it’s a giant building that looks like it’s made of glass but it’s sturdier, it’s a special order, strength of steel but appearance of glass, a Fusillan specialty
The Academy: Two towers, a bridge, and a gated stone tower fort looking thing with big courtyard
Hugo: “My office is up this tower, it’s gonna be several stairs”
We walk into Hugo’s office, lots of stacks of paper, sketches of summoning circles, Hugo rifles thru some papers, now I need to meet with Frostdir, he’s down the hall
We walk into another office, see students in courtyards casting spells, see people dropping their spell books, open door, and greeted with tall elf man (Horace Frostdir)
Frostdir has never seen this circle in his life
Frostdir: IDK any of who you are
Frostdir: stares and looks at Lyra, and Bloo, and Yul
Frostdir: Seliph warned me about you, you’re Sarah aren’t you
Frostdir: I need to read Hugo’s report
Hugo hands him some papers
Frostdir: So all of you probs have lots of questions, no I will not write any letters of rec
Frostdir: The cursed one is stupid, just as Lady Novis told us
Frostdir: Idk all the details, lemme guess was this the thing sealed in crescent grove
Frostdir: I should hope you know that Lady Novis put her there in the first place
Frostdir: Why? I suspect that Sarah is nosy and already cast Identify on her?
Frostdir: I imagine you seek audience with Lady Novis, you do not get accepted automatically, ANYWAYS,
Frostdir: You’ve seen, he starts pointing towards Yul, and an object starts glowing in her chest
Frostdir: Do you know about the mirror? Do you know where the shards are hidden?
Frostdir: There’s two shards in Parli, one in Vault, one in Yul???!?!?!!!!!?!!
Frostdir: The other shards are not in people
Frostdir: I can’t grant you memories of before you were sealed, she voluntarily accepted the shard and was sealed away, but idk her prior, but I am quite young compared to Lady Novis, you gotta ask Lady Novis, one of the shards resides in you, young puppet
Frostdir: You decided voluntarily, puppet, to be sealed
Sarah: What’s the deal with the Count?
Frostdir: I heard he’s dead thank god, Oh he was doing that mirror shit again?
Frostdir: Long story short, the Count Canonbury was once a student of the magic academy trying to become a legendary inventor, tried to recreate the mirror, he worked as a scientist for the order of the fish, i heard a group of adventurers hired by Seliph took him out
Frostdir: Didn’t want to tarnish name, so hired adventurers
Frostdir: Please take a seat, a bunch of chairs drifts in would you like some tea?
A little mage hand brings the tea to us
Frostdir: You have four of them right
Nim: yes, we met the three goblins in the trench coat
Frostdir looks at the vault key from Nim
Frostdir: So this is a fake, I just talked to Fae yesterday, Fae is fine I was with her this morning
Frostdir: Petra von Alspar is not affiliated with this academy,, you might be describing Petra von Alspar, she’s a daughter of a noble over in some region in Dagdra
Frostdir: As you can tell, the Order and the League have a wide influence
Frostdir: Where’d you get the teleportation circle
Nim: The goblins
We need to find DERRICK AAHHH
Frostdir puts a ring on his finger, we follow him, he pulls a curtain, “alright watch this”
His ring starts to glow
See Frostdir’s eyes glows as well, and you see something flash over there, he hasn’t gotten terribly far, he doesn’t know how to go the castle, he’s surprisingly near the library
Sarah goes to get him
Frostdir tells Yul to stay, “I have some questions”
Frostdir: “Uhm, idk how to get your memory back, but I’m pretty sure Lady Novis does, interesting patchwork”
Frostdir: The League has not struck yet, but I’m aware of their presence
Frostdir: That gauntlet was something the Count worked on, the gauntlet amplifies Jeice’s magic, Jeice failed magic school, so I assume if he was able to use any magic, it was because of the gauntlet
Frostdir: Well that means his patron is something more powerful than the Order, someone that does actually worship Nyarlathotep, I presume that gauntlet uses stones pre-infused with magic, that teleport circle may teleport somewhere
Frostdir: I didn’t think those swords exist, Tiefling Dude’s sword, Hugo would you like to explain
Hugo: You’re describing sword that can cut fabric space time, Legend had it that there was a blacksmith that infused the properties of space itself into a few blades, idk how many there are in existence, no more than three (Bloo has seen two, Edwin and tiefling dude)
Bloo, explaining Edwin, didn’t get stabbed in this body
Frostdir: “OH?”
Frostdir: Lady Novis should be the one to answer that, she’s currently busy, first thing tomorrow morning, would you like to meet her? I can teleport her to you
Bloo: TIEFLING GUY SAID TO MEET AT LAKE NOVIS
Frostdir: oh no
Frostdir: there’s gonna be an attack and we need to defend
Frostdir: Puppet…
Nim: That’s rude
Frostdir: Alright, this changes things
Frostdir: Lady novis will probs trying to extract shard from her
Frostdir: If I was gonna extract shard from Yul I’d probably kill her then revive her
SARAH
Sarah finds Derrick in a panic
Sarah gets him onto his horse
Takes him back towards the rest of the party
OKAY BACK TO FROSTDIR
Frostdir: Oh hi welcome back, Derrick your sister is fine
Derrick: The key!?
Bloo: The key is fake
Derrick: !?!?!?
Frostdir: Yeaaah…, and hands written note to Derrick, just enter castle and buzz for her
Frostdir: A lot more to discuss, so I can summon lady novis, shall I send her a message?
Party: Yes
Frostdir: Wonderful, did the Tiefling mention when to meet
Frostdir: Let’s just say Astrid has her defenses
Frostdir gives 5GP to Derrick, and tells her to get Fae a nice dinner
As Frostdir sits down, he looks at Lyra, then looks back at his tea
Bloo feels that Parli is familiar but cannot place it, has likely been to Parli pre-blob
