Following Kulo,'s swift departure from the group, the remainder decided to head off towards Nibenay with the grateful Mavar cracking the whips on the purloined kank caravan. The approach to Nibenay was breathtaking indeed, the city towering above them, the walls covered in stone carvings, pillars and columns decorating the towers alongside the Mekillot Gate. The city sat alongside a vast forest, certainly a greater amount of trees than any of the group had ever seen in one place before. The forest ran along a mountain range that disappeared into the distance away to the south.
The group headed into the city, whose noise and activity, even in the evening made Tyr look small and rustic. It was clear that Nibenay was older than Tyr, and far larger. Gretchan recalled that the city was one of the original city states and contained a large and decadent noble caste that supported the sorcerer-king. With Mavar guiding them, they were easily able to locate the House Shom trading building that the meeting between Ulruun and the mysterious Urikite delegation that Mavar had mentioned during the interrogation.
Upon arrival, arguing is heard from a small back street down the side of the House Shom building and careful examination reveals a couple of armoured figures, a noble of some sort and 4 clad in slave rags. Having identified the Urikite delegation by their square beards, the group found out that the noble, Maetan Lubar, was understandably annoyed at Ulruun himself having carelessly let himself be killed. Despite this initial setback, the group agreed with Maetan that they would organise a slave caravan to hide the spies (the 4 clad in rags) within for transportation to Tyr, as this is presumably what had been agreed with Ulruun.
A rather uncomfortable trip to the slave markets for the former slaves took place, with Beren heading off to find a templar on the trail of his master's son, Flame. He was able to deduce that Flame himself had contacted the Shadow Brides (Nibenay's templars - all of which are female) to relay a message to Beren that Flame's father and head of the House had been kidnapped and Flame was trying to find him! <insert jarring piano chords> Although, Beren couldn't work out how this all came about, the situation remained.
The rest of the group sold 2 of their crodlu to pay for the slaves to go in the caravan and met back up with Beren before heading outside the city gates next morning to meet with Maetan and his group. The meeting went well, but as the conversation went along, Maetan became more suspicious of Mavar and the others. Relations degraded to such a point that Mavar lost his cool and took a shot at Maetan, which kicked off a nasty scuffle.
Maetan weighed in heavily at the start, but soon his cronies were handling the fight against the group well enough, and stood to the back. Slowly but surely the group began to gain the upper hand in the fight, despite Mavar unleashing his defiling power upon all around him. Eventually the battle-weary group dispatched the cronies (and took one minor templar captive) and took a half-hearted swipe at Maetan but his power was too great and the group cut their losses, letting Maetan leave, heading into the forest not far from the main road.
With a caravan full of slaves and a captive, they learned that this operation had been going on for some time and his information corroroborated with Mavar's tale of a potential Urikite invasion of Tyr, predominantly for the Iron Mines that Tyr possessed. Now with this information and Mavar being ever so slightly more trusted the decision was made to head back towards Tyr and potentially free the slaves and they might even find Kulo, on the way back...
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