text / un: starkov

[peasant]

the good news first: rhys and i found the princess of kilnan in the castle and woke her. she's with us right now. the castle was designed to protect her against her mother's soldiers trying to force her back home, which is why it's been so tricky. it's meant to alert remi — her uncle, and the wizard we came looking for — to any unwanted guests, which would be us.

the reason he hasn't come to greet us is that he's asleep. aureliah — the princess — should be able to talk her uncle down before he throws us all out into the mud. he's trapped behind an entrance sam's group found, but aureliah should be able to unseal its magic.

i think more of us should be there when it's opened, just in case something goes wrong with the orb.

the bad news: the orb's name is phyllie. remi made a deal with her and fed his own arcane energy to her in exchange for curing a curse that was placed on aureliah and her mother, but something went wrong during remi's bargain and that energy was transferred from the orb to aureliah instead. that's the reason she has her uncle's magic, and why her mother is so eager to use her daughter as a weapon against kilnan's neighboring countries.

the queen thinks kilnan will be better protected if she can force her daughter to learn war magic. it sounds like remi has been searching through dimensions to find the "right world" (for him and aureliah to hide? we don't know what he meant) but the orb has been draining him of his energy.

from what aureliah said, he feeds "phyllie" monthly. the princess and i think that's the price he's chosen to pay for keeping the curse at bay.

the worst news: i don't know what will happen if we break the bargain remi has made, but i'm sure it can't possibly be anything good. aureliah's life force was given to her by the orb, and the wizard who cast the curse in the first place was killed in the war. so that's a dead end, but maybe someone has a better solution we can offer remi once he's awake.

[ as per this npc thread! feel free to threadjack and hop around threads here to your hearts' content. ♥ ]

Comments

Text. un: Sabriel.Abhorsen

[bindsthedead]

How long has he been sleeping? We might need to wake him up soon, in order to avoid the Orb trying to feed on the mages among us- it's tried to feed on one of our number already.

As for the curse... We have several magic-users among our number, we COULD try to lift it ourselves. Especially if Remi explains how it works.

text; un: stardust

[shadysided]

What if

[There's hesitation, partly from lack of speaking up before now; she's used to being quiet around big crowds, anyway. But also, because she's not sure how others will react to her saying her knee jerk reaction.]

What if we feed the orb something from us instead, in exchange for letting this girl and wizard go free from its deal with them?

We do those stupid personal goals so we can use the orb's power later.

Maybe some of us can give up that power to even the scales a little.

text; un: s.wilson

[unclesam]

yeah, everyone better be on board with the fact that we're not sacrificing the girl to get shit done.

so, we gotta wake the wizard. our own were able to replicate magic from gyeongje. maybe they can help lift the curse. maybe we can dripfeed the disco ball little morsels from a lot of people to buy ourselves some time, if necessary. maybe that'd be a long term solution to buy the people here free and keep the girl alive and safe, too.

text; un: eleven

[savingthrows]

I talked to it. a little. I can try again.

[ Hesitation. Then: ]

I can feed it. but it wants a lot.

[peasant]

he wouldn't let aureliah fall under a sleeping sickness if he was awake, so — weeks? i'm not sure. when we found aureliah's footsteps, they looked old. it's not unusual for remi to sleep for days, apparently, but this doesn't sound like his usual pattern.

have you worked with curses before? all i know about this one is that it was meant to kill aureliah in childbirth to prevent the queen from having an heir.

text; un: Sabriel.Abhorsen

[bindsthedead]

I don't think it's a viable long term solution- if only because Remi will need to cede ownership in order for Viveca to get us out of here. If that happens, his bargain will be terminated- so we need a solution that doesn't involve it continuing indefinitely.

[bindsthedead]

So if we don't wake him up soon, the orb will be past its feeding time, and will either try to find something else to feed on... or possibly terminate its bargain with Remi, which might kill Aureliah in the process.

They're not my area of expertise, but I don't think we have much of a choice.

[peasant]

i haven't known many people willing to give up power to save someone else.

[ it's a similar idea to what alina had posed to the princess, only — alina isn't so sure she can trust most people as far as she can throw them. certainly not where surrendering power is involved, either. ]

[peasant]

i'm not so sure that's safe. what if it doesn't let you go this time? what happens if we can't wake you up from whatever sleeping spell it's causing? you shouldn't have to put yourself in danger.

[ after a stilted pause, ]

there are a lot of powerful people here. we could feed it our own energy, but ... i'm worried what will happen if the orb grows stronger because of us.

text; un: finn

[hatejakku]

I'll be there.

I'm not sure feeding it is the best idea. It looks like it could have seriously hurt Eleven. But if we have to, I'll try to help with that, too. If we can just get it back to the station, maybe the Commander and Viveca will know how to take better care of it.

[ And he kind of wants to contact Alina privately to get a head start on a plan to protect the Princess from everyone else in case things head south but... he's trying to lean on trust here. ]

[unclesam]

I meant more in the sense of transferring ownership - if the curse can't be broken. I have faith in you and the other wizards after what you pulled off to save our hides in gyeongje - but would it be a viable backup option for us to make a bargain of our own that still protects them, just so they'll make it in case you can't kick that curse's ass? call it plan b minus.

[peasant]

oh. i hadn't considered that.

[ two new fears to add to the collection. ]

ti'shaaz collective had books on curses, but i don't know how to work with any of them. i used to think they were just stories. but maybe if remi tells us how the curse came to be, we can figure it out.

unless we get lucky and we have a secret curse expert among our number?

[bindsthedead]

That's assuming the orb will demand the same price of us as it did of Remi- and as seen with the Gyeonje orb, it will ask different things of different people.

Although what I'm also worried about is that Remi's bargain was that of a life for a life, and he was just paying in installments.

[peasant]

i'll make the deal if that's what it takes.

[ yeet. ]

[bindsthedead]

Perhaps. It would certainly be fortunate.

Although I just want to be clear- right now, the theory that the wizard's been feeding the Orb to keep Aureliah alive is just that- a theory?

Do you know if he's been using the orb for anything else- I had assumed the sleeping curse was its doing, which suggests a bargain that extends beyond simply keeping the curse from killing Aureliah. Is it possible that he actually was able to cure it completely, and then chose to keep drawing on the orb's power to augment his own- or out of curiosity, to try to understand the orb?

[peasant]

thank you, finn.

if we're being honest, i think trying to feed from people is what it's doing now with the sleeping sickness. that would explain why we've all been dragged into those strange dreams, wouldn't it? and if an entire country isn't enough to feed it ... i don't know how much it would take before it's satisfied.

too much, i think.

[unclesam]

hey, no. we're exploring options, sunshine, not lining anyone up. absolutely not.

[peasant]

it's half a theory. the only other use i think he could have for it is finding a new world for himself and his niece to escape to. if his ongoing bargain is about protecting aureliah, all we need to do is find somewhere they'll be safe.

[unclesam]

let's hope that ain't it. maybe we just chuck out plan b and downwards and cross our fingers real hard plan a works out.

[bindsthedead]

If that is the bargain he made, then... this sounds cruel, but I'd rather let him pay it, rather than any of the crew taking on the consequence of choices he made.

Everyone and everything dies, and if you try to use magic to defy or delay that, things can go horribly, terribly wrong. A magic-user should know that better than anyone.

Besides- it's only a theory that Aurelia's still cursed. If she isn't, we don't even need plan A.

[bindsthedead]

We could direct them to Gyeonje? I have a dagger I bought in that world, perhaps we could use that to help him learn how to reach it?

Between the two other worlds we've visited, I'd say it's by far the safer one.

[hatejakku]

I agree.

[ After a minute... ]

I have access to a lot of power, though. I don't want the orb to get to it, but it's possible we can feed it a little at a time. Enough to keep it sated.

[business]

Actually, you won't. The circus is not in yet, please stop acting like a clown.

[peasant]

you said it yourself. we're exploring options. i'm making myself an option if nothing else works.

[bindsthedead]

No. Not when we don't even know what bargain Remi made yet. I understand you want to help Aureliah, but we don't even know for sure if Remi's bargain is what's keeping her alive. And even if you did... what the Orb will ask of you probably won't be what it asked of Remi.