Clandestine Crossing
Darrowmar to Morayel
In which the party plays coy with a pair of Arcanist "troubleshooters", and plans an unseen exit from the Island of Darrowmar.
At the wilderness camp near the Darrowmar Traverton, the party contemplates what they've learned. They now know what happened to their predecessors, they have retrieved Morran's body, and have only to make sure that Ramach gets a look at the arcane circle in the Collegium quarters (to add to his collection of Gate Compass destinations) before exiting Darromar when the Gate to Morayel opens in 15 days. Knowing that their predecessors (all excpet Morran) were obliterated by an Arcanist-altered Gate and having seen that they are being followed or watched by a strange Arcanist gives them some pause about just walking through with other travelers.
Spirit of Intellect Morran manifests and sits near the dead body of his progenitor. His translucent face is contemplative, melancholy. Doran sits nearby, witnessing the scene in quiet theological anguish. From what little he has said, it's clear that he struggles with whether or not the SOI is the soul of Morran or just some magical remnant.
When someone mentions that the Arcanist they saw wore robes in the same way as the "troubleshooters" the party met on Wisp, SOI Morran speaks up. "They are called Zindashti," he says, without raising his ghostly gaze from his own body. "It is a Baraki word, and they are a very old branch of the Arcanists." He moves to be nearer to the party, and looks at Koros. "The Zelixan Inquisition is an offshoot of their chapter."
The SOI can't sigh, but Morran makes a movement that would be a sigh if it could, and addresses everyone. "There is so much we don't know about the Arcanist's inner workings. But we think...(here he glances again at his body)...we thought that most of them are like clerks and merchants. They open the Gates, they close the Gates, they give travelers the best route from Island to Island. We are told that the more powerful an Arcanist is, the less human they become. But on most Islands there are only a few powerful Arcanists doing....whatever it is they do," he trails off, seemingly puzzled at his own lack of knowledge.
"Anyway, there are lots of powerful ones on Barakeel and Nade, but even there we rarely had any trouble with them. They usually hire agents to retrieve objects, travel the surface, Island hop for whatever errands they need. Mostly it was their agents we faced."
He looks over at Koros again. "If things had been different, we would have been inserting one of us into their ranks to ferret out their secrets. But alas."
"The Zindashti, though." He looks less troubled now, and more amused. "They are smart. They move around. Seem to be at the sharp end of all the big Arcanist plots. They come across and friendly as can be. Until they need to 'cleanse' something. Then they are merciless and quick. If ever a Zindashti caught on to something we were doing, we knew we would have to stop and hide as best we could, or take them fast and hard and quiet-like. Many of our own predecessors were caught out by Zindashti. We were too clever for them, though."
He turns his head to take in the wilderness camp. "Too clever until Darromar, I suppose. We were pretty sure there were no Zindashti on the Island while we were here. If they are here now, they must have come with the more recent Gate openings. Perhaps because the local Arcanists got worried over us. Except even they had means to kill us all, I guess." He runs down and stares into the distance, sad and defeated.
Considering Morran's words, Koros speaks up and reveals to the group that ever since Wisp he has felt a connection to the Gates, and feels that he can open them and close them himself, if they are in range of another Gate. He thinks that he might be able to open one ahead of schedule to get the party through while no one is looking. This admission is met with skepticism and scorn, and an alarmed SOI Morran begins quietly speaking with other party members about Koros possibly being an Arcanist plant. The party thinks that this is a risky move even if Koros could open them, and begins to formulate other plans.
The next morning the party moves back to the Traverton cliff opening controlled by the Rathos Arcosh clan, and asks to speak to a clan leader. The party asks to be housed within the Rathos Arcosh holdings until the Gate opens. A price of 450gp is agreed upon and paid, and the party is shown to a wide cave and told that they will need to provide their own food and comfort.
Koros and Ramach, invisible, walk the proper Traverton to see if Koros can "sense" anything form the Gate. He says he cannot. Orosh and Akissi leave the area and make the walk back to the Anaxar's holding, and canvass the weaponsmoot for a merchant who might be willing to take them back through the Gate under the cover of a wagon or cart. The party knows that the Arcanists can't see them by divination - they figure that if they can hide in a cart and avoid visual detection they may be able to pass through undetected. They arrange such a passage with a smith named Javal.
Back in the Rathos Arcosh cave, a guard hustles up to Koros, Ramach, Paetro, and Doran. He tells them that his guard brother got bribed and ratted them out to someone, and that the someone in question is on their way. Fearful of an ambush, the party runs - Doran carrying Morran's body - through the caves and to the outside (much to Paetro's frustration - he felt the party could better hide in the warren of the Traverton). As they careen off-trail and into the underbrush, they spot a flying human far above, making circles and presumably looking for them. They hide, and await nightfall. If there were any doubt that the Zindashti are looking for them, it is now certain. There is a discussion of Doran splitting from the group, but SOI Morran convinces them to stay together. They travel under cover of darkness for two nights and re-join Orosh and Akissi at the Anaxar's holding.
Thus reunited, the party finalizes plans with Javal. They are to meet him at the Lucky Fist in the Traverton in the days before the Gate Opening. At the weaponsmoot Koros engages with a merchant named Akbar, who sells Koros two very finely made daggers and one in jet black that Ramach determines has necromantic properties. Again traveling by night, they return to the Traverton cliff-caverns and confront the Rathos Arcosh.
A higher-up clan member greets them and is truly apologetic. He seems quite fearful, actually, knowing that the Lakesla have already ended two entire clans. He puts them up in much nicer rooms and refunds their coins. He also says that Arcanists by the names of Amal and Rasul have left word that they would like to speak to the Lekesla. The party chooses to ignore this offer.
Koros continues to being up his perceived ability to open the Gates. SOI Morran continues to whisper to the other party members that Koros's insistence on this course of action is evidence of something sinister. The party decides to proceed with the Javal plan, but to hold Koros's supposed ability as plan B. Akissi then recalls that she has two vision potions left from Chull. On evening she takes one and focuses on the Gate on Darromar, and Koros's maybe ability to open it.
Her night of sick dreaming reveals an empty space where vast formless creatures control bundles of threads that lead to small bug-like sparks, all clustered around the beings that hold their threads. The bugs have tiny human faces, and every so often one of them creates a line of blue energy between one cluster and another - the same blue as the shimmer of the Gates. Off to the side one of the beings - the smallest - holds but a single thread, tied to a single spark, with Koro's face. When the Koros bug tries to light a blue line to a nearby cluster, the other spark-bugs try to chase it down and eat it.
The party interprets this dream in a few different ways, but ultimately decides that it validates their decision to hold Koros's potential Gate ability as plan B. SOI Morran seems convinced that it pegs Koros as an Arcanist - it is thought that the Arcanists drive their power from inhuman masters - but Akissi seems to think that if anything it means Koros is a budding Arcanist as of yet not trained or indoctrinated into their ways.
In a few days, Paetro makes his way in disguise to the Lucky Fist to check if Javal has arrived. He has, but Paetro sees that Javal's carts are being watched by a youth hiding out nearby. The party returns that evening to confront the youth, and finds that he has "distracted" the lone guard and is under the cart carving a symbol into its underside. Ramach puts the guard, the woman he is with, and the youth to sleep. Paetro and Orosh grab the youth, wake him up, and intimidate him into telling his story. It seems one of the Zindashti paid him to carve a certain symbol on the bottom of the cart. Orosh knocks the youth unconscious and the party wakes the guard, who yells and brings everyone running. Javal and his family and the owner of another two carts in the stable all tromp out of a nearby inn. While the party sorts out the hullabaloo, Ramach dips under the carts, memorizes the symbol, scratches it off of Javal's carts, and quickly carves it onto the other two carts. The party makes arrangements to being their "cargo" to Javal the day before the Gate opening.
Back at their rooms, Ramach shows the party the symbol. It is not arcane as far as Ramach can tell, and looks more like a stylized maker's mark or personal sigil. One by one the party seems to remember seeing it somewhere before, and they soon realize that it is stamped on the pommel of the three daggers Koros bought at the weaponsmoot. It is also stamped on each coin the Rathos Arcosh gave them as a refund. It is clear that the Zindashti, being unable to track them through normal divinations, are somehow relying on seeing this sigil and have been trying to make sure the party carries them where ever they go.
In the days before the Gate opening, Ramach relies on his drop mage cache and makes an appointment at the collegium quarters high above the Traverton. He asks about the sigil, and the Collegium Mage on duty agrees that it is not arcane. He also asks about a circle of runes in their atrium. Although they roll their eyes and express skepticism, they roll away the carpet that covers the circle and Ramach gets a good look at it.
On the day before the Gate opening the party tells the Rathos Arcosh that they need a few extra days, and pay them in the marked coin. They also leave a pile of it hidden in their Rathos Arcosh rooms, and dump a few in sewers and gutters as they make their way to the Lucky Fist. There they meet with Javal, and inform him that they are are cargo. He arranges his carts to hide the party, and Koros stashes the daggers on the other carts. Javal also confirms that the sigils look to have been stamped in later - the workmanship of the sigils is much inferior to the make of the daggers.
Hidden away, the party feels the movement towards the Gate, the waiting in line, and the change in light as Javal leads his carts through the Gate to Morayel. One of Javal's sons narrates for them as they make the passage. On the Morayel side, the many carts jam up in front of the warehouses there, and a commotion is heard as (Javal's son tells them) some Arcanists meeting Amal and Rasul's description stop and harass the other two marked carts. Finding nothing but the stashed daggers, the Zindashti move away and back through the Gate to Darromar.
The party helps Javal stow his carts, and then makes the walk with all the other travelers to the Hanging Village of Morayel, having exited Darromar unseen.
Doran stays for two days, and then bids the party goodbye, taking the Gate from Morayel to the Tovan Monastery, there to wait for a Gate opening back to Empyrean. Before he leaves, SOI Morran visits the party and lets them know that Amal and Rasul have found and questioned Doran. Doran told them only his story, and that the party was helping him retrieve Morran's body. The Zindashti then left Doran alone, but the party is later told by their Collegium contact that Amal and Rasul followed Doran through the Gate to the Tovan Monastery.
The party takes some time for rest and relaxation on Morayel. They begin negotiations with Chull over the Gate Compass, as they promised Aidra Bredini they would do, and settle on a price and 12 Teleportation Circle scrolls.