25 September 2022
We wait for Amy to pop in by just asking Veradis about the attack and why she thinks the oozes went after her. There’s a list of people that it could have been, but she thinks it’s most likely that she was sent by her mother.
Elyrea gets a visit from her patron— the flame in the hearth at the middle of the room is blue, same colour as the flame flickering in her lantern, the walls are frosted glass and she can see a desert outside. Resting on a chaise lounge is a portly man with dark brown skin who appears human enough who refers to Elyrea as “Little Liar.” Elyrea asks the man, Madir, to keep an ear out for the people the party is looking for, but he makes a face at the mention of Jenkins—he isn’t a concern, Madir is pretty sure he’s dead. Word has spread between some patrons that Jenkins’ heart was eaten by the star that gave him his magic. He leaves and Elyrea wakes up in a pile of plush cushions and leaves her lantern to go back to the train. She informs Veradis that Jenkins is most likely dead.
Fen is passed out from eating cake.
Wren, in the bar car, begins hitting on a hot, buff, Fabio-esque purple Tiefling named Eloquence. He saw three people also looking for the book that Wren describes. Wren goes back to the train car, leaving Eloquence to help his party members (Mario, Luigi, Waluigi and Wario—don’t ask) with the crossword puzzle that they aren’t very good at.
Back at the train car, Wren uses his sending stone to contact a palace guard, Mitchell, who puts them on speaker phone in the throne room. The Queen says that she has met Jenkins in the past (Elyrea asks if he was hot— yes, obviously) and that she knew that his patron had been apart of a constellation before falling. Mitchell runs out of minutes and the call falls short. Wren leaves to have a panic attack, gives himself a pep talk, and then returns to the car.
Fen leaves to go find Clara—why they keep splitting the party like this, idk— and she’s sat in the dining car doing her homework. Fen, as it turns out, might be dumb.
Veradis and Elyrea make awkward small talk in the train car about the weather, then Elyrea asks “you ever kill someone?” Veradis doesn’t want to talk about specifics. Wren attempts to cast detect magic but is without spell slots—something else is cast in its place but will take one hour to finish up. They go to find Eloquence, but he’s gone back to his car and left the party to their devices. They inform the group that Eloquence thinks he knows who Pendragon is— she may be a young woman “training” under a witch in Wolftal, she may be connected to Jenkins, and she has a sister in Devenrichem who works at a patisserie.
The group goes off to pregame before they party. Wren ends up casting Find Familiar by accident and a fae red panda appears. His name is Garfield. Elyrea gives him tequila.
The next morning, after a long rest, the party is hungover. There is also a terrible splotching noise coming down the hall of the trainer, barrelling toward them.