Episode 1: The Bottled Current
We begin our tale with our adventurers scattered across the various nations of Althas. Each of them receiving an invitation from renowned business woman, Iona Baccata, the goblin owner of RID Supply, a chain of mercantile stores throughout the country with many, many locations. She summons the party with letters that read as follows:
Dear ( PC Name),
I have a need for your assistance. Please come to RID Supply in Lightning Valley where I have found a job that I believe your particular skills are needed for.
The pouch included with this note contains enough coin to purchase your travel to Lightning Valley. I have arranged an airship ticket for you as well, it is in the pouch.
Please come as soon as you can, there is something a foot and time is of the essence.
Warmest regards,
Iona
P.S. Present this scroll to the manager upon arrival.
These invitations reached the adventurers where they were - so let’s begin gathering them.
First we’ll travel to Solace, capital of the nation of Hilltop, here we’ll meet Taka, a human rogue, and Dantiel, the aethris seraph, as they make their way through the early morning streets to the airship port. Along the way Dantiel purchases a few chocolate candies and a breakfast sandwich from street vendors, while Taka spots a vessel in the ship port called The Angry Lotus that he recognizes from his past. Despite these distractions they both separately make their way up the many steps to the airship port after showing the guards at the bottom of the tower their tickets. Once on the top of the tower, they both head up the gang plank of The Drifting Gale.
Taka and Dantiel meet among the crowd of passengers during the Captain’s Safety talk and strike up a conversation. Over the course of their five day journey the two begin to build a bond and they find out that they are both heading to Lightning Valley for the same reason.
Leaving them making friends on the boat, we’ll now turn to Voldia, capital of the nation of Voldaen, where we’ll meet our next pair of adventurers- Nythis, a faerie blood hunter, and Karlock, a human rogue.
Here we find Nythis and Karlock heading to the docks from opposite ends of the city. The early morning hour here means the streets are mostly empty, though the shops are starting to bring life to the place. Karlock makes a brief stop at Pins & Tumblers, one of his favorite shops, while Nythis takes a moment to speak with a friend, Book, before they each find their way through port security and head on board The Bobbin’ Blue.
After meeting on deck, Nythis and Karlock become loosely acquainted with each other, though both keep things close to the vest. They talk occasionally during their three day journey but do not reveal to each other why they are headed to Lightning Valley.
Moving now from this pair to our final grouping, we shall head now to Bishmer, a small city in the nation of Polaris, to meet our final adventurers- Silfrey, a katari wizard, Zynamo, a clank ranger, and Citronella, a ribbet druid.
The pre-dawn city streets here are quiet and mostly empty as Citronella comes from a chapter house of her order a few minutes from the dock, while Silfrey and Zynamo leave their inn near the dock to head for their ship. Citronella grabs a snack of flies and croissants on her way out- a snack for the road. Silfrey and Zynamo come across a pair of young clanks playing rollies and we see Zynamo trying to comprehend the rules of the game and perhaps missing the nuances as he tries to convince the kids to just put the die down with the highest face up. As Silfrey helps extricate Zynamo from this situation and the kids scamper off, we learn that Zynamo has recently learned Rock, Paper, Scissors and always plays them in that order. All three do successfully make it to the boarding line, eventually.
The group boards The Cloud Skimmer for their three day journey to Lightning Valley. Zynamo draws Citronella’s eye pretty quickly in the crowd and she makes the acquaintance of both Zynamo and Silfrey. They chat over the course of the voyage and find out that they are heading for the same destination within the city they are bound for.
Once they dock in Lightning Valley, the trio follows the crowd and their noses to the market district to find RID Supply. A few minutes ahead of them, Taka and Dantiel had already disembarked their ship and having asked a dwarven guard for directions, they are heading there already. A few minutes behind the trio we find Nythis and Karlock - with Karlock approaching the guards to ask directions, though the first was not so helpful, the same dwarf who gave directions to Taka provides them to him. Nythis trails Karlock without his notice when he hears that they have the same destination.
And so our party begins to assemble at RID Supply. Dantiel and Taka are the first to spot the dark green sign with the tree in black and red lettering that is a hallmark of RID. Upon entering they are the first to meet the friendly, six foot tall, older faun male who introduces himself as Cortland, but you can call him Cort. Cort has brown hair streaked with gray and curling rams style horns that are also dark brown. He is the manager that they were supposed to find and he shows them to a conference room behind a hidden door and up on the second floor of the shop. Silfry, Zynamo, and Citronella arrive next and are deposited shortly there after into the conference room. Karlock arrives next, with Nythis waiting outside, peeking through the windows waiting to see what Karlock is doing. After seeing him whisked through a hidden door after showing a scroll that looked awfully familiar to one he possessed, he headed in and proceed to go through the secret door that had been left ajar. Cort met him on the stairs, surprised to see someone in the passage, but after a brief exchange, Nythis joins the party in the conference room and assembling our heroes(?- I guess we’ll see about that) as a complete party for the first time.
The party starts off on the right foot with Citronella commenting aloud to Silfrey and Zynamo about Nythis looking like a mosquito, her face showing a look of confused hunger. Nythis spots the look and advises against an attempt at consumption. This interaction draws the attention of all in the room, making Zynamo watch him carefully. A tense interaction to start things off for sure, Dantiel breaks the tension by starting a conversation about why they’re all there- a job, to which the ever literal Zynamo responds only that he was told to come here. Before anything else can happen, the commanding, though pettte figure that is Iona Baccata sweeps into the room and asks them all to have a seat.
Iona, a purple skinned, three and half foot tall goblin with long, sweeping red hair and large green eyes, seats herself at the head of the conference table. She then jumps right in to the task at hand. She tells the party that a political agreement to seal the peace between Jesthaen and Polaris has been reached and that the agreement is to be sealed with a political marriage. The party is being contracted to provide security for Clover of Towers on her way to her wedding to Enchanter Kalashae of Polaris in Polaris. Clover is due to arrive to Lightning Valley sometime in the next two days. Iona has arranged for a suite of rooms at The Bottled Current for the party to stay at while they wait. They will be paid 2 bags of gold each for the successful completion of this mission. The party asks a few questions and then Iona departs after telling them to ask for Astrid at The Bottled Current, though Silfrey does stop her to briefly ask if she’s heard anything about someone named Vayrin, but Iona says she’s heard nothing.
The party chats for a few moments in the safety of the conference room with Karlock seeming slightly offended by the fact that the party has been tasked with “a babysitting” mission but the general consensus is that getting paid works. Zynamo blatantly asks Silfrey if he should add these new people to his list of people to protect to which Silfrey quicks says not yet, which causes a brief uproar among the new companions that luckily seems to resolve in a small bit of frivolity. The party decides to check out their lodgings so they head downstairs.
Back down in the store, Cort is helping a customer complete a clothing purchase when Dantiel asks Cort for lockpicks. After the regular customer quickly scurries out, Cort reminds Dantiel that lock picks aren’t strictly legal and items like that are not to be asked for in front of regular shoppers. He does sell Dantiel and also Karlock each a set of picks before Nythis asks for directions to The Bottled Current.
The party heads out into the midday streets and see many folk are out seeking lunch now. The delicious aroma of a pastry cart selling meat pies nearly distracts Taka, but the party continues on to easily find The Bottled Current. There’s lively music that can be heard even from outside and the party opens the door and heads inside to find a bustling lunch crowd has filled the bar area.
The busy and noisy scene that greets the party on their entry is typical of a packed bar. There are servers running orders to tables, a minotaur man and gnomish woman are tending the bar. As the party decides on heading to the bar or a table, the smell of the drinks and food tempts Silfrey into swiping a whiskey rye from a passing tray. Zynamo sees this and attempts the same, but is unsuccessful. After observing this activity Citronella takes the initiative to lead the party to a table while Dantiel heads to the bar to chat with Astrid.
Astrid gives Dantiel a bit of a hard time, but after establishing that he is who Iona has made arrangements for, she provides him with keys and sends one of her servers, Bridgette, to meet the table so she knows who’s on the tab. As they approach the table Dantiel notices that everyone is there except Nythis who had posted himself by the wall to observe the room until he spotted Dantiel with the keys. While trying to explain what Nythis looks like to Bridgette, Nythis himself attempts to sneak over to the table, but due to the crowded and tight situation with the packed room, bobbles a bit, is hit in the knee with Bridgette’s tray as she turns to look for him, and nearly knocks over Dantiel, but doesn’t. Bridgette takes everyone’s lunch order and heads off to get it.
The party now, finally, takes a moment to actually introduce themselves to each other and share a bit about each other. During these introductions Zynamo continues his attempts to obtain a drink in the manner that Silfrey did upon entry. One of these attempts is successful- in that Zynamo gets a drink off a tray of a passing server, but being unfamiliar with glasses and their tensile strength, accidentally crushes the glass over top of Silfrey’s head, showering him in vodka and broken bits of glass.
Zynamo immediately begins to pick glass off of Silfrey while Silfrey uses prestidigitation to clean himself up. The server who Zynamo took the glass from confronts him and warns him that he will be kicked out of the place if he attempts to steal again- Zynamo promptly blames Silfrey for teaching him that was how to get a drink. Bridgette arrives back to the table at about this time to deliver their order and tells the other server that they’re on a tab. When he mentions charging the replacement drink for the one Zynamo crushed to the tab, Silfrey objects immediately and strongly convincing him not to charge them. He agrees he won’t charge the group this time, but reiterates that further theft will result in Zynamo being kicked out and adds the group will be charged.
Once Brigette leaves the table, Karlock asks Zynamo how old he is as Silfrey mentioned him being young and Zynamo tells everyone that he has been activated for 3 weeks but has likely been active before. Karlock is surprised and then compliments Silfrey on his successful pick early. The party then moves on to talking about their mutual loves for various kinds of street food. Nythis shares that he has a pretty much exclusively liquid diet.
As conversation moves on around the table, Silfrey briefly scolds Zynamo by essentially telling him to “do as I say, not as I do” in regards to thievery and advises him to ask him questions so that he can answer them as his own master did for him. This mention of the word master causes some discussion around the table with a few members of the party immediately asking Silfrey if he is Zynamo’s master to which Silfrey replies he means it as more a mentor/teacher sort of thing, not in an ownership way. He again references Vayrin, this time telling the party that Master Vayrin was his teacher- a powerful wizard and he hasn’t seem him since the war. He then asks the rest of the party if they are owned by someone since they had such strong reactions and Karlock reveals that he sometimes feels indentured to his brother in his attempts to get back into his family’s good graces. Everyone else indicates an aversion to slavery and we all learn that slavery is generally illegal in this world, but it does sadly persist despite on going attempts to eradicate it. As conversation moves on, the party begins to talk of lighter things and enjoy their lunch.
This is interrupted by a loud siren- the lightning alarm is going off. People from the street dash inside a few seconds before an extremely loud boom of thunder and bright flashes of purple lightning shatter the previously nice day. The storm lasts for about five minutes and then it is back to a sunny, blue sky day.
The party observed everything as they sat through their first magical lightning storm and that is where we will leave them for this week. Who knows what’s coming next? We’ll see you in two weeks to find out.