Dramatis Personæ

Brother Mendel (Herodian)
Dane Sardock (Winston)
Gabriel Auditore (Rigil Kent)
Gestlin the Unpredictable (CommJunkee)
Magnifico the Clown (Feste)
Rainald North-Hammer (Gigermann)

Of Performances and Revelations

22 Apr 2014

At the approach of the appointed time, as the sun lowered in the West, the Heroes left the Crimson Mug and fetched Gestlin’s wagon once again, and the dragons in their cages, and made their way up the main street to the market square, to prepare for the evening’s show. A space next to the wagon was cleared for the “stage,” with the dragons in their cages to either side of it. Rainald and Radskyrta would take up stations next to the cages to keep the crowd at a proper distance; Dane found a balcony where he could overwatch the crowd for ne’er-do-wells, though he would eventually join the crowd-control team. Gestlin was ready to give his support to the show with magical fireworks, but his reputation for clumsiness gave Magnifico some concern, and it was decided he should sit out the performance to help manage things backstage. Townsfolk began to trickle into the square as the players rehearsed. As the audience grew, Magnifico began to doubt his ability to keep Primus and Secundus under control during their part of the show, and it was decided that the dragons would only be loosed one at a time.

Meanwhile, Gabriel slipped into the shadows of a side alley, and made his way to the guild-hall of the Aldenard Trading Company to observe the goings-on there, and break in when the time was right.

Soon, the spectators filled the square, and Magnifico gave the signal to start the show. Magnifico started off with a light-hearted joke routine that transitioned seamlessly into the main-course, the story of the Heroes’ adventures in the Otherworld against the Vasa, focusing, as it had before, on the role and person of Malcolm Wallace, this time with much embellishment of the Megalan role in the war. Participating due to a last-second capitulation, Gestlin magically levitated Magnifico above and amongst the crowd as he spoke, sang, and played, while Brother Mendel provided illusory illustration of the story, and all seemed well. Both dragons were very clearly unnerved by the large number of humans before them. As the show arrived at the point of the story featuring the dragons’ flyover, Secundus’ cage was opened; Magnifico failed to firmly seize his attention, though, and Secundus hissed and roared at the crowd, flying to rest atop the wagon, beating his wings and baring his teeth menacingly. The onlookers, of course, applauded the magnificent display, being oblivious to the players frantically struggling to get the young dragon under control, and keep Primus from following his example. Then the worst happened—Secundus excitedly bolted down from his perch to attack one of the spectators in the front row; Rainald sprinted to intercept the dragon, and threw his shoulder into the dragon’s ribs, knocking him to the ground at Dane’s feet. The townsfolk in the front row screamed and pressed back into the crowd to get away. Scrambling to help, Gestlin activated his staff with a shout of “Smil-Blam!” and Possessed the creature; his body went limp as his consciousness transferred to the body of the dragon, and he (as the dragon) collected himself and leapt into the air, circling low over the crowd in as close an imitation of Secundus’ intended performance as he could recall, before returning to the cage, entering with a “bow” to the crowd. The onlookers applauded all the more, now convinced by Magnifico that the “attack” was merely part of the show all along. (Primus didn’t get his turn after all, for obvious reasons.) Magnifico continued his performance without missing a beat, and concluded it with the post-Crusade, mysterious disappearance of Lord Wallace, on a trade mission through Megalos.

It seemed the show was very well received by the townsfolk, though none came forward to say they had seen Lord Wallace; in all, monies collected amounted to a little over 22 and a half gold marks, which, after reimbursement of the permit fee, was split up evenly amongst the participants—not a bad profit at all. During the cleanup afterward, the Heroes were approached by a well-dressed Wazifi man who greeted them in the Arab tongue—and was somewhat surprised when Magnifico responded in kind. Speaking Anglish, the man said his name was Aamir Rahmani, of Tredroy, and that he was very interested in sponsoring their show, “unique in all the world,” on a sweeping tour of the great cities of Al-Wazif. Though the Heroes had no time for such distractions from their mission to locate Lord Wallace, Bannock (where Lord Wallace had last been seen) was in Al-Wazif, and such a show there might be a good opportunity to cover their search. The man encouraged them to accept his offer and invited them to meet with him on the morrow before they left downriver; Magnfico promised him that they would do so. He would be found at the home of Proximo, a well-known dealer in slaves all over Megalos, with whom he was staying while in Craine.

Gabriel caught up to the rest as they returned to the Crimson Mug to bed down for the night; he had broken into the Aldenard hall and got away cleanly, but found next-to-nothing there that would shed any light on Lord Wallace’s potential whereabouts or his business with the trade company.

As Brother Mendel woke the following morning, he found a dagger stuck in a post by his bed, anchoring a paper note. Without reading the note, he immediately cast a Seeker spell to divine the location of the one who had left the dagger; he caught a vision of a man dressed in the garb of a Templar brother-knight, in a stone-walled room with a view of the river through a single, narrow window—likely the tower where Gabriel had shadowed the Templar earlier that day. Brother Mendel then carefully opened the note and read: “Give up on your search for Wallace or it will be your deaths.”

Notes

• Gabriel’s player was called away to work shortly after the session started, and did not return until it was all but over; had that not occurred, more would undoubtedly have been made of his break-in
• The GM gave Magnifico a -2 to handle the dragons due to the crowd, the size of which they had not yet experienced; then, at the critical moment, he rolled a “17” anyway—the die is a fickle mistress 😛
• After the near-death of one of the crowd, Magnifico’s player was beginning to wonder, understandably, whether this large-scale production was a wise idea—then the Wazifi guy showed up
• The discovery of the knife-note inevitably led to a lengthy discussion about how we should answer the deed; a most promising idea we had was to kidnap the Templar from his bed via a portal, created by “Alien Magic” (that is, Ritual Path Magic). As this group is inexperienced with RPM, this resulted in quite a long time spent figuring out what it would take for Brother Mendel, whose skills and abilities in such things are, as it turned out, woefully insufficient for what would turn out to be a rather more powerful effect than we had led ourselves to believe when we were portalling all over the Otherworld in Book I—suffice it to say that the “portal” plan was abandoned. Hopefully, we’ll have a better one ready for next time