The Demise of Maghris Bloomfield the 17th

Freelancers picked up three more recruits the day before; since Arnari was still helping out with Church of Storms, Tomtom had welcomed them into Freelancers, and issued their badges.  Damian, a charismatic human, had gone on sabbatical from Carnivale in order to join Freelancers and experience a life of exciting adventure.  Maghris, a black & white nekomata animal trainer from Zephyr, had heard adventuring tales from a dwarfish "uncle" and had been sent to Cliffshadow from the Freelancers Tavern in Lands on Feet.  The Cloud elf Vin seemed pretty ordinary, as elves go.  He'd tried crewing on an airship and decided it wasn't for him.

They listened with interest to Kairos, Dominic, and Aranel explain their "mission" from the prior day:  backtracking some assailants on the very Church of Storms, to discover "Daystar elementals" in a room in a fancy inn.  Emboldened by how interesting, easy, and lucrative this adventuring life would be, the enthusiastic recruits were brought up to Tomtom's office by the Freelancer veterans-of-one-day.

Tomtom was wearing plate armour but no helm, and he was armed with a longsword.  His office had maps of all three cities on Duquesne on his wall, as well as shelves with small weapons, and larger exotic weapons on the walls.  One shelf has small rocks on it, carefully labelled with the names of different skyliths.  His desk had some knickknacks, and a neat stack of papers on one corner.  There were chairs enough to seat half a dozen people.

As the Freelancers filed in, he looked up at them pleasantly, then raised his eyebrows a little and reached for the stack of papers, which he quickly flipped through.  By the time they were all seated, he looked up and said, "Alright, I have three missions.

"Go into the hills in the south, get hippogryph eggs, and bring them back," Tomtom said earnestly.  "100gp per egg if you bring them back."  Tomtom's eyes narrowed as he looked at the Freelancers.

Tomtom:  am a little dubious.  If you take this, please be careful to avoid antagonizing a whole pile of hippogryphs.
Damian:  is that a technical term?  Trying to catch up on adventurer's terminology

Tomtom did not answer Damian, but continued, "There's also some… pollution …above the lake, because some wizard, who's been given a talking-to, was dumping effluent, which caused creature to grown unnaturally."  At everyone's quizzical look, he added, "Found when they discovered some of the dam was turning into oozes."  He hesitated again, clearly trying to gauge this group's capabilities.

Tomtom:  Arnari was going to send a group to find out if he's still dumping effluent.
Aranel:  we can go look
Dominic:  above our paygrade
Aranel:  we are just trying to look
Tomtom:  let Arnari organize it.

"Third mission," Tomtom continued, looking at Dominic, Kairos, and Aranel, "You know there were some detailed architectural drawings of the Church of Storms found yesterday.  If you don't want to go in the wilds, investigate how they got these detailed notes."  Tomtom hadn't counted on the other three having been informed of this, though.

Vin:  really interested in Not Dying
Damian:  sounds like Daystar is the most deadly option.  People are worse than beasts
Kairos:  nothing natural about those distortions!
Maghris:  I'm up for hippogryphs, but am Ready for Adventure!
Kairos:  least interested in hippogryphs, but happy try either of the others
Aranel:  what would we be investigating?
Tomtom:  where did the maps come from?  Who gave out the notes?  Adrian has been investigating Church of Storms; nobody there has mystery memory blocks, et cetera.
Vin:  so, associated with not-members
Kairos:  vendors and so forth
Damian:  is Church of Storms open to the public?
Tomtom:  part of it is
Maghris:  are the notes something that could have just been observed?
Tomtom:  maybe; they were around 8 days prior
Aranel:  we know there's no magic block, and Church of Storm had released people?  …this sounds boring
Dominic:  are there any signs of lingering mass suggestion?
Tomtom:  that's what Adrian has done.  Arnari also checked.
Dominic:  let's go hunt monstrosities!
Aranel:  how does this pay?
Tomtom:  100gp, of course 10% to Freelancers
Damian:  also interested in the River
Maghris:  I am along for the ride!  Adventure!!

Lakeview was a fairsized fishing town and had a large inn (with a view of the lake, of course) called the Biting Badger Inn.  The inn sported a popular tavern and the arrival of Freelancers was not unnoticed.  The Mayor, an unremarkable-looking Wind sagani named Popoki, came to talk to them once they'd settled and come down to the tavern.

Popoki:  oh, how are the Freelancers doin'?  Are ya hear to checkout any thing other than Pirates Dream river?
Kairos:  no; it's the gift that keeps on giving
Dominic:  should we be?
Popoki:  no, no, there's been no troubles or giant frogs.  Although, come t'think of it, they were very delicious

At that, the food and drink arrived, and Popoki withdrew to let the Freelancers eat.  Of course dinner was fish sticks.  As they ate, they listened to the ebb and flow of conversation, more normal for a tavern than Freelancers Tavern had been, these last few days.  The tavern's customers were mostly human, with some Wind and Rain sagani.  Aranel, Damian, and Maghris mostly tuned into various fishermen talking about catches on the lake and such.  Dominic overheard a couple people at a nearby table talking about something weird in the woods to the north.

Kairos and Vin, on the other side of the table, heard a couple people getting progressively more drunk, and telling tales about the dam.  The man was older than the woman, and he'd tried to take his sweetheart to the dam… and it was so weird.  The young woman was awed, and told the man she'd gone with her boyfriend to the dam, and she'd sank into it.

Kairos and Vin, who both critfailed at the basic task of listening to rumours in a tavern, were totally convinced of the veracity of these tales despite the beer o'clock hour.  They hurriedly told the other Freelancers.

Kairos:  tomorrow morning, let's check out the dam!
Damian:  aren't we s'pose to travel up the river?
Aranel:  where is the dam, from that?
Dominic:  nearby
Aranel:  so, checking it isn't a huge sacrifice
Damian:  how do we investigate a dam?
Kairos:  look around, poke at things, <expounded on what he thought would be right>
Vin:  I am going to rest

Vin wasn't used to walking all day, having spent his recent times on an airship.  He withdrew to the rooms.  Upon thinking about it, the others agreed, and everyone turned in for the night except Dominic.  

Dominic stayed in the tavern an extra two hours before turning in.  He also heard about fishing, and hunting; discussions about farms; the miller complaining about lack of help.  Some people gossiped about fish and sales.  As the tavern started to empty out, Dominic concluded people here were nice.

Two hours later, Vin came out of his trance, feeling much more rested.  He went exploring in the town, although he didn't venture beyond the outskirts.  The night was quiet, and well-lit from a thalassa and Pembroke to the west.  He returned to the Biting Badger Inn before the Daystar rose in the east.

The next morning, the Freelancers packed up and walked to the dam, with a mind of once they are done investigating, they would head to the woods to the north.  On the way there, Damian found a good stick he could use, to poke the dam.  Maghris, seeing this, also got a poking-stick.  Vin brandished his belaying pin at both of them.  Dominic and Kairos produced quarterstaves.

Maghris was astounded.  "I'm not about to poke the dam with my quarterstaff!"

As they walked down to the dam, which was a bit to the west of Lakeview, Aranel started messing with her shamisen.  She started playing it, and it sounded great, especially how the water reinforced the tones.

The Freelancers got to the dam, which has yet to be named although it probably should be named after a Cheese, and it was a low affair.  They decided to walk along the top to the eastern side; Kairos sent Catherine into the air.  They started, with the lake to their left, about 10' below.  The drop off to the right was further, and at various points, there were stairs.

As for the "investigation", Dominic, Maghris, and Kairos quickly concluded that it was a nice day, and this was a nice dam.  Vin and Aranel saw the dam was fine, and in good repair.  They and Kairos did notice where it had been damaged a little in the past.  The water was pretty clear; Vin and Aranel saw a fish.

Damian, however, managed to critfail at investigating the dam.  He saw something at the other end of the dam, maybe 50' in front of everyone.  It looked like something in the shadow of the railing.  He peered closely at it.  It was eating the dam!  

Damian:  the dam is gonna fall apart!
Kairos:  why?
Damian:  the creature over there is eating the dam!!
Kairos:  so we should get off it now?
Damian:  I'm not.  Gonna go poke it with my stick!

Damian dashed to the end of the dam, brandishing his stick, but giving the "creature" that only he could see a wide berth.  Maghris, focussed on how this was the start of his Adventuring, used cat zoomies to catch up.  He also gave a wide berth, but frowned as he didn't see anything either.

The other Freelancers didn't run, but kept in that direction.  Dominic used shape water to fill a tin cup.

Damian realized his stick was useless, and he needed a weapon.  The idea he'd need a weapon hadn't occurred to him and his weapons were in the bottom of his backpack.  So he had that on the ground and was rooting through it, frantically looking for a weapon.  Maghris said, "I did not see anything."

Aranel, amused, cast dancing lights in the woods about 30' away from Damian.  She kept the gestures hidden from the others though.  Damian gasped and got out a sling and bullets, and nailed the dancing lights with one sling.  Even more amused, Aranel dropped it.

Maghris was very impressed by Damian!  At this point the others caught up.  The story fair tumbled out of Maghris' mouth:  "there was this thing and it somehow got ahead of us, and Damian shot it with a sling, and we killed thing!"

Kairos looked at the indicated direction, and his eyes narrowed.  "Let's go find the monster in the woods," he suggested.  Damian looked up from the mess of his backpack contents.  "But I'm sure I got it," he protested, and turned his attention to repacking… weapons out, this time.

"Going too," Dominic said shortly… then stopped.  Everyone but Vin and Damian looked where he was looking.  There were three small grey boulders the size of large boulders… moving towards them, almost like they were made of thick fluid.  The center one was a much lighter grey.

Aranel and Damian were the only two Freelancers caught off-guard by this turn of events, for different reasons, of course.

Kairos drew an arrow and shot the ooze nearest to him, on the group's right,  The arrow sank into it and perhaps hurt it, but was also getting kind of absorbed.

• Aranel cast vicious mockery at the lighter grey ooze, exclaiming, "Thought you could fool Damian for long!"  This had no effect whatsoever on the creature.  She turned to Kairos, and said "Keep up the good shooting!" granting him bardic inspiration.
• The lighter grey ooze just oozed on up to Dominic and tried to smack him with a pseudopod, but it missed.
• Damian pulled out his sling, and sent a bullet whizzing past the lighter grey ooze.
• Dominic hit the ground with his quarterstaff with a boom as thunderwave pushed the lighter grey ooze back 10'.  Bits of it seemed to shudder and shake and fall off.
  • "Whoa!  Spells!" Damian exclaimed in surprise.
  • Dominic moved back towards the water, hiding behind a bush.
• The grey ooze to the Freelancers' left moved over to Maghris, waving a pseudopod menacingly at the nekomata.
• The grey ooze on the right moved towards Aranel.
• Maghris, hair slightly on end, whacked the grey ooze with his quarterstaff.  Some of the ooze splashed off.
• Vin gritted his teeth, drew his daggar, and stabbed the same grey ooze, the blade piercing it.  However that's not healthy for a bladed weapon, and the daggar edge was kind of wrecked.

Inspired by the half-elf bard, Kairos shot another arrow at the grey ooze moving towards Aranel, and the arrow went almost all the way through.  The ooze was very diminished.

• Aranel, alarmed by this creature, hissed "Get the fuck away from me!" to cast dissonant whispers.  The ooze disintegrated, and Aranel moved to be further away from the lighter grey ooze.
• The lighter grey ooze moved up to Maghris, and bludgeoned him with a pseudopod.  "Ow!"
• Damian had murmured aloud, "Freelancers so cool!" when the lighter grey ooze disintegrated, but when Maghris got smacked, his eyes widened in alarm.  "Wait, it fights back?" he exclaimed, and moved towards the water.
  • Damian sent another sling bullet at the dark grey ooze.  It hit, causing more ooze to spatter off the creature.
  • Damian moved more towards the water.
• Dominic had noticed Vin's daggar.  He went to the lake, and used shape water to fashion 20 ice-daggars in an ice-basket.  He put these on the ground at Vin and Maghris' feet.
• The grey ooze next to Maghris crit the nekomata, killing him, to the complete shock and dismay of everyone else.
• Vin, seeing his compatriot of a few days slain, was more angry than terrified.  He grabbed two of the ice daggars and moved to the other side of the grey ooze, then stabbed it with one of the daggars.

Kairos considered the two oozes, then shot the grey one that Vin had just stabbed.  The arrow struck, and the grey ooze lost cohesion and fell apart.  "Rest in peace, Friend Maghris, you have been avenged!" he declared rather formally.

• Aranel lost her calm demeanor, and moved to the edge of the dam.  She cast dissonant whispers again, although her voice was more strident:  "Run away, go away, RUN AWAY!!"  The lighter grey ooze started to move away from her, but it dissolved.

There was a pause, as everyone regarded the cooling corpse of Maghris.  Dominic walked up to the dead nekomata and cast cure wounds.  He watched the magic sink in… and do nothing.

The Freelancers all looked at each other.  Then Kairos called down Catherine to carry the body, and they headed back to Lakeview post-haste.  Before they got into town, they took thought that this might disturb the residents, so did their best to prop up Maghris to not look quite so obviously dead.

Popoki was still in town and had not gone out fishing on the lake.  The Freelancers stopped by and told him they'd discovered oozes trying to eat the dam.  Damian waxed poetic, "Maghris was so brave, running with me into an battle, I got my first kill, then he is struck down by a slime!"  His eyes teared up.

Popoki was distraught to learn this news!  The dam was in danger, and a Freelancer died?!  He advised them to return to Cliffshadow immediately.  He produced enough rations to cover their entire trip and sent them on their way.

It took them 3 days to get back, and they had time to discuss what to do.  They knew the mysterious Arnari had been working with Church of Storms to raise dead from that battle, so Kairos, Vin, and Dominic would go to Church of Storms with Maghris' body to see what could be done.  Aranel and Damian, meanwhile, would return to Freelancers Tavern and deliver the news to Tomtom.

Each of the groups was convinced the other group had the worst end of the deal.

Kairos, Vin, and Dominic got to the back door of Church of Storms and talked to the onduty Storm Guard.

Guard:  what's your business?  We don't need any Freelancers right now.
Vin & Kairos:  is Arnari here?
Guard:  pretty sure Arnari finished helping the Typhoon a couple days ago!
Kairos:  oh!  Thanks.

They headed back towards Freelancers, confident the problem would soon be solved.

Back at Freelancers, Aranel and Damian showed up in Tomtom's office, and the Freelancers Deputy looked up in surprise.

Tomtom:  so, you're back earlier than I expected
Aranel:  so um
Damian:  Maghris didn't make it
Tomtom:  WHAT
Aranel:  Dominic, Vin, and Kairos went to Church of Storms to find Arnari.
Tomtom:  NO, uh, I mean, she is not there, she is here.  O shit, what am I going to do.
Damian:  they will come back then, and it will be okay?
Tomtom:  NO, wait, uh
Aranel:  they have the body.
Tomtom:  that's good!  It shows you are great Freelancers, taking care of compatriot, and came back straight away.  Ok, we have the dust, we can use that.  how are we going to do this.  Wait, Maghris is a nekomata, right?  Ok.  Here's what we are gonna do.  Do not let them go to Arnari.  We'll use the dust of reincarnation, and because he is a nekomata, everything is going to be fine.  Then we can tell Arnari, how you went on a mission, and something unfortunate happened, but you took care of each other and are back now
<Damian started taking notes.>

Tomtom was watching out the window, and saw the others return, bringing Catherine to the pegasus stables.  "Down to the stables!" he cried.  "Down, down!"  He ran to the strongroom, quick for someone in full plate, coming back with a small pouch, and the three Freelancers went downstairs to the stables.

Kairos, Dominic, and Vin had gotten Catherine stabled and were about to go in through the back tavern.  Tomtom stopped them.  "Alright, here we go," he said, "We'll do this in the meeting room."  He grabbed Maghris' body and they all trooped back up the stairs, to a rather large meeting room.

The meeting room was nice.  Well-appointed, with a rather fancy rendition of Freelancer arms.  The chairs were much nicer than in Arnari's or Tomtom's offices, and there was a long table.  The new Freelancers could not help but notice this all, as Tomtom laid out the nekomata's corpse on the table, rather like he'd had some practice with this sort of thing.

Tomtom then brought out the pouch, a nice leather and cloth bag, and sprinkled the contents on Maghris, green and silver glitter dust.  As he proceeded, he was calming down, but was talking still, partially to the Freelancers and partially to himself.  "We're not trying to hide from Arnari.  This happened.  It was a hard mission, good job completing it.  Once he's alive again, I'll hand out the reward.  You did good, bringing your fellow Freelancer back…"

Nobody had shut the door, and the other Freelancers looked up to see a dark-skinned woman in blue standing quietly in the doorway.  She had one hand on her hip, and a harp held in her other hand.  Her eyebrows were up, and she was not pleased.  Tomtom had not seen, he was watching the dust sparkling and sinking into the black-and-white nekomata.

Woman with harp:  WHAT has HAPPENED here?
<Tomtom looked up, horrified all over again.>
Aranel:  are you Arnari?
Damian <read from notes>:  Maghris is a nekomata; Tomtom has used a dust of reincarnation on Maghris; everything is going to be fine; you weren't s'pose to find out about this until we were done.
<Arnari, for so it was, dramatically shifted her gaze from 5 obvious nubs to her deputy.>
Arnari:  WHAT mission did you send these on, again?
Tomtom:  the Pirates Dream river cleanup.  I warned them to be careful!
Kairos:  we barely got hurt!  …except for Maghris, here.
<Vin stepped away from Kairos.>
Kairos:  we were careful!  Maghris got surprised!
<Arnari placed her palm on her forehead, as if she'd gotten a vicious mockery in slow-motion.>
Arnari:  okay, this is under control.  Tomtom, we will have a discussion later.
<Tomtom cringed.>
Arnari:  good job bringing the body back.  Of course this is a good example of Freelancers taking care of themselves.  It's why we have dust.
Aranel:  for nekomata?
Arnari:  for everyone!
Aranel:  but, he said
Arnari:  nekomata have a gift from The Cat; they will always reincarnate as a nekomata.  <pause as Arnari regarded the sparkling corpse.>  what is his name?
Kairos:  this is Maghris.
Arnari:  and, what are your names?
<Tomtom cringed again, and everyone introduced themselves.>
Aranel:  …was under the impression Damakaios thought sending us [Dominic and Aranel] here was some sort of prank.
Arnari:  oh I'm sure; Damakaios has no sense of "prank".  I'm glad you're here, you'll have more fun.  <pause>  meanwhile, Tomtom and I are Having A Discussion.

Arnari returned to a corner office.  Tomtom sighed, and told them, "This will either be really fast or really slow.  I'll meet you back in my office."  He walked to the corner office, the clanking armour loud in the sudden relative silence, and the door shut behind him.

The Freelancers turned and watched Maghris, but other than occasional random sparkle, nothing seemed to happen.  They waited.  Dominic and Kairos could hear Arnari's voice rising and falling in displeased tones, with Tomtom's deeper voice answering and getting cut off.

When they shared that with the others, Aranel sent a message to Tomtom

Don't let her get you down!  We're all here.

They looked at Maghris again.  Still a sparkling corpse, but… was his hair getting longer?

Thirty minutes later, the 6 Freelancers were back in Tomtom's office.  Maghris was very fluffy; The Cat had opted to grant him long hair.

Tomtom was apologetic.  "Yeah, I'm bad at estimating how strong new people are."

Damian did his best to be reassuring.  "That's okay Tomtom!  The oozes we ran into weren't even the reason they were there!"  Tomtom facepalmed, then got the story out of them that they'd encountered the oozes while following up on rumours about the dam.  Since that's how the pollution discovery started, he decided it would count and paid them 90gp each for the mission.  Then he paid them 100gp each for bringing back Maghris.

A potion was one of the rewards, so he passed those out as well.

Kairos got a philter of love
Damian got a potion of water breathing
Aranel got a potion of animal friendship
Dominic got a potion of poison
Vin got an oil of slipperiness
Maghris got a potion of growth

• Vin → lvl1 warlock!
• Damian → lvl1  bard!
• Maghris → lvl1 artificer!