Improper actions, improper requests.
Aug. 30th, 2003 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothToday was Lazar's Friday Shadake game, in which much was said but little was learned, largely because of my habit of incessantly interrupting the flow of exposition to ask another leading question. It was one of the 'cleanup' sessions that we tend to have now and then, in which the loose ends from one mission were scattered about like leaves and a new mission was thrust upon us, but nothing was actually *done*.
Much mischief indeed had evidently occured by the time Sophie arrived, as she found the teacher, Tsuru, and Lazarus all unconscious on the floor. The teacher and Lazarus seemed to be too injured to revive without magical healing (or a lot of bed rest), while Tsuru was completely unharmed but seemed to be under the influence of some sort of sleep spell.
Oh, also, Wesley was missing, and the vial was on the floor in pieces.
Sophie decided that the situation warranted NOT waking Tsuru up, since he might still be controlled, so she asked the students still hanging about the classroom if any of them might be able to cast a healing spell... and one of them thought that maybe she could, although she'd never tried it before. While she cast the spell, Sophie tied Tsuru up with the sash from her weaver-silk outfit.
The spell was successful, although it had its side effects (basically, it spread the damage to everyone in the room, including the unconscious and very wounded Lazarus, almost killing him, although no one knew that), and once the teacher was awake he was able to cure everyone and remove the sleep spell. Tsuru denied having any knowledge of anything between going through the waterfall, and 'hurting' the teacher and then waking up.
The teacher expressed the opinion that the trapped spirit and/or the spirit that had been controlling Tsuru was not the Argent Claw himself, but one of his spirit servants. And said that Sophie had been 'touched' by another such servant, which made her think of the demon whose mark she still bore. Still, he more or less dropped the matter of Tsuru, and told Sophie to take him home. He also told them he'd be 'having them watched' since they were both touched by evil spirits, and told them to ignore any dreams they might have for the next month or so.
Sophie did not beleive that Tsuru was telling the truth, so she dragged the Feriphal to a relatively secluded copse of trees on one of the city's farms and interrogated him at length, to no avail. She had him shuffle her tarot deck and did a reading, which led to a revelation -- she asked him to summon his flitter familiar to prove that he was really Tsuru, then during further questioning watched the flitter, whose empathic link let it know when Tsuru was lying, and whose reactions were much less well hidden -- it kept looking at Tsuru as if he was insane, every time he denied remembering anything.
So she was sure he was lying, but had no idea of how to get at the truth. Maybe Kiet would have some ideas?
Kiet was at the Jade Tiger with some of the other students, partying. Mostly, throwing daggers. Sophie explained the general situation to him, and asked if he could read minds. He gave it a shot, and accused them *both* of lying, although he said Tsuru was lying because he was compelled, and Sophie was lying because she was afraid. Once again, the truth of the matter was not revealed.
Frustrated, Sophie tried to play the dagger toss game, but was utterly unskilled at it, and even less skilled at 'Tsuru toss', failing to even hit the correct wall of the bar with him, let along the target. Tsuru was quite good at it, although since he was only two feet high he needed to stand on someone's shoulders to get a good angle.
So, even more frustrated, Sophie resolved to get Tsuru drunk. As the prize for winning a round of dagger toss was a large mug of alcohol, much of her work was done for her, but she fed him a few shots of vodka disguised as beer, and topped it off with a dose of expensive wine that was supposed to make one babble incoherently without much thinking about what one was saying.
And babble Tsuru did, after passing out and throwing up all over Sophie's front upon revival. After a few minutes it was evident that Sophie's guesses at the situation were far enough from reality that her leading questions, intended to get him babbling about the missing memories instead of about the weather or politics, were somewhat counterproductive.
But before that could be resolved, the conversation wandered to interspecies mating, somehow, specifically to the ways in which a feriphal (like Tsuru) and a manis (like Sophie) could mate (Sophie's position being that the entire concept was absurd). Tsuru seemed to have many ideas on the subject -- a disturbingly comprehensive set of ideas, even considering that under the influence of the drug he had many ideas on any subject that came up. Kiet asked Tsuru to demonstrate. Tsuru proved slippery, deft, and too drunk to understand the concept of shame, and began to do so. In the middle of the street. Much to Sophie's dismay and not a small amount of her surprise.
So she picked Tsuru up (and off) and tossed him into the crowd, then fled. The guards, who'd been watching the whole thing discreetly, took Tsuru to the drunk tank, where he was rescued by his family, eventually.
At home, Sophie discovered that most of the males in her family had been drafted for the apparently imminent war between Shaoli and Razia, the empire which all Manis were somewhat beholden to, and which her family in particular retained many associations with despite officially being citizens of Midrein... and that her brother who went to class with her, the one with the artificial leg, was missing. While both of these were distressing, she figured that the second was a special case of the first, and that there was nothing she could do about it.
So she hid her money in a safe place, as Tsuru had suggested -- although not in the hiding place he'd hinted at having, since she didn't fully trust him. She used shadow-fire to magically burn a hole in a wall -- after the spell ended, no means of opening the wall to retrieve the money was evident. And went to sleep in a much emptier room in a much emptier house.
The next day was fairly uneventful. Sophie and Tsuru talked to Baird about having him vote their proxies in the upcoming meeting, since they were 'being watched' (maybe) and it wouldn't be a good idea to reveal the entire cell. Tsuru informed them of the problems with the Day of the Dragon celebration, that should have happened a few days ago and hadn't -- the sacrifice had not gone as planned, or in fact at all. There had been three volunteers, but the normal mechanism for the sacrifice (through Tsuru's church) was 'broken' in some way, and the willing victim who'd had the initiative to actually travel on foot to the dragon's cave had found it inaccessible. And Kiet mentioned that their boss wanted them to meet him at the White Fence at midnight to discuss another mission, of great urgency.
Class was somewhat interesting, as the teacher spent it explaining the rationale behind all the strange new laws that they'd have to obey during times of war. After school, the dragon was spotted flying overhead. Not *doing* anything, just flying. Sophie tried to bribe a street urchin to stand on top of a building and shout for the dragon to come eat him as a sacrifice, but the only taker took the money and ran.
That night, they met the strange robed man with the dragon staff and received their orders -- they were to go kill a rystal whose investigations were pissing off a rival organization, and sending heat their way. Kiet revealed that, indeed, he'd received a threat that the families of the three of them would be attacked, from the people in question. Sophie and Tsuru were very surprised to hear that, as he hadn't told them, and Sophie wondered if perhaps her brother's disappearance wasn't to the draft. Argh!
Kiet and Tsuru did not want to kill anyone. Sophie, remembering the guards she'd killed by mistake on the smuggling mission, decided she'd be okay with it if he was a 'bad guy' (meaning, someone like her and the others), but he wasn't -- he was a priest of her own religion. So she asked if, perhaps, it'd be acceptable if he were simply kept 'out of the way' for a while.
The thought went, "I can use shadow fire to burn a hole in a wall, which is undamaged when the spell ends. I know how to enchant a spell so that it will last for a year. If I use the shadow fire spell on the priest, enchanted to last a year, then he'll be out of the way for plenty long enough..."
Of course, working the numbers, it wasn't that simple. The spell would be difficult and resistable -- a bad combination. So Kiet would have to first destroy the priest's aura. Also, because of technical details about the spell, Sophie would need large mana crystals -- she certainly wasn't going to use up her own large one for this, or in fact admit its existance.
But the proper mana crystals, along with weapons that would hurt a Rystal, just in case, were promptly delivered, and since the plan did not actually involve killing, Tsuru and Kiet agreed to go along with it.
last week next week
Much mischief indeed had evidently occured by the time Sophie arrived, as she found the teacher, Tsuru, and Lazarus all unconscious on the floor. The teacher and Lazarus seemed to be too injured to revive without magical healing (or a lot of bed rest), while Tsuru was completely unharmed but seemed to be under the influence of some sort of sleep spell.
Oh, also, Wesley was missing, and the vial was on the floor in pieces.
Sophie decided that the situation warranted NOT waking Tsuru up, since he might still be controlled, so she asked the students still hanging about the classroom if any of them might be able to cast a healing spell... and one of them thought that maybe she could, although she'd never tried it before. While she cast the spell, Sophie tied Tsuru up with the sash from her weaver-silk outfit.
The spell was successful, although it had its side effects (basically, it spread the damage to everyone in the room, including the unconscious and very wounded Lazarus, almost killing him, although no one knew that), and once the teacher was awake he was able to cure everyone and remove the sleep spell. Tsuru denied having any knowledge of anything between going through the waterfall, and 'hurting' the teacher and then waking up.
The teacher expressed the opinion that the trapped spirit and/or the spirit that had been controlling Tsuru was not the Argent Claw himself, but one of his spirit servants. And said that Sophie had been 'touched' by another such servant, which made her think of the demon whose mark she still bore. Still, he more or less dropped the matter of Tsuru, and told Sophie to take him home. He also told them he'd be 'having them watched' since they were both touched by evil spirits, and told them to ignore any dreams they might have for the next month or so.
Sophie did not beleive that Tsuru was telling the truth, so she dragged the Feriphal to a relatively secluded copse of trees on one of the city's farms and interrogated him at length, to no avail. She had him shuffle her tarot deck and did a reading, which led to a revelation -- she asked him to summon his flitter familiar to prove that he was really Tsuru, then during further questioning watched the flitter, whose empathic link let it know when Tsuru was lying, and whose reactions were much less well hidden -- it kept looking at Tsuru as if he was insane, every time he denied remembering anything.
So she was sure he was lying, but had no idea of how to get at the truth. Maybe Kiet would have some ideas?
Kiet was at the Jade Tiger with some of the other students, partying. Mostly, throwing daggers. Sophie explained the general situation to him, and asked if he could read minds. He gave it a shot, and accused them *both* of lying, although he said Tsuru was lying because he was compelled, and Sophie was lying because she was afraid. Once again, the truth of the matter was not revealed.
Frustrated, Sophie tried to play the dagger toss game, but was utterly unskilled at it, and even less skilled at 'Tsuru toss', failing to even hit the correct wall of the bar with him, let along the target. Tsuru was quite good at it, although since he was only two feet high he needed to stand on someone's shoulders to get a good angle.
So, even more frustrated, Sophie resolved to get Tsuru drunk. As the prize for winning a round of dagger toss was a large mug of alcohol, much of her work was done for her, but she fed him a few shots of vodka disguised as beer, and topped it off with a dose of expensive wine that was supposed to make one babble incoherently without much thinking about what one was saying.
And babble Tsuru did, after passing out and throwing up all over Sophie's front upon revival. After a few minutes it was evident that Sophie's guesses at the situation were far enough from reality that her leading questions, intended to get him babbling about the missing memories instead of about the weather or politics, were somewhat counterproductive.
But before that could be resolved, the conversation wandered to interspecies mating, somehow, specifically to the ways in which a feriphal (like Tsuru) and a manis (like Sophie) could mate (Sophie's position being that the entire concept was absurd). Tsuru seemed to have many ideas on the subject -- a disturbingly comprehensive set of ideas, even considering that under the influence of the drug he had many ideas on any subject that came up. Kiet asked Tsuru to demonstrate. Tsuru proved slippery, deft, and too drunk to understand the concept of shame, and began to do so. In the middle of the street. Much to Sophie's dismay and not a small amount of her surprise.
So she picked Tsuru up (and off) and tossed him into the crowd, then fled. The guards, who'd been watching the whole thing discreetly, took Tsuru to the drunk tank, where he was rescued by his family, eventually.
At home, Sophie discovered that most of the males in her family had been drafted for the apparently imminent war between Shaoli and Razia, the empire which all Manis were somewhat beholden to, and which her family in particular retained many associations with despite officially being citizens of Midrein... and that her brother who went to class with her, the one with the artificial leg, was missing. While both of these were distressing, she figured that the second was a special case of the first, and that there was nothing she could do about it.
So she hid her money in a safe place, as Tsuru had suggested -- although not in the hiding place he'd hinted at having, since she didn't fully trust him. She used shadow-fire to magically burn a hole in a wall -- after the spell ended, no means of opening the wall to retrieve the money was evident. And went to sleep in a much emptier room in a much emptier house.
The next day was fairly uneventful. Sophie and Tsuru talked to Baird about having him vote their proxies in the upcoming meeting, since they were 'being watched' (maybe) and it wouldn't be a good idea to reveal the entire cell. Tsuru informed them of the problems with the Day of the Dragon celebration, that should have happened a few days ago and hadn't -- the sacrifice had not gone as planned, or in fact at all. There had been three volunteers, but the normal mechanism for the sacrifice (through Tsuru's church) was 'broken' in some way, and the willing victim who'd had the initiative to actually travel on foot to the dragon's cave had found it inaccessible. And Kiet mentioned that their boss wanted them to meet him at the White Fence at midnight to discuss another mission, of great urgency.
Class was somewhat interesting, as the teacher spent it explaining the rationale behind all the strange new laws that they'd have to obey during times of war. After school, the dragon was spotted flying overhead. Not *doing* anything, just flying. Sophie tried to bribe a street urchin to stand on top of a building and shout for the dragon to come eat him as a sacrifice, but the only taker took the money and ran.
That night, they met the strange robed man with the dragon staff and received their orders -- they were to go kill a rystal whose investigations were pissing off a rival organization, and sending heat their way. Kiet revealed that, indeed, he'd received a threat that the families of the three of them would be attacked, from the people in question. Sophie and Tsuru were very surprised to hear that, as he hadn't told them, and Sophie wondered if perhaps her brother's disappearance wasn't to the draft. Argh!
Kiet and Tsuru did not want to kill anyone. Sophie, remembering the guards she'd killed by mistake on the smuggling mission, decided she'd be okay with it if he was a 'bad guy' (meaning, someone like her and the others), but he wasn't -- he was a priest of her own religion. So she asked if, perhaps, it'd be acceptable if he were simply kept 'out of the way' for a while.
The thought went, "I can use shadow fire to burn a hole in a wall, which is undamaged when the spell ends. I know how to enchant a spell so that it will last for a year. If I use the shadow fire spell on the priest, enchanted to last a year, then he'll be out of the way for plenty long enough..."
Of course, working the numbers, it wasn't that simple. The spell would be difficult and resistable -- a bad combination. So Kiet would have to first destroy the priest's aura. Also, because of technical details about the spell, Sophie would need large mana crystals -- she certainly wasn't going to use up her own large one for this, or in fact admit its existance.
But the proper mana crystals, along with weapons that would hurt a Rystal, just in case, were promptly delivered, and since the plan did not actually involve killing, Tsuru and Kiet agreed to go along with it.
last week next week
