Deceitful Delays
Anvard City, Anvard & Vaaris Traverton
While they wait for the Gate from Anvard to Vaaris to open, the party enjoys the hospitality of the Gellersway and begins to ask around about Dar Alsan. Akissi makes contact with her own Clan connections, and merchant Clans who will talk don’t recognize the name as a common supplier or competitor. If he’s a real merchant, he’s a new one. One contact does recall that someone by that name recently rented the spur estate, and did indeed hold a few soirees in the past few months.
Paetro finds more among the Anvardi clannless grey market, where his contacts report that Dar Aslan has breezed through the less savory environs of Anvard a few times, usually seeking to hire miscellaneous muscle, mages, or other miscreants. The rumor is that he’s good for the money, although other rumors say that his hirelings don’t come back from his adventures, or come back injured. Most agree that he is a Baraki, although he is known to work through intermediaries. One high-end fence claims that he traffics in unique items, from the surface or otherwise, but that his reputation is as a buyer rather than a seller. Where he off-loads his valuable acquisitions is not known.
The man himself proves elusive. After the encounter at the spur estate he seems to have vanished.
Two days before the Gate to Vaaris opens, a note arrives at the Gellersway for Akissi. It reads:
Akissi - I need your help. I can only hope you are at the Gellersway because of the coin I gave you. I am detained in the Clanless village of Gaskarn, two days north of the City. Do not trust Grovan. I’m dictating this to a trusted friend. I hope he makes it to you. Please help.
The party discusses and decides this is a ruse, and that even if it was not a ruse, they could come back to it after checking out the Vault on Vaaris.
A day before the gate opening, a line begins forming the Great Hall of Anvard City. The party packs their things and takes their place in line, keeping an eye out for Dar Aslan. A few hours before dawn on the day the Gate is to open, the crowd around the party begins to pull back and a troop of Grovan Clan soldiers approaches. Akissi and Paetro recognize their insignia as being the “for hire” type, rather than the city guard type.
The captain of the crew opens the conversation by insisting that the party come with him. A Clan official would like to speak with them. They are to be taken to a room to await the presence of this official. The party verbally resists, asks questions. The Grovan squad begins to take positions all around the party. The party stands and shuffles into a circle. Mote vanishes.
When the violence starts, it is sudden and harsh, and the party quickly gets the better of the Grovan squad, killing several (some when they are helpless). The party takes some damage as well, but in the end the Captain calls a halt to the attack and backs off. When questioned, he admits that it was Dar Aslan who hired them, and that the party was to be detained for a few days and then let go. The soldiers collect their wounded and dead, and a wide bubble of space remains between the party and the line at the Gate.
The Gate opens, and the line shuffles through, passing the line coming in from the other direction. The party passes through, and find themselves in the main plaza of the Traverton on Vaaris, the only place on Vaaris where non-Uldans can live, work, congregate, and wait between Gate openings. It is run by Barakis, and as the party moves towards the edge of the town they know they are being followed by local Baraki guards. The guards seem to be informed by a portly, ill-dressed man with a limp. The party splits up, comes back together, and is confronted by the guards. Mote vanishes. The guards tell them that their presence is requested by a local Arcanist, and that they are to be collected to meet with him. Banged up from the previous fight, and not wanting to carelessly create bad blood with the local authorities, they accede to being chivvied to the local lock-up, where they are relieved of their weapons and confined in a single large room.
Days pass, and it is evident that this was some continued plot by Dar Aslan to delay the party while he gets to the vault. Despite yelling and much protest, the guards do not say when they might either see this Arcanist or be released.
Late one night, the door opens. It is Mote, and he gestures nervously for the party to follow. He leads them to lockers where they quickly collect their belongings, and then past a collection of sleeping guards just beginning to stir. Free of constraint, the party makes their way through night-time streets of the Traverton andinto the countryside of Uldan Vaaris, towards Paetro’s family lands.