Astvanor Session 148 (8/16)

[cinaed]

Session 148: Day 19 of Saedan (8/16)

They step out into the mid-morning sun of Cantor. The city is just getting its feet under it, with the early morning stalls beginning to close in anticipation of all the commuters having already headed to work. The trams move above them at a slower pace.

The group discusses where they should go next. Yolov says there is potential in speaking to Arlin first if there is anything they can learn from him, or go to the warehouses to speak with the people there on getting a potential prosthetic for Senator Togworth. They decide that the workers there are less likely to talk with Arlin there and probably unlikely to just give them an unused prosthetic, so they head to The Hollow Dagger instead to ask Az’s friends about their prosthetics.

They catch the tram without issue. This time the front doors of The Hollow Dagger are open and people are day drinking. They go through the front door first and spy Levity, who is hungover from yesterday, overfilling someone’s drink as he tells her she can stop pouring.

She raises one hand without looking at them and instructs them to sit down.

When Az says he needs to speak to her and Reynasha, Levity winces at his loud voice. When she asks what they want, he leans in and tries to ignore the smell of tequila on her breath as he asks where Reynasha is.

Levity says that Reynasha is making a deal in the back and busy.

When she learns they are looking for a prosthetic, she says for 450 gold she can get a prosthetic finger from someone who can’t keep up the payments. There is some back and forth between her and the party with the Hooligans emphasizing they want someone willing to give the prosthetic up, not taken off a dead body.

The party pools their resources before they give her the money and tell her to meet them with the acquired prosthetic at the tram station in an hour and a half.

Then they head to the warehouses where they want to try and discover any sign of the necrotic switch for the prosthetics. The warehouses loom and block out much of the sun. As they approach, they see a few worse-for-the-wear people standing outside it, including a man who is holding his detached prosthetic arm.

The woman standing in the doorway gestures for him to go around the back. He begins to drag himself, exhausted, to the side entrance. The other people begin to crowd the door and she instructs them to line up with their numbers and surnames and documentation on if they’re up to date on payments.

Az heads towards the door, going around the lines as they all grumble. The woman looks up from her clipboard, blowing her hair out of her face. She has a lot of facial scars and is covered in grease and oil and presumably dried blood.

Az gives her a bow and says he is here to see her, if she is Sasha.

She says that she is and if he’s from one of her compatriots then he should go around the side and not make such a fuss. The group exchanges a look and then follows after the man with the detached arm.

There they watch the man stride out, his prosthetic already reattached, and enter the warehouse to find Sasha already there despite it having been just a minute since they saw her at the front. She asks them what they need, and Az tells her about Mastery’s prosthetic tail. She explains that they don’t do things for out of towners since they can’t be tracked down to pay their debts, but if Azeldonne Turen will pay the debt or hold onto the debt, she could probably get Arlin to agree to it.

When he describes the injury and what Mastery would probably be looking for, she says that she would have to attach it to the spine. He asks if she can do that, and she confidentially says she can do it. He realizes that she is extremely sure of her abilities, not in a prideful way but with the bone-deep certainty of someone who knows exactly how talented she is.

Yolov says they’ve seen some of the guild’s work already and it’s been very impressive.

Sasha corrects him and tells him that it’s not guild work, it’s her work. In the ensuing conversation Yolov asks why she hasn’t expanded to the rest of Astvanor, there are many people who need her expertise and these incredible prosthetics out in the world, and she says she would get killed if she tried to expand without Arlin’s permission. She tells them about how Arlin and the new boss favor profit over risk, while she would love to give everyone a chance at prosthetics both medical and aesthetic.

Az asks about Tally and is told that Tally usually spends her time in a warehouse under The Little Cog, which is where the runic marks are engraved on the material that makes the prosthetics and are created by Tally herself. Then Sasha says that she and her simulacrum have work to do.

Yolov brightens, delighted with the knowledge of that spell. It’s only the fact that time is pressing that he doesn’t ask her about it, but he does tell her that he would be happy in the future to talk to people in Radiscune if she ever does get a chance to expand, he knows many people who would be interested in this branch of artificer magic.

Sasha says that would be nice as long as it doesn’t get her killed.

Yolov promises discretion before the party heads back out and catches the tram to The Little Cog. As they go, Yolov pulls out the atlas Dailiir gave him and swaps out Mage Armor for Dimension Door, happily explaining the magic of it to Az as he does.

They get to the Little Cog, where Az tells the server that Arlin will be expecting him. The server says he’d heard about Az’s potential visit, but not that he was bringing others. Az assures him that his friends can entertain themselves.

It’s ten minutes before Arlin shows up. Az greets him, apologizing for the wait and offering up the excuse of being recently back in town. Arlin gets everyone settled in and free food and offers Az a personal tour.

As they head behind the bar and upstairs, Arlin tells Az that he’s glad to have one of the prodigies of Cantor around.

Az asks him what he’s heard since most of the ones he’s heard himself are wild tales, and is surprised when almost all of them are accurate except for one about brokering peace between vampire lords. When he downplays everything, Arlin tells him not to be so modest. It’s time that someone put Cantor on the map and made it something other than the quirky artificer city.

As they’re touring, Arlin tells Az about the warehouse below and the offices, explaining that there’s a second warehouse nearby but he doesn’t like the company there and it’s much grubbier.

While they’re headed upstairs, Az spies a storage door that seems out of place, even as Arlin explains that they build the parts here after an assessment of the customer and decisions on payment methods. Arlin claims that they offer a variety of payment methods because they want to help the unfortunate. Many of the prosthetics have blueprints though they can custom build as well at an extra expense.

He tells Az he always liked how generous he was when they were at school when Az asks if people can make donations for those who can’t afford the prosthetics.

Az tries to get as much information out of Arlin, who waxes poetic about how they pay their people well and how much they are helping people. Certain that the Sons of Kane pay their workers poorly, Az asks about the materials and Arlin explains that Tally gets all of the materials through her own sources.

Az mentions being friends with Lord Axemight and potentially brokering a deal for materials there to save costs and Arlin says Axemight doesn’t have the materials they need but he would love to have a friendly ear on the Council. Az tells him that at least Tally has a great right hand guy, even as he tries to study Arlin and cannot figure out if Arlin is truly into him or if it’s all about Az’s name and connections.

Downstairs, the rest of the group have a nice bread and oil appetizer before individually going invisible. Hava drops down pretending to pick up a missing fork and goes invisible, Yolov holds up his library card and pretends to leave but gives off nervous energy so that everyone thinks that he’s going to a brothel instead. Galowen pretends to look for his glasses and goes to the floor as well before turning invisible too.

They all wait until the halfling bartender opens the door to the backroom and then they follow him inside. There are crates of fruit and vegetables, it’s clearly not an establishment that bakes their own bread.

They all notice that the stairs go up but they also spy the sliding closet door that Az did on the way up to the offices. They see a slightest flicker of light under the door before it goes out.

Once the bartender returns to the front, Yolov briefly drops invisibility long enough to Mage Hand the door open, which creaks a little and makes him wince before he recasts invisibility on himself through his staff.

There is a stone wall and stone steps, showing the flash of something going off down at the bottoms of the steps. Yolov also realizes there is some sort of ward in the doorway. He studies it intently, realizing it is warded against scrying and that it will suppress sound, divination magic, and communication spells like Sending or Telepathic Bond. It’s effectively a silent room.

Yolov explains this to the whole group via the Telepathic Bond, warning Az that they won’t be able to speak to him any more before they all step through the ward. The first thing that hits them is the sound and smell: the grinding of gears and sweat and oil. It is hot and humid.

They also hear a shrill voice screaming for people to get things done faster unless they want to lose some fingers. They descend and see a workshop filled with exhausted artificers putting together intricate artificer pieces.

The things that are being worked on, Galowen realizes, aren’t all normal-sized prosthetics. He knows a lot about people, but while he is tall and broad, some of these prosthetics are too big for people even his height. There’s a nine-foot long arm that would never fit any person.

Standing at the head of all this is a very short gnomish-looking artificer with curly red hair. She is standing at the top of a long wooden walkway overseeing the workers. She throws back one of her rosy curls and says that if they don’t have legs on this thing before the end of the night, she’s going to track all the workers down and rip off all their limbs and replace the limbs with prosthetics. Everyone knows how expensive that is even with the employee discount.

The woman, clearly Tally, orders them all to hurry up before she puts another piece on their plates. Then she goes down the walkway into another room as the workers all bend to their work, nervously chattering to each other. Someone drops something with a loud clang and everyone looks at him before the half-orc scrambles to pick it up and apologizes.

An older grizzled gnomish person reminds everyone they have been under tighter deadlines than this. If they focus they can get everything done in time to go home and sleep.

Upstairs, Az is in Arlin’s office, which has been cleaned recently. Arlin is behind his desk, fiddling with a piece of clockwork, with Az seated across from him in a comfortable chair. Arlin says he would like to discuss the potential donations. They’ve never had one before, although Tally’s people have a mutual exchange of supplying the materials and receiving the prosthetics.

Az says he’d like to learn some more about the prices before he offers the money.

Arlin says of course. These prosthetics are meant to last for a lifetime, though none of them have been attached to people long enough to confirm that. Az asks about the materials and is told that’s proprietary information. When Az points out he would hardly be blabbing the secrets when he’s offering up money, Arlin gives him a coy smile and says that he would say more if he could, but it’s the boss’s decision.

Az says that he’s from a shipping family and prefers to know where the material is coming from. When Arlin says this shouldn’t bother his family, they work in lumber, Az says he was just thinking of costs if the materials are being shipped from out of the country.

Arlin says this is all local, and Az apologizes for pressing and being a bore, he’s just curious. As Arlin assures him that he doesn’t consider Az a bore, before Az catches sight of a blueprint of an artificial heart. He compliments Arlin on the brilliance.

Arlin says that necessity drives one to greatness. He adds that they’re building artificial lungs that he claims will help with sea elves and tritons being able to transition from water to land.

Az pushes down his anger on Hava’s behalf, knowing that it’s bullshit, and asks about the magic that keeps everything working.

Arlin tells him he’s not going to like his answer: it’s also proprietary. When he offers Az private artificer lessons, Az remembers partially destroying the lab with Senator Togworth by carelessness.

When Az looks at him again, Arlin sighs at the quiet plea in his eyes for more information. He says that Tally has been working on this for a number of years, after she went to the Colma and learned artificer magic there. Then she came here and met her patron, who gets her the rare materials and is helping her craft these prosthetics.

Downstairs in the workshop, Yolov circles around to examine some of the base sheets to see if there’s anything special about them. As they’re being shaped, they’re clearly metal but also there’s something wrong with them. A sheet is picked up in front of him, and he realizes there is something off about the reflection of the hand that picks it up.

Hava studies the materials too. She studies the people as well and sees there is a strange care with how they handle the metal. They handle it like glass instead of metal, making sure it doesn’t get damaged. She spies a tabaxi that is running the machine that cuts the metal into smaller pieces. Each time he cuts through the metal, he winces and mouths an apology.

She tries to get closer. She sees the sparks fly and again he winces and apologizes to the cut pieces of metal. She carefully leans over the tabaxi to see what he’s cutting. For a moment she doesn’t see a reflection at all. There’s nothing in this shining, shimmering metal, not the warehouse or the tabaxi, but there’s a flash of a half-orc woman’s face twisting up in horror and fear before the face vanishes.

The tabaxi sets that piece aside and goes to the next one.

Hava looks around, trying to see if the woman is in this room. She isn't, but the young half-orc who dropped the sheet and is now cutting metal as well could be related to her.

Galowen goes to investigate the giant arm. It has the forearm and elbow structure in a way meant to bend like a humanoid. The first thing he notices is that they are in the process of attaching the final pieces to it and pressing a giant blade into the palm. On the other side of the table they are doing similar things to similar arms, four in total. They all have the same runic sigils that Yolov pointed out from Reynasha’s prosthetics.

As he studies the sword’s blade as it’s being wound and hooked into a mechanism to draw the blade. There’s no reflection of the workshop, instead the reflection of a young gnomish woman in her early twenties who is mouthing something desperately before she disappears.

He looks around and over his shoulder, unsettled.

Hava goes to the stairs and waits for the others.

Galowen picks up a wrench and throws it towards the doorway. The grizzled halfling sighs and says there’s no point in throwing things. If they see them, just take a second. This suggestion gets a murmur of agreement.

Hava, Galowen and Yolov head back up the stairs through the ward. As they do, their friends’ voices fill each other’s heads once again, with a puzzled Yolov asking why they left so quickly.

Upstairs, Az watches Arlin stiffen. Arlin says that the boss just did a Sending to him and he needs to go handle something. Az warns the group that they must have alerted Tally somehow because she just Sent to Arlin.

However, Yolov looks back at the ward. He realizes that Tally is still downstairs with them in the Sending-proof space. How could she be Sending to Arlin?