Session notes: 09-01-06

Present:
• Tyler - Matt
• Ohanzee - Jeannette
• Wu Fang - Scott
• Megumi - Amy

Megumi consults with Luther to determine how best to guard Ohanzee during their expedition to the poor parts of town to consult with the doctors and other caregivers. Appearances are important - Shall they be servants? Sareneh, the doctor, is an excellent choice as a companion. The others can return to their cover stories as servants or possible apprentices. She puts together a group and heads off to visit the doctors.

The cover story for the ocean voyage is a bit more difficult to arrange. It is reasonable to consider that we may have a stash of hides closer at hand than the fire off island. Either way, the journey will be tragically cut short. Tyler finds a suitable vessel, operated by a rather seedy ship captain named Howell. His crew are a vaguely desperate group of individuals, probably on the verge of turning pirate if they can't get a well-paying contract soon. Fortunately, Keyne and Luther are available as traveling companions. Keyne goes on a brief purchasing run, secure in the thought that we won't want to partake of the ship's rations.

Wu Fang adds to the realism of the journey by letting purchasers know that a supplemental crew will be bringing in additional cloth goods. He's also got a good line on actual trade routes and possible expansion into the area.

The first practice that Megumi and Ohanze encounter is operated by Doctor Kashovic. He does charity work on certain days, which does give him access to the patient population that they're interested in. Sareneh seems a bit put off around him. Her professional assessment of his charity work is that he kind of 'phones it in' in comparison to his paying clients. He is interested in the possibility of a paying arrangement with the Church of the Unicorn, and he points them in the direction of a Sister Allevia.

The next practice is that of Elsa, an Apothecary-Midwife. She is barely scraping by, financially, but her place is clean and she's doing what she can within her means. Sareneh seems at least slightly more approving.

While checking things out in the commercial district, Wu Fang hears a cracking sound and nearly gets crushed when a nearby wall cracks and falls almost on top of him. He manages to get out of the way without going all scaly, but does take a few brick hits. Shen is also mildly bruised. Wu Fang takes a look to see if he can tell why things fell down so suddenly, and finds signs that the wall was cut very expertly and quickly, and then shoved over.

At sea, Luther approaches Tyler and lets him know about some suspicions he's got. Since things that happen in Amber tend to be reflected in its close shadows, the possibility exists that there is something similar to what we've discovered going on in the real Amber. Tyler contacts Martin by Trump as soon as he's unobserved and fils him in on the situation. Martin seems wearied by having yet another thing to deal with, but says he will look into things.

Meanwhile, Shen has sent an urchin to fetch Ohanzee and Megumi. They find the collapsed building at the docks and Wu Fang, and they begin assisting Wu Fang and doing what they can to help without compromising their own security.

Wu Fang asks Megumi to look into what kind of sorcerous stuff may have done this. The edges of the wall collapse are incredibly cleanly cut. It's an obvious case of magical intervention, and the local guards are cranky. Ohanzee doesn't detect anything obviously Logrus. Megumi can't find any obvious signs of major powers. She asks Shen to check out the cut. Shen is, currently, a roughly three foot tall lizard guy. The discussion amongst the guards seems to indicate that random acts of terror are not unheard of. Nobody seems to have been deliberately targeted - the fatalities are mostly clerks or minor merchants.

Maydi wants more bodyguards. The current complement just isn't enough for the number of people who appear to be in danger, especially if we insist on splitting up.

Megumi begins to consult the local spirits to see if they saw anything. She finds some airy seagull-like spirits and some estuary tide pool spirits. A spiritual fish suffices to lure in a seagull-spirit creature which saw some string like energy which sliced through the wall and then vanished. It had been waiting since the previous tide, but then vanished. The strings themselves simply come out of nowhere.

A bit of work does allow them to see some of the other strings in the area... Unfortunately, once the strings have been revealed, they are withdrawn. Someone has been using whatever these things are to spy on them. Which means that the falling wall was targeting Wu Fang.

Megumi heads off to have a talk with Maydi about how she can better indicate what she's found out without telegraphing her knowledge. We have some critical gaps in Sorcerous protections. She also wants time to consider who it is who may be targeting Wu Fang. And how they know where we are. The only obvious suspect is Merlin.

As a stop-gap measure to try to deal with our sorcerous deficiency, Megumi gets to work bargaining and binding a spirit to help guard the ship and warn against magical incursion.

At sea things go pretty much as Tyler had planned. A pirate ship begins pursuing the clipper, herding it toward a heavily armed compatriot. Instead of running, which would allow both ships to engage from range and disable the clipper, Tyler convinces Captain Howell to attack the heavy ship before the pursuit can get within range. The captain steers his ship directly in to the heavy pirate vessel, entangling their rigging and disabling both vessels. Tyler, Luther and Keyne lead an attack on the pirates, quickly overwhelming them and arming the crew of the clipper. When the pirate chase ship arrives to rescue their friends, the clipper crew makes short work of them.

Tyler "discovers" the map of Amber on the body of the pirate captain and hands it over to Captain Howell, who quickly realizes that it could be of vital significance. He immediately orders his men to crew the least damaged of the three vessels and begins towing the other two back to their shadow Amber. Tyler protests, weakly, but eventually agrees that the journey to Ny'lon cannot continue under the current circumstances.

Back in shadow Amber, subtle hints are dropped with various parties to ensure that the loose thread of the discovered map will lead to the unravelling of the entire conspiracy. With this good deed accomplished, Tyler, Ohanzee, Wu Fang and Megumi prepare to depart. Before departure, Megumi decides to recruit the urchin that Shen hired to carry his message. The boy (Pierre) is not a skilled negotiator, and is very willing to join up at the promise of regular meals.

-- EOF --