The group quickly leaves the area, before the watch arrives and start making uncomfortable questions. As it’s not been much more than a minute since the whole mess started, you have a good lead on them and soon fly out of the Skyway, this time on a flying coach.
Orerreth disembarks and walks around, perhaps looking for spies (magical or mundane), then when satisfied abandons the place with the rest of you following. Finally you find a quiet place, sort of a balcony or terrace on the side of one of the towers where you can sit and rest without being bothered. As always, the view is splendid, but now you hardly care about it.
”I know someone suggested going back to the tavern where I found you” says Orerreth ”But I prefer if no one else has the opportunity to get involved. Now, er… I suppose if I start at the beginning.”
“I’m Orerreth d’Cannith. I was in Cyre when the last war – perhaps you may know house Cannith had there a number of research facilities. I worked on one of these: we developed new and more deadly war machines, and war machines that countered those new machines, and then again other machines designed to fight these machines… you get the idea. It was big business: we made millions of gold pieces with them. Of curse not ‘we’, I’m not rich. We merely designed them and crafted the schema. They were forged elsewhere.”
“Perhaps… perhaps I should not say ‘we’. I was an spy for Breland, and a patriot. I don’t have to tell you how difficult it was for the Brelish spies to put an agent there; so much in fact that I was ordered not to contact anyone and work as another Cannith crafter unless absolutely necessary. That I did, working as another Cannith artisan until right before the end of the war.”
“By then what we were researching was beyond normal machines of destruction. They were whole unnatural things, things that would change the war, and Khorvaire, forever. We were given orders to stop everything else and continue that line of investigation.”
“I was alarmed. If any nation, even any house controlled that kind of might, he’d have a definite lead on he war. If I was to act for Breland, that was the moment. I copied as much of the incomplete project on a Syberis crystal, a development very similar to the crystals some wizards use to write on their spells. Then I sent the crystal out of the research centre through my contact.”
“Last thing I know, it reached Basher, a well known warforged fighting for Breland who was casually in the zone, leading a small warforged detachment through enemy territory. Warforged are ideal for that, you know: no need for supplies, no need for rest, don’t get ill and delay the group, don’t feel pain. Anyway, last thing I know of the crystal is that it Basher has it.”
“My first act as a spy wasn’t unnoticed, however. My contact was caught and killed, and I was thrown into one of the antimagic cells, waiting for a proper interrogation and execution. Then it happened, the Day or Mourning. Ironically, it saved my life as everyone in the centre died immediately but me: I was protected by the spells weaved on the cell, and even then they ere warped and destroyed by what happened that day.”
“I managed to escape the facility and then Cyre. Have you been in the Mourlands? I recommend you not to enter that cursed place. It’ll change you forever. Picture the most desolate place you can imagine, a bleak desert devoid of life and water, covered by the bones of creatures unlucky enough to wander there. Well, that place will be more alive than the Mourlands: what’s left of Cyre is beyond just death.”
“I understood that House Cannith was responsible for that, it was surely the botched development of a secret weapon. What else could have caused the Day of Mourning, but the things we were researching? I can assure you: may would pay dearly to know, so they can reproduce it. Can you imagine the power anyone with the ability to cause another Day or Mourning would wield? Can you imagine if every nation had that kind of knowledge? They would live in a state of constant fear, perpetually temped to use the weapon so their enemies don’t use it before them, and at the same time terrified of retaliation if the use the weapon first. No, Khorvaire isn’t ready for that, or the kind the things we discovered at my facility. Not when the war hasn’t really ended and each nation is ready to jump at each other’s throats. When I was crossing the Mourlands I vowed to not let it fall on anyone’s hands”
Orerreth makes a pause before continuing.
”After leaving the fog that now marks Cyre’s borders I found out that the crystal never made to Breland. That was good: I supposed all the warforged in Basher’s expedition were destroyed and the secrets in the crystal lost forever. However, recently a group of looters found Basher’s body. Not finding anything else of interest, they recovered the corpse, figuring it may be of some value. I was worried: if they found Basher it was likely they also had the crystal. But it turned they hadn’t it, but I found out something peculiar: Basher was buried in a shallow grave. So someone survived the Day or Mourning and took the time to dig a grave. After some investigation I found out who: a warforged scout (you know, the little ones). I managed to find him and finally agreed to send me the crystal’s location. I was convinced that maybe that scout had recovered and hidden it, or knew who had it. I never suspected that he limited to bury Basher with the crystal. Perhaps he thought it had no value, or the Day of Mourning damaged him. Or was lying; I’ll have to find out.”
“I know what you’re thinking: the looters may have the crystal. That’s unlikely. I know they were subject to mind reading spells and they knew nothing about it.”
“So, I was going to the Orien post station when I thought I was being followed, by at least three. I figured I could be attacked, but not if I had some well armed company. So I entered the tavern and looked for some people to come with me. You must admit it worked: nobody bothered us until we arrived there.”
