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Cities & Conversations

Last week in Praxis, Bench convinced the Boundary Wardens to upgrade the famous bench (the weapon, not the person) with sweet spikes and a greater heft. After that, the party left Firel and the rest of the the Boundary Wardens behind and made their way closer to Praxis following the road system. Along the way, they stopped in an inn to rest the night. Bench used the opportunity to convince the innkeeper to make doughnuts. Din Morat saw an old associate of theirs in the tavern, a surly dwarf named Samantha, and settled down to talk with her. Although the rest of the party didn't overhear the whole conversation, Din Morat came back with some useful information about Praxis. While the party had been out in the wilderness, the mayor of Praxis had been assassinated by a tiefling using dark magic, and the city was on edge. The interim mayor, Lilian Smith, seemed to be taking a firmer hand with the city than the old mayor, and she had quickly consolidated power around her. Under her instruction, the guards in the city were taking a more suspicious view of magic in the city, and Samantha decided that it was a good time to not be in the city. The party decided to try to keep a somewhat low profile in the city, and Gregory decided that it would be safer for him to meet with the Nullwardens alone instead of taking the party with them as he had originally planned. They agreed to meet Gregory in the Dancing Heron tavern at night to exchange information.

The next morning, the party continued onward towards Praxis. While they climbed the switchback road leading up the side of the plateau, they ran into Genie, a friend of Briar's from her theater days. Briar told Genie about the kidnappings that Alistair was responsible for, and he was very spooked, but the party scrambled to make sure he continued leaving the city instead of telling everyone in the city about it. He told the party he ws heading out to join a music festival in one of the villages along the road network, and invited Briar to join. The party said that they might stop by depending on how much time they had. Genie also gave a little more detail about the situation with the mayor. The assassin had been caught by the mayor's Nullwarden guards on the night of the assassination while fleeing the scene, and he was killed in the ensuing fight. The party thanked Genie for his information and sent him on his very excitable way to the music festival.

The party finally reached the gates of the city. Din Morat disguised themselves for some reason, but the gate guards didn't pay too much attention to the rest of the party when Gregory took the lead at the gate, so the party entered the city without incident. Inside the city, the party split up completely, which was not at all a hassle to deal with in case you were wondering. Gregory went off to see the Nullwardens, Anwen went to a very normal temple to do very normal temple things, Din Morat went to see another associate of theirs in town, Briar went to a library to do research, and Bench and Wei went off in search of donuts.

Anwen's visit to the temple was not at all remarkable and nothing interesting happened, so we can skip recounting that here. Din Morat found their friend, Percy, living in the Havens, which was a new district in town full of buildings constructed by magic. It was intended to be cheap housing for low-income and disadvantaged populations, so it had an unusually magical population. The Havens were funded by the Hedges, an elderly philanthropic gnome couple. Din Morat tried to sneak into their friend's house, but failed to pick the lock on the back door, so they just knocked like literally anyone else would and it was very disappointing. Fortunately, Percy was happy to see Din Morat, and they talked for a while. In addition to other normal things, Percy name-dropped Captain Tam again as being a reputable guard, and said that the Hedges had recently had someone try to burn down their house and would likely offer a reward to anyone who could bring the arsonists to justice. Din Morat was intrigued, and went over to the Hedges house.

Meanwhile, Briar's research in the library turned up some interesting lore dumps. She found that the Sekerren Ruins were originally created by a mighty dragon named Sekerren. It was killed hundreds of years ago by Nullwardens as part of their regular missions outside of Praxis to put down dangerous magical monsters that could potentially pose a threat to Praxis. The ruins had been unoccupied from that point until the book was written. She also found some information about healing rituals that she could learn, as well as information about how to properly use well-brewed tea as a conduit for healing magic.

While Briar was nerding it up, Bench and Wei found donuts! They went to the best doughnut shop around, the Holey Rollers, and gorged themselves on sugary bready goodness. There were rumors that the Holey Rollers might be using magic as part of their doughnut creation process to explain how delicious their donuts were, but neither Bench nor Wei noticed or cared. After a while, one of the clerics at the shop offered Bench a "special doughnut" which was, somehow, even more delicious than all of the other donuts! He explained that the Holey Rollers had recently had one of their warehouses burn down under suspicious circumstances, and promised Bench and Wei five more special donuts each if they figured out why the warehouse burned down and tracked down the people responsible. They were excited about the opportunity and went out into the city to gather up the rest of the party so they could investigate the warehouse together.

While Bench and Wei gathered the party, Din Morat went over the the Hedges to ask them about what happened to their house. When they knocked, Archibald Hedge and Agnes Hedge eagerly invited Din Morat in and fed them tea and told them the whole story. The roof of their house was set on fire on their first night in the Havens. The Havens had just had its grand opening that day as part of the annual Mystic Confluence festival in the city. The fire didn't spread very far because their neighbors came to put the fire out, but it was still scary for the Hedges and their pet dog Woofles. Mr. Hedge gave Din Morat a threatening note that they had received before the attack. The note was written on an odd, stiff paper-like substance that seemed to resemble tree bark. It read "Your house will return to the ash from which it was built". This was somewhat confusing for Din Morat, but fortunately the rest of the party arrived at around this time.

With the whole gang together, they were able to drink a lot more tea, so Mrs. Hedge put the big kettle on. Briar knew enough history to provide some context for the note. She explained that the Havens had been built on old farmland within the city's sphere. Back before the Great Harrowing eighty years ago, Praxis had not spread very far beyond the city-sphere, and there were still large areas within the sphere that were dedicated to farming to ensure that everyone could have enough to eat even if monsters destroyed the areas outside Praxis. During the Great Harrowing, the farmlands inside the city were burned to ash by the dragons. After the Great Harrowing, Praxis decided to allow magic again, which caused an explosion of development and allowed Praxis to much more confidently create and protect farmland outside the city. The old farmland inside the city lay unused for some time due to the difficulty of restoring it to productivity after its scouring by dragonfire. Eventually, the Hedges got permission to develop on it, which is how it became the Havens.

Briar also recognized the weird tree bark paper as being a special kind of bark that comes from a druidic ritual where a tree willingly parts with its bark. It is typically only used in any significant quantity by fairly extremist druidic circles who believe that paper represents the destruction of trees by civilization. There is currently only one druidic circle like that anywhere near Praxis: the Circle of True Balance, which is a couple days away from town. Mrs. Hedges offered the information that a lot of people in power doesn't like the Havens, with the extremist druid circles being one major group. The Landowners' Association also doesn't like the Havens because it represents competition and lowered rent for their properties, and the Nullwardens don't like the Havens because it represents normalized, mundane magic, and they consider magic to be inherently dangerous.

The party asked the Hedges for more details about the night of the arson, and the Hedges mentioned that the their neighbor to the north was found in his cupboard the next day. The party invited the neighbor back to tea and got his side of the story. According to him, he was attacked by unseen assailants in the night. They knocked him unconscious and stuffed him into a cupboard. As far as the guards could tell in their investigation, the arsonists used the neighbor's house to hide in when they set fire to the roof. The party speculated on whether the attempt to set fire to the Hedges' house might be related to the Holey Rollers' burned down warehouse, given the rumors that the Holey Rollers might use magic in their doughnut creation process, but didn't have any solid evidence.

Join us this week to meet up with Gregory and plan your next moves in and around Praxis!

Stupid Awards

Wei Clumsy Grumpy Wizard: Din Morat: Anwen Jord: Bench: Briar:
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