Orhan 3 Day 5 TE 6054

3 days to the ball!

Oathar receives a message that his appointment with Elistar tailors. D. and Imre accompany wearing Oathar's livery. (Who knew!)

"The princess had some suggestions...." And so it begins.

Oathar indicates that he is more partialy to dark colors, but D. intervenes when he's about to violate custom too egregiously. In the end, people settle on a nice midnight blue silk coat and slacks. With his little raven enbroidered. The whole suit will cost 75 gold! Ack. D. and Imre play their parts impeccibly. Kyrik isn't allowed to go by D. since he seems unwilling to play.

Orhan 3 Day 6 TE 6054

2 days to the ball! Given his experiences from yesterday, Imre gets it into his head to head back to the Eidolon clothier, and get himself something. He gets what he wants for 30 gold.

Orhan 3 Day 7 TE 6054

Tomorrow's the ball!

Gireg Jan sends us a message indicating that the Cult of Stars use mirrors to transport and communicate. Important safety tip: shattering mirrors can keep them from escaping.

Orhan 3 Day 8 TE 6054

The ball is tonight!

That evening, we head up to the ball.

Imre dresses his familiar up with a little coat and he receives some scrutiny from the guards, but Monko does in fact get let in. (Tradewind hangs out outside.)

Our friend the Alynna gets a good stare from the guards. "Are you on duty?" "No, I'm a guest of Oathar." Goodness, it appears that Oathar can afford a Changramai. Gosh.

The minister of state, Enik Foor, is there to greet folks and does indeed seem to know what's up in eveyone's lives. He takes a moment to confirm that Alynna is off duty. But he does seem to recognize everyone in the party by sight. He's cleary cheating some how.

The princess sweeps up and Oathar introduces the group. She appears to have heard all about us all. Woo! She leads us inside to the main ballroom. At one end are the prince and his wife on a throne, complete with guards. We are introduced around the room a bit and then Oathar and Arisia go off and dance a bit.

Kyrik and Haeraan talk to the ambassador from Rakhaan.

D. notices three women who happen to have mirrors. (Very suspicious.) They are not quite circulating as much as the rest. We do some various investigations and notice that the mirror of at least one of the younger ones is actively powering some appearance changing magic. Imre informs minister Maas of the problem, but he says he'll look into it.

Suddenly, the prince and princess get up and srtoll out onto the dance floor. One of the young ones head out to interrupt but Haeraan smoothly intercepts her. People looking at the prince don't notice anything odd.

They start to make their move as the other two go invisible. D. smacks one and gets attacked for her trouble, and Monko reveals the third, who gets attacked by Alynna, and then two more Changramai decloak and finish Alynna's off. The three are smote down and the prince tells people that everything is fine.

The prince and princess finish their dance. Aftewards, the prince motions for the party and Arisia to attend him. Coran Maas is there too. "Maas has informed me that you were the ones who provided him with critial information. As you can see, we were adequately prepared, though I didn't think I was paying for three monks instead of two. We are very impressed with your efforts, and I see that my daughter has chosen some interesting friends. Although I am afraid that you may have a little problem with House Farhese? The young woman whose mirror got shatter was a young member of House Farhese, and I don't think she was one of the assassins. But in any case, if you should need anything, please let me know. We will be attempting to track who hired these assassins."

The rest of the ball goes swimingly.

Though one terrible highlight is when Lord Sentoris' head shows up in a jar. Sigh.

After a little while, the young woman who was accidentally attacked by the party reappears and moves up to Haeraan. "I'm Jayna Forhese." "Madam, you have my sincerest apologies." "I understand you just saved the prince." (Oh dear, he's doomed.) She hits on him rather strongly. He weakens and eventually agrees to go to the opera with her. "In that event madam Jayna, I shall be most charmed to accept your invitation."

They dance.

Arisia explains that she's often fairly obsessive about such things. Her family has been trying to marry her off. Oh dear.

After the dancing, they head over to a side table and talk.

At the end, Arisia says that Jayna and Haeraan is going to the opera and Arisia and Oathar arrange to double with them.

Orhan 3 Day 9 TE 6054

2 days until the opera.

We get a note from Veriak. He wants to see us.

He thanks us for coming. The prince is attempting to locate who hired the assassins. I have some connections to, shall we say, an organization here in Selkai that the prince turns to on occasion. It's a small organization, and we occasionally do stuff on behalf of the realm. As you were there, he was hoping to debrief us. We tell him what happens over a little seance like circle, with a bowl that replays the images as they occur.

We spend a couple of hours. At one point we focus on the *guy* with the mirror that Kyrik saw, and he indeed seems to vanish into his mirror just as the attack starts. When we find something, we will probably need your help again.

Orhan 3 Day 10 TE 6054

The opera is tomorrow.

Veriak believes that they located him in the canal maze.

We are supposed to meet at the library in a couple of hours.

We meet at the library and find three people. One is an oriental male with white hair, Mogred , one is Trevor Dekdarion, a dornak with one hazel eye and one silver eye; the last is Ophal Tu.

Trevor and D. wander off and have a shapeshifting contest.

Trevor and D. will scout out the place. The main thing will be getting in and doing something before the target can react. Several of us should teleport and long door the others in.

Trevor is probably the Trevor of "Trevor's" the bar owned by the magical thief. But that's crazy!

Trevor and D. scout out the place. They see a guy scribbling at a desk. He has a mirror propped up against an inkwell and is writing up things. Oathar hastes the dudes, and poof, they are long doored in. (Haeraan, Alynna, Kyrik, Imre)

Alynna pounds him. Then he casts bladeturn, making it harder for Haeraan and Kyrik to pound him, but they do anyways. Haeraan takes him through the heart. Imre drops a lifekeeping down on him.

Our new friends take the body and teleport away. Searching his desk, it looks like he was trying to contact the local assassins' guild, and well as one of the dark temples with a request for some sort of dark ritual to assist him in storing some terrible thing for use later.

We are fairly bewildered about what happened. When we get back to our villa, we have a note from Veriak. Veriak says, "Sit and let me explain." "I and the others you've met are part of a group called the nine. The nine have served Selkai and Eidolon, protecting it in ways that would be considered unacceptable to the standard authorities. While we coul dhave done this ourselves, we are always on the lookout for those who may suceed us in this position. We were hoping you might be able to do the things we do. We are not bound by law or convention; we do what is necessary. for this reason, the prince occasionally calls upon us."

We thank him for his explanation and take our leave.

Orhan 3 Day 10 TE 6054

The opera is today. It's pretty good. D. doesn't think it's for her, but Jayna (Haeraan's debt) likes it. Haeraan says he needs to head off and deal with evil, but Jayna promises that he'll always be in her heart. Next time --- Votania!