Megadungeon A (IC) III

[Malimar]

Nakon

Smelborp's condition has not improved; he remains blind! And he's a bit more gloomy about it today than he was yesterday.

The Carp Grandson meets the party over breakfast at the inn, and informs them that he has already been to see the daimyo's seneschal and arranged a meeting with his uncle Daimyo Crab Son for just after breakfast.

[Kremti]

Kataun Yriand

Mr Red gets ready for the audience with the daimyo with the familiar red outfit, which is the only outfit he has in any case, and again it is becoming rather tattered. As the group head out, he starts asking Carp and rest of knowledgeable group members who are essentially anyone other than himself, pointing to Smelborp who is sitting inside the howdah, "Uh...so, he doesn't seem to be able to see since yesterday with that naked lady, and hasn't gotten any better. Anyone knows what's wrong with him?" with rather concerned look.

-K

[Malimar]

Nakon

Carp gets together with the party's most expert healers and knowers-of-things, and eventually they issue a considered opinion, diagnosing: "He's blind. Happens when you look at nymphs."

[Malimar]

Nakon

So they finish breakfast, and everybody gets dressed in the finery they bought the other day (except Kataun, who's apparently more of a one-outfit-fits-all-situations type of guy), and they head down to the daimyo's smallish castle overlooking the harbor!

It's much less fuss getting in to see the daimyo than it was getting in to see the Emperor. The daimyo's seneschal escorts the party up to the top of the castle's walls, where a warm breeze blows from the ocean and the daimyo personally oversees some light repair work, leaning out over the empty air to supervise stonemasons hanging down in baskets roped from the top of the wall.

The daimyo turns out to be a pinched, vaguely crab-like in demeanor man, about 45 years old, dressed in workmanlike non-finery, with the only reference to his rank being a light cloak decorated with many embroidered red crabs -- the seneschal is dressed somewhat more nicely than the daimyo. The seneschal announces, "Carp Grandson and company to see you, sir."

The daimyo steps back from the edge of the wall and gazes upon the party with a upon his face.

[RCgothic]

Lauren

I bow low to the daimyo, though not as low as I did for the emperor, and attempt to get a read on his mood. I've also been spending a lot of time on our journey thinking about whether there's any magic we might try that might have a chance of finding our missing people.

[Malimar]

IN THE RECENT PAST

While approaching the castle, Carp notified the party that his uncle is not the type who tolerates failure lightly, so Carp would quite possibly be rotting in a dungeon cell for his failure to find his cousins if he weren't a relative. Probably it's best for the people who aren't utter useless failures in the daimyo's eyes to do most of the talking at this meeting.


MEANWHILE, IN THE SLIGHTLY LESS RECENT PAST

On the trip from Wang to Nakon, Carp also gave a brief outline of what he had been able to glean last time he was here: the princesses vanished from their bedroom the other day, probably by dimension door or similar teleportation magic. Signs of a struggle within the room, but no tracks to track.

Lauren's cogitation came up with some spells and powers which might help! If you can narrow it down to within several hundred feet, locate person might do. Find the path wouldn't, unless combined with, say, scrying, which would give you a picture of the targeted princess's immediate surroundings, unless they're in an area protected from scrying by whatever means. Which, if the Emperor's people haven't been able to locate the princesses, they might be. Or the Emperor's people might just be waiting on being able to find the relevant scrolls.


MEANWHILE, IN THE PRESENT

Carp bows to his uncle almost exactly the correct amount. Lauren and the others, perhaps following Carp's example, bow also basically the correct amount.

Lauren and the others guess Daimyo Crab Son is probably just annoyed to be interrupted at important work. His supervision of the repairs is probably not strictly necessary, he could have delegated, but he's a micromanager. And, as expected, Crab glowers at Carp with extra scorn because of the latter's failure. Crab also might be more irritable than usual because of worry over his missing daughters -- or he might just be this level of irritable naturally.

[RCgothic]

Lauren

"My lord Daimyo," I begin. "The Scorpion Emperor has sent us from Wang. My name is Lauren Norovathar, my raven Leonora, and my companions Kataun Yriand, Dianne Karr, Rialla Embershout, Rose, and our manservant Smelborp. The Emperor believes we may be able to assist in the search for your daughters. With your permission, we would like to join the investigation."

[Bayar]

Gasket

In the recent past

"Blindness ? I think I could whip up something to help with that. If this town has the materials required to make a scroll of blindness removal you'll be able to see the world again !"

The present

Gasket bows mimicking Lauren and lets her finish speaking. She studies the workers doing repair work, thinking about anything that might help them in their endeavor or any glaring deficiencies in the workmanship, willing to share the information with the daimyo at a later time (possibly after finding his daughter).

Spoiler

Show

Knowledge (Arhitecture&Engineering): (1d20+8)[27]

[Kremti]

Kataun Yriand

IN THE RECENT PAST
Kataun leaves behind Smelborp back in the howdah, "Hey, sounds like Gasket might be able to do something. Or, I'll just find someone who can fix you and pay for it. No worries," and pat his head and hands him a lunch. "Stay here and we'll be back as soon as we talk to Daimyo."

IN THE PRESENT
Mr Red steps up and strike a pose as usual, as the Crab person gives a hint of scorn to our friendly tracker person. "Ah, but never fear! We are called The Seekers, primarily because someone paid for it, but we are probably good at finding things." Then he ponders and very quietly asks Gasket, "Are we good at finding things? Isn't he better at that than us who just wonder around the country side aimlessly?", pointing to Carp. "Anyways! If your nephew has a trouble finding them, whoever took them must really don't want to be found! Luckily for you, we have power of love and friendship! Never fear!"
-K

[Malimar]

IN THE RECENT PAST

Smelborp nods enthusiastically at the idea of getting his blindness fixed!

Then he nods glumly, "Ok, I'll stay here." And so it turns out that their manservant Smelborp doesn't actually come along after all, so Lauren leaves him out of the introductions!


MEANWHILE, IN THE PRESENT

The daimyo arches an eyebrow. His father has sent murderhoboes to help! He doesn't seem to have a high opinion of murderhoboes, but after appraising the party, he... has an even less high opinion.

Still, in the end, "If my father the Scorpion Emperor sent you, then I suppose I might as well let you have a try at it. How do you plan to start your search?"

Gasket inspects the repair work! She soon concludes that the daimyo is not an expert at fortification construction, but he is pretty skilled at squeezing the best results out of underlings regardless of his own lack of proficiency in the subject, and these stonemasons are medium-skilled at their work, so she can tell that the work being done is firmly above-adequate. Still, she spots several deficiencies in their technique, and some minor deficiencies in the underlying architecture of the wall that could be addressed by the current repair work but isn't being addressed.

[RCgothic]

Lauren

Spoiler

Show

I'm sure Lauren is probably intelligent enough to think of a way to help here, but I'm struggling.

[Malimar]

Nakon

Trace teleport (even if one were to dig up an obscure arcane version that Lauren has read citations about but never actually encountered) only lets you trace recent teleportations (up to a minute ago for the power, an hour ago for the spell), so that's no good. Even if it were a Strong magical effect (which dimension door isn't, but higher-level teleportations are, and she doesn't know which was used), even detect magic wouldn't pick it up -- only deity-level magic leaves traces readable days ago, and if a deity abducted the princesses there are bigger problems. Lauren thinks she could probably research a higher-level spell to trace teleportation up to days ago... but that would take weeks, and would require her to be a much more powerful wizard, and would probably be a spell of at least the sixth or seventh circle, so casting it would also require her to be a much more powerful wizard.

Ultimately, I think Lauren thinks the best bet is probably buying a 700gp scroll of scrying (or having Gasket craft one if she can, though that would take time and there's no telling how much time the princesses have) and a 1,125 gp scroll of teleport and using the former to scry on one of the princesses to get a sense of her location so they can use the latter to deliver themselves to her. There are probably better techniques out there, but I'm not thinking of any. (This is of course an obvious enough solution to one who understands the ways of magic that the question arises, why haven't the Daimyo's people already tried it? To which there are a number of possible answers, including "they can't afford it", "there isn't a Mario's franchise nearby and nobody else stocks spells that powerful", "they tried it but their best arcane spellcaster isn't powerful enough and the scroll exploded in their face", "the princesses are protected from scrying", and so on.)

[RCgothic]

Lauren

"I believe the first place to start is what you have already tried, my lord? Magic? Conventional investigation? In either regard we are well placed to help you - Rose, Dianne and myself all have strong minds."

[Kremti]

Kataun Yriand

Mr Red begins to open his mouth and about to protest the omission of his name among the strong minds he quickly forgets as mention of magic and conventional investigation and starts asking Carp behind everyone while whispering, "So, what did you do? I take it there was no one demanding ransom? And no real enemy who wants to do this?"

-K

[Malimar]

Nakon

The Crab Son peers over the edge of the wall again, sees nothing that needs his immediate attention with the repairs, and turns back to the party. He answers Lauren, "My nephew", he gestures to the Carp Grandson, "tried to find tracks within my daughters' bedroom, and failed. I have let it be known in the city that there is a reward for any information that might lead to their location, but no one with good information has come forward. And my court wu jen attempted to use a scroll of scrying -- at great expense -- to locate them, but he blew up the scroll, so he's currently cooling his heels in a cell."

Carp whispers back to Kataun, "Nobody has come forward yet. The family has plenty of enemies -- uppity aristocrats, Gus nationalists, sahuagin, goblins, demons..."

[Sliver]

Rose

Rose ponders for a bit. "Were there signs of struggle? If it was someone they don't know, they might have tried to throw things, or scream, but if it's someone that they did know and trust, they could have been lured away without making a fuss... Magic complicates it quite a bit, but I still think we should examine the scene. Perhaps when you were looking for tracks, you overlooked other signs."

[Malimar]

Nakon

The Crab Son nods, "There were signs of a struggle, but the signs of struggle did not extend to the door. My nephew and my court wu jen both agreed someone had teleported them out. You are welcome to examine the room." He takes a moment to decide which task requires more direct supervision: the wall repair, or the search for his daughters. In the end, he gestures to his seneschal to take over supervising the wall repair, and leads the party down into the castle to the girls' room himself.


Outside the door to the girls' room, Crab explains, "Only four people have been allowed in since the abduction: me, my captain of the guards, my court wu jen, and my nephew. Everyone has been instructed to minimize tampering with the evidence." So somebody knows the basics about how to run an investigation, at least. He pulls out a key, unlocks the door, and allows the party to view the scene.

Within: Stone floor covered with a thin rug. Two comfortable-looking but small beds, their sheets and blankets all over the place: the girls were probably abducted from their beds. Dressers and wardrobes, probably full of clothes, undisturbed. Chest of toys, undisturbed. Dollhouse on the ground, very disturbed, somebody knocked the roof off in the struggle. Full-length mirror, askew.

A careful search of the room by the party ensues! (Not taking 20, but the party member with the highest Search score got a natural 20, so the party finds just about everything it is possible for them to find within a reasonable time frame -- it would be possible for everybody to use Aid Another on Gasket's Take 20, bumping up the total by up to 10, but such a thorough search would take several hours.)

Lauren and Rose find nothing beyond the obvious.

Rialla and Kataun find one thing: a smallish barefoot human footprint on the mirror. Proably somebody picked up the girls and they were flailing around and one of them kicked the mirror and presumably somebody kicked or tripped over the dollhouse.

Gasket finds three more things:

First, Gasket finds a few fibers of torn cloth scattered about, torn in the roof of the dollhouse and the hinge of the mirror and stuff. Some of the cloth is of Omorashi style silk and consistent with the girls' pyjamas, but a patch of cloth is wool dyed sea-green.

Second, carefully inspecting the pattern of disturbance in the rug in the middle of the room -- which has been disturbed by a few people walking on it, but she still finds the pattern underneath that, like a crop circle of disturbed rug. She points out the pattern, and Lauren easily identifies the pattern as consistent with somebody standing in the middle of the rug and casting dimension door, not teleport or greater teleport or plane shift, any of which would leave subtly but definitely different patterns. So the girls probably aren't on the other side of the world or on another plane. They were probably dimension doored to somewhere within the town, and are likely within at most a couple days mundane travel from here. Though "within a couple days mundane travel" could be pretty much anywhere on the continent or a ways at sea, so that's only a little helpful.

Third, Gasket realizes that though the torn silk pyjama cloth she found is sure the result of struggle, she has a sneaking suspicion that the patch of sea-green cloth she found was cut, not torn -- deliberately planted near the dollhouse roof, not torn off in a struggle.

[Kremti]

Kataun Yriand

Kataun asks Carp, "So, they could ran off themselves, right? I mean, it could be like they had some Romeoes and the dad didn't approve and they wanted to run off to elope. You know, like Bob and the youngest." Mr Red also asks Lauren along with Carp. "Do you know of any interest like that?"

-K

[Malimar]

Nakon

Carp looks doubtful at Kataun. "I suppose it's possible, but they're a little young for that, I think. They're, what, six and nine years old? I suppose they might have decided their father is too strict and run away on that account, but where would they have found someone to teleport them out?"

[Bayar]

Gasket

Searching through the whole room, occasionally tilting her head with her arms in odd angles, Diane replies to Kataun: "That was my theory before seeing this room. Maybe they ran away into the night. But upon inspecting this room, it's clear someone abducted them. The perpetrators probably didn't use the door or window to enter the room if they could use teleportation, so the victims were targeted specifically. This patch of sea-green cloth was left here deliberatly as a message. If we can identify an organisation that uses it as a callsign, we can find the girls.

The only thing missing is motive. Why were they targetted in the first place ? Without a ransom demand, there could be some possiblilities like information gathering, revenge, forced marriage, slavery. I don't want to contemplate more sinister reasons though.

Don't worry, lord daimyo, we will find them. Lauren herself was kidnapped by slavers and Kataun did a well enough job of finding and rescuing her. Now, if your court wu-jen attempted to scry, then you have the required focus for such a casting somewhere around. I'll need to search the shops around here for either a scroll of scrying or material components to make one. And details of the girls and some personal belongings. A lock of their hair would also be useful. Right, time is of the essence, I'll be making the necessary purchases. Maybe you could ask around town about the fabric ?"

[Sliver]

Rose

"What if the fabric was left behind as an attempt to frame someone? Maybe it was intended to be found and lead us to the owner, and arrest them, instead of the real perpetrator? It would need to be a very powerful or vain organisation to leave a mark that would lead to them, but a fake trail in an attempt to pit us against another enemy, or simply follow a red herring to waste time... Unfortunately, we don't have enough leads to not follow this one, but that is something that we should consider. In the meanwhile, could you question the citizens in the vicinity, a radius of a mile or so, about the night of the abduction, and if they had seen anyone disappearing or teleporting?" Rose suggests, as she watches Rainbow gently scurry on the floor and walls, examining the scene from his own unique perspective, and vision. It was unlikely that he would find anything, but it was worth a try.

[Malimar]

Nakon

Nobody has a stroke of brilliance about sea-green cloth, not even Carp, Crab, or Rainbow.

Rainbow finds nothing that the rest of the party hasn't already found.

The windows are undisturbed and locked from the inside, and nobody noticed anybody sneaking in through the door, so Gasket's theory about somebody teleported in, abducted the girls, and dimension door'd out has no counterevidence.

The daimyo nods, "A mirror of the necessary quality is in my wu jen's office. I'll have my men interrogate the citizenry if anyone saw anyone stepping out of a dimension door -- that has already been done, but it can't hurt to do it again -- or if anyone knows anything about sea-green cloth. The resources of the castle's library are open to you for research as well." (The Pearl of Speech doesn't specify whether or not it allows you to read the relevant language (it only refers to "speak and understand"), but even if not, Carp can do the searching in the library, not a big deal.) "I believe my wife has locks of the girls' hair."

If nothing else needs to be done here, the party departs!


Somebody -- Carp if nobody else -- heads to the castle's library.

The daimyo issues instructions to his guardsmen.

Gasket heads out to find scrolls!


After a bit of asking around and searching, Gasket finds a Mario's Discount Magic Supply Emporium franchise, which offers an arcane scroll of scrying for 700gp and a divine scroll of remove blindness/deafness for 375gp. And, if she happens to want to pick one up now, an arcane scroll of teleport for 1,125gp or a divine scroll of find the path for 1,650gp.


The daimyo's guardsmen, along with Rialla who sets out into the night to help, have no luck finding anyone who might have seen somebody stepping out of a dimension door on the night of the abduction. Lauren rolled poorly so either she isn't very good at asking the right questions, isn't very lucky, or went to the library to do research with Carp instead.

Kataun and Rose, on the other hand, rolled very well on their Gather Information checks, got lucky at a tavern, and followed a string of "well, I heard Teiycueybiu saying Ruuy Peuy said he saw..." "Yeah, Xhiyxuoy knows Ruuy Peuy, he can tell you where to find him..." "Zoej-Ayquy was with Xhiyxuoy at the bar yesterday..." and so on, never actually tracking down Ruuy Peuy himself but squeezing the whole story out of various people second-hand: a man (human? mongrelfolk? elf? goblin? orc? definitely not Omorashi human) in green robes, carrying two struggling children, stepped out of a flash of light a few hundred feet from the castle, loaded the girls into a rickshaw, and headed east. Nobody took it seriously at the time because Ruuy Peuy was, by his own admission, pretty soused on sake.

At the eastern gate of the town's wall, it takes some investigation to dig up who was on duty that night, but eventually they find the relevant soldiers, who confirm that a mongrelman in green robes, carting a rickshaw whose contents they did not investigate, left the city headed east on the relevant night.


Carp, and anybody who chooses to join him in the castle library, eventually discovers, among several other references that seem less relevant, references to sea-green robes traditionally worn by the clergy of Quasxthe. As the party has already raised the possibility of a frame-job, Carp judiciously reserves his anger for when more information is available.


Hours later, the party reconvenes in the castle, reports their findings, and are led to the daimyo's court wu jen's office, which is meticulously immaculate, everything precisely ordered, in precisely the proper place, books and scrolls and bottles and magical apparatuses precisely ordered on shelves, papers under a paperweight on the desk precisely square to its edges, a mirror suitable for scrying already set up. The only things out of order are a knocked-over chair and a smattering of soot and burned parchment near the mirror.

[Sliver]

Rose

Rose considers the information that they have gathered so far, filing it on the appropriate mental shelves and seeing which books are missing from her collection. "The cloth wasn't left there by accident, and the culprit didn't seem to take precautions to not be seen once they left the castle. Trying to frame the clergy of Quasxthe, maybe?" She looks at the others to fill her in on the basic lore on Quasxthe before continuing. "It could be an attempt to get some negative attention focused on Quasxthe and his clerics... Perhaps Mirk's clergy? Numiel is also a possibility, but such a method is too underhanded I think, and they have that conflict with Inglip at Romus going on. Or perhaps someone wishes you to be in conflict with Gus..." Rose shakes her head, her herding her thoughts.

"Regardless, most likely that the cloak that this cloth belonged to is either destroyed or placed somewhere that they would want us to find..." Turning to the daimyo, Rose continues. "Did your court wu jen attempt to scry on the girls directly? Someone with access to advanced spells like Dimension Door is likely to be familiar with Scrying as well, and would have placed counter measures to prevent us from finding them, and with the only connection to the kidnapper being a piece of cloak that doesn't belong to him, scrying would end up futile... Could be that the scroll exploded not due to some magical mishap, but due to a special scrying prevention spell in place?" Rose asks the magical experts of the party. "Oh, hmm, could it work? You said that there needs to be a connection to the target if you don't know them at all, right? What about the residual patterns left from them using a Dimension Door? If the patterns are so subtle that you would be able to recognize the specific spell, and magical spells differ on a personal level so much that wizards need to pour over scrolls of spells that they already know before they can cast them... Well, I'm just saying, it sounds like these patterns are pretty intimate." Rose looks at Gasket and Lauren with her eyes lit up, hoping that she contributed something to this quest.

[RCgothic]

Lauren

"I've never actually cast Scrying before," I admit, "It is an advanced spell. But I believe I have thoroughly studied all the principles and I believe it is well within the limits of my ability. I believe we should attempt to locate the children first, even if they are shielded from scrying we should eliminate the possibility before moving on. The locks of hair should make it more likely for the spell to be successful," I explain.

Spoiler

Show

Caster level check to activate scroll: DC8 (1d20+6)[17]
Lauren casts at DC 20 for 4th level spells. The will save is at an additional -5. We have heard of the subjects and have some body parts.

[Malimar]

Nakon

The daimyo describes the explosion of the scroll, and the party's spellcasters are pretty sure it was just a regular not-strong-enough-to-use-this-scroll mishap. The wu jen just done goofed is all.

Not to pee on a clever plan, but the party's spellcasters are reasonably sure that the dimension door pattern is not specific enough to the caster to use as a very effective scrying focus -- it's only barely specific enough to tell what spell was used, and that only because Lauren is so expert at spellcraft. She can't even tell if it was cast as a spell, an innate ability, from a scroll or wand, or what. So what Rose proposes is perhaps possible, but extremely difficult.


When Rose raises the possibility that somebody's trying to frame the clergy of Quasxthe, or Gus, Carp and Crab look at each other. The Carp Grandson says only: "Uncle Mantis's wife."

The Crab Son nods, and explains for the benefit of the party, "My youngest full brother the Mantis Son, his wife was assassinated in their home a few months ago, and pro-Gus slogans were painted on the wall in her blood. We demanded father call the banners and march to war upon Gus, but he refused. We didn't know why... is it that he thought Mantis's wife a false flag operation? Is this the same, someone trying to drive us to war?" He is concerned about this possibility -- not as concerned as he is about the safety of his daughters, but concerned.


Lauren rights the chair in front of the mirror and sets up to cast from the scroll! She chooses the younger girl, as probably slightly easier to scry upon: the Sapphire Granddaughter.

She reads the scroll... successfully, the scroll does not explode, the girl fails her Will save, and an image appears in the mirror!

The image: A soft green glow (not an effect of the spell, which doesn't distort color much; the place must be lit greenly -- yes, on the wall: a glowing green stone). The princess, her pyjamas filthy, chained to a worked stone wall, crying silently. Two walls are visible in the image; engraved in the wall the girl is not chained to is some text in Aquan. Most of the message is off-screen, but Lauren can translate "...THE FAIR". Putting their heads together to analyze the stonework, Lauren and Gasket are pretty sure this style of stonework is a hallmark of merfolk, or maybe tritons. (Merfolk dwelt on this entire continent before it rose above the waves, and their buildings are still scattered around the continent -- some of their buildings have been repurposed for land-dweller use, such as the Coral Palace, dwelling-place of King Terek II of Gus, originally a merfolk country manor.) (For the purpose of teleport, if that's the plan, studying this image counts as "seen casually" -- "studied carefully" requires at least an hour of study, and scrying would only last that long for a 60th-level caster.)

Crab looks very relieved to see his daughter is alive.

[RCgothic]

Lauren

Without turning away from the image, which I am studying carefully for anything that might potentially be useful - the details of the room, the Sapphire Granddaughter's clothes, anything else that could potentially be useful in locating the girl before me - I ask the Carp Grandson an urgent question.

"Carp Grandson, you know this area well; the kidnapper was spotted heading east in a cart and the Sapphire Granddaughter appears to be in an area of merfolk ruins. I could attempt to teleport to the room before us, however these scrolls come at a minimum caster level so I could transport a maximum of two along with me. Fewer if I wished to return, and there is a risk I would fail the second casting. It would be better if we could narrow down the location of any merfolk ruins (I believe Locate Object would work if we got close) and then Dimension Door would be a much more reliable spell for me."

"I also think I should attempt to scry on the other princess before embarking on the rescue."

[Sliver]

Rose

Rose nods to the last notion. "Perhaps they are chained up on opposite walls, and a second might reveal the beginning of that message engraved on the wall. Does Aquan have a distinction between the meanings of 'fair'? By the sentence structure, it sounds like fair here would mean carnival, and not in the justice sense... Though it could be in the sense beauty, too... But what are the chances that the languages share the same homonyms?"

[Malimar]

Nakon

Carp nods, "Knowing when and where they left the city, in a rickshaw, and that their ultimate destination was one of the merfolk ruins in the vicinity, I think I could track them now, yes."

Lauren clarifies that the sense of "...THE FAIR" here is "...THE ATTRACTIVE" or "...THE BEAUTIFUL" or something along those lines, not "...THE CARNIVAL".

Crab (the only person present trained in knowledge(history) and capable of making the >20 DC) actually rolls really well on his roll at this point and points out, "There was a Merfolk queen known as "the Fair" -- Lorelei IV, of the Arielid dynasty, Lorelei the Fair. First century after the Inundation. Buried in a tomb near here. You will go there with a squad of my guards immediately, and prove your worth in combat if it's a trap." No evidence that it's a trap, except that everything is a trap if you're paranoid.

[RCgothic]

Nakon

Carp nods, "Knowing when and where they left the city, in a rickshaw, and that their ultimate destination was one of the merfolk ruins in the vicinity, I think I could track them now, yes."

Lauren clarifies that the sense of "...THE FAIR" here is "...THE ATTRACTIVE" or "...THE BEAUTIFUL" or something along those lines, not "...THE CARNIVAL".

Crab (the only person present trained in knowledge(history) and capable of making the >20 DC) actually rolls really well on his roll at this point and points out, "There was a Merfolk queen known as "the Fair" -- Lorelei IV, of the Arielid dynasty, Lorelei the Fair. First century after the Inundation. Buried in a tomb near here. You will go there with a squad of my guards immediately, and prove your worth in combat if it's a trap." No evidence that it's a trap, except that everything is a trap if you're paranoid.

Lauren

"As you command, my Lord Daimyo," I respond, borrowing the appropriate amount. Leonora also inclines her head.
"We will meet your guards outside as soon as they can be readied."

"Sounds like we're about to earn our name," I whisper an aside to Kataun.

[Kremti]

Kataun Yriand

Kataun raises his left eyebrow, "What, they are 6 and 9 and already have boyfriends? And they are mermans? My, they move in quick! I just got one myself!" As usual, Mr Red is utterly confused. "We'll go fetch the girls anyways! To the tomb! Huh, looks like we are always going to tombs." He runs off to Rocinante and gets ready to ride off to the possible trap.

-K