Prayers and a Bath
After blowing up a church and sorting through their artefacts, it’s time to return back to the city of Sielzen in our Zweihänder game on Roll20. My preacher Eva continues her journal.
We get back to the city late that evening, and the following day I go and find a Sanhasian shrine to the God Emperor. I don’t remember how long it’s been since we’ve been in Sielzen, but in all that time I’ve rarely sought out a shrine of the true religion. I needed to relax, and also to seek guidance for what we had to do next, especially concerning finding out what was happening with the Baron.
Whilst in mediation, there was another woman here praying – by the way she was dressed I guess that she was a high class prostitute. As I looked at her, I had a feeling of the God Emperor being here in the shrine, and then a beam of sunlight illuminated her, focused on a white flower in her hair. I’ve taken this as a sign that we should go to the White Orchid and start investigating.
After I returned to the inn that evening, it turned out that Calthar had spent the day holding a vigil over her arms and armour, dedicated to the Guardian. During that time, she also had been pointed towards the White Orchid.
Djarin of course had been on a pub crawl, trying to find out rumours about what was going on. It didn’t seem that anyone was blaming us for the explosion at the church, which was good.
We visited the Church of the Order of Redemption today, where work was being done to clean it up. The top floor was missing, but it was otherwise still intact. Preachers were rallying a pretty decent crowd to help support the rebuilding, claiming that forces of evil were out and trying to take them down. I hope that the damage we have done doesn’t turn out to make the cult stronger in the long run.
We also noticed guards escorting individuals under arrest. They weren’t the usual lower class ruffians we’d normally see being arrested, but burghers. We would understand the implications of that a bit more later.
Heading towards the market, the old Heavy district now seemed a lot more relaxed, though slightly shabbier. The gangs had left, reducing the threat of violence, but there was obviously less money flowing through the area as well and several shops had closed.
At the market, the Order of Redemption was still pushing its oaths, and I took the opportunity to chat to the scribe who was handling them. Apparently business was quiet at the moment, but then this was probably more to do with them having saturated the market rather than people losing interest. When you offer tax breaks to people in exchange for signing a bit of paper most of them probably don’t understand, then most people are willing to go for it.
The scribe was busy writing out new copies of the oaths onto fresh vellum and paper. Apparently the vellum copies, where are signed with the signatory’s blood, go to the Baron for safe keeping, and the paper copy is kept by the signatory. From an arcane perspective, the wording made it look like they were swearing into the family or bloodline of the Baron.
Whilst in the market, there was a commotion as a group of guards tried to arrest one of the traders. It turned out that he was an alchemist, and known to Calthar. Apparently, all the alchemists in the city were being arrested and vigorously questioned about the explosion at the Order of Redemption.
Djarin immediately headed off to check on Noreen, and Calthar went to go and visit Captain Sarkas.
Noreen hadn’t been at her shop when Djarin got there, only her assistant was there and guarding the broken door – which Djarin arranged to have fixed.
Calthar had discovered that Noreen had been taken in for questioning, but had been released after claiming that she’d spent all that evening with us. Which was true – I guess the guards never thought to ask us what we had been doing. The advantages of having a good reputation.
After some time spent searching the various pubs, we caught up with Noreen who seemed in a very happy mood.
Calthar had also got us a new job – apparently there were strangers in the woods to the north, near the bridge by the village of Vaskollen, and the city wanted someone to go and take a look into it. It would take us and Noreen out of the city for a while.
This evening though myself and Djarin have a plan to visit the White Orchid and give the place a look over.
I have just returned from the White Orchid, after a pleasant evening of relaxation. There is a brothel there, as well as a higher class brothel which we did not get into it. It is right next to their workhouse, where people from the street are taken in and put to work on various manual tasks – currently paper making is earning the place a fair bit of money.
Whilst Djarin went off to the bar, I paid for a bath and something called a ‘massage’. I’m now feeling very refreshed, and had a long chat with a young woman named Sally, who’s job it is seems to be to mostly listen to people. If only a bath and a chat had been all people had wanted out of me when I was growing up.
I tried to tell some tales about the dark things down in the sewers – I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but my feeling is that if there are stories spreading about the supernatural being responsible for some of what’s been going on, then it may be easier to blame it all on the Order of Redemption later.
Anyway, I must get to bed, since we need to be up in the morning to head back north to the woods.
