At the promontory of Baden's Bluff lies several wharfs which take you to the isle of Cauldron fueled by volcanic activity. The word that you got from the traders who excavated a ring around the city to augment its British-esque focus on sea vessels is maintained by the leader of the city Vhalantru. Being a floating creature, he actually painted the conflict between the demons, one from Cauldron, and the other from Baden's Bluff. Sister citie, like Minneapolis and St. Paul. It's even like the division of continents at Constantinople (flavorwise on the real-world stuff as we discussed). The road from Arwick (penned Arwich by some older chronologers) is one that you caught from the water demon as sung by the locals coming out for its yearly feast. It's rumored that he lives in a stagnant lake in the center of the volcano city Cauldron. The rest of the lake stays very cold, 4 degrees Celsius in the winter to 14 degrees Celsius in the summer. Seasons are as normal. So one of the water gates (4 of them, as you'v eread) allows after your entry your casting of rope to the docks. The latest shipment of halfling goods from Baden's Bluff is unknown, but with a couple of questions you could ask the hitcher for some of the spilt beans.

The wagon set abreast the boats tug cabin sits in a heaping poile of gravel used to pave theb streets It's almost like the wagon is a dragon sitting on his hoard (and it is rumored that there is a dragon named Hookface nearby who guards the region as though it were his own. The ice sits on the water from the demon named Floe, who spilled his guts on land near the elven festivities. The water now waits calmly for the resumption of his Cthulhu-like slumber. Some say that it isn't floe, it's a land demon named Scree.

But regardless the school's mission in Baden's Bluff is seen as an afternoon where brows are wiped and trade goods exchanged between cities. The boat coptainhas a tatoo on his neck and won't stop talking about it, he calls it Purple Sheen but says so with a dour face as though by campfire. The gates slowly open, taxes aid, and you're in Cauldron at the solstice, when the demons strike but have now retreated.

The city spills before you like an overturned bowl of noodles. Everything is crawling into this or that, and you know that it has caverns (for those of you with experience in the Underdark some of the leads that you've been chasing sit tight below the town waiting for the volcano to explode. On the boat you can see the cracks in the ocean floor through peaceful mired sea and there is a note of solemnity when the snows eventually fall upon roofs gilt in plastic tones). So this is where the demon fled like smoke across the waters to end up in a genie's bottle somewhere, and you can see on your map that there is the pale form of the city lying like its reality, the spindly guards who patrol the walls. Hopefully you can sneak in; as you get closer the din becomes noticeably harsher without being combative. But from what you've read, fights break out all the time in this pirate city.

Lady Maevre had set up camp in a little bluff overlooking the city and was watching it carefully. The smoke rising from it was not a good sign: Great Fires were the enemies of cities everywhere. Well everywhere except her homeland of course

Turning to view her little camp: a small but comfortable and watertight tent, a place for her pony and saddlebags. The firepit dug down and lined with stones so it would hidden at almost any distance

"What do you think Gregor?" she asked her new traveling companion "I would fly over the walls. At night I wouldn't be noticed. I can carry a rope and lower it to you if that would help. Or do you have your own way of getting in?"

"Alternatively we can pay the tax. My worry is the 'attention' we might get not the money. I do have a disguise magic so..." she shrugged

"I'll leave it to you to decide. I'm happy both ways"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:21, Tue 13 Dec 2022.

The smell of smoke astringently assaults your nostrils, which dilate as though the astiraxes you had encountered earlier had been sniffing out magic even this far afield from the dense trade networks existing in the central parts of Eredane. Baden's Bluff screams with a shrill note, and surely people are getting trampled. The white city nestled into the Sea of Pelluria forms a u-shape that cradles the smoke, effulgently tipping the scales toward the moon, which dwells upon the damage done by the namesake of its crusaders. Selene cratered leaves the light more easily guiding your path for the orcs and elves of the party, should they ever join such a hardy group as yours.

Legends of Lady Maevre's homeland seem to blend with the crepescular lowlands dotted with firs that overshade your rolling approach to the city. The fire you have pales in comparison to that which makes racous the city. At this point things that drew your eyes and ears have settled a little bit, meaning you could get into the gate but might have to shoulder your way through, but wouldn't be trampled. The pony brays against its stirrups, leaving the volcano dormant for now but seeming to invite a little unease amongst the humanoids and their beasts of burden.

Troubadors, which had previously been a significant inset gem in the city, are now reduced to floundering and panicking amidst the volcano's persistent rumbles, and the gods have, before, stayed the hurricanes off the Sea of Pelluria with a gesture towards stopping the volcano eruptions, balancing the elements. You feel someone bump into you as you make your way into the city, and though it is invisible (please make initiative and reflexe save rolls), you aren't totally distracted by the violent presence (which sounds like a forge churning out katanas, a sword well discussed in the annals of the Sword Sage Gang of Three [which some of you are visting this reason, for the accredited and famed guild-like fixture that hires people on a temporary basis. They create giant symbols to appease the lake gods, and your Knowledge checks indicate that the windigos and leviathans were once plentiful, wizards having blended the lake and water in the crater to divvy up the ice sculptures come a dormant winter).

You can feel heat coming off of the man in your way, if he is a man. As he brushes against you, the sound you heard intensifies, leaving vacant the void left by clicks and pops of scratchy flame as he becomes visible. You can see appearing several meters in front of you creatures (and a Spot check by the GM) you can see corpses littering the ground, and you know that they'll become skeletons at night. Overhead a meteor strikes, they being more common in this area than in other so-called "pigeons," the term for regions amongst those who study the lore of the Free Xities. In addition to the Sword Sage Gang of Three being the major economic outfit, there is a record heat today, which is usually when the volcano erupts but today the weather retreats glumly into its leather trappings. The gallavanting of several fire elementals becomes clear, disoriented as though they just appeared. And then their former invisibility compliments their arc-light shape, a vast unknowing mediating the distance between the parties, rings attached to their hands.

Lady Maevre winced at the mess in front of her. Despite the fact she had tried to be a long way from everywhere a man had somehow found her. And then something like fire elementals (a thing given her ancestry that she was particularly wary of) had appeared out of nowhere.

Somewhat slower than her usual best she faded out of sight and flew away to a place out of line of sight from the elementals hiding behind some natural obstacle.