Day 2 5/19/2022 (Taba 2 and 3)
In the Mansion, bedrooms
We all sleep/trace/meditate for the night. Abcde is in bed but is woken by loud crashing and someone cursing. Abcde lights up the candles in their room. They see a green cloaked humanoid burst through the window. He has twin blades and two crossbows. Two window panes are broken, and he is bleeding from identical cuts on either side of his face, holding a piece of glass in one hand that has blood that looks to have come from his right cheek. Abcde asks who is there. The stranger starts to sing him to sleep, but Abcde is just confused. Then the stranger tries to sing a different song, and Abcde says they're not sleepy, but anxious. Abcde asks if Brixert knows he’s there, and when he responds sure, Abcde says okay then. The stranger leaves after rearranging the glass. Abcde locks the door and doesn’t fall back asleep. Those of us who only rest 4 hours wake up. Caleigh works out. Rayvvin practices tattooing on their arm, creating an arm piece with stars and the moon and their Mom and Mother. Chodrak is checking out the staff he has. Sterling is bored in his room, so he starts putting on clothes from the closet, not putting them on right. The clothes fit flawlessly. Just as Abcde starts to fall asleep again, they hear a knock on the door. The stranger asks to come through again to go back through the window pane. He says he’s sightseeing, but Abcde knows he’s faking it, so they ask if he’s seen everything. Caleigh hears this conversation. She grabs her hand ax and peeks out the doors, seeing the person in the green cloak. She opens her wings and tries to intimidate this stranger, asking how he is. She isn’t that intimidating. He says he just doesn’t want to be here anymore and wants to go out through her window. She says no and he compliments her wings. He says he knows Abcde and sang to them. Abcde calls out that he’s lying. Caleigh attacks, slamming him against the door, grappling him and the door cracks. Chodrak and Rayvvin hear the door crack. He says ow, and he just wants to leave as he is sightseeing. He is lying. He says he’s stealing the money because the poor district is 85% of the city and he plans to take the money to give to them. His name is Artimious and he’s an elf.
Rayvvin peeks out the door. Chodrak does as well. Rayvvin leaves the room to see what’s happening and Caleigh picks up Artimious and drags him into the community room. She closes the door behind us as Chodrak comes in as well. Abcde sees the cracked door, and casts arcane shield, and heals themself before opening the door. They don’t want to know the secret anymore as it’s driving them crazy. They look in Caleigh’s room and no one is there, her room being wide open. Chodrak’s is as well. They think that he got them. Abcde walks up to Everlee’s door, knocking. They start quietly but get progressively louder, waking her up. They tell her what has happened, saying the stranger has stolen the doll and the bird. Everlee grabs her slippers and they go to check the next room, stepping past Rayvvin’s door, on to Sterling, knocking loudly. Sterling opens the door, dressed in a bright pink tie around the head, a blue jacket, tweed green flared pants, and boots on the wrong foot. Sterling asks if we’re playing hide and seek and if the bird and doll are already playing. Abcde says no, they’ve been taken. They tell Sterling to find them and they will follow. Everlee is in her very nice slippers. Abcde, Everlee, and Sterling head to the community room.
Caleigh is holding Artimious by his shirt collar, kind of holding him there, and he changes it so he’s in the middle. Caleigh says he stole stuff and it’s in his backpack. Rayvvin tells him to open his backpack, so Caleigh tells Rayvvin to guard the window so he can’t escape and puts Artimious down. He opens his pack, and it has silverware and stuff that he just grabbed. Caleigh explains what he had said about how poor the city is, then asks what he is and he says he is an elf, sometimes a tree.
At this point, Abcde, Everlee, and Sterling arrive at the door and Abcde tells Sterling to break down the door. Sterling is able to crack the door, his shoulder going through, and goes again. Rayvvin, Caleigh, and Chodrak see Sterling’s shoulder come through the door before he busts the rest of the way through, saying he found us. Abcde says they were worried. Artimious says he would never kidnap a person and when Sterling says that he is selling the dinnerware, Artimious goes with it. Then he gets panicky because the boots on Sterling are on the wrong feet and he starts to panic. Caleigh goes to guard the door, and Artimious goes up to Sterling to fix his boots. Sterling goes along with it, lifting his feet. Artimious is happy that they are fixed, and asks to leave.
Rayvvin asks if Artimious knows where Brixert got his money, and he says likely through taxes, making the poor poorer and the rich richer. Artimious says he’s giving what he steals to the poor. Rayvvin checks his clothes, they look well crafted but not rich, to see if he’s actually rich or not. They are made for durability, and in good condition, but he doesn’t look wealthy. Rayvvin currently believes him. Abcde heads to a bed, to try to get more sleep. Caleigh wants to know more about Artimious. He’s been a tree multiple times. Caleigh knows a bit about the war against a god called God a thousand years back or so. Abcde says kill him again to become a tree so they can get some sleep.
Caleigh asks what happens if he leaves? He says he’ll give the stuff to the poor, the poorest first. Abcde says fine, take my clothes and go. The group, all but Sterling, side huddle. We are distracted by Sterling’s footsteps clanking as Sterling and Artimious are walking arm and arm out to the balcony. The rest of the group is trying to decide if we should help or not. Artimious tries to convince Sterling to join him in the courtyard and distract him with the stars. We continue to discuss. Chodrak is helping Artimious organize his bag. The group decides to meet him again the next day so we can get information from Brixert and then help out Artimious. Chodrak pulls food out to give. Artimious leaves. We switch the broken door out and settle down for the rest of the evening.
Around the Mansion
In the morning, all doors are fixed and we head downstairs and Brixert is sitting in a large seat with slaves feeding. He knows about the library but not the whole secret. When asked where we should start, he says north. Sterling feeds a slave and asks if they know Artimious. Rayvvin asks for him to prepare a feast for us. The guards will quickly let us back in when we come back after leaving. He just wants to experience our story, not change things. He says that there are seven of us going to be adventuring together and will give us a library/library books that we can see. We say we plan to leave today so he calls the slaves to get things ready for us. Everlee tries to convince Brixert to leave the house. He finally has his slaves set him down and reluctantly agrees.
In Quetares
We head to the guild hall. The rest of the city, outside the financial district, is quite obviously in poverty. The guild hall is maintained, but still not the best building. Artimious is waiting for us outside. Sterling has the backpack. Artimious says the food Chodrak gave him was able to feed five families. Artimious is quite old, though he was a tree for a lot of it. When Artimious is asked about the vision, he says the last time he saw a war like that was against the God called God. He has people he might ask, people from Hell. We ask if we can help in any way, and if we find the library that maybe we could help? We talk about what we can do to help. Artimious is being called Timmy now. We decide to head to the library as soon as we can, and then head back to the mansion, Artimious in tow. We learn that Allerton sometimes comes to the poor section and people disappear.
In the Mansion
When we get back, the slaves start cleaning the ground where we leave dirt. We feel bad and Abcde cleans our feet. We all decide we want to help the slaves and conditions. We talk to the slaves outside and learn about their terrible conditions. Caleigh continues to Brixert’s mansion. Most of us tour the mansion, but Caleigh goes up to her room. She is quite upset and angry over what has happened. Artimious goes with Caleigh, heading up the stairs with her at least. Chodrak stays in the foyer to meditate. When Caleigh goes back to her room, she finds that the door plate has changed and it says Artimious. Caleigh now has the door next door. She is weirded out and stays in the hallway. Artimious kneels at the top of the stairs, keeping watch. Caleigh tries to connect with Atae, her goddess.
The rest of us, minus Chodrak, walk through the mansion. We come across a receiving room with a lounge couch and music playing that we are uncertain where it comes from. There are the bathrooms being cleaned by 70 slaves. We find the kitchens, stables, an art gallery with gilded frames, and we come to a beautiful door that looks out of place with how beautiful it looks. It has a shudder for looking through. It’s not trapped or locked. It looks like the style of a prison door, but too pretty for that. Sterling opens it. There are bars there and a stench comes wafting out. Inside, there is a set of stairs and a barred door down below. Chodrak meditates on whether he is there to help or not. Sterling goes to open the door, a shield out and at the ready. Nothing happens. He walks down the stairs. Everlee and Rayvvin follow, and Abcde closes the door behind us and stays in the hall. Sterling opens the small door and cranes to look inside. He sees dirt, rocks, the underbelly of the house, and about 500 coughing, dirty people. People are stacked on top of others, and only about 2 ½ ft of clearance in between the ground and the bottom of the house. It seems to be the slave quarters. Caleigh communes with her god. She gets the feeling that she’s been heard, but that’s it. We head back up and tour some more before getting back to the grand foyer. We all find a place to sit.
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