Games, all sorts

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We appeared in the room in the Inn with a bit of trepidation, but thankfully no surprises awaited us. Boyce crept out of the room check the Inn out briefly before we departed. When he returned, the boys rifled through the belongings of the three devils that were still sitting in the room. I don't think they took anything, though.

Anyway, we left finally and headed to a different Inn. We rented some rooms, dropped our belongings off, and I headed down to the common room with Boyce and then out to acquire a map of the area while Boyce chatted some people up to find out we were in a town called South Edge in Veris's Duchy. He also found out that the troop of soldiers wearing Veris's colors the he had seen in the common room of the other Inn (who appeared to be traveling with the 3 devils carrying the gem) had been heading to the city of Pernicdel.

Later, we all gathered in Boyce's room to discuss what we would do from here. I was reasonably sure that the gem couldn't be transported via Teleport for some reason since the devils seem to be able to do that kind of thing at will and I recall the big guy grumbling internally about having to ride a horse all over the place (instead of just Teleporting). But I wasn't sure that the thing couldn't be passed through a gate, so we decided to try it. Well, not only did it not work, it grabbed the attention of a rather large, 12-ft tall Infernal, which started ripping a hole through the fabric of reality to come into our plane and get the gem. A disturbing sight it was, so I automatically began buffing up with spells for battle without even thinking about it. I activated my armor, my manifest weapon, boosted my STR (to 6) and my Weaponry (to 6). I also kept some healing spells at the ready as this guy looked like he could dish out some major hurt.

Boyce stuck him a couple of times while the demon reached down to grapple with Grey, who was trapped in the closet we had been casting the gate on earlier, and happened to be holding the gem. I got a good cut in on the big guy and then after they wrestled with the gem some, Grey dropped it (intentionally it seemed) and without even thinking, I reached down and grabbed it, and just took off running with it. I didn't really get a chance to see what else happened, but after I jumped out of the hole that had been ripped in the side of the Inn (thanks to the demon) and was about a block away, I heard a massive explosion. Bits and pieces of the Inn rained down all around me and the sounds of fighting ceased.

I slowed to a stop underneath an overhang and took only a few seconds to decide that I should probably head back. The demon was gone. The inn was also gone. The rubble of it was on fire. Grey was busy putting out the blaze and the rest of us began dragging the survivors out of the rubble. Boy, this boosted STR of mine sure did come in handy. Anyway, as soon as we pulled a person out, I would hurry over to heal them, and then move on to the next one. After we had accounted for everyone still alive, we took off quickly, and headed outside of town, not really wanting to have to endure the pitchfork-and-torch army of scared-shitless villagers that was heading our way. Plus the gem-escort troops.

We hurried a couple miles out of town, and ducked under some cover to sit down and discuss what we would do from here. We needed to accomplish a few things: (1) stash the gem somewhere safe (2) find out the name of the being within the gem so we could communicate with him (3) get home. It would take weeks to do (3) by horseback, so we decided that we needed to get to the airship in order to take care of (3), and possibly (1). But the airship was about a week's flight to here, plus another couple weeks home. Still a long time. We eventually decided that Searn and I would carry the gem by horseback toward Tusbel where the airship was stashed, and the others would gate to the airship, get it up and running, and head toward us to pick us up. We would meet in the middle to cut down the travel time as much as possible.

Once that was decided, Searn and I departed immediately to acquire horses and get on the road, while Boyce began his ritual to open the Gate to the airship.

-+-

Five days later, we met up with the boys near a city called Ward, still in the Duchy belonging to Veris, and had another discussion about what we needed to do and where we needed to stash the gem. We eventually decided that the current location was as good a place as any to stash the gem, and so Grey built a cave to house the gem underground in the bedrock somewhere, and Boyce generated sympathy to the cave doorway so that we could retrieve it at any time. Then we headed to the nearby city, Ward, and we parked the airship in the (river) harbor, while Boyce went into town and generated sympathy with a doorway there as well, just to be on the safe side.

And then we gated back to Alestia, leaving the gem in its underground hiding spot and the airship in dock at Ward.

-+-

After we arrived, Searn indicated that he needed to be getting back to Fellarch. I saw him off, telling him that I would be sure to update the Baronness on the situation if she was still in town.

I met back up with the boys and we headed out to speak with Philip Madrigal, who had left a note for us. He informed us that the assassins after us was a group called the Gatekeepers of Enma. They had apparently been rather bald, threatening the Electors of Alestia, saying they would assassinate one per day until we were turned over to them. Philip dismissed this as no big deal, apparently something that happened relatively frequently. Furthermore, they had no intention of complying with such a ridiculous demand. He told us not to worry about it.

From there we split up, the boys headed off to the library to do some research and I headed over to Baroness Nicele Hames's place in-town and debriefed her on the status of her town of Manderbel. I let her know that we do not yet know where her townspeople are nor if they are still alive, but I did tell her about the gem, what it was and how it was being used. I indicated that we didn't yet know for what purpose it was placed there, nor by whom, but that we were working on it. I didn't leave out any of the happenings in my tale, not even the appearance of the Infernal and the explosion in South Edge, but I didn't give her any of the specifics on where we stashed the gem, nor about the airship other than that we happened to have one available nearby. I thought it might be best for her if she didn't know.

After promising her I'd keep her updated on our progress, I headed out to do some house hunting.

Over the next couple of days I was able to find a place in town, a fixer-upper, for about 40,000. It was a standalone house with a yard and such, not a whole lot different from Talpin's house other than being somewhat in disrepair. I brought a copy of the floorplan home with me and figured I'd talk to the boys about it once everyone got back. From there, I would keep looking for a 2-bedroom townhouse or something similar, in case a communal property for all of us was not the route we all wanted to go. Either way, we really needed to be out of the Occluded Rainbow Inn, as it was getting more and more dangerous for our family as time passed.

While I was house-hunting those few days, Grey was able to discover a few interesting things. In particular, he and Boyce had gone to the Masayuman embassy. The older man they'd spoken to there was pretty sure he knew who the individual who [owned the armor that Grey described] (the guy in the gem) was, but his name had been struck from historical records, because he was thought to be dishonorable, a blight on the Crane clan of Masayume. Well…. that didn't bode well. It is possible that the information they had on him wasn't true, but it was also possible that it was.

Anyhow, the man informed us that if we really needed to know the guy's name, then we would have to travel to Masayume and attempt to convince the clan's elders to give it up. In the meanwhile, Grey got a few names from the man at the embassy, a list of the people the guy in the gem was thought to have betrayed about 1800 years ago: Kobayashi Aya, Kuni Kento, Shiroma Miyoko, Takeo, and Xianghua Hiroko.

After heading back to the library and doing yet more research, the only person Grey could find any data on was Kobayashi Aya, who was apparently the goddess Aya who had several temples here in Alestia. A trip to Aya's main temple within the city proved almost totally fruitless, although they did tell Grey that the main temple of Aya was out in the mountains and that he might be able to get more info there.

Meanwhile, I went with Boyce to meet some dude that Dragoth knew in order to see if we could find out about this group called the Gatekeepers of Enma. Grey was only able to find limited information on the name, that “Enma” were Infernals, specifically called thus by the folks of Masayume and Ling Zhao. It could either be that their assassin's group was named that just because it sounded cool, or that it was intentionally named so; the relevance of the name of their group is as yet unknown. Although Philip had mentioned that their M.O. indicated that the group was being motivated by something other than money. Hmm… suspicious.

Anyway, the guy we met with, a Prime/Time manifest named Mr Saris, didn't seem to know anything about any kind of group called the Gatekeepers of Enma operating in Alestia. So it seemed they were outsiders. We discussed the possibility of hiring him to dig up information on them, but I balked at the amount of money he wanted for it (20,000gp). We told him we'd discuss it with our comrades and meet him at Dragoth's tomorrow at the same time. Well, except that Boyce piped in saying he had a date that night. So… Okay, how about noon instead.

After Boyce and I got back, we pretty much agreed that it wasn't worth the money to hire the guy to find a group of people who were already looking for us. We told Mr Saris our decision the next day, but we made sure to keep the line of communication open though, as we may change our minds later. Hopefully he wouldn't try to back-stab us for the reward money. Sigh.

The next day, we discussed again where we would go from here. The priority seemed to be discovering the name of the individual housed in the gem, so at this point, Grey seemed to think our best bet was to travel to Masayume to speak with the Crane clan elders. Well, Masayume was a bit far. Finding a mode of transportation there would be either very time-consuming or very expensive.

Furthermore, I was a bit unsure about this course of action, as the old guy at the embassy's words as conveyed by Boyce made it sound as if they'd be very reluctant to let go of this information, the name of their dishonorable ancestor. Before we go to such lengths as to travel all the way to Masayume, I would like to ensure that we have enough leverage on our end to be certain we can get this information out of them. Masayumans can be stubborn when their honor is at stake, and I *definitely* know this from experience.