Personal Log
We checked the door for traps. No, that’s not quite accurate. Jane checked out what was waiting for us on the far side of the door. An office with a secretary. It seemed innocuous enough. We sent Sturm through first to trigger any possible ambush. When overt violence failed to break out I configured Namural as a trench coat, altered Durandel to sawed-off mode for easy concealment, and joined the rest of the group in heading through the door. I wasn’t actually expecting trouble, but given the stakes I didn’t want to be under-cautious.
The receptionist was polite and professional. Nexopolis is like an Agora for wholesalers and a tropical paradise. Perfect weather, except for the hurricanes. To be caught outside in one is to be subsequently referred to as ‘Departed’. Beautiful beaches and shoreline except for the occasional mutant monster on The Rocks. A nice friendly place, except for an area called The Shacks which everyone is told to avoid and everyone has to visit anyway. I made a mental note to visit the place.
We were asked to provide our names. Since we had made no effort to disguise our appearances on entering the place I saw no reason to give a false name now, nor did anyone else. Since our intent was to conduct our business and get out of here it didn’t seem an issue. Drake had no reason to have agents on the lookout for us, nor did I expect Morholt would. And, depending on what security arrangements Baudemagus had made for the artifact, we might need to be recognized as ourselves to retrieve it.
Exiting the Hub, the focus of authority central to the island, we found ourselves in the advertised tropical paradise. I made sure Namural’s environmental controls were working comfortably and procured myself a set of cheap sunglasses. In other words, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Nobody around seemed to take notice.
Since Mena had had the most contact with the artifact, she was in charge of tracking it down. She led us back into the Hub, but a different section from that we had emerged from. This area was a bank. We were met at the door by a woman. A most formidable woman. With a mechanical monkey. Mena’s non-mechanical monkey did not particularly appreciate it’s presence but managed to remain polite nonetheless. The woman had come to meet us because we had been identified in reception as signatories on a corporate bank account with a safe deposit box and she had anticipated our desire to access that box. I got the impression that she appreciated our desire for discretion and wanted to help us conduct our business with a minimum of notice. Unfortunately, Baudemagus had set up the account so that all of us together had to pass both biometric and password protections before we could gain access to the artifact, and whatever Sturm had done to himself while Cyra and I had been trapped on Planet Fiction now interfered with that biometric identification. This left us in a bit of a quandary.
We retired to the beach. After careful consideration, I thought a pitcher of Margaritas most appropriate to the location. We then down to strategizing.
Option 1: We find Baudemagus. If he still lives. Actually, finding him if he doesn’t still live would be good too, as it would eliminate a lot of potential actions we might otherwise spend time considering, and it would let us know just how deep a hole we’ve dug for ourselves. Wayfinding Baudemagus was not working, so our best lead was Indus which was two weeks travel from here along the Grand Stair, with no guarantee we would find him or any useful information about his whereabouts when we do got there. We moved on to discuss option 2.
Option 2: Direct recovery of the artifact. Our first idea (and possibly not even Sturm’s suggestion) was to simply break into the safe deposit area, remove the artifact, and depart post haste. We ultimately concocted a plan which involved renting our own safe deposit box, shrinking Sturm and Mena to fit inside it, them leaving their box in the middle of the night recovering the artifact and returning, and us retrieving the lot of them the next morning. In the meantime we would divert the Vigilance Committee (red shirted security types) by unleashing a hurricane on the city along with possibly a locally recruited mutant monster. Jane wanted assurances the mutant monster wouldn’t be hurt in the process. I suggested adding to the confusion by rousing the residents of The Shacks into a nice friendly riot. More liberal heads objected to the potential loss of life during the rioting, the unlikelihood of anyone noticing the riot during the hurricane, and the unlikelihood of the rioters setting foot outside their homes during a hurricane. Too bad. I think it would have added a certain classic element to the plan.
Moving on to possible alternate approaches Cyra took a look at the system storing their biometric data. Updates to the system required a quantum key, of which there was only one that could be in existence, the reading of which to attempt duplication would destroy the key. Cyra was professionally incensed as the single point of failure this introduced to the system. We considered ways to acquire the key, temporarily of course, and update Sturm’s biometric data ourselves (none of which involved shrinking anyone down) or of simply destroying the key and forcing them to go to their back-up plan, which we were sure they must have, and then hacking into the system.
Ultimately we sent Jane to try to convince Trik, the keeper of the quantum key, to update Sturm’s data himself. As the subject of the update we (reluctantly) decided Sturm had to accompany her. Despite Sturm’s best efforts, Jane convinced Trik to help us, telling her we should head back to the safe deposit area in three days.
I spent much of the next three days researching what the Hub archives could tell me of the Dwimmerlaik. Their material covered almost exclusively the attack which almost destroyed this world. Interestingly, the mutant creatures which sometimes appear on The Rocks are remnants of bio-weapons deployed by both sides during the attack.
We rendezvoused on the beach for lunch each day to keep in touch. Sturm was the exception, keeping mum about his daily activities and arousing my curiosity. Not hearing reports of rampant death and destruction anywhere on the island, I again wondered at the change which had overcome him.
I did my requisite visit to The Shacks during the evening of our first day, strolling quietly through and stilling my mind so I could ‘hear’ what others around me were thinking. Disturbingly enough, I ‘heard’ them thinking that I had been singled out and they were to lay off their usual shenanigans with me. There were a number if identical looking latino types hanging around who seemed to be promoting this attitude. Given the warning we had received on our arrival, I found this extended protection to be mildly unsettling. After determining that this attitude seemed to be uniformly widespread I took my discrete leave of the area.
We were approached at lunch on our second day by Finnian, controller of Nexopolis, looking for all the world like a mob boss. He made pleasant inquiries about our stay, informed us he knew of our business here, believed that visitors here should be able to conduct their affairs discreetly, and offered that he was acting indirectly to help on our own matter. I strongly suspect Trik was using the three days to pass our request to his boss for his approval and that the actual database update was done in minutes. I also wondered if it was Finnian’s enforcers I had seen around The Shacks. Finnian finished by telling us that Nexopolis offered all manner of diversion, including the possibility for violent death and dismemberment cleaning out some Dwimmerlaik hot spots which still existed in the far corners of the world. If we weren’t in the middle of dealing with our own Dwimmerlaik hot spot called Fierce I thought it might be an interesting proposition, especially given the possibility of ancient Dwimmerlaik artifacts still existing in these hot spots. It was unlikely to get me any closer to helping Ilsa’s people, but might make the search a little more survivable.
Finnian’s visit actually let me relax a little bit and I went swimming that evening. I was reminded of the trip to Fiji I took during one of the breaks at the academy. I had flown to American Samoa, bought a small boat, and hired a guy to teach me to single-hand it over to Fiji. He was amused at being offered the job of sitting around relaxing while I did all the work although he was disturbed by the number of squalls we encountered on the way. Experience is the best teacher, so Falmorath and I made sure I was well grounded in handling rough weather. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be single-handing any boats in these waters. Mutant monsters are an entirely different class of sailing hazard.
At the appointed time and place we gathered, and were granted access by the lady with the mechanical monkey to the sacred space where things might be deposited safely. The biometrics were not a problem this time, but the passwords were a royal pain. involving trivia I can believe Mena would have included in her updates to Baudemagus or that he would have even bothered to note. The actual safe deposit box had a final security feature installed, and required a key card. William had the bright idea of inserting Baudemagus’ icon, and we were once again in possession of the artifact.
Written by Dave Nebiker