Project Prometheus (Warhammer Fantasy OC Civ Quest)

Loremaster Speaking

The Dwarf is plainly not an option. Black covers the edges of her vision, Magic Remembers, She Remembers.

The Ravager Stirs.

So her gaze travels along, first to the Unknown.

Their armor bears the marks of Cathayan influence, to be sure, though there are key differences. The sigils are in some cases taken directly from the Cathayans including their characters interspersed among what are distinctly not their characters, however their armor is much more ornate, their helmets bearing great antlers and decorated with red jewels the shade of the sun. Their faces are all carefully carved masks of neutrality, attempting to avoid one issue or another, trying to keep the peace. There are more of them than any other emissary, including, if she has not lost her mind, a mage, though a strange one: it almost seems like her soul is bound in distinct strings of Ulgu, Chamon, and Hysh, both pure and bound together like a rope. Certainly if nothing else, the Chamon makes sense: She wears a belt made entirely of gold worked until it's flexible as fabric dotted with pearls like rain drops and an amethyst clasp in the shape of a butterfly, along with at least a dozen other jewels anywhere from lightly to moderately enchanted.

And judging by the way she keeps longingly looking at the hammer held by the attendant, she may well be a blacksmith as well.

As for the Cathayan himself, he is clad in robes of darker, duller red and a pristine green like flowers. He stands with his arms crossed, resilient as a statue, as the stone and steel the Dragon Emperor himself loves so much. Not one of the celestial bureaucrats, the Astromancers, he lacks the Emperor's raiment upon his soul, the mark of wisdom, of restraint and of honor. At least spiritually, physically of course he bears all the marks of an emissary of the Emperor if not those of the Shugengan descended of him directly.

But it is, it must be said, the elf that draws her attention.

His skin is somewhere between tan and dark, his hair a blond of beaten gold. His eyes are the blue of fire, and he stands tall even by that towering people, willowy, treeish. A broad smile splits his face as he shows mere parlor tricks of magic to his dinner hosts, sparks of fire and lightning, little amusements of balls of wispish light, a plate of sauce and noodles and steaming meat half-empty from the great hunger of the Loremaster sat on the table in front of him in a bowl of dark-stained wood.

Quite an exception to the usual stereotype of Tiranoc, hm?

She starts to walk to him.

"I wouldn't if I were you, Branvarf. The Elgi are all arrogant insult"

Her knuckles tighten until they're white. The fluffy ears on the top of her head point straight up like she was thunderstruck, her muscle tense and flex, loosen and tighten, as Aqshy flows through her. Her tails whip toe and fro around her body, and though they remain the shades of the Winds of Magic pure a dark shade, a bleak shade, a spiteful shade settles over them. The hardwood of the floors, dark cherry red, the pillars of jade covered in golden depictions of elephants and bright jeweled flowers, the precious pottery simple but hard as steel, all of it is cast in a dread prism for a moment.

Ehfeyos Uraqar, Ehfeyos The Ravager, Ehfeyos the Grudgebearer.

Ehfeyos who cannot forget.

She answers. "And I suppose, I suppose it would be better that I should speak to you. You, who traipse about in the flesh of my kinsmen? You who've killed my friends?" Her teeth are long and sharp and hard as she answers, as her fury awakes, as centuries whip about in her.

As she Remembers.

The Dwarf sits back down even as the King's own mages begin to approach her, grasping the Winds to break her own magic, to keep her from unleashing her rage, her contempt, her unmoored fury. She releases it, tries to calm it back down.

"What's going on?" The guards and wizards alike look singularly unamused to see what's happening, grasping weapons and arcane implements of a thousand different shapes and forms, enough to overpower even her. For now, anyway.

"Nothing much." She grinds it out through clenched teeth, through clenched everything really, "I was simply reminded that I'm owed a debt." The Dwarf looks at her divided between confusion and comprehension. He may not know why, but he is Khazad, he knows the shape of a Grudge.

Of course, she can't imagine, say, flattening an entire family worth of her people under a cave-in because they had the audacity not to carry through on her vendetta, but who's she to question the vaunted Wisdom of the Ancestors?

(Only a victim twice over of their greed, and arrogance, and soulless heirs. Only one stripped of family, and home, and friends and wealth under their inane desire for revenge. Only one who has seen their worst.)

"Oh aye," the Dwarf said at last, "A bit of a party trick she was showing me that got out of hand, just to remind me of some earlier transactions. But never let it be said that Morgrim Runeshaper refuses to pay back what he owes...later, anyway."

"Oh yes, of course master Runesmith. Later. In a more appropriate environs. Perhaps one closer to where your...kinswoman, Barra, disappeared?"

How many of her friends is that murderer wearing like a skinsuit? Burned up in his forges? Ripped down with his axes and then burned away in magical fire, except for some reason it doesn't count?

But if she continues down that path, the Ravager will slip loose of the last of her--its--chains. That's the kind of myth-making she'll get one shot at, and so it's the kind of myth she'd prefer to use on something a bit more noble than destroying a random human's palace, even if it is to bring a murderer to justice.

So she lets the magic fade away, even as she tosses meaningful glares at the dwarf and even as the dwarf gives them right back.

"Don't let it happen again." The mages keep an eye on her even as they work to return the magic to normalcy.

Fine by her. She'll have his beard as a necklace later.

Besides, there's a wizard to talk to, and that's much more her speed. So she slides into the chair right next to him, one that had been left open

"Must you start fights everywhere you go, Draeddu?" Ehfeyos pauses, looking back over the vast seas of memory to be sure she has not spoken with him and finding nothing, not a golden hair nor a spell shared.

"Only when it's bleeding hypocrites with a chip for each shoulder, Loremaster..."

"Vanor Aesthyr, at your service." He does a little bow at the waist to her before turning to the other dignitaries and onlookers, apologetic smile on his face. "I'm sorry everyone, I'll need to speak to her privately. Please excuse me." The two get up and walk to one of the darker corners even as the others he had been entertaining start speaking and eating among themselves. "Not to worry, noble spirit, you've not made then forgotten my acquaintance. It's just that there's only so many spirits that can look like foxes, toss around that kind of magic and have a chip on their shoulder towards the Haclad." He crosses his arms over his chest, making his robes shuffle a bit as he does, exposing a bit of smooth, tanned flesh and hits her with his blue eyes, her biggest weakness.

She scoffs a bit, trying to ward away such thoughts. "You think I'm the only spirit with a vendetta towards them. It's been..." She pauses, a moment. A second really. "Wait. What year is it, anyway?"

"By the reckoning of the Empire, 2400. By the reckoning of the Asur, XI 237. By the Dwarfs', 6923 since Valaya erected the Pillars."

"Nearly seven-thousand years and it's still screaming hypocrisy and murderous vengeance," Ehfeyos feels a bit more of the tension pour out of her shoulders. "Spare me such inanities."

And finally, at last, the Ravager fades, back chained to where it must be.

Waiting for a better chance to burn itself into reality, as The Heldenhammer, and The Serpent, and The Riddler once had.

But that could wait. Her explosion of violence, teetering on the edge of Destiny, Fate, and Choice, that could come later; and if it had to come, let it come for something more worthwhile than small-minded murderers.

She'll not be shown up by that half-naked weirdo.

"How," Vanor finally says to bring her out of her brooding, "may I help the spirit who angers Rage today?"

"I did not think you kept to such taboos, Asur."

"I do not, but my hosts do and I have always striven to be the most cordial among guests."

"If you know who I anger, then you must know more too, I suppose?"

"One cannot rip through the veil in the manner you did, chased by the abominations you were chased by, and not throw a few stones that end up rippling elsewhere and elsewhen. From The High Loremaster's personal project to the West and the Cathayans in the East and all the lands in between, I doubt there's a wizard alive who doesn't know something happened. In a funny bit of irony, dare I say in fact that those who hunt you are the same who have least comprehension of where you are, if not none at all."

"Then perhaps you know I was not alone. And that is why I come to you for aid. I have students now, and for all I am teacher, this is a dangerous world indeed. I would not have them march against what hunts us, what hates us, without as much ability as possible, and for that the help of wise-ones may be necessary to refine it for newly mortal sensibilities."

He pauses, considers, thinking. "...Perhaps. But there was a storm when the High Loremaster aided the Empire and whatever foibles they've indulged in, they certainly haven't negotiated with Druchii, now have they?" He gives her a very tired look, one of age and loss indeed.

"I did not negotiate with the Druchii, I--"

"Got a deal with the Wytchblade? You can bloviate about Haclad hypocrisy all you like and try and cover it up with soliloquies to how she was fighting the only honest Dwarfs, but the fact of the matter is you gave knowlede to a sorceress." His eyes are flinty, hard, and magic seems to bubble and boil and rage in them. "You helped the Druchii, and if you try and offer some nonsense about how your knowledge didn't make it further along the grapevine to those who actively went slaving, who joined the invasion of Ulthuan, who have spread misery and despair in the world, I will leave because I dislike being lied to. The Invocations of Uraqar don't lie, Ravager, foe-finder, Runehunter."

Her tails wag more, in annoyance if not in the world-ravaging fury that filled her not so long ago. "If there was no chance I could convince you to help, then you wouldn't have left your no-doubt scintillating conversation with those humans to speak with me. So then, what do you want?'

"I want a nice bottle of wine and some noodles." He smiles glibly, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "But for this? I'd need some proof, something I can show to the Phoenix Court as vindication that dealing with someone who deals with the Druchii in ways other than fire and sword is worth it."

"I distinctly recall being told that you are all above hatred, Asur, Loremaster, wise one."

"We are. But you don't have to hate someone to consider them evil."

What does Ehfeyos offer in return for Asur Aid?

[] Ehfeyos is a veteran of the War of the Beard herself, having been summoned and serving in campaigns on the side of the proto-Asrai fighting off the Haclad. She could point the Asur at lost treasures, though this risks annoying the Asrai.
[] Ehfeyos is a mighty wizard herself. Surely she could help turn aside the constant Beastfiend attacks with her students? Most dangerous.
[] The Incarnate Elementals are a potent force. Perhaps she could help develop a ritual to bind one from a Wind of Magic not otherwise touched, by the Asur at least? Risks drawing attention.
--
Vote will open tomorrow mrning.

Vote is Open!