Session 12: Arrival at Viskha

August 1, Year 3488 (SE 118)

Several weeks have passed since Hassan's caravan, party included, set out from the village of Asuna. The caravan has finally arrived at Viskha, the largest and most powerful city in Ember. The caravan enters the city through the main gate and into Yahn's Market, the main commercial district of Viskha. Here, the party are paid and released from their service by Hassan, their contract to guard the caravan complete.

Arik's condition has deteriorated throughout the trip, as he turns out to be even less able to stand the heat of the desert than the heat of the jungle. By the time he arrives at Viskha, he is once again effectively bedridden. The party take rooms at a respectable inn in Yahn's Market, and Arik retires to his room to recover, as he did before in Asuna. He tells the rest of the party members to take the remainder of the day and the day after to themselves. Afterwards, they are to assemble back at the inn, where Arik will have further instructions for them.

The rest of the day is spent taking advantage of Viskha's vast markets, as the party sell off most of the valuable items that they acquired in the Temple of the Iron God. They also head to the Arcane University and commission a wizard to identify the various magical items that they'd found, and divide the money and magical items amongst themselves.

August 2, Year 3488 (SE 118)

During their day off, the party members split and take care of separate tasks. Zedlyn, who originally comes from a fishing village, decides to head down to the docks and start meeting the community and learning his way around. He investigates the price of housing and real estate in the area, but decides to wait until he has a bit more money.

Flossaria checks in at the temple of Mung and gets to know the local priests. She spends the first half of the day praying and talking with the priests. In the afternoon, she wanders about Yahn's Market, asking about recent events. It seems that, with the harvest season coming to an end, Viskha is once again preparing for war - once the Yann begins to flood, the city's warships will sail again.

Iriellis, like Flossaria, decides to spent half the day checking in at temples. She wants to visit the Grand Temple of Slid, but it is located in the Palace District, which closed to outsiders. She tries to convince the guards that, as a priestess of Slid, she should be allowed in, but fails, so she is forced to visit one of the smaller temples around Yahn's Market. In the afternoon, she asks around town about a halfling bard, but no one has seen the individual she describes.

Adokas spends the day asking around town to learn if it houses an outpost of his religion, the Faith of the Sun. Unfortunately, his brusque manner doesn't get him very far, and he is unable to learn anything.

Finally, Sharla spends the morning perusing the city's markets and bazaars, searching for magical scrolls. She finds and purchases a scroll of Hypnotism, although she doesn't yet have time to study and scribe it into her spellbook. In the afternoon, she sets up shop in front of the Temple of Roon in the docks and uses her illusion magic to perform a few fake miracles and solicit donations. She makes a bit of money while managing to avoid the notice of the priests inside.

In the evening, the party regroup at the inn and rest for the night.

August 3, Year 3488 (SE 118)

The next morning, the party assemble at Arik's room, as requested. With Arik is a young half-elf woman, who he introduces as P'hla. He explains that he felt that the group required more magical support, and so he had messengers seek out an adventuring wizard who was willing to join the group. P'hla introduces herself, explaining that she is looking for a magical amulet and hopes that joining the party will help her in that goal, as they are also investigating ancient relics and artifacts.

With P'hla introduced, Arik moves on to his orders for the day. First of all, he wants them to continue to investigate the strange holy symbol that they found on the dead caravan guard in the Temple of the Iron God. Secondly, he wants them to continue asking around about the Eye of Ranorach. Finally, he needs them to help him find a solution to his inability to withstand Ember's climate. He explains that he hired people to ask around for him, and has discovered that a retired priest named Iskander apparently owns a ring that allows the wearer to resist heat. He asks the party to go to Iskander and try to obtain the ring from him.

The party split into two groups, with Sharla and Flossaria going around the various temples in town to ask about the mysterious holy symbol and the Eye of Ranorach, and the rest going to visit Iskander at his home. Sharla and Flossaria have little success - no one knows anything about the holy symbol. The priests of Sirami in particular are perplexed by its resemblance to their own god's holy symbol, but know nothing about it. Similarly, the only thing that they learn about the Eye of Ranorach is that it is supposedly the resting place of an ancient god, located somewhere in the deserts to the east. While they're visiting the temples, Sharla purchases a holy symbol of each god.

The rest of the group visit Iskander's home, which turns out to be a large, luxurious building in one of the nicer sections of Yahn's Market. Iskander himself is an old man, about 60 years of age, dressed in fine robes, carrying a staff, and of a cranky disposition. After they explain that they've come to ask him about the ring, Iskander invites the group into his home.

Iskander explains that he is quite wealthy, due to his performing certain services for the nobility (exactly what services, he doesn't say, as a woman's voice from upstairs cuts him off before he finishes the sentence) and thus isn't particularly willing to sell it for money. The party ask if they can instead perform a service for him, and he realizes that indeed they can. He explains that he is something of a scholar, and in particular he is researching the relationship between the western pantheon of the Second Empire and the eastern pantheon of Ember. To this end, he had located a particular holy symbol of Kord, a god foreign to Ember, and was having it shipped to him. However, the caravan that was transporting it never made it to its destination; it was last seen at Barar, a town that is a few days' journey from Viskha.

The party agree to retrieve this holy symbol, in return for Iskander's ring. They try to convince him to give them the ring in advance (so that Arik is able to accompany them), but he isn't willing to do so without them leaving a deposit of at least half the ring's value - 7000 gold pieces, which they do not have. They do manage to convince him to allow Arik to stay at his home and wear the ring while they're gone, so that at least Arik will be comfortable.

This discussion takes up the morning, so the four adventurers have the afternoon free. Zedlyn returns to the docks and continues getting to know the area. Adokas, unable to find any outposts of his religion, decides to start acting independently, and cases out the nearest temple, which turns out to be the temple of Sirami. P'hla is new to this land, so she spends the afternoon asking around town, trying to get an overall feel for the city.

In the evening, everyone once again regroup at the inn and share their accomplishments. They decide to head out to Barar the next morning.

August 4, Year 3488 (118 SE)

In the morning, the party decide the trip will be shorter if they make it on horseback, so they head out to purchase steeds. While they are split up to search for appropriate mounts, Sharla and Flossaria, who decide to share a horse, are approached by a street urchin, who tells them he has a message from Lieutenant Hadia of the Viskhan Police. She apparently wishes to meet with them as soon as possible, and says that they may be in danger. Sharla and Flossaria decide to check this out immediately. They purchase their horse, and pay the seller to deliver it to the inn along with a message to the rest of the party explaining where they've gone.

Down at the police headquarters, they are escorted to Hadia's office; the lieutenant turns out to be an athletic, no-nonsense woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in leather armor and wearing the uniform of the Viskhan Police. She immediately starts asking them questions about the mysterious holy symbol that they found in the Temple of the Iron God - things like where they found it, and what they know about it. The two adventurers answer her questions truthfully, to the best of their ability. She also asks about them personally, and the two explain that they are both travellers from out of town.

Once she is satisfied with their answers, Hadia agrees to answer their questions in return. She explains that she heard from her sources that the two of them were seen asking about the holy symbol in various temples about town. She is in charge of the investigation into what appears to be a murderous cult - several murderers have been captured in town, all bearing the same holy symbol as the one the party found. Furthermore, they appear to be exclusively targeting newcomers to Viskha. However, the captured murderers appear to have no memory of the deed, and are completely unable to answer any questions when interrogated. Hadia is satisfied that Sharla and Flossaria aren't cultists, based on their answers to her questions, so she warns them that, as travelers who have been publicly seen asking around about the holy symbol, they may be in danger.

Sharla indicates that they might be interested in coming back later to interrogate some of these prisoners themselves, but for now they thank Hadia for her warning and head back to the inn. The rest of the party agree that they should warn Arik and Iskander about the cult before they leave, and they go do so. At first Iskander is concerned that having Arik, a traveller, stay at his home might make him a target, but Sharla convinces him that the cult wouldn't dare attack such a public and prominent area.

Since Iskander is apparently something of a religious scholar, they show the holy symbol to him. He doesn't recognize it, although he immediately catches the resemblance to the symbol of Sirami. The party tell him that the priests of Sirami knows nothing, but he points out that it still might represent a legitimate splinter cult of that god. After all, Sirami is the God of Forgetting, so it makes sense that the cult's agents forget everything after they're captured, and that no one seems to remember anything about the cult. Sharla guesses that perhaps there is some sort of conflict going on between Sirami and Roon, the God of Travelers, which would explain why only travelers and newcomers are attacked. Eventually, they decide that they don't have enough information yet to figure out what's going on, so the party head out for Barar to go retrieve the holy symbol of Kord.