Session Log 2024-06-26
Split party: Robin and Ignis Fireheart present.
Ignis awoke in the infirmary, surrounded by the injured from Golarth. Torrix slept heavily on the bed next to him, his wounds sealed but his recovery incomplete. He was debriefed on the forthcoming moot, and left to visit the Gale Queen so that he might offer some insights as to his father's aims. However, he found her and her council in deep discussion, and decided to return later. As he left, he wondered if the Queen's rule was just, and if there was any possibility for a new society in the world they were fighting for.
Meanwhile, Robin visited the library to check in on the documents she had stolen from the pirate Cayrin Corvaine. She found that most of the lorekeepers were absent to study the necromantic artifacts, but the remaining librarian was happy to present her the mostly-decoded messages. The Queen and her council had already received them, but Robin caught up on the (slightly outdated) intelligence for her own sake.
Several of the documents were messages from Corvaine spies aboard other ships in the Thundercaller's fleet, concerning the politics and fortunes of unfamiliar names. One message did catch her eye, however - a ship called the Sepulchral Wyrm had been absent from the fleet for weeks, and was suspected to be on an envoy mission to the Gray Steps. Another document was decoded as Cayrin's own logistical records, indicating low rates of actual piracy - aside from intercepting supply shipments, the armada seemed to be lying low.
The most critical document was a message from the Thundercaller directly to Cayrin containing his orders concerning the villa of Dawnfont. She, Krotokos, and Golroga were to capture it and take hostages to bait a response from the Torch militia, then fly to the southern mountains to evade and distract them from operations "in the north". She was also tasked with evaluating Krotokos to see if his strength was worth his "shitty captaincy". Robin was informed that the Keep had increased scouting in the northern empire and mountains, but had yet to discover much besides wastelands and Howling Marchers.
Ignis, meanwhile, conducted his own research on both the Gale Queen and his own family. At the library, he found a book describing prominent Torch rebellions. It mentioned his distant relative Braxus Fireheart, who was executed by his own father for leading a mutiny against the Torch militia during their repression of a slave uprising. He left the library to ask after people's satisfaction under the rule of the Gale Queen, but the soldiers of the fortress were disinclined to speak ill of their commander. Robin, nearby, overheard some of those soldiers wondering about his questioning. One suspected that Ignis might be trying to undermine the Queen for his father, but his service to the Keep quashed that rumor.
Ignis spoke to the druid Millie back in the infirmary. He learned that, before he had joined their side, the Windwatcher's Keep had been an island held aloft by the fortress, upon which was built the largest free city that Millie had ever known. The Torch had assaulted it by air and infiltrated through a long-forgotten portal-gate, and in the ensuing battle, the city was evacuated and the island jettisoned.
He returned to the library to ask after history, wondering if the Gale Queen's hereditary position was the only way such a free city had ever existed. He learned that there were rumors of outlandish utopias that existed during the Aether Age, but the subsequent Time of Madness made it difficult to sift rumor from reality. Since then, tyranny and empire had been the standard of governance for most nations that lasted more than a few years.
Ignis returned to the Queen later in the evening, when the council's business had slowed to bureaucracy and hushed discussion. He wished to speak with her about the meeting, to understand her thoughts and goals. She informed him that she was planning to attend the meeting, as even a fraction of the forces that a mutinous Lord Fireheart could bring to bear would represent a multiplication of the Keep's war efforts. Though Lord Arva's eternal claim to the Keep was no longer a threat, the force and resources they could bring to bear were simply insufficient to battle any of the empires of the northern continent.
Her goals, and the Keep's goals, were unchanged from the original mutiny: war for liberation of the people oppressed by the Torch. She had no concrete answer to Ignis's questions about what a future society under her rule might look like, but encouraged him to keep dreaming about such a thing, as long as his blade remained pointed at the present.
The Gale Queen expressed that she thought Lord Fireheart above an underhanded assassination on neutral ground, but she was leery of his condescension and leverage. She asked Ignis if he could help find her any counter-leverage in the Keep's favor or to his disadvantage. He suggested that the Council of Flame represented a convenient common enemy against which to orient their alliance, before leaving her to her work.
Robin, meanwhile, tended to some chores she had around the Keep. She failed to brew any useful poison, and so turned to the glowing ceramic walnut she had recovered from the magebane pool in the Venom Drinker's lair. Though the hinge had been removed, it remained magically sealed against all intrusion - corrosive acid would do little to break a ward that had repelled magebane.
She brought it down to the blacksmith to see if brute force would be able to dislodge it and reveal the lightly rattling items inside. The dwarven smith set it in a vise on an anvil and took a sledgehammer to it, to no success. He complained to Robin that the shell's material was likely simple ceramic, glowing with magic - not worth much on its own - but that it would be unlikely to yield to any physical force short of titanic. Such a ward would require specific conditions or magic to open.
Ignis reached out to Vicriax of the Golden by contacting Haxryn's Image in the provided mirror. He wanted to see if he could leverage their alliance - and by extension, the cooperation of her Council of Fuel - to even the bargaining between the Gale Queen and Lord Fireheart. He asked for an ambiguous commitment, but she prodded him for specifics until he asked directly: would she join a war effort with the Keep, if Lord Fireheart were on their side? She gave him an honest answer: if she thought they would win. He sensed she was withholding some information, and was barely concealing her smugness about it, as she faded from the mirror.