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<blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 8205333" data-attributes="member: 6816692"><p><strong><em>Audience in the City of Light and Darkness</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>Next, we come across a training ground and spot a group of people who are practicing unarmed combat. They spot us pretty quickly and pause their training to bombard us with questions. Most of them are very much intrigued by Carlyle as they can guess by his posture that he must be some sort of warrior. Oh and of course they have already heard about the story of our fight with the Danorans. So Carlyle takes some time to explain the physiological, mental and energetic background of his art.</p><p></p><p>They seem to be impressed and simultaneously draw parallels to their disciplined fighting style. What is even more intriguing is the fact that they appear to be strongly interested in firearms. We show them our pistols, even though we rarely use them, and they demonstrate a technique that lets them split bullets mid-air. This impresses us in return as we had previously feared that the advanced tech of the Danorans would be a real threat for the Eladrin. They wish to have more different types of firearms to refine their new technique and are more than willing to trade some rifles for one of these magnificent blue weapons.</p><p></p><p>Carlyle welcomes the opportunity as he is keen on examining one of them without constant surveillance. We thank the warriors for their input and also thank Desok for his guide before we return to our rooms in Kasvarina's house. Once we're back, Carlyle takes some time to examine the mystical weapon with everything he got, be that magically, spiritually and alchemically. Once again, the pain strikes him mercilessly before Srasama's presence buffers it like before. All in all he gets the impression that these weapons were somehow forged by infusing them with the pain and suffering of living creatures. So we agree on sneaking up to the forge once again to get a glimpse on what is going on there.</p><p></p><p>Once we reach the site later that night, we find it to be pretty forsaken. But after a while, we hear the faint sound of a muffled scream coming from the inside. So we sneak in and find a hidden door leading to the forge's cellar. We turn invisible and see how the smith, Iomar, tortures a human prisoner, then distills that essence of suffering and uses it to temper a new weapon. We spot even more prisoners, mostly humans who look like they could be part of the Clergy.</p><p></p><p>We agree that we've seen enough and withdraw to a safe distance from the forge to discuss on how to proceed further. We both agree that while we are surely no friends of these foreign colonists, we still cannot let them be used as fuel for the forge. Unfortunately, we don't have our usual RHC authority here, so we cannot simply arrest the weaponsmith. On top of that, Iomar appears to be a respected member of sentosan society, and we're not here to make enemies.</p><p></p><p>So we decide to use the one person with authority we knew and who we are sure to like us at least a little bit: Desok. We pay him a late-night visit and ask for forgiveness for this late disturbance. But matters could be urgent, as Carlyle just examined the weapon he got today and had a terrible vision afterwards. As “Sahomi Gabriel” is highly spiritually sensitive and his visions had always turned out to be true somehow, we'd ask him to go to the forge and see if everything is alright. Carlyle then tells him about shadowy figures being tortured and disturbing screams of pain.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, Desok believes Carlyle's tale and agrees to check the forge. With a little help from our keen eyes for the “obviously hidden door”, Desok is able to catch Iomar in flagranti while he is busy torturing another one of his prisoners. So Desok arrests the smith and brings the prisoners in protective custody elsewhere as he cannot simply let foreign humans run free in Sentosa. We thank Desok for his trust and hope he won't get into trouble.</p><p></p><p>This goes for us as well as we are really unsure whether this move just the day before the scheduled audience with Matriarch Athryalla would be seen as positive help or negative intrusion and unwanted commotion.</p><p></p><p>The very next day, we are being called to the audience with the High Matriarch and it appears as if everything is still proceeding on schedule. So we dress up for the occasion: Carlyle dons his best suit while Auryn wears the ornament she was given by her mother after she left Pallita to formally found her own enclave.</p><p></p><p>“I won't ever be an equal to a High Matriarch, but she will hopefully acknowledge my role and status as a blooming woman and not treat us like outsiders.”, she explains.</p><p></p><p>We are then led to the top of the central pyramid of Sentosa, the seat of the triune Matriarchs. There we find three seats, one for each of the founding High Matriarchs Athryalla, Latika and Kasvarina. Which means that only one of them is currently occupied. We formally introduce ourselves to her and her court, and Athryalla encourages us to tell her more about us as she is quite interested in this foreign nation called Risur. We are a bit surprised as we thought her to be more focused on internal politics, but tell her everything she wishes to know about our political system and especially what “being King” in Risur means.</p><p></p><p>Athryalla laughs in a friendly manner and explains that she is no stranger to the outside world as, you know, she has been around for 500 years and has good contacts to the Fey of the Dreaming. Still she is glad that the current Monarch seems to have so much sympathy for Elfaivar. We promise we'll do our best to establish diplomatic contacts to Risur should she feel the desire and add that the colony of Kellandia is already en route to having really close ties with the surrounding enclaves, going so far as to founding the Covenant.</p><p></p><p>“Unforatunately, neither the Clergymen nor the Danorans of late are this interested in negotiations. If only she... well, <em>she</em> is the reason why you came here in the first place, or am I mistaken?”</p><p></p><p>We nod to this assumption and Athryalla shakes her head and explains that she cannot let Kasvarina venture outside again. Not as long as she is in this fragile condition. There are only two Matriarchs left, she says, and it is her duty to protect the remaining one beside her. It would be completely irresponsible to let her roam the wilds, especially with the Colossus and the Devilkin out there.</p><p></p><p>We understand, but add that we do know how to fight these treats, and we would be more than capable of protecting one Matriarch. But as we also sense that there would be bad blood hidden underneath that veil of verbal evasion, we point out that Kasvarina's continuous presence would actually endanger Sentosa itself as the Colossus feels drawn towards her and the Obscurati are currently searching for her as well. It is when we feel that Athryalla understands the danger she is in but still somehow places keeping Kasvarina inside above all this that we realize that something might be really off about this situation.</p><p></p><p>“May I speak openly, High Matriarch?” Auryn asks while making small gestures towards Athryala's guards.</p><p></p><p>“You may. Leave us, please.”</p><p></p><p>She then waves at her guards, who immediately withdraw beyond hearing range.</p><p></p><p>“I don't mean to be rude, but what would a High Matriarch fear so much that she'd risk the well-being of her whole enclave?”</p><p></p><p>Feeling caught off-track for once, Athryalla bites her tongue and falls silent for a moment.</p><p></p><p>“Kasvarina and I didn't part on the best terms, young flower. Ever since we started the restoration, we weren't exactly best friends. But then she turned her back on Vekesh and left our communal path behind. Vengeance became her sole motive. She even spat in Vekesh's face, when she founded her little conclave of assassins and called them 'Vekeshi'.”</p><p></p><p>That remark stings Auryn visibly as she didn't know how much the original Vekeshi would have been fixated on simply murdering Clergymen in revenge for the Malice before eventually becoming more than that.</p><p></p><p>“Her heart darkened so much that she was consumed by it. She even sabotaged my... oh my, young flower, I only tell you this because I see that you don't turn a blind eye to injustice even if you have to risk everything you came for, but Kasvarina, the true Kasvarina is much more malicious and dangerous than that weaponsmith you two had arrested last night. So I wasn't too surprised to hear about that conspiracy to murder her four centuries ago. Unfortunately, it failed though.”</p><p></p><p>She takes a deep breath once she sees the disturbance in Auryn's eyes.</p><p></p><p>“Hate me all the way you like. But you don't live to be the Matriarch of an enclave like Sentosa for five hundred years if you cannot make tough decisions. My enclave is my duty. Restoring Kasvarina isn't.”</p><p></p><p>Well, at least we know now that uncovering the crimes of Iomar didn't put us on bad terms with The High Matriarch. We tell her first that we are glad that she opened up to us so much, and promise we won't betray her trust . Still we get the feeling there might be more to this story as Carlyle gets a strong sense of shame once she talked about that assassination attempt.</p><p></p><p>“I understand your motives, High Matriarch. But if you talked to the current Kasvarina only for a while, you'd see that this version of her doesn't want to go back to the way she was before. She heard all of these stories about her killing people and she... was shocked about them. She is in a state of confusion and loss as she knows that she lost her husband and her daughters, even if she doesn't really remember how or why that all happened. All she want to know is to understand what she did and the reasons why she might have done that. She fears she might have set plans in motion that may lead to even more suffering if these plans go unnoticed. And I promise that I won't let her cause any more harm.”</p><p></p><p>We then go on to stress out that the Planar plan of the Obscurati is already endangering the Dreaming and one could only guess what would happen should our neighbor plane get ripped away from our world. The existence of the enclaves above everything else would be threatened as they are drifting between the Waking and the Dreaming. And the Obs are our mortal enemy as well.</p><p></p><p>Athryalla is surprised to see that we are still vouching for Kasvarina then, as she appears to have been a major figure in the Obscurati hierarchy. But when she asks us about our motives for helping her, we explain that first, she is still a part of Auryn's family, secondly, she may help us all to save the world and thirdly, we want to give her that chance for redemption, to make amends for her past mistakes.</p><p></p><p>Carlyle in particular looks straight at the Matriarch and adds that he wants to help Kasvarina regain her memories to find the answers that may be key to ensuring the future of all Eladrin. Also, he sternly stresses out that he would not hold back to help her, too, would she ever be in a situation where she may be in a similar situation of distress.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 168, 95)">(Oh my, I only realize now that this promise came back full circle at the end... Carlyle really had a huge development regarding the Eladrin)</span></p><p></p><p>“Very well then. You have my permission to look for the Arc of Reida. But you'll have to go to the Sanctum of Ingathan on your own. Consider it a test of your true abilities to show me you have what it takes to 'protect' Kasvarina. It won't be an easy task though as the Sanctum is in the middle of a contested territory between Clergy colonists and a band of Eladrin Were-tigers who may be in league with the Mad King Vardanis.”</p><p></p><p>Athryalla smirks shortly, but expresses genuine interest once she realizes that we are not intimidated by her quest.</p><p></p><p>“We'll return soon.” Auryn promises.</p><p></p><p>“And don't forget: Once we return and leave with Kasvarina, you'll be rid of Asrabey as well.” Carlyle adds with a roguish wink.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lylandra, post: 8205333, member: 6816692"] [B][I]Audience in the City of Light and Darkness[/I][/B] Next, we come across a training ground and spot a group of people who are practicing unarmed combat. They spot us pretty quickly and pause their training to bombard us with questions. Most of them are very much intrigued by Carlyle as they can guess by his posture that he must be some sort of warrior. Oh and of course they have already heard about the story of our fight with the Danorans. So Carlyle takes some time to explain the physiological, mental and energetic background of his art. They seem to be impressed and simultaneously draw parallels to their disciplined fighting style. What is even more intriguing is the fact that they appear to be strongly interested in firearms. We show them our pistols, even though we rarely use them, and they demonstrate a technique that lets them split bullets mid-air. This impresses us in return as we had previously feared that the advanced tech of the Danorans would be a real threat for the Eladrin. They wish to have more different types of firearms to refine their new technique and are more than willing to trade some rifles for one of these magnificent blue weapons. Carlyle welcomes the opportunity as he is keen on examining one of them without constant surveillance. We thank the warriors for their input and also thank Desok for his guide before we return to our rooms in Kasvarina's house. Once we're back, Carlyle takes some time to examine the mystical weapon with everything he got, be that magically, spiritually and alchemically. Once again, the pain strikes him mercilessly before Srasama's presence buffers it like before. All in all he gets the impression that these weapons were somehow forged by infusing them with the pain and suffering of living creatures. So we agree on sneaking up to the forge once again to get a glimpse on what is going on there. Once we reach the site later that night, we find it to be pretty forsaken. But after a while, we hear the faint sound of a muffled scream coming from the inside. So we sneak in and find a hidden door leading to the forge's cellar. We turn invisible and see how the smith, Iomar, tortures a human prisoner, then distills that essence of suffering and uses it to temper a new weapon. We spot even more prisoners, mostly humans who look like they could be part of the Clergy. We agree that we've seen enough and withdraw to a safe distance from the forge to discuss on how to proceed further. We both agree that while we are surely no friends of these foreign colonists, we still cannot let them be used as fuel for the forge. Unfortunately, we don't have our usual RHC authority here, so we cannot simply arrest the weaponsmith. On top of that, Iomar appears to be a respected member of sentosan society, and we're not here to make enemies. So we decide to use the one person with authority we knew and who we are sure to like us at least a little bit: Desok. We pay him a late-night visit and ask for forgiveness for this late disturbance. But matters could be urgent, as Carlyle just examined the weapon he got today and had a terrible vision afterwards. As “Sahomi Gabriel” is highly spiritually sensitive and his visions had always turned out to be true somehow, we'd ask him to go to the forge and see if everything is alright. Carlyle then tells him about shadowy figures being tortured and disturbing screams of pain. Fortunately, Desok believes Carlyle's tale and agrees to check the forge. With a little help from our keen eyes for the “obviously hidden door”, Desok is able to catch Iomar in flagranti while he is busy torturing another one of his prisoners. So Desok arrests the smith and brings the prisoners in protective custody elsewhere as he cannot simply let foreign humans run free in Sentosa. We thank Desok for his trust and hope he won't get into trouble. This goes for us as well as we are really unsure whether this move just the day before the scheduled audience with Matriarch Athryalla would be seen as positive help or negative intrusion and unwanted commotion. The very next day, we are being called to the audience with the High Matriarch and it appears as if everything is still proceeding on schedule. So we dress up for the occasion: Carlyle dons his best suit while Auryn wears the ornament she was given by her mother after she left Pallita to formally found her own enclave. “I won't ever be an equal to a High Matriarch, but she will hopefully acknowledge my role and status as a blooming woman and not treat us like outsiders.”, she explains. We are then led to the top of the central pyramid of Sentosa, the seat of the triune Matriarchs. There we find three seats, one for each of the founding High Matriarchs Athryalla, Latika and Kasvarina. Which means that only one of them is currently occupied. We formally introduce ourselves to her and her court, and Athryalla encourages us to tell her more about us as she is quite interested in this foreign nation called Risur. We are a bit surprised as we thought her to be more focused on internal politics, but tell her everything she wishes to know about our political system and especially what “being King” in Risur means. Athryalla laughs in a friendly manner and explains that she is no stranger to the outside world as, you know, she has been around for 500 years and has good contacts to the Fey of the Dreaming. Still she is glad that the current Monarch seems to have so much sympathy for Elfaivar. We promise we'll do our best to establish diplomatic contacts to Risur should she feel the desire and add that the colony of Kellandia is already en route to having really close ties with the surrounding enclaves, going so far as to founding the Covenant. “Unforatunately, neither the Clergymen nor the Danorans of late are this interested in negotiations. If only she... well, [I]she[/I] is the reason why you came here in the first place, or am I mistaken?” We nod to this assumption and Athryalla shakes her head and explains that she cannot let Kasvarina venture outside again. Not as long as she is in this fragile condition. There are only two Matriarchs left, she says, and it is her duty to protect the remaining one beside her. It would be completely irresponsible to let her roam the wilds, especially with the Colossus and the Devilkin out there. We understand, but add that we do know how to fight these treats, and we would be more than capable of protecting one Matriarch. But as we also sense that there would be bad blood hidden underneath that veil of verbal evasion, we point out that Kasvarina's continuous presence would actually endanger Sentosa itself as the Colossus feels drawn towards her and the Obscurati are currently searching for her as well. It is when we feel that Athryalla understands the danger she is in but still somehow places keeping Kasvarina inside above all this that we realize that something might be really off about this situation. “May I speak openly, High Matriarch?” Auryn asks while making small gestures towards Athryala's guards. “You may. Leave us, please.” She then waves at her guards, who immediately withdraw beyond hearing range. “I don't mean to be rude, but what would a High Matriarch fear so much that she'd risk the well-being of her whole enclave?” Feeling caught off-track for once, Athryalla bites her tongue and falls silent for a moment. “Kasvarina and I didn't part on the best terms, young flower. Ever since we started the restoration, we weren't exactly best friends. But then she turned her back on Vekesh and left our communal path behind. Vengeance became her sole motive. She even spat in Vekesh's face, when she founded her little conclave of assassins and called them 'Vekeshi'.” That remark stings Auryn visibly as she didn't know how much the original Vekeshi would have been fixated on simply murdering Clergymen in revenge for the Malice before eventually becoming more than that. “Her heart darkened so much that she was consumed by it. She even sabotaged my... oh my, young flower, I only tell you this because I see that you don't turn a blind eye to injustice even if you have to risk everything you came for, but Kasvarina, the true Kasvarina is much more malicious and dangerous than that weaponsmith you two had arrested last night. So I wasn't too surprised to hear about that conspiracy to murder her four centuries ago. Unfortunately, it failed though.” She takes a deep breath once she sees the disturbance in Auryn's eyes. “Hate me all the way you like. But you don't live to be the Matriarch of an enclave like Sentosa for five hundred years if you cannot make tough decisions. My enclave is my duty. Restoring Kasvarina isn't.” Well, at least we know now that uncovering the crimes of Iomar didn't put us on bad terms with The High Matriarch. We tell her first that we are glad that she opened up to us so much, and promise we won't betray her trust . Still we get the feeling there might be more to this story as Carlyle gets a strong sense of shame once she talked about that assassination attempt. “I understand your motives, High Matriarch. But if you talked to the current Kasvarina only for a while, you'd see that this version of her doesn't want to go back to the way she was before. She heard all of these stories about her killing people and she... was shocked about them. She is in a state of confusion and loss as she knows that she lost her husband and her daughters, even if she doesn't really remember how or why that all happened. All she want to know is to understand what she did and the reasons why she might have done that. She fears she might have set plans in motion that may lead to even more suffering if these plans go unnoticed. And I promise that I won't let her cause any more harm.” We then go on to stress out that the Planar plan of the Obscurati is already endangering the Dreaming and one could only guess what would happen should our neighbor plane get ripped away from our world. The existence of the enclaves above everything else would be threatened as they are drifting between the Waking and the Dreaming. And the Obs are our mortal enemy as well. Athryalla is surprised to see that we are still vouching for Kasvarina then, as she appears to have been a major figure in the Obscurati hierarchy. But when she asks us about our motives for helping her, we explain that first, she is still a part of Auryn's family, secondly, she may help us all to save the world and thirdly, we want to give her that chance for redemption, to make amends for her past mistakes. Carlyle in particular looks straight at the Matriarch and adds that he wants to help Kasvarina regain her memories to find the answers that may be key to ensuring the future of all Eladrin. Also, he sternly stresses out that he would not hold back to help her, too, would she ever be in a situation where she may be in a similar situation of distress. [COLOR=rgb(65, 168, 95)](Oh my, I only realize now that this promise came back full circle at the end... Carlyle really had a huge development regarding the Eladrin)[/COLOR] “Very well then. You have my permission to look for the Arc of Reida. But you'll have to go to the Sanctum of Ingathan on your own. Consider it a test of your true abilities to show me you have what it takes to 'protect' Kasvarina. It won't be an easy task though as the Sanctum is in the middle of a contested territory between Clergy colonists and a band of Eladrin Were-tigers who may be in league with the Mad King Vardanis.” Athryalla smirks shortly, but expresses genuine interest once she realizes that we are not intimidated by her quest. “We'll return soon.” Auryn promises. “And don't forget: Once we return and leave with Kasvarina, you'll be rid of Asrabey as well.” Carlyle adds with a roguish wink. [/QUOTE]
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