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Amherth Diaries, Session I: Masquerade

First session, first recap. For letting you get what's happening avoiding spoilers, I'll just post step by step events, so that you may always catch up.
Good luck.

- The usual party of Summer's End takes place at the Blueberry / Garrett estate. Dancning, Mask contest with the "Season" theme, and more group play will keep on going until dawn, while the Guild of Entertainers will take care of its hosts. In any possible manner.
It's just a matter of time: intrigue and chit-chat takes the toll, masked behind the "party mood". No one is calm and quiet. The Elven Greystone sisters seem already on the point to leave. The other nobles are drunk or worst. There are merchants and sailors invited as well, just to show that the Entertainers embrace them all. Cirice ends up hating' him. She's not A woman. She's THE woman and the winner (again) of the mask contest: all flowers, colored mask... Summer in its full beauty,


- A misteryous man we talked about in the Elowen's backstory, seems to stay there, changin' dress every five minute. Only his green eyes behind the masks are always the same. He manage to catch the attention of many ladies and women, he ends up making 'em nervous. 



- After dinner, a body lies lifeless in a darkened side of the party room. It's Hleib, a southern merchant there with her wonderful exotic creature, Shamyr. Hleib has been clearly poisoned, violet/purple vomit meshes up with white pus from its mouth, eyes opened, veins exploded. 
Gillian the Grim takes care of it, with Arthur, the other Witch Hunter wich is a bit drunk at the moment (brother of our crazy Cirice).
They decide to keep the murder secret and move the body in the near house of servants. There, they'll proceed with further investigation.

- Shamyr looks for her father around, but Cirice and Liam take care she won't find him... yet. More answers needed.


- In the meanwhile, Elowen goes upstairs and tries to see if something weird happens in the garden, when Cirice, with great roleplaying, pushes the party "outside" the main estate and let it go in the garden, so that no one notices the weird movement inside. Investigators of the Adventurer's Guild cooperate with the Hunters at the moment.

Elowen spots a shadow going away through the back entrance to the estate's garden. She gets a bow and shoots. Hits. He falls down, asleep. She hope he's not dead, goes down, grabs him with his wound pouring blood and asks assistance of the others. Another "quasi-corpse" reach the servants house. And now they were two.

With the help of the Adventurers, they heal the "shadow", which then comes back to consciousness and reveals himself as a nameless assassin. No much torture is needed before he confess to have received a letter from a mysterious bearded man. The letter wasn't obviously his. It came from a "woman" (obvious by her calligraphy, he swears), probably of Elven education (style is pretty clear, he swears).
A letter and 200 gold to kill an almost nameless merchant. 

Why?
The only curious and valuable (but still odd) thing found in the merchant's bag is like a cloak made of wolven fur... Not something you would put in the fiery deserts of Al Sirath, nor in deep summer at Tradeport...

- It's here that things get a bit weird. With Shamyr now aware of what happened and some possible chaos coming out from the Servants' House where Witch Hunters, Adventurers and other players argue on what's the path to follow, the weird woman-looking Fynch (thief in the Adventurer's guild and right hand of her master Beatrice) gets one of its awesome... terrifying ideas.

"Why don't you sing a song?" asks to Liam the Bard. "Jot down lyrics about 200 golds being given for a murder. It's your family's party. You can get on the stage whenever you want. You sing, we watch. If the "elf woman" (or any other possible sender) is here we should notice a bit of  "movement", don't you think?"

The idea is dangerous as stepping into hell itself: a dangerous provocation, but actually effective. And that's what happens.

Liam sets the stage for an improvisation, asks his bandmates to help him with the right notes and while everyone is in the garden not knowing exactly why, he starts singing....

Cirice stays downstairs, wathcing the audience. Elowen goes upstairs and looks everyone from above. Gillian the Grim, as always, fakes entertainment. And watches.

Some people react in a weird way:

- the Greystone sisters seem a bit disturbed and nervous. The wonderful Garlene (the fighter-ish sister of greystone matroni Lanathiel) stands up and goes into a brush, probably pissing or vomiting.

- Paul Garrett, the organiser, seems quite upset.

- Diane Garret, children of Paul and cousin to Liam the Bard goes to the huge Dwarf running the banck (for which she works as a message-handler) and laughs with him.

- Lady Torlane and his husband are quite frustrated, they don't seem to like the performance at all. But they are all about weaving.

- Some applaude, some are kinda serious.

At the very end of the performance, Henry, the anonymous husband of lady Aurelie Torlane (remember, leader of the Weavers' Guild) goes straight to Liam the Bard. Henry is a small man, bold and one guy you usually forget pretty soon.
He's completely drunk, but moved by unexpected strength, pushes Liam against the wall. Almost on the point of blurping or vomiting on to the bard's face, weird flavors coming out from his drunken and slobberish mouth, he speaks: "You don't dare going further, dumb boy. Nobody cares if you are smart. Don't get yourself into troubles and matters you can't handle. Give up, idiot. Idiot." Then pushes Liam away and goes vomiting around, grabbed by her wife, which suddenly leaves the party with him.




- The Greystone sisters follow. A new guest comes, a girl named Shady (obviously a fake name) which studied at the not so fare Magician Academy, where she got kicked out from... She seem to now Celemor, the "good" arcane master Greystone sister, which steps back and hail to her, as her seems interested in what's going on in the small group of conspirators (the players, which spend most of the time by themselves, sometimes in the company of the mysterious man changing his clothes, which Shady seems to know well too). 




- It doesn't take very long until Shady gets to know what happened and the mysterious guy appears once more (with a drunk woman badly in her forties) whispering to them "Pay attention. Don't know what you're doing, but I know this is a dangerous matter. Stay unite, don't mess with anyone."

No one still knows why this men keep seducing AND helping the group (or, I should say, the women in the group)... Anyway, Shady seems to have some unresolved troubles with him, since as he passes by, she kicks the drunk woman on a leg, letting her fall with the face in the mud. Consequences at your discretion.

Mysterioyus guy needs another prey tonight. It wont't take much before he will find another one... but why Shady is so angry with him?

Anyway, speaking about murders...
Adventurer's Guild will take care of the dead man and the "assassin". Later, near the end of the party, they'll meet and find a way to get a bit more.

In the meanwhile, the party seems on the verge of its death before dawn, with only commoners and the most vicious nobles staying until the end, using the more quiet environment to talk about affairs, money, promises, contracts...



With some night hours to spare and lots of questions in their mind, the group reunites  after a cocktail and tries to figure out what happened, putting order in what they saw. About Hleib, the poor Al-Sirath merchant suddenly poisoned... about the weird reaction of her beloved Shamyr which seems to go for the anger way rather than desperation mood... About the weird behavior of some hosts, the Henry's exploit against Liam (careful warning or threat?)...

Summer's end turns into a deep enigma.

It's enought for Session 1. Session 2 already played, recap online pretty soon.

In the meanwhile, start using your brains.
We'll meet at the Adventurer's Guild, later.

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