Session 20: Fair Go

Griffinsday, 7 Sunfall, 998 Y.K.   The Watch arrived at the scene not soon after, in response to the murdered student's scream. Relic appeared to them a suspect, or at least a witness, and they took the monk into custody. Spark quickly contacted Zer and asked him to include Leali, who could send word to Margana Corleis. However, it was two hours before the diviner could pull away from her work to come rescue Relic. A simple zone of truth spell later, Relic was free to go, albeit with a stern warning from the captain on duty to not do anything too exciting.   Both Relic and Margana knew they had much to discuss, and so they went to the diviner's office in Glarehold. There, safely behind a scrying seal, the monk told Margana of the pull he'd felt, the sense of wrongness and obligation. He explained about Cinnabar, and the belief that the killer was forged. Margana told Relic, in turn, of the killer's victims: all foreign students who'd come to the Arcane Congress to do magical research, all of whom had been killed while working on publishing their theses. Relic asked Margana for the names of the assistants they'd been assigned by the library, and Margana agreed to find them for him.   In return, Margana offered Relic a lodecrystal, a long thin rod of crystal inscribed with runes and etched with an eye on one end. She said that if he concentrated strongly enough on the feeling he'd had, the crystal would turn and point towards its strongest source. The forged monk accepted the token and said as soon as he knew more, he'd send word. Thus equipped, Relic returned to the library and began to focus, to try to pull that sense of wrongness, and of purpose, back to mind. His mind drifted back to the race through darkened corridors, to the cavernous necropolis where Cinnabar kept her lab, and further back, to the sounds of steel on steel and fights long past. Through the open library, Relic wandered with lodecrystal in hand, deeply lost in thought.   In the literature section, Relic paused, his eyes coming to rest on a folded piece of parchment tucked into a book of foreign poetic forms. The page pointed to a Rokugani work, loosely translated into Common, comparing the stroke of lightning to the flash of a blade to the moment of enlightenment, one-way gates, moments from which there is no return. The poem was signed, "Doji Yasuyo." Written on the page, in Rokugani script, was the phrase, the Last Wish, fulfilled. The name was a key, and memories of the past flooded Relic's mind. Purpose flowed through the forged's metamatrix. He had been his creators' final hope, a weapon that could survive contact with the heart of the Shadowlands itself, with Isawa's Last Wish, which Fu Leng had corrupted.   Relic's groan rolled through Zer's psychic link, washing over everyone connected to it. Bell asked if Relic was okay, and the monk said he was, but that he had remembered much and had much to share, once the time was right. In the meantime, though, he needed some time to process his thoughts before returning to finding the killer, which he suspected of being another of the Children of the Last Wish.   Rakela, meanwhile, had been pacing since Relic got taken, clearly agitated by the added complication. She was already depending on Margana to crack her own employer's wards looking for a very cozy war criminal; Relic's brush with the campus watch only made things riskier. She opted to invite anyone who wished to join her in a trip to the gym to run off some tension. Spark, always up for some exercise, agreed, and the two made their way in search of a place to exercise.   The signs quickly reoriented to point the pair to a rooftop gymnasium, an open space covered in carefully managed grasses and surrounded by twenty-foot walls of force that gave way to open space below. Signs posted regularly warned anyone from attempting to evade the security measures in place to protect them, and nobody seemed eager to test their protection. One of the patrons, however, was quite eager for a match, visibly stalking around the grounds and asking people to spar. In between clipped calls and pumping of fists, the human male with the close-cropped hair and beard said he'd heard the Mahtabereth had come looking for candidates, and he wanted a match.   Spark hadn't heard the word before, but she knew enough Elvish to know Mahta was to wield a weapon, and a bereth was a dance. Every time the strutting teen stumbled to pronounce the Elvish word, an elf and a half-elf sitting at the free weights shared a private laugh. Spark could hear the pair quietly critiquing the human's posture, his form, his motions and gestures. Finally, one of the two -- the elf sporting a top-knot of red, pink, and white strands, his fists and feet wrapped to cover visible scars -- said in Elvish, "he wouldn't survive his first round."   The words electrified the human, who stormed over to the pair and spat, also in Elvish, "You do know something, ashtongue."   The affront -- an epithet branding its target a traitor -- provoked an instant response. The pink-haired elf rose from his seat, dropped the handweight he had been pumping, and motioned for the human to approach. He did so, and then was on the ground almost faster than the eye could follow. He blinked, stunned, and was helped to his feet, only to be knocked prone again. On the third time, he refused to rise, and the elf stepped over him as he stepped away from the weights and into an open part of the field. "Does anyone else," he said in Common, addressing the crowd, "seek the Mahtabereth?"   The young monk and gladiator raised her fist. The elf motioned for her to step forward into the circle, then folded his hands and bowed. Spark did the same, but then as she rose he began to speak. "I am Alcarinquë--" he began, but then she gestured to the ground.   "Yeah, yeah, names," she interrupted. "We fighting or talking?"   The elf replied by rushing forward, stopping just out of reach and stepping lightly to the side. Spark took her opening and lashed out with staff and foot, knocking the elf out of his step with several blows. Her opponent stumbled, but did not fall, returning the volley with two sword-taps from the flat of a blade she hadn't seen him draw, followed by the sudden heat of a chromatic orb thrown at close range.   The initial exchange over, the elf dropped to one knee and put his hands on the ground. "Hold!" he called, and Spark froze. Slowly, he rose, then bowed again to her. "You have good form. What do you know of the Mahabereth?"   "Only what you tell me," she replied.   The elf then explained that the Mahtabereth was a martial competition held in Valenar, that entrants were screened through a series of proctors, and that if Spark could tell him whence she came, he could offer her a name. Spark shrugged and said if they wanted her badly enough, they'd come find her. The elf laughed at that and shrugged. "Find Perion Métimalilto in Sharn, if you ever go there. He can tell you more." With that, he turned to leave.   "Don't you want my name?" Spark asked.   Alcarinquë didn't bother to look back. "You didn't care for mine, so no."   Wolfsday, 9 Sunfall, 998 Y.K.   It took Leali and Margana a little over two days to pierce the wards around Sykes' office in Amberwall, and in so doing, they alerted their target to their scrying. The Brelish agent rushed to the dorm the group had been sharing and gathered her effects. From a pouch, she took a silver necklace that shone a brilliance far past mere metal; it rippled with conjuration magics and twisted in Bell's fingers when she took it. In return she accepted an alarm medallion from Millimax. "If I signal the alarm, break the chain," Rakela said. "It will summon me and anything I'm holding back to your location. Everyone, start getting ready."   The elf then turned to Millimax and said, as calmly as she could, "you have until I get back to finish your paper; after that, we have to leave, or we have to leave you here. Whoever is protecting Sykes is almost certainly going to come after us." Millimax said, with all the conviction she could muster, that she understood, and she, Bell, and Medya rushed to the library to meet back up with Codex and finish Milli's paper. Rakela left to recover Sykes, leaving Zer to craft his mystic diagrams to help his mind expand, Spark to pace in Rakela's place, and Relic to consider all that he had come to remember.   As the hour grew late, the weariness of the day and the stress of the task took their toll on the unicorn's focus, Millimax went from triple-checking her work to double, to single, and by the end to hastily dashing down her formulae in hopes of beating the clock. Medya had passed out beside her, teapot in talon, and even Bell was starting to feel fatigued. It was at this hour that the alarm spell triggered, a soft chirrup snapping Millimax's focus away from her paper. "Bell, the necklace!"   Bell snapped the chain around her neck, and the world popped like a soap bubble as the summoning spell pulled Rakela back to the necklace. It also brought everything she was carrying, in this case an unconscious Emmer Sykes. She leaped to her feet and began to bind the Cyran sage. "He declined the offer," the khorvaran agent explained. "I showed him our warrant and he spat on it. This is plan C. We have to go; the Aundairan elite guard are coming."   Millimax looked at her papers, then at Rakela, and she planted her hoof. "I'm too close. I have to finish."   Rakela turned from one to the next, seeing the approval at letting the unicorn finish her paper, then sighed and withdrew a doorknob from a pouch. She jabbed it at the wall and summoned a leomund's tiny hut, into which she carried the unconscious Sykes. "You have two hours before the spell ends and we're ejected," she warned the group. "I've called our contact; get to the roof. Hurry." With that, she closed the door, and Bell yanked the knob off of the wall and told Milli to get back to her paper.  

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  Flamesday, 10 Sunfall, 998 Y.K.   In the early morning hours, As Milli tidied her bibliography and references, Codex began to squirm in their seat, then rose and began to walk around Milli's workstation, hissing in discomfort. Their voice trembled when they talked, and they moved as though in need of an oiling. As Milli began the final proofread, the forged assistant said they weren't feeling well and needed to lie down.   Milli, near exhaustion herself, thought nothing of the forged's request and told them to go rest, but Bell snapped out of her haze and took notice. The battlesmith had a habit of making minor repairs to everything as she went, and the discomfort in Codex's voice spoke to the professional caretaker in her. She stood and approached, asking Codex to describe their symptoms. The smaller forged said that they'd been having blackouts their whole life, and they usually were preceded by this kind of discomfort. The symptoms were really bad at first -- they weren't made in a good place -- and they'd gotten better after a personal rebuild, but lately they'd been getting worse again, and they were starting to get worried.   As Codex described their symptoms, Relic began to feel that pull again, the one from before, and the lodecrystal began to pull sharply. The monk snapped out of his reverie and called across the link that he could feel it again, trying to manifest. Bell immediately took charge of the moment, telling Milli to stay and work and asking Zer to stand watch over the unicorn. The Adaran readily agreed and took a seat at Milli's workbench to keep watch while she finished. Relic and Spark, meanwhile, rushed to meet Bell at Codex's room, a small dormitory space near the open library.   There, Codex fell hard against their bed and shook as Bell loomed above them. "I don't understand what's going on," they said. "Did I do something bad?"   Bell shook her head and assured the smaller forged that they hadn't, but that Bell was worried about them. They wanted to inspect Codex, if Codex would allow it, to help figure out what was causing the blackouts. Codex agreed, and Bell began to explore, but when at Relic's suggestion she began to near their core, Codex pulled away and clutched at their chest. "I'm not comfortable showing that," they said, their voice going staticky with distress. "I don't understand what's happening. I'm scared and I want to be alone."   In that moment, Relic stepped forward to lay a comforting hand on Codex's chest, but a static discharge burst through the monk and sent him sprawling as the fiendish presence of the Child of the Last Wish flashed into place. Codex lifted their head, their eyes searing red. "You're early, Hope," it said, Codex's voice said in Rokugani. "I haven't had my meal yet."   "You've stolen your last," Relic replied in the same tongue, then dashed forward with his blade. Lightning seared off of the monk's chest, but he still landed several solid blows. Zer lanced out with his mind through Eid, the crystal companion he'd perched on Bell's shoulder, making the fiend stumble. Bell brought down her hammer, while Spark brought her fists and fire to bear. The embodied fiend struggled, but Bell was able to pop loose Codex's weakened chestplate and field-strip their core. Mind and body severed, the forged fell still, and Spark ran to summon the watch, to fetch components for a banishment.   Relic hadn't performed the exorcism in centuries, and yet the memory of it was fresh in his mind. He spoke the words to drive the fiend from the forged's core, and a foul hiss rose from the cylinder of eberron dragonshard that comprised Codex's central self. Thus cleansed and purged, Relic returned the core to Bell, who returned it to Codex, who awoke with a jolt and a gasp. "Where-- what... how... but--?" Their eyes settled on Bell, then Relic, then Spark. "Am I... okay?"   Relic nodded, and the forged rose and walked past a pair of gawp-faced watch. "I am going for a walk," they declared. "I have a lot to think about." Then they disappeared into the maze of corridors, the passages twisting behind them as they disappeared from view. Where they had been standing during the ritual, a wand with a chunk of dragonshard in its hilt lay, likely dropped in the fray. Bell pocketed the wand, but not before Relic had taken it and felt his dragonmark grow to encompass shocking grasp and lightning bolt.   It was then that Milli asked over the link, "Is everything okay? I've submitted; we can go."   The group was had just converged on their dormitory space to retrieve their gear when the first wave of soldiers arrived. They ordered the party to stand down, but the party fled. The hallways of the Arcane Congress began to ripple and distort, the magic ordering these twisted halls suspended. The party staggered, but they pressed onward, and Bell began to call out for Codex, trying to attract their friend's attention. As the guards drew near, the forged peeked out from a vacant classroom, saw the group, and ushered them down a narrow corridor to an arcane lift that would take them to the roof. As the group departed, Bell gave Codex a business card for the Heart and Hammer and asked him to come visit some time.   The roof of Skyreach held a skydock at which galleons and other airships could land. One of the berths was occupied by a slim clipper of an airship with a narrow profile and a ring of lightning that crackled around its midsection. Before it stood a woman in House Lyrandar colors, watching the doors and the horizon with equal attention. As the group approached, she asked, "Rakela?"   Bell held up the doorknob and said they could explain on-board. They debarked shortly after that, and as soon as they were clear of the docks, Bell placed Rakela's doorknob against the wall of the ship and upended the hut. Rakela and Sykes -- now bound and gagged -- fell out of the space. The Brelish agent explained all that had led them to this point, and said they needed to get to Xandrar as soon as possible. The copiliot agreed, and the pilot set course while the party stowed their gear and put in for the all-day flight to the northern edge of Breland.