The Raven

There is a foot of snow outside. Veil hears tapping on the window, and she opens it, letting a raven inside. The party feeds and pets it. Veil asks who it belongs to, and it lands on her shoulder. It then drinks water from the sink. The group realizes that this is the same bird that was with Araznad, and they come to the conclusion that it must have followed us from Shardfalls. The bird has recently been in a fight, and has a claw mark on it. They think it’s weird that the bird found the window. Veil is happy about this, as a raven is considered a boon from the Nightmother. The party learns that Aelric left in the middle of the night. Veil sends Rowan to check in on the Void, and find out where they rank in the criminal enterprise of Dragonheart. He says that this will be a short trip, and he’ll be right back. He tosses a small insignia at the group that appears to be a small medallion the size of a gold piece. It’s dark shimmery grey, and displays a cowled face. The features of the visage are ill-defined. He says that this was their calling card when he was in the Void. He leaves to see where they are located and find out names.

Church of the Wyrmfather

The party heads to the church, and the raven goes with them. They arrive, and find bloodstains dried on the floor. The bodies are where they were left. Veil looks over the place, and is able to recreate the combat entirely. The attackers came in at night under the cover of darkness. They started at the cliff face entrance and quickly killed the people in those rooms working their way backwards. They saved the high priest for last, which the party finds odd, because his quarters are not too far away from where the combat started. Veil comes to the conclusion that the fight either started quickly or quietly. She recalls that back in the day the Void were not quiet, or quick.

Two odd things:
1) No void were fallen in the combat. They somehow managed to kill 75 members of a militant church with no deaths of their own.
2) The Void did it without the high priest ever figuring out they were doing it. It seems that they never left.

However, the party is able to quickly figure out how they got in and out. In the main room off to the side, in a shadowed alcove, they find the remains of a tear in the fabric of planes. There is a small portion of the air that looks like you’re looking through a cup of water. It leads to the Gloom, but it’s closing. It appears that the Void are getting around in a manner similar to Veil, but with an ability that lets them cross much further distances in an instant, rather than minutes.  No person has this innate ability, so the source is probably an item. They realize that the group must be highly organized, because if they don’t travel through the Gloom together in a coordinated effort, someone could get lost forever.

The members of the Wyrmfather were wealthy, it seems. They find secret passages that link all the temple rooms together and run under the city. They find no evidence of anyone passing through here, but come across a cache of gold. The party enters a large cavern in U sections of raised tiers – the type of organization that a Naugrix follower would want. Here there are stone dragon eggs, and a large dragonstone dragon stands in the center. Here they find a full dragon horde. The area looks undisturbed. Hove decides to go through the office.

Back to Town

They party heads back to town, and finds the Daily Dragon. In the paper there are references to the missing clergy. The article was written be Elmon Dahara, an older guy in Dragonheart. They then go to For Cod’s Sake, a fisherman’s shop, and store called Crease Lightning, which sells clothes that do not wrinkle. They come across another shop called What Ale’s You, a liquor store.

After taking in their surroundings, the party goes into Crease Lightning. A small portion of the building was originally Ana’s uncle’s alchemy shop. The whole corner was build and remodeled – Crease Lightning inhabitants the first floor, and above are apartments. Ana buys a tunic and makes small talk with the associates. They say that the store has been here for a while, and claim that some crazy alchemist fire burnt down the store that as originally here.

Hove and Raziel make a distraction so Veil and Ana can go downstairs. However, there are no clear stairs leading down, so they find where the staircase once was and it is now a trap door. Hove and Raziel take the salespeople to the back, and Violet closes the store. Ana and Veil go down into the basement after breaking the trap door. The room below looks like an alchemist lab. Ana has never been down here before – she realizes this must have been a private space of her uncle’s. Upstairs, Hove and Raziel’s attendants start fighting about shoes.

Ana and Veil can tell this is a place where her uncle did personal experiments. Everything is perfectly labeled and placed around the room in an orderly fashion. There are small work tables, lab benches, and chests and containers all over the room. There is also an eldric cooling vat. Ana start putting stuff in the bag of holding. She locates a set of experiment novellas all numbered and marked and on his desk, as well as a revoicer. She puts everything she can fit in her bag. Ana recalls the door to this room as something she saw, but she was never allowed in. He said there were dangerous beasts inside. The girls travel back upstairs, and Violet reopens the store.

In the aftermath of the distraction, Raziel’s attendant won the fight. The two women start fighting again on the podium and fall in the hole in the floor — from the basement, they try to get Hove and Raziel to stay and buy goods. The party instead leaves and goes back out onto the busy street.

Apartment

Back at the apartment, no one is home. The raven tugs Veil’s hand to go to the window, and down by the temple to Uryll there seems to be a group of four men looking around confused. They are all humans wearing fine leather outfits, with cloaks and cowls covering their heads. They’re obviously Void members. Raziel goes and lands behind one of the guys, who says he’s looking for Veil. Raziel said that he will take him to her – he brings them to the first floor.