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Meetings & Moms

Last week, the party entered the high magic zone around Praxis. As they adjusted to the enhanced magic, they noticed that all of them except for Gregory had gained a vibrantly glowing magical aura that seemed to somehow reflect their personalities. They took this in stride and continued on down the road, where they encountered a group of refugees from Praxis. Through that conversation, the party learned approximately what had been happening in Praxis while they had been galavanting around the countryside.

In the days before the high magic took over the city, Lilian Smith1, the deputy mayor, was pushing for highly restrictive anti-magic laws after the assassination of the previous mayor by dark magic. As the laws were debated before the City Council, people gathered in increasingly large protests. It seemed like the mood of the city was turning against her, but before anything dramatically changed, the city of Praxis went dark and everyone's magic ran wild. The protests turned into riots in the darkness, as the Mystic Auras granted by the high magic zone granted everyone powerful magical abilities. The newly empowered magic users apparently used their newfound power to retaliate against the city guards trying to keep the peace, and in the night the city burned.

For a few days, it seemed like chaos reigned, as the day brought no new light and the city guards were powerless to restore order. Lilian Smith went into hiding, and people tried to leave Praxis, but were driven back before long by dragons from the north and mutated animals from the south. The chaos finally ended when the main combat wing of the Nullwardens returned to Praxis from their mission to hunt the Circle of the Black Sun in the mountains. The Nullwardens spread out throughout Praxis, using their null auras to suppress dangerous magic, and the riots immediately stopped. Most people hailed the Nullwardens as their saviors.

After order was restored, Lilian Smith reappeared. She brought news of a new ritual that the city had devised with the Nullwardens to take advantage of the enhanced magic: the Ritual of Severance, which could convert willing participants into Nulls without the arduous training and mental fortitude normally necessary. Many people willingly underwent the Ritual, and over the next few days, people with the Mystic Auras from the high magic zone became increasingly rare on the streets. Those who did go out were often subjected to jeering and sometimes violence, as people with the auras became identified with the riots and the chaos.

Yesterday, the apparent siege of Praxis by monsters broke. Boundary Wardens from the northern forest brought news of the party's attempt to destroy the ritual, and the mutated monsters from the south all retreated in unison. Magic-sensitive scouts were able to determine that the high magic zone to the south had ceased to exist, and many people fled to the south. The refugees were the first wave out from Praxis to the north, since most people weren't as confident that the summoned dragons would stop being a problem.

With that info dump completed, the party wished the refugees well, and continued on to Praxis. At the gates, they observed some tension between the Boundary Wardens and the city guards, but they were allowed to enter the city under a strong recommendation that they stay near Gregory to suppress their Mystic Auras. The party travelled through the dark and tense city directly to the Sable house.

When the party arrived at the Sable house, they were welcomed. Dutiful servants carefully cleaned everyone to make them presentable - especially Mikolash2. The servants told the party that they would soon be meeting with Countess Astrid Sable, esteemed matriarch of the Sable family. Since the servants seemed to be putting some amount of effort into determining the order in which the party would be announced, the party decided to put more effort into subverting that order, and they were announced in whatever weird order they had intended.

In the meeting room, Countess Sable sat patiently waiting for the party. She was inhumanly beautiful, and her Mystic Aura radiated with majestic peace and concentrated goodness. When the party settled down, she warmly welcomed them all. Although Countess Sable was well informed of most of the party's activities, she was startled when Camilla revealed that the Sable family had a golem infiltrator, and was surprised that her spies had failed to discover this. The party was immediately suspicious of her ignorance, and Diplo created a distraction by smashing the nice dinner table they were all eating at. Mikolash took advantage of that opportunity to dispel Countess Sable's magic - as did Gregory, who shot her in the leg with a deattunement bolt. Her inhuman beauty was reduced to merely human beauty, and her Mystic Aura revealed its true nature as a sinister demonic shroud. She had a brief flash of anger, but quickly understood that the party had tried to check if she was the impostor, so she let it pass - once. Diplo was ejected from the meeting on principle, though.

With Diplo gone, the real negotiations began. Countess Sable explained eventually that Mammon had come to personally visit her to gain her support. At the time, Astrid had believed that Mammon's victory was inevitable, so she had given Mammon the help that she asked for. However, as Astrid's spies tracked the party around and observed their successful disruption of the ritual sites, she decided that it was instead Mammon's defeat that was inevitable, so she was now willing to offer the party aid - as long as the party agreed to overlook any actions the Sables may have taken to support Mammon previously. She also promised Camilla that, as a result of the party's actions, no future Sable child would suffer for their unusual heritage as Camilla had.

The party agreed to Astrid's terms, so she told them what Mammon had been up to. On the night that the ritual took effect, the invisibility effect that blanketed the entire massive dome of Praxis had disappeared shortly before everyone's magic went crazy. That meant that the people who knew or controlled the timing of the ritual also controlled the invisibility of the dome. The ancient device that powered the invisibility effect was housed within a twisting maze of tunnels under Praxis called Prax's Labyrinth. In modern times, no one knew the exact layout of the tunnels, but there were guards posted to prevent people from getting lost inside and to discourage unexpectly good maze solvers from somehow causing trouble. Mammon had gotten rid of the original guards before the ritual took effect and asked the Sables to post their own elite guards to block anyone from entering.

Based on that information, and the location of the center of the high magic zone that anyone sufficiently skilled at magic detection could sense, Astrid deduced that Mammon somehow knew how to navigate the labyrinth, and the origin of the ritual was somewhere inside. Astrid could easily give the party directions to the known labyrinth entrances and allow them passage past the Sable guards, but navigation inside the labyrinth was beyond her ability. After the meeting, the party retrieved Diplo and met up with a Sable servant who gave them all access to powerful magic items3.

Join us this week to do some more stuff in or around Praxis! I'm really not sure what your exact plan is!

  1. No relation of any kind whatsoever to Frank Smith
  2. The Sables seemed to have some funny ideas about what might have happened out in their weeks of travel between Mikolash, one of the heirs of the prestigious Macayhil family, and Camilla, one of the inconsistently esteemed heirs of the preeminent Sable family.
  3. Everyone can pick two items of up to 17th level. I have ideas if you want help and/or don't like reading tables for fun!

Stupid Awards

Chort: Mikolash: Diplo: Ayala: Camilla: Gregory: Sheeple Who Accepted the Ritual of Severance: Lilian Smith:
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