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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: 8312092" data-attributes="member: 7030144"><p>[Session 52 cont'd]</p><p>We send paladins to look for it, we do some locate objects, we recall Lord Brightspan and warn him, we have people scry for it. We easily locate it; it’s on a shelf full of knick-knacks in the pages’ quarters. It appears to be empty.</p><p></p><p>We summon all of the pages, starting with Abigail. We ask the Farsensor if he can detect who got it. "Oh… that’s a crude mind, isn’t it? The youngest one. So odd to say for your people. It’s the youngest one—the ork.</p><p></p><p>"It’s an interesting set of commands. He’s been given… oh, how incredibly clever. The series of commands the child has been given, he’s not even aware of. He’s been given just enough ability to map the wards, without realizing he’s doing it. He got it last evening. It’s strictly a method of reading out information and sending it on—burst mode when he goes outside the walls."</p><p></p><p>It extinguishes itself once it activates.</p><p></p><p>We need a decent coercer to transfer it.</p><p></p><p>Kit asks one of her rumor mongers. She’s excited, she’s energetic, she’s enthusiastic, she has no idea what psionics are except for the fact that they’re an important part of the kingdom.</p><p></p><p>We then have a fake version of the wards built out, designed to steer them into the strongest parts and make their attacks fail as much as possible. It then burst transmits off, and the Farsensor confirms that there is not a trace of it left in her head afterwards.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna chews out the Master of Pages for not maintaining a higher security approach.</p><p></p><p>The rakshasa does not know the Abomination’s true name. There are things that could be done to him if you had his true name, more and more as he becomes more and more demon. There are some who might know his true name; the lord demons may have exchanged such information to seal the pack. His first sorcerer might. All others who would know were slain a millennium ago.</p><p></p><p>Awkward meeting with Caitlyn:</p><p></p><p>Kit prepares for this, wearing a dress, one of her relatively non-low-cut gowns. She is looking as respectable council member as she can get.</p><p></p><p>She goes to meet Caitlyn in a very private, official meeting room.</p><p></p><p>“Good afternoon, your majesty.”</p><p></p><p>“Good afternoon, Dame Katherine.”</p><p></p><p>“Thank you for meeting with me.”</p><p></p><p>“You know far more of this place than I do. I’m honored you would wish to meet with me.”</p><p></p><p>“Well, you are an important person. And it’s about time that we met. What have you heard of my position at court?”</p><p></p><p>“That you are one of the Archduke’s advisors. That you were elevated from the commons for great service and loyalty.”</p><p></p><p>“That’s all you’ve heard?”</p><p></p><p>“Well… there are one or two that believe that you may be the Hand, but there are one or two that believe that every woman in the palace is the Hand. And there are one or two that believe that you may be the eye. And the body imagery used for this palace’s secret service is very disturbing.”</p><p></p><p>“You don’t know the half of it.”</p><p></p><p>“I am one of the people responsible for keeping you safe, and Alistair safe.”</p><p></p><p>“You seem to be doing a good job.”</p><p></p><p>“And I will continue doing that. My first job is keeping you and Alistair safe, and I will continue doing that. There is something else you need to know. It doesn’t change anything, and I will keep keeping you safe. I just came from seeing to the death of someone who was striking at you.”</p><p></p><p>“Oh…it’s not from one of your own people? Alistair seems an enlightened ruler.”</p><p></p><p>“No. We have outside enemies. It wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last. But that’s why the Council is here, and why all the body parts are there. To keep Alistair safe, and you safe, and Canberry. But the reason I said all of that first is that there’s something else you need to know. And I’m telling you so that you can hear it from me. Alistair and I… I’m not just his advisor. We’re closer than that, and we have been for some time.”</p><p></p><p>“Oh, that was not the rumor at all.”</p><p></p><p>“Really? I thought that it was one of the ones in circulation.”</p><p></p><p>“No, it was not one of the two rumors about his lover. The dominant one is that it’s the Captain of the Guard. The other is that the Mistress of the Bedchamber is actually the mistress of the bedchamber. Some people thought that the fact that would be so obvious is why it is so clever.”</p><p></p><p>“I have to be glad that I’m not obvious. It’s my job to not be obvious. But…”</p><p></p><p>“Now, you do realize that I have no wish to displace your personal affections. I do wish to bear his heir.”</p><p></p><p>“That’s what you’re supposed to do. I’m here to protect Canberry, and part of that means a stable succession, which means you getting an heir legitimately.”</p><p></p><p>“I am somewhat relieved it is you. I was inclined toward the Mistress of the Bedchamber, but she knows a great deal about fertility. I feared a bastard.”</p><p></p><p>“My first job is to see that you stay safe to give Alistair an heir. After that… I’m not making any promises.”</p><p></p><p>“After that, it won’t be important.”</p><p></p><p>“There’s no way I could ever be in your place, either. I’m a foreigner, and common born, and …”</p><p></p><p>“I think that I learned in the camps that the strength of your character is more important than the blood in your veins. I will rule my people because they wish me to be. Alistair will be a ruler because of his relationship to me, but his son will be a ruler in truth of both peoples. And I believe that Alistair will help my people become a nation again in truth.”</p><p></p><p>After a moment: Caitlyn says brightly: “Tea?” She chats calmly for a while, trying to make sure Kit is at her ease.</p><p></p><p>About an hour later, when Kit is getting ready to take her leave, alarms start going off all over the palace, and the palace wards flare up.</p><p></p><p>The alarms are slowly being shut off. But it appears that they were all simultaneously set off.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna asks the Sixth Daughter. "That had to be a very powerful magic or psionic wave. It may have had nothing to do with us, but it washed over here." Kit tries to contact the Farsensor, but finds it blocked by incredibly powerful shields. She then reaches out with her fan. One of her contacts responds. We all heard it. There was a great declaration from the fairgrounds; it wasn’t in a language I understood, and then there was a great flare of light.</p><p></p><p>Abruptly, the shields blocking psionics from going in and out drop. Kit then reaches out to the Farsensor—Kit senses a tremendous amount of energy, part of which he is generating.</p><p></p><p><<We are well. Her most celestial presence detected one of the first-comers, one of the seen unseen, among the merchants.>></p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna heads off. She sees the globe of energy before she gets there. Many of the festival goers are far closer to it than they should be. The globe is surrounding a figure that is going through a series of shapes more and more rapidly.</p><p></p><p>“May I ask what occurred here?”</p><p></p><p>“We were but walking through, and this creature was posing as a merchant. A merchant of highly spiced foods, and I sensed a sickness coming on the people who were eating the food. At first I thought it was an error, for humans do not always preserve foods well, meaning no offense. I reached out to correct the imbalance in the food, and he knew me, and I knew him. It was one of the seen-unseen, a hieshi. We contained it. If it remains in a full globe, it will die, but it must die. I do not know if you have any means to rip answers from its soul.”</p><p></p><p>“Can we coerce it?”</p><p></p><p>“Yes." </p><p></p><p>"Could you move it?”</p><p></p><p>“Yes. I can move it wherever you would wish, but I will not allow it to regain contact with its source.”</p><p></p><p>“I believe that my sense is that you have about an hour and a half left before he implodes.”</p><p></p><p>A coercer arrives. “What do you want forced out of it, m’lady?”</p><p></p><p>“For starters, who it is working for and what it was trying to do?”</p><p></p><p>“Distribute the final ingredient.”</p><p></p><p>“The spice—it’s the spice, they mixed it into the spice and were moving from fair to fair.”</p><p></p><p>“What other fairs? I’ll give you a map.”</p><p></p><p>“How long did it take to get to all of these places?”</p><p></p><p>“Doesn’t have a good sense. Doesn’t have time in its place.”</p><p></p><p>“If they don’t come into contact with the other parts, will wear off. In months. If it meets the other parts, will sicken and die.”</p><p></p><p>“Other images—fire and people with pitchforks and hoes fighting soldiers. Clear image of rioting. That’s what he hopes for with this.”</p><p></p><p>“Are there others?”</p><p></p><p>Beads of sweat roll down the coercers face. “His mind says that with his capture we’ve captured all but one.”</p><p></p><p>“He only knows his last guise—it’s last guise was as a wise woman travelling with herbs in the southeast, heading this way though. He knows that she was supposed to get here sometime shortly after him; he’s been here a day.”</p><p></p><p>Kit asks him to run through the others. He goes through them, listing the ones who were distributing poison.</p><p></p><p>Is there a ritual significance to the poison and the deaths?</p><p></p><p>I don’t see any. The significance seems to be that they hope it will cause rioting.</p><p></p><p>Who is his immediate superior?</p><p></p><p>Concept doesn’t make sense to him.</p><p></p><p>Who told him to do this?</p><p></p><p>He has a better understanding—I have a picture, it seems to be a human woman. An elegantly dressed, emaciated human woman, with gold at every point where she could have gold.</p><p></p><p>Alistair recognizes that image; that is the older sister of the fairly nice daughter of the Empress of Hanal. Somehow, she was responsible for bringing him here—like she summoned him? My expertise is only in psionics, not magic, but its image is that she brought him here.</p><p></p><p>Which of the Pariah Deities does it serve? The Goddess of the Pale Bone, and then the coercer collapses, although he does not actually lose consciousness.</p><p></p><p>The thing in the globe explodes, but as it explodes the elves contract the sphere and turn the explosion inside out.</p><p></p><p>[Dame Brionna gets a point of serendipity—In some random ways, upset the plans of the enemy or allow our own plans to come to fruition, one time. Five more calendar days and people would have started dying.]</p><p></p><p>We discuss what to do about this. Three possibilities come to mind: try to have her whacked directly; tell the Empress of Hanal; tell the Inquisition (and suggest that we haven’t been able to confirm that the Empress of Hanal is uninvolved in this)</p><p></p><p>[End Session 52]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CPaladin, post: 8312092, member: 7030144"] [Session 52 cont'd] We send paladins to look for it, we do some locate objects, we recall Lord Brightspan and warn him, we have people scry for it. We easily locate it; it’s on a shelf full of knick-knacks in the pages’ quarters. It appears to be empty. We summon all of the pages, starting with Abigail. We ask the Farsensor if he can detect who got it. "Oh… that’s a crude mind, isn’t it? The youngest one. So odd to say for your people. It’s the youngest one—the ork. "It’s an interesting set of commands. He’s been given… oh, how incredibly clever. The series of commands the child has been given, he’s not even aware of. He’s been given just enough ability to map the wards, without realizing he’s doing it. He got it last evening. It’s strictly a method of reading out information and sending it on—burst mode when he goes outside the walls." It extinguishes itself once it activates. We need a decent coercer to transfer it. Kit asks one of her rumor mongers. She’s excited, she’s energetic, she’s enthusiastic, she has no idea what psionics are except for the fact that they’re an important part of the kingdom. We then have a fake version of the wards built out, designed to steer them into the strongest parts and make their attacks fail as much as possible. It then burst transmits off, and the Farsensor confirms that there is not a trace of it left in her head afterwards. Dame Brionna chews out the Master of Pages for not maintaining a higher security approach. The rakshasa does not know the Abomination’s true name. There are things that could be done to him if you had his true name, more and more as he becomes more and more demon. There are some who might know his true name; the lord demons may have exchanged such information to seal the pack. His first sorcerer might. All others who would know were slain a millennium ago. Awkward meeting with Caitlyn: Kit prepares for this, wearing a dress, one of her relatively non-low-cut gowns. She is looking as respectable council member as she can get. She goes to meet Caitlyn in a very private, official meeting room. “Good afternoon, your majesty.” “Good afternoon, Dame Katherine.” “Thank you for meeting with me.” “You know far more of this place than I do. I’m honored you would wish to meet with me.” “Well, you are an important person. And it’s about time that we met. What have you heard of my position at court?” “That you are one of the Archduke’s advisors. That you were elevated from the commons for great service and loyalty.” “That’s all you’ve heard?” “Well… there are one or two that believe that you may be the Hand, but there are one or two that believe that every woman in the palace is the Hand. And there are one or two that believe that you may be the eye. And the body imagery used for this palace’s secret service is very disturbing.” “You don’t know the half of it.” “I am one of the people responsible for keeping you safe, and Alistair safe.” “You seem to be doing a good job.” “And I will continue doing that. My first job is keeping you and Alistair safe, and I will continue doing that. There is something else you need to know. It doesn’t change anything, and I will keep keeping you safe. I just came from seeing to the death of someone who was striking at you.” “Oh…it’s not from one of your own people? Alistair seems an enlightened ruler.” “No. We have outside enemies. It wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last. But that’s why the Council is here, and why all the body parts are there. To keep Alistair safe, and you safe, and Canberry. But the reason I said all of that first is that there’s something else you need to know. And I’m telling you so that you can hear it from me. Alistair and I… I’m not just his advisor. We’re closer than that, and we have been for some time.” “Oh, that was not the rumor at all.” “Really? I thought that it was one of the ones in circulation.” “No, it was not one of the two rumors about his lover. The dominant one is that it’s the Captain of the Guard. The other is that the Mistress of the Bedchamber is actually the mistress of the bedchamber. Some people thought that the fact that would be so obvious is why it is so clever.” “I have to be glad that I’m not obvious. It’s my job to not be obvious. But…” “Now, you do realize that I have no wish to displace your personal affections. I do wish to bear his heir.” “That’s what you’re supposed to do. I’m here to protect Canberry, and part of that means a stable succession, which means you getting an heir legitimately.” “I am somewhat relieved it is you. I was inclined toward the Mistress of the Bedchamber, but she knows a great deal about fertility. I feared a bastard.” “My first job is to see that you stay safe to give Alistair an heir. After that… I’m not making any promises.” “After that, it won’t be important.” “There’s no way I could ever be in your place, either. I’m a foreigner, and common born, and …” “I think that I learned in the camps that the strength of your character is more important than the blood in your veins. I will rule my people because they wish me to be. Alistair will be a ruler because of his relationship to me, but his son will be a ruler in truth of both peoples. And I believe that Alistair will help my people become a nation again in truth.” After a moment: Caitlyn says brightly: “Tea?” She chats calmly for a while, trying to make sure Kit is at her ease. About an hour later, when Kit is getting ready to take her leave, alarms start going off all over the palace, and the palace wards flare up. The alarms are slowly being shut off. But it appears that they were all simultaneously set off. Dame Brionna asks the Sixth Daughter. "That had to be a very powerful magic or psionic wave. It may have had nothing to do with us, but it washed over here." Kit tries to contact the Farsensor, but finds it blocked by incredibly powerful shields. She then reaches out with her fan. One of her contacts responds. We all heard it. There was a great declaration from the fairgrounds; it wasn’t in a language I understood, and then there was a great flare of light. Abruptly, the shields blocking psionics from going in and out drop. Kit then reaches out to the Farsensor—Kit senses a tremendous amount of energy, part of which he is generating. <<We are well. Her most celestial presence detected one of the first-comers, one of the seen unseen, among the merchants.>> Dame Brionna heads off. She sees the globe of energy before she gets there. Many of the festival goers are far closer to it than they should be. The globe is surrounding a figure that is going through a series of shapes more and more rapidly. “May I ask what occurred here?” “We were but walking through, and this creature was posing as a merchant. A merchant of highly spiced foods, and I sensed a sickness coming on the people who were eating the food. At first I thought it was an error, for humans do not always preserve foods well, meaning no offense. I reached out to correct the imbalance in the food, and he knew me, and I knew him. It was one of the seen-unseen, a hieshi. We contained it. If it remains in a full globe, it will die, but it must die. I do not know if you have any means to rip answers from its soul.” “Can we coerce it?” “Yes." "Could you move it?” “Yes. I can move it wherever you would wish, but I will not allow it to regain contact with its source.” “I believe that my sense is that you have about an hour and a half left before he implodes.” A coercer arrives. “What do you want forced out of it, m’lady?” “For starters, who it is working for and what it was trying to do?” “Distribute the final ingredient.” “The spice—it’s the spice, they mixed it into the spice and were moving from fair to fair.” “What other fairs? I’ll give you a map.” “How long did it take to get to all of these places?” “Doesn’t have a good sense. Doesn’t have time in its place.” “If they don’t come into contact with the other parts, will wear off. In months. If it meets the other parts, will sicken and die.” “Other images—fire and people with pitchforks and hoes fighting soldiers. Clear image of rioting. That’s what he hopes for with this.” “Are there others?” Beads of sweat roll down the coercers face. “His mind says that with his capture we’ve captured all but one.” “He only knows his last guise—it’s last guise was as a wise woman travelling with herbs in the southeast, heading this way though. He knows that she was supposed to get here sometime shortly after him; he’s been here a day.” Kit asks him to run through the others. He goes through them, listing the ones who were distributing poison. Is there a ritual significance to the poison and the deaths? I don’t see any. The significance seems to be that they hope it will cause rioting. Who is his immediate superior? Concept doesn’t make sense to him. Who told him to do this? He has a better understanding—I have a picture, it seems to be a human woman. An elegantly dressed, emaciated human woman, with gold at every point where she could have gold. Alistair recognizes that image; that is the older sister of the fairly nice daughter of the Empress of Hanal. Somehow, she was responsible for bringing him here—like she summoned him? My expertise is only in psionics, not magic, but its image is that she brought him here. Which of the Pariah Deities does it serve? The Goddess of the Pale Bone, and then the coercer collapses, although he does not actually lose consciousness. The thing in the globe explodes, but as it explodes the elves contract the sphere and turn the explosion inside out. [Dame Brionna gets a point of serendipity—In some random ways, upset the plans of the enemy or allow our own plans to come to fruition, one time. Five more calendar days and people would have started dying.] We discuss what to do about this. Three possibilities come to mind: try to have her whacked directly; tell the Empress of Hanal; tell the Inquisition (and suggest that we haven’t been able to confirm that the Empress of Hanal is uninvolved in this) [End Session 52] [/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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