Morning at Highholm in Iadenveigh. It’s good to rest after our long hike here and dealing with the jerks at the gate. Red Fang was up early and while happy to meet us made it perfectly clear he doesn’t like the strange magics he calls “teknolojee,” just like the rest of the town. All outsiders are suspect as far as he’s concerned. Though we reassured him by telling him we hate the Teknic League as much as he does. He said that Ivik Gunnett wants to bring more trade to town but townsfolk don’t particularly trust other places to be as wary of teknolojee as they are. With all the gibbering boredom quickly set in and with nothing to smash I started the day drinking. I asked Jacques to join of course, but he didn’t seem too up for it.
We decided to check out the hill in the middle of town and Jacques vanished. One side of the hill seemed dead to life and had water leaking out of it. Jacques showed up out of nowhere and Preston asked him to drink some of the water. He drank it, of course. He said it tasted metallic and oily.
So, I dicked around all morning ‘til some kid ran up and told us Ivik was finally back at Highholm. We headed that direction and once there we met him in the book room (there’s a word the others keep calling it, but I’ve never heard of it). He was casually waiting in an armchair smoking a pipe. He smelled like stale pipe smoke. He asked us about ourselves and listened to our story. He seemed to like us even more afterward. He showed us a secret mechanical bird that was found in town. It contained a map of the hill springs and a note about bad water coming from hill (too bad for Jacques!) in that screwy chicken scratch that Kelmaa can read… mmm… chicken… A local hunter shot the bird and brought it to Ivik. He said the bird was possibly headed to Starfall judging by the direction it was flying. Gunnett insisted there’s a Teknic League spy in town and asked that we find the spy, but on the down low. He didn’t want a teknolojee panic among the townsfolk. We’re on the case! I was hopeful that smashing would ensue soon.
Ivik went on to tell us that the people of the town avoid the hill springs. The bad water made Red Fang’s teeth red among other mutations. There is one family who scavenges in the bad water area though, the Bardleigh’s. They’re apparently stonemasons and the rocks there are easy pickin’.
Jacque and Preston wandered off to swim and fish the bad water. Brilliant. Vayu and I began to investigate the the hill springs while Kelmaa went off to find a healer and maybe help with mutations. In our exploration I found a couple of chips of weathered metal, it’s similar to the weird kind of metal we found in Torch. I pocketed them. We continued to search around and found nothing else of interest. Vayu met a kid that was trying to hide. He had a set of zill that he found in the area. Interesting. Vayu said that that points toward Varisians. The kid is a Bardleigh and invited us to his folks place.
When we got to the Bardleigh’s place and explain our presence in town, they invited us to stay for dinner. Mmm… potato stew. In the course of the meal they told us that Varisians were staying at the lumberyard. Bingo!
We headed to the lumberyard and met the proprietor, Heddick Widefoot. He was bustling around, clearly busy. There were stout peasant types everywhere. Local people. Preston wandered off while the rest of us convinced Widefoot to let us chat up the Varisian encampment. They were friendly enough. They told us that they met another Varisian on the road a few days before arriving in Iadenveigh. Ilarrus Zeleshi joined them and was camping with them. They pointed out her tent and we suddenly saw a figure darting out the back of it. Being fleet of foot, I caught her no problem. She was thrashing about but that mattered not to me. After she calmed down and the others made chitchat with her we invited her and the other Varisians to dinner at Highholm. Ilarrus is definitely the Teknic spy. I can feel it… and she ditched dinner.
