[Game Thread] Chapter six I: Fireside chat.

[SpatulaOdoom]

Morgan chuckles when Nallaul talks about taking a poke at Lolth.
"You know, we knew about what Lolth was going to try with Dea. I was trying to arrange it so that Zilira was going to be the one to shank Lolth in the kidneys." It appears Morgan has a vicous streak himself if he was happy to engineer a situation where Zilira would slay her own mother. The mage shrugs, making a “what can you do” gesture with his hands. "It didn't work out, but it would have been beautiful for Zil if she got the chance."
Plucking and consuming the fruit of godly power that was Lolth would also have been very good for Team Wainraith too. Fortunately Shade had at least ensured that it had stayed out of the hands of the Fiendish Pantheon. Interestingly enough, though it hadn't worked out and was mostly moot at this point, with the godforge shard with Shade and Demos depowered, the deal he'd worked out with the Maidensnatcher was still in effect.

When Nallaul suggests Morgan has a lack of interest in Zera's origin, the lanky mage shakes his head emphatically no.
"Finding a solution for the puzzle that is Zera number one on the objective list right now. Any advice or perspective you can offer on that subject is very much appreciated. I've said it before to my friends and allies, but I very much value the perspective of others of different backgrounds and origins. Speak your mind around me. I want to know how others view something. In comparing it to my viewpoint, I might find things I missed or even a new way of looking at things."

He'd said something to that effect to Kala, Rhys, Nevh, Misa, Crescent, even Vulcar previously.

"If you have any ideas on how we can research his background or find out about who had a hand in him becoming the charming little tyrant he is today, I would dearly like to hear it.

If you're curious, figuring out these New Gods is number two. While very mysterious and concerning, they are as of yet not hostile, and don't have a Hybrid Old One in their back pocket. I hope."

Originally Posted by Acathala

Nallaul looks directly at Morgan. This was likely not going to be a pleasant conversation. "Zera wants control of Zilira. Why? As you've said to me, he's on a power level higher than her. Also doesn't strike me as sentimental. "

"Here now, you come from a race of slavers. Is it really all that complicated?
Until five days ago Zilira was a slave. Property in other words. Property of the king of Halva. Zera wants, maybe wanted, to become king of Halva. To own Halva. Zilira is part of the property that would become his. Conveniently she comes pre-bound to his will once he becomes king, no additional effort.
I think he might be starting to think about setting his sights a little higher than just one country nowadays, but I'm sure it's a prize he still wants very badly, and until recently Zilira was part of that prize."
He takes a deep breath. He hadn't freed her to keep her out of the hands of Zera, or people like him down the line, but it was a nice side benefit.
"As far as power goes. Zil's may be quite a bit below The Blue Lady, but is still a demigoddess, meaning more powerful than any of his other minions. There is no evidence that the Paragons are more than a power source. More importantly she's more experienced than ANY of them. The oldest of them is not even a century, while Zilira is over a thousand years old and a veteran of the Demongate Wars. Divine rank is nice and all, but gods have died to those theoretically less powerful than they, sometimes even mortals."

[Acathala]

"Lucky for you that she didn't. Otherwise Deimos might have used her to power up Dea instead. Tel'shar's whole plan would have failed if I had acted like a typical Drow when I found out she and Isoude were not who he said they were." Nallaul said, smiling as he thought of his brother. "How did you know about poor Dea?"

[SpatulaOdoom]

Talking about Zilira's nine hundred and fifty years of slavery always left a sour taste in his mouth, and Morgan finishes as he always does by reminding himself- but that's over now.

Originally Posted by Nallaul

"Lucky for you that she didn't. Otherwise Deimos might have used her to power up Dea instead."

"No that's not how..." Morgan pauses. No, he shouldn't give too many clues. The contract technically included a bond of secrecy on both sides, but that was only regarding the-. Huh, and Deimos had failed to even make an attempt to follow through. The again, he hadn't exactly had time to do so before Shade and the mysterious New Gods showed up and rendered the whole thing moot. "Never mind. A complicated situation, but thankfully it turned out better than it likely would have without my meddling."
Maybe.
The may-have-beens were always the ones that kept Morgan up at night. At least they used to be. These days he barely had time to think on them with all the other stuff flying at them.

When Nallaul mentions Dea Morgan sighs. Yet another fire to be dealt with.
"We knew about her being part of the group brought together by Kerberos to investigate “the pusher” and about them discovering the existence of the drow through Deimos. That was actually when we first learned the drow were still around. We even tracked them up into high Kaira, but were a little too late to have the option of interception before they entered the underdark. Given that Fisalyth was the one who set them on that path, it's perhaps best if we never had the chance. I spoke with the Eighth once when she wasn't annoyed with me, and it rattled my brain around in my skull.

Finding out about Dea being Deimos' daughter? Well." Morgan smirks. " Let's just say Deimos shouldn't leave chunks of his soul lying around where just anybody can find them. Especially grubby handed oracles with poor impulse control."
Sure Deimos hadn't exactly left it where just anyone could find it, but it had been found. Too bad that little shard of divine power had wound up more or less wasted.
"Can you try and tell me as much as you can, in as great a detail as you can, about what happened with her during and after the... Fiendish riot and her ascension? There have been two new gods ascended in the last two weeks, and I'd like to know as much as I can about her before trying to contact her."

[Acathala]

Nallaul finished off his wine, as Morgan hops on Dea, and brings the conversation round to her. "Ah. Poor Dea. I liked her you know, since she knocked Fairy on his arse." Nallaul chuckles about that until he remembers what Gula did to the first son. He sets the glass down, hard enough to make a noise. Fairy was an idiot with delusions of grandeur, who liked to torture people as a hobby, but even he didn't deserve the death he got. However the man did deserve death. Nallaul was having a bit of trouble reconciling some feelings he had about some people. Some of his relationships were very complicated, and the Arachnomancer simply didn't know how to feel about their deaths.
He finally answers the question. "Morgan, I don't think there's much I can tell you that Zilira hasn't already ripped out my head. I'll try though. She was annoyed by her father and Hali'ara using her as bait. She also just found out Deimos was her father. He transferred the power he took from Lolth into her. Then she was out for most of it, as hersself, Isoude, Jaan, the twins and I were taken into the sanctum." Nallaul paused. "Ira. Kind of got what was coming to him. He was going to rape the twins. New gods trio busted in and killed Ira. Nobody mourned. Dea was still kind of out of it. That's when Shade and somebody called Denison showed up. Apparently they had history." Nallaul frowns. "I think you might know of him?"

[SpatulaOdoom]

"Deison, and yes, as mentioned I may have slightly killed him. In self defense mind you."
Morgan chuckles.
"That may make our next meeting slightly awkward, but I actually suspect Deison wouldn't take it personally. We were soldiers on opposite sides really."
"Anyway, did Dea say anything before you absconded with Shade?"

[Acathala]

"I mention him because he is the first follower of Dea. He prayed to her as she was changing, and she heard him. When she woke up, she basically recruited him. Not that was particularly hard, as he obviously didn't trust the church of Deimos, and he was obviously in love with her. I know because he was looking at her the way I used to at Xufaer. I hope he has better luck than I did, the poor sod." Nallaul is silent as he reflects for a moment or two on that doomed relationship. It had only come to a point recently where he was able to let go of those feelings.
"I think that Dea is going to go after the church. I think the things she learned from Jaan, and knowledge from her new divinity, made her realise her father and his church had been lying to her. She's quite angry about that. She told Jaan she still owed him a debt, and told Isoude to look her up if she wanted recompense from those who wronged her. Dea offered me recompense from my enemies too, even though she suspected I only helped her partly out of self interest." Nallaul smiles. "Dea was [I]wrong[i]. I helped her out of love for my brother."

[SpatulaOdoom]

Morgan hmms to himself, going over the drow's words carefully, both now and earlier when Jaan and Nallaul had spoken of her.
”OK. So revenge, debt, revenge, revenge. Jann said that she said her path wasn't the light. I guess we have some idea what sort of new goddess we're looking at. Still, I'll need to speak with her myself.”
At the very least, he wants to give her a chance to speak her piece and make her chosen place evident to the world at large. In the immediate future Aldamil might have a little less trouble with the Demosian church.

His eyes slide back to the arachnomancer. He seems momentarily hesitant.
”So. Nallaul. There is one other thing I intend to do in a bit. I'm going to try to go visit Xu'Deln and Acedia and see how they're getting on. Not in the next day or two, but some time after that.”
Give them about a week to get settled and started with what Acedia needed to get her head together.
”If you're interested, I'd be willing to bring you along. I can even provide a Mind Blank for the duration.” It was about the most potent of mortal magics to protect against the difficulties of being near the demigoddess of madness. ”I will very much understand if you want to take a pass on that one, but hopefully you can suggest a little comfort food or something I can bring him to make him feel better. He's had a hard life, both of them have really, and I figure it might be nice to show them that somebody is thinking about them.”

[Acathala]

Nallaul sighed again. "I suppose we do. Our past makes our future, if we don't learn and make peace with it." Nallaul shakes his head to clear it. "I'm not going to make excuses for Dea, but I understand where she's coming from. Also for what it's worth, Deison appeared to regret the assassination attempt."

On Xu, he nods. "I'll go but I can't really help with suggestions of comfort food. He never really seemed to enjoy much of anything. We weren't particularly close. Or did much together other than a brief apprenticeship to me. Which was Xufaer really trying to see if I could figure what he was. Don't get me wrong, I did like Xu, and I tried to look out for him. Probably more for Xufaer than him, but I did try." Nallaul remembers the eye of Lolth he had to kill to protect the kid. He wonders if he should tell Morgan about the wierd thing that happened. He's hesitant to bring it up as it happened after the child slaying.

[SpatulaOdoom]

Morgan shrugs.
”I really don't blame Deison for his actions, Aldamil either. They were working off of skewed information from Sharak and the fiends, and even then Aldamil wasn't planning on killing Xander and Celes, but capturing them and questioning them to get to the bottom of what was going on. That's why she didn't come in with any Sharakan soldiers.”
That's also why he didn't hold it against Deison any more than he hoped the knight held it against him.
”As for Dea, I'm not going to pre-judge her without actually speaking with her and finding out what she stands for and why. Revenge comes in many flavors and for many reasons, and some of them I can support.”
What people do might be the most important factor in the Archmage's opinion, but there are many other factors in the equation, like why and how.
"Anyway, Xu. Thank you for offering to come along. I think we need to help make sure he is a reasonably well adjusted and healthy young man, because he is... Well he has a frankly terrifying power. I don't know how much your studies have gone into the underlying structure of reality, but. There is more than one reality. There are countless versions of our reality, all different but I believe coming from the same origin point. Realities separated by a boundary I call the Between, that is linked to both events and time. It's similar to planar boundaries, but more subtle and more difficult to interact with.
Until I met Xu, I wasn't aware of anything that could actually interact with these other realities directly. I can brush my hands across that boundary to create my probability altering powers. The Oracle, someone who has had an entire country created just to protect her, can see into these other realities. Xu'Deln is able to directly interact with these realities, he has even pierced this boundary to create an Incursion, something from The Between or another reality or time passing over to our reality. L'arabiel returned from the afterlife. That's why Sarlorne was so terrified of him. It's also why he picked up Binding so easily."
Morgan's face falls slightly.
"I also think it's why Shade made Xu his apprentice. Because Xu has the potential to find his release from this world. Do you know what is going on with Shade?

Xu is doing right by trying to help Acedia, especially if her powers are similar to his in any way, but I do think she could be damaging to his mental well being, which let's be honest, wasn't the most steady to begin with. We need to continue looking out for him for the good of, well, reality."

[Acathala]

"I've always thought revenge was stupid. It makes you predictable, and predictable leads to death. However if you have a persistent enemy that's going to coming after you, not dealing with it can make you dead. Did I mention I hate the underdark?" Nallaul scowls for a long moment. The underdark was a genuinely insane place to live.
On Xu, he listens carefully. He understands the full horror of what Morgan is telling him. The Arachnomancer simply sits silently for a long, long time. When he does speak it is very soberly. "I'm glad we never found out. He would have either been killed, or worse. I can see Myr'delith trying to weaponize the poor bastard. Thankfully Xufaer would have realised the folly of that. So this trip is a "hello buddy, how you're doing, and you're not going to destroy reality are you?" I just have no words."
On Shade. "I don't know. However he did raise Deison. Shade bringing him along might have been him manipulating Dea."

[SpatulaOdoom]

"Oh, you just sort of start to get numb to the endless series of fantastical events eventually. I think it's the conceptual equivalent to the boil a frog thing."
Like say an entire race of people that were supposed to be wiped out a thousand years ago suddenly popping in to say hi and kill eachother.
Morgan sighs, glancing at the bottle of Sledgehammer as the urge to have a few more drops begins to rise. The problem is it wouldn't stop at a second drink, or a third likely.
"Hang around with me long enough and you'll get there. Hell, you're apparently trying to make time with a mysterious unknown goddess, so you're probably half way there already.

Know what's even better? What kept me from falling asleep for three whole days when I first realized it? That model of reality means that we do not live in a causal reality. Cause and effect are not in an absolute relationship, and things can happen for no goddamn reason.

A lesser example is that psionic power that rewinds time a few seconds. The caster has foreknowledge of events that will not occur, since he will almost certainly act differently the second time around. If those events did not occur, whence then does the memories of the original time come? That should create a paradox, yet it does not. Why? Because the first time line didn't happen in this reality.

Or I could suddenly disappear from this reality because a Xu five realities over wanted me to show him how to make a clockwork release valve, turning me into an Incursion on his reality.

A more worrying example might be that Xu'deln has his Sarlorne throw a mountain at him in an attempt to remove the abomination. Xu shoves it into The Between to keep from being crushed and it winds up popping out in our reality as an Incursion to land on the palace. As far as our reality is concerned that mountain came from nowhere for no reason because the people that caused it to happen don't exist.

I think this might be how mundane commoners see powerful mages like you and me, or possibly gods, to just sort of will stuff into happening. A commoner doesn't understand how we summon and manipulate magical energy to create a Fly spell that allows us to move through the air without wings.
We don't understand how Xu does what he does.
Unfortunately Xu, nor anyone else he's spoken to, doesn't really understand it either, so he's kind of feeling his way through via trial and error."

Yes. Trial and error with reality. It wasn't so different than how many strange and esoteric abilities came into being, just playing on an entirely different scale with different risks. Really unknown risks.
Gods. Maybe we should have let Sarlorne kill him.

"So Shade. Shade is a body hopper, you caught on to this already I'm sure. The problem is that when he/she/it hops bodies, he brings along the soul and consciousness of his current host to the new one. Along with those of every other host he's ever been in. And each of them has a voice on what happens in the amalgam being. Alistair Teel is still the core of Shade's identity, but it's influenced by all the others. The real problem is that Shade is eventually forced to take a new host, and the interval between jumps is getting shorter and shorter."

Sighing, he pours himself another glass of wine, and adds a few more drops of Sledgehammer to the mix.
That's IT though. No more.

"So we have a creature that is made up of hundreds and hundreds of minds that is rapidly collecting more and gradually loosing stability and cohesion. Also, now that Alistair Teel has gained revenge on Asharte, I suspect he's lost a large chunk of the motivation that's kept him in primacy. If the Godforge/Sanctuary situation is resolved, I'm not sure what will happen with Shade still around but Alistair's affairs are settled."

Morgan takes another slurp of the spiked wine.

[Acathala]

Nallaul seems to sense where Morgan's thoughts are going with Xu, however briefly the wizard thought them. He doesn't seriously think Morgan intends to let Xu die. However he just realised something. "I think, if that's the case, it's entirely possible Xu sent these new gods back in time. That's one possibility. However they were unsure which side Dea would throw down on."
On Shade Nallaul nodded. "I knew about the body hop. I recognised the body he wore and she wasn't her. No loss to the world, as she enchanted torture tools." Nallaul smiles wryly. "Morgan are you so sure he has nothing else to accomplish?"

[SpatulaOdoom]

"I do have trouble imagining a dozen godlike beings of that power could collectively remain hidden on Ahkea for very long. But it wouldn't be our Xu, but that of another reality. It's also possible they come from these other realms that the Zodiac come from, L'arabiel called them the Nine Realms. I do seem to remember an incident about five years ago that majorly disrupted the planar boundaries. Without knowing the mechanics it's hard to say if it's an Incursion or someone finding out how to get in from the Nine Realms to here, but it could be either one.

IF they are incursions, it doesn't matter if it's future, present, or past, relative to our time or relative to our common origin point, an Incursion by necessity creates a new reality. Basically it doesn't remove or negate the reality they come from, it just creates a new one."
Morgan pauses. His mind goes back to what he'd seen in Mask's, make that Many Faces, coin. Had he escaped the ending of a reality? One that had ended in the future?
"In the end I just don't know enough about it. It's just... guesses, I guess. The Oracle might have known, but Rincala is locked up into a sealed demiplane, so we can't contact her. Xu might be able to tell, but I don't know if he could and I doubly don't know how he might be able to."
Morgan takes another drink, suppressing the urge to gulp it down.

"The problem with that drow is it wasn't a loss at all. She's still around. As a part of Shade. A voice in the mass and an influence on the whole. Absorbing her into the whole brought Shade one step closer to being someone like her. Alistar Teel isn't Shade, Alistair is the dominant personality, but the part of Shade that is Alistar keeps getting smaller and smaller in comparison to the whole. One body, three thousand six hundred and forty minds and souls.
And counting."

"As for what Alistair Teel wants to accomplish, I don't really know. The two big motivations he'd have had that I'm aware of are revenge on Asharte for the death of Sinneh, and keeping his creations from being used for the opposite of what they were created for. All the other things I can think of would be the works and motivations of Shade, not Teel."

[Acathala]

Nallaul sighed. "I only had to worry about being assassinated before. Now there is the possibility of Xu breaking reality, some personality suborning Shade's power because he might not care any more, and there's an indestructible evil with immense power running to an unknown goal. Perhaps I should try to get drunk. Fun, fun, fun!" Nallaul said that last part sardonically. He's kind of weary of the doom and gloom. It was supposed to be better up on the surface. Instead Nallaul found he had swapped one set of problems, for a far deadlier set of problems.
"I think we can leave the serious stuff to one side for a minute or two. Tell me something interesting. Could be about you, or Halva."

[SpatulaOdoom]

When Nallaul begins to subtly complain about the perilous and dramatic turn his life has taken Morgan begins laughing. A chuckle at first, but quickly building into full blown laughing that has him bobbling his drink onto the table to keep it from spilling. It winds down quickly and after a few deep breaths Morgan wipes the corners of his eyes and blows out a deep breath.

”Yes, well. I know exactly where you are coming from. This is all relatively new to me too. Everything I just told you, I was unaware of, ohh two months or so ago. I was not an Archmage or involved with Zilira, not brother to a demigoddess, hadn't peered into the afterlife, or accidentally resurrected one of the Zodiac gods. Not aware of the Children in the Dark, or had the First Vampire try to get me involved with his daughter.”

He shakes his head.
I can definitely see Zilira's point about Nallaul reminding her of me.
Morgan had voiced that exact same complaint more than once recently.

”Tell you about myself. OK. I'll tell you about my love life recently. You'll get a good laugh out of it.”
Morgan takes up his wine again and slurps down some more. At this point the lanky mage seems to be a little buzzed. Apparently Sledgehammer is serious stuff. Maybe he wasn't kidding when he said that it would get gods drunk.
”Not Zil, but all the other stuff.
You see, until a few days ago my whole investigation was secret. It had started over an assassination attempt on Vulcar. He wanted to run his own investigation on it separate from that of the government, since there are a number of government bodies that he doesn't really trust. So he gathered together some people and hired us to conduct such an investigation in secret.
To that end he made me one of Halva's archmages. An Archmage in Halvan paralance is an advisor and protector to the nobility, and government in general. There are anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen of them at any given time. Like any mage out there they can seek employment where they will, and usually demand a premium for their services.

Before this point, I wasn't anyone of any major importance. I was known, and known to have some personal power with a few connections here and there, but the title of Archmage put me on par with mid-level nobility in and of itself. This was intended to let me interact with the nobility as an equal and conduct my investigation of certain members of the nobility.
It however had an unintended side effect.”

Or maybe it was intended, just never actually made known to me.
He didn't think Vulcar would leave him ignorant of it, but then again maybe he would have before they'd developed their personal relationship.

"The side effect is that I was now an Archmage without any preexisting political connections or allegiances. Apparently that's some sort of catnip to these people. All of a sudden I had every second noble house in Halvanna introducing me to their daughter of marrying age, a number of them tried to do so while I was currently escorting the daughter of a Senior Council member to a ball. The Senior Council being the highest level of government below the royal family.

Better yet, because of the investigation, and the fact that it was a secret, and the fact that Zilira was a massive secret, I had to pretend to be interested. It would be suspicious if I wasn't, and it did make it easier to get involved with various houses in order to check for sedition."

He sighs and slugs back the dregs of his second drink.

"So here I am, trying not to say or do something that will get me squashed like a bug by the political powers while courting their daughters, investigate the assassination attempt, and figure out where I stood with Zilira and The Oracle romantically speaking. Admittedly, some of them were quite appealing, and if I hadn't been exploring things with Zil I probably would have been interested. If things don't work out between you and Sulion, I'll introduce you to Lady Helena Sol. I think you'd like her. She's fun."

Morgan cocks his head to the side. Why was it whenever he talked to someone about women, there was hard liquor involved?

"Speaking of women. Sulion. What is it about her that makes you interested? It must be more than “she's pretty” given everything going on around you."

ooc I think one of the reasons I like Nallaul as a character is that he reacts to things in a very believable "people" way rather than a "D&D character" way.