The Gellersway Gathering
Anvard City, Anvard
As each stranger arrives at the Gellersway over the course of a few months, they find a well-appointed inn in the mid-levels of Anvard City. The Innkeep Alard Hoster is a picture of the Hotelier Guild type. He is short and pleasantly portly, with neatly cut hair and well made but understated Anvardi clothing. His Travit is severely accented in low Anvardi, but he makes himself understood. His beaming tanned face shows his clear pleasure in accommodating his guests. He shines with the pride of providing quality rooms, food, and service. Upon showing their special coin, the innkeep whisks each stranger to one of six spacious suites adjoining a central shared room. As they arrive over the course of two months, the strangers get to know one another and, if they haven't been before, explore Anvard City.
Upon arrival of the sixth stranger, Mote, Alard takes the group to a locked room in the highest levels of the Gellersway. He says his instructions are to leave you alone in the room.
It is hexagonal, and murals on the walls depict unknown people in portrait poses. A short message painted on one wall reads:
In order to open new voices lift
Giving our names who gave you gifts
The first of gifts invokes the art
For all to know a treasure's heart
In the center of the room is a narrow, hip-height, hexagonal stone column. A horizontal seam is visible halfway between floor and top. The “top” of the column seems like it may lift off the “bottom”, but all attempts fail - the stone is either too heavy or is attached in some way. On the top rests a grid of colored stones:
The group spends the better part of a day discussing and puzzling, wondering who is painted on the walls and what treasures the message references. They connect the colors in the grid to the colors of their coins, and relate the number of colored stones to an order of coin-givers. Eventually they speak aloud the names of the people who gave them each coin, in order, and the seam in the column seems to grow slightly larger. The strongest among them try to lift the top again, and now it is far lighter and slides up easily.
In the bottom of the column is a hollowed out space that extends below the floor. A scroll in the space, when unrolled, reads:
Well done, inheritors. If you've found this note you've been persistent and clever, and our last adventure has likely killed us. If this is so, know that much of our fortunes are delivered to our families and clans, but the best of what we have to pass along starts here, with this box. We invite you to collect treasures as we did, and know that some are far more than they seem. You were all chosen for good reasons, and we hope you follow our path. ~ Alshekal
For some of the party this is the first time they hear the name Alshekal.
The rest of the space, however, is empty. There is a small hatch at the bottom that leads to the floor below, and appears to have had a lock broken off.
The group leaves the room to find Alard, and lets him know that whatever was meant to be left for them was stolen. Alard is mortified, and takes the group to the locked room below the hexagonal room. He reveals that his instructions were to wait until the group had arrived, and then to retrieve the scroll and a small (8x8x8 inch) heavy box from the Varodi Clan (the secure “bank” Clan of the Anvardi clans) and place them in the space. He did so just last night.
He also reports that a newer employee, a clannless man named Prok, did not report to the Inn that morning. He suggests contacting Grovan Clan city guards to report the theft and track him down, but the group asks him to wait on this - they will try to see what they can find on their own first. Akissi speaks to Alard in high Anvardi, and finds that he is quite concerned about losing the Alshekal contract for the Hotelier Clan. He implies that the relationship is long standing and imbues the Gellersway with no small status in the eyes of the clan. He also says he believes Prok lives in a clannless barrio on the ground level of Anvard City, near the Greengate.
When alone, both Koros and Paetro reveal that they had pegged Prok as a member of some “light-fingered” group or another, by certain signs and signals. The group talks to other staff and confirms that Prok was an odd working companion, and that he was here late the previous night but didn’t come in today. Koros and Paetro feel that they can canvas Prok’s neighborhood and try to track him down.
The party descends the warrens of Anvard City to the clannless area near the Greengate, a low-ceilinged, cramped, smoky, and rank collection of near-hovels and ramshackle shops. Mote seems quite nervous. Koros and Paetro spend the rest of the morning asking around, finding the exact group Prok belonged to and the dim pub that serves as their contact point. They and Orosh enter the pub and ask plainly to speak to the master. Over an hour or so, the pub clears out and eventually a slight worried-looking man who never gives his name asks the group about their business. The group speaks directly, saying that a member of his little thieves guild has stolen from them, and they’d like their property back. The man indicates that they are not usually in the business of returning goods, but also, perhaps intentionally, reveals that Prok hasn’t checked in with him today either. He admits that the guild was hired to do the job. It is not something they undertook on their own. He is not inclined to cooperate with the group - the reputation of his people is on the line - and further conversation stalls and winds in circles, until Koros mentions the name Alshekal.
At the mention, the man appears even more concerned, and gives up all the information he has. He is eager to connect these strangers - presumably in his mind the Alshekal - to the person who commissioned the job, and to get out of the way entirely. He says they were hired by a merchant named Dar Alsan. Originally the job was to place a person in the Gellersway to collect information. Prok would bring it back to them, and he would deliver it to a rented merchant’s house in one of the swankier districts of Anvard City. More recently, Dar Aslan commissioned a theft from the Gellersway based on the information Prok had collected from eavesdropping and talking to the staff. The guild had also been allowing Prok to report directly to the house after checking in with him, which he recognizes was likely a mistake. Now that the theft has occurred, he surmises that Prok has taken the objects to the house to collect the payment himself, cutting out the guild. He will certainly deal with Prok for that betrayal, but wants no ill will with the Alshekal, and offers a description of Dar Aslan and the address of the house - and his apologies, hoping that this will clear any debts for him and his guild.
The party ascends the levels of Anvard City to a mid-height exterior boulevard, where long semi-ovals of flat surface jut out from the side of the huge Ancient Race structure. Well-to-do Anvard Clans have built small houses out on the ends of these narrow precipices, and the given address is one of these estates. The fence and gate where the artificial cliff abuts the boulevard are manned by hired Grovan Clan guards. The long courtyard area between fence and house is largely empty of adornment, and Akissi assesses that this is a rented estate and not permanently occupied. Koros approaches the gate, and asks for an audience with the master of the house, representing that they have a trade opportunity. A Baraki servant takes some messages back and forth from the gate to the house, and eventually the group is invited to dine with Dar Alsan late that evening. It is clear that the servant is lying in some way.
While Koros runs off for supplies, the rest of the group keeps an eye on the house. Akissi notes that the “guards” seem to be Llaverlac Guild actors posing as Grovan Clan guards. A few Baraki “servants”, armed and tough-looking, seem to be preparing a cart near the house, and packing it with small boxes and other items. The Baraki messenger walks to the gate, and dismisses the Llaverlac/Grovan “guards”. They leave. Koros returns just as a man matching Dar Aslan’s description exits the house with a handful of Barakis and begins moving towards the gate with the cart. Koros produces a large chain and lock, and wraps it around the gate, with the party on the inside.
Dar Aslan’s group approaches the party, and they plainly tell him that he has something that belongs to them. He prevaricates for a while, but when it becomes clear he can’t talk his way out he signals to his Baraki guards to make a run for the house, perhaps to hole up in a more defensive position. A quick running skirmish results, several guards are severely wounded or put to sleep, and near the house Dar Aslan is stopped and confronted. Mote vanishes during the fight. Koros flat out threatens to castrate him, and Ramach levitates him so that he hangs helpless before the party. There on the narrow protrusion, high above the ground with nothing but a small house on one side and the bulk of Anvard City looming on the other, breeze slowly nudging him towards the edge, Dar Aslan breathes a sigh of defeat and gives up.
He says he is a collector and seller of mysterious and valuable objects, just like (he says through a resigned smile) the Alshekal. He got a tip that such an object might be at the Gellersway from an informant on Nade, a man named Hukt. He says the coin and box are on the cart, and with apologies the party is welcome to them. The party checks the location, and Paetro is surprised to discover that his coin is also there, and must also have been stolen. Inside the box is a small decorated human skull. The party takes these items, Akissi heals the guards, and they leave Dar Alsan there, bereft of his stolen goods.
Back at the Gellersway, the party gathers again in the hexagonal room. It is unclear why the skull is a treasure. On inspection, it seems to be in the shape of a human skull but carved from the bone of one of the Ancient Race. After puzzling over the second half the message on the wall - The first of gifts invokes the art, For all to know a treasure's heart - and wondering why Dar Aslan stole Paetro’s green coin, they place the green coin inside the skull.
A translucent, ghost-like figure appears in the room. With a start, Paetro recognizes the form as his aunt Thalina, who gave him the coin. The spirit speaks, saying that she is not Thalina, or even a ghost of Thalina, but rather a collection of Thalina’s memories that have been formed into a Spirit of Intellect and stored in the vessel of the skull. She recognizes and addresses her comments to Paetro - she seems somehow both kinder and colder than Paetro’s memories of Thalina.
She says their predecessors found a way to perform a ritual to make these objects, these skulls and Spirits of Intellect. It was one of their more intricate and rare secrets. She infers from your presence that Thalina herself may be deceased. Her purpose is to tell you, the inheritors, about a Vault on Vaaris. She says the vault is both a stepping stone and a test. She and the other Alshekal designed and built it, and further information and treasure await inside, if the inheritors are worthy of it. It is located on Paetro’s family lands on Vaaris, a few ridges over from his father’s orn keeping grounds.
She is willing to answer any other questions the party may have, although she says anything not stored in the skull will be hazy at best. She also says that the skulls cannot be taken through a Gate, else they be erased, and that this one is to be given back to the Innkeep to be put back in the care of the Varodi Clan.
In further question and answer she also somewhat sheepishly reveals that she told Dar Alsan about the vault. He invoked her in a hexagonal room with 5 other people and convinced her that the other inheritors were dead, and that he was given the coin by an unwilling thief matching Paetro’s description.
She got the distinct feeling that Dar Alsan will also be after the vault, and the Gate to Vaaris opens in about 15 days….