Episode 4: Elfception (we need to go deeper)

Facebook Teaser Blurb
Marja has called a meeting. What could all this be about?

Gimmick
The gimmick for this episode was Marja's Hit List. Marja has come up with 9 people she needs the players to investigate. The GM knows their schedules, so depending on where the players plan to spy on these people, they can have different potential encounters at different times in different places in Nairu.

SPOILERS: One more secret gimmick was used: the players were allowed to vote whether Marja would live or die.

Summary
The party and John Flow were summoned to an excavation site by Marja, on the northwestern face of Mt Nairu. They were shown around the site by Marja's assisstant Marcy. Aiden did not really remember her even though she claimed to have been an ex-student and working for Marja for the last three months. She took them deeper into the cave system to Marja's field office.

There Marja filled the team in on her suspicions. She believes her correspondance has been intercepted, and that university records have been tampered with. She believes whoever has done so has been focussing on the records of elven and half-elven staff and students. John Flow has been looking into things for Marja, making links between suspicious parties and the Elven Embassy. He knows that Ben Burly had visited them several times leading up to Deep Xephora. He feels like a new perspective would help him, so offers to let the party boss him around this month. So do the elves of Avondiel seek the destruction of Nairu?

Marja also told Darraigh what she had promised to tell him a while ago. A Birrish wanderer (possibly Darraigh's father?) once told her of the geographical origins of the Madness in Birrland. Also, elven raiders there take other humanoids for slaves. Avondiel does not do quite as much as that, but their extreme xenophobia makes them suspicious. Marja gave the players a list of 9 people to investigate: Naneel, Ceannor, Yalli and Fealli (the four students who flatted with Caellin), Officer Ash Idril (John's partner in the force), Suri Alasse the Elven Ambassador, his PA Lenwe, Telperion the head of the Points Association, and Bambi.

The party decided that the embassy is a good place to start, and so they decided that the Academy would hold a party for all the ambassadors in Nairu. While waiting for the party to happen, Darraigh tried to learn reading from Aiden but failed. John reported back to them about the goings on around the embassy, and besides the usual comings and goings of some of the suspects, there was also the brother and sister of Caellin holding a vigil outside the embassy until someone gives them news of their sister. Cassander decided to tell Marja about Mah Tanya. Aiden and Darraigh let her know that Cassander slew Caellin. Marja chooses not to bring this up with Cassander.

On the night of the party, Aiden created an illusion so that anyone who peeked into his office would see him there. Then John, Darraigh and Aiden snuck out to the embassy while Cassander tried to work the room. His man on the bar told him that Naneel and Ceannor spoke about pretty normal things and didn't seem to know much. Cassander schmoozed up to Bambi who introduced him to Lenwe. It turned out the two of them are very much into the old religion, and so they invited him to the temple for the next day. He accepted.

Meanwhile, Darraigh broke into the embassy and let the others in. Suri's desk had nothing of note besides a lot of whinging notes from Telperion. But Lenwe's diary had references to the comings and goings of Y and F - possibly Yalli and Fealli acting as couriers between Nairu and Avondiel, along with sums of money that were not matched by the accounts or the petty cash. They planned to intercept one of the brothers on the road if they could find him.

The next day those three went disguised as luchadores to intercept Yalli while Cassander went to the temple. While there he discovered that Telperion had been murdered on his way home from the party, and he grieves with the elven religious community. John expressed his doubts on the road to the other two about whether Marja was right about the elves or not. When they saw Yalli, Darraigh used vines to trip him and break his leg, and then they rode up to 'help' him. They stashed him away on the excavation site for Marja to question.

The next day they learned that Fealli had been killed. They looked deeper into the murders and find that the two died of very similar wounds. Telperion was killed at 3am on his way home in the Points from the party. There were no witnesses. He had taken a deep slash to the back. It was a sneaky, forceful, skilled attack, surely of supernatural origin. Fealli died in a pub brawl at the Sock and Spoon, a mixed race tavern in the centre of town. The brawlers could not identify who gave him the wound, which was identical to Telperion's. Upon investigation Darraigh could sense that Dimension Door was probably used. Aiden researches and finds that the origin of the doors is the Fey realm. They set up anti-scrying, anti-teleporting wards. John looks at the list Yalli was carrying - it is a list of half-elves from Nairu.

Cassander finally tells the others about Marceau, the fey visitor who was sent to murder Caellin, and who warned him not to trust Ben Burly last month. She has just warned him to cancel the investigation or she will kill someone close to him. Darraigh and Cassander argue and part ways. John puts a watch on all remaining members of the "hit list".

In the morning, they find out that John Flow and his watchers have been arrested by Ash Idril, who feared he was up to something. They go to the police office to bail him out, and John and Ash have a confrontation in the boss' office. John opens up to Ash about his suspicions about the city, and promises to keep her in the loop from now on. They find out that Lenwe was murdered, and in her diary on the morning after Telperion's death was written "THAT WAS A WARNING". Cassander goes to the temple to grieve with Bambi. Aiden follows. The people are wary and suspicious. Suddenly the fey's voice speaks in Cassander's ear: "Maybe this will convince you".

Darraigh was talking to Yalli meanwhile, who said that Marcy was taunting him about the death of his brother. Darraigh begins to suspect Marcy. He meets Cassander and Aiden on the road. Darraigh casts an earth spell to make them run faster. They run to the Academy, getting there just in time before Marcy - or Marceau - kills Marja.

Lying wearily on her chaise lounge sometime later, Marja tells the team she will not stop in her pursuit of those who mean harm to her city. Aiden stays by her side as she recovers.

Cassander heads back to the temple, where Bambi begins to speak passionately to him about the cause of the old gods. She convinces him to join her cause - he installs himself as a double agent.

Darraigh meanwhile follows up a dream from Xephora, telling him to come to her and usurp her last champion - his father - who according to her burnt down the Grandfather Tree. At Xephora's shrine, he receives from her the instruction to open the hedgehog's box. He remembers the box the hedgehog gave him in the Dungeon Delve, and he goes to the temple to open. The note says: "Missed me again! Ha! Meet me at the middle of Winter. Bring the faerie bitch."