Last Time on Emberheart Z: Interrupting Important Business

🔥Last time on Emberheart Z!🔥

In which Emberheart interrupts Ravenwing’s plan, and she puts them to work instead...

Chaos thy name is Emberheart! But perhaps a flashback (within a recap?) is warranted.

It started two weeks ago with a note planted on Fenris’s body while she was traveling through Silvermoon. The note, seemingly from Lyanna Ravenwing and intended for Slade Ar’nareth, informed him of her well-being but, concerningly, also came with a code. Living up to his reputation, Slade recognized immediately that the code was an abandoned Farstrider’s cipher, and that message was signaling danger and the need for reinforcements. More concerning was the note itself, as Slade knew what to expect from his old right-hand and knew when someone was trying very hard to forge it. Still, a distress call from a member of the Expedition, even one as ephemeral as Raven, could not be ignored. Thus, all available hands were quickly assembled to Silvermoon, where the coordinates named in the note lead to the edge of polite society, where the shadows cast by the brilliance of the Sin’dorei find their refuge: Murder Row. 

Specifically, the destination was The Silver Chalice, a wine and blood-thistle hookah lounge close to the infamous Alastor Bloodsworn’s sanctum. Emberheart stood out, but the first trouble they encountered was friendly. Raven was safe, sound, and demanding answers about her presence at the same time as the party demanded the same of her. After confirming she hadn’t sent the distress call, she caught everyone up on her B (for bird) Plot. Once she had been sent out by Bazrokh to uncover the mysterious “Vessar", Raven went looking through the official records for the crest being used as his mark. But the man responsible for (among other things) attempting to bury the Expedition under rubble at the ziggurat along with the cult, supplying said cult in the wilds of Zul’Aman using official Silvermoon channels, and sending the escaped branded prisoner whose rune would blind Macko, would not be so easily unmasked. All records of the rising sun over two crossed swords had been torn out from the armorial register, leaving only scraps of paper still attached to the spine of the book. This was significant because all crests of this nature, be it noble houses or business ventures, needed to be registered with the Crown, so there were no duplicates. 

Perhaps someone was expecting this move.

The Silver Chalice

Thankfully, a new lead presented itself, that in the form of the sudden appearance of servants in official looking House uniforms bearing Vessar’s crest, conducting business in and around the Row, thus leading to this chance encounter - Raven had planned to invite such a person over for a polite conversation (i.e. kidnap), and since the Expedition had turned a simple grab and bag into a social night out, they were going to help her do it.

The plan that formed, however, was not exactly a prime example of spycraft. Journa was to inspire the band to play a song capable of commanding attention, while Ioneid slipped in behind him as an unrelated patron. From there, Raven, Slade, and Fenris entered the main smoking area playing a couple and their bodyguard, putting them within reach of the hookah they would then vandalize to create a makeshift smoke bomb, giving Kiri the cover needed to slip a sleeping poison into their target’s drink. Once that took effect, which it did rather quickly, Raven and Slade would target the man as needing medical attention, at which point Ioneid would play doctor and “escort” the man out in a fireman’s carry before the guards at the Sanctum door could interfere. 

Despite a struggle to operate the hookah smoke bomb, Kiri’s shadows wavering from the Curse, and Fenris almost having a worgen-sized sensory meltdown, Emberheart’s plan went off without much of a hitch. After turning the Row’s eyes blind with some well-placed gold, the Expedition retreated through Slade’s portal necklace to the Enclave, unwilling dinner guest in hand.

---------------------What awaits the Expedition? Find out next time on Emberheart Z!!------------------