Pizazz's Ravenloft and Beyond

(To the group, not the woman)  "These assigned cases...they're cases where the portals are known and 'registered', but someone owns the property, and the assignment is to effectively evict the owner and hand over the property to the authorities?  That sounds less like being on the receiving end of a dead-end con than searching for new portals - depending on what the pay is like.  But I'm not sure I'm on board with serving the authorities in this scenario."

Asking kid "hrmpfh any other give train and kit hrmpfh" Guess since others don't sign neither will Ulthan.

Etain looks blankly at Ulthan. "Alright then, where to next then? Good choice not taking a job with these guys. They are not well liked. Back to the Inn?" 

Ulthan keeps trying with the kid until kid responds "hrmpfh where portal train hrmpfh" "hrpmfh where portal kit hrmpfh".

"Looks like inn for now." It was about to get dark anyway. Lionel waitied for a pause in Ulthan's "hrmpfhs" and asked Etain something they tried to learn for sometime now. "Say, you want to find someone in this city - without going through the bureaucracy. How would you go about it?"

     Ketch would use his Helm of Many Places to transport the group back to the Inn, once they were ready to go there.  It is nice to be able to skip those boring travel montages once in a while.  

     "I believe our friend is trying to find out where else, besides the bureaucracy, once could find out about portal locations, how to find them, training about them," Ketch asks their guide.  "Perhaps you would know...  less reputable sources?  Reliable but less official?"

With a swirl of energy, the group emerges outside the Inn. They enter and go for some supper. As the group sits about having dinner at the Inn, after a hard day of "taking a tour" and "shopping"...Etain, who you've asked to join you, enjoys the fancy meal and nods heartily, "Ooooooh.  I see now. What's wrong with him. He never learn to talk right, or is he cursed or something? Anyway, tell ya what, when you wake up tomorrow morning, I'll have acquired one of their training documents and portal testing kits, no problem!  As fer how to find someone. I mean, start with me I think. I know all sorts of folks. I can ask around fer ya!  If I can't find 'em....then...Yaddle might know, he seems pretty connected, or you I might suggest'en someone ya could go ask, dependin on who or what this person is...."

"We are looking for a wizard. We know his name - Zikran, and his race - a water genasi. He might be old and interested in elemental magic. I am afraid this is all we are going with at the moment." Lionel enjoyed both the meal, the simple comfort of the inn and the feeling of relative safety. Not that he went native already, but that kind of habit one picks up fast on the path of the warrior.

     "Etain, there may be times we ask for...  Generalities or for  services that you yourself can provide," Ketch says when their guide suggests he can find the wizard we seek.  "We do not ask after other sources because we doubt you or your skills.  It is more that, there are things it may be best, for you, to not get involved with.  Just because we know that we do not know what repercussions there may be.  We don't want to blindly draw you deeply into matters that could get... sticky."

     With the explanation given, Ketch digs deeply into the meal and makes a mess of his gorging the delicacies...

With all his ideas having run out, Ulthan keeps quiet for most of the time and follows the group, seemingly only talking to the cat in seemingly wordless communication.

Meepo also enjoys the meal, happy now that he has his skeletons back.  Not only back, but better equipped than even before.

(Regarding the wizard, the book spirit did say that he could lead you to the wizards workshop...which I think people may have missed....rather than needing to try and do a manhunt in the city of sigil, but if you mean to try the manhunt, you are certain welcome to!!)

((Definitely missed, at least me. I remembered it as "it was long ago, no idea where he is now"))

"Then it settled? At the morning we go to that "workshop" of his  - I mean Zikran - and see for ourselves what we are dealing with. Still, Etain, if you heard that name and know anything about the guy, we would appreciate the information."

     “We should all go and eye the place, but perhaps only one or two of us should be knocking on his door?” Ketch suggests.  “We don’t want the wizard to be immediately put on guard with us all coming to his doorstep…”

(I believe Meepo was looking to learn more about the wizard in question before we showed up on his doorstep. That was why we were seeking information on him.)

"Meepo would like know more about wizard first, but, if want go look over workshop, maybe good plan." Meepo pipes up.

The next morning, after everyone is well rested, you find yourselves, once again, in the Mhole Note Inn's crowded small common room. A corner has been set aside and a half-elf woman, older in complexion, plays a quiet Lute song. Baked loaves of bread, churned tangy tasty butter, tea, along with a roasted rabbit and a fried Arcadian egg is the fare for the breakfast, which is normal enough to suit most of the group, while having subtle exotic spices that remind you all that these foods come from other places. 

Etain has arrived.  He puts down a large brown envelope.  "This is the portal training document and detection kit. Heee...good luck with it."  Ulthan pulls out a pile of papers with precious few diagrams, and a small leather sack filled with...apparently trash.  Trash of all sorts of different things.  Mordekai begins flipping through the papers. It talks about portals in detail, discussing their different variable and factors such as number of times of use, time of day or night, from either end, number of people, size, duration it stays open, appearance, if they're short term or long term, and so on. It then goes into detail discussing keys, for about 5 pages. The sentences frequently end with "or anything else" or "or any other object" or "any other phrase".  But basically talks about triggers to open portals and how they can essentially been any word, phrase, object, environmental variable, action, motion, thought or combination of any of those things.  It's a tedious paper that attempts to describe in detail everything, while remaining open to the fact that anything could be true.  The last page describes the items in the kit listed as "semi-common materials used as keys" but, only lists a handful, and then says, 'and other common key items', and include a pen, a mundane key, a feather, a vial of holy water, 17 marked tokens, each signifying that they were created on a different plane or demi-plane within the Astral sea, including one from Sigil, one from the outlands, and then 15 from other planes.  It contains a bone, a patch of leather, a needle, a steel ball bearing, an iron ball bearing, a copper coin, a small satchel of sand, and a bit of dried rat fur. 

The group does decide to head through the Fortune's Wheel and ask around a bit about Zikran Zephyrean. However, you get the feeling that Sigil is a great nexus of people coming and going, and someone who hasn't been seen in a decade is unlikely to be remembered by too many.  In this case, you get no good leads. Perhaps if you spent more time at it, but, having another lead, you decide to find a quiet spot to open the book and listen to the Gazre-Azam, the genie inside the book. 

"Oh most excellent. I am pleased you have agreed to look into this matter. I knew you seemed the decent type not to leave a creature trapped for an eternity within a book.  Great, yes, I will take you to his workshop...we are here...alright, very well, take the main street outside towards the Market Ward." 

You follow his directions that lead you through to a quiet, dead-end alley in the Lady's ward. Nobody is around, and as usual, the Lady's ward is unusually sparse of people. No one is here. Gazre-Azam nods towards a door in the ally. It's unremarkable, wooden with stained rusted iron bands, with a lock built into it that appears to be quite rusty and unused in quite some time. 

Now what? Lionel did not ask it out loud but the sentiment was clear. Somehow he imagined a castle, not a random door in the empty ally. "Well, since we are here we can as well knock? I am not sure it is wise to split the group, and as strange as we look, anyone can find themselves in need of a wizard. I'd say we all go."

As Mordekai reads through the papers on portals, he lets his head droop and gives a loud fake-snore before snapping back to it.  "Effectively, portals can be anywhere and anything can be the key, or the trigger.  Seems like someone wanted to look like they knew how to hunt portals and produce a training guide, but it basically says nothing of real significance."

As they head on their way out of the inn, Mordekai breathes in the outside air, and surges into a 10 minute rant about how well they have been adapting to such a foreign, strange place - how proud he is of them as a group for blending in, and as he comes to the end he seems like he's finished, but then he drops his voice to a whisper and says excitedly to the group, "...and we defeated a Beholder!"

(Everyone gets 14 Temp HP)

     Ketch is feeling pretty good about himself, up until the last line.  When he hears that his head drops and falls a step behind the rest.  I was trapped in a broom closet the whole time, he thinks to himself a glowers at nothing and everything.  Still, the speech mainly felt good and he was looking forward to perhaps tussling with a wizard?

Meepo skips along, until they reach the alley. He glances around, then places his portable hole on the wall near them, in the alley. He has his skeletons come forth as the others look at the door.