Of Songs Echoing Deep
Twenty-First Day of the First Month 293 AC
Hermetia listens carefully to your instructions to gather information first and foremost, and weaken and subvert the Lyseni magisters where and how she can, occasionally jotting down a note in near-indecipherable short-hand. As she takes the gag of discretionary funds, however, she warns, "I'm unlikely to get very far in time to be useful to your plans with gold alone. Perhaps providing a few arcane trinkets to 'favored allies' might get them to jump ship with haste..."
"Such things are also more likely to be traced back to you," you counter, honestly more worried about her safety than any intrigues you may spin in Lys. Friends you can count on in a bind are worth a thousand turncloak magisters. "Remember to keep in touch with the sand, and don't hesitate to call for help at need."
"Yes, mother," Hermetia says with a roll of her eyes, though her smile is warm. "I should be telling you to take care considering the things you get tangled into."
"Consider me suitably warned, then," you call back lightly before bidding farewell to her, to Lys, and to the great tree you had grown from the ashes of the Freehold's arrogance, a worthy mark to leave behind in your wake.
You lose 500 Gold
***
Soft Strider's thoughts seem to run in much the same direction as yours. "A strange thing, but a good thing that peace should be found in such a brash song."
"Brash?" you ask. She had spent most of her time speaking to the spirit-kin while you were helping Hermetia settle in, thus you knew few of her thoughts on the matter of the great Godswood, beyond obvious approval.
"Like a great horn calling through dale and wood it is. What it foretells is beyond my ken, but this I know for certain. The Gods are as wakeful as they have not been in many an age... where once they whispered now they
shout." A faint smile crosses her delicate features. "The Seer will have to call long and hard to make himself heard, though once that is done The Dreamers-Before will listen to he who helped bring such a marvel. For the first time in a long long time the roots grow deeper, the branches longer. I trust now that the Songs of the Green will endure even if we who sang them in the Dawntime will fade from the world."
How would she take your plans? Would she be repulsed or intrigued by the notion of human mothers changed by sorcery bearing their young? What of giving the old among humankind the chance to live again in the guise of the Singers? In your heart of hearts you wonder, was this how the hubris of the long-dead flesh-smiths began? You shake the thought away. Lya had already crafted life from naught but her own power and imagining. If there was some unseen line to cross here, then you had long since skipped it as a child on a summer's day.
Do you speak further with Soft Strider?
[] Yes
-[] About your plans to revitalize her kindred (Write in)
-[] About the ancient weirwood tree (Write in)
-[] Write in
[] No, move on with your plans
OOC: I also took out 1000 Gold for setting up the Menagerie and nearby village.
