Keeping Mum

DM: DMNola

A tenday before Greengrass, a Lliiran carnival came to Highmoon in preparation for the holiday. There, Serra Everjoy was given a bouquet of scarlet roses bearing a secret assignment in verse – an assignment from the Scarlet Mummers. Joybringer Aria Nightglow had been murdered in Hillsfar, and avenging that murder would be Serra and company’s trial to join the secret organization. The party – then consisting of Serra, Eliza, Ashera, Rith, and Yua – made their way first to Elventree to assess the general situation in Hillsfar. From there, using disguises, the party entered the city and began to investigate, finding that a bloody scourge had been left near the body — a sign of Loviatar’s clergy. In the process, they met Ruqa al-Ramas, a Kitsune disguised as a human named Sherris. Ruqa was a former agent of a Red Wizard betrayed by a member of the Hillsfar enclave, and had evidence suggesting the Red Wizards were involved in Aria’s death.

Aria’s journals and correspondence revealed that the Joybringer had been heavily involved in disrupting the slave trade in the Moonsea region, which made her many enemies, including the Red Wizards. Tola Vrass, the Khazark of the enclave, had allied with Maalthiir, the autocratic ruler of Hillsfar. The party’s information-gathering, both mundane and magical, revealed that Tola Vrass’ Thayan Knight, Hosni, had killed Aria, and that Tola’s apprentice, Nephra, has planted the scourge to frame the Zhemtarim, in an effort to stoke animosity between Hillsfar and the Black Network.

Having gained a number of contacts, including the leader of the local Thieves Guild and a sorceress pretending to be a Red Wizard (and having killed the leader of the Red Plumes, Hillsfar’s guard force), the party hatched a plan. Disguised as Thayan Inquisitors, they infiltrated the enclave. There, Ruqa recovered her former master’s research notes — long coveeted by Vrass — while Hosni was slain by Serra’s blade. With Vrass distressed by the loss of her bodyguard, the part escaped. The next day, Liza challenged Vrass to a mageduel, wagering the research notes against the freeing of the enclaves’ slaves. Liza won the mageduel, crippling the enclave in the process, at which point in a classic double cross, the Red Plumes stormed the enclave.

The party sought to escape the melee, but their efforts were stymied by the arrival of an unknown woman in black robes, her visage shrouded in darkness. She dominated a number of Red Plumes, and appeared capable of turning them into black dragons with a mere touch. Ashera and Serra might have fallen to the power of this dark stranger, had it not been for the appearance of one of the mummers they’d seen at the Carnival. She held the assassin at bay — at least for the moment — until the party could make their escape.

Back in Highmoon, the two mummers that’d sent the party on this assignment in the first place revealed themselves to be Ashera’s parents, and Ashera first learned that the band of travelling gypsies in which she’d grown up were, in fact the original group of Lliira’s chosen who struck against Loviatar in Selgaunt. In the midst of the joyful reunion, Ashera’s mother revealed the identity of the woman in black: The Maiden, one of Loviatar’s most powerful agents. Now officially in the Scarlet Mummers, it seems the party’s activities in the Moonsea are far from over.