Session 26

Date: 30 September 2020

Prev: Session 25

Next: Session 27

The next morning at the Earl and the Tailor, Mino is doing pull-ups on the door beam as part of his morning workout routine... but gets stuck in the ceiling. Balasar, the concierge, comes to see what is happening, but is aghast and struck silent. Mino calmly asks for a towel to clean himself up with, to which Balasar obliges but then immediately retreats. Quill, ever the early riser, has already been downstairs and is reading waiting for breakfast. Raen had been sleeping, but is woken up by the sound of Mino finally dropping to the ground, although he chooses not to investigate the noise and go downstairs instead, arriving into the dining room as Balasar does.

Quill has ordered his breakfast, 2 softboiled eggs that are the same size in the little egg cups, with toast soldiers. When they arrive, each egg has three doilies: one under the egg, one over top of the egg, and one under each cup. The two kinds of toast soldiers, wheat and rye, each have their own doily as well. He is reading from two books, From the Inner to the Outer: Planar Relationships (a history of plane diagrams, and a discussion of how accurate or not accurate they are depending on the dimensional space) and We are Living in a Material Plane.

Raen struggles to order breakfast, finding his requests thwarted at each turn - for example, Balasar doesn't have spinach, but does have collard greens. There is cranberry and pineapple juice, but not orange, and no bar. They also have no meat. Raen eventually just orders eggs hollandaise Template:Citation needed, an elven dish. When Mino finally arrives downstairs, he is oblivious to the wood and plaster around his horn, and orders scrambled eggs with the collard greens.

Over at the Jolly Dove, Ro wakes Corrin, who encourages him to go wake Nergil. Nergil is both annoyed and delighted by the wake-up service. When they get downstairs, the bartender has made a shitton of bacon "because it was going to go bad", he explains. There is also a basket of yesterday's rolls. Nergil, still hungover, declines any victuals, not being currently "about the food life" but Corrin tucks in.

At the E&T, Mino, Raen, and Quill pay their bill and an additional fee for general damages. Quill wants to come back, but recognizes Balasar's veiled invitation to not return. Mino obliviously suggests adding a gym to the b&b's amenities. The three make their way over to join their friends at the Jolly Dove.

After a bleary greeting where Raen finally gets a bacon sandwich and a bloody mary, Mino leads the conversation by talking about his experience meeting Winnehild. Corrin jokes that Winnehild's arms are her arms (i.e., weapons). Mino wonders what it means to worship a god, as he's never been particularly pious, and files that away as something to learn more about. The party discusses their plans for the day, deciding to visit the comte, ask for information about the stones, and hopefully run into Astrid.

They pass two temples as they walk, which stand across from each other on opposite banks of the river: Llymlaen and Bifelgan. Quill and Nergil recall a little about the two gods and their children, Nald and Thal. They arrive at the comte's estate, a modest manor house with an open-air headhouse in front. The headhouse seems to be an office of some kind, where goods are being inspected, stamped and signed before they can be put out on the market.

The party waits in line for 14 minutes, until they reach an elf with teardrop earring, in a business-light-blue button down, with a black apron and cloth gloves. They explain they just want to see the comte, and that they were working with the ranger Quinn, who will have told the comte about them, and that they know Astrid, a friend of the comte's. The elf, whose name is Markus, confers with his colleague, then refers them to the other side of the headhouse where there is a business office.

In the office is the comte's majordomo, a dwarf named Elaim. He greets the party warily but relaxes quickly when their name-dropping goes well. He confirms that Quinn has left, and that Astrid is present at the comte's. He finishes off his current task and leads them up the drive towards the manor. The guard who opens the door is baffled at the small parade that enters. Elaim leads the group through the house to a cozy library and study, where Astrid is chatting with the comte, who Astrid introduces as Kenzie.

The party is surprised to see Astrid but immediately bombards her with information about their last few days. She takes a few minutes to sort out the story, to Kenzie's amusement. They are both surprised and concerned when Mino announces for his part of the story that he "died and fought a god". Kenzie invites the group to join them in the blue salon for proper refreshments and a fuller chat, and Elaim leads them to the room.

When they're all settled, with Elaim in the corner taking notes, Quill describes the moss creature they fought at the standing stones: it had tentacles and was resistant to most damage, but was hidden until Nergil tried to eat it. It disoriented Ro, and it seemed to be eroding the standing stone where the moss was anchored on it. Astrid doesn't recognize the creature. Quill also begins to explain that there was a weird field surrounding it, but Kenzie explains that that's just the magical effect of several planes overlapping in the same space; it's planar, but it's a localized effect, not generated extraplanarly.

Kenzie explains that Quinn reported the battles against the bugbears and gnolls, but just mentioned a group of adventurers who assisted, leaving the details to her written report. They didn't have a chance to read the report before chatting with Astrid, who arrived just as Quinn was leaving, so there wasn't a change to exchange information between the three of them. Astrid apologizes more generally for not providing more information in her warning. She has been scrying on a couple of subjects of interest to the party, to little success; she mentions openly the bad guy, but carefully does not mention that she's been also looking for other pieces of the orrery.

As the party more slowly recounts their tale, Mino mentions that he met the Kindred, which surprises Astrid, Kenzie, and Elaim. They all explain that it is uncommon for those who are revived or resurrected to remember their encounter with the Kindred. Mino reveals he chose the wolf, which the party thinks is pretty in character for him. Corrin mentions during the discussion that the Kindred are somewhat unfamiliar to him because halflings believe instead in the Gray Man, who takes them by the hand to lead them to their rest.

As they have been chatting, Kenzie and Astrid have made oblique references to a mage named Dreli, who is apparently "a druid but not a druid". She would be the most local expert on the standing stones, so Kenzie agrees to send a note to her to visit the manor this evening (probably around 7-8 o'clock). The party has the rest of the afternoon off, should they want it, although they take luncheon before they head off.

Notes Without Sufficient Context

• "small, medium, and massive, and rock-sized" groups of enemies
• Re: Dreli: "but people can be affected!" "that would make her normal"