Log7th Sea: The Search for Salvation-2012/12/20-Jason-1

Game log for the 2012/12/20 session of 7th Sea: The Search for Salvation, as taken by Jason

29 Octavus

Reginald tells Musketee Andre Leveque that he's not lost, he's here looking for his hat. Which he lost here, 20 years ago. Yeah. This is going to be great. And no, Andre does not know what the orb is. He discusses the need to ensure that the recently deceased stay so, introduces himself, and asks after our names. Felix and Léon recognize the Leveque family name - they own the Charouse war college. As Léon carries on the conversation, Reginald begins inspecting the orb, which appears to be a big glass pearl at the moment. Then he throws a coin at it. To our collective relief, the coin clanks off it and falls to the ground.

Andre calls out to "Henri," who's amazed to hear that Reginald has some familiarity with the orb. Reginald disappoints by saying that he only knows the orb was smaller twenty years ago. Henri disappoints by admitting that he burned Reginald's hat. The sadness, you can just taste it. Turns out they found Mario's bag with the scroll inside. "Who are you?" Henri asks. "I'm Batman," Gary replies. Back in character, though, Reginald explains that Mario was part of the Explorers' Society.

Nikolai sidles over to Benito and asks for translation. Felix follows over. Nikolai tells Benito to warn him if arrest looks likely, so he can prevent such. Felix suggests that just maybe resisting arrest would be the wrong choice. Benito hedges his bets.

Reginald tells Henri that he came just to see the orb again. Henri actually seems to believe that. "All we know is that it wants to get out." Apparently the chandelier thing above the orb is part of a mechanism that keeps the orb from rising out of the cavern. We're directly beneath the central courtyard of the Sun Palance right now, so at least there's no structure above it. Also, it turns out that when living things touch it, they freeze instantly. Reginald tests it and it also freezes fruit instantly. Muskets do nothing to it. Trying to heat it does nothing. "Heat makes grow," Nikolai announces with inexplicable confidence. Recently (about 3-4 years ago) the orb's growth accelerated. Ice just sticks to the orb. Sorcerors have examined the orb and found nothing.

Andre admits that having us here creates a bit of a problem for him. Since he owes us his life, he will not mention us to his superiors. He also tells us that protocol is to close the door to the palace for four hours when there's an attack. It all started an hour and a half ago, so he doesn't have to report for two and a half hours. He'll also give us an escort out of here, since such serves both our purposes.

Nikolai throws a little win on the orb. It freezes instantly. He cracks it off with his axe and begins licking it. Henri observes all this with complete fascination.

Reginald slides over to Henri and asks if they can work together on orb research. Henri writes him a note and slips it to him.

Léon rolls to impress Andre, and Reginald rolls to impress Henri, and both succeed. Yay!

It takes a couple of hours for the troops to lead us through all the traps, but they get it done right, with us carring Claude on an improvised litter. It's almost dawn when we reach the surface.

We ask Janisse to treat the wounded and she responds with remarkable skill. We decide to hang loose for four days to make sure we can all heal up.

5 Nonus

Antonia is still recovering. We begin working on a plan where Léon uses Porté magic to allow Nikolai to carry Antonia through to Pascal. Benito asks to go instead, just for the experience. Um... OK. He also mostly ignores Léon's advice about how to handle the trip. Life's just an adventure! At the appointed time, Pascal comes through a portal. Mother/son reunion, kisses, everyone feel good about themself except the ones with no parents. We explain why our modestly sized Castile friend will be carrying Antonia through the portal instead of the Ussuran Hulk.

Nikolai gets Léon to help him write a steamy love letter to Mercede. Léon does so with verve and style.

Pascal begins opening the portal. It's like working with firm clay - she has to really get her hands full of the fabric of spacetime and rend it open. Reginald finds it quite unpleasant. They blindfold the kids, join hands, and they walk into the portal. It seals immediately behind them. Inside, it's windy and quite loud. The ground under Benito's feet feels like dry sand. In the middle of the portal, he hears a little boy asking, "What's that?" Luckily he realizes that it must be a hallucination or trick of Legion and doesn't fall for it. After all, the wind is so loud that he couldn't possibly hear the kids talking. Eventually Pascal stops walking. After a while she starts walking again, the wind rises to screaming, and then suddenly they're all in Dionna again.

Léon finds a local charitable society that will take on management of his soup kitchen, once he provides the startup capital. As we roam the city, we observe that we are being followed. Felix spots a trailing trio following behind the guy who's following us. Léon tells our philanthropic factor that it's time to part ways, and Nikolai suggests an ambush, in which we lead our pursuers past him and he nabs the solo for questioning. As we walk past a cart, Nikolai ducks down behind it and covers himself. His ruse works, and he gets the jump on the first follower. The big man has no trouble securing the guy and keeping him from making a noise. He struggles, and Nikolai warns him that bad things will happen to him if he keeps that up. "Oh, monseiur, I see you have met my friend!" We drag him off for questioning, into the sewers where we have developed such competence. Our victim finds this experience most scarifying and gives up the goods. Seems he was hired by Panebianchi to find us. Nikolai tells the poor guy to assure Panebianchi that he's taking good care of his wife. Then he punches him in the giblets, Felix throws in a few extra threats, and we leave. We then bugger off. Felix recommends a preemptive strike. We try to take a sneaky route home while keeping an eye out for more followers, and while we accidentally stumble back onto the main market road, we don't see anyone behind us.

At the Explorers' Society, Reginald sees Emmanuelle Aubois, and explains that the animated corpse problem has grown worse, so much so that the Musketeers have a standard procedure for such situations. The sphere has grown drastically, and he may have made an ally in Henri. Reginald also describes the battle and his impression of Andre. He makes sure she understands that if the rakghoul problem grows worse, it could pose a real threat to the city.

Meanwhile, back in Dionna, Benito goes to the ol' homestead and meets with Luna's majordomo, who goes to get Luna for him. She's quite surprised to see him, of course. He asks after Daria, of course. She's out, as it happens. She should be back at the end of the week. Dang, that's a serious party! It's a different island. Luna offers to tell him where the party is, but crashing the post-party courtesan hookup might be gauche. Perhaps a courier could deliver a letter. Perhaps Benito could be the courier. That would work!

He bluffs his way in the guise that his instructions require personal delivery to Daria's hand. Sadly, she's occupied with Seniore Panebianchi. Benito decides to wait.