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--- game_systems:pathfinder2e:blood_lords:adventure_journal [2026/03/28 11:05] – [Cerulean Glade] Bryan Stephens
+++ game_systems:pathfinder2e:blood_lords:adventure_journal [2026/04/25 09:49] (current) – [Kellok Manor] Bryan Stephens
@@ Line 1846: / Line 1846: @@
 The four help Rumin finish packing and all slink out into the pre-dawn light.
+==== Kellok and Mechitar ====
+|Campaign Dates| Neth 8 – 20, 4723|
+|Game Date|04/23/26|
+==== Kellok Manor ====
+{{ :game_systems:pathfinder2e:blood_lords:npcs:hanst.png?400|}}
+Zaheri brings Rumin to Kellok Manor and places him under the supervision of Anatalla. Rumin seems relieved to be alive and too pragmatic to complain about the arrangement. He understands quickly that this is not imprisonment in the simple sense. It is conscription by competence.
+Anatalla puts him to work almost immediately. Rumin knows routes, docks, suppliers, the kinds of people who can be paid to ask fewer questions than they should, and the habits of those who imagine themselves invisible inside the normal clutter of trade. He is too valuable to leave idle. Within a day, he is helping organize names, contacts, and likely channels in Graydirge, with talk already beginning of how such a network might eventually be mirrored farther afield. Yled comes up more than once. Rumin does not volunteer ambition, exactly, but Zaheri can see the shape of it forming in him... a man who has lived by slipping through cracks now being offered the chance to build a few.
+Sebastian comes along as well, though his purposes are his own. Kellok Manor and its surrounding reaches are close enough to old patterns of movement, old places of shadow, and old prey. He needs supplies, reagents, odds and ends that are easier acquired here than in the capital, but there is also the matter of hunger. He moves through his old hunting grounds in a different fashion now, no longer simply a careful man stalking danger and necessity, but a vampire learning the contours of his new existence. There is no complaint in him, but there is a quietness that suggests adjustment is still a daily act of will.
+Rumin is startled when he sees Drusilla, a fey of some power, plainly acting in support of Hanst and the twins. The surprise on his face is almost enough to amuse Zaheri.
+He takes it in slowly. Drusilla. Hanst. The children. Anatalla. Sebastian.. Rumin says very little, but the look he gives Zaheri says enough. He understands now that this is not a collection of favors or accidents. It is a network of power. Growing power.
+Later, with the two of them speaking more privately, Zaheri decides to test a thought that has likely already crossed Rumin’s mind.
+//"You considered it, did you not?"//
+Rumin glances at him, wary but not confused. //"Being turned?"//
+Zaheri gives the slightest incline of his head. //"You served a vampire with two vampire minons"//
+Rumin lets out a dry breath through his nose. //"I did think about it. Once."//
+//"And now?"// Zaheri asks.
+Rumin is quiet for a moment. //"Now I think I was in love with not dying, not with what it would make me. That is different. I do not want it anymore."//
+//"A wise distinction,"// Zaheri says at last. //"Undeath is not merely survival. Too many mistake it for that."//
+Before he leaves, Zaheri finds Hanst and steals a few quiet moments with her. The children are nearby, close enough that their presence fills the edges of the conversation even when they are not speaking. It changes the air around her. She does not seem diminished by motherhood... if anything, she seems further anchored, as though her will has driven roots into the world.
+He asks how she is doing, and she answers honestly enough to satisfy him. Tired at times. Watchful always. Happy more often than she expected. The children are thriving Hanst speaks of them with a quiet warmth that catches him off guard not because it is strange, but because it suits her so completely.
+Zaheri asks after their routines, their sleep, the small domestic rhythms of the house that would once have seemed beneath notice. They are not beneath notice now. Hanst gives him a sidelong look after one of his questions runs just slightly too long on nothing more consequential than whether the twins are keeping the same sleep schedule.
+//"You do know,"// she says, //"that you can simply say you missed us."//
+The words draw a rare pause out of him.
+His answer is softer than most he gives anyone. //"I missed hearing your voice each day."// A beat. //"Each night, rather."//
+Something in Hanst’s expression gentles, though she does not mock him for the correction.
+//"You are allowed to say such things plainly,"// she tells him.
+Zaheri looks toward the children before answering. //"I am learning that many things are permitted to me that I did not once account for."//
+Hanst steps closer, not enough to make a scene of tenderness, only enough to make clear that none is needed. //"They are well,"// she says. //"And so am I. You are building too much to vanish into your own thoughts every time you leave for the capital."//
+He inclines his head, accepting the rebuke for the care that lies under it.
+{{:game_systems:pathfinder2e:blood_lords:npcs:berline.jpg?300 |}}
+Before returning to Mechitar, Zaheri prepares his report for Berline. He does not trust the roads, the carriers, or the number of hands through which written truth may pass. He writes the report plainly first, then lays //secret page// over it, disguising its contents beneath something innocuous and administrative. By itself that would be caution. Combined with what follows, it becomes prudence.
+He delivers the disguised report in person.
+Once it is safely in her possession, he uses //sending// to provide the password by which its true contents may be revealed. The separation pleases him. A hidden document in one place, the key delivered by spell in another. Anyone intercepting one without the other gains little.
+Berline receives him with the air of one already balancing too many blades. The report strips away some of the remaining uncertainty, but not enough to comfort her. If anything, it sharpens the danger by giving it shape without yet giving it a throat to cut.
+She is worried.
+//”I am being pressed in my affairs”//
+Zaheri is wise enough to not ask for more information.
+//”Suspicion alone will not do. I need proof... something that can survive scrutiny, something that ties the poisonings and the smuggling to hands high enough to matter.”//
+Their conversation is brief by necessity, but weighty enough to linger after it ends. Their next steps will be quite dangerous.
+After a full twenty-four hours, Zaheri is ready to depart again. There are supplies to gather, preparations to finish, and a rhythm to re-establish before he and Sebastian return to Mechitar. Rumin remains at Kellok Manor under Anatalla’s supervision, already being drawn into useful labor. Hanst and the twins remain safe, settled, and more fully part of the shape of Zaheri’s life than he might once have admitted. Berline has the report and the means to read it. The next move waits in the capital.
+So Zaheri turns back toward Mechitar with Sebastian beside him, both of them carrying what they need... and both of them, in their own ways, carrying what they have become.
+==== Bremeteria Veng ====
+{{:game_systems:pathfinder2e:blood_lords:npcs:bremeteria_veng.png?400 |}}
+Their invitation to meet with Professor Veng is for the 20th of Neth. This leaves a bit over a week for the trip back to Graydirdge and to get to know the city better.
+Back in Mechitar, Blake has been working on assembly of the dinosaur bone golem they destroyed taking the Mortician’s Suite. He knows Zaheri will help with the magic, but Blake knows how to knit bones together. She also is in charge of the solar golems. Zaheri got the command words from Rumin and now those guard their abode. No one else is just going to sneak in.
+Tsekani is working to learn the city and understand the lay of the land. This is not easy for the large mummy, as this is not his specialty. When Zaheri returns, the necromancy immediately engages in the same task. Tsekani has to acknowledge Zaheri’s edge in all this. He was always adroit with others, but in undeath, Zaheri has finally come into his element. Mostly.
+Zaheri has trepidation about being invited to a party hosted by Lady Nesket, his mother. He knows she wants to show him off. The mage all but begs at least one of the others to come with him. Tsekani waits long enough to out what desperation looks like in a lich and then relents. Zaheri is shown off, and his mother asks about the twins, but in a starkly clinical way. It is another example of how this journey has altered Zaheri from the exact path he planned. This is not lost on Tsekani.
+There are rumors going around the city about the incidents in the dock. Nothing is solid in any given direction. The new Blood Lords are blamed by some, but this is a minority opinion. More feel the group acted to stop the attack and save lives. Their generous payment to support the families of the dead and injured is believed, especially with the Dockmaster Vernetta’s testimony. Still, this is an example of how the group is now treading in a place of increasing politics and power and they must guard their own reputations with various factions in order to succeed the near impossible task before them.
+They meet Veng in her office at the Ebon Mausoleum. After introductions, Zaheri tells her about the shadow ash, and the plot to send it out to poison trade neighbors. As ever, Zaheri mentions Nex, but this is now more to cover up who they think the real villain is than what he believes. Sebastion assures Veng it of the veracity of the substance and she is most concerned. Zaheri notes what is going on in terms of the game Blood Price, like a modern human using chess as analogy.
+//”What we thought were major players were Pawns. Those are being cleared. Now we face more powerful pieces. Now we face Factors, maybe even Vaults. All moves we have to make to threaten the Minister”//
+//”Indeed, a dangerous game. This is why I like teaching. However, in my position I have the authority to grant you an inspection of the Sanctum they have closed off. For, … research. I can supply that”//
+Veng writes what amounts to a warrant to enter and hands it to Zaheri.
+//”This covers the legalities of things. It is about as political as I get. Still, this is Geb so anyone in power, especially in Mechitar, has no choice but to have some politics to remain alive or unalive. Oh, and as this is Geb,”// she pulls out a rather large crystal, //”Give them this as well. Crystal can speak louder than ink on paper.”//
+The four thank the professor and head back through the night to their quarters, However, upon return to their home, a slathering ghoul from Kortesh is waiting with a request to come visit his master. The group immediately follows the ghoul wondering what their charge wants.
+The high-priest of the demon lord of ghouls is as welcoming (and menacing) as ever. And as usual, the Lord of Nemret Noktoria seems to know all about the activities of the group. He is quite concerned about what is going on in the Cathedral, and possible links to higher ups within the organization of Geb. Because he is a priest of a different god, and an outside king, he cannot take direct action. However, he “asks” the group to do him a favor.
+//”It is a small request. I would like you to find a purple gem. It links this world to the negative energy plane. I am sure it is being put to poor use. If you could intervene it would be most welcome”//
+His Voice, of course, does the talking. It is clear the head of Yurgak is still quite conscious, and her eyes dart back and forth when her mouth is not in use as the Voice of Kortesh. A gruesome reminder of the dangers of crossing this powerful being.
+The group agrees and heads home, this time to plan for their entry into the Cathedral of Epiphenomena.

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