as written by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia, himself.
Oathday, 19 Calistril
Tonight was the night of the Varisian feast. Qatana and Ameiko were the primary artisans on this one although the prince provided a staff of dozens. We successfully prevailed upon them not to make the entrees look TOO much like the local fare.
While they were instructing kitchen staff on the finer parts of Varisian cooking (and frankly, that took a good amount of time), we were working on the theatric entertainment we would be providing. Chua arrived in the early morning to (of course) invite Kali to a luncheon. I informed him that since Kali was an unmarried young woman, I would be accompanying her as an escort. He reluctantly acknowledged that. We told Chua we would be needing a lute and 4 actors, and after we described a lute in some detail to him, he nodded and left. Around 10am, 4 actors showed up, carrying the lute.
A few minutes before noon, Chua arrived to take Kali to the Prince. I assumed my most intimidating position, with Suishen at the ready (but not aflame). He brought a silk dress with flowers for her to wear, and she spent a moment changing into it.
The prince’s attractive bodyguard accompanied us as well. The four of us first toured the castle – “I added that whole wing”, pointed out the prince – before moving on to the original courtyard we’d met him in, where a generous lunch was already on display. “Everyone agrees,” he offered, “that the palace is so much prettier with you in it.”
He’s not subtle, but at least so far he was polite.
“On occasion, the King passes through this part of the country,” said the prince, smoothly. “He has not been here for a few months, however.”
In response to her question, the prince took Kali to a Shelyn temple. Kali noticed a number of heads on pikes and asked about them. The prince proudly replied that he kept a very safe city, and that criminals could expect to be treated harshly. Temple personnel hustled about with purpose, and the high priestess hurriedly bowed and said they were preparing for the evening’s festival in response to Kali’s query. There will be dragon dancers!
Kali looked awkward and uncomfortable at the attention she was drawing, but the worst was yet to come. Returning to the palace, Kali seemed to offer some genuine compliments about the luncheon and the prince practically beamed. “‘Kali,'” he said, “flows off the lips like honey.” I channelled Sparna and did an admirable but mostly hidden eyeroll. “It’s so pleasant having you here! I wish to put the city at your feet! Kali – marry me!”
Well there it was, lying there in the open like a field dressed musk ox. Swarming with flies, too. A proposal. I glanced at Kali and she appeared mostly composed, but I also knew she’d been preparing for this moment. “I am honored by your proposal,” she began, “and flattered by your attention. Please take no dishonor at my reply, but it is the way of my people to require my father to approve any marriage. While he will no doubt find your proposal worthy of consideration, it is a formality we must go through.”
The prince hesitated briefly before smiling a little less brilliantly. “How can we know of your father’s wishes? Perhaps one of my many wizards or clerics can arrange for him to appear here.” He looked left and right and, finding none but the four of us, prepared to clap his hands.
“There is no need for a wielder of magic,” said Kali, stopping him in mid-summoning. “I know a spell myself which we can use to communicate with him as though he were before us. I can perform the magic after dinner tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?!” responded the prospective husband, almost pouting. “We shall do that, then. Until this evening, I thank you for sharing lunch with me, and gracing me with your beauty and elegance. I will make arrangements for the ceremony to be performed after dinner tomorrow, then! Chua!” and I swear the man appeared oiut of thin air like a summoned demon. the prince lowered his voice but not by much. “Make arrangement for the ceremony to be performed after dinner tomorrow.”
“Yes, m’lord,” he responded, and escorted us back to the group’s quarters.
I started to ask Kali a question but she waved her hand and silently shushed with her finger.
Dinner was not far off so she indicated to wait until then.
(later)
At a lull in the dinner, Kali cast code speak and brought everyone up to date. Everyone, that is, except Sparna, who was absent. Ivan said he was leaving the party because he’d “lost his nerve”! This came as a complete shock to everyone, including me. I thought we shared a bond, but apparently he sought out Ivan to relay this decision to us.
We are down to five. We are surviving the attacks of the oni, but losing to the attacks of life.
The rest were alarmed at the marriage proposal, and we had a hasty but fairly blunt conversation about how to handle this. Kali believes we should leave town, and then she’ll catch up with us later. That seems like a bad plan, and I wasn’t alone in that assessment. Kali insisted she could use a scroll of teleport to catch up with us, but we pointed out that for teleport to work she needs to go to a place that is familiar to her, and wherever we are will not be familiar to her. She responded she could scry for us. We still had concerns about having an angry prince behind us. However, the conversation was starting to draw unwanted attention, even though nobody else could understand it, so we agreed to finish it later.
The dinner attendees found it all satisfactory, by the way, and I myself found it muchly welcome. It was still high-end food – nary a single rabbit drumstick to be found anywhere – but it was rich, high-end, FAMILIAR food. I have never appreciated Qatana’s and Ameiko’s culinary talents as much as this evening.
The play, reflecting the genuine insanity of its author, made little sense other than the moral that it was great, or possibly horrible, to be human. The actors did receive more than polite applause, and we received a jewelled scabbard ([451], radiates magic) in gratitude.
One of the actors, Dasi, seemed interested in our party, or more to the point, our heritage. He seemed interested in our Varisian roots, and hung out in the ‘afters party’ longer than any of the other actors. He had a scroll with an artist’s rendition of the old Minkai emperor and basically seemed to be sizing us up to see how much we looked like it. I laughed and said, yeah, we get that a lot. Everybody here says all Varisians look alike. But this old emperor wasn’t Varisian, so why are you waving that picture around?
ato our mildly babbled replies, he offered, “I can tell some of you are not being entirely truthful.” The room fell silent.
I pulled out Suishen and set him aflame. “Perhaps this is what you seek.” Dasi’s eyes widened. “You have Suishen!” THAT caught me off guard, although I’m not entirely sure why once he revealed he knew the family name. “You are the heir!”
“No,” I said sternly. “No man we’ve encountered has proven to be a worthy heir.” Suishen lightly snickered in my head. “But, like you, we are … genealogists seeking a family.”
“May I touch it?” he asked, still in awe. I thought, heh, this could end it all right here. “You may,” I replied as I held the blade out.
But then Suishen surprised me. He said, apparently to everyone in the room including Dasi, “Do you swear fealty to the rightful heir to the throne of Minkai?”
With a mixture of fear and awe, Dasi grasped the blade and said, “Yes”. And nothing else happened.
“Well then,” I said authoritatively and hesitantly at the same time. At the same moment, Suishen said to me, “ok, he’ll do.” This was all very fast, and I was still very uncertain about all this. “Why? Don’t you trust me?” asked Suishen.
“Stop reading my mind,” I sent to him. “Don’t think so loud,” he replied, but then he did at least shut up.
Fireday, 20 Calistril
Qatana memorized a zone of truth to further delve into Dasi’s motives. The questions that she and the others asked, seemed to reveal little else of his motives. Was he a spy, or a royal family groupie?
Then Qatana surprised us all by pointing at Ameiko, saying, well, there’s your heir.
I immediately drew Suishen, added flame, and stepped in front of Ameiko.
“The champion,” murmured Dasi. “And the sword.”
“I will be watching you, historian,” I said. But he was appraising Ameiko over now. From a safe distance, I might add. Great. Now Ameiko had a stalker too. How long before Radella or Qatana acquire creepy admirers too?
The town is very busy preparing for the Feast of the Dragon. But the shops are open, and we have a few tasks to accomplish before then, not the least of which is purchasing some teleport scrolls.