An Eyeful of Poison
Thirteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC
Contending against Varys has taught you many lessons about dealing with well prepared foes, never underestimate a mortal foe with no magic of their own to call on, never forget to comb for any poisoned hooks lingering after they had been dealt with, but the first of them was by far the simplest and easiest to make use of.
While your true foe might be warded from the sight of all but gods who bend their full will upon the task, the shugenja Jie Quiang is not and one can guess much from hearing half the conversation. And so in the privacy of your rented room filled with the smell of jasmine and the faint rustle of bamboo leaves you pour your
will into the flame before you until it rises as high as the ceiling. Not burning but shedding upon the chamber the light of a distant meeting as the crackling fades the sound of voices replace it, though you hear them in Common and not the Yi Tish they are initially spoken in, though as you do so you wonder for a moment if something is wrong with the spell. Surely you could not have heard what you did.
"All is in readiness, the false emperor has been stripped of all but the most delusional of his supporters. She who is blessed of the kami will soon deliver his head before the Azure Throne and cleanse Trader Town of his treason..."
This does not make any sense...
There is a moment of silence then. "Yes, yes, of course we will deal with the monastery too, their pious mewling is no reason to spare them the fate of traitors. There are barely any of them left in any case. The lore blessed of the kami has seen to that after all..." a sharp laugh, unlike any you have heard him give before, crosses the stone mage's lips. "I shall entomb Xue myself."
Unlike any you have heard from him before...
Unlike him...
"Dany," you say softly. "I need a question answered right now with yes or no, not in ten minutes, call down Zathir if you have to." You take a deep steadying breath. "Make that two questions, is what we are watching here true or an illusion, and is it meant for us or for Pol Qo?"
Under other circumstances Dany might have smiled, she might have pointed out that she would need to ask three questions under the conditions of a commune spell to answer all that you have asked, but you can see the horrified suspicion behind her eyes as she flickers away.
Ten heart beats, twenty as Jie Quiang recounts a list of traitors,
supposed traitors, in Lady Xue's entourage. Then your sister reappears. You know the answer before she has even opened her mouth. "It's a
false scrying, a veil, and Pol Qo is seeing it right now through Lady Xue's magic. The meeting was all a set up to get them to fight so the Golden Company can sweep in without resistance."
"Fuck!" The curse bursts from your lips unbidden.
"But, they can do what we did, ask if the vision is fake," Waymar interjects. "Surely their spirits can see what Zathir did."
"We noticed because we had already spied on Ning's mages, we knew her envoy did not go into this meeting to plot a coup with the Azure Emperor," Tyene replies, shaking her head so hard that a lock of hair flies free from its proper braiding. "Hells, we know Raerys Aergyreon is not working for Bu Gai and that Ning got that information from us not from the throne in Yin, but if Pol Qo is already suspicious of his sister's ambitions and her sudden rise in the favor of the kami..."
"Then he will not look any further," you finish grimly. "He will strike."
"We have to warn her," Lya says instantly. "A sending, it will give her a chance to explain."
"Can we explain this in twenty words?" Dany asked, motioning to the false image of treachery. "We should just tell her to get somewhere safe, until we can show up in person to recount what we've seen."
"By then the general might have moved and we could be right in the middle of a war between the local mages," Tyene points out. "If we tip our hand here..." There is no need to finish. All of you are very much aware of the worth of surprise against a foe as powerful as the Golden Company with so many mages who could scatter to the winds to trouble you for years to come.
Throughout all this Rina had been silent and uncertain, not used to these sorts of games, but when she speaks it is to offer an unexpected suggestion. "What if we called upon a kami, one of the stronger ones like back in Yin, surely they would not be happy to see those they favor slaughter each other at the behest of a dark goddess' servants? No one would wonder how one of them knew to warn Pol Qo..."
What do you do?
[] Use Sending to warn Pol Ning
-[] Asking her to meet you in person (Write in)
-[] Without asking her to meet in person (Write in)
[] Use Miracle to try to awaken a kami of the peril that is transpiring
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: The advantages of high wisdom strike again, though all things told it would have been practically impossible for everyone in the party to be fooled, there were just too many red flags from Viserys' PoV, though not from Pol Qo's.