The road to Getsemiel

As we play, occasionally we'll close a thread and open a new one to keep the size of threads (and relative complexity) down to a dull roar. Here's where we store the closed posts from the history of Errant Road.
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Graybeard
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

Post by Graybeard »

"Would your memory be enough to possess him?"

Some things were starting to fall into place in Sister Rose's head.

"One certainly wouldn't think so," she said, "but there have been at least two unexplained deaths associated with -- our mission, apparently resulting from people snooping around a seemingly non-magical object that caused them to 'just stop' the way Bree did. I have an unpleasant feeling they're all connected." Luminosita above ... Did I just accuse Egbert of ... Yes, I did. And what's worse: it feels correct. "Since the Peaceful Dead incident showed that Harker can be a magnet for -- unnatural minds, I think we'd better err on the safe side."

She hefted her traveling bag back into the wagon, her raingear now unnecessary with the rain diminished to a sprinkle. "Let's not rule the possibility out, though. Your idea is still the only one we've got for fact finding, not to mention defense, even if it's ... risky. We should get going again if we want to camp on the other side of the pass tonight ... and we can return to your idea after we've had some time to think about it."

And after Argus and I have had time to read that last bit of Bree's journal.
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

Post by Alberich »

Once more Tim suspected that (1) he wasn't being told quite everything, (2) he was lucky to have been told as much as he had, and (3) there wasn't anything he could do about it. He therefore nodded, fell silent, and made ready to move out.
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

Post by Graybeard »

OOC: So do we want to fast-forward to the campsite? Or are any of the half elves (or Maduin or Bryce) going to react to Rose's little bit of name dropping first?
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Drusia
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

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"The elves worshiped -- still worship -- two of them, one male, one female, and you can see their influence in elven art to this day, if you go to the right ruins and such.... That's why they lock all mention of the elven gods away in the Heretic Knowledge Vault, while our denomination's Commentaries mention them explicitly. So Senilis and Anilis, the male and female elven gods, are a given. But what I never learned in seminary, didn't learn until I got into the Vault, was that there is, or at least was, another figure in the elven pantheon, a god of death ... a concept that an immortal race can be excused for having some issues with. Almost nothing is known of him, at least in sources I was authorized to see in Special Ops -- except that his name is Exitialis and the elves very definitely do not worship him. So to make a long story short: I've been wondering whether what I saw looking back at me when I felt that death magic was that elven death god ... and I wonder if he's somehow got his metaphorical hands on Father Blaise."

Wait, what?

I tear myself away from my conversation with Eli, only having half heard what Rose was talking about before. Somehow, she and the others are discussing Anilis and Senilis - and the other one that no one likes to talk about.

"Who is Father Blaise?" I ask, startled, "And what does he have to do with... with Exitialis? Do you mean he's dead, or... or that he..." I don't want to say worships. No one in their right mind worships Exitalis. He's a god to be avoided. Respected, yes, but avoided at all cost. His gaze is cold and spells doom - better not to attract hsi attention.

"... that he attempted to touch Exitialis's power?"

-- Desiree
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

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"... that he attempted to touch Exitialis's power?"

Sister Rose swore inwardly. This was exactly what she'd feared would happen when she broached this subject with Brother Timothy.

How to answer that? Truthfully ... that's the only way. "I don't know," she said. "We don't know, meaning not just our expedition but my -- unit back north, the church, nobody. This isn't like anything I've ever heard of before. Father Blaise, to answer your other question --" the easier one -- "was the man we were traveling to Umbertiel to meet. He -- disappeared under curious circumstances, with at least one dead body in his wake."

Would that answer suffice? She didn't want to give voice to another, even scarier possibility: that there were people running around Veracia who'd not only "touched" the death god's power, but learned how to direct it ...

At me, for example.
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

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Timothy, for one, was glad Rose had decided to take this business out in the open. He'd been asking about how to get information on this Exitalis, or whatever it really was, from her contacts in Emerylon or the Heretic Knowledge Vault; and yet they had an actual elven priestess right here with them, who might know all kinds of things. Might even recognize what Rose had seen, if it could be made visible. Might even know how to fight it. Come to that, if these Elf gods had any rivalries, maybe the power of one could be used against another.

Not that Tim was convinced that this evil power, whatever it was, had to be a god. All it had done was kill a few people by something like magic, and you didn't need godlike power to do that.

He choked back words of explanation. He'd been trusted too much too quickly to start spilling out everything Rose had shared. Besides, he still hoped one of his ideas would give Desiree something concrete to advise them on once they reached camp and could try it out. (His military experience was much less extensive than Rose's, and so he did not see the danger that he himself might be the victim of a more insidious influence than Father Blaise.)
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

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Brad picked this moment to pipe up. "Rose? Do you think this -- death god --" he shuddered at the thought -- "had anything to do with Avner Indianel and Rebekah Codoin getting killed?" Of course, he moved closer to Lillith in the back of the wagon; he no longer had to say that he'd protect her from Exitialis with his life, that was pretty much a given by now.

Sister Rose thought about it. "Only indirectly if at all," she concluded. "They didn't 'just stop,' they were actively killed, by all the usual forms of physical insult. At least that's what my message said. That means there are real-live murderers out there in addition to this other force, whatever it is." She chuckled humorlessly. "I never thought I'd find that reassuring by comparison."

Brother Tim looked like he was about to say something, but she held up a hand. "That part, we can at least describe to you while we're on the road," she said. [OOC: Anybody else want to do that? Rose is doing way too much of the talking here ... /OOC:] "That too has to do with why we're here. Now let's get moving, time's a-wasting." She set the wagon in motion.
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

Post by Drusia »

"Father Blaise, to answer your other question -- was the man we were traveling to Umbertiel to meet. He -- disappeared under curious circumstances, with at least one dead body in his wake."

"That part, we can at least describe to you while we're on the road," she said. "That too has to do with why we're here. Now let's get moving, time's a-wasting." She set the wagon in motion.


As the wagon moves, I frown. I wait a few minutes before asking Rose the question that's been bothering me.

"If this guy has left a trail of bodies in his wake," I say at length, "Then... why are we going to meet him?" She didn't say that we were hunting him or bringing him to justice or anything - she said we were going to meet him. This guy sounds at least as bad as some of the crazed Errants my mother has hunted. It seems to me as if Rose is implying we are going to sit down and have tea with him.

-- Desiree
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

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"If this guy has left a trail of bodies in his wake," I say at length, "Then... why are we going to meet him?"

That's really quite a good question, isn't it?
thought Sister Rose. Well, she could start by resolving certain ... misconceptions.

"It isn't 'this guy' who has been responsible for all these deaths," she said. "In fact, as far as we know, he himself hasn't killed anyone at all." She chuckled humorlessly, reflecting that she'd been doing that a lot recently. "That actually makes him less scary than some other people we've dealt with in the last few weeks. Whatever he'd left in his room while he was interviewing Bryce and Maduin, the artifact or force or trap or whatever it was that killed Bree ... now that's scary, and you're right, she counts as 'in his wake,' but still, he wasn't there when it happened. The others I mentioned didn't happen while he was anywhere nearby. Anyway, I just got orders to find this man and send him back to the headquarters of our church, not sit down and have tea with him. I didn't get told to put anyone's life in jeopardy when we do it." Although, come to think of it, I didn't get told not to, either.

Brad had a question. "Rose, didn't you say he killed that guy at the stable, 'Uncle Shemmy'?"

You can always be counted on to make matters worse, can't you, Brad? Rose thought sourly. However, the question did need an answer. "If I understand what that boy told you and Lillith and Tim," she replied, "whatever happened to Uncle Shemmy was after Blaise got on the road. He didn't do that either ... although you're right, you'd have to consider him involved in the death, indirectly at least."

Brad wasn't convinced. "Maybe, but still, what are we going to do with him when we find him?"

Rose stared off into space for a full minute before answering. "I wish I knew," she said hollowly. "Anybody have any suggestions?"
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Re: The road to Getsemiel

Post by Alberich »

"You know my suggestions already," said Tim - "Teach us the defenses you were planning to when we make camp; try to create a tangible vision of whatever that thing is; see if Desiree or anyone here can recognize it; send the information and a request back by the next parrot to see if someone higher up has information we can use. If we're attacked, raise the defenses, then fight back. If not, carry out our mission, watch ourselves and him at night.

"By the way - in case we're not attacked, do we have a written commission of some kind to prove we're on the Patriarch's business? It might be useful in making him pliable, and to stop anyone else from supporting him if he wants to resist. Also, do we have any faster way to bring him back to Emerylon than this wagon?"
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