22. June 28, 2015

Session Title: “The Big Reveal”

Speaking in Sylarith, Jessa says to the visible humanoid “I'm glad you got my message. My mentor Faile said to seek her mentor Odette if I ever came to this area.” There's a flurry of activity as one of the archers appears and approaches the person on the trail for a whispered conference. Jessa and the man, Genard, parley. In Sylaryth, Genard explains he is a village elder, and could act as intermediary to take a message by proxy to Odette. If we will give him our weapons, he will escort us to his village so we can see the truth of his statement. Going with Jessa's instinct that we ought to trust him (not to mention, we're outnumbered), we agree.

We reach a campsite (not a treehouse) in which provisions are hidden in underwater chests. There are also platforms for sleeping/sitting out of the water. They cook a meal, feed us, let us have our wooden weapons to treat them with rosin. Genard says the location is the closest we will come to a village, and asks us to tell him our story. Jessa decides to trust him, and speaking in Common this time, reveals EVERYTHING. Bel mildly interjects with “don't you think this is extraneous detail, irrelevant to the narrative” (as a subtle way of insinuating “are you out of your mind?!”) but Jessa emphatically replies that it's totally relevant. Bel quiets down and lets Jessa talk and explain everything (about our true identities, about the 24 daughters, about our mother...not holding anything back, in an impressively complete reversal of our prior stance of secrecy), to a man who is a member of a culture that raises its citizens to be assassins and spies. But as Jessa explains, because Sylarith has spies everywhere, they may be poised to help prevent an overthrow. [Of what? Of mankind by monsters? Of the elves by a different faction of elves? Of the emporer? Of the duchies??]

The Sisters' Manifesto

Genard asks, “where do you want to go with this?”

Jessa replies, “to protect the daughters who are still in the open. To welcome any who wish to join. To learn the motives behind the assassination. To learn who is behind it, all the players. To find out how to best be involved—because we all are involved whether we want to be.”

Jessa further states her personal goal is to minimize harm to people caught up in all this. And to protect all the sisters. But without knowing the ambitions of the opposing factions, it's hard to know the next step. And that's where she thinks Sylareth can help.

Genard's Goal

Genard appears to make a snap decision and says that he'll go “all in”. He replies that “he wants to ID the factions involved. And then pick the one best, or least dangerous, for his country to back.”

We point out that his duke also has two daughters in danger, and his duke needs to take the global view with this...after all, Sylarith has ties to the world, and the two daughters have many half-sisters, not just us. Genard says that his duke's daughters are protected; they were identified when our mother brought them to his duke, and they keep them safe in their capital.

Delivering 24 Sisters

Genard says that they knew something was afoot before the girls were brought to his duke—they witnessed the theft of artifacts from each duke and theft of things from people close to the dukes. But they didn't identify the pattern until it was too late. When 'phase 2' of the plot, the delivery of the girls to each court, was taking place, Sylarith knew it was happening but none of their agents were able to spot our mom.

The Master

Changing the topic, Bel asks “What do you know of 'The Master'?” Genard replies that it's a mythic figurehead for various aquatic races. Almost a deity for them. He says there are three main rumors about The Master:

Rumor 1: He's a deity, an ascended being that rules over monstrous and aquatic races. These monstrous races ruled before man ascended, and The Master wants dominance restored.

Rumor 2: He's the maelstrom. He's a being not of this realm, but is trying to manifest here. The maelstrom is a symptom of this attempt. And monstrous and aquatic races are trying (and succeeding) in strengthening him.

Rumor 3: There's an ancient, primordial being slumbering under the lake in the middle of the continent. The slumbering being reaches in its sleep to try to get the aquatic races to do its bidding.

Genard later says that Sylarith thinks (and this is a theory, it is not a fact, he says) that the maelstrom removes magic, making the monstrous races weaker. Sylarith thinks that when mankind started becoming prominent and monsters started declining, that the maelstrom might have helped Man's rise.

So there are many theories about The Master, but nobody knows which is the truth.

Genard

Genard says that the Emperor is aware of all of the activities that are occurring, but is keeping his interests close to the vest.

Bel asks, “Who are you, that knows so much of what your duke and the Emperor think?” Genard replies he is an information broker who collects information from all of the duchies. He disseminates the information in parcels to try to shape events to benefit Sylarith most.

Bel requests that Genard repay our trust in him and the truths that we told by candidly telling us his own story. He tells us that he was originally from the Imperial City. Bel asks in that tongue, “are you really now?” and he seems surprised for the first time, but responds in the same tongue before continuing his story.

The Sisters are Tools

Genard believes that the sisters are tools, designed to be tools. Every sister that Sylarith agents have encountered have uncommon abilities. It is Sylarith's belief that the lifespans of the 24 are short because they are running at 500% of their potential, and will have shortened lives by 80%. [So we might live to ages 20 – 25, by his reckoning.] Sylarith doesn't wish any of the sisters harm, unless they learn that doing so would benefit the realm.

Bel ponders the purpose for which we might have been made, and fears that it's the depressing idea of our blood or our bodies that are needed (in keeping with the prophecy of “with their blood your [rule? realm?] is secured”), rather than thinking we are needed as individuals to accomplish something.

Our Mother

Genard knows that our mother was an elven noble, and the last of her family. [except for her 24 daughters, that is] The elves don't talk about her or her family. Records would be in Elvelin, the elven city that only full-blooded elves can enter, and is a place of power for the elven duke and his family.

The City Elvelin

Genard would love to have an elven agent in the elven city, but they don't. He speculates that Vethandra's sister may not have been killed in the woods as a child as rumored, and maybe could be hidden in that city. He thinks that a restored-to-flesh Vethandra could go there and find out, but thinks it's too late to try because Genard thinks that the sisters all have 3 – 5 years left to them, and that any grand climax that is to occur must happen before then.

Sylarith

Sylarith supports the Realm and the Emperor first, and Sylarith's aims second. Genard explains this is because Sylarith thrives best if the Realm survives as a balanced whole. For example, they don't want to see the Elven Duke overthrown because the elven lands would become isolationist. And the don't support a double-marriage being talked about being arranged between two couples in two of the northern realms, because it would cause too much power in two of the duchies, that could be abused in the future.

The Family Awstur

Bel asks about the family Awstur [their crest is a bird with a snake in its beak; we were previously told the family went crazy and later kinda declared war on Sylarith and changed its crest to the bird]. Genard says that the family Awstur wanted to find a shipping route through the maelstrom. Sylarith supported their idea because the best case is they'd learn more about the maelstrom. The family sent many minimally-equipped boats, and only one ship returned. It showed up in an interior lake in Valkir, masts snapped, crew dead, except for one man who was raving. The family Awstur came to see the crewman and question him; the guy refused all wages and said he only wanted the boat. The family agreed. The crewman started selling off bits of the boat, whose wood could not be snapped. When the crewman died years later, the family Awstur reclaimed the boat and picked up with selling bits of it. But the family started having bad luck, and the more of the boat they sold, the worse it got, until they died off, bankrupt. All that remained by then were two crates of material from the boat; the two crates disappeared.

Of that one ship and also the remains of magic sea creatures in mountainous inland areas, the Sylarith think that there are underground reservoirs that allow passage inland.

Crazy Dragon-Worshiping Nation

Bel asks about the heraldic symbol on her newly-acquired splint mail and sling. Genard says that the nation to the east of Sylarith is full of religious zealots that worship a dragon. The inhabitants overthrew their duke and replaced him with a green dragon. When the Emperor visits, he is presented with a human thrall. The dragon is perpetrating a religion centered around herself, and with it as a divine messenger. The people are proselytizing to the southern realms of the Continent, letting those people know that dragons exist, and hinting that one is in charge. The history behind this is that the Eastern Island Duchy long ago warred with the Continent's Southern Duchy, which through war became barren and turned into desert. The two duchies continue their animosity today, and while things are generally getting better in the area there are still subtle sabotages despite Sylarith's efforts to keep the peace.

The priests from the dragon religion are stirring up trouble by trying to be missionaries/zealots who tell the Southerners that there's a spirit of a dragon in their land. Ironically, this is annoying the green dragon, who doesn't want her people spreading around the story that she deposed the old duke. The zealots seem to be wielding true power, which they claim is from the green dragon. Genard has heard rumors that the green dragon had hatched a large clutch (maybe as many as 8) eggs and her hatchlings are thriving. It is unknown why the green dragon isn't acting to suppress her zealots—maybe she is involved in raising her young, maybe she is actually an old dragon and not as on top of things as they think, or maybe the zealots' actions are part of her plan after all.

Bel asks if it's safe for her to use the mail and sling. Genard concludes it's safe to use; it's magical, and it's good quality metal. The magic is supposedly from buffing acid from the green dragon onto the metal. He thinks it could be useful having it, for possibly infiltrating the eastern island duchy if needed.

Swearing Fealty to Sylarith

Genard asks if we will swear fealty to Sylarith. Jessa is all for it, so long as her aims and Sylarith's align. Bel has to deliberate and pray over the matter (and casts Detect spells, and sees the alignments of nearly all of the Sylarith people in camp are Lawful; not much of the other three [chaos, evil, good] at all), and concludes that the aims of Sylarith align with Beseth.

Jessa and Bel agree to swear fealty, and the Sylarith people agree to provide us with some training in their capital city (which turns out to be to the southeast, on dry land along that mountain range.) They take us to the capital, to the Duke's throne room. They burn herbs that Bel recognizes as having properties to include magical, hallucinogenic, and sedative. We essentially have visions like in a patriotic indoctrination film to make us feel emotionally bound to Sylarith. Genard later explains that we will have a magical “check” to determine if any action we try to take in the future will be against the good of the duchy, and it's supposed to render us unable to act if it would be against Sylarith. (He also explains they had a tough time getting the dose of burning herbs right with their duke's two daughters, so we suspect that maybe the 24 could burn it off faster and not be quite as susceptible to the Check.)

The Sylarith also are able to return our sister Vethandra to flesh and give her some training. Jessa doesn't meet Odette during the 6 weeks of training.

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Mom's Dagger

What we know or have been told about our mother's dagger is:

• it's Chaotic

• it's bespelled to kill a specific individual (unknown who)

• The Master supposedly sees its existence as a symbol of rebellion (according to his aquatic pals

• it was created by death, and is meant to cause death

• the power that created it is ancient

• it can create discord and malevolence

The 24 Sisters

What we know about ourselves and our half-sisters is:

• There were 24 total, each set of girls is 18 mos apart, all have the same elven mother, and their dads are the 12 dukes

• Each of the dukes were told “by [your daughters'] their blood, your reign will be ensured.”

• Sylarith knows that 3 sisters are truly dead. For several more, their fates are unknown.

• All of the girls have uncommon abilities.

If together, odd chaos occurs; if kept apart, the aura of unforeseen danger lessens. For example, the mine collapse in Evangier may have been because four sisters met there.