Revelations
With Qin still at the inn, Helmut, Rin, and Tallyn meet Alanud after talking with his wife for a while. Their names in actuality are Lanad and Del respectively. Tallyn recognizes them from legend. They describe a god by the name of Melos that has escaped the years after the fall Tevareth by trapping this region in its own delusion, perverting the shrines to the other God’s that have fallen. Things change and are remembered differently by the people in this region unless they hold amulets such as the ones that we were certain had always been around our necks.
We are working with a God hunter named Larth and it seems like despite mystery to the origins of his group, they are specifically taking out Melos in this instance. Both Lanad and Del find him to be an unsavory ally, but an ally nonetheless. Word should come from him on where the next shrine is, but until then, we need to be careful not to cause people to take too much notice of us. Nothing weird.
Time to stock up.
Shopping
We leave their place, and immediately head to the inn to catch up Qin on all the details. There we briefly part ways. Rin goes to the blacksmith to get some modifications and buy some things. Tallyn and Qin go to the book store where Tallyn senses a number of magic books, including one behind the counter that he leaves alone. He finds a history book that mentions Melos writing down the results of some epic battle and a book that helps him perform some new tricks.
A house of trickery
After we meet up, we head back to Lanad and Del’s house. They inform us that our “friend” has been by and he has given us directions to the next shrine. It’s the shrine for the old god Hugo, god of trickery, and it is north west through some farm lands. A small house on a hill. They also give us a few things including some ashes that can be rubbed above our eyes to give us visions—though maybe unreliable ones.
We go there directly. Ready for trickery, whimsy, and what ever else the gods might have left behind. The house seems smaller than previous shrines, and as we enter it we notice not only the depictions of Hugo drinking merily, but that this shrine looks to have been undisturbed for a long time. We head further in until we find a room with a sunrod. Tallyn, staying a bit further back notices there’s a lot of magic coming from deep within.
As we enter the room, a figure appears who calls himself Merrick. He seems to know un awful lot about our situation, naming the players and basically calling us out on what we’ve been up to. To proceed in our quest, he wants to play a game with us. We don’t get a choice.
Rin proceeds to go back the way we came and notices that things have changed, the entrance area now opens up into a town in old Tevareth with people speaking Tevarin, a language familiar to only Helmut and Tallyn. We learn rather quickly where the mayor’s house is, and play up the visitor card.
Upon entering the mayor’s house, Rin begins acting more foreign than usual and uncouth. Using the special prophecy ashes, Rin sees the mayor gesture from behind his door and a pouring of guards comes out. We enter and speak with him. He welcomes us warmly enough and makes small talk. Soon, a woman and child enter the room and screams, “That’s them!” The mayor doesn’t lose a beat, summoning the guards from the door behind him. Rin, literally, saw this coming.
Acting quick, Rin yells to everyone to “RUN!” and then does some fancy acrobatics, distracting the guards while everyone runs away. Helmut grabs Qin who seems to be stumbling, and they bolt. They run past a guard, tell him there’s trouble inside, and he just goes direclty in. Meanwhile, Rin is jumping around all, throwing random things and making a scene. Then runs into the waiting room, uses his shield to bash through the window and rolls down the hill, running to catch up with the crew.
Guards seem to be following us, and we make our way away from the crowds, hiding behind a hill. We here the guards go by without looking too close for us. Shortly after, we here a winded guard taking up the rear. We ambush him with kindness, and charm him into telling us what-the-hell is going on. He explains a grisly murder happened and the culprits were getting away. They were in hot pursuit! We tell him we want to help. Maybe they went back to the scene of the crime! He takes us, and once there, we give him permission to leave us to go to the pub. Not a lot of vomit-inducing gore to see there. And hey, maybe those badguys needed a drink.
We enter and find “Where is Merrick?” scrawled on the wall everywhere, a dead body in the corner resembling Merrick. It twitches, moves, and asks us, “Having fun yet?!” Suddenly it’s night.