The Vengeful Notes 2026-07-19

Summary

Voyage and arrival at Port Mibram

• The party continued toward Port Mibram aboard the Illegally Bear, intending to reach Castle Rannek with support rather than risk travelling through Maiden’s Port alone.
  • They maintained their cover as people rescued from the Reformist Church, with Mordecai among their established false identities.
  • Maria discussed dangerous-voyage compensation with Branrum Malterdale; any final payment arrangement remained unsettled.
• The party treated the Reformist submarine operation as a wider threat to Senera.
  • The submarine travelled into deeper water and then north along the coast, possibly toward Faltir or Koswar.
  • Its apparent wartime provenance, access to black powder, and possible knowledge of naval and covert routes raised fears that naval authorities or major ports had been compromised.
• The Illegally Bear reached Port Mibram late in the afternoon.
  • Tug crews and dockworkers seemed unsettled by the ship’s arrival, while unknown freight was unloaded and some people called for the constabulary.
  • The vessel’s former teddy-bear figurehead had become a generic mermaid for unknown reasons.
• Oren Bell identified a suspicious dockside watcher with a reversed-foot signature and concluded that port activity was searching for the party.
  • He created a diversion with fey-caused chaos and illusory fleeing figures, allowing the party to depart by carriage without visibly breaking cover.
  • Oren remained behind to deal with threats near the armory and warned the party away from the flesh golems.

Port Mibram leads

• Hellion used a signed copy of Legally Bare to secure the Illegally Bear’s stay in port for roughly an hour.
  • The copy reportedly bears three model signatures; Luana appeared in its first two issues as a guest or promoter rather than a model.
• Hellion proposed to Captain Illegal E. Bear that they use Ramboys as cover for a black-market Herb of the Harem trade, creating an alternative to the Maidenfeld monopoly in Senera and Apgar.
  • The Maidenfelds took control of the existing supply chain after Hedwig shut down the Mirian Trading Company Liaison Office in Raibon for cooperating with the Reformists, illegally smuggling church members into Raibon, and facilitating human and organ trafficking. Hellion did not explain this history to Bear, but knows it through his association with the Rozenmaiden and La Camaraderie.
    • Much of the trafficked population and the harvested livers came through Parvèse operations; the livers were taken from people sensitive to magic.
  • Rather than import the herb from Ahuria, Hellion proposed that druids recreate its orb-rich growing conditions. Synthesized orbs are known to exist but have not been documented in Senera; natural local deposits are believed to exist and were at least briefly controlled by the Reformists.
• Bear displayed Herb of the Harem and took a pill himself before offering flowers for sale.
  • One party member experienced an elevated but steady heartbeat and unusual stillness after exposure, but the substance’s full effects remain unknown.

Road to Castle Rannek

• The party travelled from Port Mibram toward Rannekford under petitioner disguises and chose the Spring Dancer Inn as a staging point.
• Their driver reported that Hicklander rebels in Maiden’s Field were destroying weirs and flood-control works, isolating the Marquess’s forces.
  • He also repeated an unverified report that Lance Rannek had been captured.
  • He believed the rebels had outside backing, possibly Apgarian, but this was his own assessment.
• Near Castle Rannek, the party found unusually heavy Rannek guard deployments at bridges and entrances.
  • Maria considered the security measures abnormal.
  • Hellion and Sapphire detected an unidentified magical influence affecting some guards.

Checkpoint and magistrate infiltration

• At the Castle Rannek checkpoint, the party used an urgent false report of murdered merchants and stolen spices to seek entry.
  • Brief truesight showed the guards as physically natural, though one carried an unexplained pink enchantment haze.
  • A monk used Hand of Healing on that guard; he then recognized Gwyniviere as “Your Grace” but obeyed her instruction to preserve her disguise.
• The guards escorted the party to the magistrates’ offices, where they registered as Mordecai and Cynthia and received passes.
• Truesight identified Magistrate Tonon as a Face-Stealer entering the restricted offices.
  • The party later subdued Tonon with Gwyniviere’s assistance and confirmed its nature through the established anatomy check.
  • The captive carried a loose acid-bearing tooth apparently intended to destroy evidence and hinder speak with dead, as well as an unexplained metallic feature.
• Tonon’s room contained an Orb of Enhancement and a ward. The party removed the orb and relocated the captive and belongings, but the ward’s function remains uncertain.
• Memory-reading established that the real Magistrate Tonon was murdered by an unidentified cloaked figure, whose actions supplied the Face-Stealer with Tonon’s memories.
  • Trajan agreed to impersonate Tonon in order to obtain urgent access to Marchioness Maria Rannek.

Duplicates and the Rannek crisis

• Oren reported widespread puppet constructs and a Face-Stealer threat within Rannekford.
  • A Mark Malthrek-looking flesh golem and a Gwyniviere lookalike were travelling toward the naval or admiralty office, apparently urging officers to deploy forces toward Maiden’s Field.
• The party learned that false copies of Maria Rannek, Mark Malthrek, and Gwyniviere Rannek are active.
  • The group suspects the Puppet Master can create and communicate with unusually lifelike golems, though the nature of each duplicate is not yet established.
• Gwyniviere confirmed that her engagement to Mark Malthrek is over. On Emily Hazeldine’s advice, Mark had first written to arrange a face-to-face meeting about reconsidering the engagement rather than ending it by letter. Hellion initially mistook the letter for the breakup itself and jokingly blamed Mark’s “evil mistress,” meaning Emily.
• Magistrate Wessen treated the party’s reported killings seriously and promised an audience with Maria that evening if possible, or the following day.
  • Wessen appeared sincere and her chamber showed no obvious wards or magical surveillance, but the party withheld its most sensitive intelligence.
  • Wessen reported that a Malthrek and a Malthrek court wizard had teleported a Maria to the castle. The ensuing exchange identified the reported Malthrek as Luke and suggested Stacy Cartwright as the wizard, but Bantam knew the account secondhand and had personally seen only the Maria.
  • Because the real Maria was travelling with the party and the real Luke was at the Travertines, the group treated the Maria in Castle Rannek as an impostor and suspected that the reported Luke could be one of Mallow’s flesh golems.
  • The party nevertheless had reason to believe that the real Stacy may have participated: she was not expected to return to Castle Malthrek, and her apparent presence raised the possibility that Mallow had already compromised her. Her actual condition and degree of agency remained unknown.

The Spring Dancer and cathedral response

• The party used the Spring Dancer Inn near the castle as a staging point while Oren scouted.
  • Sandor initiated a sending to Angel warning that the castle was being taken, but the spell cut off before he could finish and before Angel could reply.
  • Oren later reported that stitched-leg puppet constructs recognized him despite his disguises; he recast nondetection and urged the bishop to secure the church with hallow.
• Sapphire left the moving carriage to confront two watchers.
  • She destroyed the first watcher’s spyglass and struck them repeatedly without holding back. They were left at least unconscious and, unless unusually fortunate, likely dead; their nature was not established.
  • She interrupted the second watcher’s spell, then defeated them with her magical scimitar; their shifting face confirmed that the second was a Face-Stealer.
• The party travelled to Rannek Cathedral to seek Bishop Magnus Bramok.
  • The cathedral complex felt continually blessed, though no active hallow spell was confirmed.
  • Angel met a man whose health remained greatly improved after her earlier removal of a cursed token and celestial healing.
• The party briefed the bishop and allies on the Face-Stealer and parasite threat.
  • Kelthyr Kulok maintained that the Hicklanders as a whole are not allied with the Reformist Church, though some groups may be infiltrated.
  • He maintains liaisons among multiple compartmentalized Hicklander groups and acts as a cross-cutting agent who attempts to synchronize their efforts without merging their cells.
  • The bishop proposed warning clergy as far as Maiden’s Field, while the party considered using cathedral bells as an emergency alarm.

Preparations to retake Castle Rannek

• The party treated securing Castle Rannek as an immediate priority and considered reconnaissance, covert entry, and identifying trustworthy servants before attempting a direct retaking.
  • Gwyniviere knows secret entrances used during painting sessions with Angel and wants their locations closely held.
  • Wessen agreed to look for Sandor, an apprentice wizard and Angel’s friend.
• The group considered sheltering civilians in the cathedral complex while watching refugees for obvious Reformist activity.
• The party divided into two operational teams.
  • Team Castle: Hellion, Sir Hilis Brastok, Angel Rannek, Gwyniviere Rannek, and Branrum Malterdale.
  • Other team: Oren Bell, Marchioness Maria Rannek, Sapphire, and Andrew Taminok.
• The Royal Navy uses authentication codes for commands delivered remotely through sending. Those codes still function when Emily’s Hazeldine Rune of Sending carries the spell, but the rune itself is not naval technology. Maria’s signet ring supersedes the remote codes because her authenticated physical presence takes precedence over potentially compromised magical communication.
• Angel said that Kelthyr had taught her dimension door and that she had felt a surge of magic after the events at the Travertines, enabling her to cast more powerful spells. She possessed two teleportation scrolls reserved for dire emergencies.

Open Hooks

• Secure or retake Castle Rannek before the infiltration endangers Maria, its servants, or the wider Rannek response.
• Find Sandor and determine the meaning of his interrupted request for Angel’s help.
• Determine the scope of the Face-Stealer and flesh-golem network, including the identities replaced in Rannekford.
• Identify Magistrate Tonon’s killer, the purpose of the metallic feature found on the captive, and the function of Tonon’s ward and Orb of Enhancement.
• Learn whether the false Maria, Mark, and Gwyniviere are Face-Stealers, golems, or another form of duplicate.
• Stop or verify the apparent duplicate-led naval deployment toward Maiden’s Field.
• Determine who is influencing Rannek guards and what the pink enchantment haze was intended to accomplish.
• Verify the reported capture of Lance Rannek, Marquess Uther’s position, and the condition of the forces at Maiden’s Field.
• Establish whether Sebastian Argras, court wizards, military leaders, or other household contacts have been enchanted, replaced, or coerced.
• Determine what Mallow may have done to Stacy Cartwright, and whether she facilitated the impostors’ reported teleportation freely, under coercion, or after being altered or replaced.
• Learn where the submarine went, what it is transporting, and whether compromised naval authorities are aiding it.
• Identify the puppet constructs’ means of recognizing and tracking Oren Bell.
• Determine the effects and safety of Herb of the Harem, and whether Hellion and Bear can establish the proposed druid-grown black-market supply outside the Maidenfeld monopoly.
• Establish whether Andrew’s family guards or Bishop Bramok can provide dependable refuge or reinforcements.
• Determine whether the Reformists are distributing parasites through Maiden’s Field’s herb-and-spice trade.

Boundaries

• Face-Stealers lack primary genitalia. Finding that anatomy is generally sufficient to identify one, barring rare anatomical conditions; ordinary anatomy does not clear a suspect because other kinds of shapeshifters may be operating.
• A cursed piercing attached directly to the anus in the Reformist style can corroborate Reformist involvement or control, but does not by itself establish that its bearer is a Face-Stealer.
• The real Tonon is dead, while the captive Tonon was a confirmed Face-Stealer.
• Gwyniviere’s secret entrances to Castle Rannek are operationally sensitive and should remain closely held.
• The Royal Navy’s authentication codes belong to its command protocol, not to Emily’s Hazeldine Rune of Sending. The rune can carry authenticated sending messages, while Maria’s signet ring supersedes remote authentication when physically presented.
• Treat Hicklander involvement as cell-specific. Their groups are decentralized and compartmentalized so that capturing one cell does not expose the others; a cell connected to the Reformists does not establish the same connection for any other cell.