To kill a Rock Star
This evening, Lord Vantrys asks Mr. Carlyle to accompany him to a most certainly long and tedious battle of the lawyers concerning Goodson's will as he doesn't want to get outsmarted by the representatives of Fordren Industries. Carlyle surely agrees to help his former Lord. He isn't all that surprised to see that Michael Carlyle is said representative who brought his battalion of experts with him. It seems like Fordren Industries is showing an unusual interest in Goodson's recently founded newspaper publisher. As they are willing to pay a good fortune to get the newspaper, Carlyle advises Lord Vantrys to leave the publisher to Fordren as he assumes that Risuri wouldn't be interested in a danoran-owned magazine anyway. He could still hire the publisher's staff should the project eventually fail.
Carlyle is also able to grasp that Fordren Industries will try to expand to the Risuri market and import goods they produce in Danor. Once he explains this to Vantrys, the young Lord gets nervous that he wouldn't be able to compete with Fordren who has far lower production costs. Carlyle suggests in private that Vantrys could establish some sort of “made in Risur” or “Risuri quality” label for his goods. He's already negotiating with partners for a common “humanistic industry standard” anyway, so maybe he could also get people like Sechim on board. Plus the people of Risur are patriotic, so maybe they'd prefer to buy goods from their nation without the need to badmouth danoran products.
The next morning Auryn finds a message which claims that Old Stag wants her to kill Rock Rackus. As she's pretty sure that her mentor has no reason to see the fabulous singer dead, she calls this off as nonsense. She's still unsure whether someone wants to test or prank her and decides to keep an eye open for other possible means of contact.
One day later we receive a message from Asrabey Varal who asks for a meeting at the border to the Dreaming. Carlyle is a bit astonished when Auryn says that she'll guide them to the spot the Eladrin warrior mentioned in his letter as he doesn't know too much about the Dreaming and its fey inhabitants. She leads him on a small pathway through Cloudwood until they reach a small, enchanted clearing.
There we find Asrabey sitting serenely on the remnants of a long fallen tree. Once he realizes that we've arrived, he opens his eyes and and hails us. He first asks Auryn whom he calls “little flower” in elvish whether she's been doing well. He seems pleased once she says that everything is alright (he was giving Carlyle side-eyes before that) and goes on to discuss the matters of Kasvarina, his revered wife and matriarch.
We tell Asrabey about Mr. Carlyle's vision of Leone Quintal, the dead A.G. and Kasvarina. As Leone led her back to the metal gate, we guess that he might have taken Kasvarina prisoner and that she might have been drugged by someone. Auryn adds that this Leone guy is our enemy as well as he tried to kill her, Carlyle, Margit and two other innocents (Lynn Kindleton and Dr. von Recklinghausen) and murdered one RHC agent.
(one could almost feel sorry for Leone. Having the dreadnaught of Axis Island at his toes when you abducted his wife and tried to kill her great-great-granddaughter is surely no easy fate.
As for the “little flower”: Auryn is rather small for an Eladrin and pretty young as well, so it seems like that's where Asrabey got the inspiration for her nickname. She really doesn't object to be called that way and sees it as a sign that Asrabey likes her.)
We then talk about Nathan Jierre and the information the tiefling may hold. Asrabey says that he cannot simply order the Unseen Court to release the boy as they still got their own questions. However, Nathan is alive and kicking, so we shouldn't be too worried and be patient. His own investigations on Axis Island revealed that Kasvarina was in the company of a Danoran and spoke unusually friendly to him. He can confirm that Fordren Industries is involved in the Axis weapons research and that these events must be somehow connected. Concerning his wife, Asrabey will need to gather information in Flint and it seems like Parity Lake would be a good starting point. As we know that Asrabey isn't really used to deal with humans, we kindly ask him to rather bribe the people he'd like to question with “shinies” than to resort to violence.
(now that would have been a perfect opportunity to tell Asrabey about Auryn's special relationship with Francis Fordren, but she promised Price-Hill to avoid causing Fordren's premature demise and involving Asrabey would have guaranteed a bloody massacre...)
A few days later the grand Docker cultural charity concert takes place in Bosun Strand. As Auryn is one of the event's organizers, she's partaking as well and it turns out that the event got a lot bigger than she originally planned. It seems like the program got changed at short notice when Rock Rackus agreed to perform as well.
(“I wanted a cultural event and not a party...” Auryn sighed. But she's satisfied that Rock takes his promise to care more for Flint and its populace to heart, so she didn't protest)
Auryn sees that at least Cecilia Fordren got her invitation, so she uses Calla Aurea to explain the upcoming program to the young Danoran to maybe get her interested in the Docker movement. It seems like Cecilia is more interested in the also attending Lord Vantrys though... which is totally okay for Auryn as long as the young woman finds her means to deal with the tragedy of losing Goodson.
Calla Aurea and Bronk, the minotaur bartender, perform excerpts of a Crisillyiri opera as well as some comedic duets from Ber and it seems like their performance goes down well with the audience. Rock Rackus is the next one to perform after them and he does so with lots of pomp and flashy effects. Just when his big show is finished, a masked assassin looking like a true Vekeshi avenger emerges from the crowd, runs at Rock and stabs him repeatedly with a rapier while proclaiming that he's been tried and judged by the Vekeshi. Despite her mask and all, the person looks strikingly similar to Auryn. The real Auryn (who is still disguised as Calla Aurea) is frozen in shock for a second and then rushes to Rock to save his life. Meanwhile, the masked assassin runs away and disappears in the crowd.
Luckily, Auryn is able to save Rock. She calls the events the “stunning finale” of Rock's show, so no need to worry. It just seems like he cuckolded the wrong Fey Lady this time.
(Rock loves telling the story about how he got to the moon and had an affair with a Fey Lady. And Auryn regularly adds that one could never know whether he'd had the affair with the Lord and incited the Lady's rage instead as Rock surely wouldn't know the difference. Gave Carlyle a good laugh when he first heard of the story.)
Mr. Carlyle, who's also present at the festival, is also unable to catch the assassin. Still he immediately starts searching for clues on the person's identity. He's able to smell traces of a refrigerant he cannot really place at first. Putting our magical knowledge together, we assume that the “person” could actually be a Simulacrum as they are made from ice sculptures. What Carlyle doesn't understand is the fact that the Simulacrum looked like his partner and wore a mask on top of that. He thinks that it would be more logical to reveal “Auryn's” face should someone try to frame her, especially if the culprit knew that she'd be Calla Aurea at the festival. Auryn sighs at this comment and agrees to tell him more once they are in private.
Once we arrive in Auryn's home, she brews some strong tea and tries to explain that someone probably wants to see Rock Rackus dead because he gravely misunderstood a joke. She tells Carlyle of a secret gathering of people who've protected Risur from the shadows for years and who try to contain both spiritual and physical threats to Flint's populace. There, a high ranking member made a joke about Rock's music being bad enough to warrant a death sentence and now she guesses that someone could have taken the comment seriously.
Carlyle understands her assumption but doesn't really get why someone would use a fake-Auryn to do the deed. After all, she's surely no member of a secret society who's prone to vigilante justice (yeah, he got that she was talking about the Vekeshi...).
Auryn sighs again and confesses the whole story: After living in Risur for quite a while, she wanted to help those who could not defend themselves and who were suffering because others exploited them for their own gain. She had a friend who introduced her to the Vekeshi and who are clearly not the crazy murderers everyone wants to paint them for. She explains that the “true Vekeshi” use lethal violence only as a very last resort and would rather utilize official ways and their network to bring down their enemies.
Carlyle is very surprised when he hears Auryn's story and quickly responds that she cannot truly serve two masters without getting into conflicts of interest. He admits that he understands the need to take justice into one's own hands, especially in times like these. After all, he protected the interests and members of house Vantrys in times past and sometimes used less than legal ways to do so. But that was before he became an RHC agent.
Auryn replies that there is a difference between being a lone vigilante who's protecting one family and a group of peers who actually discuss their problems, means and methods to keep an entire city safe. She adds that the Vekeshi are more than just a league of punishers, but rather protectors who also keep spiritual threats at bay. She then brings up the story on how they used their communal magic to empower the seal MacBannin left after his death so that the malevolent magic of Cauldron Hill could be contained.
To Auryn's surprise, Carlyle says that he knows exactly what she's talking about as he witnessed said ritual and contributed to it in his dreams. She takes the chance to explain that her mentor felt that he could be a valuable ally in their cause as he is inspired by both the magic and the power of the goddess Srasama.
Carlyle doesn't want any of this though. He says that he's actually pretty shocked that the colleague whom he put his trust in probably gave away secret information of the RHC to an outside group of vigilantes and that this is nothing short but treason. Auryn responds by saying that whatever she gave to the Vekeshi were hints about possible threats to Risur: The death of Macbannin, the complex near the Bleak Gate and its danger to the Nettles, Sijhen and the awakening of the Voice of Rot. Compared to this, the information he gave to the Familia, a criminal organization, were much more sensitive. He rebuts this argument and says that he included all of his business with the Familia in his reports to Delft who had seen no problem in what he did.
Carlyle goes on to say that there's now one of two ways out of this mess: Either Auryn needs to give Delft a full report on her Vekeshi business or he'd have report her to their boss. She responds by saying that such kind of action would be impossible lest she'd risk her own life as revealing the Vekeshi to such an open space as the RHC would be a betrayal in itself, punishable by death.
In one flash of inspiration, Carlyle then suggests a rather unconventional and radical approach: As the Vekeshi need some sort of outside observer, there could be someone they'd actually trust and this person is none other than the true High Guardian of Risur, King Aodhan. As the King is the superior of even Viscount Inspector Price-Hill, the RHC would also accept the King's judgment in this case. In any case, Vekeshi actions need to be reported to someone and the King could be just the right person to hold all threads of information in his hands, especially when RHC information is to be passed to the Vekeshi via Auryn and vice versa.
Auryn lauds Carlyle for this brilliant idea and she can agree to his plan. However, she's unsure whether the King would grant such a hearing priority as he's surely busy with his own work. “'Tis a plan then and you'll keep your life” Carlyle says and then quickly excuses himself. He leaves Auryn's home saying that he's still not sure whether he'd ever be able to trust her again after her betrayal.
(So much for being sure that there'd never be a rift between the two head members of Team 3. So Carlyle felt like Auryn's been leaking sensitive information to the Vekeshi and he feared that all of our progress in terms of the Obscurati could be in vain if there was only one member of the Vekeshi who was secretly an Ob. While Auryn felt like she was always 100% in control and sure which kind of info she would give to the person she trusted even more than Carlyle.
I honestly didn't know how to get out of the “either you kill me or I get myself killed” dilemma and was positively surprised by Carlyle's elegant solution)
This evening, Lord Vantrys asks Mr. Carlyle to accompany him to a most certainly long and tedious battle of the lawyers concerning Goodson's will as he doesn't want to get outsmarted by the representatives of Fordren Industries. Carlyle surely agrees to help his former Lord. He isn't all that surprised to see that Michael Carlyle is said representative who brought his battalion of experts with him. It seems like Fordren Industries is showing an unusual interest in Goodson's recently founded newspaper publisher. As they are willing to pay a good fortune to get the newspaper, Carlyle advises Lord Vantrys to leave the publisher to Fordren as he assumes that Risuri wouldn't be interested in a danoran-owned magazine anyway. He could still hire the publisher's staff should the project eventually fail.
Carlyle is also able to grasp that Fordren Industries will try to expand to the Risuri market and import goods they produce in Danor. Once he explains this to Vantrys, the young Lord gets nervous that he wouldn't be able to compete with Fordren who has far lower production costs. Carlyle suggests in private that Vantrys could establish some sort of “made in Risur” or “Risuri quality” label for his goods. He's already negotiating with partners for a common “humanistic industry standard” anyway, so maybe he could also get people like Sechim on board. Plus the people of Risur are patriotic, so maybe they'd prefer to buy goods from their nation without the need to badmouth danoran products.
The next morning Auryn finds a message which claims that Old Stag wants her to kill Rock Rackus. As she's pretty sure that her mentor has no reason to see the fabulous singer dead, she calls this off as nonsense. She's still unsure whether someone wants to test or prank her and decides to keep an eye open for other possible means of contact.
One day later we receive a message from Asrabey Varal who asks for a meeting at the border to the Dreaming. Carlyle is a bit astonished when Auryn says that she'll guide them to the spot the Eladrin warrior mentioned in his letter as he doesn't know too much about the Dreaming and its fey inhabitants. She leads him on a small pathway through Cloudwood until they reach a small, enchanted clearing.
There we find Asrabey sitting serenely on the remnants of a long fallen tree. Once he realizes that we've arrived, he opens his eyes and and hails us. He first asks Auryn whom he calls “little flower” in elvish whether she's been doing well. He seems pleased once she says that everything is alright (he was giving Carlyle side-eyes before that) and goes on to discuss the matters of Kasvarina, his revered wife and matriarch.
We tell Asrabey about Mr. Carlyle's vision of Leone Quintal, the dead A.G. and Kasvarina. As Leone led her back to the metal gate, we guess that he might have taken Kasvarina prisoner and that she might have been drugged by someone. Auryn adds that this Leone guy is our enemy as well as he tried to kill her, Carlyle, Margit and two other innocents (Lynn Kindleton and Dr. von Recklinghausen) and murdered one RHC agent.
(one could almost feel sorry for Leone. Having the dreadnaught of Axis Island at his toes when you abducted his wife and tried to kill her great-great-granddaughter is surely no easy fate.
As for the “little flower”: Auryn is rather small for an Eladrin and pretty young as well, so it seems like that's where Asrabey got the inspiration for her nickname. She really doesn't object to be called that way and sees it as a sign that Asrabey likes her.)
We then talk about Nathan Jierre and the information the tiefling may hold. Asrabey says that he cannot simply order the Unseen Court to release the boy as they still got their own questions. However, Nathan is alive and kicking, so we shouldn't be too worried and be patient. His own investigations on Axis Island revealed that Kasvarina was in the company of a Danoran and spoke unusually friendly to him. He can confirm that Fordren Industries is involved in the Axis weapons research and that these events must be somehow connected. Concerning his wife, Asrabey will need to gather information in Flint and it seems like Parity Lake would be a good starting point. As we know that Asrabey isn't really used to deal with humans, we kindly ask him to rather bribe the people he'd like to question with “shinies” than to resort to violence.
(now that would have been a perfect opportunity to tell Asrabey about Auryn's special relationship with Francis Fordren, but she promised Price-Hill to avoid causing Fordren's premature demise and involving Asrabey would have guaranteed a bloody massacre...)
A few days later the grand Docker cultural charity concert takes place in Bosun Strand. As Auryn is one of the event's organizers, she's partaking as well and it turns out that the event got a lot bigger than she originally planned. It seems like the program got changed at short notice when Rock Rackus agreed to perform as well.
(“I wanted a cultural event and not a party...” Auryn sighed. But she's satisfied that Rock takes his promise to care more for Flint and its populace to heart, so she didn't protest)
Auryn sees that at least Cecilia Fordren got her invitation, so she uses Calla Aurea to explain the upcoming program to the young Danoran to maybe get her interested in the Docker movement. It seems like Cecilia is more interested in the also attending Lord Vantrys though... which is totally okay for Auryn as long as the young woman finds her means to deal with the tragedy of losing Goodson.
Calla Aurea and Bronk, the minotaur bartender, perform excerpts of a Crisillyiri opera as well as some comedic duets from Ber and it seems like their performance goes down well with the audience. Rock Rackus is the next one to perform after them and he does so with lots of pomp and flashy effects. Just when his big show is finished, a masked assassin looking like a true Vekeshi avenger emerges from the crowd, runs at Rock and stabs him repeatedly with a rapier while proclaiming that he's been tried and judged by the Vekeshi. Despite her mask and all, the person looks strikingly similar to Auryn. The real Auryn (who is still disguised as Calla Aurea) is frozen in shock for a second and then rushes to Rock to save his life. Meanwhile, the masked assassin runs away and disappears in the crowd.
Luckily, Auryn is able to save Rock. She calls the events the “stunning finale” of Rock's show, so no need to worry. It just seems like he cuckolded the wrong Fey Lady this time.
(Rock loves telling the story about how he got to the moon and had an affair with a Fey Lady. And Auryn regularly adds that one could never know whether he'd had the affair with the Lord and incited the Lady's rage instead as Rock surely wouldn't know the difference. Gave Carlyle a good laugh when he first heard of the story.)
Mr. Carlyle, who's also present at the festival, is also unable to catch the assassin. Still he immediately starts searching for clues on the person's identity. He's able to smell traces of a refrigerant he cannot really place at first. Putting our magical knowledge together, we assume that the “person” could actually be a Simulacrum as they are made from ice sculptures. What Carlyle doesn't understand is the fact that the Simulacrum looked like his partner and wore a mask on top of that. He thinks that it would be more logical to reveal “Auryn's” face should someone try to frame her, especially if the culprit knew that she'd be Calla Aurea at the festival. Auryn sighs at this comment and agrees to tell him more once they are in private.
Once we arrive in Auryn's home, she brews some strong tea and tries to explain that someone probably wants to see Rock Rackus dead because he gravely misunderstood a joke. She tells Carlyle of a secret gathering of people who've protected Risur from the shadows for years and who try to contain both spiritual and physical threats to Flint's populace. There, a high ranking member made a joke about Rock's music being bad enough to warrant a death sentence and now she guesses that someone could have taken the comment seriously.
Carlyle understands her assumption but doesn't really get why someone would use a fake-Auryn to do the deed. After all, she's surely no member of a secret society who's prone to vigilante justice (yeah, he got that she was talking about the Vekeshi...).
Auryn sighs again and confesses the whole story: After living in Risur for quite a while, she wanted to help those who could not defend themselves and who were suffering because others exploited them for their own gain. She had a friend who introduced her to the Vekeshi and who are clearly not the crazy murderers everyone wants to paint them for. She explains that the “true Vekeshi” use lethal violence only as a very last resort and would rather utilize official ways and their network to bring down their enemies.
Carlyle is very surprised when he hears Auryn's story and quickly responds that she cannot truly serve two masters without getting into conflicts of interest. He admits that he understands the need to take justice into one's own hands, especially in times like these. After all, he protected the interests and members of house Vantrys in times past and sometimes used less than legal ways to do so. But that was before he became an RHC agent.
Auryn replies that there is a difference between being a lone vigilante who's protecting one family and a group of peers who actually discuss their problems, means and methods to keep an entire city safe. She adds that the Vekeshi are more than just a league of punishers, but rather protectors who also keep spiritual threats at bay. She then brings up the story on how they used their communal magic to empower the seal MacBannin left after his death so that the malevolent magic of Cauldron Hill could be contained.
To Auryn's surprise, Carlyle says that he knows exactly what she's talking about as he witnessed said ritual and contributed to it in his dreams. She takes the chance to explain that her mentor felt that he could be a valuable ally in their cause as he is inspired by both the magic and the power of the goddess Srasama.
Carlyle doesn't want any of this though. He says that he's actually pretty shocked that the colleague whom he put his trust in probably gave away secret information of the RHC to an outside group of vigilantes and that this is nothing short but treason. Auryn responds by saying that whatever she gave to the Vekeshi were hints about possible threats to Risur: The death of Macbannin, the complex near the Bleak Gate and its danger to the Nettles, Sijhen and the awakening of the Voice of Rot. Compared to this, the information he gave to the Familia, a criminal organization, were much more sensitive. He rebuts this argument and says that he included all of his business with the Familia in his reports to Delft who had seen no problem in what he did.
Carlyle goes on to say that there's now one of two ways out of this mess: Either Auryn needs to give Delft a full report on her Vekeshi business or he'd have report her to their boss. She responds by saying that such kind of action would be impossible lest she'd risk her own life as revealing the Vekeshi to such an open space as the RHC would be a betrayal in itself, punishable by death.
In one flash of inspiration, Carlyle then suggests a rather unconventional and radical approach: As the Vekeshi need some sort of outside observer, there could be someone they'd actually trust and this person is none other than the true High Guardian of Risur, King Aodhan. As the King is the superior of even Viscount Inspector Price-Hill, the RHC would also accept the King's judgment in this case. In any case, Vekeshi actions need to be reported to someone and the King could be just the right person to hold all threads of information in his hands, especially when RHC information is to be passed to the Vekeshi via Auryn and vice versa.
Auryn lauds Carlyle for this brilliant idea and she can agree to his plan. However, she's unsure whether the King would grant such a hearing priority as he's surely busy with his own work. “'Tis a plan then and you'll keep your life” Carlyle says and then quickly excuses himself. He leaves Auryn's home saying that he's still not sure whether he'd ever be able to trust her again after her betrayal.
(So much for being sure that there'd never be a rift between the two head members of Team 3. So Carlyle felt like Auryn's been leaking sensitive information to the Vekeshi and he feared that all of our progress in terms of the Obscurati could be in vain if there was only one member of the Vekeshi who was secretly an Ob. While Auryn felt like she was always 100% in control and sure which kind of info she would give to the person she trusted even more than Carlyle.
I honestly didn't know how to get out of the “either you kill me or I get myself killed” dilemma and was positively surprised by Carlyle's elegant solution)
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