AEHU/Plot/Plot Sketch Chapter 12
"Complications"
- While Slash and Flea search for signs of the Magus in Choras, Leene cares for Frog at the inn and Wittel checks in on Sensei and Brione.
- Sensei is apparently starting to go crazy, babbling about a sudden compulsion to journey westward.
- On his way to the Lord Magistrate's manor, Wittel passes through the Frog Festival grounds, which have grown silent with dead frogs everywhere -- a sign of the plague. Wittel finds Brione distraught after the malnourished Imp children previously left in her care have perished. He gives her advice on how to avoid catching the plague (he learned this from Raqh's cult in Porre) should it jump from its animal vector to humans.
- Wittel returns to the inn and Leene offers to buy him dinner. They discuss some thematic things and very sutble hints are dropped that Leene is in fact his mother. Wittel witnesses Dalton and Artemis hire Toma to help locate Levantine and also takes note of Edmund lurking in the corner of the inn's bar.
- Wittel is distracted by an NPC who walks into the inn exhibiting signs of the plague, and he advises that the ill person be confined in a remote location outdoors per advice given to him by Raqh back in Porre.
- Wittel returns to the inn to find Edmund, Leene, and Frog gone. He gathers Slash and Flea and they find Edmund hitching a ride aboard a Guardian ship setting sail laden with a final shipment of untainted Choran foodstuffs. They likewise stow away and find that even Sensei has snuck on board, driven by an apparently instinctual compulsion to travel toward the Zenan mainland.
- Wittel & co. encounter Edmund and secure Frog and Leene.
- Ozzie launches an attack on the Guardian shipping vessel, accompanied by Sprigg, who has betrayed his faction for the sake of Mystic unity/food. When they're fought off the vessel, Ozzie's gang burns it and Sensei puts out the fire with Ice magic, shocking everyone including himself.
- There's a great argument amongst the party about what to do next; Slash wants to follow the subordinate who betrayed him back to Medina and find out what's happened to his group, but Flea supposes that his group is already dead or joined Ozzie, and convinces him that they need to find the Magus if Medina has any hope of overcoming the political stalemate causing Mystic civilization to wither. Wittel notes that Raqh promised to return to Porre on a specific date, and the Magus will probably be accompanying Raqh. Sensei observes that they still have some time to kill and prevails on the party to continue toward Guardia. Frog has enough strength to teach Wittel how to use magic, with Sensei assisting.
- The party arrives in Guardia, where Sensei leads them to Banta the Blacksmith. It is revealed that Sensei's insistence on a westward journey was fueled by premonitions that Banta is undergoing some ordeal, which the party helps him with and which results in the revelation that Banta has suddenly gained the ability to use Fire magic.
- The party meets Artemis, Dalton, and Toma, who are investigating leads into Levantine's whereabouts, beginning in Guardia (Guardian soldiers would have raided Levant's laboratory and may have stolen the weapon or whatever state it was in at that time). They find that a former Guardian soldier found an item of interest during the seige of the Magus' citadel in 600AG, and the name of that Guardian soldier was Marco. Sensei, sensing nebulous danger again, prevails upon the party to intercept them at Fiona's villa.
- Dalton, Artemis, and Toma arrive at Fiona's villa and their search for Levantine turns violent when Marco doesn't pony up with whatever is supposedly in his possession. After a showdown, Wittel & co. learn more about Levantine and Dalton's party heads to Porre after Marco gives them some important clue. Fiona, Sensei and Banta convene the Magic Guild and find their purpose (possibly something to do with keeping Gladus at bay, requiring Levantine). Robo joins, either to accompany Fiona or on his future counterpart's suggestion to observe the goings on more closely.
- [Behind the scenes, Raqh uses his spirit channelling capability to discover that Levantine will provide the catalyst they need to open the DBT gate. He and Magus are thus drawn into the quest for Levantine.]