Log7th Sea: The Search for Salvation-2011/10/13-Jason-1

Game log for the 2011/10/13 session of 7th Sea: The Search for Salvation, as taken by Jason

Reddi Septimus 6, 1668:

Benito, Léon, Mahmoud head to the fete of Luc Durand and his wife Arienne. The party is for Montaigne expatriates. Mahmoud is dressed to stress the exotic. Luc is shuttling Benito around so that he can't too badly piss off any one guest.

Jean-Jacque Frémiet d'Bas is announced and introduced to Léon. J-J enjoys Vodacce but misses home. He's only here on business. They part amicably. Later, Claude Duchamps mentions that J-J might have had dealings with Léon's dad at some point in the past.

Mahmoud does draw a little female attention, but they all want to browse, not buy. That leaves our heroes to enjoy a lot of cheese and wine, and (with a little luck) stay out of trouble. Sadly, Mahmoud does not eat cheese.

Back at casa Calabretta, Luna wants to hear all about the party. Léon promises to introduce her to Arienne.

Voltadi Septimus 7, 1668:

Léon goes shopping for a pair of snuff boxes. He gives one to Luna and fails to blood the other one.

A Montaigne gentleman appears at Luna's door, asking for Mahmoud. Mahmoud greets him politely, and the man introduces himself as Pierre Gerard. Pierre hopes to do business in Cresent lands, and wants Mahmoud to help him out. Mahmoud, not being a man of business, finds himself at a loss, and decides to refer him to a man in Jesalute who could help out. Mahmoud says he'd be happy to discuss this more later, and implies that he'd welcome an invitation to dinner. Pierre thanks Mahmoud and departs.

Nikolai goes to Sigillo, Felix in tow, and begins asking around after Evelina. He finds a bartender who remembers her disappearance, and the months of searching that followed. Nikolai asks whether Serafina might have had enemies of her own to threaten her child. Her family comes from the mainland, so he doesn't really know what enemies she might have had. We leave word that there would be a reward for information leading us to Evelina, and ask them to send word to the Venzini house. Felix later suggests that we establish some sort of office or drop, so that people wanting to get information to us don't have to trouble either the Venzini or Calabretta family.

We discuss the idea with Léon, specifically the notion of asking his mom's husband to take the messages for us. We go to visit Nunzio de Villanova to see if said step-father can be of assistance. Léon's mother, Pascal Bisset de Villanova, is there, and she's delighted to see him. Sadly, Nunzio is not there, which makes it difficult for us to make him an offer. Léon makes introductions, and she invites us all to dinner. Pascal is nearing forty and quite attractive, which is to say that Léon does not take after his mother in looks. Asked, she confirms that Mssr Frémier did indeed know Léon's father. We explain our need, and she agrees that she could receive messages about Evelina's whereabouts. From now on, we tell people to send word to the house of Pascal de Villanova. She then asks more questions about poor Evelina's story.

Léon then finds a chance to speak with his mother alone. They discuss magic and she warns him to be careful, of d'Bas in particular.

We all spend the night at la villa Villanova.

Soldi, Septimus 8, 1668

We return to Dionna and the socially viable go to church.

In the afternoon, word arrives from casa Venzini that Property "Npcref" (as page type) with input value "7th Sea: The Search for Salvation/Mercede</br>Panebianchi di Vestini" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.Mercede Panebianchi di Vestini, Evelina's older sister and a Fate Witch, has arrived. We go see her. She resembles her mother, though she's slightly heavier. She gets right to the point, and invites Nikolai to tell her what he knows. He does, and she asks a few questions. Then they go to a room in the exact center of the house to do the reading. They form a three-person circle with Nikolai, then begin doing things with cards. She reveals that Nikolai has a connection to her, and that she's somewhere in the islands. Mercede recommends that he tread carefully, and warns him that something else is forming in his future, something that bodes ill. She offers to try to weaken that strand for him, if he'd like to return for future visits. She then presses three fingers against his forehead, creating a connection between them, unveils, and offers him her closed hand. Without the veil, he can see that she's very pale. She makes eye contact with him, asks his name, repeats it three times, and opens her hand. She implies that the has done this in his best interest. When Serafina releases his hand, her spider goes to walk over to his hand, forcing her to yank hand and spider away before the big Ussuran can smash it.

We then go back to Dionna. The rest of the party can tell that Nikolai is bothered by something, but he says little. Upon our return, Luna wants to hear all about Nikolai's conversation with Mercede, and her curiousity breaks his will. He tells us everything that happened. Luna expresses surprise that Mercede lifted her veil. As Nikolai reveals more details, she explains that Mercede either blessed him or cursed him, and there's no way for him to tell which.

Benito decides to seek a reading with Lucia, hoping to find out whether he's got a dark fate waiting for him.