Turn 36 Social - 2487.5 - Part 2
With Egrimm already in and out of the Light College while trying to uncover usable details on their origins, it was very easy to transition that into him remaining there for a prolonged period while preparing for whatever tests or rituals mark a promotion to Lord Magister among the Light Order. But you're a little worried about how Egrimm might take this meddling in his career, so you rearrange your own schedule so you can be nearby when he is either promoted or passed over to congratulate or commiserate. This will also give you an opportunity to touch base with one of your newest partners in the Waystone Project.
The Light Order is rather more open to guests than the Grey, and part of that means that as the guest of a Magister, you have one of their guest rooms made available to you. Despite this welcoming gesture, you find yourself far from comfortable as you do your best to settle in, and can't seem to shake a feeling of being exposed. Part of that is undoubtedly metaphysical in origin as your Ulgu-rich self is smothered in its cardinal opposite, but it's also a result of the ambient light seeping into the room from every angle. You're undoubtedly far from the first to not be entirely comfortable in these environs, and there's a freshly-laundered sleep mask waiting for you on the bedside table.
You rise early the next morning from uneasy sleep for your meeting with Lady Magister Elrisse. Her full title is High Luminary, Treatite, and Abjurer Elrisse, which signify a Lord Magister who focuses on the pursuit of practitioners of unsanctioned magic and has secondary specializations in academia and the banishment of Daemons. Her role in the Order's hierarchy is that of Gatekeeper, which is a surprisingly grounded title for the Light Order, and you can only conclude that it refers to more esoteric and metaphorical gates rather than the mere front doors of the College, which is equivalent to the Grey Order's Porter - the one responsible for internal security. You don't doubt that between your involvement in Light Order affairs and her future involvement in your Project, she'd have done some digging into your own background. You wonder how many roadblocks she would have encountered in doing so, and how she would have reacted to them.
Your meeting is to take place in the Sun Room of Volans, and you wonder if it originally belonged to the Light Order's founder or whether it was merely named for him. You take a moment to consider the bust of him beside the door; the offputtingly blank stare of marble eyes would be accurate in this case, as every depiction of him you've seen had solid white eyes that the touch of Hysh sometimes imparts. Considering his history, you wonder if he developed them under Teclis' tutelage, or whether they were a result of his disastrous early experimentations with magic in a long foreshadowing of his future path. You also wonder how he'd feel about the modern strife within his Order.
Inside the room there are a pair of reclining chairs parallel and separated by a few feet in the middle of a sunbeam that appears to come from nowhere in particular. According to your mental map you're too deep within the structure to be receiving direct sunlight, but you suppose moving sunlight around would be a triviality to the Light Order in the heart of their power. One of the chairs occupied by who you presume to be Lady Magister Elrisse. Her eyes open and she gives you a long, considering look before speaking. "Lady Magister."
"Lady Magister," you respond, hiding your reluctance as you take your place in the chair beside her, refusing to show that this setting is about as comfortable to a Grey Wizard as a mounting board would be to a butterfly. You also resist the urge to feel resentment over this arrangement. As the woman in charge of internal security for the Order of Light, not taking every advantage she can would be disrespecting your capabilities.
She shifts onto her side to look directly at you, and you copy her movements with some awkwardness. These chairs go in and out of vogue every few years among the nobility, but your only encounters with them had been in books, and you'd much rather be upright and with a table between the two of you. "I am told we are to work together," she says, "in exchange for services performed for the good of the Order of Light. I am leery of a Grey Wizard having a part in our internal politics, but you have been vouched for at the highest levels."
"I am honoured by their trust in me," you say, wondering precisely which highest levels she's been talking to.
"Trust is hard to find between Light and Grey, but if we are to be colleagues, we must cultivate it. I would ask that you explain to me how this Project came about." Her tone is steady and well-enunciated and just short of being rhythmic, as though they had been hammered into place in an attempt to bulwark against the vagaries of the spoken word.
"Do you know what a Karak-Waystone is?" you ask, knowing for a fact that she has no way to, and sure enough she shakes her head. "The oldest Dwarfholds have built-in mechanisms to drain magical energies from their surrounds. Those of Karak Eight Peaks were reactivated during the final stages of the reconquest. Through means I can only guess at, the Grey Lords of Laurelorn were able to detect this, and reached out to me via Middenland in the hopes of pooling information to hopefully be able to slow or stop the long decline of the network, or even reverse it."
"So you are building a magical conclave."
"That's a good way to put it."
She nods. "My own credentials are in counterespionage, counter-daemonology, and Article 13 enforcement. I have relevant experience in the purging of malign energies and in encounters with Waystones corrupted for fell purposes, two of which were restored and one necessitated destruction. I also have access to many relevant accounts of events involving Waystones in the Luminarian Archives, the vaults of the Librarium Secularum, and the sacristies of the Order of the Silver Hammer."
You consider both her and your reply. She makes all the proper expressions and replies one does in conversation, but there's a moment of blank concentration before each, as though she has to take a moment to conceive of the right reply. You wonder if this is a mark left by Hysh she is attempting to work around, or a more personal idiosyncrasy. "And what of the wisdom Volans was inheritor to?"
"I know what all of my rank know, and have access to more, should it be necessary."
"I believe that you should operate under the assumption that it will be necessary."
She considers you. "I will take that under advisement," she eventually concludes. "But it will not benefit the Empire if we surrender the wisdom of ancients to the first Elf who asks nicely."
"We will not benefit anyone at all if we sit upon a hoard of secrets until Chaos overtakes the world."
She considers you for a long moment. "The Elves are not your Dwarves," she finally says. "If they can extract all of our secrets and give us nothing in exchange, they will do so gladly, and without the faintest twinge of conscience."
"I'm aware. If they were Dwarves, I wouldn't be trying to bluff them."
You're not entirely sure if her smile in response to that is amused or condescending. "You would seek to use lies and deceit to manipulate them into a mutually beneficial arrangement?"
"The only thing wrong with that sentence is the tense it's in. I am using lies and deceit to manipulate them into a mutually beneficial arrangement."
"Then I believe I have established an understanding. Thank you."
"A question in response, if I may." She nods. "It is odd to me that someone in a position that would demand loyalty, or at least neutrality, to the Magister Patriarch is aligned against him."
She considers that for a time. "I can see why you would believe that to be the case, but it isn't," she finally says. "I am here talking to you, not nipping at his heels in Talabecland. What Alric wants most of all is for his Order to finally outgrow him, and if this Project is a success, that serves Alric's ultimate objective and Mira's immediate goal."
"You're hedging your bets."
"I suppose one could describe it that way."
You nod. "Thank you for your honesty. I am glad we could go into this with an understanding of each other."
---
The time where a dejected and rejected Egrimm would have emerged comes and goes, and you go off to have a meal while you wait for the next time of possible emergence. And finally, at the end of what you're absolutely sure was an unnecessarily long-winded ceremony, Egrimm emerges from the inner chambers of the Light College in the ceremonial garb of a Lord Magister of the Order of Light. Well, in most of it. He's already removed the very tall mitre, which would be completely unwearable anywhere with normal-size doorways, and is staring at the embossed snake on it like he's worried it will bite him. "Congratulations, Lord Magister Egrimm," you say, patting him on the shoulder as best you can around the large and intricate coiled snake pauldrons. "Rather belatedly, but well-deservedly."
"Thank you," he says, tucking the mitre under his arm. "And not just for the congratulations. I know you had a part in it. There's no way someone so tied to Alric would be getting promoted right now otherwise."
"You're quite welcome," you say with a smile.
"Now you don't outrank me, though," he says, the unasked question is clear in his expression. You could pretend you don't know what he means, or just say it was the right thing to do, but that wouldn't be the way to handle him now.
"Outranking you gives me no utility," you say instead. "If you don't want to be a part of what I'm doing, then using rank to force you would be the same stupid mistake Alric made. I'd rather have no help at all than rightfully recalcitrant help."
He nods slowly as he considers that. "Thank you," he says again. "And I will be sticking with you. If nothing else - and in truth you've provided a lot of 'else' - then because Tor Lithanel is a great place to hunker down and wait for this conflict to be over."
You smile. "So, how was it? Esoteric and ominous?"
"Funnily enough, not so much," he says with a smile. "I just got done swearing terrible oaths not to reveal the details, but I can tell you that it's extremely obvious where someone, or more likely a lot of someones, went in there and carefully reworded everything so that everything has an entirely secular meaning if you examine it from a post-Teclisean lens. Trying to make a metaphor fit the old traditions and the new truth at the same time makes for a lot of really bad metaphors. What about yours?"
"They showed me an ancient and powerful secret and gave me seven different and mutually exclusive explanations for it."
"Wizards," he sighs.
You nod in agreement. "Sometimes I think they're just making it up as they go along."
---
The next morning you're up almost as early as usual, feeling only slightly worse for wear and probably a great deal better than Egrimm. Celebratory drinks with him demonstrated to you what you would have guessed: that the lifestyle of the Light College leaves one with much less of a head for alcohol than that of a Dwarven Karak, but a much better singing voice. As you're packing your things for your departure from Altdorf, you receive a short note delivered by the Light College's staff from your own Order - specifically, from Lord Magister Reiner Starke, asking for you to drop by his office at your convenience. That he specifies his office instead of a more general meeting indicates it's on the business of his office, and it's rarely a good sign for anyone to receive an unexpected invitation to the Porter's office.
You suppose this was inevitable, you tell yourself after running through the first dozen disastrous scenarios. Getting entangled in the business of other Orders would always mean more eyes on you, and eventually those eyes would find something of some shade of untoward. That you received a polite invitation at a reasonable hour indicates that whatever was turned up wasn't too bad. That rules out the Liber Mortis, the former Empress, and probably the current Empress. That just leaves... well, a lot of things, none of which strictly wrong, but lots that could look bad if stumbled over by someone unused to the shades of grey that your occupation requires. The embezzlement would be the most uncomfortable possibility, you suppose. Oh. No, actually that is a very distant second. The Underwear Incident, that would absolutely be the most uncomfortable. Then there's involvement with various frowned-upon groups - thieves, tricksters, spies, radical sects, merchants. Dubious experimentation that you weren't ever explicitly cleared for. Involvement with foreign magic-users. Encounters with the forces of Chaos...
You suppose the whole Only Mork thing might also be a possibility. But while it is the sort of thing that would raise a great deal of questions, only five other beings know about that and you can't really see any of them gossiping to the rumour mill of the Colleges about it.
Well, you could think yourself in knots for hours going over the possibilities, but the only way to get an answer is to go to the meeting.
You reconsider that last thought, and mentally edit it. The only way to get an answer, excluding methods unacceptably likely to cause even more trouble, is to go to the meeting.
---
"Lady Magister Weber," Lord Magister Reiner Starke greets you as you step into the room. You're very careful to leave that 'step' unmodified by descriptors - you do not step cautiously, or hesitantly, or brashly. You simply... step. "Thank you for visiting me on such short notice."
"The security of the Grey Order is ever my concern," you say as you take a seat across from him. He had called you in as soon as you knocked, which can't be taken as a good or bad sign on its own. It could be good that he's not playing games by making you wait, but it could be bad that this is so important that he's dropped whatever else he was doing.
"That may be overstating my purpose for this meeting. This is a courtesy to you. A counterpart of mine in another Order-" Elrisse, you guess immediately, and then second-guess that. If it was her, she surely could have timed it better to make it less obvious, so perhaps it is the Jade equivalent. Or perhaps Elrisse knew that you'd think that, so she- you remember that Reiner is still talking, and force your attention to return to his words, quickly running through what he has been saying that a corner of your mind had been paying attention to the whole time. "-was doing a routine investigation and came across some irregularities. Do you recall your involvement with the Wurtbad Watch?"
Ah, yes. The Watch you put a professional thief in charge of. The Watch you tried to convert to the worship of Ranald. The Watch you sort of stole the Gong Farmers from. And a saltpeter factory. "Yes, I recall."
"I understand that your handling of their spiritual welfare was... what some might describe as unconventional." His voice and expression are worryingly neutral.
You're careful to keep your expression unmoved. "We're Grey Wizards, Reiner. Conventional isn't our purview."
He gives you a long look at that, and then his expression softens. "That's fair. Okay, let me be clear. The Grey Order has unambiguously endorsed the actions of Journeyman Mathilde Weber twice over. I'm not here to autopsy the events of a decade ago, and even if I were inclined to do so, this particular event wouldn't be worth any of our time. Each one of us has many events in our past that can be pointed to as mishandled with the luxury of hindsight. But while you and I and every other Grey Wizard worth a damn knows this, there's a lot of important people out there who aren't Grey Wizards, and they might stumble across traces of things that aren't problems, and between misunderstanding and skewed perspectives, mistake them for problems. Or if they come at it with ill intent, they could make them into problems. You can end this conversation right now and walk away if you want, that is your prerogative, and I'll consider the matter closed and if I have my way we'll never have to talk about this again. But if we do have that conversation here and now, then I'll have your version of those events right here on file, not the garbled misunderstandings some outsider spills all over my desk. And having that means I'd be a lot more able to get ahead of possible future manufactured discreditation before it has a chance to begin."
You take a few breaths as you study the man in front of you. Everything he says makes sense, and he definitely seems to be sincere, but he has the kind of job where one would need to develop an ability to seem sincere on command. So, for the moment, let's assume for the sake of argument that he's being completely honest.
The attempted conversion of the Watch was... not your finest moment. With the Watch already grumbling and Abelhelm's death still raw, you'd funnelled your grief into what might have been a punitive war against Sigmarism among the Watch and expelled a number of watchmen from it over the vandalism of the shrines to Ranald the Protector. That would have left quite a trail of bitter men willing to tell the tale to anyone who stood still long enough. And Reiner is right: if someone heard the worst version from someone who'd been letting their bitterness marinate for a decade, or if they went out of their way to spin it as badly as possible, this could lead to future discomfort. It would make sense to have a justification here in Altdorf, ready to go. But what explanation to give?
[ ] Piety
You converted the Wurtbad Watch to Ranald because you worship Ranald, and it would have given you a better hold over the organization. Simple and true, but it would mean revealing your faith.
[ ] Grief
You acted rashly after the death of Abelhelm, a death that Sigmar could have prevented, and acted out against a largely Sigmarite institution under your control. While true and understandable, it does hint towards the extent of your rather complicated feelings towards your former liege, and you might not want those hints available for cross-referencing if the Underwear Incident ever comes to light.
[ ] Trauma
You stood over your dying liege and fought against an endless tide of undead, waiting for reinforcements that almost never came. You took command when nobody else would and gave orders that led to the deaths of thousands. You sentenced a Necromancer to death and smiled as you watched him burn alive. In the aftermath of all that, you were not at your best. That's why you mishandled the situation.
[ ] Skaven
Sure, you didn't know about them then, but Reiner doesn't know that. Say that you had plans to turn the Watch into an instrument for defending against the Skaven. As part of the Conspiracy of Silence, Sigmarite creed denies the existence of the Skaven, so it was necessary to convert the Watch to some other God, and the Night Prowler was the best fit for a subterranean war.
[ ] Nothing
Give a non-answer. You don't fully remember the details, but you made the best decision you could with the information you had available to you at the time. With the benefit of hindsight you would have done things differently.
[ ] Leave
Reiner has been very clear that you can just leave. Do so.
[ ] Other (write-in)
- There will be a fourteen-hour moratorium.
- Write-ins can be Mathilde's exact words or a more general description of Mathilde's justification.
- Something that Mathilde would know but didn't acknowledge in her internal monologue because she's off-balance: this is not a huge deal. This will not lead to disaster unless you answer something like "I was too busy reading my newly-acquired copy of the Liber Mortis to do my job properly". Don't think of this in terms of 'if we answer wrong Mathilde goes to Azkaban', think in terms of 'what answer will be least disruptive and/or most beneficial to Mathilde's ongoing relationships within the Colleges'.
The Light Order is rather more open to guests than the Grey, and part of that means that as the guest of a Magister, you have one of their guest rooms made available to you. Despite this welcoming gesture, you find yourself far from comfortable as you do your best to settle in, and can't seem to shake a feeling of being exposed. Part of that is undoubtedly metaphysical in origin as your Ulgu-rich self is smothered in its cardinal opposite, but it's also a result of the ambient light seeping into the room from every angle. You're undoubtedly far from the first to not be entirely comfortable in these environs, and there's a freshly-laundered sleep mask waiting for you on the bedside table.
You rise early the next morning from uneasy sleep for your meeting with Lady Magister Elrisse. Her full title is High Luminary, Treatite, and Abjurer Elrisse, which signify a Lord Magister who focuses on the pursuit of practitioners of unsanctioned magic and has secondary specializations in academia and the banishment of Daemons. Her role in the Order's hierarchy is that of Gatekeeper, which is a surprisingly grounded title for the Light Order, and you can only conclude that it refers to more esoteric and metaphorical gates rather than the mere front doors of the College, which is equivalent to the Grey Order's Porter - the one responsible for internal security. You don't doubt that between your involvement in Light Order affairs and her future involvement in your Project, she'd have done some digging into your own background. You wonder how many roadblocks she would have encountered in doing so, and how she would have reacted to them.
Your meeting is to take place in the Sun Room of Volans, and you wonder if it originally belonged to the Light Order's founder or whether it was merely named for him. You take a moment to consider the bust of him beside the door; the offputtingly blank stare of marble eyes would be accurate in this case, as every depiction of him you've seen had solid white eyes that the touch of Hysh sometimes imparts. Considering his history, you wonder if he developed them under Teclis' tutelage, or whether they were a result of his disastrous early experimentations with magic in a long foreshadowing of his future path. You also wonder how he'd feel about the modern strife within his Order.
Inside the room there are a pair of reclining chairs parallel and separated by a few feet in the middle of a sunbeam that appears to come from nowhere in particular. According to your mental map you're too deep within the structure to be receiving direct sunlight, but you suppose moving sunlight around would be a triviality to the Light Order in the heart of their power. One of the chairs occupied by who you presume to be Lady Magister Elrisse. Her eyes open and she gives you a long, considering look before speaking. "Lady Magister."
"Lady Magister," you respond, hiding your reluctance as you take your place in the chair beside her, refusing to show that this setting is about as comfortable to a Grey Wizard as a mounting board would be to a butterfly. You also resist the urge to feel resentment over this arrangement. As the woman in charge of internal security for the Order of Light, not taking every advantage she can would be disrespecting your capabilities.
She shifts onto her side to look directly at you, and you copy her movements with some awkwardness. These chairs go in and out of vogue every few years among the nobility, but your only encounters with them had been in books, and you'd much rather be upright and with a table between the two of you. "I am told we are to work together," she says, "in exchange for services performed for the good of the Order of Light. I am leery of a Grey Wizard having a part in our internal politics, but you have been vouched for at the highest levels."
"I am honoured by their trust in me," you say, wondering precisely which highest levels she's been talking to.
"Trust is hard to find between Light and Grey, but if we are to be colleagues, we must cultivate it. I would ask that you explain to me how this Project came about." Her tone is steady and well-enunciated and just short of being rhythmic, as though they had been hammered into place in an attempt to bulwark against the vagaries of the spoken word.
"Do you know what a Karak-Waystone is?" you ask, knowing for a fact that she has no way to, and sure enough she shakes her head. "The oldest Dwarfholds have built-in mechanisms to drain magical energies from their surrounds. Those of Karak Eight Peaks were reactivated during the final stages of the reconquest. Through means I can only guess at, the Grey Lords of Laurelorn were able to detect this, and reached out to me via Middenland in the hopes of pooling information to hopefully be able to slow or stop the long decline of the network, or even reverse it."
"So you are building a magical conclave."
"That's a good way to put it."
She nods. "My own credentials are in counterespionage, counter-daemonology, and Article 13 enforcement. I have relevant experience in the purging of malign energies and in encounters with Waystones corrupted for fell purposes, two of which were restored and one necessitated destruction. I also have access to many relevant accounts of events involving Waystones in the Luminarian Archives, the vaults of the Librarium Secularum, and the sacristies of the Order of the Silver Hammer."
You consider both her and your reply. She makes all the proper expressions and replies one does in conversation, but there's a moment of blank concentration before each, as though she has to take a moment to conceive of the right reply. You wonder if this is a mark left by Hysh she is attempting to work around, or a more personal idiosyncrasy. "And what of the wisdom Volans was inheritor to?"
"I know what all of my rank know, and have access to more, should it be necessary."
"I believe that you should operate under the assumption that it will be necessary."
She considers you. "I will take that under advisement," she eventually concludes. "But it will not benefit the Empire if we surrender the wisdom of ancients to the first Elf who asks nicely."
"We will not benefit anyone at all if we sit upon a hoard of secrets until Chaos overtakes the world."
She considers you for a long moment. "The Elves are not your Dwarves," she finally says. "If they can extract all of our secrets and give us nothing in exchange, they will do so gladly, and without the faintest twinge of conscience."
"I'm aware. If they were Dwarves, I wouldn't be trying to bluff them."
You're not entirely sure if her smile in response to that is amused or condescending. "You would seek to use lies and deceit to manipulate them into a mutually beneficial arrangement?"
"The only thing wrong with that sentence is the tense it's in. I am using lies and deceit to manipulate them into a mutually beneficial arrangement."
"Then I believe I have established an understanding. Thank you."
"A question in response, if I may." She nods. "It is odd to me that someone in a position that would demand loyalty, or at least neutrality, to the Magister Patriarch is aligned against him."
She considers that for a time. "I can see why you would believe that to be the case, but it isn't," she finally says. "I am here talking to you, not nipping at his heels in Talabecland. What Alric wants most of all is for his Order to finally outgrow him, and if this Project is a success, that serves Alric's ultimate objective and Mira's immediate goal."
"You're hedging your bets."
"I suppose one could describe it that way."
You nod. "Thank you for your honesty. I am glad we could go into this with an understanding of each other."
---
The time where a dejected and rejected Egrimm would have emerged comes and goes, and you go off to have a meal while you wait for the next time of possible emergence. And finally, at the end of what you're absolutely sure was an unnecessarily long-winded ceremony, Egrimm emerges from the inner chambers of the Light College in the ceremonial garb of a Lord Magister of the Order of Light. Well, in most of it. He's already removed the very tall mitre, which would be completely unwearable anywhere with normal-size doorways, and is staring at the embossed snake on it like he's worried it will bite him. "Congratulations, Lord Magister Egrimm," you say, patting him on the shoulder as best you can around the large and intricate coiled snake pauldrons. "Rather belatedly, but well-deservedly."
"Thank you," he says, tucking the mitre under his arm. "And not just for the congratulations. I know you had a part in it. There's no way someone so tied to Alric would be getting promoted right now otherwise."
"You're quite welcome," you say with a smile.
"Now you don't outrank me, though," he says, the unasked question is clear in his expression. You could pretend you don't know what he means, or just say it was the right thing to do, but that wouldn't be the way to handle him now.
"Outranking you gives me no utility," you say instead. "If you don't want to be a part of what I'm doing, then using rank to force you would be the same stupid mistake Alric made. I'd rather have no help at all than rightfully recalcitrant help."
He nods slowly as he considers that. "Thank you," he says again. "And I will be sticking with you. If nothing else - and in truth you've provided a lot of 'else' - then because Tor Lithanel is a great place to hunker down and wait for this conflict to be over."
You smile. "So, how was it? Esoteric and ominous?"
"Funnily enough, not so much," he says with a smile. "I just got done swearing terrible oaths not to reveal the details, but I can tell you that it's extremely obvious where someone, or more likely a lot of someones, went in there and carefully reworded everything so that everything has an entirely secular meaning if you examine it from a post-Teclisean lens. Trying to make a metaphor fit the old traditions and the new truth at the same time makes for a lot of really bad metaphors. What about yours?"
"They showed me an ancient and powerful secret and gave me seven different and mutually exclusive explanations for it."
"Wizards," he sighs.
You nod in agreement. "Sometimes I think they're just making it up as they go along."
---
The next morning you're up almost as early as usual, feeling only slightly worse for wear and probably a great deal better than Egrimm. Celebratory drinks with him demonstrated to you what you would have guessed: that the lifestyle of the Light College leaves one with much less of a head for alcohol than that of a Dwarven Karak, but a much better singing voice. As you're packing your things for your departure from Altdorf, you receive a short note delivered by the Light College's staff from your own Order - specifically, from Lord Magister Reiner Starke, asking for you to drop by his office at your convenience. That he specifies his office instead of a more general meeting indicates it's on the business of his office, and it's rarely a good sign for anyone to receive an unexpected invitation to the Porter's office.
You suppose this was inevitable, you tell yourself after running through the first dozen disastrous scenarios. Getting entangled in the business of other Orders would always mean more eyes on you, and eventually those eyes would find something of some shade of untoward. That you received a polite invitation at a reasonable hour indicates that whatever was turned up wasn't too bad. That rules out the Liber Mortis, the former Empress, and probably the current Empress. That just leaves... well, a lot of things, none of which strictly wrong, but lots that could look bad if stumbled over by someone unused to the shades of grey that your occupation requires. The embezzlement would be the most uncomfortable possibility, you suppose. Oh. No, actually that is a very distant second. The Underwear Incident, that would absolutely be the most uncomfortable. Then there's involvement with various frowned-upon groups - thieves, tricksters, spies, radical sects, merchants. Dubious experimentation that you weren't ever explicitly cleared for. Involvement with foreign magic-users. Encounters with the forces of Chaos...
You suppose the whole Only Mork thing might also be a possibility. But while it is the sort of thing that would raise a great deal of questions, only five other beings know about that and you can't really see any of them gossiping to the rumour mill of the Colleges about it.
Well, you could think yourself in knots for hours going over the possibilities, but the only way to get an answer is to go to the meeting.
You reconsider that last thought, and mentally edit it. The only way to get an answer, excluding methods unacceptably likely to cause even more trouble, is to go to the meeting.
---
"Lady Magister Weber," Lord Magister Reiner Starke greets you as you step into the room. You're very careful to leave that 'step' unmodified by descriptors - you do not step cautiously, or hesitantly, or brashly. You simply... step. "Thank you for visiting me on such short notice."
"The security of the Grey Order is ever my concern," you say as you take a seat across from him. He had called you in as soon as you knocked, which can't be taken as a good or bad sign on its own. It could be good that he's not playing games by making you wait, but it could be bad that this is so important that he's dropped whatever else he was doing.
"That may be overstating my purpose for this meeting. This is a courtesy to you. A counterpart of mine in another Order-" Elrisse, you guess immediately, and then second-guess that. If it was her, she surely could have timed it better to make it less obvious, so perhaps it is the Jade equivalent. Or perhaps Elrisse knew that you'd think that, so she- you remember that Reiner is still talking, and force your attention to return to his words, quickly running through what he has been saying that a corner of your mind had been paying attention to the whole time. "-was doing a routine investigation and came across some irregularities. Do you recall your involvement with the Wurtbad Watch?"
Ah, yes. The Watch you put a professional thief in charge of. The Watch you tried to convert to the worship of Ranald. The Watch you sort of stole the Gong Farmers from. And a saltpeter factory. "Yes, I recall."
"I understand that your handling of their spiritual welfare was... what some might describe as unconventional." His voice and expression are worryingly neutral.
You're careful to keep your expression unmoved. "We're Grey Wizards, Reiner. Conventional isn't our purview."
He gives you a long look at that, and then his expression softens. "That's fair. Okay, let me be clear. The Grey Order has unambiguously endorsed the actions of Journeyman Mathilde Weber twice over. I'm not here to autopsy the events of a decade ago, and even if I were inclined to do so, this particular event wouldn't be worth any of our time. Each one of us has many events in our past that can be pointed to as mishandled with the luxury of hindsight. But while you and I and every other Grey Wizard worth a damn knows this, there's a lot of important people out there who aren't Grey Wizards, and they might stumble across traces of things that aren't problems, and between misunderstanding and skewed perspectives, mistake them for problems. Or if they come at it with ill intent, they could make them into problems. You can end this conversation right now and walk away if you want, that is your prerogative, and I'll consider the matter closed and if I have my way we'll never have to talk about this again. But if we do have that conversation here and now, then I'll have your version of those events right here on file, not the garbled misunderstandings some outsider spills all over my desk. And having that means I'd be a lot more able to get ahead of possible future manufactured discreditation before it has a chance to begin."
You take a few breaths as you study the man in front of you. Everything he says makes sense, and he definitely seems to be sincere, but he has the kind of job where one would need to develop an ability to seem sincere on command. So, for the moment, let's assume for the sake of argument that he's being completely honest.
The attempted conversion of the Watch was... not your finest moment. With the Watch already grumbling and Abelhelm's death still raw, you'd funnelled your grief into what might have been a punitive war against Sigmarism among the Watch and expelled a number of watchmen from it over the vandalism of the shrines to Ranald the Protector. That would have left quite a trail of bitter men willing to tell the tale to anyone who stood still long enough. And Reiner is right: if someone heard the worst version from someone who'd been letting their bitterness marinate for a decade, or if they went out of their way to spin it as badly as possible, this could lead to future discomfort. It would make sense to have a justification here in Altdorf, ready to go. But what explanation to give?
[ ] Piety
You converted the Wurtbad Watch to Ranald because you worship Ranald, and it would have given you a better hold over the organization. Simple and true, but it would mean revealing your faith.
[ ] Grief
You acted rashly after the death of Abelhelm, a death that Sigmar could have prevented, and acted out against a largely Sigmarite institution under your control. While true and understandable, it does hint towards the extent of your rather complicated feelings towards your former liege, and you might not want those hints available for cross-referencing if the Underwear Incident ever comes to light.
[ ] Trauma
You stood over your dying liege and fought against an endless tide of undead, waiting for reinforcements that almost never came. You took command when nobody else would and gave orders that led to the deaths of thousands. You sentenced a Necromancer to death and smiled as you watched him burn alive. In the aftermath of all that, you were not at your best. That's why you mishandled the situation.
[ ] Skaven
Sure, you didn't know about them then, but Reiner doesn't know that. Say that you had plans to turn the Watch into an instrument for defending against the Skaven. As part of the Conspiracy of Silence, Sigmarite creed denies the existence of the Skaven, so it was necessary to convert the Watch to some other God, and the Night Prowler was the best fit for a subterranean war.
[ ] Nothing
Give a non-answer. You don't fully remember the details, but you made the best decision you could with the information you had available to you at the time. With the benefit of hindsight you would have done things differently.
[ ] Leave
Reiner has been very clear that you can just leave. Do so.
[ ] Other (write-in)
- There will be a fourteen-hour moratorium.
- Write-ins can be Mathilde's exact words or a more general description of Mathilde's justification.
- Something that Mathilde would know but didn't acknowledge in her internal monologue because she's off-balance: this is not a huge deal. This will not lead to disaster unless you answer something like "I was too busy reading my newly-acquired copy of the Liber Mortis to do my job properly". Don't think of this in terms of 'if we answer wrong Mathilde goes to Azkaban', think in terms of 'what answer will be least disruptive and/or most beneficial to Mathilde's ongoing relationships within the Colleges'.
Last edited:
