OOC: As we're playing a little fast and loose with the timing of all this, any player can take part in this current adventure.

Below the Elucidate an idyllic valley had unfolded in much the same way a child's pop up book. With one of the three World Shards brought along on the expedition the crew had transformed part of this world itself and converted what had been rocky and barren wastes into a lush valley. Even the light felt different in this valley, softer. It was no surprise that a number of mages hardly waited for the magic to settle before they ambled down the gentle slope leading off from the Spellspire to investigate this new addition to their land.

Fully grown trees gently swayed with the gentle breeze that made it down into the valley. The grass underfoot was bright green, the color of fresh growth, and was springy underfoot. Marvel of marvels, there were even birds and rabbits to be spotted! The rabbits looked a little glassy eyed compared to the natural thing, but they hopped well enough! After being cooped up for weeks inside the Elucidate, despite its many amenities, walking amongst nature was renewing. Yes, many mages were going to spend many free hours enjoying this new refuge.

The mages had not descended together, but they still formed a loose group as so happens when a number of people have the notion of going the same way. A few fell behind, some stopping to quite literally smell the flowers, others finding a spot in the shade to sit, but most were still roughly together. Some walking in twos, most alone as close friendships were still forming amongst this group who were mostly strangers to one another. That was why they all heard the voice. "Hellfire and damnation."

Distant, but clearly frustrated, there was heat in those words gave them just enough volume to carry. It came from ahead of them. That gave pause to the few mages at the front of the group. They had been the first to descend the hill, how could someone possibly be ahead of them? Feet started moving again and all of them towards the direction of that voice. The pace was no longer the aimless wandering of tourists, but the cautious tread of one who had heard strange noises in their house at night.

Round a small grove of trees, the group came across the source of the oaths. And it was a grisly scene.

A spike was set into the ground as thick as a tree trunk and ten feet tall. Near the top a body was lashed to it, the torso had been split open and the rib cage spread open to expose the innards like some sort of macabre art. The feet of the unfortunate soul were bound together and the arms seemed to be tied off behind the pillar. The head bounced side to side as a man on the ground motioned a thin wand, with each wave the head pulled upright, then dropped again. When the face was moved into view it looked vaguely familiar... It was one of the missing navigators! "Blast all this interference," the man at the foot of grusome display grumbled again and slapped the wand against his hand a few times.

Then he seemed to notice he had an audience. Looking over his shoulder the man grimaced, then turned and offered a sympathetic shrug. "Well this is embarrassing. I was supposed to be gone already. This really undermines the air of mystery and dread this was supposed to create." The man wore a tunic and trousers of the same gray fabric, they hung loosely and flapped with the gentle breeze of the valley. The clothing was non-descript, it bore no symbols that might indicate affiliation, or rank, or origin, it was simple and functional and, other than a couple of pockets, featureless. Seeing the faces of the mages he must have seen what was going through their minds, "Oh, no, no. I didn't kill him. I'm just here to deliver the uh," glancing up at the body and the dripping viscera he paled, then coughed and finished, "parcel."

Waving the wand again, the head of the navigator secured into place against the spike so the fact stared glassy eyed out outward. The grim courier gave a sigh of relief. "Now I was told I had to make two deliveries here, but I wasn't told I couldn't take a moment to speak, so how about we thumb our nose at authority. I'll answer one question from each of you. Bear in mind, I can't disclose anything about my," he grimaced at the word, "master."

Edit: Oh, and declare your spell book for this adventure!
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:27, Wed 10 Apr.

~Oh, this is marvelous!~ Arzin thought to himself as he stepped out into the lush green grass of the valley that the Elucidate's mages' magicks had created. He lifted his head and smelled the fresh breeze, even as he looked about.

~I wonder how they did this? Mayhap the Bookworms do have their uses, after all. Well, to be sure, Aurland certainly does have some useful magicks. I shall have to come up with a new name for him -- "Bookworm" no longer applies, once one has been blooded in battle -- and has contributed to the victory, no less!~

Not too far was a copse of trees. At least Arzin thought that he was correctly remembering the word that his tutor had taught him -- copse . . . "trees" was a word that he had already learned on his own.

~I wonder what kind they are?~ The man-at-arms was no expert on trees, but he knew enough to be able to distinguish, say, pines from oaks. These were not pines . . . mayhap they were oaks -- but definitely not pines.

From somewhere within the leafy branches of the not-pines, Arzin could hear the pleasant notes of birdsong. Birds were another thing that Arzin did not know a great deal about. There were red ones, of course, and blue ones . . . oh, and yellow. The ex-soldier found himself wondering which birds were singing so lustily.

And then, in a flash, the birdsong ceased as someone some little distance away exclaimed "Hellfire and damnation!"

It took but a moment for Arzin to ready his shield and draw his sword from its scabbard. Then he resolutely took off in the direction from whence the irate voice had sounded, doing his best not to be overly noisy in his advance.

The scene that greeted him was as surprising as it was gruesome. Over the course of Arzin's army service, he had seen many dead men and women, people who had been slain in a variety of unpleasant ways. It took but a glance to tell him that the dead man with his innards spilling out had died in a very unpleasant fashion. To a soldier's way of thinking -- men and women who were no strangers to dying -- there was such a thing as dying well, and dying poorly . . . badly -- whatever word you wanted to use. The dead man -- whom Arzin vaguely recognized as one of the missing Navigators -- had died badly, indeed.

Anger boiled up inside Arzin. The smarmy, self-satisfied fellow who blithely explained that he was merely delivering a "parcel", as if the gruesomely-displayed corpse were naught more than a basket of fresh vegetables from the green-grocers, may not have struck the killing blow, but to Arzin's way of thinking, he was certainly up to his neck in blood, viscera -- and guilt -- by virtue of his carrying out the will of his unnamed "master".

Striding resolutely towards the newcomer, Arzin growled "Here's a question for you, you whoreson bastard. Why shouldn't I gut you where you stand, and let you bleed out at my feet?"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:23, Thu 11 Apr.

Vallen leisurely traversed the lush valley and all it had to offer. He heard the birds, the wind in the leaves, the world as it breathed with new life. Much more attuned to the frequencies of nature than his fellow colleagues, Vallen could feel the subtle differences in the environment than what was normal back home, but this did not diminish his excitement; This was the beginning, and things would only improve with time. Needless to say, the glossed over look in the rabbit he spotted hopping in the forest was still slightly unsettling to see.

As Vallen was starting to feel some of his pent up frustrations beginning to melt away from the lands tranquility, far off in the distance he heard the faint sound of a man cursing. Vallen turned towards the sound and saw the other mages begin to head towards it. So, Vallen followed, albeit with a dark expression growing on his face.

The scene the mages came across disgusted Vallen. The man thrust into the spike was barbaric. Even worse, when the head was turned, Vallen realized it was one of the lost navigators. He had hoped that they would be able to find the two missing navigators and question them to understand what had happened with the Elucidates crash landing, but that was looking slim now. With the loss of the navigator was the loss of information and unerstanding, and it made Vallen angrier.

Then the man laid out the offer to answer a few questions as if he hadn't crossed the border into their territory, planted the dead corpse of one of their own still very visible right above his head, and they were merely exchanging pleasantries on his way to deliver his next "parcel". It made Vallen sick, but unlike Arzin, he held himself back.

Vallen shot Arzin a dark look. " Because we'll lose any chance of getting any information out of him if you do that, you brute," he scoffed." This is a diplomatic matter. If you cannot control yourself or offer any insight of value, return to the Elucidate."

Vallen turned back to the "delivery" man. While Vallens expression towards Arzin was of anger, his expression towards this man grew to something darker, cold and uncaring. " A better question to ask is what makes you so confident we're going to play your little game and then let you leave? You're outnumber and on our territory. Who will come to find you if you simply were to... Disappear and never make it back home?"

Although Vallen was as angry as Arzin at the man, his question was still one that was carefully placed. " Who will come after us if we were to capture you?" was his real question.

(OOC: Spellbook for this adventure: Harrying Winds)

OOC: Only 2 spells known and I have 2 slots, so the normal loadout for now - Temporal Manipulation and Far-reach. And his only known passive and enchantment too lol.

Steorra was marveling at the valley too. He did occasionally smell the flowers, etc but for various reasons made sure to stay with the main "collective" group of mages. Not only for camaraderie, but as the Magister of Time various Eludicate members were chit-chatting with him about this and that as well. He even said a few things to one of the navigators who was left, trying to make nice with them a bit, especially since they were not terribly popular with anyone right now and he didn't want them to become totally isolated.

Then, of course, the hellfire and damnation began, and he rushed forward to the head of the pack as fast as his (physicality 2) legs could take him. Especially when he heard angry word from the much-fitter Azrin after the mysterious man had made his introduction.

He stepped forward a bit, standing in between Arzin and Vallen, a storm or sky mage or some such who had been fairly quiet to this point but now seemed to become more outspoken all a sudden (i.e. he is controlled by a player now lol).

"Woah woah woah. Hold up, the both of you!" Steorra said to them, firmly but in a controlled manner. Despite his youth, it was clear the young time magister was a personage who was used to stepping into the middle of things to arbitrate with his influence as needed. Then again, almost all Empire mages know of Steorra on some level.

"Soldier Arzin? Disregard that order." Steorra said firmly to Arzin?. His tone wasn't unkind though toward Vallen though. It's just he knew Arzin was doing his job as the guard dog of the Elucidate, and Steorra had wandered around enough back home as well as walked the halls of power and influence to realize this, and to realize that a militant mindset had value in some times and places. Like now.

"As a Magister, you have my authorization to remain even if any other mages try and dismiss you. I believe we are in potential danger still, and while I do ask you to stay your hand unless our unwanted guest makes a hostile move first - in which case by all means please do brutalize him - right now I acknowledge this to currently be a parlay of sorts. Although I'm undecided yet if we shall let him go or not after this. I hate to leverage my influence like this, but this is a delicate situation and for now, both of you, play nice." he added.

He turned to Vallen.

"Please calm yourself. First of all, do not call him a brute. He is a decorated soldier acknowledged by the Magister Council of the Mage Tower for his valor, and is here as our very fancy and appreciated Guard Dog. One whose performance has been exemplary since we arrived here, by the way. And while I do agree with you that this is a time for diplomacy I want you to realize that we are technically not totally safe right now."

He then turned to the unwanted guest.

"This is not my official question yet, but since we're staying our hands and talking with you, the least you can do is state your name as well as the name of the Master you serve. I'm not saying spill your life story, I just want names and a proper introduction. Especially since you apparently are indirectly involved with a murder of one of our own and directly involved in trespassing on our territory.  That is only good business and polite courtesy." Steorra said.

"I will act as the host of a Parlay between us, as long as you respect the rules of engagement with us in return."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:50, Thu 11 Apr.

Irene had been enjoying the sireneity of the valley. Despite what most likely thought, she enjoyed the outdoors. The enclosed, underground, indoor space was simply more productive for her work. And like any mage that took their work seriously [or so she thought] Irene always put work ahead of trivial enjoyment. At the moment though, this was work, so she enjoyed it as long as it lasted. Sadly, that wasn't very long.

Irene immediately began to move towards the sound of the colorful words. Not really running since she was incapable of such a task. But she made it, just in time to hear the unwanted guest claim he was not the corpse's killer.

Irene watched the encounter with a face as still as water before a storm. Irene would approach the three, frankly idiotic men. She had been trying to avoid any encounter with the wretched 'Magister Tellurian' but something had told her it was going to happen eventually. She knew of him because one of Irene's colleagues had been something of a fan girl. Irene however thought the praise he received wasn't earned. He was praised because he discovered how to properly use time magic. He didn't actually invent or do anything he just lucked out and got an unexplored magic. When you get something unexplored of course your going to make discoveries, whatever you discover will be new because its unexplored. People shouldn't be praised for that.

Irene wouldn't have held as much of a grudge against this man if he were humble about it. If Tellurian had pointed out her argument or something similar while others tried to give him kudos, she wouldn't of had such distaste for the man. Except he never did such a thing, he took all the praise in stride as if he actually earned it! So, Irene was happy to interject.

"In the Mage's defense Tellurian, Arzin was acting rather brutishly in that moment. Had I not traveled with him myself I likely would have come to the same conclusion. This mage also made an excellent point." Irene would of course say all this as if she were discussing the weather with a commoner over oatmeal. Making sure to meet as many mages eyes as time permitted, Irene would declare. "If anyone plans on wasting their questions or not having the self control expected of prestigious mages, please leave now so this can be handled properly. Maybe even get some people still hunkering in the Elucidate for whatever reason. That aside we should likely convene together before asking anything else, see as how answers may only begat more questions" There would be no animosity in Irene's stare as she said this. Just her steady, nearly black eyes. The two cold abysses that often reminded others of the constant, looming threat of death, or not. Irene hated social events but she was more than ready to cooperate in the pursuit of knowledge. Especially after the trials she'd been though

Once this was done she'd give a nod of respect to both Vallen and Arzin. Ignoring Tellurian in such gestures.

OOC:Spell book: Resurect & Decay
Passive:Soft shoed
This message was last edited by the player at 17:30, Fri 12 Apr.

While the air positively crackled with Arzin's underlying violence and Vallen's thinly veiled threats, the figure did not seem concerned, if an emotion could be given to him it would be... resigned. Watching the mages squabble he stood back quietly, not trying to skulk away while their attention was turned toward one another. When the group quieted he spread his hands and shrugged.

Towards Arzin he replied, "You absolutely should, for all the good it would do any of us."

In regards to Vallen he cocked his head, "That's two questions. For the second question of who would be sent for me if I didn't come back? Perhaps Ankerot, or maybe Gesselvik, that's who was sent last time."

"There's always a cagy one," the man said turning towards Steorra, "You may call me Noal. There used to be a surname and titles to go after that, but those are long since irrelevant." What wasn't answered was the oblique question of his masters name.

There was something off about the fellow, and not just the fact he saw standing next to a grisly murder. While his clothes had drawn the first glance, looking at the man wearing the nondescript gray made one do a double take. There was a wrongness to him. It took a moment to put ones finger on, but once it was seen it couldn't be unseen. He did not fit together properly. One eye was blue, the other brown. Not common, but hardly rare, however, one eye was set ever so slightly higher than the other. His mouth was just a bit too large for his face, his arms too short for the length of his torso, the skin of one hand was pale, the other hand clasping the wand was darkly tanned. It were as though someone had rummaged through a bin of parts and assembled a person, all of said parts fit together, but clearly none came from the same source.

Steorra acknowledged Irene's words politely, but ignored or perhaps was simply unaware of any of the hidden animosioty or at least...judgement behind them. Steorra wasn't psychic. He also worked hard for the Empire back home when it really counted, so the way he acted was natural to him. Especially since he was a lot nicer than some others in his position were. but he had to stand firm right now, and keep some semblance of control and order over this Parlay, lest it fall into chaos and squabbling.

Looking at Irene, he spoke.

"I acknowledge your Words, Miss Irene. But what I said still stands. I will not let this parlay fall into disorder and squabbling. All of you are better than that. You wouldn't be here otherwise. And by the way, Miss Irene, I think you of all people ought to take a closer look at our unwanted guest..." he said firmly, and turned to the unwelcome guest.

"Noal, was it? Well met. I am Magister Steorra, but please...you can just call me Steorra. I will ask my real question then, since no one else asked it: you said that you had 2 deliveries to make, and that one was delivering the grisly remains of our fellow here. My questions are what are the full details of your plans for your second delivery? Basically...tell us everything you know and are planning about this second delivery."

Vallen had been “playing nice” and remaining “calm” through this whole mess of an expedition, but he could feel the pressure internally was building inside him. With no outlet of which to release it, it was inevitable that it would come out eventually. Vallen took a deep breath and resolved himself to find something more appropriate to blow off steam than his colleagues, preferably soon. He crossed his arms and tried to politely listen to Steorra.

“ I admit I have not seen him in action yet, so I will have to take your word for it,” he said to the magister of time referring to Arzin's abilities.

As much as he wanted to, he did not point out however that Steorra calling the ex-soilder a dog was still an insult to the man. No, he was determined to let Steorra have his way.

In the weeks the crew of the Elucidate had been scrambling to pull themselves together, enough doubts about the counsel of mages authority had circled around, quietly being questioned; No matter what Vallen personally felt, he did not want to be clumped in with the rest of them. And so he stood quietly, letting Steorra take charge, as was expected of him.

When Irene gave her words, Vallen returned her gesture of respect.

The names their unwanted guests revealed didn't seem worth much, but the second detail caught Vallen's attention. “Who was sent last time-” Whatever had caught this gangly man before had not been able to keep him hostage forever it seemed. He'd escaped before, from something or someone.

When the man gave his name it revealed more information: The man’s name sounding more human, the other two names he gave were far more likely to be monsters of some kind, and if only one was needed to rescue him, they could be quite powerful.

When Steorra responded to Irene's words, Vallen unfolded his arms and looked back at the two mages. “ As much as I hate to say it, I do agree with Steorra. We need to maintain our composure, as we're not the only ones with the potential of gathering information here.” A sharp glance was quickly given in Noal’s direction. His focus then turned to Steorra.
“ But Irene is also right. We need to proceed with our questions carefully to gain as much knowledge that would be to our benefit as we can.”
This message was last edited by the player at 01:03, Sat 13 Apr.

If Irene had been someone more inclined to share her emotions, she would have rolled her eyes. Thankfully, she was committed and showed no signs of being bothered by the situation. "Yes, all excellent points. Though Tellurian I'm going to kindly request you cease asserting your non-existant authority."

Irene had seen the fact the man was really a corpse before Tellurian had said anything. Irene know about patch ups, they were useful when you didn't have intact corpse and just a bunch of pieces of one. Though what was concerning was the corpse said it had a name and alluded to having a past. This meant that the patch-up didn't have an artificial soul like the ones Irene gifted her favorite skeletons, it had an actual human soul. Irene had already been bursting with questions when the man appeared, now they'd just tripled. "There's quite a few productive questions we can ask him. Though the one I'm favoring right now is 'what is your master's goal'. The only flaw I can see with it is it pertains to his master and he said he wouldn't answer those questions. On the other hand it seemed to be more questions about his master's Identity then other things.

Another good question is 'What message is the corpse on the spike suppose to send?'. I don't think we've meddled in any of their plans yet and traditionally the message a corpse is suppose to send is 'stop messing with us' or 'back off'. If the message is 'go away' then why don't they aid us in leaving? If we wanted to leave then the best way to do that would be to search this place for something to fuel the Elucidate, which would likely end in us stumbling on something they don't want us to.

That would also raise the question 'why would they strand us here if they don't want us here?'. Unless it was another organization allied with this one but with this corpse message that wouldn't make much sense either. Lastly I know asking him 'what do you want' would be more straightforward than 'what message is the corpse on the spike suppose to send?' but asking what do you want is too opened and could produce an answer like 'a bowl of warm rabbit stew and an afternoon to myself'."

None of these were her new questions of course, those all pertained to necromancy. But Irene knew those were all less pressing. "And to dissuade any illogical fears Tellurian, yes I recognize Noal's body isn't quite 'alive'. Though I must admit I've never seen such a seamless job as this one." Irene said knowing nobody was likely to get her Seam joke. [the joke being when you patch together a corpse usually you can see its seams]

The nattering of the gathered Bookworms put the nearby birdsong to shame, to Arzin's thinking. A mage whom he had not met called him a brute and sought to dismiss him, with Stellorian coming to his defense -- only to spoil the effect somewhat by labeling him a guard dog. Irene seemed to agree with the unknown (to Arzin) mage that the man-at-arms had acted brutishly.

~Well . . . I've been called worse,~ Arzin thought with a shrug.

A moment later the stranger had responded to Arzin's aggressive questioning about cutting him down where he stood by replying that the ex-soldier "absolutely should, for all the good that it would do us."

Arzin cocked his head to one side, in the manner of a hound who had just heard something that he did not understand. ~Wait, now . . . is this fellow agreeing that I *should* cut him down?~

The more Arzin stared at the newcomer, the more he was puzzled by the fellow's "wrongness", for lack of a better word -- that manifested itself in a manner that Arzin could not quite put his finger on.

But, for the moment, the man-at-arms halted his advance and dropped the point of his sword so that it pointed down towards the ground.

~Everyone . . . well, with the possible exception of the stranger . . . seem to want to indulge in "diplomacy." I can't quite figure him out -- or what he wants. I suppose that I should let this play out a bit more, mayhap get a better idea of what's what.~

---

OOC:

Major Combat Moves: Exploit the Weakness, Field Triage.

Passive Skills: Heavy Armor Master, Soft-Shoed, Trained.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:28, Wed 17 Apr.

Declaring Wall for my spellbook and Spatial Awarness passive.

The valley that had been created by the world shard was impressive to say the least. As the surveyed it Aurland stopped to take measurements and samples. He was curious if they would differ from natural stone and soil under magical scrutiny and if they would behave in an identical chemical manner. Idly he was constructing experiments as he labored, gradually falling further and further behind the ground.

When he did catch up, his satchel and pockets laden with rocks and mossess and ampules of puddle water he drew up short. There was a corpse, two corpses on second glance, and a man in gray. What's more the other mages were arguing with each other over manners and trying not to waste questions.

He was confused and more than a bit perturbed by the sight. So he elected to be silent for a moment. As he did the man in gray gave him some insight into the situation. It seems that they were permitted to ask him a certain number of questions. Why he would hold to that agreement Aurland wasn't confident. Instead he elected to take out his field journal and begin writing down the names and information as best he could. The task helped him ignore the gruesome display that seemed to want to snare his awareness.

As he wrote he moved up to Arzin who'd removed himself from the matters of diplomacy. Whispering to the man he gestured with his pen at the gray-robed man.

"Arzin. What is going on here?"

Remaining at the back, in the shadows of the trees, Malleus whispered his question to himself, “How will you return to your master, eh?”

Perhaps it was a question for the curator of this scene, perhaps it was a threat. It was tricky to tell

OOC: Loaded out with One With Nature and Legerdemain

OOC: Malleus, you only have one spell slot at the moment! You can cast that spell twice, but it can only be the same one, at least until you get another slot opened up. Let me know if you preferred Wild Growth or Legerdemain!

The courier, such a mundane word to associate with a figure who had stirred up such a scene, watched the debate unfold with the mild interest of someone listening to the town crier announce the news on a particularly dull day. There was no urgency to him, or fear, just that idle patience. When Steorra decided on his questions, Noal nodded, "That's two questions, I'll address the first, because the answer to what I intend to do with the delivery is what anyone would plan, deliver it. Now I've been given the option, deliver a horde onto you, or a monstrosity. Both of them are hungry and poor tempered, which isn't surprising as I believe they're distant cousins to one another, plucked up from the same dismal level. It was left up to me which it was I left behind so long as one of them gets left behind. I suppose does anyone have a preference?" Noal asked, cocking his head curiously to regard the impromptu tribunal.

Hearing the second question, Noal turned toward Malleus, then held up the slim wand in his hand, "This is the most direct route, though this interference you've put up has certainly muddled the matter."

OOC: If I missed a question feel free to repeat it!

“Interference?”, mused Malleus, mind ticking over

OOC: Apologies, Legerdemain. Will post more fully in a few hours