Downtime 09 ❖ July 5, 2020
Caenn sits at a reading table in the yellow tower, poring over Erebos’ notes. The Yellow Wizard can be heard pacing, preening and puttering about on the floor above. Below, the hammering continues as carpenters replace rotted beams and install bookshelves.
He still isn’t clear on how the Hortus Metamorphus spell works. According to all the laws of magic the odds of it working as it does are eight million and seven hundred and sixty seven thousand one hundred and twenty eight to one.
He taps his quill next to the calculation, and his gaze wanders to the oddly smooth scroll, on which is written:
I can only hope this message finds its way to sympathetic eyes. Is anyone there?
Please, is anyone reading this? If you are no friend of the Archivists, we beg your help. The jade hounds are almost upon us - I can hear their terrible baying! We must flee, but I will write more.
I am Caenn, a scholar of the Yellow Tower.
I am Davos, descendant of the men of Ghinor. My partner and I flee from the ice mines across the alkaline wastes, toward no destination, always away, away from the city of the archivists and the baying of their hounds. They scent our fear. I know not where the other scroll lies but if you can, I beg of you, help us!
Espi has spent some of her share on modest apartments in Rastingdrung, sparse and empty like her memory. She hasn’t been back to the Bar Saturn since the expedition, and has taken to wandering the streets of the city alone at the busiest times of the day, losing herself in the crowds, and sitting by the lake and looking out across the waters. She’s genuinely happy to see others when they visit, but left to her own devices spends a lot of time in pensive contemplation. Sometimes Aeris sits with her by the lake, and she wiped away tears on being presented with the picture. “At least I can cry like a person,” she says with her wan smile. The picture is given pride of place on her otherwise bare mantlepiece.
Rhea and Garviel knock on the door of Berch the Knife, a weaponsmith of unsavory reputation, to collect their commissions. The burly, muttonchopped man is pale and tired when he opens the door. He hands over two bundles, one long, one short. “I did some of my best work on these, but I feel I’m damned for doing so. Take them, and if you come to me again come unarmed. I never want to see these cursed things again.”
| Aeris is now friends with Espi. Everyone else is acquainted, and can advance to friends with a downtime action. |
| Yellow Tower: Tier 4 |
| Erebos’ Hortus Metamorphus: Turns a far target on a failed INT save into a bowl of petunias until the caster’s next action. Any melee attack on the bowl is an automatic critical hit. Damage to the bowl turns them back early but they take full damage in their natural form. |
| Erebos’ Resilient Sphere : Creates a sphere around a nearby target, DEX save if unwilling. The sphere allows the target to breathe, see, and talk with those outside, but no other object, effect, and no form of damage can pass through the sphere. The sphere can be rolled and moved. Lasts as long as the wizard concentrates (does not concentrate on another spell or take damage.) |
| Magical Shiv of Hideous Demise | |
|---|---|
| +1 blade | |
| The pommel is now made from the head of the cockatrice, which stares accusingly at the weilder. Venom drips constantly from the blade, and where it falls on the ground the grass turns grey and brittle. | |
| Deals 1d8 ongoing damage when hitting a bloodied target; count damage and kills dealt by this weapon twice for morale purposes; anything killed by the poison damage is useless for crafting. |
| Splendid Crooked Spear of Stinging | |
|---|---|
| +1 damage | |
| The stinger seems to have grown into the haft, or perhaps the other way around; thin dark veins run through the pale wood, converging on the base of the stinger, adorned with falcon feathers. |