, and blinks, and mutters "What the fuck is this," as she looks into the back of their group, hand on a wand, one of many, at her hip.

"Ahem!  What's going on here?"  She has her suspicions, but she has to try.

The small unit of Grendel wheels - quite creditably, turning smartly in a confined space like that takes considerable training - and stands off to the sides of the road, for the commander to make her way briskly through to the new front.

"We could ask you the same question," she replies, sternly but still trying to feel the situation out - even for a Freeborn, this is a pretty brazen approach, and there is something... wrong... with how the human is dressed and equipped. "Who gave you permission to be armed on the streets of Oran today, human?"

"Who gave you permission to be armed on the streets of Oran today?  Seems quite the lovely place, not the sort what needs much more than a sherrif to roust out the tavern drunks every so often, and mayhaps a port guard, and yet I turn a corner and find you marching in formation - and, well done, by the way, that was an admirable display of coordination, shame that the armor wasn't fit to match it - like there's a war on.  Is there, now?"  She casts her senses wide; her general ability to detect others' mental states has been quite increased with her recent feats, and she will use it.  She's filed these ladies, gentlemen, and otherwise under "mercenary until further notice", but the reaction of the city around them to their presence will tell far more.  There's no-one on the streets, and that's a warning sign in and of itself.

Mostly they are looking out for the obvious ambush that this suicidally brave human is clearly the distraction for. One near the back of the new formation is considering whether running to get help will be accounted as cowardice or as suitably audacious initiative.

The commander is immensely confused.

"Are there still pockets of memory draining mist?" she asks. "Perhaps a stint at the dockyards will jog your memory."

She moves her hand quite subtly towards her sword, which is a cue for the orcs to start moving - fairly slowly as of yet, nobody wants a chase through the streets and they all expect her to bolt - to surround the interloper. 

And what do the people...hiding...in...the...houses...

Ah.  She sees, now.

Sure, they can come closer.  But when they've got her surrounded...

There is a small thump-bwoingsch concurrent with the human rocketing upwards; a brief flicker of light forms a circle around them, and then a flwoosh of rapidly-hardening foam spreads out and ensnares their legs quite securely; the human herself is high enough in the air as this happens to be able to peek over the rooftops for a moment, and lands secure in her footing.  And if anyone tries to run...well, they run into an invisible wall.

"I'd stick around and interrogate you about what in the actual fuck is happening here, but frankly, I'm thinking I already know enough of what I need to meddle in to just go there directly.  Don't worry, if I have any say in the matter, you'll face actual justice, in the fairest court I can get you!"  And then, the foam covers them, with more individual attention.  It's breathable, and she makes sure they're not going to choke to death on their own spit, but she doesn't seem too concerned for their immediate comfort, per se.

Goal in mind, she jumps to the rooftops, then accelerates dockswards upon a plane of force, her travel writ in gracefully soaring arcs of forwards acceleration upon invisible arcs of force, trailing spheres of capture foam down to shatter on the orcish? war parties as she goes.  "You'd think, what with arboreal creatures being the most commonly held hominid antecedents, that we'd be better at looking up.  You'd be wrong, but you'd think it."

Is there anything really noticeable, magic-wise or movement-of-sapients-wise, that catches her attention?

The one at the back tried to run for help, which mostly means he's stuck in an even less comfortable looking position.

There's quite a bit of low level ambient magic around - the commander of that squad had some magic on her armour and many other orcs have similar, the land itself seems to be enchanted, the wood of the big ships is definitely somewhat magic. There is some much larger magic somewhere out across the sea channel. 

The main obvious concentrations of people are along the dockyards - resentful human labourers, resigned orc slaves with a little relief at being unloaded from the packed ship holds, some terrified human managers and functionaries, a lot of bored orc mercenaries and a few orc overseers and commanders who are mostly tense and watchful.

Hmmmm.  She waits a few minutes, gets the lay of "who looks most in charge"...then starts pulling things out of her bag of holding, setting up to introduce them to sleep darts via slightly magical air rifle - a purely chemical mix (in a vivid purple, incidentally) that's worked on analogues of people like these before, with a really quite clever trick to ensure that no-one gets more than they can stand - and the mercenary gangs are set up for some time-on-target confoam artillery; immaculately constructed catapults are ready to go off at her order, the fire control software in her armor hooked up to the triggers with very simple magic, adjusting for the wind with just a subtle read of motion.  She's always been a fan of simple solutions.  No need to overcomplicate things.

The ships, though...Those might well be complicated.  Still...they aren't going to be leaving shore anytime soon, especially not with how they're about to get everything that can be gummed up, such as anchors, doors, weapons lockers, treasure chests, rudders, wheels, winches, and gangplanks, gummed up with spot-conjured containment foam.  (This, she sets up sigils for, in addition to the spellwork duplicating light from point B to point A that she scouts them with; she shifts them...hmm, up into UV as she generates the spell structure, holding its trigger runes in abeyance until...)

Thwi-thwi-thwi-thwi-thwip, go the air rifles in synchrony, and the confoam loads land with a crash as she bounces off the roof, jump-kicks an in-charge orc in the chest, bounces once more, lands on the biggest, most prestigious-looking slaver ship in a crouch...  She'll take a moment to orient, but unless the captain charges her, her goal here is getting the slaves out.

Purple is the favourite colour of those who are most in charge, it looks like! Several purple clad orcs have a distinctly impromptu nap.

This and the confoam landing on the enforcers causes an awful lot of panic. Some people just drop what they're doing and start wailing mournfully, or collapse to the ground sobbing. Some people are trying to rouse the downed individuals and pick at the foam to see if they can free any of their erstwhile oppressors.

But most of the humans are just quietly sloping off into the maze of narrow streets, and the orc slaves are mostly taking the opportunity to sit down, or looking for water and food - somewhat hampered by being chained together by the half dozen.

As for the ship, the (orc, with considerable gold jewelry and purple velvet under her light leather armour) captain is approaching her - very warily, with her hands up.

"Greetings, stranger," she says, in a tone of great respect, "can we come to some arrangement here?"

"I don't know yet!  How ideologically important to you, as contrasted with economic importance, is the slavery?  I'm rather opposed to the practice!"  And agreeing to Not Do Slaving like this would be a hard line in her negotiations, she doesn't say.

"That and I'm not exactly a fan of pillaging, but honestly you've been surprisingly professional about it from what I've seen, and it's really the attendant trauma of home invasions that I object to, so given that I don't suddenly find evidence of murder, rape, murder-rape, or nonconsensual mindfuckery," at which she eyes the people despairing suspiciously, and with an eye to detecting such influence - they are welcome in her goddess's embrace for as long or as short as they wish to be, if they wish to feel comfort; there, there, let it out, what's wrong? - "that's perhaps not as much of an issue; I'm not in principle opposed to wealth redistribution as much as wealth hoarding.  ...Really, the sum of my ideological position is thus: The right thing to do is to make the world better, kinder, free-er, more capable, more beautiful, in your wake.  That the point of having society should be to maximize the ability of people to be the people they wish to be; to support, to aid, rather than to bind and burden."  She lets out a small sigh, a bit wistfully.  "I'm hopelessly idealistic on that front, really; no matter how many times I run into people who believe that the world deserves to be stomped on by their boots, or stuffed into their pockets and used to buy a third mega-yacht (that they can have no more than six people on at a time for legal reasons, lest they stop being eligible for the loophole they use to afford the things - and how absurd is that, huh?) no matter how big those boots are - I still try; I will still offer a chance to consider that they, too, could live in a happier world, if they're willing to put in the effort to change it.  So, you tell me - can we come to an agreement, captain?"

The sobbing people are mostly just genuinely terrified that they are going to get caught up in retribution for all this - especially, afraid they're going to be forced to leave their city which they love.

The captain relaxes a little - she appears to have found some kind of frame to think about this in, something about a powerful magical being that is very concerned about exactly this sort of thing and might have sent an emissary. 

"I believe so, yes! The slave trade is an entirely economic matter, I assure you. It seems you have a principled objection; I am very happy to show good faith by assisting you to ensure the rest of the cargo is not caused more suffering by this course of events - I would also offer to give them onward passage somewhere of their choice, for the return of my ship, if they so desire."

'and the power to enforce it' is very obviously silent but salient after 'principled objection' there.

"I believe I can work with that."  And so, off she sets into the hold, tying the captain's hands up with a softly glowing rope as she unlocks the chains.  "Why do your people do slavery, anyway?  It's not exactly economically efficient - you have to expend far more effort in keeping slaves than having the labor unpaid-for ever saves you, unless there's some very strange contortion of circumstances about wherever you make your home."

It's okay.  Nobody's going to have to leave; that much she can be sure of, and thus have faith in to them in turn.

"If I knew more of the underlying economics I'd be a salt lord, not a ship's captain; I know a lot about how to keep a crew and vessel functional and a little about what the most profitable cargos are, I actually rarely take slaves - extra cleaning expense and all that - but Lord Rahab was paying well over the odds. I think it is partially about the side effects of people knowing that they might become enslaved if they take on too much foolish debt or disrespect someone sufficiently powerful, partially about ensuring supply?"

She submits with apparent good grace to being secured, and the crew mostly appear to be attempting to stay well out of the way of the perilous negotiation with the dangerous stranger. The hold has a ramp open to the shore, out of which the crew had been ushering the slaves in groups until everything went sideways. The slaves are extremely confused; they're happy to be fully unchained rather than just unshackled from the ship and allowed out, but they were pretty sure they knew what was happening next, this isn't it, and uncertainty is scary. Also the conditions are... not great. Some of the slaves have soiled themselves or vomited on the journey over and nobody was cleaning up as they went; it looks like there was barely space to move in here when it was full.

Some of the people who were despairing start gathering their things and heading to their homes, or in a few cases distributing snacks and water to the recently arrived orc slaves; the most upset people left on shore are the ones who were trying to revive the supervisors and rescue the mercenaries, who are gradually realising that the credit they built up by zealously obeying the occupying force might be about to backfire on them.

"Ah.  Debtor's prisons.  Those hardly actually fix the underlying problem either; in fact, they make it less likely that the debt will ever be repaid, because for any loan big enough to matter, the expected value of surly and-or desperate menial labor will not achieve the funds necessary to make restitution.  The bit about someone enslaving you because they're powerful and you're not...I absolutely abhor those with power abusing it thusly.  Every person is a person, and entitled to be treated with the same fundamental dignity, as far as I'm concerned.  Even the assholes, so really," her voice picks up across the whole docks as if carried to a polite conversational distance, "you can relax, I'm not going to suddenly foam you unless you start shit - which does include revenge maiming, and don't think you can just hide it - I've seen, and defeated, all the tricks.  Yes, slavery sucks.  So does murder.  We'll sort this out without bloodshed."  She is, in fact, keeping a metaphorical eye out.  Empathic senses are really good for that sort of thing, and one of the very first tricks she figured out with her magic was projection.  "There's going to be no slaving today; that's settled.  The rest, I want to consult the city on, as the aggrieved party, so if you could find representatives, that would be nice.  I'm going to make sure everyone's freed and in good health first; take your time but do make sure that all voices are heard."

The stranger is doing yet more magic somehow, because the shit and vomit and general rankness is just...vanishing.  From all the holds, and all the people outside of the holds, and working out over the city, for that matter, if more slowly in the areas she's not in.  This settled, she returns to a more private conversation.  "So your lords, the high and mighty, sponsor slaving raids.  I'm rather new to this part of the world, but that seems like it's going to get the neighbors all pissed off at you in particular if you're the only ones doing it.  And yet, you're doing it.  So, and I imagine I'm asking a bleedingly obvious question here but I'm curious what your answer is, why hasn't your country's collective ass been kicked all the way down the block and dunked in the harbor?"

"Approximately, 'you should see the other guy'," replies the captain smoothly. "The Empire would like rid of us, but they have the Druj and the Jotun and the Thule to worry about; I expect you'd like them even less, the Druj take slaves specifically to spread fear and suffering, the Jotun's whole society is based around an enslaved underclass of everyone who refuses military service, and the Thule like to keep their slaves past death and make their walking corpses continue to toil. Nobody else on the continent is really in a position to argue; in the Confederacy - and in the Empire in living memory, until they found it too awkward - every orc is a slave; Faraden does debt slavery too, and likes it as a punishment for criminals; the Axou enslave the souls of their own ancestors, and only stopped more traditional forms of slavery at the Empire's behest quite recently. There are other scattered peoples, but they are hardly a threat to us and they know it."

The humans who were busy trying to wake up various overseers are forming themselves into something of a delegation; a few of the dockworkers are arguing with them about what kind of representation the 'herald' might want to talk to. Apparently they, too, have pigeonholed the visitor into a specific category of being that exists here.

The description of the Druj, in particular, causes her to let out a hissed breath of unhappiness.  "You were very correct that I would not like those cultures.  Though frankly depending on the specific metaphysics thereof...mm, you wouldn't know that, anyway.  I'll probably have to go check at some point.  ...and I'm guessing that none of those cultures have a single lynchpin that you could defeat in single combat and then wield said authority to unfuck things with; not that I'd really know what the fuck to do with an entire nation in the first place but if it is an option...it's an option."  She sounds, if anything, tired, when she says that.  "So.  I do want to hear from your people as well, in this upcoming...thing.  So you should listen to this," she broadcasts specifically to those whose allegiance is to the raiding party.

The citizens do get an answer; "I want to get the opinions of the people, as a totality, and reflecting as many diverse interests as I can - especially those neglected by others - or as close as I can get.  I cannot and will not mandate you do this in any specific way, but I do wish to note that I think that 'the proportion of people you claim to speak for who will, uncoercedly, back your ability to decide for them in their absence' is a good measure of what makes a good representative, and that despite wishing I could speak to everyone directly, I am still only one woman, capable of listening to only so many voices, so I do not intend to end up with more than a dozen talking at me from either side of the table.  I can provide ways of taking a secret ballot, if that helps."

"The Jotun might roll over if you beat both their monarchs in single combat, they go in for that kind of thing. Nobody else is interested in a 'fair fight', such as that even makes any sense as a concept." The captain's tone sound like 'fairness' is something she feels is to be disdained. "And I think, apart from me and my crew, most of my people are currently a little restrained or unconscious to be heard from?"

"Um," says one of the functionaries. "How we normally do this would be, you pick how many representatives, then families get one candidate each, and vote for their candidate with coin. The money then goes to the losing bidders, so they'll have more for next time. It'll take us a few hours to organise, especially as a lot of people are going to be too scared to leave the house..."

"Fair fights aren't ever, for sure; if I must, I fight to win.  Other things can be fair without being ethical flaws.  Some subset of those even should be.  I'll add 'go overawe the Jotun' to the itinerary, amyway; thank you.  As for restrained and-or unconscious...mmm, just a minute."  That is slowly but surely being rendered not so; all the city's people are getting messages about the ongoing circumstances, now; there are small (basketball-sized) silvered floaty metal things with light-up screens you can touch or talk to to interact with showing up and spreading out over the area to deliver that message and answer very basic questions about the present situation...helpd, hopefully.  There are shiny crystals that you're asked to hold onto and think very hard at if you want directions to someone in particular.

...also if anyone was sick or dying, they appear to be not that, now; missing limbs are still mostly missing (though after visits from droids asking, they grow back, little by little, if the amputee consents and there's no compelling reason to not - or grow in, in cases of dysmorphia; the scans are actually reasonably competent at spotting that just from analysis of proprioceptive feedback and it's also part of the psychological "hey this automated medical scan has noticed elevated levels of biological indicators that mean you likely chronically feel like shit, even adjusting for the fact that this is a combat zone; sometimes that has underlying resolvable causes, so would you like to know about potential problems and ways of dealing with them" survey), but eyesight sharpens (or is outright restored, to the consenting blind), ringing ears cease (and similarly, consenting deaf people have their hearing restored), joint pains ease, dulled minds sharpen, unwanted and non-enforced curses fade, weakened muscles feel an ache for a little while but come out strong again.  Cases of malnutrition are met with directives about dietary habits that offer a wide range of suggestions.  It even seems to be working pretty well on the Grendel, or those with magical interference in their biology, though the system is operating with less confidence especially in the latter case and says as much - these people get droid visits first for anything that's not obvious like "blood stays inside the patient", asking politely if they have any knowledge about unique needs regarding their medical care and walking them through potential interventions.  She's not letting anyone die on her watch and she's put quite a lot of thought and magic and technology and knowledge and advice and faith into devising the best autodocs she can, the sort she'd trust her life to, and since she's apparently decided to defenestrate the prime directive at sufficient velocity as-is, she may as well deploy as broadly as she can.

"Huh, that's really interesting;" declaims the woman who has come up to the deck, captain in tow (but now unbound again), as she arrives to speak with the functionaries personally, "I'd be very curious to hear more about how that came about after all this is settled - it's a lot fairer than I expected, even if it's still weighted in favor of those with money to throw away, and doesn't handle intra-family disputes well.  The system I was going to propose, if you had none, is a bit fuzzier in that it will be harder to intuitively parse than coin totals and reliant upon magic items that you have no reason to trust, but I do wish to mention it - I have tools that allow people to impress, well, mental images, upon them; with these, things to prompt the necessary thoughts - simple mechanisms, and knowledge of how the mind works, rather than anything that might actually touch upon the mind; that sort of thing I avoid unless it's very necessary, generally for no less than otherwise insurmountable language barriers - and rather a lot of math and simulation that will nonetheless pass in a blink because I've specific tools to do that with, we could collect both a census of self-reported groups of affiliation within the city and their preferred representatives for matters pertaining to their interests, and people's preferred representatives as regards the city as a whole.  Similarly for the others, as well," she adds, turning towards the Grendel captain.  "I can and will ensure privacy of the vote, either way."

Once gradually freed from their temporary imprisonment, the Grendel and their mercenary orcs form up and wait for orders, in defensive blocks, eying the newly emboldened humans nervously. Their purple-clad leaders swiftly come together in the middle of one of these formations for a round of recriminations and desperate planning.

The healing is appreciated, but fairly quietly; it doesn't appear to be entirely unprecedented to these people, although the droids are met with considerable curiosity about how they function, how alive or otherwise they are, whether 'Spring' and 'Autumn' are somehow working together? It seems like healing and generally becoming more energetic and regrowing limbs are generally 'Spring' and mechanical automata are generally 'Autumn', both kinds of magic that this world is accustomed to. There are a lot of people with magical interference in their biology - while plain humans are still just about a majority, there is a considerable minority of 'lineaged', humans touched by various 'realms', among which 'Autumn' is over-represented - the marks of Autumn are sheeplike horns and metallic patterns, and a considerable increase in stubbornness, but those questioned are fairly sure that all normal medical interventions work exactly the same on lineaged as humans - save maybe the Spring touched, who tend to heal over with permanent bark where there would normally be some scarring.

Advice on dietary habits is generally met with derisive laughter - humans left in Oran (and orc slaves and to some extent even mercenaries of the Grendel) subsist on what they can get, and are perfectly aware that it is inadequate, thank you very much little metallic physick.

The floaty metal things mostly get talked to; it looks like nobody has the idea of touch screen interfaces around here. The tech level is resolutely medieval except where this is punctuated by magic - lenses and lighting appear to be quite advanced with good corrective lenses for vision problems and glowing crystals for light sources, the town has a printing press, and there's a local kind of really quite effective medicine based around magical herbs and spells - including a herb for changing physiological sex - so despite the poor conditions, people are surprisingly healthy in general.

"That sounds, uh, a bit magical for some people," replies the bold functionary. On closer inspection, they have pointed ears and a blue swirl almost tucked away under their hair - Summer touched, from what the medical droids have gathered. "Magic's all very well but we prefer it out where we can see what it's doing. Intra-family disputes normally end up with the family splitting or members going off and joining another family. Wouldn't object to an accurate census, though, we're likely to have bits and pieces of various families in hiding..."

"We'd normally just defer to the governor in this situation, but I expect he'll be persuadable to play the Freeborn voting game - as long as Grendel money stays with the Grendel," replies the Captain.

The droids are not alive, they're very complex mechanisms that have then been enchanted to carry certain magical effects!  Thank you for asking, your curiosity is commendable!  Unfortunately, these units are presently busy, but more detailed explanations of their making will likely be available later!

They're also very sorry to hear that there's ongoing food shortages, and this will be brought to the attention of the - relief worker - in charge of their deployment so it can be remedied; there's not as much they can do about that, but if there's existing food, they can make it stretch, to some extent; they can also provide assistance making existing crops lastingly more nutritive, a few tips and tricks that will enable farming that doesn't exhaust the things plants use to make nutrition in the soil if that's something that they don't know how to do, and quite possibly restore damaged supplies.

"Alright, then, so long as you're all satisfied with it.  And I don't - you don't have to do voting," she gestures to the Grendel, "if you don't want to, but you should have someone speaking on your behalf here, too.  Census...I could do that, yeah, give me a few minutes."  She pulls out a big pink crystal, about the size of two fists compared to the fingertip-sized ones that have been observed by the adventurous poking the strange magic, turns it over in her hands in a seemingly idle fidget while she looks a bit up and to the left, thinking, then pulls out another one of those metal orbs, prises it apart, dumps a good third of those parts - wow, that's a lot of runes and those are weird runes - into a pouch on her belt in a casual display of telekinesis, then does something that, to use a metaphor that's not even wrong, inverts the process of making the normal exploded diagram - the parts are arranged just so in space, and then they collapse back together like she's pulling a string, ending up with half a drone shell, built around that crystal, that she cradles in her hands.  Then she mutters 'fuck, that's not going to be enough on its own, is it', pulls out the parts she put away in the first half of this exercise, sets them floating in midair, idly turning, re-explodes the diagram, and, after yet more tinkering, produces..."So how do you want this formatted, anyway," she asks as she passes the representative the drone.  "Could print books, could get it all on one big scroll...What's the date, anyway?  And what's all this I'm hearing about food troubles?"

The populace are quite convinced they know how to do farming, too, although a few of them are more interested and take some notes to compare.

Right now there's likely to be a lot of abandoned food in empty buildings in various states of failed preservation, more so on the outskirts and outlying villages than in town - apparently there was some kind of daring rescue of much of the human population of this area, the ones that are left here were too slow or stubbornly attached to their homes and so on to participate.

The orc slaves were mostly being imported for getting in the harvest in the absence of most of the people who normally work the land. The main crops are barley, olives, citrus fruit, and aftee that a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, pork and poultry mostly in smallholdings.

There are several opinions about how a census should be laid out, eventually the bold functionary who appears to now be the de facto leader reports, "Can we get a scroll with dhomiro and locations for each family, and booklets for the detail?"

Several of the other functionaries are deeply fascinated with the crystals and runes; one to the extent of chanting an incantation, some kind of divinatory magic giving a general summary of what a magical item does - within the local system of magical items, in any case... 

The Grendel leadership send a well guarded delegation up to the boat. The Captain looks disgruntled as they approach - clearly she was planning to monopolise the useful stranger's attention, and now she's about to be out ranked - but smoothes it over to look the consummate (if somewhat arrogant) diplomat as they get close enough to tell. "Ah, may I present Lord Rahab and his second in command," she announces. 

This news prompts new drones, with a different symbol from the green cross-in-circle-in-square of the medicae; these are slightly bigger and have manipulators of some sort, in addition to their logo (inside the square-and-circle) being a curved sheaf of wheat laid across a hammer, and these know as much about farming and architecture and practical biology as she could cram into them.

"Sure, though could I trouble you to remind me of the nature of a dhomiro?  Not quite sure I recall the details, and I do want to be as accurate as I can."  Never let them see you sweat.  The process of setting up for splitting out the reports while she takes down that explanation, on the other hand, is quite smooth; detailed conjurations like this aren't quite her most honed field, but they're certainly her bread-and-butter when it comes to projects like these, so she's got quite a lot of tricks to make it work.

She's too busy thinking to notice the divinatory spell until it's almost gone off, and winces, because that functionary just got multiple items' worth of rune SHENZHEN I/O trying to jam into his head, mostly uncommented "conditional metal(lightning) time-inverse 60..." sorts of things save for cryptic comments like "#rd Presti frm SpROM", "#psy act. thrshld togg.", "#to luminlib as ls<pVec>", "#rchrg batt. w/ magic", "#rcvr prvstat frm ttape", "#datdmp to techne on dspl", "#bob/weave lerp"...  "I don't recommend trying to reverse-engineer these; there's rather a lot to them and it's heavily interconnected with the mechanisms."

The captain gets a minute shrug from the traveler, but from the way she's (mostly only figuratively) radiating disapproval at Lord Rahab's existence, it seems they're both in agreement about who she'd prefer to be spending time with.  "Thank you, captain; you do continue to be pleasant to work with.  Lord Rahab.  It is interesting to see an august personage involved so personally in this venture.  Were you planning on moving in?"  The question is delivered in a wry, rhetorical tone.  "I don't believe Oran is likely to let you, at this point, but I've certainly seen stranger things happen sometimes."  She turns to the functionary.  "And I don't believe I've yet had the pleasure of an introduction?  The both of you may refer to me as Myra."

The functionary who cast the spell falls over babbling incoherently; there appears to be a standard local procedure for this, someone else in the group shouts "Physick!", one of the dock workers comes running over with a bag full of miscellaneous herbal concoctions and starts doing some diagnostics that involve listening and singing at various pitches. This seems to immediately start calming down the stricken individual and generally nobody seems very worried.

"Dhomiro - head of a family?" explains one of the other functionaries.

A few people chase after the wheat drones to see what they are up to.

"I'm Thesali i Hanana i Guerra," the functionary introduces themself. (They are distinctly not quite male or female, physically partially both.)

"Greetings to you, Myra," says the Grendel second in command; Rahab appears to be too busy looking haughty and feeling an absolute seething rage, covering a pit of cold, dark terror, to speak. "I am Keth, second to Lord Oran. We were indeed in the process of settling in; the Empire has formally conceded these lands to ourselves, in return for a considerable ceasefire and potentially a lasting peace. I am not sure what your affiliations are, but I do need to warn you that unless this misunderstanding is swiftly resolved, that peace is at risk. The Empire has already taken the people of this land from us by deception, and my Lord is not in the most forgiving of moods at the present moment." Keth is a little worried but is fairly sure she can pull it out of the bag somehow.

"Ah, yes.  That can be done.  Sort by head of household...annnd, there we go."  And then there is a brief sort of ping off of everyone in the area, and the scroll and booklets start materializing!

The agricultural drones are mostly doing food-security-related things!  Visiting granaries, plugging rat holes, inspecting and (mostly) purging molds (unless they produce interesting chemicals; penicillin is good, magic is weird, etc. etc..), weeding gardens, repairing leaks...

"...Well, I'm not a signatory to that treaty, so you can declare war on me if you like; as you're no doubt already aware I certainly have the force projection to be geopolitically relevant, so it's only fair that you could treat me like a geopolitical entity in this sense as well.  I don't recommend it, but you could.  That said, I don't believe the land exchanged under treaties is traditionally held to come with its freemen attached as chattel."  And thus this, she is indicating, is sufficiently abnormal a claim as to require justification.

"Oh, that was in fact a provision of the treaty!" Keth informs her. "Everyone in Feroz had two whole seasons to move elsewhere, if they didn't want to be under Grendel rule. We even let them take a reasonable proportion of their possessions with them. After that, they were under our jurisdiction, which certainly doesn't mean they were all immediately enslaved - most humans in Feroz are free, it's only those who have broken the law or sold themselves who are not."

"And the Empire then retrieved most of the ones who were left anyway," growls Rahab, "hence the incoming shipments. And I guarantee every one of the orcs who came in on these ships would rather be here than where they came from."

"Mmmmmm.  I do hope that you won't mind if I seek independent confirmation of your claims, though I am provisionally inclined to believe them at this time."  Let's see...

Sociological survey, set the target demographics right, load contexts, input questions, pass them through the filters...

The medic droids, who were a bit at loose ends, given their overall numbers and the lack of a warzone, are cycling out a bit with more general civic utility droids - and those come with the ability to run surveys!  They're very polite about it!

"Certainly! Fortunately these Freeborn know the value of Fidelity, and are much less likely than other Imperial citizens to mislead you," Keth continues smoothly.

"They're right," offers Thesali. "It wasn't like the Empire had enough armies to take Feroz back without losing somewhere else. And they have been much more reasonable than any of the Empire's other enemies would."

Survey says: that's a fair representation of the treaty, the Grendel and Freeborn agree strongly on keeping their word but the Freeborn will generally go rather less hard on keeping only the letter of it while taking as much as you can get, other than that there's an ocean of bad blood almost because they're so similar... apart from how the Freeborn have a habit of freeing slaves and the Grendel of taking them.

(She can detect a politician blatantly spinning a message right in front of her face; she's not mad, just disappointed, Keth.)

"...I can't say I disagree that this is the least immediately pressing issue, on the anti-slavery front.  However, because I'm here, and not somewhere else, and I've already done something, I am rather inclined to make an impact on it anyway.

"You have seen the sort of things I can produce, and how they can in fact almost entirely obviate the need for manual labor of the sort most slaves are generally used for.

"I am willing to produce more such things, and even the education necessary to produce similar devices; I am not willing to use them to provide advantages to polities and persons currently engaged in slaving.

"I'm certain you see how we can achieve mutual benefit, and then I can move on to making myself the Druj's problem instead of yours."

It is very obvious to see the 'opportunity' lights going off in Rahab's head even if one is not a supernaturally good reader of people. His demeanour changes entirely and is now as if he is a highly trustworthy statesman speaking to his dearest ally; his anger is washed away in the tide of delighted greed.

"I have the authority to proclaim every slave within Feroz free, and remove the authority of anyone within Feroz to enslave another, at the speed a messenger can travel with a suitably written proclamation bearing my seal.

I do not have the authority to declare this on behalf of the Grendel as a whole, but I am sure that the good Captain here will be happy to convey you safely to Dubhtraig, or if her vessel cannot be rendered seaworthy we have several lesser ships available - and my lieutenant Keth can there secure you an audience with those who can, assuming you can continue to demonstrate the capabilities you have so far displayed.

Fair warning, there may be considerable difficulty preventing the Broken Shore dissolving into civil war at the prospect; I am assuming your assistance will be sufficient to both provide food and keep order in Feroz, and on those conditions I will write and issue a proclamation as soon as we are agreed."

"Why yes, it can, to the best of my knowledge!  I'm so glad we're able to work together on this, Lord Rahab!  There are very plausibly other things that I find are simply as unnecessary as slavery with my resources, in your penal code, such as torture, maiming, and execution, that would need similar assurances, lest my keeping of order interfere with yours, but I think we have an agreement in principle.  Shall we talk details?"  At which point, she fires up a legal aide VI, and damn well talks them.  She might hate this part, but it's necessary, and she's good at it, so she'll give her utmost effort to a mutually-satisfactory treaty.  (Her main concerns are thus: Her aid will not be used to prosecute an offensive war.  She is not constrained from offering her assistance to other polities by this agreement.)

(Yes, the captain's ship is able to be rendered seaworthy once again; there's a dissolving agent.  No, she doesn't need loan of it; which way's Dubtraigh from here, and how far?)

The Grendel legal code is fairly light on torture, maiming and execution - it seems like slavery basically fills in for all these roles in their legal system, the worst otherwise is very generously applied self defence exemptions for law enforcement and immediate execution of military deserters (which already requires there to be some element of immediate threat that they will increase danger for the rest of the deployed force).

Everything else is already handled with fines. Rahab would quite like to hear suggestions for acceptable treatment of chronic non payment of fines or violent offenders who are still dangerous to others; generally maimed or executed is the escalation in non slavery based systems, the Confederacy actually imprison people but everyone regards that as horrible and/or wasteful.

There is no ongoing offensive war - despite provocation, the ceasefire with the Empire holds, and that was the only war the Grendel have been engaged in recently. (By the way, the Empire is very into execution for crimes, including religious crimes; the Grendel have no such thing as a religious crime, everyone - including slaves - has freedom of religion.)

Rahab could only give very approximate directions, the Captain has some charts that she could allow her to see if they were made accessible again.

"Chronic nonpayment of fines was generally handled by folding it into tax burden or, sometimes, outright seizure of property, in the country I long ago hailed from; I'm not sure I per se recommend that, but if you're somehow desperate to compel it, that's a method of making it happen.  Sometimes debts simply can't be paid, though, and punishing that is worse than pointless.  Economics isn't my forté, there's works by better thinkers than I in the field that you could consult.  For violent offenders that are still a danger - well, here.  I have a booklet."  There's actually a whole segment of her system guide about various potential resolutions to this.  Most are, eventually, therapy.  Some detour through inpatient care or drone-based violence prevention.  Some are "get the person out of the badness-provoking environmental situation".

"...Augh, blasphemy laws, the worst kind of laws.  And you don't even have memetically hazardous gods!  ...You don't have those, right?"  She has to check.  "Well, that goes on the list."

The Captain can indeed access their charts once again.

"Violence prevention drones sound very promising! If we can extend that to property damage and warning systems for non-payers?

The main problem with a lack of personal consequences for non payment of fines is no further deterrent effect, but being accompanied by a warning drone that would prevent other people from having their Prosperity damaged without being aware of the risks, that would do the job.

As for mentally hazardous gods, the Empire would claim every god is an information hazard; there are potentially Eternals of Sky who might actually qualify, certainly that realm can be induced to create hazardous information.

I would be delighted to roll out this system, let me spend a few minutes conferring with my advisors and we can have a draft declaration, revised legal code and bill of materials for you to consider."

Rahab turns to his anxious courtiers and sends several scurrying off for a large quantity of sealing wax and ribbons, and a couple to secure use of the printing press.

"If you'll come to my cabin, the charts don't leave it if we can at all help it, they are rather difficult to replace?" the captain invites her.

That should be reasonably easy to make happen, certainly, sure!  And yes, property damage prevention and repair is in Utilities.  There's a whole help menu.  She'll get it set up.

"Oh, yes, here, just -" ka-copy-of-charts! "- point out the direction, please?"

The Captain would be successfully hiding her moment of unbalanced terror if the woman was not so good at reading people; apparently owning charts is a significant thing, and them being easy to copy is intensely threatening to her?

"Ah. Um. Yes." She outwardly calmly points out Dubtraigh on the near coast of the Broken Shore, across the neck of the Bay of Catazar. "I really wouldn't arrive without at least a handful of letters of introduction, though. Kicking over that anthill, like you've done here, is likely to have all kinds of collateral damage.

Much as I hate to recommend someone else as your escort, I do rather rely on there being a port to come back to, so I really would recommend taking Keth - she's ambitious, reasonably connected, adaptable, and unlike me she is very keen to engage in politics rather than staying as clear of them as possible."

She hands the copy of her charts back to the Captain; they're hers and she clearly cares about that, though it's not like she hasn't scanned them six ways to Sunday just by existing in their general vicinity.  "Thank you for the advice.  And the directions.  And yes, Keth, if you're interested in helping cleanly navigate this massive societal upheaval...?"

The captain subsides with visible relief as the copy of the charts are returned to her. "Let me know if you need anything, otherwise I'll be rounding up my crew and seeing what we can salvage for the return journey," she says, and heads below to deposit the copy in the locked, rune bound, mithril chained box in her quarters.

"Absolutely," replies Keth, with a quick glance at Rahab; he waves her off dismissively, busy dictating a new legal code to a scribe.

"I'll write out a list of the major players, and we can talk about the game plan once things are handled here.

Before we go, you should get off the Grendel ship and get some nice country air -" she lowers her voice somewhat, so it does not carry far, "and meet the inevitable human faction who thinks Thesali here is a collaborator and will run a guerilla campaign on the Empire's behalf if not dissuaded."

There is indeed a distinct data shadow where a significant subset of humans are avoiding the drones and a general tense waiting feeling, come to think of it. 

"Hmm, a little bit of sightseeing certainly wouldn't go amiss."  And they're not even wrong about that, really.  It's who they're collaborating with that's changed, slips into Keth's mind gently - a spell that Keth is aware is simply, only, communicative.  "Give me a few minutes to slip into something more comfortable, would you?"

How is the weather around here, anyway?

Keth seems quite unperturbed by the mental communication although it does seem to have increased her respect for the woman - hearing voices in her head does not seem to be new to her, and is generally positively associated.

The weather is delightfully sunny and is saved from being too warm by a pleasant sea breeze. The (brightly coloured) local attire for humans involves wrapped cloth on the head and generally being careful about the amount of sun-exposed skin; linen robes, generally heavy on the decorative embroidery, are definitely in.

Well, she can arrange for a moment of privacy, once they're off the ship, and turn to Keth.  Hmm.  I honestly doubt trying to blend in as a local would go over well, but I don't quite know enough to calibrate my approach to the guerillas-in-potentia as a helpful outsider, either.  Any thoughts on that?  (Keth can communicate back, apparently!)

The humans here have - yes, grandmother, I know you're angry about Dubhtraig still, but this is bigger than that - a very complicated dress code, avoid black and white, if you're not trying to pass for them avoid flame and water colours - green's a good neutral colour without coming across badly, purple is the colour of their Empire. Silk, embroidery and jewellery make you look important, linen is normal, using less fabric or muted colour makes you look poor. No, I shouldn't be deceiving her out of spite. A sunhat is probably a good idea, like the head wrap but less culturally loaded.

It seems like Keth is having multiple conversations in there and hasn't quite got the hang of separately directing intentional communication. 

Oh, good, I do get to wear the hat.

And after a moment's consideration, and a bit of magic, her armor is packed away, in favor of an outfit in vivid green, with pale blue accents (that are also magical runes), and a bit of silver jewelry (set with opals) - it's more a suit, than a robe.  She tops it off with the platonic ideal of a straw sun hat, then ties a purple bandanna (also rune-embroidered, but simply with more purple) over her face.

This good enough, you think?  I can change the colors.

The quick change seems to startle Keth a bit more than the mental words did, but she recovers very quickly. Yes - yes great aunt I am letting her go out looking like that - you look just as uncoordinated as the locals but not in a colour scheme they'd use, should work great, do change before Dubhtraig or nobody will respect you in the slightest.

Of course.  We'll have time to get that right on the way over, I think.  There's a small undercurrent of amusement.  Now let's go talk to the locals, shall we?  The path they take to a spot that's "not patrolled" is quick, but there's time for a bit more planning on the way.  I'm assuming I probably shouldn't bring you in with me, so...hmm, let's see...

And she adds a pair of silver rune-etched glasses frames (with actual glass in them) to her outfit, and passes a corresponding pair to Keth.  So you can look and listen in, too.

Thank you! - no they're not cursed and even if they are it was worth the risk - I'll put these on and find somewhere out of the way to sit.

Keth gets increasingly nervous the further they both get from the docks, and really does not want to spend more time alone than she can possibly avoid, but is determined not to show weakness to the very useful stranger that seems for some reason to be including her on a huge opportunity.

She was definitely expecting not to be included at all in the meeting and indeed for the visitor to use it to get the other side of the story, so this is going better than she had dared to imagine, she is determined to handle her stupid instincts to see this through. 

With Keth off playing overwatch, it's a simple matter to find the biggest 'dead zone' and knock on the door, then enter despite the fact that it's still probably closed.

Behind the door there are a considerable number of people currently engaged in attempting to swiftly get through the door to an adjoining row house and escape whoever knocked on the door in the wrong pattern. There is more determination than panic, but definitely an edge of panic.

"Ahem.  I come in peace."

One of the young women in the group turns back from the attempted escape. A friend of hers says, "Maria, no," and tries to grab her, but she determinedly walks out of reach towards the visitor.

"Peace is a false virtue," she tells the visitor, flatly, folding her arms and standing between her and the others. She's not _totally_ unarmed, that's a wand tucked into her sash, but she doesn't look like she's there to fight a desperate rearguard action with violence; more to find out what's going on at what she assumes is great risk to herself, and incidentally buy the others some time.

"Y'know, I hadn't actually put those words to the thoughts I think, but you're not wrong, notwithstanding the actual metaphysics.  Still, I am here to speak, not to bring harm."

The visitor is...not armed.  At the very least not obviously armed.  Despite, y'know, magic.

"So shall we speak?  Because there's about to be a drastic upheaval in Grendel society, and I wouldn't want you to miss out on it."

"Fuck the Grendel. Do you know how many of us they've taken to the salt mines? Did you see what they did to Spiral? The only good Grendel is a dead Grendel.

They're good at talking, though, I'll give them that. I bet they've made all kinds of fancy promises. Maybe they've even agreed to some things, but, you know what? People say the Freeborn put a price on everything, but the Grendel would sell their own grandmother for a moment's advantage over someone else.

Play with fire, get burnt."

"They put a price on as-fast-as-a-rider-can-travel manumission of all slaves in Feroz, plus sundry other modifications to the criminal code.  The ink's drying on that deal right now.  So what did they do to Spiral?"

"The Urizeni wouldn't behave, so they took all their children and ransacked their libraries. The entire place is now covered by an enormous magical effect of hatred and despair. But they're still there, working whoever's left to death, because there's a Mithril mine."

"...Well.  That fucking stops immediately.  And it makes a good stop before I go try the fucking Druj, who're - y'know - optimizing for horrible shit."

Keth, who's in charge of Spiral?

Salt Lord Mahiri Kaliact. She held the children behind the lines rather than risk them in the fighting, then the Empire smashed the port with magic. I'm fine, great-aunt, don't fret, I know the others are only over at the port, it's not a few minutes run. The huge raging magical plateau is also the Empire, sending their carrion army with attack dogs to have a slaughter on an ancient well of hatred. And the Druj took the mithril mine last year. So yes, please go and stage there next, I'm fairly sure Kaliact would love some smart company. Getting a Salt Lord on side would help with Dubhtraig, too.

"Well.  It seems that the presence with the aura of hatred and despair is the Druj, as of circa a year ago.  Or so it's claimed to be, by someone who I have reason to believe is being truthful, though it's hardly like I've yet confirmed that with my eyes."

Then Spiral's our next stop.  I've means of fast travel; we'll head out after opening diplomatic channels-inpotentia with the Empire.

"I expect to have done that soon enough, though, that it's likely worth talking to your boss's boss's boss's boss about whatever the hell that giant magical eyesore is over thataways," she points right at the said eyesore, "and whether efforts of the Empire there are actually the most effective use of their limited resources, especially of the human kind.  I really hate pointless death.  I hate pointful death, even, but sometimes you do end up in the sort of horribly contrived situations philosophers debate about despite - best efforts otherwise.  There some way to get in touch with that person?"

"There's a truce with the Grendel and the armies are mostly fighting the Druj and defending against the Jotun, but sure, go to Anvil if you prefer talking people to death."

"Can't do that and be in the right headspace to prosecute a war, and the war's more pressing on account of people are dying right fucking now; I was thinking more like sending them a letter.  With an artifact or two so they can send one back a lot faster."

"If you'll know where you'll be, they can send you a Winged Messenger, just stick your name and address in a letter and drop it off with a Striding. We're kind of too busy to play postman for you, but there'll be a load going through the Kharaman/Segura border. Or if you send one of your metal spiders to Anvil with it, they'll be all over that."

"Yeah, if I knew where any of those places were I'd probably have already done that.  But I don't have --"  She stops midsentence, and an expression that's so clearly d'oh passes over her face as she buries her head in her hands.  "Why am I in charge of this, past me, that's bad planning, you know how we get - but someone else would have gotten it wrong, huh?  Maps."

...She checks whether she actually does have maps with any of those names on them yet!

If the drones have been assiduously scanning everything they've probably run across at least one nice big decorative wall hanging of this map somewhere along the way, it seems to be quite popular.

Maria looks at her scornfully. "You're the only one who can be in charge of yourself," she replies. "Please do run along and kick in some Druj, they're not exactly my problem but I've never heard anything good about them."

"Sure, but I'm not as good at everything as I'd like to be and in theory I could have trusted the tools I wield to other hands, y'know?  I'm in charge of myself, sure, but am I doing the right thing with the power and knowledge I have, that's the question.  Don't really think there's an ultimate answer, in the end, except knowing that I've tried."

Wow.  That declamation looked exhausting.

"Y'all don't try and blow up the place while I'm out kicking the Druj out of Spiral, alright?"

And that's probably all she has left to say, she thinks.

"No promises. But... Vengeance is also a false virtue. We're not the Faraden either."

"'s all I can ask.  Probably wouldn't take anyway, if you did; I know a lot of explosives, which means the disaster prep routine does too, which means no boom.  Unless something needs to go boom, in which case there's a measured amount of boom under known and controlled circumstances.  See you around ever, maybe; here's my comm handle, here's a comm, this icon has the help menu if you need it, you did a brave thing today and should be proud for doing it even if it turned out to just be talking to a very tired woman flying by the seat of her pants through an uplift scenario of very uncertain political reality instead of - risking your continued happiness to only buy time."

And then she's back outside, back in armor, heading towards Keth.  Think I might take a fucking nap while we travel, the adrenaline's wearing off.  Any particular thoughts for now?

And yes, she will send some drones Anvil-wards, establishing lines of communication as they go.  Shouldn't be that many pylons to ensure that even under antimagic the lines will still run; they're pretty tiny things, actually.  The manufacturing facilities are bigger, but she has a few going up - or down - or for that matter sideways - already; she won't need to arrange more unless she's invited to.  It's all in the algorithms.  They're pretty good algorithms, and rather conservative ones, too.  Means they won't mess up.

Speaking of which, anything those algorithms have choked on at all, that needs her personal attention?

Maria catches the comm, looks conflicted for a second - considering whether to throw it back - then runs off.

No, I think this will be - no I shouldn't impose further on her goodwill, it will be fine - one of those things that's better to take as it comes. Oh, Rahab does know the meaning of Fidelity but he's still kind of mad at the humans so it's probably best to read over what he's got carefully before we head out.

Keth is very much Not Even Slightly Okay with the idea of leaving the rest of the orcs and flying off with a single other possibly-human-definitely-not-orc, especially if her sole company won't even be awake for the journey, but she is doing her level best to pretend that she does not have instincts that make this a cripplingly terrifying prospect because she really wants to be where the action is and have a chance to really make her mark on the world, and is also quite concerned that the visitor will leave her behind if she's too inconvenient.

The algorithms report that one of her manufacturing facilities has come down with a bad case of supernatural accelerated rot and vines, and enterprising individuals in the territory over the large bridge on the next major river mouth, which seems to be more heavily urbanised, have discovered one of the pylons and are enthusiastically studying both it and a drone that they broke with some kind of magical effect when it came to investigate, but neither of these are things that the algorithms can't route around.

...Supernatural accelerated rot just gets pretty much noped by material properties, honestly, not to mention protective wards, but that's odd that it's happening in the first place.  Doot de doo, more in-depth review...  She can autopilot back to Lord Rahab to make sure that the contracts are as agreed while she's mostly focused on what and why the fuck is going on; she's been very careful to not do anything that'd mess with the environment or piss off faerie, y'know?

...I can tell you're terrified, Keth, so...what is it?  I probably won't actually sleep; there's too much to do.  I was just grumbling.  And emotionally exhausted.  But not physically, nor mentally, in any way that matters; I'm still good to operate motor vehicles.  Not that I should need to, there's autopilots for a reason and it's because humanoids generally suck at driving, but still.  Shouldn't take more than a couple hours, I think, to get where we're going.  Depending on the actual scale of things, which, estimating from the charts... She pokes at maps!  Once again!  Please tell her the captain's cartography was to-scale.  That big map's obviously artistic.

As for the people studying the pylons, they get a "Please do not break the drones, thank you!  Your zeal for learning is appreciated but that's very rude!" from a bigger (and probably scarier, because if they try to break it the spells just fizzle out) droid with a sword-and-shield logo, that hands out informative pamphlets on how they can learn how these things work!

This is the kind of supernaturally accelerated rot and vine growth that comes from the nearby Realm aligned with magically tearing down all works of civilisation, it works on impenetrable white granite fortifications which will otherwise stand forever, and warding against local magic... is not working super well? Like, the wards and advanced materials science can fight it to a standstill by repairing the effects, but the effects are definitely happening regardless - that seems to be a fundamental local property of magic. Diagnostics reveal that the source of the effect is that a dozen Freeborn-looking humans holding small crystal power sources (expended during the casting) chanted for a couple of minutes to essentially open a small portal to said Realm around the manufactory and let the hungry vines and so forth through, and then ran away.

Similarly, the magical swipe looks like it could have knocked some bits off the bigger scarier drone if it hadn't dodged out of the way just in time, although it would have survived the experience; dropping the pamphlets on them from range works just fine and seems to suitably distract them from having another go - their breaking-things magic appears to be only deployable through actually hitting things with a stick they're directly holding, rather than something they can deploy at range.

The charts are meticulously to scale but don't contain Anvil; they contain a range of Imperial ports along the very detailed coastline - Oran here facing Siroc, then Quzar, Trivento (closest to the troublemakers with the drone), Caricomare, Glass Point, Crown's Quay, Elos facing Necropolis across the mouth of the River Couros (Necropolis is marked as being entirely surrounded by imposing cliffs), Visten and Apulus. Unfortunately missing from the charts is any mention of what territory or nation any of these is in, other than the Empire in general.

Meanwhile, Keth decides to confess what the problem is:

Could I bring an aide or two with me? I promise I'll pick some that won't make any trouble. I'm afraid orcs have this inconvenient thing about being alone...

Goodness sakes, that's...I'm sorry; I wish I'd known beforehand, of course you can bring aides, especially if they're necessary for your health.  I'd prefer you prioritize your wellbeing over your convenience-to-me, Keth.

...And huh, that's a warm soft compassion-feeling hug enfolding her soul, there.

...I should have asked before I did that.  Sorry.  Shouldn't...mess up anything, at least.

The wardroid has much better defenses and faster motivators than the civic droid; the magic breaks against an infinitesimal shield, if it even hits.

The factory, meanwhile, starts unpicking that magic the hard way, while Questions Are Asked of the perpetrators.  (And where'd those drones even come from?)  "Excuse me, but might I ask the reason for this assault?  That construction is meant for the civic good of all peoples who wish it; it is capable of war, as most tools are, but intended for protective and constructive use not just for, but by, the people of this land."

As for the map...Well, if you project the artistic coastline onto the actual coastline, you might be able to find Anvil from the sky.  And it's not like she doesn't have approximately a dozen ways of getting something high up enough that it can look.

Keth is really quite confused about the.. peace aura?... but it goes away quickly enough, and she picks out a couple of slightly less fancily dressed Grendel who appear to be surprised but happy to be chosen. "This is Calak and Mhendi, both of them have shown adaptability and problem solving skills in the past, so I hope they'll be a useful addition. Calak is a sky mage and Mhendi can do advanced sand magic, which might be useful, especially if you need to leave us somewhere - if you can tell us where you might be, we can address a Winged Messenger to Myra at a specific location, and it'll be with you shortly if you visit that place."

Calak has a magic-looking staff like the one that was used to knock out the civic droid, and some mildly magical decorative armour pieces that are projecting a kind of weak force shield over him, as well as a satchel full of herbs and salves. Mhendi takes a number of magical crystals and bottles of magical dye out of a supply cache and distributes them into her pockets and pouches.

The rounded-up ritualists attempt to defend themselves and/or go to ground a bit, realise it's hopeless, and start loudly singing Firebird's Child - they appear to be assuming that the drones are about to kill them if they can't get answers, have used up all the resources they had on hand and don't want to lead the drones back to their mana sites where they might get more.

The artistic coastline is a surprisingly good match for the actual coastline; Anvil looks to be a fair way inland, but there's a road - not quite as nice as the white stone roads visible elsewhere, but clearly maintained - from Crown's Quay that extends in approximately the right sort of direction. Apulus is right over in Spiral; the charts there feature a lot of recently-added looking warnings about sunken ruins and anchoring well off shore.

"That sounds quite alright, I don't expect it should come up but I do want to talk shop so - oh what is it now - excuse me a moment -" (She's still standing there.)

"...No, they're not going to kill you, the whole point is that I prefer people not dying, for fuck's sake!" comes the exasperated voice of a wizard over the said drones.  (And out through the helmet, for that matter, though quietly because it wasn't intended to.)

If that doesn't take, a sleepy purple mist happens to them (or the same thing in dart form), and they wake up a little while later, bereft of magical items but otherwise generally unrestrained and in a comfortable setting, as best as she can manage to gather of their preferences.  (She thinks 'druid-circle #4' is probably a good starting point; smooth stone, water features, skylights, there's also some fruiting plants.)  There's no visible exit, but they have individual rooms and common spaces and doors.  "No suicide-songs, please; I'll sedate you again if I must but I really don't want to.  I genuinely mean you no harm, and if you'd please tell me why the fuck, I could plausibly resolve your issues.  I'm not paying personal attention to this place right now because I'm a bit busy with trying to take down the source of the huge fear and despair aura that I sure hope you've heard of over in Spiral, but press the green glowy button if you want to talk to me for any reason whatsoever, even if it's just to call me a bitch, and I'll make time to listen to what you have to say.  Please believe me when I say I give a damn about y'all.  That's the whole point of why I started doing all the crazy things I do to begin with, and it's carried me to the point that I'm about to pick a fight with an entire nation-state because it's awful.  I want to help.  Please help me help you.  Or just tell me to fuck off, that's fine too, but please actually talk.  I can't listen if you refuse to tell me anything."

Back in the present, Myra sighs.  "Well.  Sorry about that, I think someone tried to blow themselves up on me rather than talk about their issues, and I was not just going to let that happen; death, generally, sucks.  Where was I.  Mhendi, Calak, a pleasure to meet you; I hope we can work well together.  I'm going to have so many questions, but I want to make clear now that you're not at all obliged to answer them if you'd rather not do that, I just like learning about, and more generally learning, magic and I don't believe I've worked with anyone who does those styles of magic before."

The aerial scout drone's report on the bearing of Anvil gives the system a direction to work in, so it'll work in that direction, following along the existing roads.  Which...seem to be interesting, magically speaking?  That's cool.  Indestructible roads.

The ritualists require a few more doses of sedative gas before they get the message and stop trying to kill themselves and/or each other in various ways (and/or singing in a mildly ominous fashion). They methodically search for exits. Nobody presses a green button yet, although some of them start having arguments about doing so. Apparently talking is what the Grendel always want to do and it never ends well for anyone.

"I'm sure we're all very happy to share whatever would be useful to you," says Keth; this appears to be her giving implicit permission to the others, although they just nod agreeably for now.

There's a lovely indestructible road that starts at Siroc, the extremely colourful major city just across the inlet, and heads down the coast and across that rather impressive large bridge, through a town at the other end; the drone takes a right and passes over an elaborately carved gateway surmounted by crossed butchers' cleavers, into an actually quite impressive sprawling city which is lavishly decorated, in a slightly less anarchic style than Siroc; and then heads on through the countryside, while the architecture of the occasional villages and inns gets suddenly less elaborate and more stern and solid.

It overflies a fairly major crossroads with a compact but extremely sturdy town also featuring a lot of the indestructible stonework, and following the main road out of that meets the odd looking ring of hostelries and offices that encircle a set of empty fields, in the middle of which is one very ramshackle looking tavern, one roofless wooden floored quadrangle building with a couple of other small rooms, and offset a bit from these, an intensely magical stone circle and a free-standing stone gateway inscribed with an awful lot of mystic constellations, surmounted by - uh, it's probably not the Flying Spaghetti Monster...

There...are presently no exits!

There will probably not be any exits anytime soon!

There is a different colored button with a sign that says "entertainment and food requests"?

The drone can respect boundaries, and when it queues up a diplomatic facility, pending approval by whomever does that (because this is definitely Anvil, Myra's pretty convinced) it does not plan it inside the circle!  ...The stone arch has Myra giving it a through-the-camera side-eye, when it's in view.

Anyway, there's more immediate concerns.  "Seriously, you don't have to.  And you can and probably should ask me questions in turn, especially if your other option is trying to Detect Magic my stuff; the last guy to try it was glad there was a healer on hand.  I think he tried to look at too much of this all at once, but I can't rule out that it's just the everything of it all that did it."  What did happen to him?

(Myra, with Keth's aides picked out, and hopefully the legal code settled, has been making her way out to a factory, where their chariot awaits them.  Eventually, at least.  She's not as good at walking and multitasking as she'd like.)

There are some individuals in purple sashes with horse-head livery, with matching silver horse necklaces, who are watching the Anvil drone cautiously; if it pauses for long enough, one of them will attempt to shout a greeting.

The stone arch gives the distinct impression that it is looking back and does not particularly approve of what it sees, especially because it might be about to be studied, it really hates it when people study it.

The stunned Freeborn was treated with some kind of smelling salts and a rousing chorus of some kind of local song, and as they started singing along they visibly improved until they appeared completely fine again within a couple of minutes. The process didn't seem quite as 'magical' as the original spell (or the factory-destroying ritual), it seems to hook into some kind of cultural thing they have going on.

Rahab had attempted to play fast and loose with the drafting a little bit, mostly around extensive powers of law enforcement giving his orc patrols the right to kill people and order them to do things without much oversight, but is happy to 'clear up' the 'misunderstandings' when called on them.

"Are you summoning the flying metal creatures from the Autumn realm?" asks Mhendi. "I'd assumed you were from Irrah Harah given the emphasis on freeing slaves, but, uh, none of the..." she waves her hands vaguely, "aesthetic is Spring?"

"Not to my knowledge, no; they're technically not even sentient so much as really advanced machinery that can follow really complex rules and do math, but not improvise in the absence of direction.  I conjure them from parts, and metal's got durability going for it, especially in the absence of protective magic, which is something I've had to deal with often enough."

Nice try, Lord Rahab, but she has years of reading website terms of service (and also deploring laws used to harm especially minorities) on you.  You'll take your peace and prosperity and like it.  Did you think she wasn't going to check on every single instance of 'kill' in the document?  That her scrying powers somehow did not extend to text search?  Because she can and will, and about the only acceptable context is 'thou shalt not, save in immediate defense of life', and law enforcement gets held to a higher standard on that if she has anything to say on the matter.

(Similarly, she's pretty good at finding compulsion under color of law and Looking at Rahab, Very Disappointedly.  She expected this, but she had hoped better.)

...Well, if the stone arch does not like to be studied, would it like to be friends?  She's made weirder friends!  And also doesn't study anything capable of expressing a coherent opinion thereupon without its consent, y'know?  Though she's admittedly really curious about what is all this magic doing there's so much of it.  Something to do with stars?  Ooh, does the gate know if the stars here are also plasma-hot balls of hydrogen undergoing nuclear fusion that might have other planets around them?  Would it like to, if it doesn't?  She can probably arrange to check!

Oh!  There's more people!  "Hi!  This is Anvil, right?  Do you know who I should talk to about arranging for an embassy, because once the news from Feroz gets here, I'll need one!"

"Plenty of Autumn heralds are basically complex machinery," replies Mhendi. "If they're not from the Realms, where's the metal coming from? And you, I suppose, for that matter?" 

The other two orcs seem to be carefully observing the reaction to Mhendi's audacity in actually taking the stranger's statements at face value and asking questions freely; Mhendi is a little frightened but determined to prove herself by being daring enough to keep asking things, also she's genuinely extremely curious about the weird magic happening here, she thought she knew a lot about magic and really wants to know everything.

Rahab didn't exactly use the word 'kill', he's not an amateur, but there was a lot of indemnity for unfortunate happenings and so on going on. He doesn't seem to be at all affected by the Disappointed Look, there was a battle of wits and he didn't quite get everything he wanted but things are good enough he's happy anyway, it would just be practically impolite by his standards not to push as much as possible and see what he could get away with.

The stone arch isn't quite a person and isn't inclined to chat, but it does have a perfectly good magical interface for providing information on conjunctions, which are the things it actually cares about; this interface is distinctly touch range only, though, and you have to guess the location before it will tell the user anything.

"This is Anvil," confirms one of the Anvil officials, very calmly, if with an undertone of long-suffering weariness. "Arranging an embassy is a Senate matter - if you would like to come and make your case to the Imperial Consul, they are best placed to assist you. May I ask who we're addressing?"

"I'm from a very, very long way away from here, along directions of travel that I don't know if anyone has proper words for.  Even the speculative fiction authors, really.  The metal is - well, saying it's magic is just bloody obvious, but honestly I'm not actually sure how much of an answer I have other than 'You shape the magic this way and it does that thing'?  I've always been a bit more focused on picking up practice than theory; comes with the adventuring, I guess.  You'd want to ask the woman who taught me these runes if she knows, though I doubt she knows more than I do.  Her homeworld, where she learned, was about at the same general level-of-understanding as here, and she was dragged into adventuring with her knowledge pretty immediately.  Then there were asshole gods, and that's not even getting into what happened after that tale ended, but a lot's not my story to tell."

Oh, well, that's just politics, then.  She doesn't like it, but it's the price of admission.

Conjunctions, huh?  She's not going to start actually poking the interface until she's not flying by the seat of her pants to build relevance on a 4X scale, but maybe she'll poke that herself later.

"You're speaking to -" a pause - "Administrator Myra, and you're doing so through a remote interface, by the way.  Or at least that's a name and title I'm comfortable claiming at the moment.  Really, though, just call me Myra, it's not like I'm being official-official right now.  I wasn't exactly expecting to get involved in geopolitics this week, or even this month, I'm just an adventuring magic-and-mechanics engineer with a horribly overgrown sense of personal responsibility and a store of parts that's approximately the size of yes."  Perhaps he recognizes a kinswoman in the long-tired suffering department.  Perhaps he feels less tired after Myra subconsciously offers healing.  "Missed the metaphorical left turn at Albuquerque, ran into slavers doing the slaving thing, you can't just leave that, one thing leads to another and now I'm expecting to find myself making noticeable progress on kicking Druj forces out of Spiral by this time next week because I have an amount of magic-industrial leverage that terrifies me and the desire be helpful.  And honestly half the time of that estimate is room for unknown unknowns.  Sorry for ruining your day, I'm sure it was pleasantly boring and now you have to deal with all this.  Could you point me in the direction of the Consul?  I'd greatly appreciate that.  And I have been remiss in not asking your names and preferred forms of address, do please excuse my faux-pas."

"Oh, interesting. We have a set of runes, the Empire uses them more than we do, but they're pretty universally magical so they do get around. Generally they have much more subtle effects, like strengthening a lockbox or keeping water fresh. There's a rumour they come from some kind of extinct former civilisation.

And actual gods? Some Grendel believe in various gods, but personally I've never seen any evidence of anything beyond a strong case of wishful thinking or a meddling Eternal," replies Mhendi. Whilst she started the conversation to attempt to be impressive and check the thing about asking questions, actually she's becoming just very happy to get to talk shop with someone who doesn't seem to be trying to get something out of her for it.

Meanwhile in Anvil, the official is doing a very good unflappable act over his 'oh no not another powerful magical entity that needs to be appeased' actual train of thought.

"Siward Rurikson, of the Imperial Civil Service, male pronouns, please just call me Siward. Usually we'd schedule you for a time at the next gathering at Anvil, next one is the Autumn Equinox in a few weeks. If it's more urgent than that we can send a Winged Messenger on your behalf, but generally I wouldn't expect the Consul to do much about it until the gathering in any case.

Are we about to have a problem in Feroz, or Spiral, or with the Grendel? It would be nice to know if we should be redirecting the Imperial prognosticators."

"Yeah, those ones were more the meddling Eternal type, and they were, from personal observation, all assholes, but I've seen plenty of things-that-meet-most-definitions-of-god out there."  She gestures...around, really, rather than in any particular direction.  "Huh.  Wonder if my runes match your runes?"

"I'm hoping you'll have solutions with them, rather, but I sure wouldn't mind actual precognitives double-checking, if there's nothing in particular demanding their time right now.  ...If you're doing statistics, I probably have better data.  Regardless, contributing what I can to their work is, I imagine, a boon to the world entire, especially on the subject of natural disasters, which I have mostly robust models for, modulo specific magic effects.  ...Autumn equinox.  Huh, that'd work.  I'll try to have the Druj out of Spiral by then.  Anyway honestly I just want to make sure I'm not going to be pissing anybody off overmuch if I set up a way for interested parties to contact me reasonably privately somewhere around here.  Presumably not inside the conspicuously empty circle?  ...You can relax, I'm not gonna bite anybody just because.  Honestly, even if they start it I doubt I'll do anything absurd.  Just put them in time-out until they're willing to stop being an asshole.  ...Speaking of which, d'you have any way of knowing if these ones are yours?  They tried to sabotage me, and I'd rather be working with them."  Image of the saboteurs!  (In their reasonably-comfortable confinement area!)

Meanwhile, Myra has led the party out to...what's probably a floating carriage even though it's more triangle-shaped than otherwise; its undercarriage is sky-blue, its top is ocean-colored, and it has some sort of (metal) wings.  "Any of you scared of heights, by the way?"

Mhendi pulls a small notebook and pencil from a pocket and starts going through the Runes and how they are used for minor everyday magic in the Empire and beyond; the Grendel have adopted using Verys and Diras on important locked boxes to strengthen them against theft, and she has a waterskin marked with Cavul.

(She is a little embarrassed about the waterskin in retrospect as she has clearly stolen - well, 'confiscated' - it from a Freeborn and she's worried Myra will magically notice this somehow.)

"We're all good," Kesh asserts, regarding heights. Calak is maybe not entirely sure this is the case, but maybe if this contraption doesn't sway as much as a tall boat mast it will be fine?

"The Imperial Prognosticators do Day magic mostly, a little Night but it's usually less useful, and check the Gate for relevant conjunctions, which is much easier with notice of areas that are likely to be of interest.

I think most of the 'natural' disasters we encounter are at least slightly magical in nature - the last major one was the drought, and the floods that resulted from the... Enthusiastic efforts of Imperial magicians to counter it.

If you'd just like a point of contact rather than a formal Embassy, I'm happy to take Winged Messengers for you and keep the letters at the offices here, or if you want somewhere people can walk in, you're probably best off asking around the local inns for a long term room lease?

Land is a bit at a premium right here, the surroundings of Anvil are all held by Chapters who either have already sold rights to wayhouses or are very Proud of their ancient sheep farming traditions and so on, but someone might be willing to negotiate for the right price."

Rurikson peers at the illusion skeptically.

"I'm neither a magistrate or their egregore, but I should warn you that imprisoning Imperial citizens is considered a serious crime and if they have committed crimes against you, you should report them to the local militia or a magistrate directly - it's reasonable to hold them for a short period to prevent further harm before the proper legal authorities can arrive, so nobody will hold it against you for now. Would you like me to fetch a magistrate?"

"Oh, this is interesting.  Especially the differences in - your runes don't quite seem to care about the style of their inscription, as you've described them, while mine care enough that I can scribe water and get steam with the right stylistic filter applied, but yours have the interesting elemental correspondences going...I wonder what happens if I do the same overcharging that lets me do proper spellwork with these, with those..."

Myra seems to have not noticed the source of the waterskin - she's pretty good with awareness of the present, but not so much awareness of the distant past.

Or the immediate past if she didn't have a recording of it handy, in this case.

The contraption basically doesn't sway at all as it ascends to a good short-hop flying height, though it does pitch a bit.  Myra fusses over the controls at the front of the vehicle for a little bit and then turns her seat around to face the others.  "Well, we'll be maybe an hour or two to Spiral, plus finding somewhere to land.  What should I be looking out for?"

"The problem with reporting them to an Imperial magistrate is that I am given to understand that they did not commission their crime in Imperial jurisdiction, unless there's terms in the treaty ceding Feroz that I'm unaware of - I know it exists, but I haven't yet familiarized myself with the text thereof.  I'm fairly certain that I have not accidentally wandered a high-level building project across the border, though, and they summoned some sort of Dhar-Ghyran - excuse me, wrong metaphor.  Presumably Spring-related, judging by the all-consuming plants, or, well, its precise origin doesn't exactly matter - they summoned a portal to wherever, right in the middle of said building project.  They're only being contained until they promise to not do that again, as far as I'm concerned.  Leaving aside that I probably am significantly the local authority, nevermind that there's a Duke.  Still, I imagine that they'll pull their heads out of their asses faster if it's a magistrate yelling at them, instead of me."

...Egregores?  Oh boy.  Well, she's glad she's heard that word before, even if she's a little bit spooked by the concept.

"Well, if there's another drought, I can offer anti-flooding coordination.  And possibly spot it coming, if I get good climate data..."

"I think style does matter in some applications, but I'm not exactly a rune caster, I just have a general interest in all forms of magic," Mhendi replies. "Orientation definitely does matter, size matters a bit for some applications, repetition can be useful."

Calak is feeling distinctly seasick, although he's trying to put a brave face on it.

"I'm not entirely sure; the coastline is a hopeless swamp, which has rather impeded good communications," replies Keth.

"Absolutely do not go anywhere near the large obsidian plateau," Calak contributes. "We have no idea how far the effect extends upwards; I cannot guarantee we won't all vigorously attempt to kill each other if you get into its direct range."

"There should be a gigantic mithril block - just a big rectangular lump - somewhere reasonably obvious from above," suggests Mhendi. "That's the thing that they're using to counteract the Plateau's effects, so it should be the safest thing to land near, although people might be a little excitable at the approach. I have enough supplies on me to send a Winged Messenger ahead, which might be prudent."

"That does sound quite complicated, I'm not sure anyone has any kind of legal standing; as far as we're concerned I think they are under Grendel jurisdiction. But I can acquire you a magistrate to make sure everything is appropriately complied with.

We did see the drought coming; in the end there was rather the opposite of a drought. Large changes like that are generally visible in the stars to those who read them."

Rurikson excuses himself and heads back into the building; a few minutes later he has brought out an older lady with a distinctly you're-probably-wasting-my-time expression.

"This is Magistrate Varka, she can confirm jurisdictional issues and take your report if it turns out there is a criminal case to be answered."

The magistrate looks at the drone in a severely unimpressed fashion.

"Large obsidian plateau bad, mithril block good.  Alright, then."  She turns to the controls again, and inputs some things.  "If I blow up the plateau a little bit, is that going to help any (good) and-or be destructive to a cultural heritage site (bad)?  I can probably just slam a fracturing effect into the damn thing, the principles are analogous to some of the battle-magic I've seen...Then - hmm.  Probably needs more direct analysis of what even the fuck it's doing, which I'll take a pass at when we get closer but would appreciate you telling me what you know of now.  Winged Messenger sounds good; how fast does it travel, though?  We're going pretty fast ourselves."  

Cahak feels the attention of a soft presence for a moment before his travel woes ebb.

"Hello, Magistrate Varka; my apologies for impinging upon your time, but" (illusion) "these gentlebeings recently decided to attempt to sabotage an industrial work of mine in Feroz, and I'm not yet aware of the - legal, geopolitical, diplomatic, et cetera, situation vis-a-vis potential Imperial nationals - they haven't actually spoken to that - committing crimes upon foreign soil; separately, even if they are held under the local crimimal code as very recently amended, I'm hoping you'd be willing to tell them that yes, actually, I hold no ill intent towards them, as they aren't listening when I tell them that."

"Physically destroying large magical terrain features," says Mhendi, wincing at the prospect, "generally just scatters whatever horrible magical effect you were trying to destroy across a wider area that is harder to target. Please do not explode the Black Plateau. That sounds like the exact opposite of what needs to happen to it."

"The known effects of the Plateau are mostly - increased bloodlust, increased aggression, across the entire territory but much worse on the thing itself. Soldiers that have never had a discipline problem start murdering each other over petty concerns or nothing at all; everyone is constantly on edge; the worst affected can start hallucinating. There is some kind of shielding on certain settlements, which is the only way anyone can really continue operating in the territory at all," explains Keth.

Calak looks relieved and also somewhat concerned. "Don't pick up anything made of obsidian," he contributes. "There are obsidian scraps - and weapons, arrowheads, anything you might use to kill someone - all over Spiral, and a significant source of casualties is some idiot picks one up and thinks it would make a nice keepsake. It's bad enough that it made the standing orders for units over the other side of the Bay entirely."

"They look like Freeborn; if they're still in Feroz, they're under Grendel jurisdiction and no longer meaningfully Imperial Citizens. Even if I was inclined to do so, how do you propose I address them from here?" Magistrate Varka is also clearly feeling quite judgemental towards any Freeborn who deliberately stayed in Feroz, which she suspects is the case with these miscreants.

"Oh, joy.  Spiral as in fucking tantrum spiral, I fucking guess.  -- Sorry, getting lost in my own head; I imagine that every fucking time that happens it ends in a bloodbath of aggrieved parties avenging themselves with bloody obsidian.

"I'll have to see if I can do anything about that short of some sort of mass dispellation, which I'm definitely going to start working on pretty much immediately; I can take a look at the local solutions and see if I see anything that can be generalized and expanded with outside-context tooling.  Bloody hell, I was not expecting SCP-Foundation-ass shit to be lurking 'round this particular corner, but that's adventuring for you.  Always full of surprises.  D'you have any idea why the giant obsidian plateau is also radiating violent intent?

"At least my gear's safe, especially if I operate mostly mechanically.  No minds to affect, yeah?  ...I hate mind-affecting effects.  ...Mostly.  Some don't suck, on occasion.  And like, consensual use is fine.  But most of the sort I run into aren't anywhere within that range.  Well, at least I have any procedures for solving this.  Does antimagic work on this thing?  I can at least make antimagic containers for storage.  ...Maybe if you melt it down and recast it into something else it will stop being violence, but I'm not hoping very far on that...There's gotta be some way, though, to actually clear it up without having a giant do-not-touch box.  Those end poorly."

"Well, I could patch you into the same line I use to talk to them, and pull the same trick I'm pulling here to project the local surroundings over there.  That might actually be convincing."

"When we first came to Spiral it was just mildly annoying, enough that we got bogged down and weren't making much progress," explains Kesh. "Then the Empire kindly did some kind of enormous ritual that more or less turned it off, which was maybe not the most tactically sound thing they've ever done, but was rather more pleasant for everyone involved.

Then, of course, once we'd consolidated some gains, the Varushkans showed up and massacred everyone they could find and fed them to their dogs and cursed ravens and so on, right on top of the bloody thing, pardon my Asavean. I wish I could swear they even did it on purpose, but the poor Urizeni seemed just as surprised as the rest of us.

And then everyone killed each other for a while until we dragged an enormous block of mithril out of the Ossuary and worked with the locals to at least protect everyone's actual homes from the effect; it's still a nightmare travelling anywhere, which I assume is why the Druj are now invading rather successfully."

"Huge block of mithril - or probably white granite or weirwood, the mithril was just handy - is basically the only way we know how to do antimagic at all, and it's more of a dampener than what you seem to be saying?" replies Mhendi. "We think that's why you can't affect the moon, it's probably made of white granite."

"I suspect you actually want the humans for trying to redirect the emotion," suggests Calak. "They stick emotional auras - Virtue auras, the Way followers call them - all over everything all the time; it isn't even only that liao is cheap, sometimes they just do it anyway even though they have nothing."

"I will just assume you said 'magic'. If you're expecting me to reassure them about their rights, I am not in a position to be particularly reassuring. I would expect that a circle of Freeborn hakima would simply assume anything that was sent to them via magic was entirely fake. On the upside, you have an entirely free hand to deal with them how you see fit, unless you particularly enjoy seeking the Grendel's approval." Magistrate Varka gives the drone an 'are-we-done-now' glare.

"Oh joy, more mass torture-slaughter people.  Ain't that just the cherry on top of this shit sundae.  On the plus side, it seems that what we're dealing with is just the magical equivalent of magnetizing iron.  Find the right counter-resonance and, poof."

"...Yeah I'm a bit better at actual countermagic than that.  Or rather a lot better.  A lot of the stuff I developed myself is magic that affects, replicates, alters, cancels...et cetera, other stuff, and it works mostly as well on magic as it does on any other force you'd care to name.  Not always perfectly, but I'm rarely unable to find something that'll stop a problem."

"Oh, come on, clerics of mind-affecting?  Why are there clerics of mind-affecting.  ...Because they can give relevant blessings, probably.  Okay.  I can deal with that.  I'll low-key hate dealing with it, because things poking around in my head that I did not expressly invite scares me, and, frankly, for good reason, but I can deal with it, especially since it's - emotions, and not any actual mind reading.  ...I don't really know much about liao, as it happens?"

(She pulls her goddess's mantle tight around her, for what reassurance it gives.  If anyone can actually perceive that, it looks like the same force that healed Calak's seasickness is wrapping her in a hug.)

"I do believe that's all I wish to ask of the Empire's law at this time.  No, I don't desire the Grendel's favor; I'm just invested in bribing them to stop being, societally speaking, assholes.  Especially the slavery.  I agree with the Empire on the 'slavery's bad' thing.  Again, my apologies for the disturbance; thank you for your time."

"Liao doesn't work on orcs, just makes us throw up," replies Calak, "but in humans it seems to - put them in a weird state of mind, that lets their emotions leave a lasting - thing - on things? Like, a person, or an object, or a place."

"I'm sure there's actual terminology somewhere, but because it doesn't work for us, most of what we know about it is just that if you don't want to wait out the season - or a full year on objects - you need to get a properly trained human and give them liao and they can wipe it off. They call the person one anointing, the place one consecration, and the object one hallow, that's useful for finding the right human," continues Keth.

"I hear it's possible for them to do it permanently, but that's much more like what the Druj can do with their extremely rare herbs, rather than just liao," contributes Mhendi. "That might be what you're going to need for the Black Plateau, though - unless you can line up a lot of humans, quantity seems to help too. Oh, and you're right, a Messenger might arrive before us but it might not; they can be extremely fast if they feel like it, but it can take up to three months in the worst case."

Magistrate Varka nods sharply and heads back into the building. Rurikson looks mildly apologetic. "I believe you wanted to set up a winged messenger address - if I could take a contact name, I can publicise that care of the Civil Service, unless you have an actual location you'd like it directed to? Did you also want to arrange a time to meet the Consul when Anvil is next in session?"

"...Winged Messenger wait times sound like a massive pain, especially if the factors that cause it are poorly understood.  And yes, I'll ask some humans about liao stuff and hopefully about whatever they did to the Black Plateau the first time.  ...Extremely rare herbs?  Well, I know how to grow plants at scale in all sorts of conditions, regardless of if I can, say, duplicate them..."

"I have many potential locations, but the question is whether - actually, hold that thought a moment, may as well ask a mage.  Though, speaking of mages, do you happen to know to whom I should direct enquiries about the ritual that shut down the Black Plateau, near Spiral?  And the...whatever the fuck it was, pardon my language, that managed to fire it up again."

"So how does addressing a Winged Messenger work, actually?  If I wanted to put up a mailbox, for instance."

"...Also, what happens with non-Plateau obsidian in the Plateau's AoE?  Excuse me.  Area of effect."

"If anyone can duplicate the Black Lotus," replies Calak, suddenly much more deadly serious than conversational, "they will be extremely popular. I've only heard tales, but it's meant to be able to unlock our potential to channel the ancestors - not just hear them, but - embody them, have direct audiences with them, let them affect the world directly through us."

"Winged Messenger goes to a person at a place. Needs to be smaller than an entire territory, the closer you can get it, the faster and more reliable it will get delivered - usually. Needs to be a fixed place, usually - you can't send one to a ship in transit, it just won't go," replies Mhendi about Winged Messenger technicalities.

"Standing orders are that all obsidian that might have come from the Empire is to be treated as if it might be Plateau tainted; that might just be an abundance of caution," explains Calak.

"That sounds like a question for an Archmage - probably Night, Night's an Urizeni at the moment and Day is an orc. You'll want to direct queries - or yelling, I hear yelling is quite popular, although obviously as a civil servant I am avowedly neutral on the matter - about the resurgence to the General of the Iron Helms. I can invite both of them to your Consul session if you'd like me to set that up, although there's no guarantee they'll attend; I'll try to avoid it clashing with Conclave or Military Council, that will probably make it the Saturday afternoon."

"We'll see, if I can ever see a sample.  I can't make promises, though.  It tends to not take as well with especially legendary items, or things that're extraordinarily potent in and of themselves, but this is striking me as significantly a production problem rather than necessarily anything about narrative weight, so it could go either way.  I do expect to be able to at least replicate its growing conditions in miniature, whatever they are."

"...Does the intensity of the aggravation aura scale with the size of the obsidian, or merely the size of said aura, if you know?  I imagine not, but I had a thought about seeing if it's metaphysical magnetisn or the law of sympathy that causes the thing.  And I don't actually want to do it if it's likely to cause havoc by being in my proximity.  I have a lot of ways to make things go boom.  ...Oh, hells, that's not a good thought at all.  Right.  Okay.  Lock on the fucking evil aggro rock, search similar signatures, mandate second strikes only and nonlethal below the threshold for mass casualty situations while command's even plausibly in range...I mean, I'm getting the impression that it's more a berserker situation, but an even slightly intelligent me that's trying to kill people has.  Lots of very horrible options."

"I'd be just as happy with directions to their offices, really.  I'm sure I'm interesting enough to get a meeting, if I know anything about wizards.  Preferably with the one you recommended, though, if they'd know things.  Are they the Archmagi of a particular organization, or of the Empire?  And on the messenger business, I think a mailing address care of the Civil Service is my best option at the moment; I expect to be substantially living in motion for a while.  I'll send you a scanner so that anything that reaches you can reach me, or at least my inbox, if that's alright."

"The only people we are fairly confident have successfully cultivated it in living memory - are the Druj. So perhaps we'll find a sample, if we can move quickly enough they don't destroy it all out of spite," contributes Kesh.

"Not an expert on the Plateau," replies Mhendi cautiously, "but generally size goes by size and intensity goes by power - deliberate investment - so extrapolating, chips off the plateau would have more local effects but similar intensity."

There are quite a lot of little shards of malevolence out there, although none very nearby. Highest concentration in Urizen, but some have inevitably made it back to the Broken Shore as well as all around the Empire, throughout Druj lands and up into Thule lands to the north. Most common is crude arrowheads, followed by various weaponry of varying degrees of improvisation, followed by deliberately hewn chunks of obsidian. Some are scattered around unattended, some are in various collections, some are being inadvisably carried by people or worn on necklaces, one rather notable set of arrowheads has been woven into a ceremonial mantle in Druj lands which appears to be for dropping on captives to drive them to violence towards their fellow captives...

"I'm afraid they don't have well-defined offices outside of Anvil sessions," explains Rurikson. "It's quite hard to locate Urizeni between gatherings at the moment, many of them spend their time attempting to rescue things and people from their occupied territories, especially if they have Night magic and can help with stealth operations. The Iron Helms are on campaign in the Barrens, they might be possible to locate although I expect their general might be quite busy. Kimus only knows where the Consul might be hiding. Archmage is an Imperial title, yes. We'll be happy to accommodate a scanner - what are their hospitality requirements?"

"I'm good at that sort of thing, given any amount of time to prepare the ambush, and especially with my ability to gather intelligence.  That said, I'm not omnipotent, just powerful differently than you.  Most of what I do?  It's all very concrete magic.  Conceptual effects...I've ever worked with or against them, but it's not exactly my field; I'm heavily specialized in the intersection between magic and engineering.  So if there's anything like that going on, I'd have some trouble with it.  Especially if...well, okay, somehow I doubt they're using a conceptual forget-this over...whatever.  But I can't rule out that they'd salt their fields to spite me if they've some way of knowing that I'm coming.  So, d'you think they do?  Then again, they're not already panicking, so they don't yet..."

She can put an upper bound on her enemies' capabilities!  That is a wonderful thing!

"A scanner is a device, not a person.  ...unless you have that as a profession like computers, in which case mine's still a device; when it gets here in a few hours you should just tell the drone where's best to set up for you and it can handle the rest.  It'll be the one with an envelope insignia on it."

"I don't actually understand the distinction you're making?" asks Mhendi. "Do you mean the same kind of difference as between realm magic and - what the Imperials would call spiritual auras?"

"How is this flying machine against arrows and possibly ballista bolts?" asks Keth. "And lightning strikes for that matter, you may need to stay clear of the coastline as we approach... I'm sure it ought to be against the treaty for the Empire to keep calling up storms, but it's awfully hard to prove who did it."

"About how large is the... 'device'?" asks Rurikson cautiously. Maybe it's like a ushabti or something, that would make sense.

"The difference between magic that opens a door because it knows how to pick a lock and turn a handle, and magic that opens doors Because It Opens Doors."

"You could strike me with lightning and I'd most likely be fine; so will our ride.  Ballista bolts are only going to be a mild annoyance if they knock a flight control surface while there's no magic running, or if they do the thing where they just try to shear the plane in half.  She can handle some bullets.  ...And isn't actually a person; cultural habits die hard, apparently."

"About this big, placed flat, which is probably most convenient.  There will be different space requirements if it can't be magic-powered, though."  He gets a yay-by-yay-by-yay holographic block, demonstrating the process; the scanner pulls papers through, so really it's only notably big along one dimension.  (It can also handle scrolls.)  "Written material goes through the long end, gets scanned, ends up presumably in my inbox; I should probably also include something that'll open mail, for information security, unless Winged Messenger doesn't take envelopes or something.  ...Wouldn't be the strangest restriction I've seen."

"I think we just don't have the second kind," replies Mhendi. "Magic is all extremely well specified, I suppose it does have conceptual resonances but what it does with them is very well defined; alchemy feels a bit more opaque but I think I just don't understand it sufficiently, artisanry can be a bit arbitrary but generally has to work with the form of the item; I think the human aura thing taps into something from where their souls go, much like we orcs get much more personally from specific Ancestors.

I suppose the Plateau probably does have elements of hearth magic, which is much harder to pin down and does sometimes seem to actively resist study."

"If it's a ushabti, we don't have the ambient magic down here to animate them reliably," Rurikson informs the drone. "Winged Messenger generally doesn't come in envelopes, you have to prepare the paper with iridescent gloaming and preparing an envelope too would be wasteful; it does often come folded, sometimes elaborately so, and seals and ribbons often travel intact."

"...Huh.  If anything I'd say all your magic is the second kind, if your spells all do One Specific Unchangeable Thing That You Can't Use Off-Label.  I am the exact opposite of that, paradigmatically speaking, in that I do mostly the same things to everything."

"...oh, bloody hellfire, that's going to be annoying.  I walked into a place that had 'not wanting to be studied' as its - unique identifying trait - the one time and almost got concussed by an anvil.  I'll figure something out, though."

"...Right, lemme just..."  Thaumometer?  Yeah, there's not no magic.

"It should be fine, magicwise, I double-checked.  I'm just vaguely expecting you to not want strange magic near your stuff.  Not sure why ushabti aren't, but I haven't investigated one personally.  And if it's only going to be sealing wax and ribbons...Yeah, I can handle getting something to open those."

"It's a specific thing because it's based off the extensive specification provided when codifying the ritual, or putting together the arcane projection, or researching the spell - I think the difference might be, our magical effects have a natural scale?

So while you could make small effects, designed to add up to larger ones, they would be too inefficient to practically use - the specificity is because that's how you get the efficiency gains to make it actually usable.

Hearth magic does rather complicate things, yes. A good friend of mine said once that it would be really nice if theoretically random effects were actually random, apparently there's a lot of mathematics that would be much more useful that way, but on closer examination they are not."

Mhendi is so incredibly glad she was picked for this assignment, it might all end in flames but the sheer intellectual excitement might waft her across the Abyss even if she doesn't manage to convert it into riches.

"Does it radiate some kind of effect that we should be worried about? Should we avoid putting it in a room with people who prefer not to become lineaged?"

"Huh, that's really interesting; I've never noticed particular efficiencies or inefficiencies of scale on my magic, it just...scales.  I put 5 units of magic into a force spell, I get 5 units of force out.  I put ten in, I get ten out.  And so on and so forth.

"...I wonder if it's pseudorandomly generated, because if it's not true randomness, there must be an algorithm or set of factors determining how it falls...  Maybe I should wire - excuse me, mail - your math friend some of my cryptography books.  Not my field, but it's certainly an interesting puzzle."

The plane's been keeping to a reasonably slow pace, but soon they will be doing reconaissance over Spiral, she thinks.

"Not to my knowledge, though I'm not aware of the precise mechanism by which lineages develop in the first place so I can't guarantee that there's definitively no risk.  That said, it doesn't radiate anything that I know how to check."

"Oh, he was pretty sure it was deliberate agency directing what should be random - not, of course, one that could be pinned down on anything, but his theory is that something acts on the world to make - more interesting coincidences, less amenability to mechanical study?" suggests Mhendi.

Below them, a great river marks the border between orderly farmlands, heavy stone construction and clear roads, and a dense jungle with occasional mountains, pierced here and there by the pale towers of great and ancient buildings, greater mountains rising up beyond - this is Urizen, by the decorative map, with the river port of Cargo and the sea ports of Elos and Visten marked on the navigational map, and then the hazardous approach to Apulus marked with warnings for shifting mud-bars and tangling plants.

"That sounds reasonably safe for a magical contrivance," replies Rurikson. "It won't have a problem being in a room with other magical boons, will it?"

"Yeah, I figured that the meddling was ultimately agentic.  Wonder whose hands it's by."

And then...Urizen.  "...wow.  That's certainly a sight."

"I can't think of any reason that it would, offhand, save if those other magical contrivances are specifically trying to interfere with it."

"The Spires are quite impressive inside too, by all reports," replies Keth. "They don't build them themselves, mostly - although they do repair them, or sometimes build in imitation of them if they need to be based somewhere that doesn't have one - they're all left over from something else that used to live here - something larger than humans, we think, from the proportions of the construction."

"And in between it's all tigers and owlbears and other failed magical experiments that want to eat you," adds Calak.

Rurikson nods. "Did you want to book a time to be expected at the next gathering in Anvil, or will that be all for now?"

"I wonder."

"Ah.  Of course it's failed magical experiments, this is wizard country."  (Wizards!  No sense of right and wrong! goes the part of her brain that never stopped being a meme-loving gremlin.)  "...Huh, this is the second world ever that even has owlbears, what're they like 'round these parts?"

"I can fit in wherever's convenient, though I disprefer mornings.  Or - how do you mean?"

"Owlbears are - you know how bears, they're very tough and have enormous claws and could probably kill you very easily, but generally they're entirely chill and just want you to leave them alone? And you know how owls, they always look at you as if they are sizing you up and would absolutely hunt you if you were only a little smaller? Yeah. Normally it's owl head, giant bear claws, bipedal, but they vary," replies Calak.

There is no shortage of jungle along the coast, although it is cleared at a pass to display a lovely gleaming white fortress guarding the pass; beyond that point, the coastline begins to dissolve into swamp and the jungle is giving off a poorly defined sense of Something Is Very Wrong Here.

"Let's say 2pm on the Saturday in the Senate building? Is there anything you'd like us to say with the announcement - what name do you intend to go by, what polity are you claiming to represent if any, anyone you would particularly like to see other than the Consul and the Archmagi?"

"Yeah, that's an owlbear alright.  I am so glad I have sedatives.  And force spells."

...What the hell is that?

"...What's with the jungle?  It's - wrong."

...One problem at a time; what's their ETA to Spiral and the Black Plateau?  That one's more time-sensitive.  Creepy jungle you just stay out of, unless you need to do something to it.

"Administrator Myra Northwind, speaking for myself and my works as a state-level actor and effective head-of-state; I am available to answer questions about recent events involving anything with this sigil on it -" she projects the sigil "- and, if it has not been resolved by that point, soliciting and offering assistance in the matter of de-violence-magnetting the Black Plateau and, pardon my language, whatever other bullshit you've got, modulo appropriately-diplomatic phrasing.  I am also offering assistance with anti-Druj action, subject to conditions of 'not just slaughtering them all, they're still people even if the way their culture is presently shaped is an absolute travesty'.  I also wish to promulgate certain documents, including an open offer to assist in enhancing general quality-of-living standards - subject to certain commitments to preserving the dignity of all sapient peoples, exempli gratia not doing slavery - that the duchy of Feroz has already accepted."

Where the jungle starts going Wrong? That's the border of Spiral. The entirety of Spiral is Wrong.

The Black Plateau is - probably - nothing really wants to look at it, the unaided eye doesn't really want to look at it - but it's definitely a vast plateau of obsidian and it's just peeking out between those mountains with the ruined fortress on, pretty much dead centre of the territory.

"I imagine that's the influence of the Black Plateau," replies Mhendi. "I still recommend we stay well above until we've located the Block, although I'm not necessarily convinced the effect has a height limit; you may wish to skirt the border instead, I believe the Block is fairly near the border, about halfway up the territory from the coastline?"

Rurikson diligently takes notes. "Will there be anything else, or is that all?"

"...dear gods above and hells below, who came up with this shit?"

She shudders, and wraps her aura tight around herself.

"It's horrible.  I won't say I haven't seen worse, but most wasn't in person, and even less of that was crafted by mortal hands."

"I think that's all I have at the moment.  Is there anything you wish to bring up, while I'm paying particular attention to you here?"

"To be fair, I don't think the Black Plateau is all the Imperials' fault," replies Keth. "It's very likely another one of the things that was already there when they got there. It is their fault that it's no longer quiescent, though; they were the ones who quieted it in the first place, they must have known that staging a deliberately terrible slaughter, practically on top of it, would have had... consequences."

"As a Civil Servant, my oath bids me to be perfectly neutral in all political matters," explains Rurikson, "so no, there is nothing further from me. Good travels, and please do show up on time to Anvil, they do get awfully upset when such an interesting occasion must be cancelled."

"Mm.  Fair enough, that.  Still.  Why, after so much effort to do the exact opposite, would you ever do - this?  Not to mention the - attempted genocide as far as understand.  That's particularly awful.  Does the Empire truly have that little internal coordination to work at cross purposes with itself?"

"...I hope I can at least make it stop doing this thing, regardless of whether I can figure out the underlying mechanism of action and just break the effect entirely."

"Worst comes to worst, I'll call in; the only thing that'll stop that is getting in a fight, personally, which is...highly unlikely.  Oh, one more thing: Do you have the time?  I need to make sure my clock matches yours."

"Well, that's what you get when you try to run a democracy," replies Keth. "Their Senate changes every season; they have no internal discipline at all, can't keep a treaty to save their lives. Even when they actually sign something, there'll be hundreds of them queuing up to screw it up - they did it to the Jotun, they did it to us, they had to fight their own people to get them to stop squatting on lands they'd ceded to the Thule - they call us pirates, but they've had to station government observers on every single one of their trading fleets, just to stop them breaking every treaty they make by doing a bit of piracy on the side. It's a mess."

"I suspect," says Mhendi, "that the trick is, to give it something else to amplify? I'm not sure how that's going to work with the Druj in the territory, though. They are not exactly famous for listening to reason, or... embracing the positive emotions."

Rurikson pulls a large pocketwatch out of a pocket. It's a bit battered and oversized, but looks quite sturdy and well made. "Three twenty five pm" he declares. "Wouldn't want to trust it within the minute, but that should be enough to show up reasonably on time."

"Goooood grief.  I don't exactly think holding the Empire to blame for an action of a random citizen is, diplomatically speaking, particularly reasonable, but if that's how it is, I suppose that's how it is.  Especially if they make the people who run those fleets Imperial functionaries; that's just asking for trouble.  Really, I'm getting the impression that the Empire is several smaller nations in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a united polity.  I wouldn't want to leap to a hasty judgement, though; what I'm gathering of orc psychology suggests that you're hardly a monolith of coordinated collective action to the public benefit either, even if you've got less individuals doing random shit for unknown reasons.  And y'all do pirate, so far as I'm concerned, though I suppose it's more like privateering doing it with governmental sanction as you do."

"...Giving the Plateau something else to amplify, I can do, and if the Druj want to object to what I'll replace it with, well, they can register their objections in person, on-site."

She permits herself a tight grin, her expression fierce, before blinking, shaking her head, and sighing.

"I should not be excited about the prospect of that happening.  Damn aura.  ...Well, it's probably not the aura, but still.  It's not - good, to look forward to violence.  Even when you're pretty sure that everyone will come out fine, or even better off than they started, in the end.  It's just not right.  But I suppose I can hardly stop liking the idea of damn well dragging some very nasty people into the metaphorical Century of the Fruitbat, no matter their kicking and screaming.  ...Don't worry about that, it's a literary reference."

"Thank you!  See you around, Steward Rurikson; it's been a pleasure."

She hangs up.

(She also sets a reminder.)

"If we don't hold them accountable for individual raiders, they organise huge raids, like the one that burnt down half of Dubhtraig, and claim they were all acting independently," explains Keth. "They did it to Asavea just this season. We might not live up to your standards of 'to the public benefit', but at least we actually believe in keeping our word."

About halfway along the arbitrary geographical boundary (as traversed north from the coastline), which also appears to be a meaningful magical boundary that is keeping the Wrong firmly on the Spiral side, there is a major pass through the mountains - guarded on the Imperial side by a sprawling wooden fortress built around a central rune-carved stone pillar which has its own barely restrained magic.

On the Spiral side of that pass, there are some horrible broken ruins, then an area of jungle that doesn't look so much Wrong as utterly devastated - remaining plants are blackened and twisted, the whole thing just reeks of un-life - and in the middle of that area, there is a giant silvery metallic construction, a twisted blob of metal that strongly repels the Wrong; there are a few half-hearted wooden constructions at its base, but the un-life zone doesn't look like a very pleasant place to be, even though it is rejecting the Black Plateau's influence.

She lets out a low whistle.  "That's just rude, even though I could legitimately see it happening independent of government action if some sufficiently rich guy was sufficiently pissed off or immoral and profit-motivated.  At least raid the worst people first, come on.  But that's hardly immediately material."

"...Which way around does causation of the borders on the map and in the territory go, incidentally?  Can you change the borders in the world with the map?"

And how's her goddess's aura - the sliver wrapped around her like a mantle, rather than anything she actively invokes - holding up against both effects?

"Borders are a magical thing that exists; if anyone can change them, I don't know about it," replies Mhendi. "It's convenient to make them your map borders because then magical effects line up with what you're describing, and you can use the map for scrying. They do tend to follow useful natural boundaries, but not always; if you divert a river, the border doesn't go anywhere."

The effects are all pretty diffuse at this range; she's probably not going to have a problem even on the ground, here. Her companions might have more trouble, but unless they spend a lot of time there, it's not going to seriously get to them either.

"Good to know."

"Okay, so, I can buffer people from the ...everything... going on down there, and do more of that the more I focus on cleric-ing.  ...Excuse me.  Doing an analogue to the weird human emotion-power thing except with more intentionality behind the aura because there's an intent that the source of it has.

"D'you want to go for that, or see if you can stick it out first?"

"I am quite happy to be protected from the Plateau's influence if you're willing," replies Keth, and the other two nod in agreement. "And from that Winter regio," Mhendi adds. Calak makes an expressive face that indicates that he is also not the world's greatest fan of Winter regios.

Then they shall feel a comforting presence settle upon them, as (but not actually co-occurrent with) she passes out small silver icons depicting...a stylized hug?

"The symbols help me focus, but they're not exactly necessary per se; wear them or keep them or not, as you wish.  Should probably work to share them with others, as well, to pass on the blessing.  However, there is an entity with opinions about how to properly treat people backing this effect, so if someone's been a really horrible person, they might get a bit...well, I can call on her to attack, as well, though I don't.  But they'll live, unless they've, like...proactively precommitted to refusing all prosociality.  ...so, basically the Druj's boss figures, I suppose."

Keth looks a little worried about this statement - she has done a lot of things in her life which she suspects that Myra's 'entity' would not especially approve of - but she's committed now and she takes the object.

The other two seem much less worried about it - Mhendi doesn't really believe she's ever done anything wrong and Calak is pretty sure healing people is about as 'prosocial' as it gets, regardless of what those people were doing to get injured.

Silly Keth.  You recognize the harm you've done, and if properly supported, won't need to do it further; you want a good world.  You'll do just fine.  She believes in you.

The other two are actually a bit more questionable, and unlike Myra, the force behind this can peer into their memories.

Mhendi...Your empathy needs work, if you truly believe that there's nothing you've done wrong.  She'll show you some of the subtle things, some of your actions' consequences, and trust you to use that knowledge for everyone's benefit.

Calak...Sometimes it does matter, if you know what they'll do with their mended wounds.  But you're right that most of the time a life saved is an incalculable good.

Mhendi makes a bit of a disapproving face, and mostly just tries to brush off the effects; judgemental aura can be judgemental if it likes, as long as it does its job and she doesn't end up in some kind of stupid brawl or with her life drained away by Winter. 

Calak kind of agrees with the aura, but, y'know, what's one healer to do about it - hopefully it'll get better now, right?

Keth is suspicious of this assessment of herself, but is definitely happier moving forwards than looking back.

They will be safe from Winter's bite and the Black Plateau's painéd rage, and things will get better, now, especially with one of her favoriteed mortals working on fixing everyone's problems.

(Mhendi does get a Disapproving/Disappointed Eyebrow Raise, or equivalent, at trying to brush her lesson in consideration off, but she'll still receive protection.  It will just also include nagging moments of empathy.)

"We all ready to go down there...?"

"Yes," confirms Keth, "thank you for the anointing or whatever this is."

Mhendi and Calak also nod, although Mhendi still looks like she's swallowed a lemon or some kind of biting insect.

Someone is attempting to flash a light at them, probably in a communicative fashion, from high up on the non-Spiral-side border fortification. The guard post clinging to the Block doesn't seem to have spotted them yet.

"Anointing is certainly not a wrong word for it."

She flashes a light back at them, then spins up a comms-spell.  "Hello down there, who are you and who do you serve?"

"This is Willstone Citadel, warning, you are near the border, Spiral has a pervasive magical aura of Hatred and may cause unwanted hostility. Active conflict between Grendel and Druj, this is a dangerous region. More information is available, we are a defensive structure and welcome peaceful contact."

This appears to be some kind of military light code.

"Urizeni are always curious about everything," Keth offers. "That's their border fortification. I don't expect they'll be pleased to see us, but they'll be polite about it."

"We copy, Willstone Citadel.  If it wasn't dangerous I would be somewhere else.  Suppose I may as well drop in."

She closes the mic off for a second.  "Alright, Keth, you're in charge of making contact with the local Grendel forces, I'll leave you a telepresence projector if you need to get in touch and you do have the comms, the autopilot ought to see you down to the mithril block safely and if it doesn't, there's still manual assist.  And if that fails, somehow, just...think of it like driving a horse and throwing a javelin simultaneously."

Then she exits the vehicle.  In midair.

She rarely flies under her own power, but it's fun.

Keth is making such a facial expression about unpredictable superiors and their unrealistic expectations, but has it smoothed away by the time she turns round to the others, and they don't immediately start messing around with the controls.

Willstone Citadel has a number of small patrols of a dozen Sentinels - serious looking fighters in fancy looking metal armour with lots of unnecessary-seeming elegant folds in it - and a couple of them start to converge on locations that look like they might be where their mysterious flying guest will land. They move in well disciplined formation.

There are also a variety of people in robes pointing simple hand held spyglasses at Myra's approximate current location.

There is an obvious fortified gatehouse at ground level, the rest of ground level having high smooth wooden walls.

She swoops down and pulls to a stop right in front of that gatehouse; it's only polite.

The big gates are currently closed, with a couple of archers nervously peering out of arrow slits; one of the nearer patrols catches up to greet her.

"Greetings!" the unit commander calls to her. "That's a very impressive flying object you've got there. May we ask who you're visiting on behalf of?"

"Myself, mostly, though I am conveying some Grendel with a shared interest in not letting the Druj keep being themselves."

The Sentinels all have perfect poker faces, but it's clear anyway that the Grendel are not the flavour of the month here, although neither are the Druj.

"We are not - aware of any polities with access to flight, in the methods you have just demonstrated?" asks the commander again. Mostly with a sinking feeling that she might be very out of her depth here. "Of course, we stand ready to assist anyone who will aid us in the fight against the Druj," she adds, in case her question didn't sound friendly enough.

"Yeah, you wouldn't be; the notes I cribbed from in my design of that are from people who live very far away, at best.

"And for what it's worth, I hardly intend to let the Grendel reap the primary benefits of my intervention here, when it's the Urizeni who were, to my understanding, dispossessed.  Even if certain Empire factions really probably ought to make amends for..."  She waves a hand in the direction of the Black Plateau, disgusted.  "That, you were here first by all accounts I've presently consulted, and it's just rude to profit from even a self-inflicted disaster."

"Oh, good," replies the sentinel. "Some of us rather think the Varushkans have a few things to answer for as well, although we do acknowledge that some of the firebrands that go to Anvil encouraged them - and as for the Grendel, if they hadn't both invaded and threatened our children, none of it would have happened.

Would you like to come in and meet the Arbiter? I'm not really specialised in diplomacy, and you don't appear to have any intent to harm us, so I'm happy to escort you in."

"The Grendel's position is that they were in fact trying to keep children away from the fighting, rather than use them as hostages, for the record; I can certainly see about confirming or disproving that.  Yes, I'd like to meet the Arbiter."

"That's a very Grendel way of putting it, I'm sure they'd be very far away from the fighting in their salt mines," replies the sentinel, who also signals the door; a door opening process begins.

Willstone Spire has the kind of entrance-way that is especially convenient for killing anyone they don't want to be in it, a wooden tunnel with plenty of arrow slits and affordances for pouring boiling oil or similarly unpleasant substances onto potential invaders; beyond that, it is rather more haphazard.

Everything has been carefully polished and painted to attempt to pretend there is some semblance of order, but it's fairly clear that rooms have been built on top of rickety observation platforms and other rooms built on top of them and both ladders and staircases added wherever someone thought it'd be convenient, all leaning up against that vast stone pillar in the middle.

"Tertius, Follia, rearguard please; Gallus, with me; the rest of you, disperse and let people know, return here when done."

Myra is carefully shepherded into the Citadel between two pairs of sentinels, or at least this is clearly how they would like it to go.

"Like I said, confirm or disprove.  If they were shipped out to the salt mines, that's bad-faith on their part.  If there's records of who's missing, I'll see about finding and returning them to their families.

"...Y'all really ought to have some damn war conventions, except that I think the Grendel are the only polity I know of who'd give any shits and frankly I'm hoping to render the idea of slavery being a Prosperous thing entirely false so you won't have much reason for war with them, war being the worst sort of thing ever.  And on the other hand the Empire on its own just doesn't have the slack for virtue-signaling in combat with exempli gratia the Druj, who'd exploit it given the opportunity.  ...Virtue-signaling as distinct from signaling Virtues, to be clear, but nonetheless, signaling held beliefs.

"...Always and always more work on my plate.  Well, at least I don't have my hands tied behind my back by my own noninterference precommitments.  Hopefully I have some sort of cultural deprogramming that'll work on the Druj on file.  They definitely need something like that, from what I've heard.  An entire culture raised on deriving pleasure from the misery of others.  It's...It would be absurd, if it wasn't so sad.  They deserve better than what they're getting for the crime of being born unlucky."

Her hand brushes over where her pendant lies, close to her heart, though it's beneath her flight suit.

"So much of a people is shaped by their environment.  I wonder what will become of their culture when the environmental pressures change?

"Unfortunately, I'm no seer, but...I have to hope it'll be beautiful.  That something worth existing will come out of even this crucible of pain that forged them.  Because I don't want to have to kill them, regardless that if it proved necessary, I know I'd do it.  ...No matter who makes that decision, it would still be my hand on the trigger.  I'm the one who's meddling with them now, who's planning grand designs for a future without an institutionalized torture culture in it.

"My fucking sense of responsibility, at it again.

"I don't know how some people stay sane, dealing with world-shaping, world-shaking decisions.  I honestly don't, really, but I suppose I'm high-functioning in that I can put off the panic til later.  Most of this is semi-automated, anyway.  Outside of initial directives, I'm just...handling exceptions, and special circumstances."

She laughs wryly, despairingly, as if at a private bit of humor that she's clinging to to ward away her own demons.

"Not that that means anything, really.  Everywhere I've ever been has been exceptional somehow, no matter the other similarities."

"We're fairly sure they all died; Sadogua rescued a few of them, ostensibly for us, but he kept the 'most promising'.

I'd love not to have a reason for war with the Grendel, but they'd have to stop invading us first. It'd be nice if they didn't take slaves while they were doing it, but it's their habit of showing up with an army anywhere along the coast that they think they can get away with that's particularly obnoxious. The Empire has absolutely no interest in their landmass apart from to get them to stop that, but we would rather like Spiral and Feroz back.

There has been a little success with the Druj subject tribes, I hear, over in Holberg - the Sand Fishers were rescued from the Druj and are shaping up to be model citizens. They just have to be taught that there is in fact any reason to do anything but cower.

Anyway, you'll probably just have to go over all this again with the Arbiter. Her office is just up here."

The commander politely ignores all the philosophical and sanity-related talk, and Myra is efficiently conveyed through the Citadel's winding (but quite spacious, and mostly outdoor) passageways to yet another precariously balanced wooden room. The commander knocks on the door and waits a moment.

"Do come in!" calls a voice from inside. The commander opens the door and politely gestures for Myra to enter; the other sentinel at the front stands aside to let her past.

The Arbiter of Willstone Spire is sitting behind a desk which is covered in paperwork, but extremely neatly; there are specific piles for everything, places for all the writing supplies, and everything is in its place.

The office is similarly packed with folders and concertina binders full of paperwork extremely neatly arranged on many shelves. There are two wooden chairs loosely arranged facing the desk, with plenty of free space around them.

She's an older lady with faintly blue-grey hair which goes well with her blue and silver robes, wearing quite an imposing circlet and matching vambraces; she might be wearing a wide leather belt too, it's hard to tell at this angle.

"Ah, you must be our flying visitor?" she says, standing up to greet Myra. "Do excuse our Sentinels, please, their arete is in combat and threat assessment, not so much in pleasantries and diplomatic overtures. Do take a seat; if you'd like a drink or similar, I'll send them to fetch something for you."

"Unprovoked aggressive wars.  Ugh, why."

"...Who the hell's Sadogua, anyway?  I find that I don't like him much."

"There's nothing to excuse, madam Arbiter; they've been quite professional, as well as informative, and they humored my ramblings besides."  She offers a slight bow, respectful, to someone she considers as having authority over the domain she intrudes upon but no authority over her, and twists away her flight helmet (with an unnecessary gesture), to reveal her whole (and seemingly totally human) face.  "I've no present need of refreshments, but I do appreciate the offer, and if you wish for something, I'll happily serve as an excuse.  As for whether I am the flying visitor, indeed I am she."

She waits for the Arbiter to sit, but does sit down herself.

"I have some topics of my own to mark on the agenda, I believe, but what would you like to discuss?"

"An Eternal; I'm sure the Arbiter can tell you more."

The Arbiter notices that her guest is waiting to sit, waves off the Sentinels, and sits down. The Sentinels back off out of the room but are clearly waiting just outside the door, presumably ready to burst in if there are sounds of violence, or something.

"Firstly, just some background on, who you are? And what your intentions are here, if you're willing to divulge any. I regularly deal with Heralds, other Spires, and occasionally visitors from other parts of the Empire - and our Grendel neighbours, of course - but you don't immediately seem to fit any of these categories? I apologise if I am expected to be able to recognise you, if so, I must humbly petition you to refresh my memory."

"I am not anyone you'd be expected to recognize, no; I'm a traveler from far-distant places who has been within the Empire's sphere of influence for less than a day, and I first arrived in Feroz, on top of all that.  Even had a Winged Messenger been dispatched the first time I spoke to the Imperial bureaucracy, it would not yet be very likely it had arrived.

"As for my intentions...

"Sapient flourishing, generally; more specifically, turning the Black Plateau off, for real this time - then hopefully assisting in resettling the refugees and repairing the region and making sure nobody tries to war about that later.  That fucking rock and its sequelae are a personal affront, pardon my language.

"To my knowledge, I'm a human, albeit with more direct access to magic than most, and I suppose an argument could be made that I'm a Herald of something-or-other, but that would be...significantly wrong even if it's the best available approximation, because much of my power is mine alone and built by simple artifice, rather than 'divine intervention'," she scarequotes, "and I'm not especially empowered to speak for the being whose power I occasionally draw upon, though we share interests."

"I think we will get along very well, then.

I must warn you that not all factions in Urizen will be quite so overjoyed as us with the disabling of the Black Plateau, particularly while the Grendel are still occupying Spiral - and, of course, the Druj, in part. Supposedly, the Plateau presents a disincentive to anyone warring over the area - although I must note that it doesn't actually seem to have stopped anyone.

Gaining power from Eternals is all well and good; worshipping them is rarely a good idea. I would be wary of even mentioning 'divine intervention' around most Imperials, regardless of how sarcastically you do so. We are of a fairly pragmatic bent in Urizen, especially in recent years, but others may pester you with endless questions about that, rather than your actual intentions and strengths.

I think I'd like to hear some of your topics, if you don't mind; then we can discuss how we can coordinate our efforts to best serve the purposes of restoring Spiral, and perhaps I would like to hear a little more about what you have from the Grendel."

"If they want an actual disincentive to warring then perhaps they'll like the reasonably well-thought-out plan that involves realigning the Black Plateau, rather than seeing what attempts I can make at disabling it; my patron is rather against wars, and her aura would actually work to discourage such violence, though it's not so blunt as an aura of peace.  I've often described the feeling of her as compassion, feeling cared about, uplifted, and encouraged to care for others in turn, and I suppose I'll do so again here.  And it does have the advantage of netting an invested defender against any future occult bullshit.

"On the other hand, Eternals have a seemingly deserved stigma, if the example I have is typical, and even if I can vouch that this one actually cares about people because they're people, as I do, it's not like anyone should take my word for it; I'm clearly compromised by my position.

"Here's what I have from the Grendel so far; the tools I used to secure this treaty are also available to Spiral's disaster relief efforts, and beyond, should Spiral wish it."

She passes a spot-printed copy of her treaty with Feroz to the Arbiter.

"Aligning it with an Eternal which has at least fewer deleterious effects does sound like a workable plan, although I worry that you may have trouble with the Synod, particularly if you present it as if you feel... somehow obliged to the Eternal in question. We have used Lashonar's effect on dreams to influence emotions across the territory before, so there is some good precedent, if we tread carefully.

The Eternals that we are aware of as an Empire tend not to, as you say, care about people because they're people - in general, they are not really sufficiently aware of what being people entails to succeed at this, even if they intended to do so. Does your 'patron' have a name that we might recognise, or at least a Realm that you're willing to share?

The Arbiter raises her eyebrows slightly to indicate she is impressed with the printing.

"I'm afraid it will take me a few moments to read this in detail, if you don't mind."

She lets Myra put the treaty down on the table and picks it up rather than taking it from her hand, then reads the treaty, occasionally nodding to herself.

"She's from far enough Away," and Ionnia can hear the Capital Letter, there, "that attempting to analogize her demesne, insofar as she has such, to the Realms you know would likely be outright anti-informative; the closest English translation of her self-concept is perhaps It That Embraces.

"I can certainly find a way of framing the relationship as less...

"Mmm.  Neither of us are obliged to the other; it's shared interests and mutual benefit, as well as some small actual fondness on both our parts.

"Speaking of names, and forgive me if I overstep, but I don't believe I know yours?"

"Hmm. So, more like a Labyrinth spirit than an Eternal, then? Those are, if anything, less popular - but undoubtedly are better at understanding people, and there have got to be good ones too, I suppose.

Oh, I do apologise, I got caught up in attempting to work out which set of courtesies would best apply to you and entirely forgot to introduce myself! I'm Ionnia Willstone; I'm also used to being called Arbiter, but you can call me Ionnia if you like. And yourself?"

"I wouldn't know; I've not met any to compare, nor read of them.  She's...there's a certain vastness that I'm thinking means that Eternals are closer analogues, but I'm just working on (metaphorical) auras alone, not knowledge."

"Myra Northwind, first name family name; you can call me Myra - I've chosen Administrator Myra as a suitable formal address since that's most of what I'm doing here."

"Eternals do tend to be - larger - but that might just be an accident of which entities we've made more or less friendly contact with.

Pleased to meet you, Myra. It sounds like you may be just the miracle that Urizen needed.

This is an excellent treaty, I see where they attempted to wriggle around the implementation details here and there and you've had to patch it up. Getting the Empire to agree to a treaty is a bit like herding kittens, and I'm sure the Brass Coast will be deeply unhappy that this makes it harder for them to justify taking back Feroz, but much better this than the Grendel rampaging around unchecked.

We have... a lot of disaster relief to be done, unfortunately. Possibly more so in Zenith and Morrow than Spiral, even - Spiral's been a bit of a mess for some time now, and most of the Spires are quite self-sufficient, whereas Zenith and Morrow were full of peaceful people, tending ancient wonders, until the Druj came through and ruined and despoiled... well, everything, really.

We've finally cornered their armies in Zenith, and the Highborn are doing something to resolve the worst of the depredations, but I think that will only attend to the tortured souls - not that that's a small thing - rather than the destruction of libraries, total loss of agricultural land, and so forth."

"I'm glad to meet you as well, Arbiter Willstone.  Hopefully I live up to expectations."  ...There's a notable lack of vim to that line.

"Well, the Brass Coast did sign the treaty ceding it in the first place; they can't just declare backsies because I showed up.  I'm quite happy to extend them a similar offer, though."

...

Somehow, it is the destruction of books that makes her react like someone's jammed a dagger into her heart.  "Of course they'd do that.  And yet, some part of me is still surprised.

"Whoever or whatever brought about the Druj's culture - and if it wasn't engineered by someone somehow I'll eat my hat - deserves a thorough thrashing until it is completely incapable of replicating the feat.  They're the sort of evil you can't turn away from their path."

"We have, also, signed the same treaty with regards Spiral," she admits. "At the time, it looked like the only way to slow them down from also taking Sarvos and the other coastal territories, and we could ill afford to fight them, with the Druj rampaging. We were expecting to turn our attentions back to retaking it once the Druj have, well, been turned from their path, as you put it.

However, if redrawing the borders there is the price of a cleansed and revitalised Zenith and Morrow - I won't say that we will gladly pay it, but pay it we will."

Ionnia nods solemnly at Myra's reaction regarding the libraries; that appears to be - if not quite expected, then heartily welcomed, and considered very proportionate.

"They knew that to us, burning the books is more salient than burning the people; a human soul returns, and lives again; a book destroyed is simply gone, and the world diminished with it."

"I'll have to check the exact words of it over, I think; the Druj presence in this theater is...well.  A compelling argument that the treaty in question is moot, as regards Spiral's disposition after this operation; can't be Grendel territory while it's occupied by Druj, and to the victor goes the spoils - in this case, plausibly me.  I don't know as much of the nature of what affects Zenith and Morrow, but you will have the Steel Legion's aid in your reclamation efforts.  ...Ugh, that sounds so pretentious, but it's also an accurate description."

"...The wilful destruction of knowledge is the worst sort of sin, I quite agree, though depending on how much memory passes or doesn't, there's still much lost in a death."

"It's very straightforwards, anything that gets through the Senate usually is," she replies, and rises from her seat with an unexpected gracefulness, plucks a folder from a shelf, and a piece of paper from the folder:

There will be peace between the Empire and the Grendel for two years, to be renegotiated in eighteen months during the Spring Equinox 385YE

The Grendel will not trade with the Druj, nor offer them any other material assistance in their military engagement against the Empire

The Grendel will release Imperial slaves, one for each day that the treaty is upheld, with the first lot two weeks after the treaty then each month after that.

The Empire cede the regions of Afarjasse and Morajasse in Feroz, and Ankra, Cinion and Ateri in Spiral to the Grendel

The Empire will not build any shipyards or navies in the Bay of Catazar for the duration of the treaty

The citizens currently in the regions to be ceded will be allowed two season's grace to relocate to Imperial territory with all of their possessions

No raiding will take place from either side against the other

Any altercation that involves citizens of the Empire or the Grendel in the others territories should be dealt with between the ambassadors in the first instance.

"The Grendel have reneged on the bit about slaves, of course - they claimed that the people who left the other regions of Feroz, which they had already taken by force, counted as our full portion of released slaves - even though most of them weren't slaves in the first place.

As for souls and memories - we know the memories do remain with the soul, but accessing them is currently excessively expensive and difficult. If the Empire had any breathing room, improving our methodology for this would be our top priority."

"...Well.  Have the Druj contested those regions?  There's nothing in the treaty about ongoing disposition, just the cession - if the Grendel have lost their hold, the region can surely be reclaimed by whoever dares.

"...And the Grendel claiming the exodus from Feroz as their allotment of slaves is why you actually specify methodology in your treaties.  Honestly, given the small numbers of slaves to even be thought of being released...it's possible they still managed to comply with the letter, if not the spirit.  That's, what, a thousand, total?  There could easily have been a thousand slaves taken across Feroz.  ...In summary, you need better contract draftspeople.  And what does that last clause even mean?"

"...Anyway, enough about the past.  Let me guess, the past life memory reclamation involves a specific rare reagent?  It's not implausible I have some way of increasing the yield thereof, or simply duplicating the product, though I should note that simple duplication tends to have issues with sufficiently legendary items that're magical - it's something about the weight, probably, and the amount of magic.  Still, I would be willing to try.

"And speaking of magical reagents, I should probably get a sample of liao at some point, to see if it even works on me and if it'd help with realigning the fucking Black Plateau.  I've no prior experience with it."

"The Druj are in Ossuary, and most disturbingly, Screed; if we were to secure only two regions back from both them and the Grendel, those should be our priorities - although I'm sure the Ankarian refugees would be upset about Ankra, and they are an important faction in Anvil.

It sounds like you have not yet partaken of the wonders of Anvil, so let me tell you a little about the Imperial political process. I haven't been myself since the time of Britta, the Empress before last, but everything changes and everything stays the same, as they say.

Every solstice and equinox, there is a great pilgrimage to Anvil, which is the location in Highguard where the First Empress signed the Empire into existence. The Senate are elected there and meet there, representatives from every nation chosen in each nation's own - idiosyncratic - style, one per territory. There is also a lot of fuss with Generals and Cardinals and Archmagi and so forth, but it is the Senate who are empowered to sign treaties, so let's concentrate on them.

Each of them is generally beholden to a few powerful groups who make the journey in sufficient numbers to secure their election. They appoint Ambassadors and an Imperial Consul, who are responsible for taking initial meetings with diplomatic delegations from foreign powers - there's a distinction between 'foreign' and 'barbarian' depending on whether we're at war with them, but all delegations that are underway to Anvil or returning from there now have the protection of law.

The meetings with foreign delegations generally happen at some time on the Friday or the Saturday, depending on - whether the delegation is delayed, whether they object to showing up in the dark, and so on. The foreign delegations generally deliver a set of demands and requests, and they have very limited authority to negotiate; Winged Messengers can be sent and sometimes clarifications will arrive in time, but the magic is very fickle and the clarification might not arrive until the following gathering.

These are then dutifully written up into a treaty, which has to be scrutinised by the Constitutional Court for whether the Empire can actually implement it, whether there will be extra enforcement costs and so forth. And then two Senators must be found to propose and second the treaty as a motion on the Senate floor. Generally this ends up happening at the Sunday sitting of the Senate - right before the end of the gathering, with some people already taking down their tents and preparing for the journey home.

So, if the treaty is at all complicated, all of the Senators who manifestly failed to read it - or in some cases, have been so unfindable that the relevant ambassador hasn't even managed to tell them it was a possibility - will vote against it, because it's much harder for their people to blame them for something that doesn't happen than something that does - even though, in that case, what does happen is generally the continuation of a war that should have been concluded.

As for that final clause, it is actually very important - previous treaties with the Grendel have been broken when independent ship captains and suchlike have taken it upon themselves to unilaterally raid Grendel holdings. This provides the Grendel a method of saving face by making an agreement between ambassadors to receive compensation, rather than declaring the treaty voided and re-commencing invasion."

Ionnia smiles wryly at Myra. "I'm afraid the past is likely to quickly become your future, if you're hoping to help clear up some of our geopolitical messes.

Liao is a much more pleasant topic; we have a couple of Questors rattling around, they like to ask awkward questions of the Grendel who come by from time to time, and they will be overjoyed to administer a dose - and indeed any religious rites you might want to experience, and I'm sure they are full of theories about the Black Plateau and how to mitigate its effects.

The substance required for the past life visions is essentially a more refined form of Liao, but the refinement process only yields a handful of doses each season. I'm afraid the details are not my area of arete; the Questors will likely know a little more, but research into Liao has mostly been the province of the Highborn, although one of our own has been the Seer of the Gateway ever since Britta's death."

She is utterly flabbergasted by this.

"You mean to tell me that all Empire-level politics occurs in week-long periods three months apart?  And cannot be conducted outside that time?  What, and do forgive my crassness, the absolute blithering fuck kind of system is this?!  It combines the worst parts of mandated agility with the worst parts of inflexible slow-changing process!  It makes the law clear, perhaps, but that helps none if the law is full of holes you can drive a cart through and in matters of the moment often far too late arriving!

"Surely a system could be developed of allowing in-the-moment abstension, and voting on unsettled issues via Winged Messenger during the interstitium, or something!

"...The final clause would allow arranging reparations, and a way to make that happen is important; it just...barely has meaning.  Or rather, it has too many possible meanings, which, I suppose, allows such shenanigans as you have described.

"...Anyway: doing things with liao is universally a matter of religious rites?"  She looks like she's bitten into a lemon.  "From what I've heard of religion here, it's sounded rather...

"I like the sanctity of my own thought process preserved against external influence, and there's rather a lot of mind-affecting effects going around, there.  That said, clearly needs must; I've not the theoretical basis of a sufficient ritual handy and if I can shortcut the development process...well.  Better it be quicker than slower.

"I am not a fan of grand workings; they're always so...dramatically fraught, full of shenanigans and plots.  But this situation with the Black Plateau is clearly the time to bring out the ritual implements."

"Oh, you're a Lucidian? It's a perfectly respectable position, but if you're going to be dealing with the Black Plateau, you'll need to be defended somehow; auras are the easiest way of achieving that. I suspect you might have a somewhat skewed version of our religious practices from the Grendel; they do rather just collect them, like anything else shiny that isn't nailed down.

As for our political system, it's essentially a series of compromises between ten nations - who aren't all quite as well supplied with magic as each other, and so are not amenable to compromises that rely on it - all of which are, essentially, a pack of squabbling owlbears internally, also.

Obviously what should have happened is that we should have extended the Heliopticon across the Empire and solved the communication problem, and thus averted all the arguments about who can access decision-making from further afield and so on, but it turns out that lowlanders aren't very good at operating heliopticon towers."

"I do have such protections; they're simply not the same sort of thing as trying to drown out a loud emotion with another loud emotion - though the one I'm putting the most stock in is backed by, well, meddling Eternal, even if I think I might be able to replicate something like it by myself.

"...but seriously, they can't provision a single Winged Messenger...and appropriate caster, I suppose...per Senator?  That's just...odd.  Well.  Not my problem until it actually hits me.  And if ever there was a political system that did not eventually become full of squabbling owlbears in a trenchcoat, I know not of such a miracle.

"I regret to inform you that I'm probably going to render the Heliopticon mostly obsolete if you let me.  On the plus side, my solution can actually do some self-maintenance!  And make sure your facilities here don't spontaneously fall down."

"If you have a better Heliopticon, we would be overjoyed!" Ionnia actually smiles in a way that meets her eyes, at the prospect. "I mean, I'm sure heliopticon operators will continue to practice as a hobby and insist that the days of the heliopticon were the heights of purity and good content in communication, before the rabble came and spoiled it, but, you know. Communications difficulties are the bane of Imperial life, and the more we can eliminate them, the better.

Some Senators simply refuse to 'rely on' Autumn magic at all - especially for something politically important, they'd assume it could be intercepted or tampered with, even though that's actually impossible; in less civilised areas of the Empire, they often have rather little grasp of how even basic ritual magic functions.

I suppose if you can afford to keep something like Crystal Clarity up around yourself, that would also dampen the Plateau's effects adequately. I'm afraid I am more of an administrator than a ritual theoretician, much less an aura expert; and Willstone's researchers are generally here to use the Autumn regio, and I suspect Autumn effects are a little subtle for dealing with something like the Plateau.

If you can't do it with religious endeavours, you'd be looking at Day and Night at once - I believe that's what they used to calm it in the first place, before the Iron Helms... happened to it. Even so, everyone is quite convinced that ritual magic alone is no longer sufficient, so it may end up needing to be a combination of... all available powers."

"There's literally always people like that, I'm sure.

"Honestly, I think they have a point about not letting the skills pass from the earth, just in case...but boy is everything else just somewhat silly.

"I have literally no idea how your magic works compared to mine except that yours seems to be...weirdly planar slash conceptual?  But yes, that doesn't seem wrong."

"...All available powers?"

"Oh, and, here, take this; it's connected to my communications network, so you can get in touch with me if you ever need to.  Or want to, really."

She hands over a smartphone-alike (and its associated accessories).  "Do read the manual; it might be a bit slow-paced at times but it's got useful information about how things work, inside."

"We really need to find a way to refer to your Not Quite An Eternal without upsetting anyone, or being unduly inaccurate, I suppose," replies Ionnia. "I'm sure our Questors can find you someone to explain our basic magic theory - it does tend to call upon the Realms for more sustained and complex effects, but there are a wide range of fundamental resonances that can be used, some more mathematical and some more conceptual."

She nods at the gift, but makes no move to pick it up from the table immediately. "That is a handsome gift, thank you. I only hope my poor gift of local knowledge can be adequate to it. Is there aught else you want from me particularly, or shall I get the Sentinels to lead you to some Questors for your Plateau related research?

Oh, and how long do you think you'll remain here - is it worth us signalling some of our people in Zenith, who might know more about immediate requests for aid, when they will take at least until tomorrow to arrive through the Iteri pass? There are plenty of rooms for wandering scholars if you do wish to stay overnight, and meals are served in the dining hall, to which you are welcome, or at any time from the kitchens."

"Ahh, that's what you meant.

"I think that's all I have to ask of you.

"...Hmm...

"Give me a minute to check on something, before I decide whether I can stay?  I would certainly appreciate the local knowledge, regardless."

How's Keth doing with making contact?

It's just as well the strange flying vessel is arrow-proof.

Keth is not arrow-proof, but is also not the physick and has the most conspicuous robes, so she makes sure she is very visible as the vessel descends far enough that anyone might shoot into it. Fortunately, the guard-station has become tired of wasting arrows by the time this is a meaningful threat.

It turns out that being on guard duty in Spiral does not improve anybody's mood; it quickly becomes apparent that this is mostly some kind of respite duty for people who have got excessively combative and paranoid out beyond the effect of the Block, and none of them are pleased to have some work to do, or to have to share their cramped quarters. Apparently their main duty is ensuring tariffs are collected from caravans that use the pass, as well as being an early warning if anything changes with the Block - but the effects of the Winter regio have left everyone listless and unmotivated.

None of them are very pleased with the idea that they might have to be a messenger, to collect someone more senior who can deal with things, so eventually Calak is dispatched to the larger post up at Damarkan's Forge, although he's also not exactly happy with the idea that he might be running all the way down to Apulian to get the attention of the Salt Lord; Mhendi sends a Winged Messenger off, in case that might be faster this time, and then starts attempting to study the controls of the flying vehicle so that they can operate it off autopilot if they need to.

Meanwhile, Keth has settled in to the business of attempting to drag some information out of the soldiers' various depressing anecdotes, mostly featuring them being the only one of their unit to successfully flee a Druj incursion, or people who would have got on just fine in any other circumstances pointlessly murdering each other.

...The icons left in Keth's care seem to find the way this is being managed personally offensive, given how they flood the area with their energy rather than allow the Winter regio to drain these people who should be healing any further.

The airship's piloting interface is rather easy to use, even untrained!  There's even the option of flight simulation, since they're not presently traveling!

Keth's communicator breebles at her.

"Just finished my meeting with the Arbiter; how are things going on your end?  Anything that'd help you out any?"

Despite the aura from the icons being more pleasant than the local alternatives, it causes the garrison considerable quantities of panic; one of them does agree to leave this time and runs off towards Damarkan's Forge to collect a Urizeni priest who can more easily investigate it.

Mhendi agrees to hop the vessel a little way away, to calm everyone back down. 

"Slowly - we might want to fly over to Apulian directly, once Mhendi's got the hang of it. Do you know why your flying vessel has started emitting an aura of its own? Mhendi had to take it away from the encampment as everyone was talking about leaving to avoid it, even though we tried to tell them it was fine - nobody likes surprising new effects around here, even pleasant ones."

"...I'm going to guess that something about the situation there was direly offensive to my sensibilities in some way, plausibly to do with why everything looks at best half dead around there.  Let me just...

"...oh dear.  Alright, one moment..."

The 'aura' stops actively roiling and looking for people to help, but it doesn't stop being protectively flared out.

"Alright, that's...

"Perhaps you should chalk it up to a very strange human having far too much emotion at what she heard about the conditions and the history that brought everyone here and doing a spontaneous aura thing because of that; it should be safe now.  Well.  'Safe', because really, not having the aura be as aggressive about protecting those who need to be warded is a danger to them and others, but if someone really wants their magically-induced clinical depression, they can keep it.  It was essentially my fault, anyway; the impetus that caused that reaction is that I was feeling particularly protective-whether-you-like-it-or-not at the time I anchored the symbols and hadn't properly modeled consentingness."

"They've sent someone to fetch a human priest from Damarkan's Forge, is it okay to let them examine it or should we put them off?

I think everyone here's really had enough weird additional effects on them for a while and gets twitchy when another one shows up, even if it's entirely benign and actually helpful. We can probably talk them round if you think that'd be helpful, but I'm not sure I want them to get used to it if we're going to have to move on to Apulian anyway. I'll know more on that front when Calak gets back from the Forge - that's the nearest place with anyone who apparently knows what they're doing, the garrison here is a bit... under-resourced... from being stuck in the Winter regio."

"I see no reason the priest shouldn't be allowed to take a look.  ...And if this is better for them, we're not going to just...leave them to Winter's tender lack-of-mercy; I can make something that'll - oh, this might be a good test case for seeing if things like the Black Plateau's aura can be supplanted with sufficient meddling.  I'm not going to leave them in the lurch, regardless.  It'd be deriliction of admittedly self-imposed duty."  She makes a noise somewhere halfway between a laugh and a sigh, and continues.  "Anyway, if things are stable, I have some people to consult on my end; I can get the plane to make some additional conduits if that's something that'd be helpful."

"Once the priest is here and has checked it out for them, if we can carry something back to put in the garrison, they'd probably benefit from it once they've calmed down," replies Keth. "Should we be waiting for you, or should we head on to Apulian - where the Salt Lord is - if we don't get any more luck here?"

"That's up to you; you understand the political implications better.  I'll catch up with you by tomorrow either way."  She cues up the shipboard fabricator to do the thing she said she'd do; it produces a heavily rune-etched, stylized statuette.

Now the vessel is spitting out statues. Fantastic. She starts incanting for detect magic, in case that helps - then thinks for a moment, stops, and gently touches the statuette to see if there are obvious effects first; if this doesn't go too badly, she takes the statuette outside and starts incanting again, not wanting to accidentally target the whole vessel and possibly keel over in the middle of nowhere.

"We'll probably stay put here for you unless we're ordered to attend, then; I'd rather have you with the vessel when we go down there in case Salt Lord Mahiri Kaliact decides she fancies taking it apart and trying to see how it is made. I've heard she's fairly reasonable as Salt Lords go, but anyone can be driven by avarice when they get hold of this kind of equipment."

"Quite.  Thankfully, I've got plenty to go around."

"Keth wanted something for the Block; this is that," comes the vessel's proprietor's voice after a second of observing Mhendi's confusion. "Anchors an aura to itself.  Speaking of which, Keth's thinking y'all should stay put there-ish until I catch up."

When Mhendi touches the statue...The statue seems faintly amused, as if to think that Mhendi should have recognized it.

Nevertheless, Mhendi gets the information she's looking for - it's a more replicable way to ask for [CONCEPT UNTRANSLATABLE: (embrace, protect, respect, exalt, uplift)]'s attention, with some added decorative elements because Her favored felt like making this pretty, unlike most of her other work.  (Really, She thinks her favored could stand to be less relentlessly utilitarian-brutalist in more of her functional designs; She knows Her favored has aesthetic opinions that can mesh with her perceived needs.  It's simply a matter of spending a little more effort for a worthy reward.)

That she gets this information before the spell completes, and it includes what's inarguably gossip, is presumably surprising.

Well, it's nice not to have to waste mana on it, she guesses. She doesn't really need to verify its story, not with audible confirmation from their strange visitor.

"Thank you," she answers. "I'm a little way off from the Block at the moment, they didn't like the vessel with the extra aura - should I take it back immediately, or wait for further instructions?"

She'll ask Keth about that and relay the answer.

With that settled...she has...Questors...to meet.

She's not really a fan of religion in the abstract, and this one's really fucking spooky in particular!  But they seem to have the monopoly on liao and its uses, so she'll deal.

"Can I call her with this? I'd like to wait for the priest to arrive, then call her over."

The Sentinel commander leads her into another box which seems to be a small chapel of some description. At least, there are a lot of embroidered wall hangings with various constellations and what are presumably historical scenes, and a couple of small tables with candles on; the middle of the room is taken up mostly by a bunch of small individual writing desks, and at one of the desks is a blue-scaled lady scowling at a pile of papers.

"I'm sure Evantia will be able to introduce you to the other Questors if necessary," says the commander.

The scaled lady looks up. "Oh! You must be new here. I'm Evantia Willstone, at least for the moment. Come have a seat and let me know what's going on?" She was very briefly irritated about being interrupted, but newcomers are always interesting, and she can't quite immediately place Myra from her clothes, which is especially interesting.

(Keth can in fact make a call!  There's helpful tooltips and explanations and the system's very robust even to unfamiliar written language, plus she keyed in their numbers already.)

"Hello, hello.  I'm a very distant traveler, from somewhere perhaps as unreachable as the stars themselves to most.  The Arbiter directed me in your general direction because I need to understand how the heck liao works, and likely how to use it myself - assuming I'm the same sort of human-ish as y'all are - if I'm to have much hope of actually succeeding in my scheme to unfuck the Black Plateau, which I want to do because the Black Plateau sucks and the options y'all have for not letting it suck people in seem to be almost equally sucky from my perspective.  Not that I give myself no odds even without that, but I'd put money on having some experience with liao helping me pull it off."

"The stars are not so unreachable as all that," replies Evantia. "Although more symbolically than physically, I suppose, until we finally work out what the Vard must have once known.

I would be very happy to help in any endeavour that could calm the Black Plateau! It is one of our greatest failings that all our ritual magic could not bind it. The scholars have been fruitlessly searching for another key like the great ritual of Day and Night that calmed it the first time, but the cabalists of Varushka... if you will pardon my vernacular, they really did a number on it.

What do you know of liao already, that I might not repeat your instruction? I am also burning with curiosity to ask you about your home and how you travelled here, but I can put it aside to work for the calming of the Plateau."

There is something slightly weird about this lady and it isn't just the scales; there's a flatness to her affect even when she seems highly invested in something, it doesn't seem to be insincerity, just - blunted emotion.

"When we're done with this, I will happily talk about rocketry.

"I know liao exists, and that humans, but not orcs, can use it to make emotion-related stuff happen.  I know there's true liao which is Liao But Moreso.  That's about it."

"Okay, so. This is liao." She dips a hand into a cloth pouch attached to her belt and pulls out a small glass vial containing a violently purple substance, and places the vial on the desk.

"It is refined from an extract of a plant called Vinum. The sap of Vinum gives dreamless sleep. The consumption of liao, instead, puts you in a kind of - waking sleep. You are placed in contact with your soul - with the seat of all fundamental human drives, which we call Virtues... or False Virtues - or Malign Spiritual Presences - if we dislike them.

From there, you can draw them forth. If you are untrained, liao will simply give you a strong feeling of connectedness to these underlying forces, and you will dream vividly next time you sleep.

With a little training, you can focus this connection to drive out presences that do not belong - ghosts, possessing spirits, unquiet dead of all kinds; to see such presences, and auras that lie upon things and people, and similar occurrences; to shape the dreams of those you share a dose with, and your own dreams; and to place a mark upon the soul, which takes the form of a couple of words that express something about that person - usually something you would like them to take with them into their next life.

With somewhat rarer training, it can be used to cut someone adrift from their connection to their soul - this is not done lightly, it is a crime punishable by death to do this to someone without a Writ of Excommunication from the Synod, but it does prevent them from bringing forth any auras of their own, and it can be used benignly to - re-seat the soul, after certain injuries to it - and can be used to reverse this effect.

Other uses require one to be Dedicated - this is a ceremony that anyone who is Dedicated can perform, which aligns your soul with a particular Virtue. Dedication can happen spontaneously with sufficiently great deeds in pursuit of a Virtue, but this is usually considered a Miracle and something that would be a sign of the Paragon; however, this is how dedications initially arise.

Once Dedicated, the connection may also be used to evoke auras - on a place, we call it Consecration; on a person, we call it Anointing; on an object, we call it Hallowing.

All of these things can be done by one who is truly connected to their soul without liao - that is the path of the Paragon, which we all seek to emulate and one day attain, be it this lifetime or several lifetimes hence.

Would you like me to explain True Liao, or take questions on what I have said so far?"

"...right, liao's magical psychedelics, okay.

"Do the...words, do anything?  Once they're marked on your soul?

"And how do you tell if you're Dedicated?  Though something tells me that I'm probably given to a somewhat analogous effect by proxy, at the moment...Anyway, yes, true liao, how does that work?"

Evantia looks Rather Unimpressed at that summary of liao, but doesn't deign to correct it.

"Greater scholars than I argue incessantly about the value and effects of a Testimony. What is known is that the words can sometimes be retrieved in a past life vision, and people value them highly and see them as a mark of honour or a very great stain, although they are not difficult to remove unless placed with a greater strength - which requires a greater number of priests to place them, and thus to remove them.

Insight - the ceremony that lets you see auras and suchlike - also returns any Dedication that is present. If you like, I can perform it on you now.

True liao is further refined from liao, and there is a measure of serendipity involved - despite all our efforts, the Empire only manages to refine a few doses each season. It places you in connection, not just with your soul's ability to tap into the primal drives of humanity, but the lives that have been previously lived by it.

In that state, you can do everything you could with liao, but much more so - auras are permanent, marks cannot be removed save by another dose of true liao, every spiritual malice can be washed away. Or, you can - with the aid of another priest who knows the arts of dedication, and a careful ceremony we have devised for the purpose - descend into a vision of a previous life experienced by your soul, take that other priest with you into the vision, and relive one of your soul's memories.

This is an incredibly dangerous power - it is the only thing we know of which can do serious, potentially irreversible damage to your soul. The following priest must not disturb anything, and you must not deviate too strongly from the memory - especially in a deliberate fashion, such as attempting to tell people that you are from the future - or it will collapse, and potentially shatter your soul in the process. Our procedures are proof against this when followed, but we have allowed some foreigners to partake who did not follow them, with devastating results.

While liao is not itself magical," she emphasises that word to express her distaste at Myra's summation of liao's effects, "it can also be used to bolster magics that interact with the soul - I expect that is where you will find your remedy to the Plateau, if you do find one. For instance, it can be used to replace mana in the ritual Whispers Through the Black Gate, which allows communication with the recently dead - although this itself is also highly dangerous, as sometimes you will instead pull through an entity you were not anticipating."

"'Magic' is, by my definition, 'stuff that behaves according to a set of rules that aren't the standard physics of a place, generally mediated by human action'.  Liao's definitely that, even if it's not spellcraft.

"I would indeed like to see if I've a Dedication."

Evantia nods, uncorks the bottle, pours about half onto each wrist like perfume, rubs them together, and holds them in front of her face to inhale the scent.

When she looks back at Myra her eyes are noticeably dilated. "Look into my eyes," she instructs, in even more of a monotone than before. "Hold my gaze as I..."

She breaks off suddenly and grabs a notebook and pen, and starts scribbling notes furiously.

"...sorry, your soul is very interesting. I suppose I should have anticipated that," she says, her eyes returning to normal.

...She is surprisingly adept at doing the looking into Evantia's eyes part of this exercise, though perhaps not only because she's also looking intently and taking notes with the twitch of her fingers on haptic keyboards, judging by the intake of breath as the ceremony starts.

"...I've lived an interesting life, for sure," she says in response, with an undercurrent of subdued mirth.  "It's only natural you'd be somewhat distracted by the resulting - mm, allure, of knowledge or other things."

"There is definitely a strange allure of knowledge in here," replies Evantia. "Your dedication - I've never seen anything remotely like it. It's something akin to Wisdom, but - not.

And. Did you know you have, ah, a fellow traveller, in there? I hesitate to call it a 'possession', because it's clearly not a ghost. Perhaps something closer to a Labyrinth spirit, although, thank the Virtues, I've never been close enough to one to compare it. It's also aligned to something - it's not quite Loyalty, it's not quite Prosperity, it's almost some kind of combination of the two?

You're currently being affected by it like an Anointing, too, and it's tied to some kind of thing which - lets that come back more easily?

Actually, it reminds me of nothing more than the Commonwealth's philosophy of the Common Good. But somehow more personal...

And. Someone has written an entire novel on there. Or, several someones. There's one that looks like someone wrote it with True Liao, and, I can't believe I'm saying this, it - tastes of spiders?

That one's fairly short, it's just "Meddlesome Wizard", with a rather less powerful "God-Botherer" under it. Then you have - I'm not sure I got all these down properly. Perhaps I should write it up more neatly, and then I can just show you my notes. There's, a lot."

Evantia is still taking notes as things occur to her, but trying to make slightly apologetic eye contact in between.

"...Huh, Wisdom but sideways?  My brain wants to immediately compare to the wisdom-intelligence distinction some people make..."

On the subject of the possession: "Mmhmm, that I knew.  The entity who's connected to me through that presence - by my own free will - is my best answer to the Black Plateau, fighting its invocation of Hatred with a counterinvocation of, broadly, Compassion."

When she hears the slightly strangled 'tastes like spiders', she can't help but laugh out a "fucking -- Lolth!  She would, too!  If I hadn't already terminally ejected her from the power she usurped to write that on me I would march right back there and show her some proper meddlesome to go with the wizard - she picked that fight with me, and was apparently a very sore loser when my scratch team won it!  Hah!  I thought that was just petty posturing, when she said we'd forever be marked by this deed!  Ohh, goodness, excuse me, I had to be - vvvv... - some form of voluble about that, or else I'd get caught up in actually remembering kicking the torturesome bitch out of her spidery domain, never to attain access to the stolen power she greedily drank of again, and the sheer force and chaos of that fight - and I'd hardly wish to have a flashback here and now!  ...The Black Plateau is really quite uncomfortably reminiscent of the aura of her off-brand Demonweb Pits, come to think of it.  Ech.  Well.  Yet another reason to dismantle the entire Druj - 'eagerly supporting the sorts of ideoforms that previously threatened-slash-abused my wife'."

"Yes... that was in there too." Evantia lays out a fresh sheet of paper on the desk and begins to transcribe in a much more precise hand than her scribbled notes. "And the Druj are big on spiders, too, although I think the Navarr have also had some success with Arhallogen, so if you could refrain from absolutely dismantling that Eternal until we've decided we're not using them..."

"I'm not going to go all 'destroy all spiders', no; it's sharing her personality that's objectionable."

"I doubt you'll like much about its personality either - delights in novel poisons, loves violent competition, crushing the weak, testing the strong... however, Eternals that are relatively easy to deal with, so long as you do so from a position of strength, are valuable resources. Spring Eternal, though, so they are at least fairly - unemotional about it? It's never personal, it's just a matter of survival - and what it takes to do that, when everything is attempting to eat you.

Anyway, here are the rest of the notes."

Written out in a neat hand:

'Dedication - Wisdom (subtly different emphasis)

Possession - Large spiritual entity, not obviously ex-mortal, aligned Prosperity/Loyalty/Common Good (subject suggests 'Compassion')

Anointing - as Possession, normal strength

Curse - Anointing - easier to renew? mildly permanent, but not as a full Anointing?

Testimonies:

True Strength: Meddlesome Wizard (tastes of spiders)

High strength: God-Botherer (tastes of spiders)

Moderate strength:

Silver's Savior | Shadow-Friend (some - connection? duality? possibly just same strength)

System's Architect (sense of a colour, blue? metallic?)

Runic Artisan (sense of some specific important rune)

Meta Magician

wife (feels distant, and ?angry)

Wanderer through Bar(d)s (highly nonstandard, feels almost like a summary?)

Apt Storyteller

Star Traveller (impression of heat, fast lights with persistence of vision)

Inveterate Knowledge-Thief (labyrinth designs, smells of long-stored paper?)

Watching You

(something is here, but it is somehow censored)

Magical Girl

Telling Herself'

"Well.  At least it's not personal.  Lolth was as pettily cruel as only those who understand and share the human-patterned psyche can be.

"Mmmh, let's see what we have here...

"God-botherer.  Heh.  I sure did bother Lolth.

"Oh that's definitely intertwined, it's two perspectives of the same climactic event...

"...I'd say I'm surprised to find this here," she taps System's Architect, "except that I know from whence it came, and I think I can chalk all of this up to a specific working I did at one point, much to do with -" she slides her pointing finger down to 'wife' - "this one; if anything's the cornerstone of why there's half a novel on my soul, it's gotta be that.  We do not want to be cut off from eachother, you see, even when we're apart.

"Therefore, the correct and proportionate solution, given that Lolth still existed, was to simply do this in an irrevocable way, tying ourselves to eachother so that death would not us part.

"Wanderer through Bar-ds?  Someone has a sense of humor.  Alas that if I elaborated as to why that's funny, I'd likely sound absurd myself.  Suffice to say it has to do with Apt Storyteller.

"Anyway, yes, the...aura, here, isn't really as always-on as it's going right now?  Most of the time I'm not pushing back against an aura of Hatred, nor in need of healing, so I hardly need, nor do I want, her to expend the effort.  It's better used elsewhere, for those who do need that."

"So... you share the possession... with other people?" asks Evantia, feeling out the words as she goes along. This is clearly a novel phenomenon to her and she's simultaneously extremely interested, and rather worried about the implications.

"Honestly, I kind of have no idea?  I know that there's one specific...

"Well, the closest thing you have for modeling them would be an Eternal?  But that's not quite right, there's...more humanity in it than that implies.

"Anyway, one specific entity that this represents a shard of the attention and power thereof.

"Or maybe something I made in her image, really; I've always been good at taking magic apart and putting it back together in new and interesting ways, though I don't think that's what happened - I'd put so much more weight on the first possibility; I'm mentioning the latter only for completeness's sake.

"Anyway...I don't share this with other people.  This is my mantle, there are many like it but this one is mine - excuse me, that's a reference to something you are ill-positioned to understand.

"Anyway, I don't share this with other souls, though I can...hmm.

"My internal experience of this is that it's something like a warm blanket on a cold night, without the implications of being wrapped up and sessile that that invokes.  And I can wrap myself in it tightly for more warmth when the cold bites, or flare it out and share it, or...a variety of such things.

"But there's only the one blanket, and it's mine and no-one else's, even if I'm sharing it right now.

"There's a lot of other blankets, though, spread around, held by others who need the warmth, carried by people trusted to find places that need them, stuff like that.  Not here, I should note, I'm the first person with such to have been within miles, but there are indubitably others somewhere.

"But, to extend the blanket metaphor, they've all been warmed against a fire that's not definitively infinite, and I don't want to take more heat than I need, in the moment.  Or perhaps they're sort of all the same blanket, stretched through a portal, and I don't want to hog it, and I'm not definitively sure if there's an edge somewhere.  Or...Well, what has you so concerned?  Because I'm concerned that you're concerned, and don't want to worry you unduly?"

"You are trying to describe a god," replies Evantia, mildly, "without actually using the word, because you have been told it is a taboo in this Empire. Which it is, but attempting to circumlocute around it will not actually avail you - something which is like an Eternal, but more like a person, which grants you particular spiritual powers - it is not a taboo because we dislike the word, it is because it is very easy to become beholden to such powers, and generally there is less - humanity - to them than they like to pretend.

Of course, all those that we know of have turned out to be Eternals, or magic or alchemy wielded to cause the subjugation of the human spirit, hence our hostility to the topic. The actual crime is subsuming human will and destiny - which we consider to include worship, veneration and exaltation of such forces, but I'm not actually seeing any of that, here?

You are allowed to accept gifts from a power, and even be fond of them as you might another person, as long as your will and destiny remain firmly your own, and you do not put them above yourself.

If it were more 'sessile', it would sound rather like the false virtue of Peace, but without that aspect it is merely a strangely aligned power whose usefulness we have yet to evaluate."

She's honestly somewhat surprised by this, and takes a moment to gather herself before speaking.

"That makes sense.

"I'm pretty sure part of my brain just metaphorically had something jam up and a gear go 'ping'ing off into the distance, because I'm not producing a response of the quality I'd like to, but it makes sense.  And honestly, it's admirable, to decide that amongst these titanic forces you face, that you will carve your own path.

"She'd support that.  She's supported me through that - deciding that Lolth needed to go would not have been anywhere near as easy, as uncomplicated, if I hadn't been able to draw upon her blessing to shield someone I love from the nightmares Lolth sought to break her will with.

"She - I didn't start out like this.  I wasn't born and raised to adventure.  I was just a student of the world around me, thrown bodily into something that made me doubt reality was real, and that I'd ever make it home.

"And she met me where I was, provided a safe space to feel what I couldn't allow myself to even think, otherwise...

"I owe her a debt I can never repay, but it's a human debt.  The sort of thing friends are owed when you realize you might not be alive without them, not a chain forged of miracles to bind me to her service.

"If I'm doing that anyway, in your estimation, then it's by my own uncoerced will."

The quiet intensity and firmness that came over her as she declaimed this slowly fades, and she covers her face with a hand as the not-not-tension releases, slowly wiping it across to give herself a moment to recover.

"...Tragic backstories, not even once."

"But...yeah, that's...how it is.  How it be, even."

Evantia seems to be quite impressed with the self-possession and directed passion that went into that declamation, although her nose wrinkles very slightly at the final statement.

"So. You come bearing the touch of a god, and offer your aid with the Plateau. We have not actually much tried a spiritual approach to the problem; primarily Urizen applies magical solutions to all things, as in the manner of one with a hammer. A magical solution was indeed found for the Plateau's previous state, but the actions of the Varushkans have torn a wider rift than is within the reach of our considerable magical prowess.

Our spiritual technology is somewhat more limited; we have a number of efficacious rites which function on an individual, an individual-scale object, or a room-sized area, but anything beyond that is the provenance of miracle - which, in its nature, is not particularly repeatable.

Naturally there have been attempts to consecrate the area, but the closest we have to an army-scale approach to this - which is the scale at which the problem was caused, and thus what is likely required to solve it - is currently being deployed in Zenith to quiet the tortured souls left by the Druj, and in any case is more suited to scattered local phenomena rather than one extremely large problem."

She pauses for a moment in thought, rather than for a reply.

"I do wonder," she says slowly, "if the miasma pillars of the Druj might hold some key to this puzzle. They extend an aura over a considerably larger area - although not one we would want to engender, and not by any method we would like to replicate."

"...That does sound like something I ought to take a look at."  She's definitely in a quietly thoughtful mood herself.  "Do you have a description or depiction of them, if they're somewhat standardized?  I imagine I could find them by gradient descent within a regio, but image searches are something I do more of..."

"...echoing the solution from small-scale to large-scale..."

"...as above so below, means that as below, so above; leverage that, set up a self-propagating reaction with smaller pieces cascading into bigger ones..."

"Probably worth a big ritual array at the center, especially because I have shields that work, that we could use to monitor progress...and because I totally expect some big gribbly thing to happen there, knowing my luck, and I wouldn't want to let a mass of festering hatred rampage unchecked.  It was bad enough in Orgrimmar, and I wasn't even there for that fight."

It almost sounds like she's designing a ritual. Evantia is distinctly not a ritual theorist, but she's certainly heard them say 'as above so below' enough. She's not entirely convinced that is theologically sound, or indeed whether the Labyrinth should be considered 'above' or 'below' for these purposes, but she has to concede that's probably not important right now.

"They are - hmm, I'm sure we must have a sketch artist around here somewhere. They are somewhat variable in visual form, I'm afraid, so I'm not sure a - how are you even proposing to do that? Our magic is much better at identifying a named entity than a visual input, I'm not even sure you can provide a visual input...

Anyway, I believe it's generally an ugly stone pillar, maybe four metres tall or so in the most common case, covered in dried blood and likely other unpleasant fluids; we identify them by their effect, not by their form.

The rest of that sounded like ritual theory, and I am afraid I do not do ritual theory. I can certainly find you some people who do - I think we even have a couple of Stargazers, not wanting to move too far from Spiral but having escaped the clutches of the Grendel."

"Well, I wasn't going to do much of it with magic, so that's not a very big concern.  It is certainly something I'll have to take into account, though.  Anyway.  Yes, local ritual advice would probably be helpful to have."

"Then you have... access to a large quantity of sketches of prospective intervention sites? Some kind of army of scouts who do your bidding?"

She raises her voice somewhat for the next sentence, in a practiced, clear and carrying tone.

"I know you're outside the door listening to us; make yourself useful and fetch a ritual theorist or three? Probably Day, Night, maybe Autumn?"

There is indeed a pair of sentinels stationed just outside the door, and after a brief exchange of glances one hurries off, presumably to look for appropriate ritual advice personnel.

"Something like that, but with more machinery involved."

She is, in fact, going to set up some scouting overflights of the AO, in the vein of nigh-exoatmospheric spy planes.  With magic detectors, and also high-resolution cameras.

"Oh - but presumably, not spiders? The Autumn realm does something like that, sometimes, but generally it's with mechanical spiders."

(The parts of the AO which correspond to the areas held by Druj are somewhat resistant to high-altitude spy planes, on account of being shrouded in exceptionally demoralising fog which is itself somewhat magical.)

"Not normally spiders, no.  Sometimes that body plan is useful, though."

It's a good thing machines don't have Morale mechanics!

"...magical fog, very rude..."

Except that the magical fog has to be sourced from somewhere, so maybe if she does this and that and pulls out these...hopefully, she can trace it to the source(s).

(A variety of screens are popping up from some widgets she plonked on the desk, showing maps and photographs and diagrams of all sorts.)

Evantia is far too polite to say 'what the fuck' but it is extremely plain, despite her generally expressionless demeanour, that if she was not exceedingly polite, she would indeed be saying 'what the fuck', possibly repeatedly.

(The magical fog probably does have a source! However, the effect is now on the entire region, in the magical-boundaries sense. Also, the considerable quantity of widgets will probably also report that the stars are wrong and this is plainly a deliberate anti-scrying effect, this time on the entire territory (and the one bordering it to the north), which is probably not helping.)

"Please feel free to speak your mind, I know I'm an absolute absurdity."

Oh, well, that's fine, she has a baseline starchart to compare to which means that if she pipes it through the astral decryption module she can actually align her scrying with the anti-scrying like so, resonating backwards -

"...and let's see what you're hiding -"

"I assure you that if I was capable of formulating a reasonable question, I would have already done so," she replies, rather over-precisely enunciated and slightly through gritted teeth; she feels distinctly like she should be able to formulate a relevant question even though this is definitely out of her field and probably out of everyone's field and also, like, what the fuck.

The shroud is pierced; it is hiding... well, mostly, that there is a conspicuous absence of orc armies in the region and it looks a lot like they're packing up as much of what can be moved as they can and desperately shipping it north in ox carts. Well, kind of ox carts. More horrible-giant-lizard carts.

There are a number of Sites Of Horrible Torture which could fit the relevant description, all somewhat magically relevant and extremely icky. It appears that they did not think 'the local populace' was something they could take with them, and have, uh, used it on site.

"Ah, I see.  Going to be a bit busy with --"

"...oh bloody hell, fine then, rapid intervention it is, and fuck you and fuck you and most certainly fuck you and you and let's get that pattern automated because I can hardly pluck out every one of these fast enough to save the people they're going to murder - and fucking hell -

"I'm going to do something that might be a bit much - but people are dying and I can't just knowingly let that happen.  Excuse me just a moment."

And she yeets herself into the nearest cleared space, for having space to work in, and starts setting up a ritual circle via holoprojector, simple except for the fact that it dynamically networks thousands of entanglements and mana taps to a central effector structure - that she simply places her hands in, pulling the flow of magic through herself and her mantle to attune it to her purpose and control, to feed back into her army, marshaling the production and deployment of emergency response forces - flicker shields, redundant processors, sedative spray, taser beams (not to be confused with laser beams), earthmoving and wardbreaking tools...  There are, despite her distaste for them, even some reinforced units with actual guns and rune-spells of various caliber - to break through the Druj and save people.

O goddess mine, I ask of you a boon in a time of direst need - for yet so many souls will be denied your care if I do not act, now, with faculties beyond me - and so I seek your aid to aid others, your hands to reach out with, your cornerstone for this edifice of virtue; I know it is much, but my need is dire and the problem so far beyond my attention alone, and I am alone, in a world that knows you nor I not.  Please help.  Amen.

Around her, there is a fence of caution tape.  HIGH-ENERGY WORKING - DO NOT DISTURB.

The remaining sentinel on duty outside the chapel is Extremely Alarmed as she hurtles past, and attempts to intercept her as she throws herself off the gangway, but despite having impressively quick reactions - and having a little warning from the proceeding dialog - was in no way expecting this.

Upon landing, she is swiftly surrounded by several converging units of sentinels; they are sensible enough to not immediately charge through into an active ritual, a couple of magic users are casting Detect Magic to attempt to work out what she might be doing, and the highest ranking Sentinel shouts: "Please explain yourself so that we do not need to take preventative action!".

They seem to think that they can afford a few moments to let her answer, but are strongly considering charging in and attempting to render her unconscious if an explanation is not forthcoming.

Evantia dashes out of the chapel after her. "Don't let them stop her," she instructs the sentinel, "she's working against the Druj."

The sentinel starts to sprint down the structure; Evantia looks on anxiously from the gangway, taking a deep breath and getting ready to have a Very Good Shout if it seems like the situation is going to escalate before her messenger arrives.

"Fucking over the Druj before they can kill more people!"

And her diagrams are still up, if anybody's paying attention to those.  "Now quiet would you, I need to focus."

The sentinels do not seem to be extremely convinced by this pithy answer, so Evantia finishes taking her deep breath, winces pre-emptively, and in her best No Really Pay Attention Across This Entire Battlefield voice, yells "STAND DOWN! DO YOU WANT THE DRUJ DESTROYED OR DON'T YOU?"

That is about all she can get across before her ability to make that much noise gives out, but she strikes a suitably stern and imposing pose on the gangway, ready to gesture frantically if they don't seem to have got the message - even though what she really wants now is to get a nice glass of milk and sip it very gently.

This appears to have at least caused an argument to break out amongst the Sentinels. The magic users who were casting detect magic give their reports; they are extremely confused, it seems like some kind of entity is protecting the working, it believes itself to be benevolent, and claims this is coordination and setup for a larger magical working.

This does not at all reassure the sentinel commander who thinks they should disable the rogue mage now and ask questions later, but Evantia's words - and the general consensus that anything that 'fucks over the Druj' is worth it regardless of the cost - are keeping them from immediate action.

Good, that would have been annoying.  Or possibly explosive, if they tried to force the matter.  There's rather a lot of magic going through here, even if she can't do anything worth doing with it on this side of the circle.

Now, it is time to RTS protagonist these fuckers.

She pulls up the overview map on the big screen, and gets to work.

(And Keth and co. get a notification: "Commencing hostilities against Druj; recommend drawing back from engagements within AO when signaled to avoid friendly fire.  Expect to receive repatriation of surviving Grendel forces ETA several hours, days.")

Oh great. Keth will coordinate using the Helpful Communication Device for Mhendi to start casting Winged Messenger to Salt Lord Kaliact immediately.

From what she's gathered of the tactical situation, the Grendel forces here are spread very thin and mostly trying to keep local order, the main armies having been shipped out for resupply once the Empire's latest summit had concluded without any sign they were about to dramatically break the treaty.

So they shouldn't be in the way of whatever ridiculous magical nonsense was about to befall the Druj. She'd kind of hoped they'd still be a threat during the meeting with Kaliact to distract Myra from whichever local conditions she disapproved of, but really she can't feel sad about anything bad happening to that bunch of horrendously wasteful idiots.

Big map! Ossuary and Screed in Spiral are the main areas, but the Druj occupation also spreads over into Occursion and Proceris up into Zenith (supplementary map!), where there are actually armies - quite a few armies - which are thoroughly engaged with Imperial forces.

The Druj armies appear to be trying to escape through the big spooky forest named Lustri, and are Not Having A Good Time, although the Imperial forces seem to be much more interested in rescuing prisoners, dismantling torture sculptures, laying tortured souls to rest and consecrating everything in sight, than in preventing their escape or cutting them down.

Most of the Druj who are left in Ossuary and Screed are either engaged in frantically attempting to not be there any more, digging in to hide and hoping they'll be overlooked long enough to flee when everything has calmed down, or deciding they have been hung out to dry and having as much fun as they can before the inevitable happens - and by 'fun', we mostly mean 'horrifically torturing their underlings and anything that can feel pain and has the misfortune to get close enough'.

There is also a cabal of, uh, even more impressively awful Druj than usual, who have rounded up everyone they could find and have taken them to the Black Plateau itself - upon which they are doing the worst things they can possibly think of, including to each other, presumably in an attempt to somehow make everything even worse than it already was. There is definitely a lot of magic and a lot of exciting herbal concoctions involved in this.

Yeah how about no.

No torture, no horrible magic rituals, no escaping into spooky death forest - coordinate with Imperial forces to speed up the rescue process, she has trucks - Oh, goddammit, is she going to have to unweave whatever this is herself - artillery is the king of the battlefield and she has lots of it even if it's softdropping capture foam - thank you, she almost missed those guys - nuh-uh, flank those dumbasses - healing's spreading fine, she's captured a pillar to analyze and is working on freeing the souls from the structure without bringing the rest of it down - oh hey no do not touch the fucking obsidian now is not time for a blaze of glory/vengeance, you are being saved, please do not resist - 

The Imperial forces are Rather Nonplussed about trucks but generally are quite battle-weary and extremely happy that some kind of weird-ass magical support has clearly arrived. There are some arguments about whether it's from 'Zakalwe' or 'Estavus', and some of the more religious types who are mostly in monochrome with maybe one colour highlight - the Highborn - are especially suspicious, but everyone is considerably too busy to actually do anything but stay clear and let other people deal with it.

Ex-prisoners in Spiral do seem to be extremely keen on vengeful murder rampages, and reaching out to unweave the power that the cabal has built up on the Black Plateau...

hate. hate. before there was anything there was hate. after there is nothing there will still be hate. the more you fight hate the more it hates you. the more you fight the hatred the more you hate it. hate. hate.

The Plateau is not a thinking creature, but it has attracted at least one very powerful thinking spirit creature, which is currently making an extremely concerted effort to burrow its way into Myra's soul - or, failing that, tunnel through the connection and eat all the delicious nearby Sentinels.

Yeaaaaah, she saw that coming a mile away, and a choked-out "Sha protocol!" causes an eyewatering mess to be made of local space, in addition to more mundane barriers, in order to isolate her from bystanders.

The screen flashes a bright yellow WARNING: HOSTILE POSSESSOR ENTITY SAFEGUARDS ENGAGED.  THAUMATURGICAL C&C OFFLINE FOR SAFETY REASONS.  ENGAGING FALLBACK MECHANISMS.

And then...she cries.

Because even as she experiences visceral disgust at almost everything this being does, she cannot help but mourn the life she is about to take.  She's so sorry.  But there isn't a world in which both it and she can live, and she must selfishly choose herself, and save as many lives as she possibly can with that choice to make it worth the cost she pays.  She wishes she could do better by it, but no matter how strong her goddess is, she is only human.  It has one chance to surrender, before she does what she must.  And she will do it, with calm and care.  Its death is its choice.

what will you do if I surrender

The sentinels appear to be... hastily erecting a structure around her structure? And ushering in a ritual team?

not kill you.  keep you from hurting others.  keep others from hurting you if you are not hurting others.  provide things necessary to your wellbeing, if possible.

hurting feeds hate and hate inspires hurting but it is not all there is. we can explore hate without hurting together?

these people around you hate, they hate the druj, they would hate me if they know me; they warm me, they would hurt me if they could, but they cannot if i am in you?

hate is not something I wish to explore myself for I know it would lead me to hurt and I hate hurting, but there are ways you could explore hate-without-hurting with my assistance.

they warm you?

if you were in me my body would hurt you; if you were in me my soul would hurt you.  I can make bodies that will not hurt.

i can make a body if you intend to defend it

if you surrendered you would be protected as any other thinking being would under my rules.

you will keep me from hurting people and keep people from hurting me and i will not resist you in this. i will not take your body or nest in your soul if i have somewhere else to go. under these terms i surrender. will you make me a body or shall i?

I will make you a body.

It gives her more control over the situation, which she feels she direly needs, to be able to embed this spirit in an artifice of her own design.  Funnily enough, this isn't the first time she's done something like this (even with a sin-flavored spirit, for that matter), so she actually has blueprints ready, and within a minute a similar spirit-housing shows up at the Black Plateau.  It's a rough cube of thaumaturgical machinery, painted prison-jumpsuit orange, marked with her sigil and PRISONER TRANSPORT: DO NOT DISMANTLE, then welded to a hardware-limited hover pallet.  It does have cameras to watch the outside world with, though what there is to watch is mostly Druj shamans encased in foam glaring angrily at machines.

This body is temporary until the Druj are handled.  Afterwards we shall discuss creating something more suited to your needs.  Please move in.

The spirit pours into the casing and projects a seething feeling of hatred at its predicament, which might in fact be what it considers to be a friendly thank-you.

Okay.

"Engage Sha protocol verification: entity contained."

The blinking yellow warning is replaced by a slightly more soothing blue block of text.

Hostile possessor entity reported successfully contained; please await confirmation.

Scanning . . . . . . . . . . . 

Cognitive integrity  OK

Soul checksum       OK (cnj4!bZq%#)

Ritual validation      OK

Habitancy check     1/1

Prison P-0A749X    HOLDING (100%)

Possessor entity: Successfully contained.

And the defenses spin down as the operation spins back up to its 'usual' breakneck pace.

She does have one more comment: "Fucking called it."

There is a newly erected marquee tent around her and a ritual team is mid ritual.

Evantia has run down to join the sentinel argument and is rather hoarsely insisting that yes while Solace of Chimes is the calmest possible aura the problem with magic auras is they're naturally very weak and that might not contain something bad enough to worry their esteemed guest.

Two people reply simultaneously to the intelligible statement - one is saying "Please don't interrupt the ritual" and the other is asking "Called what?"

"Spirit of hatred in the Black Plateau; it surrendered.  You're doing what?  Listen to Evantia, I can't pay attention to this and talk to you."

Evantia wins her argument and ushers forwards a couple of other priests, who take some liao and place an aura on the makeshift construction.

The effect of the aura settles on Myra and everyone in the tent - You feel a profound desire to protect the things you truly care for. You know your decisions are crucial to ensure their safety.

The ritual concludes, but it has no effect, because a magical aura cannot displace a spiritual aura. One of the ritualists tries to make a break for it and inflict violence on Myra with the staff she was using, but is put on the ground by two other ritualists with rods before she can take more than a step; they start picking her up to take her out of the tent for medical attention. The priests are holding an informal perimeter to stop anyone else going in the tent.

Well, that sure did happen.

What's the status of the Black Plateau's cognitohazardous effect, now?

Still pumping out hate, although it's starting to get an additional flavour... mmm, despair, yes, that's some despair there, resonating off all those Druj tied up in restraint foam.

Why did she think it would be that simple.

Alright, then.  Her initial blitzkrieg is winding down, honestly; when she tells her army to move it can move pretty damn fast.  But this...

She worries it's only just beginning.

So she spreads unoccupied forces out to tap local mana more effectively, takes up a meditative mien, and...

Well, experiences compassion for the people she's defeated.

Not just for them, but...for them too.

Born into a culture that prized cruelty and pain, how many of them even had a choice to become something more than this cruel perversion of even basic orcish instincts?  How many of their ancestors are horrified by what their children have become, have been shouting from beyond to those who will not listen?  For the strength of the pack is the orc, and the strength of the orc is the pack - but no pack, no pact this is; only cruelty, greed, and pain, instead of wisdom shared and thereby amplified.  She's seen this pattern, she knows this pattern all too well - and it will eat itself from the inside out.  This she knows, as sure as stone, as sure as steel.  Would they like something different?

Uh, so.

About a quarter of them are drawing on a source of spiritual strength they have handy to throw off this obviously foreign emotional effect.

About another quarter are extremely keen to abjectly surrender to anyone who has a plan which isn't 'die ignominiously of thirst over the next couple of days'. They would be very happy to sign up to whatever that value system is, regardless of what it is, Person Who Has Thoroughly Beaten Them.

The third quarter is not quite so absolutely keen to surrender utterly to anyone who will accept their surrender, but grudgingly agrees that they have definitely lost and it is totally within Myra's rights to do whatever she wants with them, including totally reshaping their culture if that's what she feels like doing.

The rest of them draw on the strength of their group belonging and hurl snarling defiance back at her.

None of the Druj really get the whole 'this is an offer' thing, 'offer' is not really something they understand, unless it translates to 'cruel trap' or 'attempted bargaining from a position of weakness'.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all souls are created equal, and are endowed in their creation with certain inalienable rights, amongst them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...

It's time to start rolling out infrastructure.

The snarling defiance...hurtles off into the metaphorical distance, because there is nothing to defy in this.  Just a possibility, that didn't previously exist.  Food, water, shelter, given freely, so long as none are harmed.  Indeed, amongst themselves, they-singular can live as they see fit, if they-collective wish to continue as they-singular have previously.

But there are people under her protection, and the Druj must know this: they shall not hurt another.  The only soul they can allow horrible things to happen to is their own.

The general consensus among the more surrender-inclined half is something along the lines of: well, fuck, we're all going to get eaten by the Abyss, but at least that isn't going to happen right now and maybe we can do something about it later.

The rest are clearly going to hurt someone else just as soon as they can just to prove they still can. Some of them are in fact trading personal insults right now.

...aaaand, some of the Imperials are moving to stab the helpless Druj, in a tiresomely predictable fashion.

Imperials, could you not.  Your business here is recovering your people.  Not murdering prisoners.

Also she soundly despises the Abyss on principle and will certainly be seeing what she can do to stop the eating people thing, if that helps.  Fuck true-deaths.

...She feels they are vastly misunderstanding something, but doesn't interfere in the insult-a-thon.  Better everyone get it out of their systems, anyway.

The Imperials in question absolutely will not stop until physically prevented, and some of them are surprisingly good at cutting their way out of the first attempt at preventing them, although Myra's forces adapt quickly. Some of the other Imperials are trying to apologise on their behalf.

The Druj insult-a-thon participants don't really mean it, mostly, they're just trying to hurt each other. To some extent they are kind of succeeding - they're extremely skilled in basically every way you can hurt someone, even if you are both entirely restrained from anything but making facial expressions, being able to talk is definitely enough.

Yeah, she understands; there's a lot of entrenched pain, here, and they want to lash out and hurt what they perceive as the cause of it, no matter how much any given individual was or wasn't involved in matters of culture and state as anything more than a victim themselves.  ...She wishes it was easier to punch sociological problems.

As she is finally no longer needing to immerse herself in field command, she stands up, safes the ritual circle (which is simple) and the magic amplifier (which is really, profoundly not, but she's pretty damn good at wards and working with magic items), and allows herself a facepalm.

"I told them to stop fucking hurting eachother without mutual consent, and they're finding new and creative ways to insult one another just to theoretically spite me, which is honestly just sad.  Anyone here have good estimates on how long I should expect them to be at it before they get bored or run out of repertoire?"

Oh, she should probably let Keth know the fighting's over.

"You mean the Druj? Forever," replies one of the Sentinels who just happens to be the first to speak up.

Several people make faces at the mention of the Druj.

"They're not all dead, then?" another Sentinel asks.

"Can you give us a briefing, please," requests their commander.

"They're not all dead, no; I rather hope they'll take this opportunity to make a radical change away from a culture that encourages being backstabbing dicks.  I think about half of them have actually bought in on it, to varying degrees of understanding and enthusiasm.

"Anyway.  Briefing.  Or rather, debriefing.  Let's see, what was I doing...Right.  Talking with Evantia about - it was the miasma aura projector things the Druj have, if I recall correctly, led me to actually deploying scout drones.

"At which point I found out that the Druj forces were retreating and salting the earth behind them.

"Salting the earth should be read to include 'killing the civilians'.  Because, well.  Druj.  Is there a single other culture on this planet that doesn't want to smack them about a bit for being assholes?  Anyway.

"I deploy with all due haste, and in the process of interrupting a Druj ritual sited there, find out that there is a spirit of Hatred in the Black Plateau.  I deploy my anti-possession and anti-soul-sucking-monstrosity countermeasures, and call on an ally of mine for assistance, which led to - I don't want to project anything onto the spirit, so I'll just say that I got it to agree to not hurt people, in exchange for, you know, getting - and having somewhere - to live.  Which isn't the Black Plateau, anymore.  I have some spirit anchor blueprints handy, so I used those for containment purposes."

She sets a reminder to take care of getting the spirit a more...body-shaped...body.

"Concurrent with that, rescue operations proceed apace, and with the Black Plateau just sitting right there, I took advantage of it to secure approximately half the Druj's forces' unconditional surrender, and the rest's grousing, because they really can't do anything about me telling them to not hurt people who aren't them.

"At approximately this point, some of the Empire's soldiers, who I had brought along to give friendly faces to rescued civilians, start trying to kill prisoners, which is not permitted by my rules of war, but that didn't require my personal attention.

"Any further questions?"

"Which regions are secured, and who is taking dominion of them? As long as the Imperial forces retain their existing regions, we don't have a supply problem for the Guard, but there are a lot of refugees waiting to return - especially to Endsmeet in Occursion, Echostorm and Cascade in Proceris..."

"Are the soldiers who attempted to slaughter the Druj okay? Is there a message we should send to the generals to secure their release?"

"Literally everyone hates the Druj."

"Is this just in Spiral and Zenith? There are a lot more Druj out in the Mallum..."

She waves a hand at the campaign map, then pulls up a copy of The Map beside it.

"Please direct geographical inquiries to the map; I quite literally don't know where any of those are yet.  Let me pull up the regio boundaries...annnnd there we go."  The campaign map shows regio boundaries, now.

She is pursuing the Druj army back along its supply chains until there stops being a Druj army, because, well, fuck the Druj, but at this point she's back to scouting.  She doesn't see any more miasmatic orcs in the Black Plateau's range of influence.  (There's not anything stopping her from pursuing beyond said range, but tactical evaluation suggests her autobattling is at a point at which she can be reasonably confident her forces know how to handle this opponent, and when they will need her assistance, so she's able to get out of the 'command tent'.)

"The forces who tried to kill the prisoners-of-war will be admonished and released when they wake up, generally.  They didn't know any better and, y'know, the aura's bad in there.  I'm not going to hold it against them too much.  If they try to do it again I'm probably going to drop them off somewhere that's not this - what was it, territory?"

"As far as refugees returning - I'm probably going to end up laying sovereign claim to those regios which were only contested by the Druj, because I don't want the Empire and the Grendel getting in a pissing match over them, but prior inhabitants are generally welcome to return, with the caveat that there are refugee camps going up right now for the ex-Druj.  Otherwise, whoever's soldiers are in the regio right now determines who you're going to have to talk to about that.  I don't like politics."

"Zenith's the territory. If you drop them behind the lines at Iteri, or just over the border with Redoubt there's a big river port city, Cargo - they should be able to find their way home from there without causing further trouble."

"So you're taking Screed and Ossuary, and leaving the armies to secure Proceris and Occursion? That does seem pretty equitable..."

"But, you know, somebody is going to kick off about the Legacy."

(There is a polite background ping from the auto-battling army; they've crossed the boundary to the north of Lustri and now they are in a terrible place which is a horrible marsh on the side of a mosquito-ridden lake, and the 'supply lines' appear to be a lot of diseased, starving fisher-folk, who have been turfed out of their rotten wooden buildings by the remnant of the Druj army and their distinctly unhealthy looking fish confiscated for army provisions... humanitarian work is somewhat outside their chase-down-the-army remit but they thought Myra might like to know.)

Oh bloody hell, time to ship over the slack-capacity relief bots from Feroz, on top of the ones that're already doing construction for the refugees.  This just won't do.

"The Legacy?  I'm afraid I don't immediately recognize what you mean, though I have guesses."

...She will just let her geonavigation software parse all that information about places.  Advanced technology is really quite useful when you hate having to memorize names and such!

Basically there's one of those big magical border lines in the middle of the Druj incursion, to the north is the bits the Imperial armies were fighting over anyway, to the south is the bit in the territory the Grendel control, and that latter bit has the Black Plateau and the Legacy, which is a big Mithril mine.

"The mine in Ossuary," someone helpfully points out. "You won't like what the Druj have done to it, I expect they've stripped all the safety precautions and trapped the workers inside."

(It turns out that there are two main kinds of locals in the Bloodwater Marsh on the banks of the Feverwater; one kind are abjectly terrified of everything and run off to hide in the rushes, and the other are very happy to take anything that's given and immediately turn around and try to use it to subjugate each other.)

( - aaaauuuuugggghhhhh why are people like this - )

Okay!  Unfortunately for them there aren't any implements of subjugation in the relief packages!

"Let's see what's going on over there, then."

Surely her forces have reached the mine.

The mine was pretty much the second target, as the second largest area of activity; they had to break down a few barricades built by orcs who claimed to be surrendering but hadn't sound-baffled the noises of suffering slaves still in there with them hard enough, and shore up a few excavations that were distinctly dangerous, but as areas of this clusterfuck go, it's pretty peaceful - most of the people on the 'people are restrained here and will need further action within the day' list here are the ex-slaves who immediately tried to murder their previous slavemasters in a fairly understandable kind of way, the Druj left at the mine mostly seem to be motivated by wealth than this bizarre drive to hurt anyone in sight that a lot of their compatriots have been displaying.

There is a very large and ever-growing list of 'people who are restrained and are going to need more action shortly because it's not at all clear how to safely un-restrain them' all over the operational area; over three quarters of them are marked as probably overall being victims rather than primary aggressors, although levels of uncertainty are high in many cases.

At about this point, notification that advance units have had to pull back starts coming in - a little way around the shores of the horrible lake, there is a Dreadful Spring Energy Vortex, writhing with uncontained life energy manifesting itself as giant insects, spider-fungus ettercaps, hideous shambling mounds of combined plant and animal life etc, which some of the displaced Druj army units and desperate terrified locals attempted to flee into; it does not seem to have gone well for them, but how it doesn't go well for them is mostly that they are transformed into additional force for the uncontained life excursion, which makes saving them... nontrivial.

Oh, what fresh hell is this.

"The mine's actually pretty much handled.  The whatever the fuck this is, though..."  Roll the footage, she supposes.  "...wait, is that what someone tried to unleash on one of my factories the once?  It's similarly rampant Spring, for fucking sure!  What the absolute fuck!

"...Okay, where'd I leave the Warlock's Wheel blueprints, I know I made some, thank goodness for Larry Niven..."

Right.  Encrypt, enqueue, and embark.  That wild magic needs to go, and if it won't go on its own she will take it.

...If it's not capable of thought, at least.  If whatever is happening here can think on its own, that might be a problem.

...At least she can lasso the people that fled inside and drag them out, in the hope that'll disconnect them from the positive-energy-zombie apocalypse-waiting-to-happen?

As for the people who're restrained/asleep as a result of security operations, her general plan is to move them away from the people they tried to hurt and the places they were hurt in, to give their tempers time to cool and the hatred aura's effects time to wear off now that the primary resonator is no longer amplifying said hatred.

"Oh, you found Bendol?" calls out one of the Sentinels.

"Oh, right, yes, they have a Vallorn," explains one of the commanders. "Um, probably don't try to fight the Vallorn, please? There's a plan in motion to tidy it up properly, but other attempts to fight it generally just make it angry..."

"And it's a really bad time for it to be angry," pipes up another voice, "because there's a huge expedition to the heart of Terunael going on right now - who might all die if it gets riled up more than expected."

(The Vallorn is not capable of thought; it is made up of a profusion of life, some of which did start out sentient and is still sentient but has been subsumed by the Vallorn's extremely basic plant-y goals of surviving and growing, some of which still has its own sentience and coexists with the Vallorn, but the thing itself is not a thinking entity. It has faint magical connections out to other, often rather larger Vallorn elsewhere.

Some people can be fully rescued, generally heavily poisoned and bleeding from multiple wounds; however, a larger contingent still have their will subsumed by the Vallorn and have to join the growing list of restrained-pending-a-better-solution.

Few of the restrained Druj are amenable to not going straight back to hurting someone as soon as they get released and have the slightest opportunity; it appears to be essentially the only way they know how to relate to the world and other people, and unfortunately many of their subjects are determined to follow their example.)

"Right, leaving the Vallorn alone for now then.  And adding 'get in touch with the people who're expeditioning in Terunael' to my to-do list, somewhere after 'stop everybody I've taken out from trying to hurt everybody else'."

...dear gods, this is messed up.  How are they still a functioning society.  She's almost considering whether it would be worthwhile to break out the cognitohazard testing equipment if their 'hurt people' meme is this pervasively hostile.

She almost considers isolating those affected from everyone, but - that's inhumane.

Instead, she's going to do goddessly Compassionate shit.

Because there are ways to relate to the world that are not through pain and suffering, and hopefully, hopefully, they will be helped by getting some perspective.  Some of her perspective, even.

(There are a number of them that aren't quite this implacably dedicated to the whole thing! These ones are variously grumpily and dazedly getting on with minor, petty, but not especially hurtful - and kind of half-hearted - power struggles over pecking order and access to the abundant survival resources in their refugee camps, which is almost functional behaviour!

...in fact, 'dedicated' might be your problem. A sizeable number of the especially intractable individuals - who keep restarting the cycle of pain and fear wherever they get put - have something a lot like the spiritual effects of that hate spirit, or the ones Evantia was talking about earlier - some of them are Hate, and some of them are Fear, and a few of them are Vengeance, but all are providing an upwelling of power which is actively blocking any attempt to change their emotional makeup, particularly anything that smells like divine intervention.

The really potent effects that are not easily overcome do seem to be slowly decaying though - if they can be stopped from re-applying them, they're going to last at most three months. There are also slightly lesser effects which are also decaying, but slower, which are on items about their person rather than on the people themselves; and a very few, maybe half a dozen across the entire area, permanent potent effects, only one of which is on a person rather than an object or area.)

Ahh, yep, cognito fucking hazards.

If they're so dedicated as to have been dedicated to these concepts, that's going to merit special processing.

The items, at least, are easier to resolve.  Those, you can just pull apart the effect upon.  But you can't do that with a mind.

Not without, you know, breaking it.

Which would be bad.

"Fucking cognitohazards.  Why is everyone's religion doing this.  Where are they getting the fucking true-liao or equivalent for the permanencies I've spotted, from."

"That's fascinating, we always knew the Druj had some kind of herb-lore equivalent..."

"The Imperial Orcs will be very interested!"

"I hear they have something called 'black lotus'?"

The crowd appears to be politely ignoring the bit about 'everyone's religion' and focusing on 'possible mechanisms for Orc religion', on which they have a lot of speculation and no further factual content.

"Alright, people, we can speculate later; now's the time for problem-solving: how do you break a permanent Dedication to something?"

"True liao."

"Excommunication, depending on what you mean by 'break' it. That'd stop them doing anything with it."

"So would Weakness, but if you don't have full control of them that's easier for them to fix. Assuming we're still talking Druj here."

"Why do you want to break it - what effect do you think that will have?" This last point is from Evantia.

"It's a permanent dedication, of a living, thinking, feeling person, to Hatred, and all of that emotion's sequelae.  Why wouldn't I want to break that?  But mostly I want them to stop perpetuating the cycle of fucking violence with it."

"Okay, so Weakness would stop them using it for the short term.

Excommunication if you want to be a bit more sure they don't just trivially remove it, but it's not good for someone to be excommunicated long term either - you can't dream, it's a little dissociative and unsettling.

It is likely to take you some time and effort to secure True Liao even with your demonstrated abilities, and it is very likely that there will be plenty of Weakness causing preparations around the Druj, or priests capable of Excommunication with the Highborn armies currently deployed to Zenith."

"Right.  Thank you."  So what is out there?

Alright.  The various devotees to Hatred et al. have a choice, then.  They can go in the Hatred box, they can be subject to Weakness until their dedication fades or is removed, they can be excommunicated until same - they can swap between these two at any time - or they can cooperate, to the best of their abilities, with her aura-removing.

Those who are dedicated to Fear receive a similar offer.  Though, those who are dedicated to Vengeance...She wants to hear their grievances, actually.  Do they want to tell her about them?

Reports trickle back in; those under Hatred auras generally refuse to express a preference other than 'attempted violence on the communicating object', those under Fear auras will generally register that they prefer Weakness or Excommunication - it seems this mostly depends on if they have other skills that would be affected by Weakness.

The handful under Vengeance auras are - basically all not Druj, some ex-slaves/captives and some subject tribe members, and they basically want to get even for what the Druj has done. And about half of them would prefer you to call it Justice, thank you, Vengeance is the Imperial propoganda name because they don't like it.

Amongst the crowd, there is some muttering along the lines of 'kill them and let the Abyss sort it out', 'waste of time and resources' etc.

"It's my time and resources to waste, thank you.  And I think that there's no price less than lives themselves that makes saving lives from permanent death not inherently worth the effort."

Alright, she can get the Fear auras handled, once she knows what the relevant magic looks like.  The Hatred auras...those get to attend Camp Hatred and get excommunicated!  Violence is still not the answer!

Well, she isn't an Imperial, but her definition of Justice is a lot more focused on preventing further tragedy than getting even about the hurt that's been done.  That said, she thinks the complete toppling of their empire is probably a prerequisite - and thinks that, "-- perhaps the best revenge that can be done upon the Druj is to tear down the idols of fear and hatred they have constructed within our hearts, to live better for their absence.  To build something new upon the ground they tried to salt, and defy the culture they have built that glorifiea inflicting pain.  Which is to say, I think the best revenge you can have upon the Druj actually is living well, despite them, to spite them.  It is exactly your chances of happiness and contentment that they so fervently sought to deny you, after all."

"You do realise a lot of people are right now dying terrible deaths all over the world, yes?" calls out someone a few people back in response to that.

Excommunication is achieved by a human soul getting itself into the correct state, which takes both liao and a lot of practice.

There are definitely a few priests with the army who are willing to come excommunicate some Druj, despite the general Highborn suspicion of the bizarre magical assistance - they are mostly draughir, the pale humans with various somewhat undead looking trappings.

Weakness is a much easier effect to achieve, there are potions and magic items and basic spells that do it and those are not too difficult to replicate.

The Justice devotees are somewhat skeptical about the second part but would absolutely love to help tear down the, like, actual physical idols of fear and hate that the Druj like leaving all over the place - as long as the Druj are throughly defeated they guess they don't actually have to murder the individuals involved, it just seemed like the path of least resistance at the time.

"And I'm stopping that too, as best I can without trampling over people's lives in the process; this is just a big spot where the existing automatic response isn't enough."

(She's not lying, either; there's exponentially-expanding outposts of providing medical care and food and suchlike wherever someone lets her set one up.  And some places they just won't find out about.)

The Highborn can excommunicate the Druj who prefer that, as well as the new inhabitants of why did she call it Camp Hatred, that name sucks for implicit-bias reasons but it's going to stick, as fast as she can arrange it to happen, whereas everyone else who prefers that gets Weaknessed.

The statues?  They can absolutely break those.  This one she's studying to see if she can make something that isn't awful but does project effects, or rather she's studying to see if she can get everyone else a way to do that because she already has plenty of ways to apply effects on a regional scale, but otherwise - here's some hammers; go wild.  (The hammers are rune-etched items; they'll strike stone with shattering force, but pretty much anything that could be people they'll hit like a wiffle bat.)

"So the Salt Mines of the Grendel are being liberated as we speak?" questions one of the crowd.

"Some peoples are going to need a bit of a trampling," cautions another.

The initial few Highborn volunteers, on being introduced to Fast Means Of Travel, suggest that it might be efficient to send a couple of them on a tour of Highguard - it's only just across the River Couros - to pick up enough priests to do the job more swiftly, as there doesn't appear to be much danger and non-combatants can probably help. Also their own stocks of liao are fairly limited and they still have a lot of ghosts and restless spirits and various auras of Despair and Hate and Fear to deal with, but if it's easy to help then chapters back home will probably open their stores to their own priests.

The Justice-afflicted have a grand old time with their hammers and seem to be pretty satisfied doing this instead of taking them to any people, the worst of which are cooped up elsewhere in any case.

"The Grendel aren't, to the best of my knowledge, belligerents in the hostis sapiens generis sense the Druj are - just bad-faith negotiators - so I'm not presently invading them, but I'm working on that too.  I've already ended slavery in Feroz, and intend to replicate that trade with the Grendel in general."

The priests can absolutely do that, and the additional soulpower's helpful.  On the other hand, does this work?  It should function as liao normally does, but this is, admittedly, not a substance she knows how to perform quality control on, even if a duplication rune oughtn't care about that.

"If you've only been to Feroz, that's them playing nice," remarks someone.

This is slightly undermined by another voice piping up: "Actually I think they were mostly worse there than Spiral, except for the children?"

But the first voice replies, "Sure, but neither of them have anything on what they do over in the Broken Shore."

The priests are somewhat sceptical about Fake Plastic Liao, but a young woman with heavily pierced pointed ears agrees to try it; she has one of their physicks look her over afterwards, and their word is good enough for everyone else. (It's just a very specific hallucinogen - there are hints that it might sometimes become something more complicated, but none of the stuff they're carrying has, and it duplicates just fine.)

"I did see them actively pillaging a city, mind.  Regardless, I can fight their economy and win, so they'll bend one way or another.  And I believe that they're probably about to be caught in a corner about the children, if they're being malicious about it.  Because, you see, there's no more Druj to give them a 'keeping children away from the fighting' excuse."

...so it is literally magic LSD?  Wow, that's...surprising.  Or, perhaps, surprisingly enough, surprisingly unsurprising.  Because she called that, a while ago.  But the way liao becomes true liao...That sounds like a puzzle to work out.  She likes puzzles.  She'll conjure herself a vial and start fiddling with it, stimmily.

"Oh, no, the children are already dead," replies someone, surprisingly airily for such a statement.

"Except for the ones Sadogua rescued," someone else points out, in a pedantic-correction kind of tone.

It seems like there's something missing from the conjured dose. It'd behave perfectly fine as liao, but it doesn't have the potential imbued into the standard doses.

"..."

"The children are already dead.  The children are already dead.  The children are already dead?!"

She, on the other hand, is not light and airy.  She is, despite a tone that sounds like it's a few steps away from hysterics as she repeats the sentence that third time, almost a graven image, as she stands, the world itself vibrating around her like a plucked string.

"How."

(And...damn, Legendary Item Syndrome strikes again.  But that's less important than child murder.)

"They attempted to use them as a human shield for the access their fleets needed to the southern coast of Spiral.

We did not give in."

"...If I ever meet the creators of this world, I shall be having such words with them about the racism inherent in their portrayal of orcs-left-to-their-own-devices.  This is such absolute and utter awfulness.  Nor is it even in keeping with their nominal features as an even more heavily pack-bonding species than humans.

"Who ordered it done."

"I imagine it was Salt Lord Kaliact?"

"No, her name wasn't on the Winged Messenger - hold on, I've got it written down in here somewhere... Garaigh the Gentle, presumed dead at Apulus. Kaliact only started sending messages after the sinking of the port there."

"The Tsark are quite nice?" someone else contributes. "I'm glad we stopped the Grendel invading them."

"Oh.  Well they're either dead or fired, then, I should fucking hope.  Salt Lord Kaliact was described to me, by someone I'd expect to know, as something like a pragmatist.  That tactic, whatever purpose it was for, clearly failed miserably at accomplishing it.

"...'the Gentle', my ass.

"Though I must admit to curiosity about whether any other attempt, such as by diplomatic envoy, was made to recover the children, before you attacked the port."

She does want the Grendelian perspective on this, though.  So she will place a call.

"Excuse me one moment."

Privacy screen!  

"Hello, Keth.  What can you tell me about one Garaigh 'the Gentle', lately of Apulus?"

"Threatened the Urizeni. Stupid move. They doubled down. Pretty sure he didn't make it, you're a bit late if you want to kill him again. Perfectly competent general, by all accounts, just did not at all understand that the Urizeni are not like other Imperials - or at least, not like the Brass Coast. Anything more specific you wanted? We're just in a holding pattern here."

"Just wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page about, to speak crudely, him deserving what he got.

"I was profoundly displeased to hear that he attempted to accomplish a military objective by threatening children, and hope that that is conclusively...

"Against policy."

"...look, I'm not going to lie to you about this. War is war. If you can capture a few kids and get their parents to surrender, have them stop killing your people from ambush, then, that's what you do.

If you want people to stop doing that, you're going to have to stipulate it specifically, because in general people like solutions where less of their people die."

"I would generally like war to not be a thing that happens.  But...yes, I suppose that was at best optimistic to expect from anyone on this planet."

She pinches the bridge of her nose, not that anyone can see.

"Well, I'll add 'making rules of war' to the pile of issues I need to handle.  Fucking hell, everywhere I look I find another problem.  The Druj, the vallorn, the absolutely - the ongoing guerilla conflicts - at least I've mostly fixed the Black Plateau, for real this time, but I have no idea why the hell the Varushkans did the thing that set it off and I'm sure I'm going to have to deal with that, and then there's figuring out how the hell spirits can be safely handled when some are literally made of hatred and communicate entirely in that emotion - I need at least three of me right now and I don't believe this universe supports time travel of the type that would allow me sufficient shenanigans with which to not be constantly harried by the situation no matter how many bodies I could theoretically have - "

She sighs, and slumps into a spot-conjured chair.

"One thing at a time."

"I'd also like war not to be a thing that happens, it's generally terribly wasteful and I'm not exactly fond of the sort of people who actively enjoy it. Unfortunately, getting there is generally held to involve a lot of war on the way through?

I suppose Ambition is meant to be good for the human soul, but even the Imperials don't expect their Paragons to fix every problem in the world at once. Is your fix to the Black Plateau safe to go out in? I think we should start traversing the area and relieving all the garrisons that are in various moderately unpleasant auras to shield themselves from it, if so - a lot of places are attuned to this Block here and if they could not be blanketed in Winter magic I'm sure they would feel a lot better for it.

If using your craft is acceptable for that, I'll get onto Mhendi and we can start right away."

"I'll have to keep running the same old playbook, then.  Darn.  I was hoping - wait, what the hell was I even hoping, that I could solve this with politics instead of confoam?  I can't politics worth a damn!

"But - gods, this isn't even ambition, it's - compassion, responsibility assumed by the power I've vested in myself...knowing just how much better for everyone things could be, and trying to find the way to that golden future.  Because people are dying as I speak, despite every effort I've pre-drafted to make things that aren't that happen instead of deadly death.  Especially permanent deadly death.  Whoever designed the orcish afterlife was a horrible, horrible person.  Because - it has permadeath, and - every soul matters.

"I'm certain I stopped the root cause of the province-wide hatred aura, but I haven't tracked down every last piece of obsidian that's been broken off to check that turning off the primary resonator and getting the hatred spirit to Not de-fuckened the secondary bits.  Still, the Black Plateau's for-sure shut down in a way that even a repeat of that stupid, senseless massacre couldn't undo without some seriously noticeable vandalism and wardbreaking that I would personally contest."

"Also, yes, the craft's at your disposal as far as transportation goes; I'll second it some messenger drones, actually; you mostly can't fuck anything up with those."

"I don't suppose we can get some of that non-lethal suppression foam, too? If we do have to restrain people who have got at the obsidian, well, the current policy is to shoot them on sight because there isn't a safe way of doing that."

"Yeah, that's absolutely doable; there should already be some drones on that duty.  I should probably check somewhere we know some cursed obsidian is..."

"Thank you, I think that's all we need at the moment. I'll let you know if anything else pressing happens, but for now I'll assume you're busy and we'll concentrate on spreading the good news about the Black Plateau, which should earn you some favour with the Salt Lord when you do have time for negotiations there."

"I don't think I'm busy with anything especially time-sensitive at the moment, just so you know.  Anyway.  Be safe out there."

Annd end call.

The expression on her face is best described as 'complicated exasperation' as she remembers why she made it to begin with.

"Good news, the Grendel don't dispute that that guy was an asshole.  Possibly-bad news, I am now highly motivated to stop every single military or paramilitary operation on this damn continent except maybe the one against the vallorn because everybody's been assholes to eachother.  I'd say war is hell, but hell doesn't involve hurting innocent civilians!  ...Where was I, anyway.  Hm hm, mm hm, hm mm," her hands shuffle unseen thoughts, "note to self, research local time travel or lack thereof if applicable, ...vallorn!"

She is triumphant over her own brain!

...On the other hand... "...Vallorn.  Is there anyone known to whom I should direct my inquiries on the subject, especially vis-a-vis ways to calm rampant magical effects in general and the safety of utilizing such techniques there in particular?"

"The Grendel just say what you want to hear, you know, you can't actually trust them?" 

"Don't touch the Vallorn without talking to the Navaar."

"They're kind of busy at the moment with the Broceliande expedition."

"Advisor on the Vallorn - that's Siân Eternal, right?" 

"No, it changed very recently, it's now Nathair Autumngale."

"Oh no, did Siân die? Her book is great."

"Might also be able to find someone who wasn't going on the expedition but knows their stuff at the library they just founded - Great Library of Hacynian, up in Hercynia."

"Or closer in, you could do worse than dropping in at Bronwen's Rest in Therunin, they're unlikely to have the expertise but they know everyone, they'll be better at pointing you in the right direction."

"I might not be able to trust the Grendel as a polity, no, but individual Grendel citizens can meet epistemic standards to make them trustworthy as sources on Grendel opinion.

"Probably would double-check if they said the sky was blue, mind," she only half lies - though she's unsure which half it is - "but this at least I'm confident in.  Anyway, that's a diversion from the whole," encompassing-gesture, "vallorn.  Y'all know anything else that's province-scale and critical to solve soonest?  Otherwise, I think I'd best get on that as soon as possible, given that some of the vallorn-touched are still conscious."

Right.  Map.  What sayest thou about travel times and such.

"Vallorn's officially the greatest spiritual threat to the Empire."

"The Thule gave up their living slaves, but it's not clear that their undead ones are all just animated bodies and no trapped soul."

"There's another war over the other side of the Empire with the Jotun, but it's pretty clean compared to anything with the Druj or Grendel in it."

"Asavea still has widespread slavery and there's about to be a big fight over the island with the ringleaders of their slavery cult on, it's kind of in hand but it's going to be messy."

"And the Iron Confederacy, nobody's doing anything about them because they're near enough to invade us."

"If you're not keen on kids dying regardless of the species, I think the Commonwealth are still in a war of extermination with the orcs on their continent, too."

Therunin is the territory on the near shore of that big awful lake, just a quick hop away in something like the flying machine. Broceliande is just behind that, going back into the heart of the Empire. Hercynia is several hundred miles further on and northwards.

Alright.  "Thank you, everyone."

Add those to her quest tracker...

"And I think I must be off.  I'll be heading to Therunin and then Broceliande, most likely.  If anyone has a burning desire to go on an adventure, speak up, I suppose."

"Do you have a vacancy for occasional provider of metaphysical explanations and common sense?" She thinks about adding, 'because you need a priest more than anyone here does' or 'because I can tell your net is going to be important and also if you keep moving like this full of holes', but they seem like unnecessary extra verbiage.

"I do believe I do, Ms. Willstone."

And that coincides with the arrival of her vehicle.

(If Evantia had said the latter comment, she would be glad to explain the way her network expands using the capacity built in as overflow.  If Evantia had said the former, she would have sighed exhaustedly.  But Evantia did neither, so neither did she.)

Evantia gesticulates vehemently at the crowd until they make space for the vehicle to land neatly. 

It's not that big, really, it hardly has more footprint than a car, but yes, there are probably quite a few excited wizards getting a bit too close.

"Our chariot awaits," she directs to Evantia.

Once they're in the air, though, and their course is set...

"So why'd you come?"

"Urizen has two kinds of priest. The Questor's duty is to ask the awkward question nobody else is asking, and the Illuminate's job is to connect nodes in the Net of the Heavens in order to strengthen it.

In both cases, chasing after someone as powerful and out of context as you is a sacred duty."

"    ."

"Of course it is, I would too, breathe, you can handle this it's technical."

She passes a hand over her face, wiping both the traces of humor and her anxious muttering away.

"Anything in particular you'd like to know, then?  Can't say I've heard of the Net of Heaven before."

"Oh, I'm sorry, was I meant to say that I was so charmed by your dashing presence that I was determined to be swept off my feet like some Dawnish maiden?"

This is, of course, delivered entirely deadpan, but there is certainly some deliberate ambiguity mixed in with the sarcasm.

"The Net of the Heavens is the connections between people - much like the stars are arranged in constellations. The Illuminate's duty is to find the brightest stars and connect them to each other, or shift them into the places they will be of most use - to themselves, to each other, to Urizen, and to the Empire.

I would like to know a great many things. Perhaps we should start by - do you have any plans or intentions, beyond sprinting across the continent attempting to fix every problem that comes to your attention?"

That gets her to laugh.  "No, I just expected, I don't know, an answer that wasn't only 'it's in my job description'?  Not to say that it's a bad answer!  Just that - there's not many people who take their jobs seriously enough to go gallivanting around the country on a moment's notice about it, statistically speaking?  I'm surprised.

"Though I suppose the demographics could support Questors and Illuminates itinerant, and - anyway, as fascinating as sociology is, it's not directly relevant to what's presently happening."

"Do I have, plans or intentions...Uh.  Not really?  I've been running on 'oh fuck, what's happening now' about the various...the Black Plateau, the Druj, the rampant slavery...oh, can't forget the town I arrived in...for the past...several...how long has it even been?

"...If I have to ask that question, 'too long'.  Okay.  Okay.

"I don't know; do you have any suggestions?"

"It sounds like we have a little travel time, so why don't we calm down, make a prioritised list, and see which things you can sensibly address immediately, and which things you should maybe take your plans to Anvil about and consult some Imperial title holders, before you discover you have made new and interesting problems.

The Empire has successfully integrated some ex-Druj, or at least their subject tribes - the Sand Fishers at Holberg, some of the remnants in Ossium - and you might want to learn some of the lessons there about the slow process of building trust and rebuilding Virtue that had to happen, much as - what is the logistical situation, anyway? You have so far seemed quite concerned with spiritual forces, but not, say, the difficulties of providing food and medical treatment for large populations of malnourished and often injured slaves in what is mostly a poisonous swamp."

"The logistical situation is basically that material scarcity can go fuck itself, except for certain legendary reagents which will either have lead time or prove outright immune to artificial cultivation - I'm still working on that; true liao is one of those, incidentally, unless I figure out what the hell is perturbing regular liao so that it has the right, hm, anchor points, or find that it can be cloned from samples.  A conjured liao based off a sample of regular liao doesn't mirror the precursory metaphysics.  ...Oddly enough, chemical analysis says that the regular stuff is a specific hallucinogen, and it works as usual; we checked.

"There's theoretical upper limits on magic-per-time throughput, but if we're reaching those it's because we needed to make a universe or something otherwise extravagant; I'm working mostly off of the high ambient levels of magic you have.  ...Damn, that reminds me, I wanted to look at an ushabti at some point, see if I could get them working better in a replicable way.  Don't want y'all to be dependent upon my benevolence, because despite it all I'm still only fucking human.  I don't trust me with the power I have, no matter that I have it; you shouldn't either.  But that's practically your mission statement, so I'll refrain from - well.  Going on a lecture about the way the power to create, especially to my absurd degree, is the power to destroy a thousand times more than you have ever made or could ever make, because creation is working against entropy.

"That said, I think I actually might trust you a bit further than my weedy unaugmented arms could throw you, so.  Here, take a look at this."

And Evantia gets a tablet set up to create an account with more access than she'd give out to all and sundry; deployment information, fabrication capacity registers, cameras...

"You don't get to order stuff that's not already on the public list without approval just yet, but I'll probably approve most things, and I rather insist you get something from the 'decent armor' catalogue post-haste.  People have tried to get at me through my people, before.  I refuse to let that sort of thing happen without making whoever tries fucking bleed for it."

Evantia skims the index, determines this is going to take a considerable amount of time to absorb, skims the armour list a bit more throughly.

"Excellent," she says, a little distractedly, "this is essentially the project we've been working on as a nation, something sped up and more scalable is - excellent.

These look good," she taps something that's essentially a force field generator, essentially the most minimalist 'wear innocuous jewellery and everyone is surprised you are now immune to swords and probably also explosions' set available, "but I'm happy to take your recommendation.

I would love to dive into this, but actually I think prioritisation is still the most important thing - as you say, there's one of you, I now have an approximate idea of the scale of your capabilities, but you still need to deploy them - and simultaneously build your Net of trusted allies to help you deploy them."

(Evantia finds that there is simply no such item that doesn't come with 'backup physical armor deploys from 4-space on a moment's notice', but that there are plenty of tastefully minimalist anchor devices with sturdy shielding.  Does she want her armor in 'fight back' (a variety of weapons are in the catalogue of attachments), 'escape and evade' (mobility augments, EWAR, decoys, integrated portal guns...), 'defend even more' (with shield projectors aplenty; "took a nuke once"), or 'S&R' (tractor beams, integrated engineering capability, vital-searching capacity...)?  There's not a single blueprint that doesn't have some capability to handle problems that aren't in its profile, but there are tradeoffs.)

"Right.  And I need information from people on problems to prioritize interventions.  There is pretty significant autodeployment capacity, though - most of the forbearance is that I don't want to step on toes that don't firmly deserve being trod upon.  Anyway.  Spiritual threats?"

"The major extant spiritual threats in my priority ordering:

The Vallorn, which definitely captures souls and impedes their progress.

The Labyrinth spirits - I would previously have downrated this as intractable, but my definition of intractable has recently updated sharply.

Various necromantia - less verified than the Vallorn, but at least the Axou do claim to be successfully capturing spirits.

Nexi of intolerable suffering - the Druj are the most obvious, but centers of abject slavery - such as the salt mines of the Grendel, some parts of the Iron Confederacy, probably some things the Asaveans are doing - also count.

Destruction of orc souls - there's something odd going on with orc collectiveness which I don't really comprehend, or this would be much higher, but there are many active conflicts in which orcs are dying in large numbers, plus of course deaths of old age and illness etcetera, and our best guess is most of them do not make it across the Abyss.

There exist many other potential threats but these feel like the most pressing - although actually I put Vallorn at the top there out of habit, and perhaps orc souls and intolerable suffering should be higher in urgency, if not in magnitude."