Inaugural Mission: Case of the Missing Grimoires

Our first session was last Friday - and I'm going to try and be good to write a short summary of each game here and on the wiki just as a system of record.

Session 1, Mission 1: Case of the Missing Grimoires

Our session opens in Santa Cora, the city of churches. The newly minted cadre of Sigil Bearers have finished their orientation training (that involved infiltrating the restricted area of the Elf Queen's palace, numerous bar brawls, some of which had their origins in fights over the origin myths of the world, stopping thieves who were too foolish to keep their voices down, and numerous other hijinks and shenanigans). They have been set up in various cover jobs - well Mairenne, the High Elf Cleric is back to her old job as curator of the Cathedral's archives, Annel, Elven Paladin is there as a researcher, but the rest have been set up in roles that suit them - Aurora, half-elven sorceress as bar wrench, Mercillina, the Trueblooded human bar as the inn's resident bard, and Nadezhda, the Dragonspawn Warrior, is the inn's biggest stable boy.

No one fucks with the horses anymore.

No one.

It isn't long before they receive their first summons, and make their way to the safehouse that has been established for them. There they wait in an inner room with no windows and only a single obvious door until Vasorious Sicam makes his appearance - the acknowledged leader of the Sigil Bearers, he has the Emperor's ear. He's a severe, stern, rigid man with the weight

And Aurora knows him as Uncle Vaz.

The mission is simple infiltrate a location and eliminate a thief. The Empire found a merchant smuggling tomes to the Diabolist, and it was obviously not the first set of tomes that the bitch in the north had received. The tomes were all related to Demons, and some of the most sensitive of the tomes contain actual rituals for summon specific demons.

With some preliminary legwork, they were able to trace access to the tomes to four individuals:

1. Antis Dias - High Elf Head Librarian - With his access he'd have no problem pilfering.
2. Crito Valunus - a young human priest
3. Sarvag Steelheart - A Forgeborn soldier of the Crusader.
4. Kinarao Epukena - Highblooded Human who's family is a minor nobility in the northern regions of the Empire.

With that Vasorious disappeared as quickly as he appeared, with nary a sound nor shadow flickering. Plumbing the depths of her memory, Mairenne recalls that Antis had, once upon a time, an issue with the rar purple Ryllae blossom, an Elven drug - which got him into a bad place, taking bribes to sell books. But he cleaned himself up, and the Priestess forgave him and gave him a second chance.

The cadre quickly divided up the targets - Mairenne would go in her official capacity, and focus on Antis, while getting the others the necessary credentials and access privileges (what happens when you game with a bunch of gov't contractors, it is ALL about the indoctrination briefings) Nijadja will be working oversight outside of the library, mostly because there's little for a 6'+ Dragonspawn who has little interest in studies. Annel will pursue Crito, Merci will speak to Sarvag, soldier to soldier, and that leaves Aurora with Kinarao.

The group quickly and easily infiltrates the library. And pursues their targets. Contact is easily made - Antis seems happy to have company, albeit a bit beleaguered with the larger than normal crowd; Crito is obviously stressed about something, Sarvag is very angry about not being allowed to take books out of the library and nearly knocks over a shelf (apparently nearly knocks over a shelf again) and Kinarao is mysterious and coy about her reasons for researching the demons.

Yup, all suspicious.

Time passes somewhat uneventfully, Nija explores the outside with the help of small critters. And takes note of the heavily armed soldiers of the Crusader occupying a restaurant within eye shot of the front doors of the library.

There's one small crisis point where Sarvag rants at Antis again, and Merci offers up Aurora's use as a scribe for 11 shillings a day. A bargain is struck, and Aurora is somewhat intimidated by 7' of hulking metal with a soul but no face.

Merci quickly moves to establish the friendship with Kinarao, who is definitely eager to get into the most restricted area of the vault where the grimoires of true power lay.

Crito hearing the clock ring out races out of the library and Nija pursues him; however, she eventually loses him in an alleyway.

At the same time, the cleaning staff comes in as dusk falls and the library begins to close. One of the cleaning staff is a halfling who stumbles and knocks over the pile of books that Aurora has been carefully taking notes from, knocking lose Sarvag's book marks and ruining her work.

Sarvag is very much. Not pleased. Not pleased at all. Ulan, the halfing janitor quickly learns that being small and quick is little help when you are in the monster's grip and several feet off the ground. After a brief confrontation with Antis, Ulan is hurled into the ground by Sarvag who takes one look at Aurora's work, tosses her a silver and commands her to attend at dawn the next day. 

Ulan picks himself up as Antis berates him soundly for his clumsiness. The party is almost instantaneously suspicious of Ulan and whether he is a plant for Sarvag or another player in this little game.

The session draws to a close with the group meeting back up to work over the first day of case notes.

GM Notes: For a first session things moved quickly. People eventually fell into their roles and seemed to have a lot of fun with what went on. Game sessions are only about 2-2.5 hours long, so they'll be short and hopefully information dense - I expect several chickens to come home to roost quickly next session.