Two Weeks Have Passed...

Sypheros 8 - Sypheros 19, YK 998

Since your arrival back in Sharn on 8 Sypheros (an autumn month equivalent to October), about two weeks have passed. Miraculously, in the rain-soaked city of Sharn, the last five days have been sunny, although storm clouds gathered once more a day or two ago, and the rain will almost certainly return soon.

Viorr hired a House Tharashk half-orcish inquisitive named Rar'ashak Duanda to locate and return William's body. After two weeks, Viorr has discontinued his service, as Duanda was unable to find the body. His final report to you indicated that members of the Emerald Claw had been seen by passers-by taking the body away mere minutes after it hit the ground, killing two members of the guard in the process. Duanda tracked down the specific band of the Claw that had snatched the body in Korranberg, just as they attempted to cross the border into Darguun, but they managed to battle him off long enough to sacrifice their own lives rather than giving up further information. He tried to engage a cleric friend in the area to speak with dead, but they had been protected from such intrusions by powerful necromantic magic. He tried to use his dragonmark ability to locate the body, and it was protected by magic as well. Duanda and Viorr express their condolences, but they believe your friend's body to be in the hands of the Emerald Claw.

To add insult to this particular injury, roughly three days after you got back to Sharn, you recieved a summons from Sharri d'Deneith, one that came with several Deneith blademarks should you decide it was a summons to refuse. When you met with Sharri (either willingly or after taking a beating from the trained soldiers), she expressed that she held you responsible for William's death, dragging him into a life of combat that she had expressly forbidden him to engage in. It wasn't a debate, and she shut down all of your arguments that William had willingly, perhaps even a bit overzealously, sought out that adventure. She warned you not to expect friendship from House Deneith, and that the Wandering Wolves would be subject to scrutiny from her house. If she can find a way in the future to hurt you without exposing herself politically, by providing support to your enemies or revealing any illegal activities you're engaged in, rest assured that she will.

Your shop, Gareth's Gear, managed pretty well in its first month of operation. Under the daily management of Jalis ir'Mroranon, a female dwarf with ties to the Mroranon mining clan (whose father is an ambassador in Sharn), you broke even in the very first month and made a tidy sum selling your adventuring spoils. With Tock taking up full-time duties at Gareth's as in-house artificer and crafter of potions, scrolls and wondrous items, the reputation of the shop can only grow.

You have all been forced to curtail your daily duties with Morgrave University thanks to increase roles in adventuring and duties to your Houses, guilds or the shop. Each of you remains on the list for future endeavors in Xen'drik, but your teaching or assisting duties have been severely scaled back in favor of less nomadic help. Figure about one day of each week is now spent at your Morgrave jobs. For Brand, one day organizing and redrawing maps. For Pel, one day in the library sorting books and providing assistance. For Lysander, a weekly music and storytelling class. Luggoth and Kanatash, of course, are not currently gainfully employed.

This also means it was time to move house, out of the dorms of Morgrave. The most logical thing to do would be to either stay at the Guildhouse (5 sp/day each, basically 7 gp for the duration of your stay in Sharn this time) or, if you want a more permanent home, you could rent an average residence for 1d4x10 gp/month or an upscale residence for 2d8x10 gp/month. You could go cheaper, but you're very likely to be robbed or killed in such a neighborhood, given your apparent wealth and despite your formidable skills. You'll each need to let me know your thoughts on where your character is living.

Tock is immune to these changes, of course. Retiring from adventuring, even with his increased work at the shop, leaves him plenty of time to apprentice and teach at Morgrave and he'll continue to live there. However, on 12 Sypheros, four days after returning, he is attacked by a group of students at Morgrave, who seem to be under the influence of someone or something else and don't remember their actions after the attack is stopped by Tock and Morgrave guards. When Tock checks back in on his quarters, he finds them ransacked, although a quick overview indicated that nothing was taken.

During your time in Sharn, the celebration of Wildnight (18-19 Sypheros) will take place. This is a festival during which the Fury, Sovereign of Passions and Madness, reaches the height of her power, and the streets fill with raucous revelry and wild celebrations that last well into the night. Being minor celebrities, each of you has the opportunity to attend several parties as well as just enjoy yourselves on the streets of Sharn. Think of it as Mardi Gras for Eberron, with the same downsides of riots, brawls and crimes of passion mixed in with the hedonistic fun.

Brand - No further contact from your father, although you did exchange general pleasantries and catching up messages on a weekly basis with your mother via Sivis message stations. You found a fair bit in common with Luggoth, given his devotion to the wild, and I imagine you would have helped him find a place to live in Sharn.

Beyond deciding where to live and working two days out of the fourteen, Brand has a pretty free schedule, probably the most open of the entire group. Let me know what you want to do. If you want to take a trip out to the Eldeen Reaches during this time, you can, and that'll take up about seven or eight of your days (two or three of them spent in the Reaches). It's up to you and Luggoth as to whether or not he'd come with you to see the area, which seems suited to his sensibilities as well.

Kanatash - I really need you to write up some background on this character so I have some sense of what he's doing between adventures and what kind of subplots I should be coming up with for him. In the meantime, he needs to decide where to stay and what he wants to do with his downtime in Sharn. There is a Riedran Embassy in the city, and the ambassador often speaks at Morgrave University, where he is well-liked (and well-guarded, before you get any ideas). There are about 1,600 Kalashtar in Sharn (out of roughly 200,000 total population), most of whom live in Overlook, an apartment district in Upper Dura. There, you'll find tailors and restaurants catering to Adaran styles, average or poor residences (Kanatash is one of the few exceptions who could live poor, because he's among a racially friendly populace) and two shrines, The Gathering Light (martial arts/meditation) and The Shrine of il-Yannah (run by a powerful psion named Havakhad and devoted to worship of the Path of Light).

It's up to you whether you live in this area or whether you want to stick closer to your new friends.

Lysander - If he so wishes, Lysander can see Arenydee up to three times during these two weeks. Each time, she will suggest a cautious exchange of information that doesn't endanger either of you too much, along with a meal, then a play, then... well, it would be the third date, if you get my meaning.

As I emailed you privately, your House had one wish for you to engage in these two weeks, you can email me if you don't remember.

Given his adventuring duties, Lysander has not been able to take any long-term gigs in town. However, he has been quite popular nightly at various night spots, as much for his tales of adventure in many lands as for his skillful music. By taking 10 on his performances, Lysander can easily make anywhere from 3-30 sp per day. Given that he probably has about 10 performances during this time, figure that he can easily cover the cost of staying at the guild hall and your dates with Arenydee, or pay for an average residence and burn about 5-10 of your personal gold for those dates. If you want to actually roll the performances or roll the money made, we can certainly do that before the game starts and you can know exactly what you've made and what you've had to spend on lodgings. In fact, I'm willing to trust you if you want to make 10 performance rolls and post them in comments, or let me know if you'd rather take 10 on each performance and I can roll up the gold you earn and post that in the comments.

Lysander has an encounter on 14 Sypheros when he detects that he is being followed. When he takes a detour to try and trap his pursuer, the pursuit vanishes.

Luggoth - As with Kanatash, I really need some background ASAP so I can know what to work with as far as subplots go. As far as basics, though, shifters don't have neighborhoods of their own in Sharn, but most of them are concentrated in Lower Northedge, Middle Tavick's Landing and the Depths. There are only about 6,500 in the city total.

So let me know what you decide about where to live (and deciding to live outside the city is possible, but would make you hard to reach as part of the group, so it's probably not a good idea) and if you want to seek out any kind of work while you're living in Sharn.

Pel - Given the war between The Tyrants and the Daask, not to mention your own shaky standing in the Tyrants, it's probably a good idea to keep a low profile and maintain a cover identity or two while in Sharn. Your monthly contact with Xain at the Cracked Mirror is uneventful, as you pass on information gathered during the Whisper of the Vampire's Blade (including information on Viorr, Lucan, Arenydee and the Soul Blade, I presume) and he warns you that your name, along with the name of the Wandering Wolves, has been mentioned more than once in connection with the Emerald Claw in the city.

In fact, you have a run-in with a pair of well-armed and combat-trained half-orcs during Wildnight who provide you with several bruises before you run them off. You're not sure if this is related to the Tyrants, the Daask, the Emerald Claw or something else.

That's it. You also are free to buy items (both magic and mundane) and do whatever else you want. Use the comments below to let me know anything you want to do in your downtime and to answer any questions raised above, especially where you decide to live and what (in general) you decide to do.