Dramatis Personae
Beltin (Aasimar Dirge Bard/Cleric 12).
"Jake" aka Alex, the actual character name but I refuse to go back and edit the old entries (Human Wizard/Rogue 12).
Zai (Human Tetori Monk/Lore Warden Fighter 12). MISSING PLAYER, PLAYED BY GLORY.
Glory, aka the Righteous Fury of Heaven (Aasimar Synthesist Summoner/Bloodrager 12).
Paranoia & Predatory Loans, Session 20.1 - 12/13/14
Day 49
"What's interest?"
Glory gets up the next day and wanders around looking for a place to get some breakfast. He stumbles across The Sip of Blood Tavern, A Hospitality Guild Establishment and decides to head on in.
The place is much changed from the days of Lucky Fjork. The walls are hung with silk curtain and low tables with hookahs and cushions have replaced many of the tables and scantily dressed women lay passed out next to customers who seemed to enjoy their pipes a bit too much. There is a second story with tables and a smaller bar that acts as a balcony overlooking the ground level.
So now the place is an opium den as well as a bar, but that fact is lost on Glory, who merely seeks some breakfast. He sits at one of the tables away from the opium den portion of the establishment and in short order the bar tender Floyd comes up to speak with him, clearly not surprised that a clueless angel just stumbled in; word travels fast.
Why yes, they do have a great assortment of the foods available in quality ranging from fair to the highest quality, explains Floyd and Glory decides to go for the finest quality that is the way of Heaven, but what is this "price" you speak of, Glory asks. He's not from the material plane after all.
Floyd explains that in this plane, you exchange money for goods and services, and says that if Glory doesn't have any bits they can work something out. The Hospitality Guild also offers short term loans to capable adventurers, up to 5,000 bits... 20% interest, compounded daily.
Glory doesn't know what the second part means but doesn't ask. He says he'll take the 5,000 and Floyd smiles. He explains that normally they don't give that amount to just anyone, but isn't he part of the Greed Elementals? Perhaps if he has trouble making repayment the Hospitality Guild can hold them liable for it, says Floyd. That's a strange way of putting it, thinks Glory, but he says of course, as why wouldn't his new, dubious friends help him in his time of need?
Floyd just keeps on smiling. Glory signs the paperwork and receives his money. The pact is sealed.
With that done he enjoys a rather large breakfast of the finest foods and then pays his bill of 400 bits. It was delicious but certainly not Heaven quality cuisine.
Pleasant dreams
Jake has a night filled with haunting dreams of atrocities committed at the Tower of Weeping Sores, culminating in a a dream so intense and vivid that it could more properly be called a vision.
He sees a young woman with horrible, but healing, wounds all over her body. She is pregnant, or was, as a midwife stands nearby holding a newborn baby, making gentle calming sounds to soothe the crying infant. Standing next to the bed is a man in similar shape as the woman, clearly wounded but healing and smiling, telling her that everything is okay, they escaped from that horrible place. Everything will be okay.
The young woman is in a daze, she can't remember how she got here. She is amazed, shocked, relieved. Then she thinks of the man, her husband. How did he survive? She saw him die, die horribly while the creatures in the tower laughed. How can he be here? As she thinks this, the illusion bursts apart. She is still in the tower. She never made it out. She never will.
She begins to scream.
Her husband's mutilated corpse hangs from a hook nearby, skinned, and the creature wearing her husband's skin smiles even wider as the illusion falls away. The woman goes into hysterics and turns to see the midwife is another fiend, wolf headed with spikes ripping out of its flesh, holding onto her newborn baby.
She sees a two-foot around hole with a grate over it in the middle of the torture room; it is used to flush down the larger pieces of viscera and flesh extracted from the victims of these beasts. She knows many pieces of her husband rest at the bottom of that pit. The grate is open and the demon stands above it.
The demon catches her gaze and smiles. It is a look devoid of anything close to compassion or sympathy, but it does contain a large amount of cruel amusement. The creature cradles the crying newborn baby and makes soft, comforting noises. Then drops it down the drain.
Screaming, sobbing, and hearty laughter follows, but the image of the dream is breaking apart. Jake wakes up in a cold sweat and knows what he saw wasn't just a dream. His wounded shoulder burns. He briefly wonders if he could still be in the tower. Did he ever leave? Will he ever? He uneasily dismisses that notion, but is shaken all the same.
Paranoia rises in him, fueled by not only the dream, but his lack of restful sleep and the way his men stare at him and stop speaking in their quiet tones as he approaches.
He gets up and orders his men to stay on guard. Beltin gets up with him and Jake says he is going to Bard's Gate. Beltin agrees to follow and they go to look for Glory.
Business in Bard's Gate
As Glory is perhaps the most conspicuous person in town, it doesn't take long to track him down to the Sip of Blood as he is finishing his breakfast. The subject of the loan doesn't come up, but when asked if he wants to go to Bard's Gate, Glory agrees.
Teleport away!
The party arrives at the northern, little used, gate of Bard's Gate, the way heading toward the Desolation. At least it used to be little used. With the crusade, hopeful caravans, and adventurers seeking to make their fortune heading north and plunder from the Desolation heading south, the way is actually pretty busy now.
As the party enters the city a guard approaches and asks them for papers (yay tax purposes!). Jake swears and gets ready to do something stupid most likely, but Glory cuts both men off. He stretches out his wings and declares that he is a messenger of Heaven and he has business in the city. The guard is awed and confused, but still looks like he is going to insist that they fill out some forms, but a 40ish diplomacy check from Glory makes the man reconsider and let them through.
Jake, who was hoping to be inconspicuous in his visit, realizes that ship has sailed. As they walk through the city a small crowd gathers and follows Glory, some seeking his blessings and others just wanting to gawk.
The first stop on Jake's to-do list is the mage's university. Though he never had an official education in the magical arts himself (and he and the magic schools tend to hate each other on general principle, with him thinking they are over-educated assholes and they thinking he is dangerous hick dealing with matters he cannot comprehend), he recognizes they got resources he can use.
He wants some spells and they have them. Time to buy! At the gate of the university most of the crowd is turned away by guards as they clearly have no place here, but the party is let in. Jake and Beltin head toward the library.
The university's courtyard is a beautiful garden and has a magnificent magical fountain in the center; Glory is happy as finally here is a place that kind of looks like it belongs in Heaven, though of course it would have more marble and such if it really did.
He meets some mages who are quite keen to know what manner of creature he is and hear his tale; some look at him with awe, mostly the younger students, but most aren't impressed just by a guy in ragged clothes with angel wings. They are "masters of magic" after all. Regardless, Glory spends most of the day in the garden talking to the mages while Jake and Beltin do their thing.
Jake speaks to a librarian and says he needs to learn from spells, namely anti-scrying and anti-divination spells. And he has money. He pays to copy Nondetection and a few other spells into his spell book and also has to pay a visitor's fee for the library. They offer him a yearly pass to the library for 200 gold (non-spell books only of course), but he is cheap and pays the one day price. Fuck these snooty mages.
Beltin is even cheaper and decides to screw paying to visit the fancy mages' library and seeks out one of the less extensive free libraries in the city. He tells Glory where he is going and heads off into the city.
Eventually he finds the city's large public library. He browses and tries to find general info about Tsar and the Desolation and such, but as he doesn't quite know what he wants and the public library is hardly a place to find rare tomes, he doesn't find out anything he doesn't already know.
And so passes Beltin's day.
Around evening Jake emerges finishes getting his spells copied and tells Glory it is time to go. They go to exit the university grounds and find Beltin, when suddenly a wild perception check appears. Only for Jake. He makes it.
Sitting on a ledge is a single raven, sitting unnaturally still and seemingly staring at Jake. As he looks, it takes off and flies away. Paranoia returns. Ravens have scouted the party before. Could it be from the Tower of Weeping Sores? Do they know he is here? What does it all mean? Jake is now tense and on edge, but he still has a scheme to finish in the city.
Side note: It was just a random bird sitting on a ledge, nothing more. Not that Jake knows that.
To be continued...
