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Aphonion Tales: The Archducal Council -- Unedited notes; later posts are edited transcripts (posts MWF, update 3/1/23)
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<blockquote data-quote="CPaladin" data-source="post: 8470326" data-attributes="member: 7030144"><p>[session 76, cont'd]</p><p>The Council calls in Dame Brionna’s sister, who has some expertise and responsibility in these matters.</p><p></p><p>"Do you know a Baron Werner?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes, a young man. He has fallen head-over-heals to a young woman attached to the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Life; she’s head-over-heals in love with him as well. Apparently, she’s not of breeding, so it’s acceptable for her to marry out.</p><p></p><p>"He’s a brilliant linguist, one of our chief translators of documents from foreign powers. Also very devout, of Glor’diadel, a daily communicant, and a remarkably hard worker. His mother used to be a lower-level lady-in-waiting to the former Archduchess."</p><p></p><p>(The Council asks Lord Brightspan to research the history of the tradition of the life offering.)</p><p></p><p>We summon Baron Werner on the pretense of some assistance translating a brief speech into Noldar. We then have a security team examining him. He’s squeaky clean.</p><p></p><p>He has dinner scheduled with his special friend.</p><p></p><p>His younger brother isn’t very devout. He engaged in some … well, he might have a baby or two around. He’s functioning as a messenger for the military, but he’ll end up a warrior. He wanted to head north to Gates, where there are a lot of very attractive young women. The Council has gotten a couple of notes from him. He might have been sent by someone named Strawberry.</p><p></p><p>The Council sends a team to check out his special friend, who they strongly believe is a honey pot.</p><p></p><p>Kit gets a message from her contact in the Kingdom of Life. The two children of the family have surfaced—they’ve been exposed. We want to do something, but we don’t know what. They’re guarded, being left out for the judgment of the sun. That hasn’t been done in generations. Even if we could get them out, we’d have to go down, into the water tunnels. But then we’d go past the Isles of the Feet, and then drift out into the ocean unless we had a boat to meet us. Nobody goes into the water tunnels, where there are some punts. Nobody goes into the water tunnels—they’re viewed as cursed.</p><p></p><p>The Council arranges for a voller to fly over and drop off a boat—ostensibly while en route to Enclaves to evac Kit’s family.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, the young woman (Blanche) shows up at the restaurant, where a squad with a widget of true seeing looks at her. She is, in fact, a beautiful young human woman who is what she appears to be. Her thoughts are not extremely deep; it’s very easy to read them. She develops a combination of annoyance and concern when he fails to show up, and then gets fidgety. Muriel, a waitress working for Kit, heads in. "There is some fear—a shadowy shape to the fear. She is in fact in love with him, admiring him. My brother wanted me to go look at art in the archive, and I do like art. He dared to suggest to me that I try to get money out of poor, sweet Robert. I wouldn’t do it of course. Then he suggested… oh I can’t talk about it, it’s too horrible. He then suggested that if I wouldn’t ask Robert for money, that I ask him to share the Archduke’s secrets with him. Things haven’t been good at home since my brother came back to the palace. I swear he changed. He was only 15 summers when he went into the palace of life, but when he came out after the two years’ service, he became cold and calculating and mechanical after having been kind and gentle, but he lost all interest in women as well and became quite nasty. I actually think he hit mother once. Mother is not happy with the current regime. He goes to services all the way down in the lower city—it’s not a large parish, I didn’t much like the mass there."</p><p></p><p>Kit arranges to have some thugs pick up the brother—the Council could expel him for soliciting espionage, but they’d rather pick him up. Of course the Archduke can’t take action against him, but if some random thugs picked him up…</p><p></p><p>The priest is a member of the Order of the Eternal Light, but he’s been there for years and is happy there and it’s small and unimportant so they just leave him there. The Order of the Eternal Light is an enormous order, with priests everywhere.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna sends some paladins to investigate the church. The priest seems fine, elderly but fine. There is however evil straight down—presumably in the uncleanable sewers. There’s a steady low-grade influence, not affecting the priest, but steadily entering some of the people in the services, including the brother. A total of three had been influenced.</p><p></p><p>Kit sends a group of thugs to pick up the brother, backed up by arcane support. He says, “You don’t want to do this.” The thugs try to pick him up, and a burst of light and energy erupts from the street. One of the paladins runs towards him, another runs to a guardhouse to get more support. He repeats, “You don’t want to do this,” and starts floating in the air, although without casting a levitate or fly spell.</p><p></p><p>The ground where the flash of light came from is still glowing. One of the thugs (under protection from evil) moves over the flash of light, and zip, it moves along the sewer track.</p><p></p><p>Kit sends her people to check the sewer underneath; Dame Brionna sends her paladin sewer squad.</p><p></p><p>He escapes. The sewer squad, runs out of the sewer a glowing ball of blue light, radiating intense evil. Alistair says it seems like an evil lantern archon, and orders it bound in a circle of protection against evil.</p><p></p><p>They also post people to watch over the house of Blanche’s mother, and to try to apprehend Frederick (the brother).</p><p></p><p>Bishop Waters confirms that it is indeed an archon turned to evil. "It was brought here, by its summoner. Its summoner’s masters are very powerful, it says. It says they’re mighty priests of the Light. It refers to “the Light” and “the Darkness” as if they are the only things that exist. It says that ultimately the masters serve the Blue Star, although it’s very cagey about whether they know it. “The Blue Star” is another name for Sytry. It is influencing others because they are susceptible. The summoner, it truly acts as if it were diabolic, it is corrupting. It is probably only a few millennia from being truly diabolic. Is the summoner a true human? It says it was when I began."</p><p></p><p>Bishop Waters says that it’s becoming more arrogant even over the course of this conversation. "But how is an archon of light in service to Sytry? Unless Sytry is starting to make his own archons…"</p><p></p><p>Alistair asks, could it be a devil forced into the form of an archon and offered into Sytry’s service? It could be. The Council has it bound into a vessel, and moved it into the palace, so they can study its nature.</p><p>[End session 78]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CPaladin, post: 8470326, member: 7030144"] [session 76, cont'd] The Council calls in Dame Brionna’s sister, who has some expertise and responsibility in these matters. "Do you know a Baron Werner?" "Yes, a young man. He has fallen head-over-heals to a young woman attached to the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Life; she’s head-over-heals in love with him as well. Apparently, she’s not of breeding, so it’s acceptable for her to marry out. "He’s a brilliant linguist, one of our chief translators of documents from foreign powers. Also very devout, of Glor’diadel, a daily communicant, and a remarkably hard worker. His mother used to be a lower-level lady-in-waiting to the former Archduchess." (The Council asks Lord Brightspan to research the history of the tradition of the life offering.) We summon Baron Werner on the pretense of some assistance translating a brief speech into Noldar. We then have a security team examining him. He’s squeaky clean. He has dinner scheduled with his special friend. His younger brother isn’t very devout. He engaged in some … well, he might have a baby or two around. He’s functioning as a messenger for the military, but he’ll end up a warrior. He wanted to head north to Gates, where there are a lot of very attractive young women. The Council has gotten a couple of notes from him. He might have been sent by someone named Strawberry. The Council sends a team to check out his special friend, who they strongly believe is a honey pot. Kit gets a message from her contact in the Kingdom of Life. The two children of the family have surfaced—they’ve been exposed. We want to do something, but we don’t know what. They’re guarded, being left out for the judgment of the sun. That hasn’t been done in generations. Even if we could get them out, we’d have to go down, into the water tunnels. But then we’d go past the Isles of the Feet, and then drift out into the ocean unless we had a boat to meet us. Nobody goes into the water tunnels, where there are some punts. Nobody goes into the water tunnels—they’re viewed as cursed. The Council arranges for a voller to fly over and drop off a boat—ostensibly while en route to Enclaves to evac Kit’s family. Meanwhile, the young woman (Blanche) shows up at the restaurant, where a squad with a widget of true seeing looks at her. She is, in fact, a beautiful young human woman who is what she appears to be. Her thoughts are not extremely deep; it’s very easy to read them. She develops a combination of annoyance and concern when he fails to show up, and then gets fidgety. Muriel, a waitress working for Kit, heads in. "There is some fear—a shadowy shape to the fear. She is in fact in love with him, admiring him. My brother wanted me to go look at art in the archive, and I do like art. He dared to suggest to me that I try to get money out of poor, sweet Robert. I wouldn’t do it of course. Then he suggested… oh I can’t talk about it, it’s too horrible. He then suggested that if I wouldn’t ask Robert for money, that I ask him to share the Archduke’s secrets with him. Things haven’t been good at home since my brother came back to the palace. I swear he changed. He was only 15 summers when he went into the palace of life, but when he came out after the two years’ service, he became cold and calculating and mechanical after having been kind and gentle, but he lost all interest in women as well and became quite nasty. I actually think he hit mother once. Mother is not happy with the current regime. He goes to services all the way down in the lower city—it’s not a large parish, I didn’t much like the mass there." Kit arranges to have some thugs pick up the brother—the Council could expel him for soliciting espionage, but they’d rather pick him up. Of course the Archduke can’t take action against him, but if some random thugs picked him up… The priest is a member of the Order of the Eternal Light, but he’s been there for years and is happy there and it’s small and unimportant so they just leave him there. The Order of the Eternal Light is an enormous order, with priests everywhere. Dame Brionna sends some paladins to investigate the church. The priest seems fine, elderly but fine. There is however evil straight down—presumably in the uncleanable sewers. There’s a steady low-grade influence, not affecting the priest, but steadily entering some of the people in the services, including the brother. A total of three had been influenced. Kit sends a group of thugs to pick up the brother, backed up by arcane support. He says, “You don’t want to do this.” The thugs try to pick him up, and a burst of light and energy erupts from the street. One of the paladins runs towards him, another runs to a guardhouse to get more support. He repeats, “You don’t want to do this,” and starts floating in the air, although without casting a levitate or fly spell. The ground where the flash of light came from is still glowing. One of the thugs (under protection from evil) moves over the flash of light, and zip, it moves along the sewer track. Kit sends her people to check the sewer underneath; Dame Brionna sends her paladin sewer squad. He escapes. The sewer squad, runs out of the sewer a glowing ball of blue light, radiating intense evil. Alistair says it seems like an evil lantern archon, and orders it bound in a circle of protection against evil. They also post people to watch over the house of Blanche’s mother, and to try to apprehend Frederick (the brother). Bishop Waters confirms that it is indeed an archon turned to evil. "It was brought here, by its summoner. Its summoner’s masters are very powerful, it says. It says they’re mighty priests of the Light. It refers to “the Light” and “the Darkness” as if they are the only things that exist. It says that ultimately the masters serve the Blue Star, although it’s very cagey about whether they know it. “The Blue Star” is another name for Sytry. It is influencing others because they are susceptible. The summoner, it truly acts as if it were diabolic, it is corrupting. It is probably only a few millennia from being truly diabolic. Is the summoner a true human? It says it was when I began." Bishop Waters says that it’s becoming more arrogant even over the course of this conversation. "But how is an archon of light in service to Sytry? Unless Sytry is starting to make his own archons…" Alistair asks, could it be a devil forced into the form of an archon and offered into Sytry’s service? It could be. The Council has it bound into a vessel, and moved it into the palace, so they can study its nature. [End session 78] [/QUOTE]
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Aphonion Tales: The Archducal Council -- Unedited notes; later posts are edited transcripts (posts MWF, update 3/1/23)
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