Mason took to the bottle first thing the next morning. Desmond asked him to go up to the roof with him. Mason was feeling lost and powerless, and that he and Desmond were drifting apart with their separate lives. Desmond’s efforts to encourage his brother mostly fell on deaf ears.
On his way to meet up with the Rovers at the Arcanum, Desmond ran into a greasy human pirate who introduced himself as Luigi Vampa. As they walked together, Desmond noticed they were being trailed by a dozen or more of Luigi’s men from the shadows. Luigi coolly explained that Mason owed him a gambling debt of 3000 gold pieces accrued at his establishment, Besmirched. When they arrived at Desmond’s destination, he was granted a few minutes alone with the Rovers to discuss their options. After explaining that “Linguini” was shaking him down, Urs recalled their buried chest of gold where they killed the purple worm, marched outside, introduced himself with the fearsome pseudonym “Zatarra”, and proposed they all leave town at dusk to retrieve Luigi’s payment. All were in agreement. With the immediate threat taken care of, Desmond messaged Tyresha and asked her and Mason to come to the Arcanum immediately.
The Rovers entered the Arcanum and went to see Vitas. They told him about their enemies’ journal and the artifacts it described. Vitas knew a little of Malaki, recalling that he had many slave-worshippers. The water genie was a boastful storyteller, and an encounter with him might be lubricated with copious flattery. Malaki had a fierce rivalry with a fire genie named Kobo. It was rumored that their mutual enmity was made greater when one genie took the other’s lamp. The owner of the stolen lamp wanted vengeance on the other.
Vara asked Vitas to inspect her mortar and pestle. The artifact was unfamiliar to him, but the wizard observed that it contained the power to transform Vara and two others into hags. Despite the corruption of a sacred artifact that this portended, this excited the imaginations of some of the Rovers. They considered using the power to frighten or even fight “Linguine” on the road, and they devised the code word “pesto” for the plan.
Jani joined the conversation from the Arcanum’s archives where she had been researching ever since their arrival in Lo’Thar. She learned about another artifact, The Ruined. Myths said that the god of the orcs, Gruumsh, lost an eye during combat with an elven god. As a sign of their devotion, Gruumsh’s followers would put out their own eyes. It was said that Gruumsh’s ruined eye still existed in the world, and it seemed possible that the artifact was the eye itself.
After some questioning about their new acquaintance, Vitas revealed that Luigi Vampa was an associate of his who, through his black market connections, could procure rare items for the master alchemist. Vitas claimed Luigi could be honorable, at least when it came to polite business dealings. Despite these assurances, Desmond still feared for Mason and Tyresha, so he convinced Vitas to let them stay at the Arcanum for a couple days while the Rovers sorted out the debt. At Desmond’s request, Vitas agreed to try to find work for Mason.
Vitas also admitted to liking Darius Kensington, and he offered to introduce the Rovers to him. When he heard Vara’s Truth, he almost could not believe that the Darius he knew was the same that killed Vara’s people. He agreed to join the planned meeting with Leon and Tommy to discuss the matter, which would occur at dinner time that day.
Vara wondered why her sword lost its power when she changed her allegiance from Eldrith to Torm. Vitas inspected the sword and said some magic still remained within it, and he suggested she talk to Torm about it. With their business concluded, Vara wanted to go to a temple to pray to Torm, but doubted there was a dedicated temple in the city. Urs explained that her god was not in a building but offered to take her somewhere she could commune. While Desmond stayed behind to wait for Tyresha and Mason, Urs led Vara and Aengus to a bar called The Fourth Finger to “pray” and “take communion”. The bar was tended by a shabby-looking dwarf with a missing thumb who introduced himself as Lucky. They ordered several rounds of drinks. Following Vara’s instruction, and with a mesmerized Lucky looking on, Aengus used his magic to craft a stein with an attached eye-emblazoned gauntlet, reminiscent of Torm’s symbol. With this new connection to her god in hand, Vara communed with Torm, who responded: “You’ve shown the willingness to sacrifice, and that takes empathy. You’ve learned that you can trust in your friends, and that takes humility. Keep on that path.” Vara’s sword then seemed to radiate with magical power once again.
Meanwhile, Mason and Tyresha arrived at the Arcanum. When he learned of his brother’s efforts to find work for him, Mason was angered. When at last confronted about his gambling debt, Mason simply asserted he would take care of it. Mason confessed to just wanting to pull his own weight, and he resented depending on his brother’s handouts. He was also upset that Desmond didn’t tell him of his death immediately. After some encouragement and confidence boosting, Desmond talked his brother into accepting his help.
Next Desmond turned to Tyresha. For many weeks, he had felt tension between making her happy — which he assumed meant settling down in the city right away — and living the life he wanted, closer to nature, while also prioritizing defeating the Rovers’ enemies at risk of losing his life a second time. But Tyresha did not urge Desmond to quit the adventuring life. She understood how important these things were to him, accepted the dangers, and was content to be patient.
At last, after Desmond had sketched some of his favorite memories with the Rovers, the time of the meeting with Tommy, Leon, and Vitas finally arrived, and the Wild Rovers joined them. Leon explained that he had been doing some digging into Darius. He could find no evidence of illicit activities, but he learned that the gems he was importing were primarily coming from the isle of Whig, to the north across the Sea of Enemies. Sailors reported that the gem mine was surrounded by orc camps, and that a pirate queen was somehow involved. They referred to “the dark place”, but Leon was not sure what that meant. The Sea of Enemies was treacherous to cross due to “a perversion of the waters”, some sort of malevolent magical presence in the sea that grew stronger as ships drew closer to the isle. For this reason, only prisoners deemed expendable were sent to the great prison of Trazacal on Whig. As for the Kensington family, they were very tight-lipped about family history and who was running things in Hi’Thar. Vara explained that, in Hi’Thar, the Kensington’s twisted propaganda was that the people of Valonara attacked Hi’Thar unprovoked, and the Kensingtons retaliated out of self-defense. Leon advised that they tread very lightly without proof of Darius’s corruption, and he suggested they could begin by planting seeds of doubt about Darius’s character among the people.
Desmond asked Leon for the additional information he requested weeks earlier about the woman on death row at Trazacal, who seemed to match Gladys’s description of his mother, who was also soon to be executed. She was indeed the pirate queen now entangled with Darius’s gem mining operation. It was unclear from the sailor’s reports whether she was even still in the prison or had escaped, or if she was helping or hindering the mining. It seemed very likely that she was the same pirate queen that Avery told them of, Heidi the Red, who gave the order to kill the “sick child” Tobias, which Avery refused. Desmond suggested sending Mason to investigate while the Rovers were off on other business at Shambhalah, but Leon reminded him that the sea was very dangerous. Desmond requested Leon send a query on the next shipment of prisoners to Whig, asking the prison guards if they would let a blue genasi talk to their prisoner.
As planned, at dusk the Rovers left Lo’Thar with Luigi Vampa and his men. Moving at record pace, they walked for two days to the spot near Urna’s hideout where they had killed the purple worm. Along the way, Aengus messaged Gren and learned that the rescue mission from Clefthome was successful. At the site, they recovered their buried chest made of solid gold. Urs smashed it to pieces, and the Rovers’ gave Luigi 3000 gold pieces worth of gold chunks, and kept 2000 gold pieces worth for themselves, which they stored in the Bag of Hooding. They returned in another two days to Lo’Thar.
With Mason’s debt now paid, they planned to sail soon for Whig, where they hoped to find answers to their questions of Darius’s corruption, of his strange partnership with the orcs, and of Desmond’s parentage.