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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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<blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7255915" data-attributes="member: 79141"><p><strong>Session 27, Part One - Asrabey & the Amnesiac</strong></p><p></p><p>“Kasvarina wants to talk with you.” So she knew they were here.</p><p></p><p>Two dozen rajputs fanned out from the gate and took up defensive positions. Some used minor spells to levitate to high ground; others, where they found themselves exposed, raised magical shields to augment their bucklers. Four waited by the open gate, flanking their female leader.</p><p></p><p>While the unit picked themselves up and dusted themselves off, Asrabey glanced around. “Where is your dwarf?” They told him that Rumdoom was on his way. “You would have been wise to wait until he arrived to before trying to deal with that lion,” said Asrabey. “I might have come sooner, but Faedraven is stubborn.” The woman glared back at him.</p><p></p><p>Uru was healed by Leon, while the others decided what to do with Gupta. (“Very realistic,” said Uriel, scrutinizing her face.) Over Leon’s shoulder, Uru warned the rajputs that there were more Ob soldiers out there, manning mortar positions. Faedravan gave orders and half a dozen warriors pounced into the jungle. Asrabey added that there were more humans in the ‘shadowfell’. They had watched them enter before the unit arrived. Leon used his wayfarer lamp to make the area coterminous with the Bleak Gate and they discovered ten Obscurati researchers huddled in the Bleak Gate. The rajput surrounded them. Asrabey wanted to put them to death, to prevent them taking their secrets away with them, but the unit stopped him. Aside from any humanitarian issues, they were concerned that the researchers might simply join the ghost council if killed. (Shame about Ormond…)</p><p></p><p>Though frightened, the researchers could be heard complaining about how Ormond portrayed them in the illusion. “Did you notice how none of us could answer his questions? Pah, he was so full of himself.” Then another gestured at Ormond’s disembowelled corpse and said, “You couldn’t say that about him now.” Because of the Ob geas, the researchers couldn’t say much when interrogated, but one of them told Leon, “Ormond said he knew you. That you had trained together before Yerasol.” Leon had no recollection of Ormond. Either he was lying, or some of Leon’s memories were still missing. Much to their consternation, Uriel poked around in the researchers’ stuff, and took a few minor magical items for ‘study’.</p><p></p><p>There was no time to help Gupta right now – Leon put her in the <em>absurdist web</em>. Then Asrabey bid them enter Sentosa. Faedrevan glared at him again for his presumption, and urged them all to hurry, before anyone else could cross through, now the guardian had been slain. She made no apology for their injuries, though. Uru had sent an animal messenger to Rumdoom, telling him where they were, and then to Hildegaard, just in case Rumdoom wasn’t compos mentis . Asrabey told Faedravan to admit the dwarf when he arrived. “He is their greatest warrior,” he said.</p><p></p><p>Faedravan and Asrabey escorted the party into Sentosa, and told them they were to be taken to speak with Kasvarina straight away. Although they didn’t have much time to take in the enclave, it seemed to mirror the ruins in the real world, with a large stepped temple at its centre. Most of the buildings were the same, but here they were not ruins. Their passage was watched by curious and fearful onlookers, mostly eladrin but also a few pixies and dryad-like fey. They openly stared and pointed at both Uriel and Leon. (Leon thought he saw at least two people spit when they saw him.)</p><p></p><p>Though eladrin men still distinctly outnumbered the women, the ratio was far closer than most scholars in the human world predicted would be possible. Still, there was a large proportion of old men, and no old women at all. Even the oldest men comported themselves with the poise and dignity of fiercely-trained warriors, and a focus on martial prowess was evident all around. As they followed Asrabey they passed a training field where a hundred young men and women practiced mock combat, often two or three on one, with flashes of magic as the warriors used minor spells to augment their attacks or defences.</p><p></p><p>Eventually they came to a humble stone building, raised on steps like most of the others. Another company of twenty male eladrin warriors stood guard around and atop the building, indicating the value of the occupant. Korrigan spoke quietly to Matunaaga and told him to wait on the steps and be ready in case they needed to clear a path out of there. Matunaaga sat down on the steps to clean his firearms, under the austere gaze of the rajput. </p><p></p><p>Asrabey took the party inside. Though small, the home was furnished with silks and fine wood furniture of a type fit for nobility. They found Kasvarina in a large, round chamber, lit from a skylight above. It was a living room now repurposed as a study: the eladrin matriarch was surrounded by neatly ordered stacks of books and furled scrolls, trying to learn about the outside world. She was dressed in a simple day gown, poring over a tome that concerned a failed revolt against the dragon tyrants 400 years ago. A fine mithral rapier lay across the table within easy reach, and as she turned the pages with one hand, she idly tapped a mithral dagger into the table with her other. The sheer number of tiny stab marks was a testament both to how long she had been there and her ongoing frustration. She barely responded when Asrabey entered, and didn’t look up until her attendant cleared his throat. Until he did so, the old half-elf had gone almost entirely unnoticed. White-haired, with a neat goatee, he was dressed in unassuming, dark clothes – slightly old-fashioned by Risuri standards. He stood up and coughed politely, and Kasvarina looked up.</p><p></p><p>“These are the ones I mentioned,” said Asrabey. Kasvarina’s regarded them curiously as they filed into the room. She said, “Thank you, master Sentacore, that will be all for today.” Her tutor gathered his things, tucking a battered notebook and the <em>Compiled Works of William Miller</em> under his arm. As he left with Asrabey, he attempted to make firm – slightly too firm, perhaps imploring – eye contact with Korrigan, Leon and Uriel. </p><p></p><p>“You found me very quickly,” said Kasvarina when they had gone. “Would you care for some tea?” Her gaze was intense, but her manner graceful.</p><p></p><p>Only Uru refused. He had presented himself in full regalia as Lord of the Creeping Fey. Kasvarina made the tea herself in a gesture of welcome and humility (though she used a cantrip to heat the water instantly). While she did so, they talked, explaining that their arrival had been hastened by Gale. “Ah,” said Kasvarina. “Hana made good on her promise. I do hope she was circumspect. My hosts were keen that the two of us should not meet, but we are resourceful, she and I.” They told her that Gale had pointed them in the right direction, but had not admitted to any meeting, or passed on a message. Kasvarina laughed.</p><p></p><p>While serving the tea, she then told them that she hoped they could help her. She remembered nothing of her involvement in the Obscurati. When she thought about the version of her who ordered assassinations as a matriarch of her own enclave, or conspired with strange ‘engineers’ to design a metal titan, it was like thinking of a stranger. “But it is a stranger whom I loathe, and whom I would gladly help defeat.”</p><p></p><p>She told the unit that Asrabey had spoken highly of them – insofar as Asrabey spoke highly of anyone – and had even gone so far as to admit that one of their number had defeated him in battle (albeit after he had bested a whole army). She had been informed that they were best placed to oppose the Obscurati, and requested that they tell her everything they knew – or as much as was practical.</p><p></p><p>The unit decided to tell Kasvarina everything, and so began by telling her what they knew of her own involvement: How they first heard of her during the very encounter she had already mentioned in which Rumdoom felled Asrabey with the<em> Icy End of the World </em>(in his first desperate, unintended use of that power). Before they confronted Asrabey, they had overheard a conversation between him and his intended victim, Duchess Ethelyn of Shale. Also present was Nathan Jierre, a tiefling who had alerted the Duchess to the Island’s function – the construction of terrible, witch-oil fuelled weapons. Nathan heard Asrabey’s name and asked if he knew Kasvarina. When Asrabey asked what she was to Nathan Jierre, the tiefling said that she had taken a tour of the Danoran facility only a few months earlier, in the company of a chain-smoking stranger.</p><p></p><p>Fast-forward six months, and the discovery of a mangled bronze golem allowed the unit to piece together the circumstances of its destruction by Leone Quital. (Malthusius had used <em>object loresight </em>on every last fragment.) Only later would they recognise his other victim as Alexander Grappa, who had been apprehended and murdered in his attempt to flee with an eladrin noblewoman they now knew to be Kasvarina. Grappa had decided to defect from the Ob, and had taken Kasvarina with him, along with her memories and those of the colossus.</p><p></p><p>First mention of Borne caused Kasvarina to inhale sharply and fearfully, and she fell back in her seat in a sort of swoon, before recovering herself. Along with a mumbled apology for her reaction, she muttered, “This is not my home. I must return to Resal.” Then she calmed herself and regained her composure. “Forgive me. This is most helpful. Do continue.”</p><p></p><p>They went on to say that it was many months later before they heard mention of her again, when trying to prevent the renegade fey lord Ekossigan from entering the Bleak Gate. Fighting alongside them was Asrabey. Kasvarina nodded. This much she knew, but she allowed them to continue for completeness’ sake: Ekossigan told Asrabey that the Ob was holding her prisoner and Asarabey had turned on the unit, allowing Ekossigan to complete his ritual and sacrifice a dozen orphan children. Together with a dominated Gale, they led a fey army against the Ob, but were defeated. A wounded Asrabey returned at a very inopportune moment (revealing their hand to Sovereign Han Jierre in the midst of a flailing Peace Conference) whereupon they put their differences aside and fought their way into the Ob facility together.</p><p></p><p>There – while Grappa had tried and failed to take control of Borne and inadvertently released him – Asrabey had found and freed Kasvarina before teleporting her to safety. At that point she was assumed to be an unwilling prisoner. In fact, if the unit had not recently managed to penetrate the Ob convocation in Mutravir, that is a misapprehension they would still be labouring under. Only when the Ob leadership identified Kasvarina as a key member of the conspiracy, and one of continued importance and significance, had they made the decision to try and track her down.</p><p></p><p>With this important part of the story out of the way, they then went on to talk about their knowledge of the conspiracy, and revealed its ultimate goal. Kasvarina listened intently, shaking her head to indicate her disapproval at points and eventually unable to contain herself: “Hubris. Foolishness. I had hoped the ends might justify the means, but they do not. Reshaping the world in one’s own image, or to one’s own design, is arrogance beyond measure.” They went on to emphasise the risks inherent in doing so, given that the Ob intended to remove any barrier to inter-planar invasion. </p><p></p><p>Now it was Kasvarina’s turn. She began by sharing what memories she still had – of training to protect her nation with sword and spell; of a hundred songs her people have forgotten in five centuries; of marrying, having two daughters, and losing her husband Pillai in the holy war; of the spices used in her daughter Dala’s favourite dish, which she cannot find today because the farms were claimed by a human colony; of how she marched to the holy war and both longed for revenge and despised herself for the slaughter she knew she’d be responsible for. Then she told them what she had managed to learn of her ‘other self’, who returned from the war as one of a handful of female survivors, miraculously found her other daughter Launga still alive, formed an enclave and fought for a century, then lost her daughter to betrayal from another matriarch. Apparently she tried to have more children but never could. After that it was centuries of ordering attacks on the Clergy and thefts of treasure to strengthen her enclave; marrying half a dozen men for political reasons, and then disappearing four years ago. It had taken the length of time since her release, and the help of Kieran Sentacore, her tutor, to piece all this together. And it had taken until only just recently for her to regain the mental strength to cope with idea of moving forward. At first, every history lesson was a fresh bereavement. </p><p></p><p>She had remained in Sentosa the entire time. Her own enclave, Ushanti, might still be thriving, but Asrabey warned her not to go there because the Ob might know how to infiltrate it. Then she gave an infectious laugh and gestured at Leon and Uriel, who she said were like a living, breathing history lesson – as members of races that did not even exist before her memories were stolen.</p><p></p><p>When she was done talking, the unit cut to the chase: Why did Kasvarina want them to come here? </p><p></p><p>Using mage hand, she drew over a book traced in silver filigree. The centuries-old book had been rebound multiple times. It contained a catalogue of the mighty and dangerous artifacts the Elfaivaran empire once possessed. Kasvarina had checked with scholars in the enclave, and most of these artifacts had long-since been plundered or destroyed, but the one she needed still remained:</p><p></p><p><em>The Lost Arc of Reida</em> was a crown said to have been shaped from a fragment of the plane of time. It was a holy relic of the god Ingatan. Any who wore it and returned to the site of a memory was able to make that memory come to life. It was used in holy rites to pass on memories that must not be forgotten. The eladrin of Elfaivar all knew that the arc was taken for safe-keeping after the Great Malice, and the first Vekeshi Mystics used it to pass along the memory of Srasama’s fall. Eventually it was returned to a site known as Ingatan’s Refuge, a few hundred miles to the north. Kasvarina hoped that she could use the Arc to retrace her steps, and discover something of use in defeating the shadowy group which her ‘other self’ helped to found.</p><p></p><p>At once, Uru questioned the whole idea: how could they be sure that she would not regain her former beliefs and personality and turn against them? Kasvarina did her best to assuage his understandable fears, before Korrigan speedily accepted her reassurances on behalf of the group. (He told them later that they would, needless to say, keep an eye on Kasvarina throughout their endeavour and act decisively if she ‘lapsed’.)</p><p></p><p>Uriel expressed his own interest in Arc and wondered aloud if it would enable him to reconnect with his former selves. Kasvarina thought it a strange coincidence that he was missing his memories too. “I died in your escape,” said Uriel. Uru added, with a pointed glance at Uriel, “My friend Malthusius has gone. I’m hoping he will come back.” Uriel took what he would later learn to call ‘offence’ at Uru’s remarks.</p><p></p><p>Finally, Kasvarina explained that she needed protection from Obscurati, to search for the Lost Arc of Reida and – if it worked as she hoped – explore her old memories. They were the only ones who had proven themselves capable of defeating the Ob, and they were also the only ones who she could trust.</p><p></p><p>Once they had agreed to her plan, a final hurdle remained: while her hostess, the matriarch Athrylla Valanar – who controlled this enclave and who could limit who entered or left – had been nothing but kind in protecting her, Athrylla had refused to let Kasvarina or even Asrabey go out to seek the artifact. Kasvarina sensed there was bad blood between her and Athrylla, which she hoped that the unit, as representatives of Risur and the Unseen Court, might be able to overcome. </p><p></p><p>Once they acquiesced to this idea, Kasvarina called Asrabey back in. Asrabey said that he had tarried here longer than he wanted, and that he hoped to resume his duties to the Unseen Court on their return. It was a mission Kasvarina herself gave him over two centuries ago: to ensure that in the eladrin time of need, the fey of Risur could be counted on as allies. Uriel artlessly enquired how Asrabey was connected to Kasvarina, to which he responded bitterly, “I was the last in a long line of politically expedient husbands”. If she had visible eyeballs, Kasvarina would have rolled them. She reminded Asrabey that the order he got was from another version of her, and that his mission might somehow have served the goals of the Obscurati. After a pause, Asrabey said, “All I know is that this Kasvarina is soft, and a soft woman could never have protected our people like the Kasvarina I knew.” Kasvarina said that the woman he knew apparently had no problem with mass prostitution and brothels and that she much preferred the woman she ws now, who remembered life before the world went mad.</p><p></p><p>With nothing else left to say, Asrabey left to request an audience with Athrylla on the unit’s behalf. When he had gone Uru remarked that Asrabey had shown himself to be, “devoted enough to murder children,” while Uriel observed that is was “odd that he seems to prefer the evil version of his wife.”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gideonpepys, post: 7255915, member: 79141"] [b]Session 27, Part One - Asrabey & the Amnesiac[/b] “Kasvarina wants to talk with you.” So she knew they were here. Two dozen rajputs fanned out from the gate and took up defensive positions. Some used minor spells to levitate to high ground; others, where they found themselves exposed, raised magical shields to augment their bucklers. Four waited by the open gate, flanking their female leader. While the unit picked themselves up and dusted themselves off, Asrabey glanced around. “Where is your dwarf?” They told him that Rumdoom was on his way. “You would have been wise to wait until he arrived to before trying to deal with that lion,” said Asrabey. “I might have come sooner, but Faedraven is stubborn.” The woman glared back at him. Uru was healed by Leon, while the others decided what to do with Gupta. (“Very realistic,” said Uriel, scrutinizing her face.) Over Leon’s shoulder, Uru warned the rajputs that there were more Ob soldiers out there, manning mortar positions. Faedravan gave orders and half a dozen warriors pounced into the jungle. Asrabey added that there were more humans in the ‘shadowfell’. They had watched them enter before the unit arrived. Leon used his wayfarer lamp to make the area coterminous with the Bleak Gate and they discovered ten Obscurati researchers huddled in the Bleak Gate. The rajput surrounded them. Asrabey wanted to put them to death, to prevent them taking their secrets away with them, but the unit stopped him. Aside from any humanitarian issues, they were concerned that the researchers might simply join the ghost council if killed. (Shame about Ormond…) Though frightened, the researchers could be heard complaining about how Ormond portrayed them in the illusion. “Did you notice how none of us could answer his questions? Pah, he was so full of himself.” Then another gestured at Ormond’s disembowelled corpse and said, “You couldn’t say that about him now.” Because of the Ob geas, the researchers couldn’t say much when interrogated, but one of them told Leon, “Ormond said he knew you. That you had trained together before Yerasol.” Leon had no recollection of Ormond. Either he was lying, or some of Leon’s memories were still missing. Much to their consternation, Uriel poked around in the researchers’ stuff, and took a few minor magical items for ‘study’. There was no time to help Gupta right now – Leon put her in the [I]absurdist web[/I]. Then Asrabey bid them enter Sentosa. Faedrevan glared at him again for his presumption, and urged them all to hurry, before anyone else could cross through, now the guardian had been slain. She made no apology for their injuries, though. Uru had sent an animal messenger to Rumdoom, telling him where they were, and then to Hildegaard, just in case Rumdoom wasn’t compos mentis . Asrabey told Faedravan to admit the dwarf when he arrived. “He is their greatest warrior,” he said. Faedravan and Asrabey escorted the party into Sentosa, and told them they were to be taken to speak with Kasvarina straight away. Although they didn’t have much time to take in the enclave, it seemed to mirror the ruins in the real world, with a large stepped temple at its centre. Most of the buildings were the same, but here they were not ruins. Their passage was watched by curious and fearful onlookers, mostly eladrin but also a few pixies and dryad-like fey. They openly stared and pointed at both Uriel and Leon. (Leon thought he saw at least two people spit when they saw him.) Though eladrin men still distinctly outnumbered the women, the ratio was far closer than most scholars in the human world predicted would be possible. Still, there was a large proportion of old men, and no old women at all. Even the oldest men comported themselves with the poise and dignity of fiercely-trained warriors, and a focus on martial prowess was evident all around. As they followed Asrabey they passed a training field where a hundred young men and women practiced mock combat, often two or three on one, with flashes of magic as the warriors used minor spells to augment their attacks or defences. Eventually they came to a humble stone building, raised on steps like most of the others. Another company of twenty male eladrin warriors stood guard around and atop the building, indicating the value of the occupant. Korrigan spoke quietly to Matunaaga and told him to wait on the steps and be ready in case they needed to clear a path out of there. Matunaaga sat down on the steps to clean his firearms, under the austere gaze of the rajput. Asrabey took the party inside. Though small, the home was furnished with silks and fine wood furniture of a type fit for nobility. They found Kasvarina in a large, round chamber, lit from a skylight above. It was a living room now repurposed as a study: the eladrin matriarch was surrounded by neatly ordered stacks of books and furled scrolls, trying to learn about the outside world. She was dressed in a simple day gown, poring over a tome that concerned a failed revolt against the dragon tyrants 400 years ago. A fine mithral rapier lay across the table within easy reach, and as she turned the pages with one hand, she idly tapped a mithral dagger into the table with her other. The sheer number of tiny stab marks was a testament both to how long she had been there and her ongoing frustration. She barely responded when Asrabey entered, and didn’t look up until her attendant cleared his throat. Until he did so, the old half-elf had gone almost entirely unnoticed. White-haired, with a neat goatee, he was dressed in unassuming, dark clothes – slightly old-fashioned by Risuri standards. He stood up and coughed politely, and Kasvarina looked up. “These are the ones I mentioned,” said Asrabey. Kasvarina’s regarded them curiously as they filed into the room. She said, “Thank you, master Sentacore, that will be all for today.” Her tutor gathered his things, tucking a battered notebook and the [I]Compiled Works of William Miller[/I] under his arm. As he left with Asrabey, he attempted to make firm – slightly too firm, perhaps imploring – eye contact with Korrigan, Leon and Uriel. “You found me very quickly,” said Kasvarina when they had gone. “Would you care for some tea?” Her gaze was intense, but her manner graceful. Only Uru refused. He had presented himself in full regalia as Lord of the Creeping Fey. Kasvarina made the tea herself in a gesture of welcome and humility (though she used a cantrip to heat the water instantly). While she did so, they talked, explaining that their arrival had been hastened by Gale. “Ah,” said Kasvarina. “Hana made good on her promise. I do hope she was circumspect. My hosts were keen that the two of us should not meet, but we are resourceful, she and I.” They told her that Gale had pointed them in the right direction, but had not admitted to any meeting, or passed on a message. Kasvarina laughed. While serving the tea, she then told them that she hoped they could help her. She remembered nothing of her involvement in the Obscurati. When she thought about the version of her who ordered assassinations as a matriarch of her own enclave, or conspired with strange ‘engineers’ to design a metal titan, it was like thinking of a stranger. “But it is a stranger whom I loathe, and whom I would gladly help defeat.” She told the unit that Asrabey had spoken highly of them – insofar as Asrabey spoke highly of anyone – and had even gone so far as to admit that one of their number had defeated him in battle (albeit after he had bested a whole army). She had been informed that they were best placed to oppose the Obscurati, and requested that they tell her everything they knew – or as much as was practical. The unit decided to tell Kasvarina everything, and so began by telling her what they knew of her own involvement: How they first heard of her during the very encounter she had already mentioned in which Rumdoom felled Asrabey with the[I] Icy End of the World [/I](in his first desperate, unintended use of that power). Before they confronted Asrabey, they had overheard a conversation between him and his intended victim, Duchess Ethelyn of Shale. Also present was Nathan Jierre, a tiefling who had alerted the Duchess to the Island’s function – the construction of terrible, witch-oil fuelled weapons. Nathan heard Asrabey’s name and asked if he knew Kasvarina. When Asrabey asked what she was to Nathan Jierre, the tiefling said that she had taken a tour of the Danoran facility only a few months earlier, in the company of a chain-smoking stranger. Fast-forward six months, and the discovery of a mangled bronze golem allowed the unit to piece together the circumstances of its destruction by Leone Quital. (Malthusius had used [I]object loresight [/I]on every last fragment.) Only later would they recognise his other victim as Alexander Grappa, who had been apprehended and murdered in his attempt to flee with an eladrin noblewoman they now knew to be Kasvarina. Grappa had decided to defect from the Ob, and had taken Kasvarina with him, along with her memories and those of the colossus. First mention of Borne caused Kasvarina to inhale sharply and fearfully, and she fell back in her seat in a sort of swoon, before recovering herself. Along with a mumbled apology for her reaction, she muttered, “This is not my home. I must return to Resal.” Then she calmed herself and regained her composure. “Forgive me. This is most helpful. Do continue.” They went on to say that it was many months later before they heard mention of her again, when trying to prevent the renegade fey lord Ekossigan from entering the Bleak Gate. Fighting alongside them was Asrabey. Kasvarina nodded. This much she knew, but she allowed them to continue for completeness’ sake: Ekossigan told Asrabey that the Ob was holding her prisoner and Asarabey had turned on the unit, allowing Ekossigan to complete his ritual and sacrifice a dozen orphan children. Together with a dominated Gale, they led a fey army against the Ob, but were defeated. A wounded Asrabey returned at a very inopportune moment (revealing their hand to Sovereign Han Jierre in the midst of a flailing Peace Conference) whereupon they put their differences aside and fought their way into the Ob facility together. There – while Grappa had tried and failed to take control of Borne and inadvertently released him – Asrabey had found and freed Kasvarina before teleporting her to safety. At that point she was assumed to be an unwilling prisoner. In fact, if the unit had not recently managed to penetrate the Ob convocation in Mutravir, that is a misapprehension they would still be labouring under. Only when the Ob leadership identified Kasvarina as a key member of the conspiracy, and one of continued importance and significance, had they made the decision to try and track her down. With this important part of the story out of the way, they then went on to talk about their knowledge of the conspiracy, and revealed its ultimate goal. Kasvarina listened intently, shaking her head to indicate her disapproval at points and eventually unable to contain herself: “Hubris. Foolishness. I had hoped the ends might justify the means, but they do not. Reshaping the world in one’s own image, or to one’s own design, is arrogance beyond measure.” They went on to emphasise the risks inherent in doing so, given that the Ob intended to remove any barrier to inter-planar invasion. Now it was Kasvarina’s turn. She began by sharing what memories she still had – of training to protect her nation with sword and spell; of a hundred songs her people have forgotten in five centuries; of marrying, having two daughters, and losing her husband Pillai in the holy war; of the spices used in her daughter Dala’s favourite dish, which she cannot find today because the farms were claimed by a human colony; of how she marched to the holy war and both longed for revenge and despised herself for the slaughter she knew she’d be responsible for. Then she told them what she had managed to learn of her ‘other self’, who returned from the war as one of a handful of female survivors, miraculously found her other daughter Launga still alive, formed an enclave and fought for a century, then lost her daughter to betrayal from another matriarch. Apparently she tried to have more children but never could. After that it was centuries of ordering attacks on the Clergy and thefts of treasure to strengthen her enclave; marrying half a dozen men for political reasons, and then disappearing four years ago. It had taken the length of time since her release, and the help of Kieran Sentacore, her tutor, to piece all this together. And it had taken until only just recently for her to regain the mental strength to cope with idea of moving forward. At first, every history lesson was a fresh bereavement. She had remained in Sentosa the entire time. Her own enclave, Ushanti, might still be thriving, but Asrabey warned her not to go there because the Ob might know how to infiltrate it. Then she gave an infectious laugh and gestured at Leon and Uriel, who she said were like a living, breathing history lesson – as members of races that did not even exist before her memories were stolen. When she was done talking, the unit cut to the chase: Why did Kasvarina want them to come here? Using mage hand, she drew over a book traced in silver filigree. The centuries-old book had been rebound multiple times. It contained a catalogue of the mighty and dangerous artifacts the Elfaivaran empire once possessed. Kasvarina had checked with scholars in the enclave, and most of these artifacts had long-since been plundered or destroyed, but the one she needed still remained: [I]The Lost Arc of Reida[/I] was a crown said to have been shaped from a fragment of the plane of time. It was a holy relic of the god Ingatan. Any who wore it and returned to the site of a memory was able to make that memory come to life. It was used in holy rites to pass on memories that must not be forgotten. The eladrin of Elfaivar all knew that the arc was taken for safe-keeping after the Great Malice, and the first Vekeshi Mystics used it to pass along the memory of Srasama’s fall. Eventually it was returned to a site known as Ingatan’s Refuge, a few hundred miles to the north. Kasvarina hoped that she could use the Arc to retrace her steps, and discover something of use in defeating the shadowy group which her ‘other self’ helped to found. At once, Uru questioned the whole idea: how could they be sure that she would not regain her former beliefs and personality and turn against them? Kasvarina did her best to assuage his understandable fears, before Korrigan speedily accepted her reassurances on behalf of the group. (He told them later that they would, needless to say, keep an eye on Kasvarina throughout their endeavour and act decisively if she ‘lapsed’.) Uriel expressed his own interest in Arc and wondered aloud if it would enable him to reconnect with his former selves. Kasvarina thought it a strange coincidence that he was missing his memories too. “I died in your escape,” said Uriel. Uru added, with a pointed glance at Uriel, “My friend Malthusius has gone. I’m hoping he will come back.” Uriel took what he would later learn to call ‘offence’ at Uru’s remarks. Finally, Kasvarina explained that she needed protection from Obscurati, to search for the Lost Arc of Reida and – if it worked as she hoped – explore her old memories. They were the only ones who had proven themselves capable of defeating the Ob, and they were also the only ones who she could trust. Once they had agreed to her plan, a final hurdle remained: while her hostess, the matriarch Athrylla Valanar – who controlled this enclave and who could limit who entered or left – had been nothing but kind in protecting her, Athrylla had refused to let Kasvarina or even Asrabey go out to seek the artifact. Kasvarina sensed there was bad blood between her and Athrylla, which she hoped that the unit, as representatives of Risur and the Unseen Court, might be able to overcome. Once they acquiesced to this idea, Kasvarina called Asrabey back in. Asrabey said that he had tarried here longer than he wanted, and that he hoped to resume his duties to the Unseen Court on their return. It was a mission Kasvarina herself gave him over two centuries ago: to ensure that in the eladrin time of need, the fey of Risur could be counted on as allies. Uriel artlessly enquired how Asrabey was connected to Kasvarina, to which he responded bitterly, “I was the last in a long line of politically expedient husbands”. If she had visible eyeballs, Kasvarina would have rolled them. She reminded Asrabey that the order he got was from another version of her, and that his mission might somehow have served the goals of the Obscurati. After a pause, Asrabey said, “All I know is that this Kasvarina is soft, and a soft woman could never have protected our people like the Kasvarina I knew.” Kasvarina said that the woman he knew apparently had no problem with mass prostitution and brothels and that she much preferred the woman she ws now, who remembered life before the world went mad. With nothing else left to say, Asrabey left to request an audience with Athrylla on the unit’s behalf. When he had gone Uru remarked that Asrabey had shown himself to be, “devoted enough to murder children,” while Uriel observed that is was “odd that he seems to prefer the evil version of his wife.” [/QUOTE]
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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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