Summary
h-141. Thirty-two years after the founding of Trayalon and twenty-five after Tray Gallund's death, the Gallund truce holds the River Lords together and Trayalon has grown from ~100,000 to 350,000. At Cassius' School of Magic — the first school of magic in the river empire since Terek's Folly — the next generation of adventurers meets, and Seamus Adair (now operating as Solomon) recruits them through Finn to gather intelligence on Arla.
Detailed Narrative
Thomas Cassius teaches nobles parlor tricks to fund his real work: a theory of Rune Crystals and a universal-magic doctrine he calls 'The Interactive influences of cross planar energies and effect upon the prime plane'. His lab is a midden of half-working Hesh relics — a marble that answers questions (1% prophetic), a displacement ring, a pen that stores spells, and an earring, one of a pair, that stored the identities of important people.
Admon Gallund has three children: Peter (high-strung heir, rogue/fighter), Finn (the youngest, a gambler and womaniser), and Kamese (bard loremaster following her mother into Hesh history). Duncan's Monastery has split into three styles — Jade Lotus, the pacifist Lotus Petal, and the harder Jade Fist — with ~1,000 lay practitioners. Solomon runs the arena, a spy network reaching into Arla, a tavern ('A Place to Drink') in every major town, and the first Bank of Adair: a kingdom within kingdoms.
The party — Finn Gallund, Trankle (and his eidolon Bubbles), Artemon Tretcord, Harfur, and Maddie Cassius — sails for Arla. Second Mate Kate becomes Captain Kate over the voyage after a sea battle and the death of Captain Pom. They make landfall at Brightport.