Location: New Vasselheim, Othanzia, Issylra
Date: Whelsen, 22 Brussendar 845 PD (calendar of Exandria)
Party Members:
- Rinn – half-elf sorcerer/rogue
- Stubby – half-elf artificer
- Tāmerai – gnome bard
Absent Party Members:
- Bob the Therapist – changeling warlock with a couch for a familiar
- Tunk – bugbear monk
Roughly 2pm, 21 Brussendar 845 PD
Tāmarai opines that the Xhorhassian Embassy should meet Rinn so they can like him and he can come inside, so he doesn’t “abandon his charges.” Rinn’s not having it.
Rinn goes off to wander the Tal’Dorei Embassy. Stubby thinks we can trust him, and doesn’t mind going to the Xhorhassian Embassy. Stubby told Rinn her name just to see if he’s trustworthy, which Tāmarai feels was a clever move, but not a wise one. The trio go to Beyond The Pail (Container Store) and Sheets&Things for general house supplies, the things they couldn’t get on the first day.
Next stop: Clocks & Cogs, and Ivan. C&C is a 20 min walk from the Tal’Dorei Embassy, right where Snow Water and the Rat Docks areas kind of overlap. Seedy-adjacent. Rinn knows the way, but has been told in the past that “weird shit can be bought at Ivan’s, but you probably want to avoid it.” Avoiding it doesn’t work for Stubby, so Rinn reluctantly leads the way. Ivan’s Clocks & Cogs is a stone cabin with slate roof and shuttered windows with no glass. The front door and windows stand open, and there is a “charred” smell. Inside is well lit, the walls black (painted? charred?). A large chandelier hangs from the central roof support beam; saws and other tools hang on walls and from the ceiling, ready to be grabbed right above the work station where they’ll be needed. Stubby also spots that the hog’s head on the wall pings her memory, but not sure why. The place has a funky Dad-vibe, to her.
At the counter is a lean, lithe, human male, missing a patch of hair on the left side of his face. Both his face and arms are marred by scars, discolored black from work. His eyes are bulbous, and a jeweler’s eye piece conceals his left eye. Standing behind another counter is a human woman: strong, solid, cushy enough that she could probably survive a short famine. Her headscarf and leather apron protect her (somewhat) but she also has scars much like the man’s, and her hands are just as dirty. They stand nattering away about some mundane topic.
The woman looks up in surprise as three strangers approach. “Welcome to Clocks & Cogs, can we help you?” These are Olivia and Ivan, a married couple. Ivan’s voice is much like the imitations Stubby has heard of Viktor’s, which makes sense as they learn that Viktor is Ivan’s father.
Ivan has been trying to power things, improving on the lights so it doesn’t have to be wax and candle because flame is problematic. Lightning turned out to be also problematic. Most people who come here are looking for clocks, or they’re miners looking for mining equipment. Old Vasselheim may have saltpeter, they postulate…
Eventually as they discuss mechanical logistics and materials and such, Stubby slaps down her lab notebook. Seeing it makes Ivan realize that he’s seen something much like it before, and get very excited. Ivan shouts into the back room, “IT’S THREE!” and closes that back-room door. He and Olivia look at each other, and eventually Olivia tells him, “It’s on your head if you’re wrong.”
Ivan looks super-intensely at Stubby. “Are you… Vox Minimus?” Stubby nods and pulls out leather gloves she got from Percy and makes the 3-finger salute. Ivan & Olivia hug each other like it’s the best news ever.
Stubby [Message]: Try to keep that on the DL.
Ivan: [Reply] You’re in a safe place. Olivia, set the mark!
Olivia lights a candle on the counter. Tāmarai recognizes it as an Abjuration spell, having seen it once before at her House, and realizes that no one can spy or Scry as long as the candle is burning. Safe now, Stubby gives the quickest summation of the last several days they’ve spent together, which means Rinn now knows basically everything too.
Ivan responds with his own storytime. “I should tell you, the Rebellion. Have you heard of the One Day War? My father Viktor started it.” (Stubby gives the tiniest little “I knew it!”) “My father worked with Ryo, who’s now the Master of Secrets, but also Livia Thorne — you know her as Lydia Briarwood. Right before the Rebellion, Dad got creeped out. He came back and said he couldn’t trust them anymore. He made us promise… We’ve been destroying all the saltpeter in Othanzia to keep gunpowder away from her! That’s why there are no guns here. We are making sure they can’t happen. We blew up the limestone caves. We thought… Dad said he had a weapon, and when the One Day War started he said he would destroy it, and we haven’t seen him since. [pause] But I’d wanted to write to your… friends? mentors? associates? I wanted to ask for help, but when we found that magic was… ehhh… I thought it would be too risky. Then it’s been a few years, and we’ve tried sending letters, but…
Stubby immediately realizes that they can use the Communication Stone to contact Vox Machina, not only for themselves but for Ivan and Olivia. “Oh! Get the stone! The stone! We can talk to them!”
Olivia helps Tāmarai get it out from the Bag of Holding, and both she and Ivan recognize it, or at least recognize the nature of it. They both holler “Chroma Conclave!”
Tāmarai covers the stone with a cloth just in case, and addresses the Comm stone: Hello, Hello Emon, is anyone here please? Hello, Emon, who are you please?
Apprentice Hinds: Who are we? Who are YOU?
Tāmarai: My name is… Do you have any way to contact Lady Vex’ahlia of Whitestone?
Apprentice Hinds (Archivist Hinds in future from which we have already diverged!): We were told to watch this stone, but we’ve never been sure why.
They shorthand the logistics of sending messages. Stubby & Vex catch up a tiny bit. Olivia & Ivan have a daughter named Victoire. Vex wants the group to write down literally everything. Bez is still alive, starting a kalaimani House in Whitestone with 2 more of our sisters who came to Whitestone to join her. Seggy (Olivia and Ivan’s son, Segun) will draw the cherry tree in the Tal’Dorei Embassy garden for Keyleth to send messages through. (They can send stuff, just not people.) The connection ends.
Olivia and Ivan don’t trust Empress Lydia because she calls herself Briarwood, and also because Viktor didn’t trust her, and thought she betrayed him (she apparently thought he betrayed her… Later, Tāmarai confides in Stubby that she thinks that when any two members of a trio suspect each other of betrayal, it’s often at the feet of the third, so she feels it it’s likely that it’s Ryo who played them both.) Victor never told Ivan and Olivia the full story of the Rebellion, but he did die by Vecna, and the good folks at Sarenrae’s temple brought him back, so they’re all about that Everlight now. Viktor hasn’t been seen in a few years now.
Stubby & Ivan compare lab notebooks. Viktor wanted to make a clockwork dragon; she shows them her clockwork bird sketches.
Ivan: We can’t trust the Empress, and we can’t trust Ryo. What kind of spymaster says he’s a spymaster? But weirdly, they used to work with Dad. I still don’t know how they fell out. And what weapon were they even making?
Olivia: THE DRAGON.
Ivan: Maybe.
Olivia: AAAAnyway. There’s a rumor that a dragon crashed into the mountains to the north, the Zenwick Mountains to the north of Old Vasselheim. I think it’s Viktor’s, but it’s only been spotted twice, and Ivan doesn’t trust the reports.
Seggy shows drawings of trees, saying “This one’s distinctive, but not too much. I don’t think she’d [empress] notice this one.” He has the same tufts of hair with patches missing, so he’d have been 15-20 years old at most when the Platinum Sanctuary exploded. He has no scarring from that, but black burn marks and scars from the shop, and his fingers are inky. He’s the family artist. “So we’re going to put a letter in a lead box and throw it through a tree that Victoire opens, and it’ll appear in Whitestone? You can do that?” Yep. They’ll use the cherry tree at the Tal’Dorei Embassy.
As a side note, Olivia knows what a shikomi is because she was in Xhorhas on a “merchant” mission. Her very brief hesitation signifies to the three that she probably means smuggling.
Olivia is the one who makes the abjuration candles. They take a WHILE to make, but she’s willing to show Tāmarai and Stubby how, and also where to get arcane supplies. It’s a process, not hard but very time consuming. There are necklaces that do the same, but there hasn’t been one seen for years — Stubby’s mom has one. There might be some in Old Vasselheim, but good luck with that.
Olivia: The spell works for the candle by abjuration and [mouths] dunamancy. But it’s restricted magic here, which is why we don’t sell it. One of the few magics that still works at slightly greater scales. But they’re such a closely held secret that the Empress would kill to get her hands on it. If she thinks you can go there, she must think you’re… I don’t think you can soak people in it, but…
Tāmarai: You can, apparently. Many have noticed that we are covered in it.
Olivia: VICTOIRE!
Victoire: [comes in with Stubby’s haircut, but SUPER GAAAAAAAAAY, in earthy colors. On her head, something similar to antlers to hold her hair back, like Stubby would wear if she was a druid, but with Viktor’s pointy chin and bulbous eyes, yet with all her hair other than the shaved bits] G*D, Mom, not a nice way to wake people up! Why are you screaming?
Olivia: Are these three covered in…magic?
Victoire: [casts Identify without having to touch us at all, HAAAAAAY] Yes. You two, but you [to Rinn]… did you piss off a god? Not to be ashamed of, lots of people piss off gods.
Rinn: [looks very uncomfortable]
Victoire: [apologizes for outing him, basically, but pretends she’s just new at this and might be wrong; we can all tell she’s covering] Okay, Mom, you’re right, they could go to Old Vasselheim and be safe …-er. Safer. If you get close and don’t feel bad… Mom, why am I testing these poor people?
Olivia: [explains in shorthand/code, which Tāmarai needs to copy with Stubby]
Victoire: YOU USED AN ENTIRE CANDLE?
Stubby & Tāmarai ask if Rinn’s okay because he went white and then all squiffy, so he panics and takes the hell off towards the Slayer’s Take. He hears thunder; there are no clouds in the sky. A hint from On High?
Victoire, Ivan, Olivia, Seggy, all look confused. “Do you want to go after your friend? Or should we meet you for dinner at your embassy?” They all talk about who’s cooking, who’s bringing food, blah blah bliddy-blah. They are interrupted by 3 dwarves stomping in asking for their order, so the three head back to the Tal’Dorei Embassy. For about 3 blocks of the wall, Stubby thinks there’s a half-elf following us, but then they make a turn and go “Mom!” so either it’s not, or they have good fake-out skills.
Tāmarai writes a note at the Xhorhassian Embassy for Ambassador Krynn, to leave beneath the half-tatami in their room: I am not licensed as a maisha, and there are no kalaimani here for me to attend as shikomi. I need to earn money so that I may return to my post. May I work as a standard performer, as long as I do not indicate that I am shikomi?
When she goes to her room to leave the note, she spots a flower on my pillow. It is from the ume tree at the Xhorhassian Embassy: We are so pleased you are alive. We will tell Bez immediately and work with the DeRollos to get you home. Please stay safe — Mother. She presses the flower into her journal, puts away the shopping, and then goes to help Stubby in the kitchen.
The Dinner:
The Vonn family (Ivan, Olivia, Victoire, Segun) arrive and spend time examining and drawing the cherry tree. Seggy has brought a painting of the Sun Tree in Whitestone with the castle in the background, a slender figure in a red robe & antlers touching the tree. Stubby shows Seggy her in-progress Sun Tree made of wires. They discuss the thing she’s making, and the shrine at the Tal’Dorei Embassy.
Victoire sits in front of tree & talks to it for a while; thinks she’ll be able to do the message-transfer once she makes friends with the tree, which should be in a day or two.
Olivia and Ivan bring a small lead box for Stubby and Tāmarai to put messages into. Their eldest son Akan is a classic tinkerer, functionally the image of Grandaddy Viktor, but visually looks more like Olivia.
Tāmarai performs a post-dinner tea ceremony to thank the Vons for all of their help and generosity. It is not the big, fine, formal version but a small family version. Olivia knows what this is, having experienced it once in Xhorhas. She helps her family understand it all by stage-whispering the play-by-play.
Stubby Messages Olivia: I have some gunpowder, is it okay if I keep it?
Olivia’s reply: DO NOT TELL A SOUL.
She looks around, hunches over and scribbles a note to slide over to Stubby. Stubby reads it way up close, physically shielding it against scrying. “I think the Empress wants saltpeter to poison people. Blue Sick.” Stubby burns the note in the dinner table candle. She messages Olivia the same, and Olivia says “If he told you about the Blue Sick, don’t tell anyone.”
On the way home, btw, Tāmarai checked to see if anyone was watching the house. Only a snooty tour guide, saying “And this is the Tal’Dorei Embassy. It has stood empty since…” Upon seeing Tam, he corrects, “It was empty until very recently.” He seems irritated to have to correct himself.
Before bed, Stubby sets both Alarm and Snare at the front door. 7am, Rinn comes by and gets caught in it, dangling and swearing in Draconic. Stubby and then Tāmarai go rocketing out to see what’s up, in their underthings/night clothes.
Stubby: So are you here to kill us?
And… SCENE.
Take your meds.
Hydrate.
Don’t forget to love each other.
Is it Game Day yet?