Arc 11 Post 4: Maker of Miracles
Maker of Miracles
2nd of January 2007 A.D.
Over the few hours you spend far longer than you'd care to admit mirroring Hamlet's famous pose, Arianna's head in place of Yorick's skull. Good thing Usum's not inclined to call his liege lady weird over such a trifling matter. Guardian of the Brazen Flower probably thinks this is the prelude to sorcery, not indecision over that art more obscure than even sorcery, politics. What could you make of this treasure and that? What questions might you ask now or later... Part of you wonders if you should put this to the Exarhate, they are all more skilled swimming in these murky waters than you... but they have just learned who the players in the game are and all they do know is from you and Bob, replete with any biases the two of you might have. Dad on the other hand knows the players, but does not play the game. No sense in forcing it on him.
I'll just make due... That thought comes as your fingers work without meaning to, folding writing paper over and over again into strange shapes or maybe not so strange. Somehow the nervous energy of the last few hours had created an origami owl, that art among many that bind your inner world to Earth in unknowing parallels.
So resolved you look at the corpse across the way—diagonally bisected— and here seek out with eyes of power all the hidden agents of the Red Court, getting... far fewer names than you had expected, barely more than a dozen, all seeming to hold some kind of high governmental office in a Latin American country.
At least it only takes you a moment to figure out the culprit, feudalism. The Red Court has few agents, encompassing those who answer directly to the Red King or his immediate servants, most of the infiltration is done by the Lords of the Outer Night or the Dukes and Counts under them. Still fourteen names are fourteen names and they all have to be important to the working of the Court so you dutifully record them on a hard copy and leave that in the vault. Maybe it's a bit paranoid to air-gap information inside your own soul, but better safe than very, very sorry.
For the tear-stained silk you have an even graver question: "Who among the Summer Court is under the power of the Enemy of All?"
This time you are ready for the vertigo, messuring the shape of shapeless things and seeing with bright eyes the color of nightmare, the rotten heart of ruin. Faces pass through your mind like flashes of distant thunder, behind them the thunder of their names, the hollowed and the lost: First a grey-haired old woman, her skin the color of walnut bark, her fingers wet with nut juice then with blood: Ellawyn Keeper of Fostern Hall Next a knight in silver armor, a mirrored helm upon his shoulders, in every proportion heroic, though seeming almost to fade into insignificance beside the fiery maned steed he's riding atop, less equine beast and more a forest fire made flesh: Lord Sathar Stable-Master of the Thrice-Blessed Rest. A deep mournful call echoes not though air but water deep and dark and from that water rises a streamlined behemoth with a horn of nacre an eyes of starlight: Fleeting Dawn on Deep Trods, Elder Unicorn. Last though certainly not least, a woman, in a tree, a woman from a tree, delicate, almost spiderlike, her green hair flowing in a storm alight with thunder green and blue and violet: Lady Laoise of the Lofty Perch Perch, Eldest of the Far-Traveling Kin
Lost 3 Essence -> Now at 12/15 (Occult Excellency and Two Crown Questions)
When that last vision fades it feels like you are wrapped in black plastic wet and sticky, before you realize you aren't seeing it at all, just remembering it. You blink owlishly at the vault lights. Harder than last time, definitely not something you could have managed in a public bathroom with no warning, but managed it you had.
Huh... narwhals are unicorns, fey ones at least, you think going back over the visions in the way one might review a dream to make sure it does not fade with morning. Pity I had to find out about it like this, but it's something to warn the Summer Queen about, assuming she is minded to talk, Harry had not made her sound all that reasonable and what you had guessed from meeting Lilly was if anything worse.
You shake your head, as though to startle birds of ill omen from a bell tower. For now make an anchor for Lilly, and a guard against iron while you are at it the better to allow her to interact with what the fey call mortal feromancy. The rest comes after.
***
Lost Tears of the Summer Lady and Red Court Elder Corpse x 1
The forging starts with a cauldron of black iron ringed at the widest point of its girth with a circle of runes that tells the story of an intrepid explorer Dancer of Roads Many and Lost, traveling far from the light of the Ring of Fire then after many Turns of the Moon and three of Turns of the Wheel for her returning to see the golden line on the horizon once more, praising the life-giving warmth. Into this cauldron your pour water and brine and once it had reached a boil dust of iron, five bags full then with a thunk louder and heavier than its mass alone could make you drop the ancient vampire, of changing flesh a master and thief of mortality. On you stir blessings in a ladder until the red in the cauldron thickens, first like blood and then like iron, red, hot and... soft.
That is not how that works.
Of all the other things you've made, from the armor you wear to the potions you drunk, from armored cars to shapeshifting shoes all had refined and adapted the rules of the world, but not this. Five times five you stir again, chanting in words true and terribile and in you drop tears not of salt but silver. The metal smokes and hisses thrice, in that smoke phantasms dancing, a woman posing for a camera, unsure of where to puit her hands, four friends playing poker for pennies, then for who has to do the chores.
Mine is the Hand that shapes the Clay
As the smoke clears the iron, if iron it be, feels like putty in your hands as you reach down, or like flesh. It should be red hot, it is red hot, yet it feels no more than sun-warmed in the hand.
Mine is the Making of This Tale True
Regained 4 Essence (Inner World Essence Recovery) -> Now at 15/15
Lost 12 Essence (Two Crafting rolls Occult Excellency x2); -> Now at 3/15
Regained 4 Essence (Inner World Essence Recovery) -> Now at 8/15
The shape the charm takes under your hands at last is a that of a small, burrowing owl carved out of a single piece of bright red steel burning with an inner flame yet only comfortingly warm to the touch, so intricate as to seem alive and ready to take flight at any moment. This talisman, and it is clear that this is more than a mere decoration, you hang from a triple strand chain, links of your brass, summer fae gold, and human iron weaving around themselves in an alien facsimile of DNA, interlacing and reinforcing each other, all existing in perfect inseparable harmony. If one was to count them, there's precisely one hundred and twenty five links in each strand, threes and fives of Fates invoked together.
Gained The Red Adamant Owl (Splendor ●●●)
Form of Dreams and Nightmares, Form of Portentous Moonlight, Form of Steadfast Earth, Sacred Protection, Mystic Fortification (Immunity Against Possession; Mind Control and Ward against Cold Iron Bane of the Fey)
What do you do with your newly crafted Splendor?
[] Ask someone for help on how to deal with the Summer Court
-[] Dad has dealt with Fey, you're sure he has some idea how to get into contact with them
-[] Harry, he knows Fey and Bob knows even more
-[] Call Maeve, part of what you are doing here is screwing over the Enemy, you're sure she will approve
-[] Write in
[] Just call on Lilly and give her the Splendor
[] Call Titania and take it from there, she's sure to be paying attention
[] Write in
OOC: Since you produced this arcane marvel inside your soul (there is no obligation to make them in a Dragon Nest; just the sugestion that you should due to the large expenditure of Essence) no one could have felt its making.
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