In which our heroes ...

Puttering with Orders...

Alynna heads to the college of magic in Selkai and recruits three candidates to give a reserach grant to. The first candidate is a bouncy human magess named Lillian. Candidate number two is Elric the Immensely Dignified. (He's an elf of two hundred or so.) He seeks Ultimate Power. The mere mortals will die away soon enough and he will remain. Finally is Jay the surfer dude. He surfs.

Surprisingly, Alynna chooses Jay and gives him an 800 gold research grant for the first year. Surfs up!

Alynna sends Lillian a 1.5x PPM ring adn flushes her.

She also hires Elric. "So, it begins..."

Haeraan bums around town seeing how Arisia's brother Barrin is doing. He's investing in war items at the moment. Barrin is remarkably well versed in the history of the order. No deals are struck, but Barrin agrees to think about it.

Oathar goes to talk to the Sword of Justice and gets things like Imperial law regarding the finance minister, etc. He also finds that the entire island of Votania is considered Imperial property.

Kyrik goes to investigate his dig sites. He tries to plan a city but he, Oathar, and Alynna aren't really good at that. Kyrik decides to go to Haalkataine and hire an architect. He hires the madwoman with VISION! Money is no object. Do you want VISION! or mud? What are you willing to pay for VISION! Do you wish to SOAR! Or do you wish it to be like a flopping monkey with broken wings? What? You wish to discuss filthy lucre? You can not have VISION if you are counting gold... Kyrik gives him a week to sketch.

Back in Selkai we question Mix Vandaro abotu the Haalkataine crazy guys' skill. He allows that the man does indeed have VISION, but wow, you'l be paying for it.

Oathar and Kyrik go to check out the sketches. Think Versailles crossed with the Louvre. The walls are marble, (Alynna wonders if there is that much marble in the world.) The dorms aren't marble at least. Just stone with false red brick facing and ivy. He hires mad Vittaro. Madness!

With bonuses from Kyrik's god book, the architect makes an Absurd static maneuver roll. Both awe-inspiring, and reassuring, it will glow with an inner light at night and stand up to attacks (for a while). His fee is 1500 gold. Estimated construction costs look like 14,000 gold, but expect serious overruns.

Alynna comes out to Byron. He knows nothing about history, but understands Guilds. "You may find this shocking, but you and I are of the same bloodline." Byron doesn't buy it, but he'll play along for a while and join this "Order/Guild Thing"

Alynna goes off and buys herself a spy network consisting of a pigeon breeder and some receivers.

Haeraan wanders around the city and fails his Sense Ambush roll. Muggers jump out of the bush and attack him. In the initial onslaught, they cost Haeraan a fate point, so he vows to destroy their entire organization. Sadly, they flee after the surprise round and his observation roll is insufficent to the task of identifying them. He Looks Behind and sees the "shadowy figure" of a Magent's Shadow Assassin spell come for him. He tracks him down using his vast power, and then casts Command at the assassin.

Haeraan has a dream in which he sees a spiralling tower going up. All along the spiral are eyes. A pair of eyes from the tower looks down at Haeraan. A bird comes down to pecky at Haeraan's eyes, but he beats them off and it flies back up to the tower.

Hmm, we wonder if the evil order of the eyes is watching Barrin, or it Barrin is reporting to them.

Haeraan reports that to the guard. Two days later it's announced that Barrin is being sent on a trading expedition to far south east Emer. Arisia is pretty sure that is code for he's being banished. Arisia goes to the palace to see what's up with that. Apparently Coran Maas is behind getting him out of the city. Barrin is quite excited for this opportunity.

Haeraan gets an immediate appointment with Koren Maas as soon as he asks for it. Koren Maas is here to assure Haeraan that there will be no further unpleasantness. Certain instigating parties will not be in a position to instigate, and we don't want the Prince disturbed by things that don't need to go any further that Koren Maas' desk. He doesn't believe that in this time of stress the prince needs to worry about these things.

Unfortunately, Koren Maas can not clarify anything, but he's here to keep things on an even keel with the status quo suiting him and the city just fine. Haeraan leaves with his annoyance quite clear.

Later that afternoon, there's a big sendoff for Barrin and his trading fleet. Off he sails.