bluegargantua (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bluegargantua) wrote2009-04-15 01:16 pm
bluegargantua) wrote2009-04-15 01:16 pm
Adjo's Journal (31 of N)
Hi,
There are only two good things about our meetings with nobility: 1.) I get to watch Kestrel and the others flail wildly in their efforts to be diplomatic and 2.) the noble we save is usually grateful enough to give us aid/look the other way while we conduct our investigations in our usual style. Which is good because my colleagues apparently aren’t as subtle as the fanatical, kill-them-all-with-fire, Humanity-First zealots we’re now confronting.
But first – two weeks on the beach! I was a bit disappointed to discover that the protective magics of the Summerisles seemed to interfere with my efforts to translate the Imperial Journal. I did, however, read though the journal recovered from Angelspell. As I suspected, she picked up the rituals and the staff from a member of the Six who appears to reside in Anvil’s local university. Which means that at least I’ll get some work done while we handle these Tolling Bell people.
Oh, and I also figured out how a number of Angelspell’s effects worked which means I too can put up a wall of flame.
Anyway, after a delightful vacation, we piled back aboard Dauntless to fly south to Anvil. Hoping not to alert the world to our presence, we stopped off several miles away and rode Brawl in (which is a bit conspicuous, but I’m not entering a city full of unhinged cultists without my APC).
Anvil. Big place. Impossibly tall buildings everywhere and lots of magical/clockwork devices to save on the stair climbing. Nice to see magic being used properly for once, but I’m looking forward to the day when extra-dimensional architecture becomes the standard. We drove around until we reached the Commonwealth ambassador to the Anvil Alliance. Said ambassador happens to be Lord Bastion’s cousin and we had a letter of introduction. Which was good because Kestrel could just wave it in front of anyone official looking and didn’t have to try and explain our presence.
We eventually reached the embassy and had a short chat with the ambassador’s majordomo in which far, far, FAR too much was revealed though the majordomo’s clever ruse of simply letting the others blab their fool heads off.
The ambassador’s guest leaves, a guy with a tolling bell symbol around his neck. We find out from the ambassador (who’s built like a...”brick shithouse” I believe is the phrase, but honestly, it was more like 3 brick shithouses jammed side by side), that his guest was one Joshua Sanderson, a high-ranking member of the cult.
The basic lowdown on the cult is that some guy named Ezekiel Stone took his ship way south one day and didn’t come back for years. When he returned, all the non-human members of his crew were gone and he was preaching this Tolling Bell nonsense. I mean, they seriously believe that there’s only a single, Human, deity. Who doesn’t manifest as a human, mind you, but rather as this tonal emanation. You don’t need Advanced Metaphysics 4250 to spot the flaws in this theory. Between Alanna and Thrace, I haven’t had my life preserved by a human-oriented deity in months and any halfway decent sized town can offer you a range of services from any one of a number of gods/goddesses.
Which is why it’s really surprising that the Bell has been doing so well here in Anvil which has a temple district larger than the entirety of some cities. This seems like it’s something that might play well in the sticks, but in a cosmopolitan place like this? I suspect some outside assistance in making the message more palatable although no one has detected any such thing.
Anyway, the ambassador gets us a meeting with Hector Grimm, the social secretary of the Baroness of Anvil (and thus the current ruler of the Alliance). It seems as though the Baroness is an elderly half-elf in very poor health and a number of people are jockeying for a crack at the seat. Which is why the Bells have been embraced by one of the major factions in town. You would think that the Baroness would want these idiots shut down, but there’s a tolerance policy and politics and yadda-yadda-yadda. Because the Bells either do their dirty work outside of town, or understand how plausible deniability works, they haven’t caused enough of a fuss to get them kicked out. Ezekiel himself is in hiding but everyone thinks he’s still in town somewhere.
So the next day we’re off to have a short meeting with the Baroness. On the way over, I idly asked if anyone had the slightest clue what they were going to say to a frail woman with a lot of important things to do, but there were no answers forthcoming. Luckily, Alanna saved us all from a tiresome afternoon, by detecting that the Baroness was being poisoned and that, furthermore, the medicine being brought in by the elven cleric was, in fact, another dose (or it was a small dose of antidote to keep her lingering? It got very confused soon).
So the cleric threw her tray and Alanna and started to run. Hector called for the guard who swiftly arrived...to put on their Tolling Bell pendants and declare for the cult. Not only had the personal guard of the Baroness been compromised by the cult, but her furniture had also been replaced with elaborate booby traps. From out of the tables came swarms of little clockwork soldiers who proceeded to pepper us with their little needle-javelins and upholstery tack swords. They hurt, no question about it, but I don’t think I’ve ever been attacked in such a charming manner before. I was almost sad that I had to wipe them all out.
It was a bit of a tussle and Kestrel was a bit too eager to kill the elven cleric and Kaylee almost went out the window, and the last guard did go out the window and prevented us from taking another prisoner, but we eventually mopped them all up (and captured the treasonous cleric). I recalled the Baroness mentioning that the cult had a number of followers in one of the cities just outside of Anvil and prominent among them was an artificer. Looking over the remains of the clockwork soldiers, I feel we’ll be paying a visit to his toyshop.
This, of course, after we rescue the elven cleric’s mate/children/family, whoever it is that the cult has kidnapped and is using as leverage against her. There’s no way she’d be involved in all of this unless they had a credible threat . I’m afraid that this delay will tip our hand and give the artificer and/or cult more time to prepare or flee, but if there are other people being so manipulated by the cult then we need to make sure that the word on the street is that you come clean and we’ll get your people back for you. The Baroness is going to squelch most of the news on this attack, but at least she’s also likely to turn a blind eye to the less…blatant of our covert actions as we take these people apart. Frankly, considering how porous her security is, it’s probably for the best if she doesn’t know what we’re doing until the fire brigades are called out.
later
Tom
There are only two good things about our meetings with nobility: 1.) I get to watch Kestrel and the others flail wildly in their efforts to be diplomatic and 2.) the noble we save is usually grateful enough to give us aid/look the other way while we conduct our investigations in our usual style. Which is good because my colleagues apparently aren’t as subtle as the fanatical, kill-them-all-with-fire, Humanity-First zealots we’re now confronting.
But first – two weeks on the beach! I was a bit disappointed to discover that the protective magics of the Summerisles seemed to interfere with my efforts to translate the Imperial Journal. I did, however, read though the journal recovered from Angelspell. As I suspected, she picked up the rituals and the staff from a member of the Six who appears to reside in Anvil’s local university. Which means that at least I’ll get some work done while we handle these Tolling Bell people.
Oh, and I also figured out how a number of Angelspell’s effects worked which means I too can put up a wall of flame.
Anyway, after a delightful vacation, we piled back aboard Dauntless to fly south to Anvil. Hoping not to alert the world to our presence, we stopped off several miles away and rode Brawl in (which is a bit conspicuous, but I’m not entering a city full of unhinged cultists without my APC).
Anvil. Big place. Impossibly tall buildings everywhere and lots of magical/clockwork devices to save on the stair climbing. Nice to see magic being used properly for once, but I’m looking forward to the day when extra-dimensional architecture becomes the standard. We drove around until we reached the Commonwealth ambassador to the Anvil Alliance. Said ambassador happens to be Lord Bastion’s cousin and we had a letter of introduction. Which was good because Kestrel could just wave it in front of anyone official looking and didn’t have to try and explain our presence.
We eventually reached the embassy and had a short chat with the ambassador’s majordomo in which far, far, FAR too much was revealed though the majordomo’s clever ruse of simply letting the others blab their fool heads off.
The ambassador’s guest leaves, a guy with a tolling bell symbol around his neck. We find out from the ambassador (who’s built like a...”brick shithouse” I believe is the phrase, but honestly, it was more like 3 brick shithouses jammed side by side), that his guest was one Joshua Sanderson, a high-ranking member of the cult.
The basic lowdown on the cult is that some guy named Ezekiel Stone took his ship way south one day and didn’t come back for years. When he returned, all the non-human members of his crew were gone and he was preaching this Tolling Bell nonsense. I mean, they seriously believe that there’s only a single, Human, deity. Who doesn’t manifest as a human, mind you, but rather as this tonal emanation. You don’t need Advanced Metaphysics 4250 to spot the flaws in this theory. Between Alanna and Thrace, I haven’t had my life preserved by a human-oriented deity in months and any halfway decent sized town can offer you a range of services from any one of a number of gods/goddesses.
Which is why it’s really surprising that the Bell has been doing so well here in Anvil which has a temple district larger than the entirety of some cities. This seems like it’s something that might play well in the sticks, but in a cosmopolitan place like this? I suspect some outside assistance in making the message more palatable although no one has detected any such thing.
Anyway, the ambassador gets us a meeting with Hector Grimm, the social secretary of the Baroness of Anvil (and thus the current ruler of the Alliance). It seems as though the Baroness is an elderly half-elf in very poor health and a number of people are jockeying for a crack at the seat. Which is why the Bells have been embraced by one of the major factions in town. You would think that the Baroness would want these idiots shut down, but there’s a tolerance policy and politics and yadda-yadda-yadda. Because the Bells either do their dirty work outside of town, or understand how plausible deniability works, they haven’t caused enough of a fuss to get them kicked out. Ezekiel himself is in hiding but everyone thinks he’s still in town somewhere.
So the next day we’re off to have a short meeting with the Baroness. On the way over, I idly asked if anyone had the slightest clue what they were going to say to a frail woman with a lot of important things to do, but there were no answers forthcoming. Luckily, Alanna saved us all from a tiresome afternoon, by detecting that the Baroness was being poisoned and that, furthermore, the medicine being brought in by the elven cleric was, in fact, another dose (or it was a small dose of antidote to keep her lingering? It got very confused soon).
So the cleric threw her tray and Alanna and started to run. Hector called for the guard who swiftly arrived...to put on their Tolling Bell pendants and declare for the cult. Not only had the personal guard of the Baroness been compromised by the cult, but her furniture had also been replaced with elaborate booby traps. From out of the tables came swarms of little clockwork soldiers who proceeded to pepper us with their little needle-javelins and upholstery tack swords. They hurt, no question about it, but I don’t think I’ve ever been attacked in such a charming manner before. I was almost sad that I had to wipe them all out.
It was a bit of a tussle and Kestrel was a bit too eager to kill the elven cleric and Kaylee almost went out the window, and the last guard did go out the window and prevented us from taking another prisoner, but we eventually mopped them all up (and captured the treasonous cleric). I recalled the Baroness mentioning that the cult had a number of followers in one of the cities just outside of Anvil and prominent among them was an artificer. Looking over the remains of the clockwork soldiers, I feel we’ll be paying a visit to his toyshop.
This, of course, after we rescue the elven cleric’s mate/children/family, whoever it is that the cult has kidnapped and is using as leverage against her. There’s no way she’d be involved in all of this unless they had a credible threat . I’m afraid that this delay will tip our hand and give the artificer and/or cult more time to prepare or flee, but if there are other people being so manipulated by the cult then we need to make sure that the word on the street is that you come clean and we’ll get your people back for you. The Baroness is going to squelch most of the news on this attack, but at least she’s also likely to turn a blind eye to the less…blatant of our covert actions as we take these people apart. Frankly, considering how porous her security is, it’s probably for the best if she doesn’t know what we’re doing until the fire brigades are called out.
later
Tom