You know, for a guy who posted every day for over 500 days in a row, you think I'd be more careful with this. Sorry - real life has been all over me - real job and the like. But here if post 3, I just did 4, and am working on 5 - so although it's been a time, there are only 3 actual meetings not accounting for. We took one off for our year end game and dinner, and the other 2 are for holiday time. Thanks for the patience!
Follows:
(SHIM) The gnome did not join the group out of the gate, instead sneaking back into the Sunrise Rabbits Orphanage. Once there he went looking around, hoping to find the Taskmaster and get the keys. The kids were out of class at this time and were running around the orphanage, having fun, the Practicals were laughing with them.
Eventually he made his way upstairs and looked around the dorms. He stopped at the Practical’s chamber and looking in, seeing that 4 would sleep there, dwarf in sized, and one was female. He wandered around as the housekeeping were cleaning up, making his way to the Headmaster’s room.
Here, Ghalen and Hisvild were talking, the Taskmaster availing himself to some brandy as the Headmaster was composing a letter, answering some underthane from Gorok, and stressed the saving of the children. It seemed terse. As for the two men, Ghalen didn’t believe that we would see penny one from Darius, pegging him for the rich scion of a merchant but not really having the ability to get money to the Sunrise Rabbits. The two men then talked a bit about Ms Ilcinder’s visit and the funds coming in that way. There was some vague talk about the basement and who was in there, as well as reference to the Underthane.
Eventually he stopped ,sniffing the air, and checked the hall. Shim backed up a bit and the Taskmaster thought he smelled something. The conversation over, he left and went downstairs, Shim following at a distance. Hisvild made his way to the basement and then checked on the other door. He was in there for a bit and when he came out, Shim still staying back, a Practical, Stavern, had some words with the Taskmaster from the top of the stairs. Only Hisvild seemed to have the keys and he was keeping the Practicals out and away. Something wasn’t quite adding up, as it seemed that the practicals didn’t seem to answer directly to the Taskmaster.
Shim filed this all away and then eventually joined the Taskmaster in an office/classroom, where a teacher and he went over the purchases and needs for the day, working the ledgers down and wrapping out the costs. Eventually he stayed alone, ate some fast snack, and then wrapped up his affairs, bundled up, and left. Shim followed, the gnome still getting the benefit of the Endure Elements spells but the Snowshoes spell had long worn off. He did trail him to the entertainment district where Hisvild met up with the Grymerian Findy Ilcinder and the two of them shared some drinks and dinner. They laughed, joked, flirted, and then he left with her, heading upstairs where they went to her room and proceeded to enjoy each others’ company. Carnally. Eventually they fell asleep, and Shim, who had been hiding under the bed, took the keys from the Taskmaster’s pocket, snuck out of the room, and it was 10:30 ish PM when he finally headed back to the party’s house.
(/SHIM)
As for the rest of us we had headed off to the Blue Flowers orphanage, where Taskmaster Jori took us around, duplicating the same sort of tour and tale that we had done earlier. She flirted lightly with Darius, but stayed on task, taking us around. We noted only one Practical here and again, there were no dwarvish children in the place. At this point we asked about it and were told that any dwarvish children were usually transferred to the Sons of Thunder Orphanage, the first of the retrofitted temples in this row. We left and made our way out, hitting a few short errands and then back to the house.
Meanwhile Vulwulf and Tidra wandered the southern circle of the Outerring of Erylond, wandering the lower class section of town. There were lots of areas where poverty was apparent and some places that seemed like a bad idea to walk into. They eventually came to the far gate where they entered a store called Sweet Meats. The proprietor offered them some candied fat for Grin, who wolfed (lol) it down gleefully. They also purchased some beet sugar turnip balls and Tidra nibbled on them on the way back to the house.
We were all slowly reconnecting, eating dinner, sharing our thoughts as to what was going on, and coming up with some plan for the morrow. But Shim was still not back, and we also wanted to check out the wall that would supposedly lead to the Sunrise Rabbits. It was later, later, when the gnome returned and he gave us the short version of what he had seen and discovered, as well as showing us the keys.
Alright, we tossed around lots of plans on what to do and how to get in, taking into the strange not as we expected some of the things about Ghalen and Hisvild that we had learned through Shim’s reconnoitering. We all went off to the wall and spent some time checking it out where the day time bazaar would be, and after a serious search, we did not find the pass through. It was growing late and we had the thought about bracing Hisvild in the morning at the inn he was staying at with Findy. We had the keys and figured that if we could intercept him there before he went home or to the Rabbits (according to Shim, he works from 7 to 7), we had a chance to get some answers and maybe a way to get into the basement.
We rested, Thalin promising to wake us all up early (5ish), and it was Icemonth the 17th when we left the house, lightly armed, and made our way to the inn. A fast bribe of the innkeep let us know that the man in question was actually in the Common Room right now eating breakfast. We decided that Darius and Thalin would brace him and the rest of us would take up places around the room, sitting at various tables to prevent him from getting up and/or leaving.
Hisvild at first didn’t recognize Darius, but then he grew interested in the “nobleman’s son” and why he was here. At that point we decided to deal with this person from a position of confidence, as he was not bothered at being braced by the two of us. So Darius, with Thalin filling in where needed, laid out what they had learned so far and that they had tracked the missing Shala to the Orphanage, strongly implying that they knew she was in the basement and they wanted to get her out.
The Taskmaster was nodding and then sighed. The rest of the group was motioned closer, food, porridge, bacon and the like brought over, and they sat down as Hisvild filled in the party on what was going on – and blowing a giant hole in their theory of what was happening and the Taskmaster’s place in it.
He did cast a zone of Silence around the table, allowing us to talk freely, and our voices would barely carry any distance away from us. He was also the person that had been taking the kids off the street, not the Practicals that we had suspected. The reasoning? The kids they were “saving” were going to die within 24 hours unless they were saved from whatever fate was going to befall them.
Bullshit.
He explained that the temple was to Lathandar, god of dawn, children, and elves. When the temple was sacked some century or so earlier, the last patriarch entrusted whatever finds and treasure the temple had with the Duke at that time. The funds would act as a stipend to keep the place in minimal repair and the taxes paid. The other temples had done the same. The places were kept intact, even though the dwarves had carted away anything of treasure they could at that time. No texts, no scrolls, not a single priest or holy writing was left.
When the places were retrofitted as orphanages, various groups helped through public works and further tax breaks to maintain the places. But the funds were always tight and most of them required outside donors to help out for the children. This had been the way of things for the better part of 50 years.
About 12 years ago, an old font that had been moved to storage in the basement, had flashed to life, and showed a child wandering around laughing and smiling, and then it went dark. Maybe a few days later, another child was seen. A few tower mages had been brought in but the font was not radiating any sort of magic. And only did so, divine in nature, for that brief minute when it would show a child.
It was believed that Lathandar might be weakly showing some kids in the city, as the backdrops were almost entirely seemingly in Erylond or the surrounding area. There were no identifiers for the children or any way to know who they were, so it was chalked up as an interesting phenomenon and commented on and that was it. A nice relic from a god long unworshipped but still here on some level.
About 2 or so months ago, imagine their surprise when an image showed a child that was walking with its parents right outside the Sunrise Rabbits! Hisvild and Ghalen had run out to meet the child and its parents, laughing and wishing them good fortune, promising to visit again tomorrow. They got the address and retired for the night.
And the next day when they went to visit the family, they were horrified to learn that the child had died earlier. The two men were heartbroken and returned, wondering what the image had meant. And another image had come up and they noted the area, sending out what few staff they had to check the area out. And when they eventually discovered that family and that child, they had learned that that child had also just died.
Working backwards and further study revealed the horror to them – the images that appeared in the font were warnings from Lathandar; warning of children that were going to die within the next day.
They had to do something, so when the chance came, they identified another location, worked to follow the child and pulled him off the street, bringing him back to the Orphanage to keep him safe for 1 day, intending to return him to the family immediately. But as the window came where the child passed the moment of its forseen death, it lost all concept of who exactly it was. It wasn’t struck imbecilic, but the sense of self – name, memories of family, and the like, were just not there. They returned the child but it did not know the family and there were problems. And the same thing happened with the next child they saved. Except that one the family eventually had brought to Bedlam Hospital to help her out.
The two men were frantic, there was no answer as to what was happening and how they were to use this knowledge. IF they did nothing, the kids die. If they do something, the kids live but are stripped of identity. They had been having some dealings with the Sons of Thunder during all this and the Gorokian sponsored orphanage had written to their Underthane who had sent some snippets of old texts from Lathandar that they had saved. They also sent 4 of their own Practicals to help bolster the Orphanage, paying the dwarves salary. The only thing that was asked, was that if there was no chance of the children getting their memories back and the horror the families were having could not be assuaged, that the Underthane would help the children out and have them brought to Gorok where they could be better cared for and hopefully have their identities restored.
At 50 crowns per child.
Ghalen decided it was worth it, Hisvild less so. The Taskmaster has been going out and saving the children, and they have 15 or so now saved in the basement. But it was getting harder to hide it, and the Practicals seem keenly interested in them. Hisvild and Ghalen have kept them out and away but this has grown larger than the two men can handle.
As for the Grimyerian issue? It is unrelated and the Taskmaster isn’t happy to be doing it, but Findy Ilcinder and Lord Hoggar have been willing to pay an exorbitant fee for the Orphans who had died, children that would be placed in a potter's grave at the cost of 3 coppers and forgotten. 175 nobles per child.
And that was the crux of it. The Grimyrians have been coming out every month and a half for the last 9 months or so and doing this and paying a heavy stipend to the Sunrise Rabbits and 2 other Orphanages that are participating. But this thing with the Gorokian Dwarves and Lathander? They dwarves are willing to pay THREE times that rate as well as funding the payment and placement of 4 dwarven Practicals. Something was going on.
And we still wanted to save Shala. We had returned the keys to Hisvild during all this (he was happy and unsettled over it) and had agreed that we would come and “see the kids” as Darius had said, and then if given the chance, get a opportunity to get down to the basement and check on the saved children and get Shala out of there. And maybe learn something else and more of what was going on.
