Chosen by the Dragon God

Chandagnac said:

"It's almost complete, but we're still missing the letters 'VPID'," you say, after a moment's thought. "I'm guessing that they're somewhere in this room, huh?"

You hear a sharp intake of breath from Green Flame, who has screwed her eyes shut and clapped her hands over her ears: it appears that she is desperately trying to ignore what you are saying and doing.

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"Raef, will you escort Green Flame out of the room, please?" you say, glancing at the ancient shapeshifter and giving her a nod. "It's for her own good."

"Very well," she replies and begins hustling the other elf out of the room. Much to your relief, Green Flame does not attempt to resist; instead, she seems meekly acquiescent.

"We need to search the room," you say, turning to Jana and the members of Cadre 1F. "I'll admit that I'm not quite sure what we're looking for, but it should have the letters 'VPID' written on it somewhere, in that order."

"Similar to the letters written inside the covers of the books you asked us to get?" Dorian asks shrewdly. "And the books you've taken from here already?" He indicates Green Flame's currently empty bookshelf. "Is there another book in here, perhaps?"

"Maybe in the desk drawer?" Phil suggests, trying the handle and pulling it wide open. Inside, you see a few spare quills, a coiled ball of string, a bottle of lamp oil, several sticks of chalk, a small knife etched with arcane runes, a claw hammer, a bag of nails, some scrap paper, and a wooden box that contains a mixture of ash and sawdust.

"Is there anything written on those sheets of paper?" you ask, though you don't hold out much hope.

"It doesn't seem like it," he replies, examining them one by one.

"There could be a secret message written in invisible ink," says Jana, trying to make herself useful.

"I suppose it's possible," you say, "but it doesn't really fit with the rest of the puzzle."

"There's not much else in this room," says Dorian, glancing around. "Green Flame is… uh, a woman of somewhat ascetic tastes."

"You mean that she's a slave," you say, raising a quizzical eyebrow at him. "That's the law in Sambia, isn't it?"

He sighs unhappily. "Yes, well… I suppose the euphemism was unnecessary," he mutters. "What I should have said was: maybe there's something under the chairs? Or under the table?"

Isolia crouches down to take a look. A moment later, she gasps in astonishment. "There's… oh, wow!"

"What is it?" you ask, crouching down beside her.

Mutely, she points at the arcane circle carved into the underside of Green Flame's desk. Immediately, you understand her astonishment: it's one of the most complicated and intricate designs you have ever seen, a pattern of flowing lines like the whorls of human fingerprints, all of which surround a central circle marked with the letters 'VPID'. Around the outside, there are four places where the lines seem to coalesce together, merging to form focal points, each of which is marked with an iron nail twined with… Is that human hair?

"Well, it's definitely an arcane circle," you say, taking a deep breath. "But I'm not sure what it's supposed to do or how to activate it."

"Use the books," says Venta. "That's what you wanted them for, isn't it?"

"Well, yes." You give her a nod. "I was just wondering if there was anything else I need to do."

"There aren't any runes," says Phil, dropping to the floor and taking a look under the table. "I thought they were supposed to have runes. Why doesn't it?"

"Runes are used as a kind of mnemonic, to remind spellcasters of what they are supposed to do – or what they are supposed to think or feel – at each point in the ritual," you say. "I suppose Green Flame doesn't need them."

"She is an extremely powerful sorceress with thousands of years of experience," says Venta.

"I'm not sure most of that experience would be relevant to this kind of fancy spellcasting," says Dorian. "And I doubt she even learned how to read and write until a few decades ago."

Jana frowns at him, trying to work out the meaning behind what he just said. "What's your point?" she asks, at last.

"Uh, maybe the reason why she doesn't rely on runes or any other written aids to memory is because she only learned how to write things down relatively recently," he explains. "Before that, she would have had to rely on her own mind and memory."

"It's possible," you say. "But I'm less concerned with why the arcane circle was designed this way than I am with solving it."

As an experiment, you place all of the eight books that are part of the puzzle on top of the desk. Nothing happens. Then, you stack the books on top of each other, in order, with 'EHSO' on the bottom, then 'NIOR', then 'TLLI', and so on. Again, nothing seems to happen.

"It's pretty clear that Green Flame designed this puzzle so that only her favourite pupils – Cadre 1F, I mean – would have a chance of solving it," says Jana. "Maybe there's something else they need to do?"

"Like what?" you ask, willing to humour her, just in case she has a good idea.

"What if the arcane circle won't activate unless they're all standing next to the table, or they've all got their hands on it, or something like that?" she hypothesises.

You think it is quite likely that there is a special connection between Cadre 1F and the arcane circle under the desk, which could be why nails entwined with human hair have been incorporated into its structure: Green Flame may have taken a hair from each of her pupils and used it to include them in the ritual.

"Let's try it," you say, giving a nod to Dorian, Isolia, Venta, and then Philander. "On the count of three…"

Sure enough, when you shout 'Three!' and they all slam their hands on the table, there is a loud pop and a flash of sickly grey light that comes from seemingly nowhere, after which you notice that a slim volume bound in calfskin has been placed on top of the pile of books.

"This is the book Green Flame was trying to hide!" you cry, picking it up and waving it around dramatically. "Or rather, she was trying to hide it from everyone else: she wanted you to have it!"

"All right. Give it to us, then," says Philander, holding out a hand. "Thanks for your help and so on."

What will you do? (Choose one)
[] Give it to him.

[] Insist that you should be allowed to take the book away and learn all of Green Flame's secrets.

[] Point out that if anyone at the Tyrepheum Academy finds out about the book, they may be in grave danger.

[] Open the book, read a short section, and then decide what to do.

[] Say or do something else (write in).

Chandagnac said:

"This is the book Green Flame was trying to hide!" you cry, picking it up and waving it around dramatically. "Or rather, she was trying to hide it from everyone else: she wanted you to have it!"

"All right. Give it to us, then," says Philander, holding out a hand. "Thanks for your help and so on."

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"I want to read it with you," you say, putting on your best doe-eyed expression. "Please?"

Philander hesitates. His gaze fixes on you for long enough that it makes you uncomfortable. Then, he blinks. "Well… if not for your help, we probably would never have found it, so… I reckon that would be fair," he mutters.

"I'm not sure that I understand what's going on," says Venta, looking bemused. "Why did Green Flame go to such lengths to hide this book? If what you're saying is true… why did she want us to find it?"

"We know that Green Flame is a slave, magically bound to serve someone, right? We've seen that there are some things she can't talk about: she almost fainted when we were talking about how to solve the puzzle, which was why I had to send her out of the room," you explain. "I suppose she must have seen or heard something – or several things – that her master forbade her to talk about."

"Prentigold did that?" asks Dorian, aghast.

"Maybe, or it could have been one of her other masters from before," you say. "I don't know exactly how the spell works. It's entirely possible that Green Flame has been keeping the secrets of multiple masters, across the decades."

"And she arranged for us to be able to solve the puzzle because… presumably the information hidden within that book is relevant to us, somehow," Venta muses.

"Actually, I think she designed the puzzle to be complicated enough that she could tell herself that it was exceedingly unlikely that anyone would ever be able to solve it," you say. "Because that was the only way she could get around the magical bonds that were preventing her from being able to reveal any of this information."

Isolia stares at the book, which you are still holding aloft and using to punctuate your statements, and says, "What information?"

"Uh… well, I suppose we should find out." You hand the book to Phil. "Why don't you take a look?"

He opens the book to the first page and begins to read, slowly and laboriously. After an awkwardly long time, he turns to the next page and continues to read. Then, looking up, he says, "This is Green Flame's account of her experiences during the War in Heaven, during the First Age: apparently, she and Keron's other elves were summoned to aid him in battle against Telthalus."

Dorian frowns. "That's interesting, but it doesn't have anything to do with us, does it?"

"That's only the first few pages," you point out. "I'm sure there are plenty of other, juicier secrets later on!"

"You read it, then," says Phil, passing the book back to you. "I'm sure you'll be quicker about it than me."

Flicking through the book, you quickly glance through its contents, waiting for a key word or phrase to jump out at you. Luckily, it doesn't take long before you notice a word that you're sure must be important: 'Dorian'.

"So… 'Madam Zyn' was the woman who created you, right?" you ask him, as you continue to read the relevant passage.

Gazing warily at you, he says, "I don't know if she 'created' me, but… she made it possible for my parents to give birth to me, yes."

"Well, it says here that her real name is Alikada Zinistrari. She's a mistress of life magic and a member of 'The Mystic Path', the evil group who created the magic mirror that made it possible for me to come here before," you inform him. "They briefly took over this school after they… uh, they deposed Galadan the Mystic, the previous headmaster. And it seems like they gave Green Flame a whole bunch of commands that Prentigold never bothered to rescind." You turn to the next page and quickly skim-read it, just to make sure that there isn't anything else that Dorian should know about the circumstances of his birth. "Oh! Wait, there's more!"

"Wonderful," says Dorian, looking flummoxed.

"Green Flame doesn't know exactly how Zinistrari created you, but she probably would have needed to take samples of living cells from a human and an elf, take the basic building blocks of life from them both, and then combine them to form something new. Your mother was the human, presumably. Or… it's entirely possible that Zinistrari took elements from both your human mother and father, just to make sure that you would somewhat resemble the two of them, so that–" Here, you read from the text directly: "–'no one would doubt that you were theirs, even if they thought it was peculiar that you had inherited the elven characteristics of a distant ancestor.'"

It takes some time for Dorian to recover the power of speech. For what seems like several minutes, he stares at the wall as if gazing into the far distance. Even so, the other members of Cadre 1F make no attempt to fill the silence; because they know that this is very important to him, they wait patiently until he has had a chance to say something.

Finally, he takes a deep breath and says, in a croaky little voice, "And the elf? Who was that?"

"Again, Green Flame doesn't know," you say, looking up from the book. "It could have been her – she remembers that Zinistrari took samples of skin, bone, and blood from her while the Mystic Path were in control of this school – but she thinks that it's unlikely. Instead, because of the unusual powers you had even before you came to this school, she wonders if it was one of Aea's time elves. Apparently, during the First Age, there were twenty-seven time elves altogether, but their numbers have dwindled since then. Now, there are only eighteen. Green Flame suspects that Zinistrari has found the body of one of the missing time elves and is using it in her experiments."

"Well, that sounds… implausible," says Phil. "Like everything else in our lives recently."

"What should we do with that book?" asks Isolia, looking intimidated. "It seems like it could be dangerous for us to keep it. If the Mystic Path find out that we've got it…"

"Hey, if you're worried, I'm sure Elys would be willing to take it off your hands," says Jana, with a cheerful grin.

"That may be the safest course of action. Safest for us, at least," says Dorian. "But won't that put you in danger?"

"I'm already committed to the war against Aspitolm," you say. "And if I ever meet Alikada Zinistrari or any of the other members of the Mystic Path, I will put an end to their evil. Therefore, I'm already in danger. A little bit more or less won't make any difference."

Convinced, he gives you a nod and says, "You'll share it with us, won't you? When you come back to us, next time?"

"I will," you promise. "In fact, I wanted to discuss that with you. Raef is teaching me portal magic, but before I can visit you I need a safe place in Tyrepheum where I can open temporary portals to." You glance at Venta. "I was thinking somewhere in the local goblin town, maybe?"

"Could these temporary portals also be used as an escape route, just in case?" she asks, shrewdly.

"I'm sure they could, but in that case it might be better to make it a permanent portal. So long as your friends and family don't mind escaping to Mishrak's undersea palace," you reply.

"You could put it next to Zora Alishanda's shrine," she suggests. "I'll introduce you to the priest."

What will you do next? (Choose as many options as make sense)
[] Call Raef and Green Flame back into the office.
-[] Ask Green Flame some questions about what you just read.
--[] Ask her if she can talk about the War in Heaven; if she can, ask her for some more stories about the age of the elder gods.
--[] Write in: what other questions would you like to ask?

[] Agree to Venta's suggestion.
-[] Get Raef to teleport you to goblin town.
--[] Meet the local priest of Zora Alishanda.
---[] Talk to him about putting a portal next to the shrine.
---[] Ask about the recent disappearances.
---[] Ask what he knows about demon-worshipping cultists in Tyrepheum.

[] Head back home as soon as possible.
-[] Talk to Mishrak and Samaya.
--[] Go back to the Engelram Academy to sleep for the night.

[] Do something else (write in).