Background noise

[Graybeard]

[OOC: Interesting! See long OOC note at the end...]

Delegate Botris, Skena's stand-in, tried to suppress a guffaw, and quite failed. "Pffft. Tales of tentacled monstrosities would be things we would frighten our children with, if we had any children any more." ("That was in poor taste, Botris," Numilo hissed, but he didn't act as if he heard.) "I have it on good authority that they're just based on those 'familiars' the monkeys in Tsuirakushiti have started making for themselves. They're monstrous enough ... at least until somebody turns on their adult mode." The guffaw was back, and being non-Cimmerii, it deepened into a leer; it wasn't so much that he fancied experimenting with the adult mode himself, not being Rinkai, but seeing the rise it got out of Numilo might be the most entertainment he got all day.

Botris was to be disappointed. Numilo raised a hand. "Not so fast. There are tentacled monstrosities out there; we know this, even if the knowledge is not widespread. At the very least, the Tsuirakuans had to base their micro-tentacle monsters on something." The possibility that humans might be inventive and creative enough to come up with the concept on their own didn't seem to occur to him. He turned back to Drusia. "I would be most interested to hear your elaboration on the 'tentacled monstrosity' and your recommendation for dealing with the issues it poses."

-------------

OOC: Dru has homed in on (and her two interlocutors have further focused on, to the exclusion of her real concern) something I've long wondered about in the Errant World: the natural/thaumatic history of tentacle monsters, micro or otherwise. It is tempting to infer the existence of macro tentacle monsters, not so much because humans couldn't imagine the micro variety as Numilo mistakenly thinks, but because there should be some genetic basis out there for a thing to shrink to head-fitting size and more or less domesticate. At the same time, the only time monstrous things have appeared at all in Errant Story is in the ravings of the Paedagogusi, whose view of the world is ... not necessarily accurate. Trolls, we have learned, aren't monstrous; they're just pre-human, but clearly sapient and human-like (and, judging from the ones we've seen, wiser than humans or elves about some things). Monsters are, in fact, so notably absent from the Errant World that I worry that we've busted canon in the game by introducing things like the Anuban swamp beast, Gornch lizard, galdy, silka, and so on.

We've been able to arm-wave away most of these monsters by sticking them in the Southern Continent, which Errant Story completely ignores. However, Numilo is right, the micro-tentacle monsters have to come from somewhere. But where? It would be nice to have some ideas about tentacle-monster ecology, both because of its role in what Numilo and his bosses decide to do (rightly or wrongly...) and because of the possibility of running into them again. All this needs to be done constrained by canon and game playability. Ideas?

[Alberich]

[OOC: Well, I have explicitly listed most of the monsters I made in this game as "magical constructs" -- that is to say, as creatures constructed on purpose by wizards, though it's possible that the wizards in question didn't get quite what they were aiming for. And if any wizard made or modified enough creatures for them to reproduce, well, then, anything we want could be out there in the world.

In the case of "The" Kobold, "The" Nick, and the ManFireBug I specified what motivated the wizards who created them to do so. Of course the Internal Familiar (which is what Drusia is referring to) has some unspecified relation to regular old Tsuirakuan familiars, maybe a distant metaphorical cousin to Rape-Kun.

Jack always described the silka, galdy, heeka, etc. in their native habitat as basically animals, albeit large ones in some cases, so I don't think there's anything that strains canon about that. I think the ones "summoned" by Ralkin magic were not literally summoned, since they don't die like regular animals but rather dissolve, but rather are temporary magical constructs. But I'm sure Jack has his own notions about that one.]

[Drusia]

Botris was to be disappointed. Numilo raised a hand. "Not so fast. There [i]are tentacled monstrosities out there; we know this, even if the knowledge is not widespread. At the very least, the Tsuirakuans had to base their micro-tentacle monsters on something." The possibility that humans might be inventive and creative enough to come up with the concept on their own didn't seem to occur to him. He turned back to Drusia. "I would be most interested to hear your elaboration on the 'tentacled monstrosity' and your recommendation for dealing with the issues it poses."[/i]

Okay, that worked better than I'd hoped. Let's go with that.

"I encountered one of these Exatalis worshipers while tracking an Errant," I explain - I was technically tracking Eli at the time. "A Veracian - a Lumanosian priest of my acquantence - was assigned to track him down and we happened to cross paths just before she found him. He attacked us with a group of bandits and, when slain, tentacles burst from his body and continued the battle. Afterwards, it appeared that he'd been dead for some time - that his sembalance of life was merely as a puppet to the monster." Technically that wasn't Blaize, but they were connected, and I don't want to bother with the messy details.

"Afterwards, we found a nest of sorts. That, we burnt. At the time, I thought the matter resolved," I continue. "However, I just ran into the same Veracian. She'd learned of an entire group of these cultists. At the very least, they have a number of old weapons - possibly weapons left over from the Errant war - that can cast death magic. However, it is also possible that they are all similar creatures to the one I fought. It was a difficult enough battle against one of the creatures - I wouldn't not like to pit my skills against two. An entire collective of them - armed with magical weaponry - seemed like a matter for the military to handle."

I nod towards Numilo.

"Hence my return and my report," I conclude.

-- Drusia

[Graybeard]

[OOC: I hereby nominate Ms. Valis as the new world record holder for the largest number of misleading yet technically true statements ever stuffed into two paragraphs. Here's an opportunity for more....]

The two debriefers listened intently to the report. Drusia became aware of quick mind speech passing between them; it was entirely unintelligible to a listener, of course (that was the point), but it didn't take much imagination to figure out that it was there. It was also a breach of etiquette in polite elven society. Neither of the speakers seemed to care much about that.

"We have a few minor questions about your -- fascinating report," Numilo said. (The word used for "fascinating" carried, as usual, an element of condescension, and also of doubt.) "First, you said you'd run into a Luminositan 'priest' of your acquaintance. Yet, more than once, you described running into this Veracian and said that "she" had various things to say. Now, unless the Veracians have suddenly started to accept women into their priesthood -- or unless your 'priest' had, shall we say, some life-altering surgery between your meetings with him/her -- this seems peculiar. Would you mind explaining this oddity?"

Botris didn't wait for an answer. "And while you're at it, perhaps you might explain how this Veracian priest, whether he or she, came to know about death-magic weapons from the Errant War that we who fought in it never heard of ourselves." He didn't bother to point out that he and Numilo hadn't been on the same side of the Errant War as Drusia; some things just went without saying.

[Drusia]

"We have a few minor questions about your -- fascinating report," Numilo said. "First, you said you'd run into a Luminositan 'priest' of your acquaintance. Yet, more than once, you described running into this Veracian and said that "she" had various things to say. Now, unless the Veracians have suddenly started to accept women into their priesthood -- or unless your 'priest' had, shall we say, some life-altering surgery between your meetings with him/her -- this seems peculiar. Would you mind explaining this oddity?"

Botris didn't wait for an answer. "And while you're at it, perhaps you might explain how this Veracian priest, whether he or she, came to know about death-magic weapons from the Errant War that we who fought in it never heard of ourselves."

I roll my eyes. "As to the first point, she usually calls herself a 'nun'. I've never acted as a liason to the Luminosan church, so I'm not an expert on their terminology. However, she is military trained. She's a vet of some war or other." I wave my hand vaguly.

"As to the second point, the weapons being from the Errant War were my guess," I continue. "The 'Nun' - ugh, that word is just... ugh - believes the devices are of Dwarven origin. That, of course, is absurd. But they certainly do the job. I've seen several of the corpses - killed without a mark on them as if they just stopped." I pause. "As if the target just stopped. Not the weapons."

-- Drusia

[Graybeard]

"As if the target just stopped. Not the weapons."

Puzzlement crossed Botris' face. "Just stopped," he echoed. "How... strange. But don't humans do that? They get --" He searched for a word that didn't exist in the elven language, and used a human one he'd heard somewhere. "Senile. Old. And then they just stop. Why is that a problem? Maybe I'm missing something here. I haven't seen a human since I was just a boy of a hundred or so."

"I must say," Numilo added, "that what concerns me here is not so much these deaths, as it is that a Veracian priest, or nun-priest or whatever, seems to know so much about dwarven weaponry -- weaponry that we ourselves know nothing about. When humans get that kind of knowledge, they become dangerous to our kind. Perhaps it will be necessary for this nun-priest to be, as the Veracians would say, defrocked." He stared intently at Drusia.

[Drusia]

Puzzlement crossed Botris' face. "Just stopped," he echoed. "How... strange. But don't humans do that? They get --" He searched for a word that didn't exist in the elven language, and used a human one he'd heard somewhere. "Senile. Old. And then they just stop. Why is that a problem? Maybe I'm missing something here. I haven't seen a human since I was just a boy of a hundred or so."

It takes a great deal of effort not to face palm at that. Did he just imply that I stood there for a century and watched a human die of old age? Makes me wonder if some elves don't go senile too.

"I must say," Numilo added, "that what concerns me here is not so much these deaths, as it is that a Veracian priest, or nun-priest or whatever, seems to know so much about dwarven weaponry -- weaponry that we ourselves know nothing about. When humans get that kind of knowledge, they become dangerous to our kind. Perhaps it will be necessary for this nun-priest to be, as the Veracians would say, defrocked." He stared intently at Drusia.

"I didn't say it was dwarven," I remind Numilo. "That was merely the lady priest's theory. I believe the tech to be leftover from the Errant war. But whatever the case, whatever its origin, the weaponry is functional, deadly, and in the wrong hands." IE, not ours. I assume that goes without saying.

-- Drusia

OOC: Sorry for the delay - it took a while to come up with a reply that didn't involve slapping Botris.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: No problem, and it would have been just fine if you had slapped him. Botris isn't the brightest light globe in Praenubilus Astu... So a simple volley back to you:]

"The 'wrong' hands," Numilo repeated. "And whose hands might those be, and where can we find them?"

[Drusia]

"The 'wrong' hands," Numilo repeated. "And whose hands might those be, and where can we find them?"

I roll my eyes. "I was under the impression that any human hands were the wrong hands for something like this," I reply aserbically. "But perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps you don't care about a bunch of human crackpots playing with weapons from our deadilest war."

I sigh. I didn't expect this to take effort. I figured that the words "Errant War Weapons" and "human cultists" would be all it would take for a military strike. They've brought out the military for far less. *

-- Drusia

OOC: * One Errant in the Heretical Knowledge Vault and they practically leveled a small city. Of course, that may or may not have happened yet, so I couldn't be more specific in the post.

[Graybeard]

[OOC:

OOC: * One Errant in the Heretical Knowledge Vault and they practically leveled a small city. Of course, that may or may not have happened yet, so I couldn't be more specific in the post.

Just for reference purposes, Errant Story hasn't happened yet at the time of Errant Road. Way back at the beginning, we agreed that Errant Road would be happening "at least" a year before the start of Errant Story, to avoid tripping over canon. In fact, the correct time turns out to be about two years, plus or minus a bit, before Errant Story, and that is now locked-in, for reasons I am not yet able to share. Anyway, Meji is lurking out there somewhere at Sashi Mu -- there are actually a couple of ER characters who have encountered her, although obviously she'll never actually be seen in ER -- but she and Ian haven't tried to blow up the HKV yet. So back to Praenubilus Astu:]

The two debriefers exchanged a long, sour look, and it would be easy to imagine that mind-speech might have been going on. (Then again, it might not have.) Then Numilo produced a long sigh.

"All right," he said, "I guess we have to take this threat seriously." (The tone of his voice implied reluctance.) "I'll recommend to High Commander Yenhael that we assemble a strike force to deal with this threat, whatever it is. But one thing. I do note, Peregin, that you have carefully avoided telling us exactly where this place is. I can't imagine your reasons for that, and I'm not even going to try to pry it out of you. But you're going to have to work out the details with the commander of the strike force ... because you're going to be guiding them there."