"I agree, we need to make sure we send them a message. But it's also important that we don't let our personal desires stand in the way of ensuring everyone else's safety. What good is it to avenge one death by allowing dozens or hundreds more?"
Do you wish me to guard you, or should I do a fly over?
Aifric thinks everybody has decided not to stick a spear in any of the werewolves yet. He says to Feustus, "I could guard and you fly. I can't fly, but I can guard. I wish I could fly."
Athena stands by the party listening to the conversation but not adding anything, she flinches at the shouting but other than that mostly stays to herself.
"I think it would be much preferred that he have some sort of backup, or at least someone to watch him. The same goes for you doing a flyover. If one of you goes, both should. That way if the swimmer gets in trouble, the flier knows what happened, and if the flier gets in trouble the swimmer does. You can also back each other up in some ways."
"Sounds good, if you guys can get in the lighthouse and do that ritual too without troubles, that too be helpful."
"Sounds like a full evening, then." She looks to the others for anything else they might have in mind, or any other information or suggestions they might like to share, head tilted slightly.
Max gets up from where he was slouching against the countertop and strolls over to you. He's a were-cat with a typical grumpy cat's expression, which makes his bored attitude even more obvious.
"Can I get you folks anything?" he asks halfheartedly, standing next to the table with his arms crossed.
"If I had any coin on me, certainly, but at the moment I don't have any. Was just meeting with some friends, I hope that's okay?"
"I trade you food and drinks for my companions at the price of a few songs, what you think? It will entretain the customers and we both win." Sovg answers Max by showing his songbook and a wide smile.
"We need to eat something, it will calm us down after that entretaining evening."
"Can I get you folks anything?" he asks halfheartedly, standing next to the table with his arms crossed.
"Not tonight I am afraid, morning is coming and we should not waste the darkness."
"Festus, Mr. Kos, best of luck on your endeavor. I hope to see you both before dawn."
And back to the lighthouse, unless there is other business?
"I'm quite grateful for the offer of food, and may take you up on it for breakfast. But... you know." She tilted her antlers towards Chaney, as she rose.
Chaney leads the way for anyone heading to the lighthouse, while Svog Kos makes for the shoreline to scout out the strange foreign ships in the bay.
You step outside the Gilded Hook into the night. It's dark and cold - the deepest night before dawn breaks, before the sky begins to get light out. Even with your enhanced were senses, you're nearly blind walking in the dark.
Within a relatively short time, both groups arrive at their destinations. Chaney, you stand once more in the lantern room of the lighthouse. You can catch a whiff of werewolf still lingering in the air from where the pack was wandering about an hour ago.
Meanwhile, down at the beach, you have some options. You could try for the direct approach, trusting to stealth get between the ships closer to the harbor and get to the farther one out, or you could walk along the shoreline under the piers and swim around.
Chaney rubs his hands together for warmth.
"Stray near the walls and try not to think about anything. This kind of work can be, fiddly. Right, now what do we need.....
Mazatl would stay at the top of the lighthouse, near the edge as requested, watching the sea to see how the others would doing... it would likely also help if she could see the entrance to the place as well, from her vantage point.
She would stay quiet while Chaney worked unless something -required- that she do otherwise.
"Well, wish me luck. I'll meet with you guys as soon as possible, if I'm back soon I'll look in the lighthouse but if I don't return soon and I'm not in the Gilded Hook by the morning...try to search my body in the fisherman ships."
Svog jumps into the water and turns into his shark form, swimming quietly and at a normal pace, just like a fish taking a stroll.
Actually, the combination of 1) a suitable place of power for scrying, a tall building with a focusing crystal and 2) the material components found at the scene of the murder (the wolf hairs and the blood) really helped you out.
Here's the big risk to this ritual:
You and your allies will risk danger from the magic-user atop the crow's nest of the ship. Instinctively, you can feel the vigilant awareness of the magical detection spells centered on the top of that mast as you prepare your ritual. You may learn much of them, but they may also learn of you.
Svog: as you adopt your shark form, you swim easily through the dark water. You can hardly see anything, but sharks have other senses. Through electroreception, you can "sense" electric disturbances in a field at a range of about your body length (7-9 feet). It's limited - predator vision good for detecting movement and threats - but it gives you the ability to navigate the seas with confidence.
Overhead, the two foreign ships nearest to the bay float close to one another. You swim underneath them, taking a deliberately meandering route to avoid attracting suspicion. In your wholly animal form, you are indistinguishable from any other shark of your species - which species of shark, by the way?
You believe you've passed beyond the closer two ships without attracting any attention. Your nose constantly takes in scents from the surrounding water - fish, other sharks, squid creatures, and a smell that reminds you of two-leggers somehow. Roll Discern Realities.
In the lens room.
Chaney gathers a handful of black dust and lets it slowly drain from his gloved right hand.
"Dammit. This is going to work." His voice is weary and depressed.
"The folks on the boat are watching for scrying magic. Even if the killers are not on board this will light up the tower like a village square on Beltane."
The dust, which should have run out some time ago, still pores from Chaney's closed hand.
sigh.."Well we will certainly draw attention from the others."
The dust is falling in a perfect and every widening left hand spiral.
"Get ready. I assume company will be arriving soon."
Highlights of the ritual over the next bit of time:
The blood rising from the handkerchief and mirroring the dust sprial in mid air.
The smoke from the burnt hair visibly entering Chaney's eyes and turning the sclera gray.
I circle the area to keep an eye out for trouble.
Athena shook her head when Max came by but didn't speak, she followed the others to the tower and stayed in her fox form unless she was asked to do something as she knew little of magic.
Aifric stays near the wall and tries not to think about anything. It's usually easy to just blank out, but, now that Chaney said not to think, that's all Aifric seems to be able to do.
Who should he choose as his Fulcrum? Svog Kos is his favorite, but he's in the water. Aifric doesn't really like to be near Chaney because his arm gives Aifric the shivers. Mazatl's magic is so wild, he doesn't know if that would be a good match.
What about the fox? Can a fox be his Fulcrum?
Stop thinking! Stop thinking! When the time comes, just do it! You are never able to see your opportunity by thinking about it. You just know. Stop thinking. Magic, death wish, water, Svog Kos, friend, peace, peace.
Aifric's mind calms and smooths out like the blanket on his bed as he makes it. Smooth, flat, calm, unworried. Finally, Aifric isn't thinking anymore. He's just holding his shield and spear. He doesn't even have to exist until opportunity calls out to him. And then he will strike.
In the inky blackness of the seawater, Svog Kos narrows his eyes in concentration. By applying the focus of his humanoid intellect to the primitive perfection of the shark's inner instincts, his awareness expands beyond a shark's normal radius.
Your sense of smell corroborates what you detect. Merpeople. The half-human half-fish hybrids existed as a distinct species long before the Howling, but became much less amenable to humanoid contact after the affliction struck. Despite becoming more like the merpeople after the change, humanoid races' savage instincts often won out, and Ferals were invariably hostile to merfolk.
You sense a group of three of the merpeople in the dark waters directly below the mystery ship. You can sense rapid movements in the water - as you move closer to them, "swimming casually," you "see" them more clearly. You understand merfolk sign language, but you aren't completely fluent - Roll Spout Lore to understand what they are speaking of.
Meanwhile, in the lighthouse, the sky is beginning to lighten as dawn approaches. Far off in the distance, visible only from this high vantage point, you can see the barest beginnings of sunrise. The sharp smell of burning hair and the strange swirlings of the black dust from Chaney's hands look unfamiliar and strange to Aifric, Mazatl and Athena, but the effect is clear enough.
Above you, in the round upside-down bowl of the crystalline dome, a vision appears; visible to all present. Around the edges of the vision roils a smoky blackness; through this blackness of the unknown the scrying spell penetrates, revealing a top-down view of some burly-looking humans with wolfish features. Chaney recognizes the little one with the good nose that almost detected him earlier; but the largest werewolf of the group, Wilson, is absent. The werewolves are playing cards around a small wooden table, in a room with no windows and a wooden door wrought with iron. Idly, you notice that two of them have 3-of-a-kind of Jacks. They may not be completely honest with each other.
You hear a conversation through the door nearby, and your vision is drawn to it. Passing through the door intangibly, you find Wilson on his knees before a figure. You see Wilson clearly, and the room that he is kneeling in is perfectly well-lit, yet the person he is begging in front of is wrapped in shadow. You recognize it as a protection ritual to obscure scrying, and a powerful one at that.
"Master, he resisted us with strength beyond his stature," Wilson was saying, through gritted teeth. "We had to kill him or he would have escaped our grasp. So my subordinate tells me, and thus I will stand by it." You see Wilson bracing himself.
Nothing happens for a moment. Then, out of the shadowy blackness, a painted mug is hurled at the kneeling werewolf, shattering on his face. The crash is sudden and explosive, the impact jarring loose your vision - the last thing you see is a grapevine pattern that was painted on the mug, that resembles the mugs used by the werewolves in the other room.
Feustus, meanwhile, leaves the Gilded Hook by air. Feustus, you see nothing unusual about the ships actually docked at the piers, nothing you wouldn't ordinarily see on a warship. However, as you approach the mystery ship, you get the uncomfortable feeling that you're being watched.
Out of the corner of your eye, while doing a flyover of the mystery ship, you see sudden movement. Where the lookout had been sitting, immobile and nearly invisible in the darkness, he now is standing and clearly drawing a telescope. You see the man silhouetted as he stands up by the waning starlight - he's peering through the telescope at the lighthouse. You see a faint glint of light coming from the end of the telescope.
Immediately the man climbs out of the crow's nest and begins shimmying down the mast to the main deck, presumably to report what he has seen.
I land and assume my "normal" form. I then call out Ahoy! I am sorry if I startled you! I getting a stretch!
S-hark-vog keeps swimming casually while trying to remember the merfolk sign language and understand what they are talking about...
Mazatl: Those mugs didn't belong to the werewolves, but rather the establishment they were eating in. Be on the lookout for a restaurant or bar or inn that would have that design on the mugs - then you will have found this place in the vision.
Svog: The merfolk appear to be jesting with one another. Your senses are imprecise and you're trying to interpret a language you don't fully know - like listening to a foreign language on a crappy radio - but you're able to pick out a few words - "phoenix," "secret" and "south."
"Hm. If we can figure out who uses those insignias, we'll know more about who we're trying to find. Any new ideas, anyone?"
And you...call out to them? I'll roll with this, but things may get dangerous for you really quickly...
And you...call out to them? I'll roll with this, but things may get dangerous for you really quickly...
Well, I was not sure how much I could take back.
Aifric resists the impulse to drive his spear through the face of the werewolves. He knows this is just a vision, but it is bringing back bad feelings.
He tries to remember if he's seen the pattern on those mugs.
Nope, no clue.
Athena did on a cup collecting spree a while back maybe she'd seen one like this?
Mazatl and Aifric glance at one another as the ritual ends and shrug - it was illuminating but they didn't pick up on any clues. However, the quiet were-fox, who had been keeping mostly silent until now, is staring at the grapevine pattern, thinking hard.
Athena, you remember that several inns near the vineyards to the north of Magna Gracia have similar mugs, but can't place the exact design to one single inn. You're able to narrow your memories down to two places this vision might be: the Climbing Vine and Ringwald's Winery and Lodging.
Aid or Interfere
When you help or hinder someone , roll+bond with them. ✴On a 10+, they take +1 or -2 to their roll, your choice. ✴On a 7–9, they still get a modifier, but you also expose yourself to danger, retribution, or cost.
Any time you feel like two players should be rolling against each other, the defender should be interfering with the attacker. This doesn’t always mean sabotaging them. It can mean anything from arguing against a parley to just being a shifty person who’s hard to discern. It’s about getting in the way of another players’ success.
Always ask the person aiding or interfering how they are doing it. As long as they can answer that, they trigger the move. Sometimes, as the GM, you’ll have to ask if interference is happening. Your players might not always notice they’re interfering with each other.
Aid is a little more obvious. If a player can explain how they’re helping with a move and it makes sense, let them roll to aid.
No matter how many people aid or interfere with a given roll, the target only gets the +1 or -2 once. Even if a whole party of adventurers aid in attacking an ogre, the one who makes the final attack only gets +1.
"Trying to figure out where you 'found' a cup like that before, Flynn? Do you organize your collection in some way? That might help."
"Mmm this merfolk talks with his hands full...phony? what is a phonex?...oooh it is 'Phoenix'...mmmm...'Secret'? yeah that's definitly 'Secret'...what?...is he talking about private pa...oh...south, he meant 'South'.." Svog musters all his intelligence trying to understand what the merfolks are talking about and tries to connect those words...
All right, So I am continuing to circle the boat. I am prepared to leave if they attack.
"I found a cup once, but it didn't have any vines on it. It was made out of tin or something like that. I washed it out real clean so I wouldn't get the runs, and I used it for a long time until I lost the pack I kept it in. By that time it was real beat up. One of the dents in it looked like a shark. I sure hope Svog Kos is okay. I wish I didn't lose the pack so you could see that shark dent."
Mazatl looked to Aifric, eyebrow raised slightly. Was that -really- how he talked? All the time? She thought he just wasn't alright before...
Athena tilted her head back and forth as she thought, when she did answer she spoke softly.
"Climbing Vine and Ringwald's both have similar cups." She nodded.
Athena tilted her head back and forth as she thought, when she did answer she spoke softly.
"Climbing Vine and Ringwald's both have similar cups." She nodded.
"Did either offer private suites? Rooms without windows but with independent exits to the outdoors....Maybe converted storerooms?