Orhan 5 Day 55+ TE 6061

Imre goes to the temple of Eissa for elevation to minion. (It's done ending and rebirth style.) He walks down the isle into the setting sun. Then he teleports back to the east side of the church with light spells and get holy-i-fied. He makes a short speech about his happiness in being able to serve the Lady. At the end, an old grandmother with a scythe and big black wings, and she is hailed as the Angel of Death and Rebirth. She accepts him as a Minion of the Church and gives him a silver scythe (a few inches long.)

Haeraan goes to the chuch of Rianne for elevation to minion. There is a large gathering of knights and a vast roll call of the fallen. It's very moving. They move up through ranks from knights to knight-lieutenants, and knight-commanders, and then to the saints of the chuch, when a bunch of spectral knights materialize in the church for their roll call. Then they ask Haeraan to join their ranks. They give him a small silver shield.

Kyrik goes to the chuch of Valris for elevation to minion. It's like a Nobel prize ceremony. There are speeches by the archivists recounting his research and the like. He give a small speech that new knowledge must be discovered. The give him a small silver book.

Oathar goes to the temple of Neela for elevation to minion. There is a blessing in a pool of water and the usual washing of him down. Oathar is headed into deeper waters. The pool fills slowly and covers his head. He can still breath though. Niads and fished and mermaids all show up and bless him and pay their respects. He receives a small silver chalice. Neela speaks to him and says "I bless you my child."

Main powers of minions:

• You can reveal yourself as a minion to any member of the church minion level or lower.
• You can request the presense of any member of the church minion level or lower.
• You can teleport (without error, full range) to the location of any such request. (and back if successful)
• Greatly increased life-span. (Don't worry about aging for quite some time.)
• Innate knowledge of god's preferences with regard to things relevant to the greater church. (Unless the god decides to test you.)

For the big churches, they may meet particular named minions, but they can pretty much assume they can call upon generic minion foo with appropriate classes. (IE Rianne: Paladin, Cleric, Ranger, etc.; Eissa: Clerics of Eissa and Valris: All spellcaster classes) For small churches such as Neela there's less variety (1 cleric, 1 healer, 1 rogue (sailor captain)) but also several mer-people too.

We're invited to dinner up at the palace for regular social interaction. Cool. After dinner the prince says he can't really do anything official, but were Haeraan and I to find ourselves on the docks at midnight two days hence, we might make some progress on our investigation into certain imports.

There's apparently a lot of difficulty finding people to play for Imre's wedding. Elvish Presley (called "the King") auditions for Imre's wedding. Nusmoi isn't too appalled by Presley. He's quite new. Or there's William the Joel. And some "band" names after bugs followed by screaming adolescent girls. Haeraan goes recruiting for musicians in Santa Vallandra. Oh dear. Haeraan comes back with Jake and Elwood. They're on a mission from Eissa to save a church. If we give them some gold they can put the band back together. Simon thinks they're great!

Oathar imports a band from Danarchis.

Two nights before the wedding, the party heads down to the docks at midnight to see what they find out. They find four smugglers who look furtively around, and when they find no one watching them, they signal a ship that comes in to dock, and then people furtively start unloading the ship. Haeraan detects faint undeadness in the crates. Even if the leather is not illegal, they are evading taxes. We try to decide what to do while they unload.

Haeraan teleports into the back of the ship to see what he can find, but encounters the captain who is startled but can't see him so warily approaches him. Haeraan eludes him though. Outside, Oathar identifies the guy in charge as someone from around town, but is mostly an independent contractor. Oathar tries to get a guard. But a woman steps out of the shadows and cries out, "Help help." Oathar and she battle over the guards puny will, and then Oathar gives up and teleports the three of them to the docks. Sadly, the guard resists, so the woman and Oathar show up at the docks bickering.

Meanwhile, across the way, Kyrik speaks into the mind of a guard and tells him to go to the docks. The guy thinks it's a demon though and refuses to participate.

Meanwhile, Haeraan is inside evading the captains parrot. The parrot is keeping a steely eye on him though so it's hard to maneuver. So he dodges the captain and goes down to inspect the hold.

Combat ensues on the docks. Oathar gets brutalized, but Imre heals him. We capture a few guards. The ship pulls away, but Haeraan unloads a repel undead 20 at it. It bursts into flames.

Oathar and Imre gather up a few guard prisoners, while Haeraan gets all the charts from the ship, while Kyrik sinks the ship. The manifest only says "crates". They've been sailing back and forth from SelKai to Ardania. We hate those guys. The profits from the leather are funding the war against Lankonok. Those notes are considered good loot that makes the whole thing worth while. It's still considered a catastrophe all around though. The goons work for House Alaxatan.

Before the fight, Imre discovered the destination warehouse for the smuggling.operation. Oathar identifies it as house Alaxatan warehouse. Oathar determines the leather comes from the swamp near Ardania (Necromancer Dude Ranch anyone?).

Imre puts all of our information together and casts Correlations looking for some insight. He gets that the main thing we were missing is that Ardania needs money secretly, so either they have an extra motivation in doing the undead leather thing, or they don't want Selkai and the world to know that they need money.

Haeraan casts dreams III 1) How widespread is evil leather, 2) What the connection between Ardania and the dude ranch, 3) Are there other ships smuggling stuff around.

Answers: 1) an anthill, with ants going in and out, as the ant hill gets bigger it interacts with other ant hills. Right now it's just interacting with two ant hills. 2) he's a gopher tunneling around, he pops up back and forth between two holes, 3) another anthill, lot's of ants going back and forth, one dies, but there are lot's more.

We love Rianne.

We write reports on this stuff for Gireg Jan, (he's impressed since we didn't mention the combat), and Coran Mas (he says he'll notify the prince).

Gireg Jan comes back just before the wedding and says he has a pointer to a cache of laen lenses, and we should head back to him after the wedding/honeymoon. Yay!

Imre is married! Huzzah! His mom (evil mom) shows up and brings him a gift. She and Nusmoi don't get along. (A set of four alabastar jars with a human head, a jackal head, a hawk head, and a baboon head. Mom says they are the key to immortal life.) Haeraan got them a couple of skiffs for polling around the city. Jack and D show up for the wedding. Cornelia shows up, to stay in the villa for a few days. Divad and Byron and Kyse Farnese show up. Gireg and Anton. Veriak shows up. That's a bit creepy as he brings a snake. The prince shows up. Lord Centaurus comes too, sigh. Mornan Xaeon shows up. The prince wonders what our archdukedoms are about. Voorig Kye, perhaps thankfully, does not show up in person at the ceremony, but at the party and old blind man wearing silver robes shows up wearing an invitation. Blinky is at the reception too. Lot's of cash gifts which cover the cost of the wedding. Yay! Other gifts include two round trip airship tickets anywhere from the Prince. Xaeon give him a big piece of abstract art. Byron give him a map of the world. Cornelia gives him a miniature navigator obelisk. The loremasters give him a geode split in half for Imre and Nusmoi. It's a once per day geode talking link.

It's apparently the first time two members of the church have ever married.

The reception and dancing are great. Mornan praises us all loudly and effusively for all to hear. Many guests look suspiciously at each other. Loremasters try to keep Mornan Xaeon quiet. At one point Veriak, Anton, the Prince, Xaeon, and the old blind man (Kye) sit at a table starring at each other saying not a single word, but no one comes near for several minutes.

After the party is a left over unlabeled gift. It's a wrapped silver egg. We expect it was made by Voorig Kye. Imre's spells determing it is a communications device. It allows you to talk with Voorig Kye. He attunes to it, and it rings, and then he hears, "Hello, how may I direct your call?" "Oh you're the new one, please hold." "There is a pre-recorded message for you." "Welcome, if you should need to contact me in the future, you should use this. Be warned, others should not appreciate you contacting me. But if you find yourself needing something I have, or know something I should be interested in, feel free to contact me."