As Far As You Can Tell – Episode 8

The Church
Veil, Raziel, and Hove go back to the church of Astea. There are around 125 people this time. The bishop is saying “by any means necessary”, and the group begins talking about Steve being missing. Lydia Dean is talking to Peyton, and Veil jumps into the conversation. Lydia wants Veil to go to Old Glory and find out what happened to Steve Roberts.

Old Glory and Holly
Veil, Raziel, and Hove go back to Old Glory. Unsurprisingly, they do not like Asteans. They say a blue vasar took Steve outside. The vasar wore armor and seemed to worship Vangal, which leads the party to think he might be connected to a nearby stronghold run by the church of Guardian (Vangal in the Isril pantheon).

Veil returns to Holly to report her findings, explaining that she’s not with the fanatics, and that she is also trying to figure out what is happening here. The Asteans appear to be trying to stir up the city and create tension; even staging assaults on their own people. Steve was captured in Old Glory, but Holly says Steve is upstairs at the inn and she has been using him as her contact. He is in room 406. The party speculates that the Asteans may be using Darkest War vets to create tension and instigate violence because they make good radicals.

Guardian, and the Church by the Docks
The party visits the church of Guardian, who is actively avoiding the Astean worshippers. We meet Gail, a human male, mid-30s, and part of the ‘Astean Church’. While at the docks checking out the Astean church we discover that the Astean church is definitely fake, as previously thought. The kitchen is full of food and the group is getting another warehouse next door. The groups learns that Peyton and Lydia are both of divine magic and full of strong power, though they are not too sure of their deity. A ship called the Seven Sisters is bringing food to Isril for the church; the ship comes in every two weeks. It is currently at the docks.

Research and Magic
Ana and Violet start to research the area and history. They visit the library, where they speak with the librarian, Mazie Hopkins. Mazie thinks Luca is crazy, but she had an affair with him in the past. She mentions that the Blackburns were well-liked, and then, like a switch, were not so well-liked, similar to what is happening to the party when traveling from town to town. This happened about sixty years ago. Walter bought the entirety of the Blackburn estate. Mazie sends Ana and Violet to Sky at the Eldritch House to learn more about the scepter.

The Eldritch house is at the Solitude Crest, a library in the north side of the town. The contact (Sky Gray) addresses the girls after a little while. Sky is an ace’rin at least a few centuries old. She provides the girls with information on the scepter and gives Violet a starters kit with scrolls.

Summaries

Dewdrop:
Dewdrop was a town between the Keep and Anchorage. Luca mentioned it was destroyed 150 years ago, but mentioned it was ruined by a vandiel which doesn’t line up with the Darkest War timeline. Per Mazie, Dewdrop was destroyed 62 years, 7 months, and 7 days ago.

The Keep:
Per Mazie, the Keep was destroyed 175 years, 7 months, and 4 days ago. (Note: this means that something may happen in roughly 10 months.)

The Scepter:
Mazie has a sketch of a scepter but Ana and Violet aren’t sure it’s the same thing. Sky has a sketch of a scepter, everything on the bottom is the same, but the top is bright where the scepter Veil is looking for was shadowy. The scepter in the picture is the scepter of Whiterose; Patience destroyed all copies, so there is no replica. As far as Sky knows the scepter is not magical.

Loot: Violet receives scrolls from Sky.