Feeling Our Way Around

Morning Meetings

We wake up the next day, our second full day in the Capital.

We have a note from Princess Alasta to see her at 10, and a note from Suvatra for Vidan to see her at his convenience.

Talinda (who was sneaking around invisibly) is not Merchant Varna, she is Priest varna, but gets to work in Merchant Varna because her husband is Merchant Varna. But that may explain why she is less well-versed in Merchanting than many. She is a Priest of Love, apparently. Suvatra thinks that’s interesting and unusual, but not obviously evil or anything. Vidan considers cross-Varna marriages– Priests and Merchants are less likely to have arranged marriages, so they might be more likely. But it’s rare; you mostly socialize in your own Varna, so there are fewer opportunities. It’s hard to change Varna once you’re an adult, unless you’re Servant Varna.

Stationary woman looks like Mirandal, nothing very exciting there.

Suvatra has also been considering if the assassins are taking a broader… are planning to eliminate the Maharani’s support prior to moving on her directly. The people who are the most likely targets (there are many possible targets) are the three adult princesses; Suvatra; Lord Tongree; and Minabel. Lord Tongree is the head of the closest allied House; if he was removed it would weaken her. (It’s a bit strange that there is a man in charge of a Great House. Hmm. Vidan thinks about that. He’s head of house in his 5-year-old daughter’s name, which is technically legal, though all of the women in the House have to have been gotten rid of one way or another. He was at the party last night, though we didn’t realize he was head of house. He’s known to be strongly allied with the Maharani; there are rumors that it is a romantic as well as political alliance. If they were to marry, he would have to leave his House to join hers. His wife was killed about four years ago; an assassin was blamed and killed for it. But even 12 successes of Yellow Politics isn’t enough to determine the reason.) Minabel is the chief of the Maharani’s bodyguards.

Suvatra has appraised Lord Tongree’s House, and has been in contact with Minabel. She has not spoken directly to the three princesses, but Minabel’s peoples are presumably informed, who are responsible for guarding the two Princesses. Tasca is not in the House any more, technically, since she’s Priest Varna now, so she is not technically protected by the bodyguards (although the bodyguards would probably act to defend her if they were right there). But she’s the Church’s responsibility now. She is also a skilled combatant, more in the swashbuckly style than the brick style, and has Priest powers. She has not been directly warned. Suvatra is not clear how much the Princesses will pay attention to the warnings, as assassination attempts are common. Tasca will probably hear from Miranel (party princess) relatively soon. Actually she was at the party, so she will probably have been informed by now.

If Lord Tongree were killed, then the wife’s younger sister would become Head of House. If the source of that assassination were revealed, that would invite reprisals, but not as much as if the daughter were killed, since she’s only 5. (Which might embroil the House in an internal power struggle for a bit.)

Meeting with Princess Alasta

The Princess wants a debrief on yesterday; how did we know about the Walls, etc. Vidan says we have a Priest of the Goddess, who is skilled at ferreting out such things. Ah, she is Lore’s servant? No, she serves the Goddess. “She’s from Orange,” Vidan explains. Ah.

Do we have any way of knowing if Mikaekovich was actually from Orange? Not divine, no, although there were clues that he might not be– the way he introduced himself as from Orange, say. We found Green spell components, so he could have been Rainbow, which means not from Orange. Nesh thinks his Saurien wasn’t particularly accented; maybe very slightly closer to Blue than Orange.

The Princess is interested to hear that, though it makes her investigations more difficult.

The Wall was supposed to be in construction for another 6 months; Stella thinks maybe 4 if they kept up the pace they were going on. So it wasn’t a short term plot. It’s not clear whether there was a plan for the river. Princess Alasta indicates that the river is fairly well-defended, they’ve mostly been attacking via land.

We give her a Tarn evidence packet.

Vidan wonders if this wall project is madness; Scout thinks it’s a bit mad to be doing it now, but when it will be useful once it’s done. It’s probably a Resources country turn draw in a turn or two to make it an applicable defense. It’s not a bad plan. Especially if they have any kind of insight that an attack is coming, which, this being Yellow, they might.

It wasn’t Mikhailovich’s idea, but his arrival did make the idea plausible. Scout wonders if he could have known about it before arriving. There had been discussion of increased defenses for a few years, since the Comet lit the night sky. There was debate about whether the wall was the most useful approach, but with his arrival the Wall plan seemed more useful. Without an Orange mage, we’ll see whether it continues. Does Stella have any recommendations? Stella doesn’t off-hand, but her Sister Meraldi would know. The Princess gets some details and makes plans to speak to her.

At the Wall

We go back to the Wall. There are three large holes in it. There has been some propping up to make sure the walls don’t fall down more. They have not started fixing it in any way shape or form, however– it only blew up yesterday.

Stella takes a look with Engineering and Fixing Things and KS: Stone. She can make some progress. If she could drop 20 successes with 10 DI, then she could probably do it fairly quickly, but that would be hard. Vidan suggests a ritual, if she got some local priests. Hmm. Given the politics, maybe we should get Alasta to arrange that. We report back to Alasta that she could

As we’re around the palace, a bit after Nesh has dropped his defenses for a few minutes to see if there are any calls, we discover that there’s a sneaky cataur wandering by. Nesh decides to go with the direct route, and asks if he’s looking for him. Alex - a cataur. Has a small miracle of “don’t pay attention to me”. Plus an illusion that makes him look like a centaur.

Nothing More than Feelings

Managaratha wanders off to look for Yellow mages. Vikarna (the harbinger of the Feelings plot) calls Managaratha. She’s on a boat, she’s outside of Yellow. Feelings here… she can’t tell if it’s weird, because there’s less of it than usual. I thought of some ideas for how to test it. I talked to Satrapi, I gave her some ideas for a Feelings ritual you could do. So talk to her. Vikarna is going to head to Blue, she probably can’t get the captain to turn around.

Managaratha is going to look at transport to make things faster. He says he’ll get in touch with her later. Who is Satrapi? Sigh. A mage in the capital.

Vidan makes arrangements for a meeting between Satrapi and Managaratha. She has a nice house in the capital. She’s probably in her 40s - 50s, going slightly grey, well-dressed. She has been contacted by Vikarna, who has made arrangements for us to get some kind of sense of how Feelings magic works. We don’t have any Feelings mages, right? Right. Vidan is Purple. Oh, that’s not going to help at all. Nesh has DI resistance.

How this will work. We’ll meditate on how we feel about things, internally, which will generate some ability to… Well. Illusion works through the voice and what you should see. Feelings works by echoing the feeling that you want to generate in yourself. None of us have talent to learn to cast spells with that, but we can maybe see something about what’s going on, in a ritual that uses Illusions to help us see the Feelings magic.

She herself is not convinced that something is changing with Feelings, but having been paid, is happy to do the ritual. Scout puts up a miracle of seeing things– 9 successes with 6 DI.

We play Apples to Apples, ish. We try to match Brilliant, Charming, and Selfish. Nesh just talks gibberish– Rock Concert, Car Horns, The NRA? What the heck? We decide Inside the Sun is the most brilliant, Getting a Hug is the most charming, and Hooligans were the most selfish. Nesh is out of cards, so we decide to do the ritual again.

Next round: Rich. We pick Lawyers. Unscrupulous we pick Spiders. Scout notices something weird on that one. All of a sudden Stella has played Spiders, when Managaratha had originally played. Weird. Misunderstood we play Killer Whales. Pure is Lightning– the cards switch again. Swift is Tornadoes. Speedy is Blizzard. and they change again! Scout is finding this very weird! Soft is Socks, and they change again! Boisterous is between Chimpanzees, and My 16th Birthday. Chimpanezees wins, but Managaratha played Stella’s 16th Birthday? That’s weird… Demanding: Funerals. Which Stella also wins.

Vidan does a miracle of Witnessing, 3 DI, 13 succeses. Round 3! Sappy is won by Being in Love. Which Stella played, dah! Fabulous: Weddings. Honorable, Stella played Scout’s Job? Weird to everyone! Phony had no consensus. Zany, Stella played Managaratha’s Hair. Fragrant – Scout plays Corn on the Cob, which Stella stole. Stella steals Taking a Bath for Luxurious. Touchy-Feely was Managaratha’s Body, which Stella played!

The rituals end. Vidan thinks that Stella is a Priest of the Goddess, and Feelings are her thing. Which is not the way that’s supposed to work. Satrapi concedes there were some perturbations that were interesting, that she’ll talk to Vikarna about.

Vidan thinks about whether Priests of the Twins are better at Purple than other mages. He makes a Karma check with 6 successes, and gets the option to invoke his once a book schtick– and Nivad shows up! As a Priest of the Twins, he doesn’t think being a Priest is any better at Purple. But he could imagine such a connection might be drawable between Balance and Truth, or maybe Balance and Discipline… But it’s not a thing by default. Nobody but Scout seems to pay much attention to the fact that Vidan is now Nivad.

Are the Gods allied with different Magics? Rush could be Battle? The Goddess would probably be Feelings, when thinking about Comparative Religions.

Back to the Palace

Stella spends the afternoon on the Wall.

Nivad checks Vidan’s mail– people are constantly misspelling his name. Scout thinks the level of self-deception is ridiculous. His realtor has found him a place, so he goes and sets up the ritual. This room is no longer Yellow. Interesting… Scout gets teleported in by Managaratha, doing an experiment to see if we can target Nivad. Thinking about it, Vidan thinks maybe it’s Heart of Purple water that is part of the thing.

A Bureaucrat shows up. “Now that there’s an escape route, I've come to give you information about Emergency Plan Alpha from the Ministry of Lions.” He teleports out, and Nivad reads the packet. “If you are restored absent my cooperation, you are presumably somewhat confused as to the status of the Reconcile the Churches project. Come see me at your earliest convenience. –Az Julan, Minister of Lions” (Navid is an actual Bureaucrat, in a way that Vidan is not. Probably a Third level Bureaucrat, but he’s missing a bunch of his points. “Frag will do that”, thinks Managaratha, elsewhere in the city.)

After dinner, Alasphel (the servant from the Caravan) shows up, asking for Stella. “Lady Stella. While we were travelling, you and your friends happened to deal with a plot of the Lady of Life and her followers, to deal with Suvatra. I can’t prove that it was the Lady of Life, but it was. I was wondering if the lot of you would be willing to interfere with another of her projects.” Hmm. A similar type of project? “I believe it is for the same long-term project, though not so aggressive.”

(Stella has been told that traditionally the three faces of the Church pursue different ends, but are not opposed to each other. The present three Ladies, and by extension their Servants, are in active opposition.)

What does she need? It is her understanding that there will be a ceremony this evening to give a blessing to a member of the nobility who is in a good place to benefit should the Maharani suffer unfortunate consequences in the future. She believes that it’s part of the Lady of Life’s plan to replace the Maharani for the ritual to go well. Unfortunately it’s taking place in the Church of Life, and only followers of the Lady and their guests can attend. It is her belief that, as a follower of the Goddess, she would be able to attend, since she is not Life or Lore, and therefore must be Life. She doesn’t know the details, or that it would be a Fight per se, but some kind of interference would be helpful. The target for the blessing is Rani Dwalla is the head of house Sukrat, and the Lady of Life’s niece. So the blessing is not illegitimate, but she believes it is a step to oppose the Maharani.

Loot

• +10 EPs
• +6 SPs