Of Plots and Powers
The Twenty Sixth of Elnu-hamba [Elnu Descendent] Year 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
There is a part of you that just wants to toss their precious skulls at the lying spirits and be done with it, but no, you cannot let that stand, At the very least you have to know what Tam has died for.
My own folly in thinking you could come out ahead dealing with unchancy things, a small mocking voice whispers at the back of your mind. You had thought to save a life and in truth only traded one for the other. Damn it all, damn it all to hell... A stone flies from your path as you climb to the well where you had met Ukuhamba.
Inge gives you a worried look but does not comment. She had agreed that having fulfilled your bargain you would be in no danger and could meet the water spirit with only her company, though some of your men had balked at the notion, but after that she had not spoken. You wonder if she blames herself. You had seen battles before but all she had seen of war before this day was a massacre. You wish you could say something to offer comfort, but cannot muster the strength to speak nor find the words for it.
You toss the sack full of skulls before the fountain and say. "Here is your price spirit, may it bring you joy for hard was the earning of it for me and high the cost in blood."
"Such is the nature of battle is it not?" comes the question like the whisper of water on stone. "You did pledge to fight the men of the south..."
"Aye, them I pledged to fight and them I saw dead to a man, but it was no mortal hand that killed Tam in thhis land far from hearth and home, 'twas your kin come unbidden in the night with filthy claw and foul sorcery?"
"My kin?" The voice rises sharp and high. "No kin of mine could you have fought in these hills but only marrow-thieves and butchers!"
"Call them what you will but know them by their work." So saying you lay Irieje's head atop the sack. "That is all I could find of her once they were done with her. Two died and one fled . I am assuming you do not wish their bodies as well?"At Inge's counsel you had set those to flame that burned swift and hot as you were able to make it, though she had gathered up the ash saying that to leave it here might risk another of the foul things rising from it regardless of precautions. The soul of things is stronger than the flesh.
For a moment the deep-sighted eyes look down at the skull and the head of his dead servant set atop the sack, an old sadness flickers over them baking him seem as ancient as the mountain he dwells atop. "Ask your price then mortal, one favor I shall do you for the debt you have claimed, and then be gone and leave us!"
"I ask for no trinket or favor, but answers instead," you reply, your tone growing colder in turn. "Why did one in my service have to die for your battles?"
"The
kunwe you have slain the warrior poet came to these stones some two weeks past by night and by new moon, offering no sacrifice, but making no sacrilege and here he set his head to sleep and dream and ponder things far off. I did not see them all as clearely as I see you now under the stars, for I was swimming in far waters for reasons that do not concern this tale, but I saw some of what he sought to divine." The voice of the spirit is steady now, speaking secrets without comment or intonation, a price paid just as you had asked, nothing more.
"Far to the south there is a great man named Balwa Feku, rich in wisdom once, but poor in years remaining upon this mortal plane as men are wont to do and he has no heir of his body save one who the dreams cannot contain, a daughter, Aphiwe whose name means Given One and whose soul is shrouded far dreams. Many there are vying for her hand, the key to much power in bright arms and wealth in glittering gold. Two great trails there have been for the princess' hand but none had been found worthy... and now a third there will not be for to the court has come one wrapped in soul shroud, a man of the Anwa he might once have been, now a man no more though the Kunwe did not know that before he saw with the eyes of the land. This shadow man has taken the mind of the old lord and by enchantment and trickery made of him all but a puppet, though he will not yet give his daughter's hand out yet."
"So he sought the princess... you said, the princess' hand for himself, the sorcerer who came here?" you interject. It sounds like something from a
chanson, but so does mush of what you have lived through these past months.
"No," the fey shakes his head. "He came here at her bidding, seeking a way to free her father from the dark one's enchantment and thought he had found it, two bindings might freedom make... or not. He thought to give her father's soul into the hand of his patron that she might do what she wished with it, but now he is dead and those bones of our kin shall not be used as tools, but returned to the earth with all honor that in time the fallen might be restored to us as the earth is restored in the Season of Ashinu."
"I wish you all the joy of what then," you say, not even trying to keep your bitterness form your tone. Tam had died for a political intrigue a thousand leagues distant and to quiet the heart of one who has given no thought to him. Without thinking you slam one press one gauntleted hand on the stone nearest to you whether by rage or sheer exhaustion you do not know.
The talisman you had taken from the sorcerer hangs heavy on its chain, but something pulls you outward and inwards, a dream in waking world writ.
What do you do?
[] Allow yourself to be pulled along
[] Try to resist (Will DC 8)
OOC: Well you failed the diplo check to get a favor, but you did make another roll that might allow you to find more answers. The question is if you want to put magic in your brain. Not yet edited. 
