Aimless Snooping
02–06.6.920
Endergaln
Flashback of Rhun at 30, working the railroad all the live long day underneath the gith’yanki overseers. A train passes with imprisoned slaves, heading toward the black tower on the horizon.
In the present day, Ashen heads to the poor side of town to speak with Ricken, asking him to keep an ear out about a powerful stone that may be being abused to do necromancy, but might be connected to one of the Houses.
Bax stakes out Houses for a few days in the rich districts, learning that the vast majority of the transportation into the Houses is done by rail. Several of the Diamante guards frequent the Sunset Tulip, a popular pub in a nightlife neighborhood.
Peach charms her way into a popular restaurant in the better-heeled section of town and attracts the attention of a zeppelin pilot for the House of Saphaisle, Jin Katar. She says she’s from a flyspeck town and downplays her magic.
Sav and Gwin work on creating dowsing rods to find the other Shard. They discover that Samsel’s Shard has a connection with all the Star-Touched, but the other one seems to lack that; somewhere along the way, Samsel’s Shard (and all the Star-Touched here) were altered, which is why they feel a draw to this one and not the other one. They’re not able to finish the devices. Sav passes out, wakes up at the inn, leaves a message for Peach, and returns the borrowed outfit to Karal, engaging in conversation about private salon shows and his interest in hiring Peach and Bax to model for him.
Ethan investigates the pinkish shard he found, and Frankar the jeweler pronounces it a gemstone, but harder than diamond.
Peach finds Sav to ask what the message was about, since Sav wrote it in cipher in their tiredness, and Sav explains that they want Peach to write two editorials to the Southtown Gazette under assumed names: one pro-Returned, one anti-, and see what bites come from each.
Four days later, they gather at the workshop to relate their findings. Sav shares that they and Samsel’s Shard are more intrinsically linked, and that they think Danica was behind it (given as Last Hand of the Stars was patterned in the energy coming off it). Ashen shares that when Salinger returned, there was an echo of that telltale tension, about three seconds between.
They bat around ideas to locate the Shard a little more specifically, ranging from just hiring people to find the Shard (Ashen, disliked by Ethan and Sav for leading back to them too easily), pretending to be an adventurer who found a Shard to see who pokes around, putting their Shard on display to see who pokes around (Gwin dislikes this), using Karal’s salon to infiltrate the bigger houses and having someone slip off to snoop while the show is going on, getting Karal to design an entire collection around the Shard to see who’s too interested, hosting a bigger competitive fashion show to get all the Houses together to form connections and mingle, and on. Nothing concrete comes out of it.
Salinger returns, and nobody feels an echo.
Ethan reveals his friend/the writer Xander Quillwick disappeared and hands over the shard of pinkish gemstone. Salinger realizes it’s the same material and hue as Rhun Enkerig’s hammer. Ethan asks for help tracking down Rhun and Xander while Sav and Gwin finish up the device to locate the Shard and they figure out how to narrow down the location/House. After Yev asks for a description or drawing of Rhun to keep a better eye out for him, Sav and Sal work together to shape a Minor Illusion into Rhun’s likeness, best as Sal can remember and describe.
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