Diplomatic Immunity--Preface: Vasha's Discovery

[Bront]

"Well, I don't know for certain," she says, a single tear flows down her cheak, but she keeps her composure, "and Bertram assured me he could be alright, but I think that was to comfort me."

 

[Rystil Arden]

"Well, some of the Dragonlords are really awful, but some of them actually are not. For Gralas's sake, we had better hope that he was captured by one of the nice ones, I guess..."

 

[Bront]

"It was the same one he was captured by before. He was badly scarred and missing an arm." Vasha says, worry in her voice. "She called him love though, which confused me."

 

[Rystil Arden]

"Hmm...in that case, it is very complicated. I heard about this later on. Poor Gralas was captured by one Dragonlord with whom he was in love, and she tried to use her feminine wiles on him to get him to talk, hence the torture, since it must have been torture to him to see the woman he loved seemingly reciprocating his passion. But it didn't work, and she was pressured by her superiors to use crueler means of torture, so she arranged for him to escape. But then, after that, he was captured by another group of Dragonlords who had been watching for him, and they tortured him mind and body until he gave away the information, though he thought it was the same woman because they used magic to impersonate her, thinking it would hurt him more that way..."

"Does that explain anything?"

 

[Bront]

"So you think it was another Dragonlord impersonating her when she came for us? She was at the town we fled to also, even before we arived there."

 

[Rystil Arden]

"Well, either of those could have been she, particularly since she didn't seem to me like someone who would kill children. Then again, she knew what Gralas thought she did to him, so she may have been forced to play the role of the bad guy to get him to come out. I guess we will never know for sure, though."

 

[Bront]

"No." Vasha wipes away the tear and moves on to a more plesant subject.

"I've been working on a massage spell, but I'm realy new to magical research. You said you could help me? Zythryd volunteered to help as a test subject, and I've been working with it as best I can, but I don't have a lot of materials to go much farther."

 

[Rystil Arden]

"Well, I have lots of books, and Louteah can get you all the rest of what you need, plus I can help teach you the principles of research. With my help and about a week of research, I'm sure we can figure something out. Sound good?"

 

[Bront]

"Oh, thank you." She says. "If you'd like, I can treat you to one as well."

"I realy should be heading off to work though. Thank you for your talk, it was nice to hear about my father."

 

[Rystil Arden]

"Oh, well in that case, have fun at work! I'll see you when you're done, and we can talk more, if you like."