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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: 8844888" data-attributes="member: 7030144"><p>Session 139 (February 23, 2022)</p><p></p><p>29 Tar</p><p>In the morning, Alistair raises an idea for the Council. "We spoke yesterday about our fears that the enemy are targeting the young scions of both the Eldar and the Noldor. I had a thought about that. Perhaps we could use the young Noldor lord who is our vassal to entrap the gray elf traitors, or perhaps some other servitors of the enemy, if we created an image of him out and about in the city to lure them into attacking him when he is 'vulnerable,' while he actually stays safe in the palace."</p><p></p><p>Kit thinks for a moment. "Wouldn't gray elves be able to see through that sort of illusion?"</p><p></p><p>"If they interacted with it closely, certainly. But we might be able to lure them in close enough to check, and then mouse trap them. I thought this might be a task for the Sixth Daughter to supervise."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, she'd be most interested in that."</p><p></p><p>"Ideally, we would have the image surrounded by his actual companions."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, that way if they have intelligence about who he associates with, it would seem to confirm their intelligence that he's out and about in the city."</p><p></p><p>"We would need both his permission and that of his friends to endanger them in that sort of way," notes Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"Of course."</p><p></p><p>"Wouldn't they be able to sense that the Noldor lord's mind wasn't present?" asks Kit. "Powerful psions, especially ones who are not yet fully trained, have unmistakeable psionic signatures."</p><p></p><p>"We could let it be leaked that he has a ring of mind shielding--which we do in fact have access to. That might work. If we are all agreed, I will go speak to him to ask his permission and advice on picking the right friends to ask."</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna accompanies Alistair to meet with the Noldor lord. As Alistair approaches, the lord gives him the elaborate, almost gymnastic, Noldor greeting of obeisance. Alistair returns it with a respectful, but much more subdued, nod. "That whole greeting isn't really necessary, you know. We don't do that sort of thing here."</p><p></p><p>"No, my lord, but it is proper. You are the Emperor, and I should show my respect."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, but it's also proper for you to use the same sorts of signs of respect that any of my other vassals would use. I'm not criticizing, mind, I'm just saying that it would suffice to follow local custom."</p><p></p><p>"I will do as you request. You are the Emperor."</p><p></p><p>"I wanted to speak with you further about why we have asked you to remain within the palace for the time being, and also about possible action we might take connected to those reasons. As you know, the Eldritch have become much more active, and they have corrupted various highly placed people. They have sought to achieve greater problems. We believe that they were responsible for murdering the young prince of House Curinnirim, who, you may remember, was killed on his research schooner some time ago, as well as the Crown Prince of the House of Gwyr--one of your cousins' noble houses-- and thus we fear that they would view you as being an attractive target without the full protection of either a Noldor necropolis or an Eldar forest."</p><p></p><p>"I see," replies the Noldor lord.</p><p></p><p>"We believe that the wards of the palace--recently re-empowered and strengthened as they are-- to be sufficient to keep you safe within these walls. We can't be as confident that you would be safe elsewhere in our lands. And so, until this threat has passed, we think it wise to keep you within the palace."</p><p></p><p>"Thank you, my lord."</p><p></p><p>"There is an opportunity, however, that presents for us in taking the fight to the enemy, which is, that if we can mislead them into thinking that you are elsewhere and unprotected, they may commit substantial forces to try to capture or kill you, allowing us to then ambush those forces."</p><p></p><p>"I don't have much formal military training yet, but that seems reasonable."</p><p></p><p>"Now, we can't use you personally, because the risks to the overall cause would be too high were you to be injured or even killed. But we could use the appearance of your seeming to try to lure them in nonetheless. The most effective way to make that convincing would be for some of your actual friends, who are known to be your friends, to be involved with the ruse. This would put them at risk. There's no way of avoiding that. So we would, of course, not do that without both your permission and theirs. But we wondered if you thought that there might be some of your known friends and companions who might have the right mix of bravery, but not foolhardiness, and capabilities to take care of themselves, that might make them suitable to use in such an effort."</p><p></p><p>"I think they're all very brave, my lord, but I can't choose for them."</p><p></p><p>"No, of course not. I'm not asking you to do so. We would not ask for you to do so. What we were asking is if you might make suggestions of ones among them who it might make sense for us to ask, and do note that I mean ask, and not command." Alistair is privately unsure that one raised among the Noldor would understand that distinction, but he makes it nonetheless.</p><p></p><p>He gives a few names of friends he would suggest--Gregory, his closest friend, or perhaps Todd.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna says, "Thank you, and again, we do need to ask you to stay safe in the palace and take no part in this. It is not that we do not wish your assistance in this regard, but at this point, you do the cause of Light and of good far more help by remaining safe yourself."</p><p></p><p>"Thank you, Dame. I think I'll go pray in the chapel."</p><p></p><p>"A wise plan. We all have great deal of experience with needing to keep ourselves safeer than we would wish, and not being able to do as much actively as we would wish," adds Alistair. "I know it's hard that you can't go out and play with your friends or have adventures with this as they may. There will be a time when you will be one of the last of your people on Aphonion, and it will be your place to carry the banner for all that is good and right in the world against forces that are beyond humanity's capabilities. That time will come, but that's still some thousand or several thousand years in the future."</p><p></p><p>"Thank you, Lord." He bows to Alistair, although much more clumsily than with the complex Noldor salutation.</p><p></p><p>They then head back to the Council chamber and call in the Sixth Daughter, who is enthusiastic about the plan--almost disturbingly so.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna sends one of her guards to summon Gregory--one of the Noldor's friends that he recommended--to the palace. A short while later, the guard rushes back in and throws himself prostrate before the Council.</p><p></p><p>"My lord! The youth has been kidnapped, along with one of his friends. Those who were around him cannot seem to speak, and he's gone! His younger brother indicated that the ones who took him went into the air, upward into the air, and disappeared. He cannot speak well, and they can barely move. I'm having others carry them here, as we speak, my lord; I hope I did not exceed my rights."</p><p></p><p>"No, that's good and let's call for some healers and some redactors."</p><p></p><p>"And young Lord Brightspan," adds Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"They're trying to bait him out," says Kit.</p><p></p><p>"But we may still be able to turn this to our advantage..." [The GM noted with amusement that our plan tied right into, and somewhat short-circuited, his plan for the evening's events.]</p><p></p><p>"With your permission, your grace, if you will deal with the people here, I could go to investigate the scene of the crime with some of my squads," says Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"My concern is that that we know this is a trap. I suppose you can investigate the scene, but be careful."</p><p></p><p>Kit is meanwhile comforting the boys who were brought in, because they are young and traumatized by the event, crying about their friends who are missing. The most functional of the boys is Todd--an eleven year old who is crying about the fact that they took Gregory and Thaddeus.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, we need to rescue Gregory and Thaddeus. Do you understand that this was a trap to try to kill your friend?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes. They thought I was sleeping. Would they know when he's not in this building, like I know when he's not in this building?"</p><p></p><p>"You know when he's not in here?"</p><p></p><p>"I can't hear him when he's in here. When he's not here, I can hear him in my mind if I listen for him. I can hear what people are thinking if I concentrate, but not in here."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, there are powerful wards. By the way, did you have those abilities before you met the Prince?"</p><p></p><p>"Never!"</p><p></p><p>"Really? Are there people in your family who had strange hunches, or..."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, sure! But I never did, and he said I ought to be able to talk to him when we work together. And ever since I have."</p><p></p><p>"He activated your latent talent," says Kit. "Have you started receiving formal training yet?"</p><p></p><p>"Training?" he asks, obviously confused.</p><p></p><p>"Well, we're going to change that now because you you can be taught to do a lot of really really useful things, and serve your country."</p><p></p><p>"Can I be taught to rescue Gregory and Thaddeus?" asks Todd.</p><p></p><p>"That's exactly what we were going to begin discussing," replies Alistair. "They want your friend the Noldor Lord to go racing off with you and some of your companions trying to come to the rescue, so they can then try to capture him. We want to send out a group that will be perceived as including him. But it will not, so that when they try to grab that group, our hunting party can grab them, and hopefully also, by grabbing them, get access to actually rescue Gregory."</p><p></p><p>"That sounds good. I've got a knife."</p><p></p><p>"A knife, huh?" says Kit. She's shocked that the Noldor lord would have suggested an 11 year old, but from his perspective, they're all children, so he didn't distinguish between the teens in his coterie and the younger children. "I believe you that you are trained and I believe you that you are brave and want to do whatever you can to rescue your friend, and we're going to find a way for you to help. But you have to understand the people that took your friend are really powerful and so we need to give you some more help, so that you don't have to go face them by yourself."</p><p></p><p>The child nods.</p><p></p><p>Alistair continues, "I need you to understand this could go badly. There's no guarantee that this will be successful, and there's no guarantee that even if it is successful that everyone who participates will make it home. So you need to understand that you're taking a chance that you'd get killed or that you would return with your mind broken, so that you couldn't think properly or your body broken, so that you can never walk again. There is a place in the Heavens for those who fall in the cause of Good. But even I, as the Emperor, can't order you to do something like this, because the risks are too high. I can only ask you."</p><p></p><p>"I can't leave my friends with them."</p><p></p><p>"I just wanted to be clear about that."</p><p></p><p>"Thank you, your majesty..." he says, while remaining determined.</p><p></p><p>Kit uses the mindlink. << We are going to keep this kid far away from anything who can hurt him. He's just a child! We are not going to throw him out there for the for the gray elves to attack.>></p><p></p><p><<No, but but he may need to be part of something so that they can see him.>></p><p></p><p><<That's fine as long as he is far away from any danger.>></p><p></p><p>Alistair says, "There's someone we'd like you to meet who will be leading the effort to make sure that that your friend and you make it back safely, and that the people who are trying to hurt your other friend are brought to justice. She can be a little intimidating, but she means well, or at least she is loyal to the Empire." He sends for the Sixth Daughter again.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Dame Brionna travels to the scene of the kidnapping. She is no longer in the upper city, because the Noldor’s friends are drawn from all ranks of society. She’s in a reasonable working class area. The house is open, and there are guards present.</p><p></p><p>“Can you tell me what was reported to you?”</p><p></p><p>“At some time around the fourth hour of the morning, a malaise fell over the house. The goodwife awoke, but could not move. She is the only one who can speak. The children have now been carried off to the palace. They were in the common room of the house. They had drunk grog and played dice late into the night. A malaise fell, and they were stricken to the ground, though she was not. A group of figures entered, though she had difficulty describing them except that one of them was an elf. She touched the children on the forehead, and then took her son and one other.”</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna heads in to speak to a woman who is weeping in the kitchen, and sometimes whacking a man who is standing with her, as if she blames him as well.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna greets her and says that she is here to investigate on behalf of the Archduke. She tells her that they believe that her son has been taken as a hostage because of his friend.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna asks if one of the investigators could take a mental impression.</p><p></p><p>“She is Coercively obdurate, which is why she could resist the Coercer. It must have been Coercion. But she must have been held unmoving by some other mechanism. I have the image of the elf, but it was in truth no elf as we would say it. He was a twilight elf. The malaise is not permanent, but is still having some residual effect until it passes because of how powerful the effect was.”</p><p></p><p>The investigators also find an elven rune freshly carved in the side of the table—it represents the eye. The mage in Dame Brionna’s group reports that it’s magical, and still active. Her psion does psychometry and tells her that it was slashed in by one of the boys, as if he had no control over his own limbs, but then enchanted by one of those who have gone over completely. He must be concentrating very hard—he’s having trouble holding that many of them with his Coercion.</p><p></p><p>The mother reports that in addition to the elf, there were 5 strange figures who were largely transparent.</p><p></p><p>When that’s reported, Alistair calls for Lord Silverleaves. “I bear word from the Queen. There are a total of at least 4 elven ships within the barrier. Only one of them is a powerful ship, but with them is a sloop, a schooner, and a war flitter. They appear to be from both races. There are not enough elves to man them, so they are likely stolen, and they will not fly well with human control. But while they are at anchor, they are a light squadron by elven standards. That would be capable of destroying a whole human battlegroup.</p><p></p><p>The Noldor lord’s friend Todd says that the other missing person is Thaddeus. Gregory is the Noldar lord’s best friend.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly, the cook drags in a sullen looking boy, who said that he was given three pence to deliver this message to that nice young man who likes my cookies.</p><p></p><p>“Esteemed young lord, you have forty-eight hours to come to a location that will be provided to you mentally. If you do not come within forty-eight hours, Gregory will be sacrificed to my lord and his soul lost to this plane.” It is signed with a Noldar ideograph.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna has the rune “discovered” and then destroyed. She has some scent hounds sniff around, and they follow the trail for about a block before sudden confusion. Asking around, they get reports of some men walking down the street and then flying directly up into the air, perhaps two-hundred or three-hundred feet. And then they vanished, though they could still be heard talking.</p><p></p><p>A psion checks their memory. “I think they fled in a voller—under an invisibility cloak.”</p><p></p><p>They make a plan: they’ll send the Noldor lord out wearing a ring of mind shielding. He’ll then remove the ring, some distance out from the palace, but still reasonably close, with the Sixth Daughter, Lord Davion, and Lord Silverleaves protecting him. Once he has the location, he’ll put his ring of mind shielding back on, and return to the palace. And then Lord Davion, the Sixth Daughter, and Lord Silverleaves will plot to ambush the people who want to ambush him.</p><p></p><p>They implement the plan: he takes the ring off, some discussion ensues mentally, he falls to his knees and begins crying, and then clumsily puts the ring back on and is brought back into the palace.</p><p></p><p>“They’re cutting Thaddeus! They showed me. They said that if I came to them, they’d let them go. They said that I’m the one they want.”</p><p>[cont'd]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CPaladin, post: 8844888, member: 7030144"] Session 139 (February 23, 2022) 29 Tar In the morning, Alistair raises an idea for the Council. "We spoke yesterday about our fears that the enemy are targeting the young scions of both the Eldar and the Noldor. I had a thought about that. Perhaps we could use the young Noldor lord who is our vassal to entrap the gray elf traitors, or perhaps some other servitors of the enemy, if we created an image of him out and about in the city to lure them into attacking him when he is 'vulnerable,' while he actually stays safe in the palace." Kit thinks for a moment. "Wouldn't gray elves be able to see through that sort of illusion?" "If they interacted with it closely, certainly. But we might be able to lure them in close enough to check, and then mouse trap them. I thought this might be a task for the Sixth Daughter to supervise." "Oh, she'd be most interested in that." "Ideally, we would have the image surrounded by his actual companions." "Yes, that way if they have intelligence about who he associates with, it would seem to confirm their intelligence that he's out and about in the city." "We would need both his permission and that of his friends to endanger them in that sort of way," notes Dame Brionna. "Of course." "Wouldn't they be able to sense that the Noldor lord's mind wasn't present?" asks Kit. "Powerful psions, especially ones who are not yet fully trained, have unmistakeable psionic signatures." "We could let it be leaked that he has a ring of mind shielding--which we do in fact have access to. That might work. If we are all agreed, I will go speak to him to ask his permission and advice on picking the right friends to ask." Dame Brionna accompanies Alistair to meet with the Noldor lord. As Alistair approaches, the lord gives him the elaborate, almost gymnastic, Noldor greeting of obeisance. Alistair returns it with a respectful, but much more subdued, nod. "That whole greeting isn't really necessary, you know. We don't do that sort of thing here." "No, my lord, but it is proper. You are the Emperor, and I should show my respect." "Yes, but it's also proper for you to use the same sorts of signs of respect that any of my other vassals would use. I'm not criticizing, mind, I'm just saying that it would suffice to follow local custom." "I will do as you request. You are the Emperor." "I wanted to speak with you further about why we have asked you to remain within the palace for the time being, and also about possible action we might take connected to those reasons. As you know, the Eldritch have become much more active, and they have corrupted various highly placed people. They have sought to achieve greater problems. We believe that they were responsible for murdering the young prince of House Curinnirim, who, you may remember, was killed on his research schooner some time ago, as well as the Crown Prince of the House of Gwyr--one of your cousins' noble houses-- and thus we fear that they would view you as being an attractive target without the full protection of either a Noldor necropolis or an Eldar forest." "I see," replies the Noldor lord. "We believe that the wards of the palace--recently re-empowered and strengthened as they are-- to be sufficient to keep you safe within these walls. We can't be as confident that you would be safe elsewhere in our lands. And so, until this threat has passed, we think it wise to keep you within the palace." "Thank you, my lord." "There is an opportunity, however, that presents for us in taking the fight to the enemy, which is, that if we can mislead them into thinking that you are elsewhere and unprotected, they may commit substantial forces to try to capture or kill you, allowing us to then ambush those forces." "I don't have much formal military training yet, but that seems reasonable." "Now, we can't use you personally, because the risks to the overall cause would be too high were you to be injured or even killed. But we could use the appearance of your seeming to try to lure them in nonetheless. The most effective way to make that convincing would be for some of your actual friends, who are known to be your friends, to be involved with the ruse. This would put them at risk. There's no way of avoiding that. So we would, of course, not do that without both your permission and theirs. But we wondered if you thought that there might be some of your known friends and companions who might have the right mix of bravery, but not foolhardiness, and capabilities to take care of themselves, that might make them suitable to use in such an effort." "I think they're all very brave, my lord, but I can't choose for them." "No, of course not. I'm not asking you to do so. We would not ask for you to do so. What we were asking is if you might make suggestions of ones among them who it might make sense for us to ask, and do note that I mean ask, and not command." Alistair is privately unsure that one raised among the Noldor would understand that distinction, but he makes it nonetheless. He gives a few names of friends he would suggest--Gregory, his closest friend, or perhaps Todd. Dame Brionna says, "Thank you, and again, we do need to ask you to stay safe in the palace and take no part in this. It is not that we do not wish your assistance in this regard, but at this point, you do the cause of Light and of good far more help by remaining safe yourself." "Thank you, Dame. I think I'll go pray in the chapel." "A wise plan. We all have great deal of experience with needing to keep ourselves safeer than we would wish, and not being able to do as much actively as we would wish," adds Alistair. "I know it's hard that you can't go out and play with your friends or have adventures with this as they may. There will be a time when you will be one of the last of your people on Aphonion, and it will be your place to carry the banner for all that is good and right in the world against forces that are beyond humanity's capabilities. That time will come, but that's still some thousand or several thousand years in the future." "Thank you, Lord." He bows to Alistair, although much more clumsily than with the complex Noldor salutation. They then head back to the Council chamber and call in the Sixth Daughter, who is enthusiastic about the plan--almost disturbingly so. Dame Brionna sends one of her guards to summon Gregory--one of the Noldor's friends that he recommended--to the palace. A short while later, the guard rushes back in and throws himself prostrate before the Council. "My lord! The youth has been kidnapped, along with one of his friends. Those who were around him cannot seem to speak, and he's gone! His younger brother indicated that the ones who took him went into the air, upward into the air, and disappeared. He cannot speak well, and they can barely move. I'm having others carry them here, as we speak, my lord; I hope I did not exceed my rights." "No, that's good and let's call for some healers and some redactors." "And young Lord Brightspan," adds Dame Brionna. "They're trying to bait him out," says Kit. "But we may still be able to turn this to our advantage..." [The GM noted with amusement that our plan tied right into, and somewhat short-circuited, his plan for the evening's events.] "With your permission, your grace, if you will deal with the people here, I could go to investigate the scene of the crime with some of my squads," says Dame Brionna. "My concern is that that we know this is a trap. I suppose you can investigate the scene, but be careful." Kit is meanwhile comforting the boys who were brought in, because they are young and traumatized by the event, crying about their friends who are missing. The most functional of the boys is Todd--an eleven year old who is crying about the fact that they took Gregory and Thaddeus. "Yes, we need to rescue Gregory and Thaddeus. Do you understand that this was a trap to try to kill your friend?" "Yes. They thought I was sleeping. Would they know when he's not in this building, like I know when he's not in this building?" "You know when he's not in here?" "I can't hear him when he's in here. When he's not here, I can hear him in my mind if I listen for him. I can hear what people are thinking if I concentrate, but not in here." "Yes, there are powerful wards. By the way, did you have those abilities before you met the Prince?" "Never!" "Really? Are there people in your family who had strange hunches, or..." "Oh, sure! But I never did, and he said I ought to be able to talk to him when we work together. And ever since I have." "He activated your latent talent," says Kit. "Have you started receiving formal training yet?" "Training?" he asks, obviously confused. "Well, we're going to change that now because you you can be taught to do a lot of really really useful things, and serve your country." "Can I be taught to rescue Gregory and Thaddeus?" asks Todd. "That's exactly what we were going to begin discussing," replies Alistair. "They want your friend the Noldor Lord to go racing off with you and some of your companions trying to come to the rescue, so they can then try to capture him. We want to send out a group that will be perceived as including him. But it will not, so that when they try to grab that group, our hunting party can grab them, and hopefully also, by grabbing them, get access to actually rescue Gregory." "That sounds good. I've got a knife." "A knife, huh?" says Kit. She's shocked that the Noldor lord would have suggested an 11 year old, but from his perspective, they're all children, so he didn't distinguish between the teens in his coterie and the younger children. "I believe you that you are trained and I believe you that you are brave and want to do whatever you can to rescue your friend, and we're going to find a way for you to help. But you have to understand the people that took your friend are really powerful and so we need to give you some more help, so that you don't have to go face them by yourself." The child nods. Alistair continues, "I need you to understand this could go badly. There's no guarantee that this will be successful, and there's no guarantee that even if it is successful that everyone who participates will make it home. So you need to understand that you're taking a chance that you'd get killed or that you would return with your mind broken, so that you couldn't think properly or your body broken, so that you can never walk again. There is a place in the Heavens for those who fall in the cause of Good. But even I, as the Emperor, can't order you to do something like this, because the risks are too high. I can only ask you." "I can't leave my friends with them." "I just wanted to be clear about that." "Thank you, your majesty..." he says, while remaining determined. Kit uses the mindlink. << We are going to keep this kid far away from anything who can hurt him. He's just a child! We are not going to throw him out there for the for the gray elves to attack.>> <<No, but but he may need to be part of something so that they can see him.>> <<That's fine as long as he is far away from any danger.>> Alistair says, "There's someone we'd like you to meet who will be leading the effort to make sure that that your friend and you make it back safely, and that the people who are trying to hurt your other friend are brought to justice. She can be a little intimidating, but she means well, or at least she is loyal to the Empire." He sends for the Sixth Daughter again. Meanwhile, Dame Brionna travels to the scene of the kidnapping. She is no longer in the upper city, because the Noldor’s friends are drawn from all ranks of society. She’s in a reasonable working class area. The house is open, and there are guards present. “Can you tell me what was reported to you?” “At some time around the fourth hour of the morning, a malaise fell over the house. The goodwife awoke, but could not move. She is the only one who can speak. The children have now been carried off to the palace. They were in the common room of the house. They had drunk grog and played dice late into the night. A malaise fell, and they were stricken to the ground, though she was not. A group of figures entered, though she had difficulty describing them except that one of them was an elf. She touched the children on the forehead, and then took her son and one other.” Dame Brionna heads in to speak to a woman who is weeping in the kitchen, and sometimes whacking a man who is standing with her, as if she blames him as well. Dame Brionna greets her and says that she is here to investigate on behalf of the Archduke. She tells her that they believe that her son has been taken as a hostage because of his friend. Dame Brionna asks if one of the investigators could take a mental impression. “She is Coercively obdurate, which is why she could resist the Coercer. It must have been Coercion. But she must have been held unmoving by some other mechanism. I have the image of the elf, but it was in truth no elf as we would say it. He was a twilight elf. The malaise is not permanent, but is still having some residual effect until it passes because of how powerful the effect was.” The investigators also find an elven rune freshly carved in the side of the table—it represents the eye. The mage in Dame Brionna’s group reports that it’s magical, and still active. Her psion does psychometry and tells her that it was slashed in by one of the boys, as if he had no control over his own limbs, but then enchanted by one of those who have gone over completely. He must be concentrating very hard—he’s having trouble holding that many of them with his Coercion. The mother reports that in addition to the elf, there were 5 strange figures who were largely transparent. When that’s reported, Alistair calls for Lord Silverleaves. “I bear word from the Queen. There are a total of at least 4 elven ships within the barrier. Only one of them is a powerful ship, but with them is a sloop, a schooner, and a war flitter. They appear to be from both races. There are not enough elves to man them, so they are likely stolen, and they will not fly well with human control. But while they are at anchor, they are a light squadron by elven standards. That would be capable of destroying a whole human battlegroup. The Noldor lord’s friend Todd says that the other missing person is Thaddeus. Gregory is the Noldar lord’s best friend. Suddenly, the cook drags in a sullen looking boy, who said that he was given three pence to deliver this message to that nice young man who likes my cookies. “Esteemed young lord, you have forty-eight hours to come to a location that will be provided to you mentally. If you do not come within forty-eight hours, Gregory will be sacrificed to my lord and his soul lost to this plane.” It is signed with a Noldar ideograph. Dame Brionna has the rune “discovered” and then destroyed. She has some scent hounds sniff around, and they follow the trail for about a block before sudden confusion. Asking around, they get reports of some men walking down the street and then flying directly up into the air, perhaps two-hundred or three-hundred feet. And then they vanished, though they could still be heard talking. A psion checks their memory. “I think they fled in a voller—under an invisibility cloak.” They make a plan: they’ll send the Noldor lord out wearing a ring of mind shielding. He’ll then remove the ring, some distance out from the palace, but still reasonably close, with the Sixth Daughter, Lord Davion, and Lord Silverleaves protecting him. Once he has the location, he’ll put his ring of mind shielding back on, and return to the palace. And then Lord Davion, the Sixth Daughter, and Lord Silverleaves will plot to ambush the people who want to ambush him. They implement the plan: he takes the ring off, some discussion ensues mentally, he falls to his knees and begins crying, and then clumsily puts the ring back on and is brought back into the palace. “They’re cutting Thaddeus! They showed me. They said that if I came to them, they’d let them go. They said that I’m the one they want.” [cont'd] [/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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