Straightforward Subtlety
Twenty-Eight Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC
Unsurprisingly, Glyra is more than happy to go looking through the Goblin Market for whoever may be killing her fellow fey, both to see the murders end and to satisfy her curiosity as to what the 'Cold Iron Slayer' might be, nary a shadow of fear in her bright green gaze. Even with her troupe combing the market for rumors and tales, and Malarys ordering the reports, you are unlikely to get your answers on this day or the morrow. So for now you concern yourself with the foe you know to be acting in the Market.
Fixing your mind upon the memory you had gleamed with such difficulty from the mind of the Nameless—
hair black as finest ash skin pale as porcelain eyes bright as embers in the fading light of evening— you
call out by all the subtle skill of your sorcery and all the power your legend grants:
"My lady, I would have parley with you in a place of your choosing. An oath upon my honor that I shall cause no harm by action or inaction."
At first you feel only fear and anger, like a flame flickering and flaring in an unexpected wind, then a thread of almost unwilling curiosity.
"The main study hall of the library in Sorcerer's Deep, two hours from now," comes the sly reply.
Clever, you must admit. You had not expected her to choose to meet outside of Lys, but you had made no provision against it, and if ever there was a place you would be disinclined to fight a spirit of fire most, then it would be the library you had so painstakingly assembled.
"Come, Ser," you motion to your sworn sword. "We are going home... to talk to an enemy."
"You know I used to worry when you made that demon trap, Your Grace, but now I'm regretting you can't have more of these talks in there," the knight replies dryly.
***
As you wait surrounded by the sound of rustling parchment and hushed voices, leafing through an almanac of agricultural practices in the Disputed Lands for inspiration, you wonder if the agent of Ymeri will even show her face. She had not technically promised she would come to the meeting only named a place. The interest you had sensed in her had been genuine, but that did not mean it would necessarily outweigh caution or the dictates of her sworn lady. Then again, spirits of fire and passion are not known for being cautious.
"Looks like we are having company after all," Ser Richard sighs. Motioning to a window to your left through which a flame-shrouded sprite had just flown in for a look before calling something back. A second follows, then a third and a fourth, on and on until you can no longer put a number on the darting sparks of living fire.
They converge upon where you and Ser Richard sit, paying no heed to gasps, questions, and pointed fingers of witnesses, their motions growing more ordered the closer they come until it almost seems a dance... or a spell in a thousand tiny forms woven. Thankfully, you recognize it as nothing more dangerous than translocation a moment before the fire muse steps forth from a door of light. "Greetings, King of Men," she says, pointedly not bowing. "You claimed to have something you wished to speak to me of, easily guessed by one who knows your ways..."
"Perhaps that is so," you interrupt, "But I would rather not have the conversation be public." So saying you raise a
ward against farsight, like grey mist between the shelves.
Trailed by her entourage of sprites as handmaidens trail a queen, the muse sits opposite you and continues. "No doubt you wish to buy my service, to tempt me from the service of the Queen of Inferno. There is a straightforward enough task you must fulfill for that... kill her."
Taking care to show no sign of shock or surprise at the statement obviously designed to elicit it, you answer half in jest. "The suggestion itself would seem to indicate a certain dissatisfaction."
"That is a secret for me to keep and you perhaps to find out," the fey lady replies her tone as carefully balanced as yours. "But the fact that spirits of fire are drawn to the greatest blaze, why that is no secret at all. Prove your strength by killing her and many of us will join you, our oaths burned upon her pyre. Unless and until that day should come, we are bound by them."
What do you reply?
[] Try to learn more of these oaths or of other 'not secrets'
-[] Write in
[] Let the fey lady go for now so long as he returns to the feywyld along with all her servants. She does not seem to bear you any particular enmity and as she rather bluntly proclaimed, she might one day serve you
[] Write in
OOC: I could not really find a pic for the leman sidhe so I settled on one for her sprite attendants. Not yet edited.