Terms And Conditions May Apply [Avamande]

[Imogen]

"Hah!" Imogen laughed, delighted by Avamande's joke. She hadn't even realized the strange Hytori clerk had a sense of humor! Her smile grew wider as they continued... then trailed off abruptly.

This isn't serious, is it? It can't be. Oh no. Oh. Oh it is serious.

"Ah, no, no thank you. It's just an Ecithian Primal, sort of a..." She trailed off. Her instinct would have been to call it a "huge elemental" or something to that effect, but her encounter in Koidhouo’uv cautioned against thinking like that. Perhaps a magus of the Circle would refer to a Primal as a simple elemental; she knew better. "... natural fragment of Aedrin's power."

That might just mean "an elemental", come to think of it, but it felt right. Well, it felt less wrong, anyway. "I'm not really looking for a consultation about that right now."

Frankly, her plot for killing the Voniad Koid was remarkably simple; the creature bled magma, which meant that its internal workings were fluid, kind of. If she could simply pump that out, the suction would draw water in. Given enough time, she would have not a god of fire, but a big statue. The issues of creating the transposition, opening multiple stable portals inside an elemental nexus of that magnitude and staying alive long enough for the water to poison the monster... those were matters to be solved later.

No, of more immediate interest was the elf's last query. She blinked at the sudden assertion, then peered at Avamande. No, she couldn't...

Imogen got closer, practically crossing her eyes as she squinted. She hadn't... wait, wait, wait. Yes she had!

"Oh! Are you that Hytori from Mr. Maze's spirit quest, then? Yes, I remember you, now! Huh, small world."

[Avamande]

Laughter was a curious thing from Avamande's perspective. Why wouldn't an adventurer, and clearly one in dire financial straits, not accept all the help that they could get in slaying their target? No doubt there was some bounty on the head of this local godling, and the itinerant mage sought to gain both fortune and fame by felling it. It wasn't a particularly bad line of work if you could get it, but the Hytori never saw the appeal.

The picture became clearer as soon as she mentioned Ecith. Of course. It had to be Ecith. That damnable continent seemed to exist solely to find new ways to kill everyone on it, and considering its ties to the Lord of Suffering they considered the possibility that was literally true. While Avamande was unfamiliar with the details of Primals, the general concept of fragments of divine power given a measure of sentience and autonomy was not entirely a foreign concept. Arguably, demigods were made in precisely the same fashion, albeit in a much more indirect way.

Well. Regardless. There were even weirder things to deal with than an impoverished adventurer on a quest to slay a god who didn't want help from a mysterious order of wizards who claimed to keep arcane secrets of yore alive. Though, in Avamande's opinion, it was quite close.

"If I remember rightly, your card advertised guard duty, exorcisms, and vision quests I believe. Quite a jump to go from that to god slaying in only half a year." Professionalism dictated that they not pry any further into her personal affairs. However, it was quite adamant on trying to up sell her on consultative services. "Are you quite certain you don't wish to discuss that matter?" After all, even if she lacked the ability to pay in gold, positive association between Ale'Ephirum and a god slayer was valuable in its own right. Perhaps they could even arrange a field expedition to attend to the remains themselves...

[Imogen]

"No, no, you misunderstand," Imogen responded, looking deadly earnest, "I do take on all of that work, and whatever else comes up in the accomplishment. For example, I went to Ecith on hire to acquire something for a client, and it turned out to be unobtainable while the Primal lives. So, I've got to kill the Primal, and I can't be going and piling on subcontractors without the client's say-so. Violates client confidentiality, you know, and that's the sacred trust of a general contractor."

That sounded a bit like stuffy blather, perhaps, but the principle of it was quite serious. The Sunsingers had never deigned to explain to Imogen what the purpose or nature of the relics in question were, so she had no idea what the consequences of sharing more information about her business would be. If the benefits of secrecy outweighed the risks of failure, so be it.

"And in this case, I think I've got the principle of the thing figured out. The Primals are... cousins to elementals, I guess. This one in particular is aspected fire, and so powerfully that it finds even the rains of high Glade to be torture; it raised a mountain in the middle of the swamps just to stay dry. In principle, a set of slipspace junctions inside the Primal ought to let me poison it with water from similarly-charged source and pull out its life-fire, until the two elements balance out and it's a dead statue."

Easily said, of course, and glancing past an entire list of problems:

1. How to form the internal portals?
2. How to maintain the slipspace junctions?
3. Who was going to keep the transposition spell balanced while it worked?
4. How long was someone going to need to distract the titan while the spell weakened and killed it?
5. Who was going to distract the entire herd while this complex spell was set up, activated and maintained and someone dueled an ancient titan?

But Imogen was not the kind of woman to get overwhelmed by details before project design was even completed. She had a reasonable layman's grasp on how Traversion functioned after her long association with the Railrunners; she wouldn't be capable of working out the details of the transposition magic until she found Carina and finally coerced her into Initiation. And the rest of that was basically just fighting, which Imogen was comfortable figuring out at the last possible moment.

"So you see, the clothes issue is really the more pressing one."

[Avamande]

Despite the rather situation, Avamande didn't doubt anything that Imogen said for a moment. She was a witch after all, and they were always quite insistent on the sanctity of their contracts. While they could counter her misgivings with a promise of working from limited information that would not entail any risk to the client's identity, but it didn't really matter in the end. Mostly because she was telling them everything that they needed to know anyway and any attempt to get more information would've horribly backfired. When you've sold, stop selling they say.

One by one, Avamande considered the list of problems, and swiftly came to answers for all of them that best fit the client they were consulting with.

1. Channel the Traversion magic through a Reaved weapon.
2. Ensure that contact between the enemy and the weapon was not broken.
3. While the ideal would be for the Reaver to do it herself, Avamande conceded that there was the minor issue that said Reaver would be having to simultaneously fight the Primal, so a secondary Traverser may be required.
4. Really, impossible to determine without further data in order to determine the aetheric strength of a Primal heartfire as well as the effective flow rate of an internal portal channeled through a soul borne weapon, but worst case they didn't see it taking longer than a full day.
5. Avamande actually did not know about the herd and therefore could not think of anything clever for them, which is why you should always provide all relevant details to professional consultants who are attempting to assist you.

"So I see, yes. It would be quite uncomfortable to fight such a creature for so long a span while in the nude, I can imagine. Well, it sounds as if you intend to become a Traverser in your own right, so that would solve both issues rather efficiently I would think." With their professional obligations dealt with, they turned their mind back to personal curiosity. "How precisely would you describe your line of employment?"

[Imogen]

"Well, that's somewhat philosophical at the moment..." Imogen responded, and truthfully. To illustrate, she continued, "As of a month ago, I was a guardian and guide to those who wished to do any magical business within the High City. Admittedly, it was mostly smuggling, but I would consider any contract offered which I felt was in service of a reasonable cause and could benefit from my skills."

Imogen pursed her lips. It probably wasn't relevant, but; "For purposes of official cover, I also served as head janitor to a large institution. Enjoyable stint, if you press me on the subject. I find the act of cleaning, of a constant rebuttal to the entropy of the crowd... quite relaxing."

But all of that was gone, now. She doubted if the Pfenning would operate again in her lifetime; and if it did, the Sunsingers and Railrunners would need to re-evaluate their positions considerably in light of the new world. She'd been chasing Carina instead of trying to receive new direction from the Sunsinger leadership, telling herself that she remained bound by whatever force and effect her contract with the Railrunners yet held... but was that true, or was it simply that she feared to try to move on, to find new purpose? It was a difficult question to answer, for a woman who had spent her entire life living in the Sunsinger sanctuaries and thinking of nothing but their practice and creed.

"Right now, I am in the process of looking for... prior clients. But I suppose I might return to Zaichaer, try to aid the containment. Slay some more of the twisted, remove the last pockets of the Mists, that sort of thing, though the Mists seem to have mostly faded, and don't seem to be directed any longer."

[Avamande]

Avamande took copious amounts of client notes as Imogen spoke, writing with astonishing speed and triple underlining the possibility of alternate payment plans for the smuggler janitor. Taken altogether however, it seemed that they had successfully talked themselves out of a sale by having suggested she simply become a Traverser in her own right. While this was less than ideal, the conversation had proven stimulating, and they even had a few ideas in mind for a limited run of products to sell to those members of the Sky Guard being rotated north in the wake of the ceasefire with Zaichaer.

Ordinarily, one might have expected a manner of shock or concern at having been told that the person they were speaking with as a criminal, but Avamande didn't particularly mind. After all, the crimes in question had been against Zaichaer - and more specifically, almost certainly the Order - anyway. Not to mention she just... did not seem a particularly threatening personage. This was not to say that they did not consider the witch to be capable, merely that they saw no reasonable circumstance under which she would put them in any danger whatsoever.

There was, however, one thing that stuck out. "A janitor? That worked?" Avamande asked, voice neutral as ever. It actually did make a good deal of sense, come to think of it. No one paid over much attention to cleaning staff no matter where you were, they were ubiquitous, and often entered areas no one else did. "Fascinating." Another quick note was jotted down in the cramped margins of their notebook.

"I wish you luck, in any event. It is good to hear that the Mists had begun to fade, I ha-" And then their stupid, genius, brain caught up with what Imogen had actually said.

"Directed?" they asked, an intensely serious expression on their face, the first emotion Imogen had ever seen from the Hytori.

[Imogen]

"Hmm?" Imogen asked, distracted. It took several long, awkward seconds for her to process what she had said, what they had asked, and how those two things must relate. When she had caught up, however, her face relaxed. "Ah, yeah. Well, nothing I could prove to an academian's satisfaction, but... yes. Look, consider this:"

Imogen pulled open her light jacket and rummaged about in the interior pocket for a moment. When she drew back, she was holding a very weathered hidebound book- it looked like the type of mass-produced journal one could buy from a fairly cheap supplier, with low-quality parchment paper and a heavy strap securing it. This one was stained in a variety of odd colors, and a bit chewed on; nearly a third of the back binding appeared to have been ripped through by needlelike teeth.

The Sunsinger opened the journal, from which the musky scent of jungle could still be faintly detected, and flipped through the stiff, damaged pages, pursing her lips. It took her much longer than Avamande would have liked to find the entry she sought.

"Observation one: Gihah K'uvfoi'uv Fi'uv, 34th of Searing." Imogen began to read her own notes aloud, her diction surprisingly crisp, as though she were used to disclaiming, "The Mists appeared in the form of a wind, with two effects; they froze the River Gihah and its wellspring and sustained that frost, locking down the spirit. Concomitantly, the wind retreated from the village but returned, blowing the fire-elemental spawn of the Voniad Koid towards the now-defenseless villagers."

"Observation two: Wawari Bobul. Witnesses confirm that the miststorm began on the 34th of Searing. The sky was dark for three days, after which the honored dead with whom the necromancers of the village communed turned against the villagers and began to devour them en masse."

"Observation three: Drathera City. Witnesses confirm that the miststorm began on the 34th of Searing. The mists primarily surrounded the city, but turned every ship in the harbor to stone, disabling escape routes. The mists did not advance into the upper city."

"Observation four: the Green Dragonflight. Witnesses confirm that the miststorm began on the 34th of Searing. The mists caught a number of green dragons meeting in Drathera for their annual moot, and rendered them invisible. These phantom wyrms immediately turned upon their own kind, and began a coordinated assault on Drathera."

Imogen closed the journal and tapped it. "And there were more villages too. If the chaos storms are meant to be random, how is it they hit upon each settlement's unique strengths and made them weaknesses with such precision? The clouds in Zaichaer acted like the mists normally do, hordes of the twisted in the streets, sure, but Ecith was full of these... these... particular situations. If that wasn't purposeful, I'll eat my own shoes."

[Avamande]

There was near silence after Imogen stopped speaking, Ale'Ephirum going almost entirely still. The only sound, the only stirring, was Avamande furiously taking notes and comparing detection and observations of Dread Mists with the Orkhan woman's account. No matter how they looked at it however, Avamande could not help but deeply frown. There was no making sense of this, there was no rhyme or reason - for everyone knew that the storms obeyed neither, so to see clear signs that this one did was... disturbing.

No matter how much they looked, no matter how deeply they searched - and the archives of the shop were vast indeed, a stack of priceless tomes growing next to the Hytori as they continued to look over their work - they were forced to admit two horrible things. The first was a well known axiom, Dread Mists do not follow any intent or plan, they are wild to all including the gods. Second, and far more horrifying, was that this storm somehow did despite what every expert from either of the great continents had claimed for centuries.

"I do not know what to make of this," Avamande eventually replied, truthfully. "You are quite right, it as if the storms acted to be as inconvenient as possible for everyone they affected. But that's quite impossible. Yet, it is so." The mage was frozen in thought, no longer even paying attention to the potential customer. They had already alienated her from actually making a purchase, so it wasn't that big of a loss, but still.

"What in the world happened in Zaichaer..." they whispered to themselves, convinced that the secret to the strange activity of the Winds lay hidden at ground zero of the greatest disaster since the Sundering.

[Imogen]

Review

Avamande

Lore: 14 lores of your favorite flavor

Points: 10, may be used for Scrivening

Injuries/Ailments: None

Loot: Copious notes

Notes: Outstanding customer service, although management might prefer they focus a bit more comprehensively on the sale.



Imogen

Lore: 14 lores of appropriate aspect

Points: 10, may not be used for magic

Injuries/Ailments: None

Loot: Still can't buy any of this

Notes: An incredible character, brilliantly written. Astounding work.