[Game Thread] Chapter Five: Everything Changes

[SpatulaOdoom]

It seemed almost inevitable that Hywel would slip the net, no matter how quickly Morgan got word out. After all, how would he be Kala's enemy from the inside of a cell?

He does his best to ignore the banter regarding assassins and their work and the dark thoughts they bring. Killing is easy, easier than it has any right to be for what it really is. And assassin was just another word for a murderer with a cause, whether it be politics, religion, or money.

[Battlechaser]

"We'll see." Léon replied curtly. His mind was already racing ahead, planning which cover identities to use, who he would talk to and what he would say. Then he tried to gauge the usefullness of his new companions. He had an idea what Morgan would bring to the table - besides a goddess in love, which might prove troublesome if the seer made her unhappy. But Nehv was a bit of an enigma to him - bitch, caring friend, ambassador yet somehow detached.

[Makenshi]

Originally Posted by Leon

"Just one remark. Since this Zera fella can mindrape almost everybody, won't it make more sense if I reported to you or Lucien directly. We have no idea whose strings he is pulling."

"It is very unlikely that Lucien will be staying, although given Alyyryk's involvement they may decide that it'd be useful having either him or his sister, and Lucien is the more level-headed of the two."

Lucien raises an eyebrow. "I'm not so sure about that. It's just I didn't have the power to make things explode with my mind when I was angry, so it wasn't as noticable."

Marcell shrugs. "Be that as it may, we'll sort out the arrangement once we've a better idea of who they're going to make Ambassador."

Originally Posted by Leon

"And since this clique is already into the scheme, won't it be better if I cooperated with them and if Vulcar happens to be at a meeting he'll be informed - indirectly off course."

"That was my intention. Otherwise I'd have not introduced you so publically. Quite apart from the difficulty of explaining why you'd be meeting with him in private. If Zilira is willing to give you one of her amulets then you can always use her to relay information in a pinch, although it is a holy symbol, so I'd advise against carrying it when you don't want her watching you." Zilira smirks at that, but leaves it at that.

~MTWC

[SpatulaOdoom]

It seemed that they were getting down into the nitty gritty details, which meant that they were past the important bits. There'd been an attempt on a Thrane royal, and this Leon fellow was going to be hanging around Halva to keep an eye on things for Marcel. Fair enough, he'd do what he could to help. Gods knew Halva needed a few more friends in Elern.

"If you've no further need of me at the moment, there's something I should attend to." He pauses, looking around at those gathered. Half of the people he wanted involved were here already, including one or two he hadn't anticipated. "Actually, I suppose I should explain since I'd like to beg the help of a few of you." Coiya already knew about it, but he's the only one Morgan had confided in. Frankly it sounded a little insane even to Morgan. "It's about Xander Alexin's remains. Now this is going to sound a little bit insane, but I don't think I need to remind anyone that we live in strange times. I don't know if anyone has heard, but Xander's body is guarded by an energy field that keeps it preserved, holds him to this realm, and harms any fiend that touches it. The field is believed to have been produced by the Unnamed Blade. This is, to the best of my understanding, not something the blade, or any of the Eight, has been known to be able to do. I find myself asking why it was done, for what purpose is Xander's body been protected? One possibility that occurs is that he is not entirely dead, or at least not beyond recovery. Obviously that's just a possibility, I have nothing to back it up, but I believe it's something worth investigating. In an effort to find out I'd like to bring together some appropriate people and things and sort of see what there is to see, pun intended.”
He points at people one at a time. Min, Bane, Rising, and himself. ”Bearer of an eighth blade, seer, seer, and seer who's recently peered beyond death.
I figure we get Xu'deln who may have similar abilities, and the other two blades including the Unnamed, in the same room with Xander's remains and see if anything happens. It's a shot in the dark, and I'd rather we not tell Celes and get her hopes up, but it seems worth fifteen minutes of our time.”
With so many disappeared or escaped into Rincala, the four of them might be the biggest gathering of seers in the world at the moment.

[Makenshi]

OOC Bane gave away his Eight Blade during the meeting. With the intention of asking for another admittedly, but he hasn't gotten around to doing that yet, let alone collecting it, so it's just Min and Jarl. ~MTWC

[Battlechaser]

"Either you appoint Lucien and his sister who know what to do or some inbred schmuck with just enough braincells to know left from right. " Léon shrugged, "The latter would probably make my job a lot easier." He grinned at Lucien.

Turning to the drow goddess, the thief continued, "Would you mind borrowing me one of your symbols? And telling how to switch the whole big sister thing off?"

[Makenshi]

Min and Rising seem a bit perplexed by Morgan's idea, but agree to help in any way they can, and with the meeting having mostly been brought to a close Breaker declares his intention to pass on the news of the meeting to the other Keepers and then to the First-Born. Coiya and Cipher would remain with her siblings to represent the Children when the meeting resumed.

As to Leon's request, Zilira holds out a hand where tendrils of shadows appear to coalesce and combine layer by layer to create a small amulet of a solid black spider, which she holds out towards the thief and spy. "If you don't want me watching you, then don't carry it. The same applies to any and all Deities. We can spy on things within a certain distance of our holy symbols, depending on the symbol in question. Amulets have a smaller range than statues for example." She suddenly frowns. "Hmmmm. You know...it's only just occurred to me that we should be wary of any symbols dedicated to Airis or Malvain. Or the other Paragons for that matter. Even if Zera isn't controlling them with Sanctuary at his disposal he might have created a way to spy using them."

"Are you telling me we can't trust the Church of Airis?" Vulcar asks. "They're responsible for most of the healing in the capitol, including trying to help the Dragonblaze."

"We didn't exactly trust them before though did we? Not after what happened with Kala."

"If that's true then the plan to get Kala to unite the Malvainites would be doomed to failure too." Coiya adds.

"Possibly, but even Deities can't look everywhere at once. Keep it quiet at first and don't give Zera a reason to believe the Malvainites are doing anything but fighting each other as usual and I don't see why he'd be spying on them."

~MTWC

[SpatulaOdoom]

It was funny. For years Morgan had only rarely worn his symbol of Airis. It hadn't felt “right,” not since Scarlet, or more specifically not since he and Eloise had caught up to her in Aria. But he did carry it around at times, in a pocket or in his extradimensional satchel.
”If the symbol was kept in an extradimensional space, like my handy haversack, would they still be able to see what is going on outside the space?”
He suspects the answer should be no, their senses would not cross dimensional barriers, but then this whole god thing is still new to the mage.
”As far as trusting the church of Airis goes, I think the answer to that should be obvious.”
Heck, he'd warned Vulcar not to trust them ages ago. Well... Days ago anyway. The general membership would probably be fine, but the leadership is almost certainly compromised to some degree or another. They'd just have to work around it while guarding their backs.
”Funny thing is that the Malvanite's lack of structured leadership will work to our advantage in this case. Zera won't know who to spy on or turn. Not until they start to organize and he gets the info through more traditional means.”

Tired, with a headache, and feeling a little numb, but at least reasonably optimistic about their chances Morgan stretches and yawns hugely. ”Might as well strike while the iron is hot and before I start second guessing myself. I'm going to go see if I can persuade Xu to help me out. Hopefully we'll have time to take care of it before the meeting restarts.” The troubled drow would likely be in his room.

[Blue]

Nevh rolled her shoulders. It wasn't time for good byes yet but she wasn't sure the moment would come again.
Misa and Didina weren't there during the meeting, so explaining a little might be a good idea.
"Since most of us are here and it might as well be done with now in case the moment does not come again, I'd like to give you guys my farewells. As I said earlier I'll be gone after the meeting. News of our plans to elect an Hybrid will likely reach our opposition so to insure that I survive until the election process is over I'll withdraw and hide. Out of reach. I won't come back and it may well be that we will never meet again, unless another is chosen to die."
The possibility of not being chosen made her think of Marcia's question on Fate. The Oracle had confirmed that her death could take at least one other form. What was going to happen was still up in the air. Perhaps.

She took a step forward. Withdrew her hands into the sleeves of her haori and made a short bow. She spoke in Quallish. Not to make it harder to understand, but simply because it sounded much better in her native tongue than it did in Halvan, even if it was a bit typical as far as Quallish farewells went.
"I'll cherish the memory of our time together. In and out of duty, in peace and in violence. If we are not to meet again, at least those memories will survive and go on forever."

She'd give a short moment to interact with them, if they felt the need, but was ready to simply make another short bow for Vulcar, whom had made it all possible, and take a step back before turning on her heels to head out and return to take care of the last details of her preparations.

[Battlechaser]

"Thank you." Léon took the offered tiny spider and put it in his heavier than usual haversack. "I guess." When the possibility of gods spying in through their holy symbols was suggested, the spy inside Léon stirred. "Is it possible to - how to put it - jack in on that hotline? Could we follow conversations between gods and their minions. Sorry, believers." He did put up with Fenrir, but mostly in a "I don't bother you if you don't bother me" kind of way.

When Morgan suggested that the extradim ... Whatever... space could block the gods going all Peeping Tom, Léon blandly said "You could also line it with lead. That blocks most divinations."

And then Nevh started to talk in her home language, Léon could not understand a word, but he memorized it to have it translated later. "Sure. See you later."

[Makenshi]

Originally Posted by Morgan

”If the symbol was kept in an extradimensional space, like my handy haversack, would they still be able to see what is going on outside the space?”

"No. Not unless the bag is opened. Closed it contains their sight but as soon as you open it the God can see outside until it's closed again."

Originally Posted by Morgan

”Funny thing is that the Malvanite's lack of structured leadership will work to our advantage in this case. Zera won't know who to spy on or turn. Not until they start to organize and he gets the info through more traditional means.”

"True." Vulcar concedes. "And if they think to target A.k.a Lucy. Not Lucien (the Elernan Seer).Lucius...well, we don't exactly trust him/her anyway and for all we know whatever it is that Malvain did to speed up her reincarnating might protect her from influence."

"That or if he acts suspicious we just kill her." Zilira points out a little too eagerly. "It'd end whatever Zera - or anyone else - could do to her and by her own admission she'd just reincarnate. It would also be amusing."

Originally Posted by Nevh

"I'll cherish the memory of our time together. In and out of duty, in peace and in violence. If we are not to meet again, at last those memories will survive and go on forever."

Vulcar gives a solemn if respectful response, providing the traditional response to Nevh's own words, and in decent Quallish. "Yeah, I stole it, so sue me . Nevh's farewell reminded me of the various Oaths from that story and when I wrote a response about 'Memories never fading' it made me think of this.Thought is the arrow of time. Memory never fades." He switches back to Halvan and extends a hand out towards her. "If this is the end then I wish you luck and I promise that I will hold up to our original agreement as best I can."

Originally Posted by Leon

"Is it possible to - how to put it - jack in on that hotline? Could we follow conversations between gods and their minions. Sorry, believers."

Zilira shakes her head. "Not that I'm aware of, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. Especially if you have Sanctuary and the Godforge at your disposal."

~MTWC

[SpatulaOdoom]

Morgan may not be able to speak Quallish, but he can understand it thanks to a certain spell.
”Greater love hath no one than this, to lay down their life for their kin.” The sentiment is especially true here. Nevh would be laying down more than just her life and for more than just her kin. The mage steps forward to wrap Nevh in a brief hug followed by a hand shake. ”Thank you Nevh. Good, bad, and in between, it's been an honour.”

Stepping back he blows out a breath.
”There's something I'd like you to think on Ms. Ruda, in hopes that it's passed on.
Pain, violence, hunger, power. These are things. They exist. They are part of the world.
Law, compassion, morality. These things exist because we create them. We look at what is out there and we say "we can do better than this. We choose to do better than this.”

It's something that people like Lucius will never understand. They think that because those ideas don't exist in nature they are somehow naive and shouldn't exist at all. But they aren't and we collectively decide what should and should not exist. Maybe we'll never see a shining utopia, and maybe we'll never all agree completely on what constitutes better, but we've already proven that better is something that can be done.”
With that said Morgan too takes his leave.

[Blue]

She reached with both hands to shake his. The king's expertise and attention for foreign courtesies was touching. "Thank you."
Nevh then pursed her lips, made a short pause. "I believe you."

When Morgan later stepped in to reach her, she let herself get hugged. Her body like a boiled rice noodle. Her strength came back by the hand shake.
"Likewise."

She listened to him then and remembered their conversations on how they perceived the world, and humanity.
"I hear you."
Nevh was clearly hesitating to speak further, but did.
"Hear this as a warning, a relief or a promise; Nehrahk told me that whoever becomes the Heart of the Void would have the strongest influence over the nature of humans, as he has the strongest influence over the nature of fiends. His influence changed their very nature, expunging the very evil from them. Humanity will soon choose the one that can change them all forever."

She paused. Her stare had the sharpness of knives.
"It is a good thing that the Hybrids are relieved of every trauma and wounds of the soul. Unclouded by such stigmas, they see things with a clarity that I can only imagine. And the knowledge... one would not see the world as he did before.

"Would I take the reins and change humanity? Give it the shape of my desires?
I think not. But I will see that things get better, if anything, as I intend to if I get to keep this life. Be well, Morgan."

[Battlechaser]

The thief followed the exchange between Morgan and Nehv. He knew she was planning to sacrifice herself for what she believed to be the greater good, but since they've only recently met, Léon has no idea why she would do something stupid like that. But, hey. It's her choice.

"If you don't mind, I'll he off." He said to Lucien and partly to Vulcar. "You know. Places to go, people to find."

[Makenshi]

Marcel nods. "Start making contact with your friends and allies in the underground. Don't ask for anything yet, just let them know you're around. Afterwards, I'd suggest heading to Anorde's tavern - that Elven place with the naked woman on the side - and speak with him."

Vulcar nods in agreement. "I think we'd all better be getting back to business. We haven't got long until the recess is over." He glances between Morgan and Zilira for a moment before nodding. Perhaps a telepathic conversation? "I'm going to find my sister. The rest of you use your time as you see fit, just make sure you're back in time to begin again. It could be we will be voting on the Hybrids on our return."

OOC Ok, now's the time for some solo RPs if you'd like (doing one with Morgan at the moment for example). Otherwise I'll push through to the meeting.

~MTWC