Game-Summaries:7/22/2017 Recollections

Recollections by Jorg

The Magistery clerk rudely charged a rather large group of my initiate class to investigate the killing of a town messenger from Westcliff. At the end of our investigation, we were given authority to exact justice. I normally shy away from assignments that do not fit my preferred problem solving style, but I was traveling with Coin and Zanna. I was sure they’d do most of the deductive reasoning. On the way, I reacquainted myself with Avant and formally introduced myself to Sakura. Having interacted with Sakura’s house in only formal settings, it was refreshing to do something more practical with a typical, stuffy noble.

We travel to Westcliff and find the remains of a goblin corpse that has been left, unburied, for months. I insist on burying the corpse, and do my best without a shovel. How did Franklin NOT pack my shovel?! After that impromptu funeral, we pass through the outskirts of town where many crops are picked clean. Briefly getting a lay of the town and surrounding land, we meet the town Chief (Edward) and Zander, the slain messenger’s brother and temporary town messenger. Zander eventually reported Westcliff’s tax information. Chief Edward tells us a heroic back-country story about finding Jander’s (slain messenger) body, assuming bandits (with the pilfered crops), and stumbling upon a goblin cave. The goblins killed one of the group, but the towns folk managed to arrest and detain the goblins in town to await the Writ of Execution to be delivered by Magistery representatives. Edward indicated that we could head back after handing over the writ.

Being only initiates, we insisted on talking with the goblins, if possible. I felt it was pointless, but Coin managed to get their leader, Inugs, to explain that their goblin clan was far more peaceful than other nomadic goblins. Inugs insisted that the towns folk attacked them without provocation. Knowing how taxes work and the purpose of town messengers, I explain that this might be a tax evasion scheme by the town Chief. Suspecting foul play, Avant, Sakura, and I are escorted to the murder site, then the goblin cave. We found no weapons of war, in our opinion, but the simple working blades could be used for attacking humans. Contrary to most nomadic goblins, there was evidence of beds, livestock, and a small community. We concluded that we needed to see Jander’s body.

Even with Coin’s reluctance, we exhumed Jander’s body from the Church’s graveyard. Upon the dawn, the town wisdom was disappointed in our hasty disregard of formal protocol. Nothing conclusive from Jander’s body shamed us to replace the soil and seek out Zander at his home. Sakura, Avant, and I pressured Zander into revealing Edward’s ruse to simply kill local goblins, which got Jander killed. Coin and Zanna teased out magical aptitude from Inugs during our interrogation.

We confronted the town Wisdom and she confirmed that she had known about Edward’s idiocy, but did not believe the lives of goblins worth the upheaval. We managed to settle Coin down after his justified tirade. Coin convinces us to free Inugs and his clan, and escort them to the Magistery. The Blue admits the goblins and Inugs into training. The Blue forbids us from exacting revenge, insisting the justice we administered was just and proper. Coin is now “Master Equal Coin” to Inugs and his companions. I intend to needle him with that.

Recollections by Sakura no kaze

It is the 7th day of the 8th month of the 345th year and I'm finally leaving the Magistery for my first Quest. Training was interesting and I felt that I had learned enough to venture out.

Coin, Zanna, Jorg, Avant and I gather in the library to venture out. We picked the library because Coin is afraid of leaving it, so he's the last of our group that we pick up before leaving. Zanna approaches the clerk named Agatha about our mission and she informs us that we have to go to Westcliff to investigate and exact Justice. Zanna is given a Writ to allow us to execute Goblins to exact Justice as we see fit. From this very brief conversation I can already tell that Zanna doesn't care much for Agatha and vice versa. I don't know if it is Zanna or the clerks at the Magistery. Personally I think Zanna fits well with our group, so I must assume that the clerks are simply being obnoxious.

Aside: From my knowledge previous to life at the Magistery, I knew that Westcliff is about 20-30 miles NW of Solace and that it is a farmer's town.

About 20 miles from Solace, before we reach Westcliff, I noticed a shallow grave just off the side of the road. I was surprised that no one else caught this, it was quite obvious and a poor job of burial. It was a couple of months old, obvious from the growth on and around the plot. Despite the vast amount of metal that Avant and Jorg walk around with, not a single piece of that metal was a shovel, so it was left to Coin, myself and Zanna to dig the grave out with our spells in order to start our discovery process. I believe, along with some, though not all, that this could be crucial information and one cannot exact Justice without proof. I wonder when Zanna learned to cast spells. She's proving to be quite the resourceful individual. Coin proves to be a quick hand with spells as well, though it seems he suffers from the same problem most others do. It's not natural for him, but he does well given his limitation. I'm unsure of Zanna's source of magic, though from our earlier training dungeon, I don't recall her capable of this feat, so either she's crafty and is revealing her capabilities slowly (a stupid idea, given her first training session) or she too suffers like Coin. But I digress....

Inside the grave we discover a desiccated body that is about 4-and-a-half-feet tall. None of us being doctors, have trouble identifying the species. Coin is the most certain of us by stating that it is not human. I imagine that mouth full of sharpened teeth (unsure if natural or manual) was the biggest clue! We dig a little bit more to see if we can uncover anything else and all we find are the cloth wraps for the body. Judging by the type of cloth, the size of the body and the teeth, we feel confident that this was likely the body of a Goblin. Jorg and Coin insist on burying the body again, while the rest of us scout the area to see if we uncover anything else useful. Zanna reports back that she found a farm that looks to have been plundered! We believe that we're starting to put the puzzle together.

Once Jorg and Coin are satisfied by the burial, we approach the farm and very quickly discover that this is Westcliff, not just a farm. It's all rather...quaint. Westcliff is quite small, about a mile with a single inn and a church marking the center of town. We approach the inn, given the hour (evening), the most likely place for everyone in town to be and quickly find the town headsman. He was quite the disagreeable individual. He didn't like what we wanted - we're here upon his request!! - and instead took us to the church to talk. This was odd, but it seems to me that he prefers to deal with this in the quiet. Another useful piece of information to keep away for later!

At the church he tells us a story of the goblins - most of whom they have locked up at the general store (they don't have a proper jail here). Jander is the town messenger who reports the town tax books to Solace and has been reported killed by the goblins that they've locked up. The headsman said that it was odd that Jander was attacked at all, since all he was carrying was the tax report and headed towards Solace. He also relayed that they went searching after discovering Jander and found the goblins to be about 2 miles south-east of town, which confirms the direction that Jander would be taking. Upon a little more questioning, the Headsman changed his story slightly and said that the goblins were east, not south-east, but Jander was found south-east Methinks that something is rotten in the state of Westcliff!

Of course, we must validate these stories, so we require discussion with the goblins. The headsman refuses to take us, but he does take us to Jander's brother, Xander, who takes us to the general store to see the goblins. Jorg, cleverly, lights a torch outside their cells and we enter as to avoid frightening them with bright lights. I persuade one of the goblins to talk with an offer of a potato. He tells us that his name is Jyx and after some questions informs us that their leader is named Inugs. Inugs didn't care for my method of questioning and walked away. At this point perhaps I can make them all fall asleep and we can deal with just a couple of them at a time, but my cherry blossoms only managed to make Coin fall asleep. That was a complete and utter waste of a valuable spell! How could a wizard fall for such a simple trick?!

Zanna has a go and persuades Inugs to talk. He tells us that the messenger attacked them and they were simply defending themselves. He confirms that their cave is 2 miles due east of town. We asked them about the grave we found and they confirm that it was a goblin that went by the name Trugnugs. I suspect somehow related to Inugs. After they killed the messenger and dragged the body out, the other humans were waiting outside.

I go outside to talk to the chief (this is how the headsman prefer's to be referred) and his story sounds rather fishy now! By some twisted luck, the chief is completely intimidated by me (I admit, with Avant and Jorg by my side, I must be rather intimidating) and backs down from his complaints and demands of goblin execution. Jorg, Avant and I demand that he take us to where they found Jander, while Coin and Zanna stay with the goblins.

Once we reach the site of Jander's supposed death, we find absolutely nothing. Xander also tells us that he has temporarily taken Jander's job and brought the tax report to Solace. Not particularly useful information. We decide that we need to go to the cave now and Xander and the chief accommodate. There we discover a lived in home with sleeping areas, some pots and stoves and some basic tools and no weapons. Xander has become a bit talkative at this point and tells us that the chief's name is Edward.

We then return to town, rather late, but decide that we need to exhume the body. Once we're thought to be safely sleeping, we skulk to the graveyard and proceed with exhuming Jander's corpse. I'm glad that I'm not a gravedigger. Jorg had purchased several shovels for us, after our previous debacle with grave digging, but even still this is hard labor and tedious work. It took us until dawn to dig out the grave and by then we were discovered by the town Wisdom. She was livid, and rightfully so, as we did not gain permission to exhume the body (we did not expect to receive it). She decided to let us exhume the body (I have no idea why she kept on tugging her braid, I think she meant to choke me with it). Upon looking at the body I notice absolutely nothing remarkable and attempt to Twist Fate, which resulted in nothing new revealed, however my clothing went through a fantastic transformation. Thankfully they all remain exactly the same, however they are now magically imbued with the power to resist magic! What a lovely twist! Once again, Zanna to the rescue. She notices that there are two stab wounds and that the ribs are cracked. This seems somewhat consistent with previous stories.

We're pretty sick of the run-around at this point and decide that the Chief and Wisdom will offer us nothing useful and go to interrogate Xander and his wife. They reveal nothing and Xander shows us Jander's sword, the Messenger's sword, that he's keeping safe (it is a magnificent sword that puts the marksmanship on Jorg and Avant's weapons to shame). I'm convinced that Xander is hiding something and we confront him directly. He tells us that the townsmen, led by the Chief, decided to go hunting for whomever was stealing food (that was the pretense). What they really did was go to the goblin cave in order to capture them and make them slaves - which is outlawed by Solace law. The goblins were too smart and would not comply and thus were kept in the cells and a report was filed to Solace for a Writ of Execution to remove the goblins entirely.

Believing that only Edward is responsible for this, we confront the Wisdom with this information and she tells us that she already knew of this information and cares not what we do. Because the Writ that we have is only to exact Justice upon goblins, we can do nothing to the townfolk who have committed crime.

I, along with Coin, are completely livid at this information. These townsfolk were entirely willing to kill innocent creatures, it matters not that they are goblins, who committed no crime at all! I convince the general store clerk that we need to take the goblins to the Magistery and by a Twist of Fate I lost complete sense of time and find myself utterly bored for an hour (I hope this doesn't happen again, there's nothing to be gained by being reminded of mortality and time), which is about how long it took us to prepare to sneak the goblins out. We didn't trust the townsfolk to leave them alive, so we opted to leave as soon as possible.

Together as a group we sneak out all of the goblins and bring them back to the Magistery. At this point we're all completely exhausted as we haven't slept in a day and a half, but we make it back without further incidence. Non-members are not allowed entrance into the Magistery, so Zanna goes in to talk to the clerks. The clerks remain to be obnoxious for no reason that any of us can fathom. A woman with long black hair and crystal clothing (yes, this is an odd description, but I can't come up with any better) comes to speak to Zanna. We re-tell our story and conclusions from the investigation and the woman who calls herself The Blue rules that we let this situation slide. The goblins are to be allowed to attempt to join the Magistery. I immediately voice my disagreement with The Blue to let Edward off the hook for the abuse of Magistery law and justice. If our goal is to exact Justice, how is this at all fair? The Blue tells us that she is Justice.

We're right back where we started, however with a loss of sense of what Justice it is that the Magistery seeks to implement across the land.