Kingdoms and Clouds - Ch 02: Allies (149)

Traveling to Fairbreeze, the party encounters Brace Hench and ogres looting an attacked caravan. At Fairbreeze, Vivian and Karl Hench receive them in the famous botanical garden. Vivian is pragmatic about eventual GRE rule if terms are fair; Karl distrusts the GRE but concedes it may be inevitable; Stefon is openly hostile to GRE; Brace is fiercely loyal to Fairbreeze people. Raynard the Bold (baron of Whitemarch) is also present — he worries more about the Blackblade Tribes expanding south than the GRE. Samantha Fairbreeze introduces herself as a Hesh artifact researcher and revolutionary, and commissions the party to raid the ruined Greycaller estate, once belonging to worshippers of Partanus who possessed tomes rescued from the libraries of Vadesh and the City of Light. The estate is haunted by a former keeper who won't rest until stolen books are returned, surrounded by ghast-eaten corpses. The party recovers a Hesh Necklace of Noble Bearing, scrolls, wands, and two key research tomes — one on transferring life essence into items, another containing a planar map of gods' planes before Terek's Folly. Ja'ayne receives a prophetic waking dream of Resbic Cassius fireballing the Hench sawmill while Peter Gallund watches. Vivian also sends Stefon north to investigate village attacks by spriggans; the party joins and rescues survivors. Vivian rewards the party with 400 gp each and a magic item. Chester Blanks, GRE diplomat from Trayalon, is also present at Fairbreeze.