Clover's Log
We need to start making our way back to the Overlook to prepare for the meeting with my father. We decide to make Oman’s house our home base so Evelyn and her people have a spot to reach us. Should be safe now that the Church isn’t hunting us. Oman is sitting in the corner grumbling about something, and we decide he needs to take a day to recharge after everything that’s happened. We leave him behind while we go to meet one of Evelyn’s friends.
We meet Arash at the Sisters Embrace, one of the Plateau’s more unusually placed taverns. The building rests on the palm of a very, very large statue. When we arrive, Arash sits in what seems to be meditation, but two air elementals keep swooping by to attack him. So far he appears to be uninjured, but I ask if he needs our assistance, and he accepts. For some reason my running to his aid displeases some of my companions—but he asked for help, so I’m going to give it. We dispatch the elementals, as well as an air myrmidon that makes an appearance. Turns out, they are a security measure the owners forgot to dismiss before Arash rented the location for our meet-up.
Right out of the gate, Arash thinks we are the ones his and Evelyn’s network has been looking for to find and reveal the truth behind the Shattering, the “Good Lady,” the Church. They are impressed with how quickly our power is growing. There has been a cap on how powerful magic can be, but higher level magic is at long last being discovered. We have a chance to harness that. We also learn that souls have something to do with the “Good Lady’s” endgame. We need to talk to the Syndicate. Again.
When Arash learns we’ve had some encounters with angels, he says they might be going mad because of the Church. Some have a faint memory of some terrible thing, some terrible weapon, deep down in the Darkheart. They’ve mentioned the Crimson Hall, the same place Nyx is having nightmares about. As we wrap up our conversation, he asks just a few small things of us:
The network would like us to:
Repair the Warforged – All Warforged are innately protective. They shouldn’t be losing their memories. Arash was shocked to hear that Keys had pre-Shattering memories, scattered though they are.
They want to communicate outside the Cradle (the protective barrier). They have allies out there, they believe, and they need assistance and information on what the goddess is up to. We need to find a way to make this happen.
Find the Breks.
We ask him about the rings the Church is now using to track us in the Rift, and he says they cannot be removed once we are out there. They scan items we’ve found for the Church to log. This news is disappointing but not unexpected. As we leave, we must decide next steps. Since we are to meet my father in just a couple of days, one thing seems particularly pressing: we need one more dragon scale for his machine. We have seven, and his clone told us we need eight.
We decide to go to the Ghost Waltz, a tavern Brendel, Nyx, and I have been to before but have yet to mention since Brendel’s connections there are not public knowledge. He doesn’t exactly broadcast that he is connected to the Syndicate. But, now he needs to speak to Lord Kanton again, since the Syndicate almost certainly has a scale or knows where to find one. Nyx, Brendel, and I dance through the entrance door with ease (as is required, we learned last time). Keys and Ronan awkwardly hit the wall before coming together for a delightful slow dance, finally making it through with surprising and maybe one-sided grace.
Inside, the Ghost Waltz is beautifully appointed if dank, damp, and incredibly misty. The mist is so thick you cannot see the individual tables about the place—ensuring privacy. On the dance floor, departed souls waltz to the beautiful music with loved ones who have come to visit. Brendel gets permission from Kanton for all of us to join the conversation at his private table. Indeed, the Syndicate has some of the scales (shards) we need. Kanton tells us that the Syndicate is actually responsible for breaking the Warforged, but he can’t speak freely because of magic. He can, however, give us directions to a shard. One is being moved between banks. He will send us information at Oman’s house.
The next pressing matter after obtaining all the necessary scales will be finding the Nexus, which is below the city—deep below. The worm things we’ve run into in the sewers killed a couple guys who found the location. Nesbit Cobblebottom will have more information, reinforcing our need to break him out of prison. Speaking of which, the Nexus is now a prison holding powerful entities that could damage the Church. They were on the wrong side of the barrier when the Shattering occurred. This new information leads to two conclusions:
Souls are being funneled to the Rift and are powering the Good Lady’s return.
The Nexus is under the mausoleum with the gold dragon.
Time to plan a heist and a jail break.