Knocked out trying to open Inkling's safe, Kasskar dreams of a globster in Hollin. Opening the safe on a second try, the party finds the assassin spell Word Without Warning. In Tulun, Beowolf pulls the harpoon Hosingen from the bull whale Huhner. The party goes to install Bruhl as Kirsi high priest at the temple of Boreas, where Raven House priests beguile them and turn them against each other.
At the end of Game 16, the party found Inkling's niche door safe, and Kasskar now examined it.
The characters found a three-hole niche door safe in Game 11, in Ishild's apartment. In that game, the party was fooled by the safe's paradox, wrongly believing that when the safe offered you an alternative hole to put your hand in, you should reject it and keep your hand in the hole you'd originally chosen. They'd been severely injured as a result. They now understood that for the three-hole niche door safe, if they accepted the alternative hole the safe offered, there was a two out of three chance the safe would open safely; but if they stayed with the original hole, there was only a one out of three chance.
For the nine-hole safe in front of them now, the party correctly determined that if they accepted the alternative hole the safe offered, there was an eight out of nine chance the safe would open safely; but if they stayed with the original hole, there was only a one out of nine chance.
There's a 8/9 chance of success if Kasskar chooses the right strategy and 8/9 chance of failure if he chooses the wrong strategy. So, roll d10 and re-roll if it comes up 0. Then, he's in the 8/9 probability on 1-8, out of it on a 9.
They also determined that although failure was three times less likely with the nine-hole safe than with the three-hole safe, it would be three times as deadly.
With this understanding, Kasskar put his arm into the center hole and turned the handle inside. Seven of the other holes closed, leaving the center bottom hole open. Kasskar correctly withdrew his arm from the first hole and put it into the other hole. He turned the handle inside, and crossing his fingers, committed by pulling the lever down with his other hand.
I rolled 1d10 behind my hand and - the roll was a nine! Kasskar had chosen wisely, but fate took a special hand. A heavy stone mechanism inside the hole closed violently on Kasskar's arm, almost tearing it from his shoulder. He passed out from the shock, and the mechanism ground away for a few more moments, sending shudders through his unconscious body.
Unconscious, Kasskar had a vision, just as he had when the wolf Muninn had knocked him out in Game 4. He dreamt that Gregor was on the riverside in Hollin, fishing a bulbous fleshy mass out of the river, apparently an animal but without any identifiable parts.
The agony of defeat shows clearly in Keith's journal.
When Kasskar woke up, the party tried again, opening the safe successfully on a second try. Inside, they found the Kirsi spell Words Without Warning, which Kasskar claimed as the party's sneak attacker.
With the usurper Inkling defeated, Bruhl now claimed the Raven House dukedom. But it still remained to establish Bruhl as the Kirsi high priest.
With Inkling put down, Bruhl and Gregg want to go to Gaillard, where the Kirsi god Boreas and his temple are. There, they will install Bruhl as high priest, and more relevant to the party, they can try to find out where Prosper is from the temple oracle.
So, Gregg leads the party from Balibana to a mountainous region on the west coast of Anhault. On the coast, they find the abandoned village of Tulun on a modest cliff overlooking the water. In times past, Tulun was a marshaling area for Balibana's ocean-going trade, and it has only a few square stone buildings.
On the beach in Tulun, they found fairies communing with the Nord black whale pod, just as Aurelien had told them.
Looking down from the cliff, the party sees a long sandy beach where there are many Kirsi reveling and communing with a pod of whales. From that vantage point, the party can see that there are maybe 20 whales loitering in the water near the beach.
As Aurelien had suggested, Beowolf waded into the water and found the bull Huhner by succeeding on a DC 20 Perception check. He did find the harpoon Hosingen in Huhner's side, and pulling it out, claimed it. True to its origin, Hosingen was +2 against gargantuan creatures, and had the power Teleport.
The party then turned for the town of Gaillard and the temple of Boreas there. They reached Gaillard in a day, traveling 11 miles and up 6,000 feet along a stone path from Tulun.
When they reach Gaillard, they find that it's near the apex of a mountain with relatively steep sides, so all of the town's area is the result of terracing. So, everywhere you look, there are vibrant green patches of grass alternating with the gray stone of the terrace walls. There are just a few main avenues dividing the town, all radiating from a wide building at the highest point.
One of the buildings has a dome with slits in it almost like an observatory.
The building that the avenues lead to has a facade with three levels, with each facade level sporting about 20 columns. The road leading most directly to the temple turns into a ramp as it approaches it and goes to the middle of the lowermost level of the facade.
The party entered the building - the temple of Boreas - and found themselves in a large foyer with several exits. There, a will-o'-the-wisp - distracting lights and echo sounds - successfully Dominated each character with a successful +18 attack versus WILL. Controlled by the will-o'-the-wisp, each character wandered into a separate adjoining room. There, they fought and defeated the evil fairy priests Zephyr, Mamba, Sidewinder, and Nightshade, who attacked them with Dust Devils.
In many of the games, I'd name a new character and then mistakenly rename the character in the next game. In this game, I named one of the evil priests Zephyr, but mistakenly used the same name for a different character - the west wind Zephyr - in the next game.
