Project Prometheus (Warhammer Fantasy OC Civ Quest)

Early Negotiations
Hm. Who to annoy and what to risk?

The Asrai are primal, in a way few others in this world have the audacity to be, certainly more than the High Elves or the Dark Elves. This can be for the better, Thalandor foolishly but nobly actually aiding the Dwarfs in their battle against the Greenskins when they both damn well know the Urak have no honor; or it can be Ariel leading an army to Naggaroth to face down Morathi.

Assuming that's happened yet anyway, the flower of material time can be so confounding.

Telling Asur who also have a claim on artifacts how to find said artifacts is clearly not half as bad as the mischief the Druchii engaged in to enrage the Queen in the Woods, but on the other hand, if mortals were never damned fools she'd have several dozen more children, a husband, and a wife still alive.

She also wouldn't be teetering on the precipice of Ascension. Relatively speaking, anyway.

"There are treasures lost to your people that I might, possibly, know the location thereof," Ehfeyos says at last. "They are admittedly a few thousand miles away in the Old World, and known also to Asrai who like as not claim them as convenient, but they're old, powerful things, mighty things indeed. Micadai, Keylathrai, Ienh-Drom, all of these, long thought lost."

Admittedly it's been a few hundred (Perceived) years since she's seen them. But suffice to say, if the Asrai had either finally claimed them properly it would be pretty obvious at this point: Morghur would be dead rightly, for one.

Micadai, Black Grace. A spear wrought from the fury of Morai-Heg, vengeful and bleak, that the aberrant things of Chaos should dare make a creature of flesh and bone and sinew that would not die and stay dead, trying to flee from the might of death. To die at its head is to die in truth, even for the spirit, even for the summoned, even for the immortal. A thing hateful to the Enemy. Foreseeing the darkness to come, forged by her priests but still a thing surpassing in dread.

And then some twit with the Master Rune of Unweaving had struck it and it hadn't worked right since.

Even nonfunctional, of course, it was a thing that could split armor and slay foemen by the bushel; and the High Elves had managed to make Aenarion's own armor function again. Surely they could do the same for the spear?

Ceyliur, the Justice Bringer. A cloak woven from the hide of mammoths, created during the Golden Age. Baneful to Ogres and to their monsters, a history of the Sky Titans embroidered on it in the best of gold in memory of those lost to the infinite hunger. Sorcerers, spellcaster, shamans, wizards, magisters, whatever titles they heap on their shoulders as a cloak the magic is fed to the cloak itself and used to make the bearer all but invulnerable to attack.

The last bearer was killed by humans of the Empire in a dispute over logging rights, ambushed under the flag of parley.

Ienh-Drom, the Hand of Hope. A thing written during the Great Incursion, a book of secrets.

A book of prophecy.

A book of purity.

There are many grimoires in the world promising corruption. The Books of Nagash, the Liber Mutandis, The Eight Burning Books of Khorne, they all alike leak ruin into this world.

What of a book that promises salvation, then?

A lure, a trap for the forces of evil, for they who read it are offered the mercy of celestial things, the taint of Dhar slowly but surely burned away as the voices of heavenly things whisper in their ear promising relief from the pains of evil, the banality of sorrow, and the torments of the wicked. The lured can scarcely bear to turn away for there is power etched in the tome, power that ought not to be wasted, either. Rumors that it stretched back to the Old Ones, rumors she can't speak to the truth of; all she can speak of is its value, and there is much inscribed there in great work indeed.

The pure of course may read it for wisdom and knowledge, but it always ends up passed along, one way or another, until it reaches precisely the hands it needs to. Enchantments woven into the ink and beaten into the page by magic or the mere weight of happenstance pressing down on it from the aethyr until it was burned into the thing's essence, who could say?

Either way, to have it, even if for only a time, would be quiet a blessing to the Asur.

Vanor leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers, closing his eyes and thinking. To his credit his face is like nothing so much as Ithilmar, unreadable and inscrutable, reflecting back what Ehfeyos hopes to see.

"Have you any proof?"

"Aescaledor yruc Moraiyech." His eyes widen slightly even as shadows seem to lengthen and the air itself grows a bit colder, the fires dimmer.

The Sons of Caledor Bring Morai Work.

To translate it is to lose power, to lose potency. It is to all but invoke the goddess of death in terms so loud and so howling that she can't help but hear. Not all invocations would bring quite so much attention with them, of course, but then not all invocations are spoken by nascent deity in a place so near the Aethyr. In any case the Elves do not spread the word, have scarcely written it down anywhere, so for her to have seen it is naught but a sign that she is either a very good liar or else speaks plainly.

And when has Caeddu lied to them?

"...We'll send parties to locate one, and if you're telling the truth, I'm sure we can work something with more details out but know at least that we have not forgotten our debts. Which, of course, leaves me with the question: What, precisely, are you looking for? Let us not waste words in dancing around that point, fair spirit?"

"Why Aesthyr, you're going to make me blush." She fans herself, even as her mind calculates and considers exactly what she intends to ask the High Elves for for the sake of her people.

(Guaranteed 1, may attempt to negotiate for more, playing silly buggers may not end well)

[] Methel has proven herself fond of Ghyran hitherto, as have her Children. Simple farmers rather than healers, but Ghyran drips from them already, and from their sickles. The blessings of Isha, beneficence one and all, may be a boon to their efforts as a similar if distinct goddess.
[] The Priests of Ladrielle within Yvresse hold to Ulgu in a way few, if any, do. They study a different form of Ulgu compared to the Dance, but their spells are well crafted, their ability not lacking. Perhaps they would be willing to share?
[] The Priests of Caledor are excellent craftsmen, an ability nearly unmatched; and in the wars to come, against the foe to come, weapons will mean everything. Perhaps they could share some knowledge?
[] There is a small wizard tower within Gates of Callith, less developed than the White Tower proper of course but a repository of knowledge. Perhaps you could negotiate for access?
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