Chapter Six: The Muster of Caltlikrath

So it looks like Mordred and Felor want to go to Sthombo and Domarc is kinda undecided. Leth and Zangua, what's your vote? Go to Hazard as planned, or head directly to Sthombo to recover the Sphere?

Is the idea that word of the new play would eventually get back to Chorcarz? The troupe has just left Hazard and won't be back there to perform for some time.

I don't know how long you guys want to stay here, but based on that roll...

As soon as Mordred starts pitching his idea, Lutchi gently but firmly shuts him down and lectures him on story structure and rules of comedy and maintaining narrative focus.

"There's enough doomsayers in the city as it stands," says the fat woman, who has since introduced herself as Bryden. "People don't come to hear that from us."

Separate from the question of whether to proceed to Hazard or Sthombo, do you guys want to stay here and guard the troupe, or head out on your way?

Well, Mordred is ready to go if they aren't going to listen to his punch-up ideas.

OK, looks like the party is moving on and going to Sthombo. Barring any last minute objections, we'll proceed with that plan shortly.

Leth is of the mind that people can’t be trusted and if they can just find the sphere themselves and put an end to this, that’s the best plan.

The party bids farewell to the Most Unready Players and continues on the road. In light of the information about the turmoil in Hazard, the decision is made to bypass the city and go on ahead to Sthombo and attempt to recover the Iron Sphere there.

The next two days of travel pass with ease. This close to Hazard, the settlements are closer together, the land is tended, and there's more traffic on the road. Conversation with fellow travelers reveals not much more about recent goings-on than you already know, but the picture becomes clearer. Apparently some of the families of the soldiers killed on the sortie to rescue Martjan have been camped out in the south point of the Trigon, demanding justice and restitution while representatives from the Hierophant's office give public speeches just yards away, offering explanations and justifications that are being poorly received by jeering, hostile crowds.

The official position of the Hierophant seems to be this: cultists from the north, possibly aligned with orc tribes or dragons, raided and burned the Gahmez estate to steal Hazard's state secrets. It was necessary to immediately send a cohort to attack them because corruption and inefficiencies in the city's military command structure meant that their mobilization would be delayed and they'd miss their window of opportunity to strike back. That the cohort was lost is tragic, but proof that the cult is a dire threat and that the Hierophant was right to take swift and decisive action against them.

Within sight of Hazard's walls, as you veer off the main road toward the massive western gates to take the side road that goes around the north side of the city, you meet a tinker who informs you that the high commander of the Hazard army has publically denounced the Hierophant in an unprecedented rebuke.

At an orchard a few miles further along, the party talks to a picnicking couple who tell you that several noble houses have called upon the Hierophant to take his own life and allow a replacement to be appointed.

However, there are some folk you talk to -- and they tend to be native Bloaders, farmers and laborers -- who defend the Hierophant, and claim to know people who saw warlocks and dragonborns in flight above the city with their own eyes, and believe that the city is too decadent and myopic to recognize the very real threat of dragon-cults and orcish warlocks. Most of them seem resigned to the fact that the Hierophant will eventually be forced out one way or another, and that the city, in the long term, is inevitably doomed.

More to come...

After circumnavigating the city walls, the party stops at an inn near the Milvil Bridge called the Randy Pike. This is a large establishment in a newly-constructed building, spacious and clean and well-lit. The party is served wine, roast duck, artfully-shaped bread rolls, stewed vegetables, and herbed pudding. Everything is delicious.

Near the end of the meal, the serving girl approaches your table and places a small bundle of black velvet cloth tied off with white string in front of Zangua. "I was asked to give this to you," she says.

Whatever is inside the cloth is about the size of a large plum.

The serving girl glances around the room, looking momentarily confused. "He was here a moment ago...a young man...he must have left?"

Zangua opens the bundle. Inside is a lump of ice.