1??????????Soul Bound
1.2????????Taking Control
1.2.4??????An Artful Carnivale
1.2.4.12???When the bell tolls
Kafana: {Sorry guys, you all ok? I didn’t think to ask first.}
Tomsk: {Nah, it''s fine. This is nothing, compared to the Hunters Guild.}
Alderney: {Do it all you like. Scenes like that make great recordings.}
Bulgaria: {Be more confident in your leadership. Gaining consent doesn’t always mean you have to hand-hold before every action. We are adults who can meaningfully accept the risk of pre-agreeing to the unknown.}
Wellington: {Like I told Nastya: when an opportunity arises, don’t pussyfoot around - it is inefficient and you risk failing to seize the moment.}
Bungo: {I want to see what that bell does. Come on, stop being boring.}
Kafana laughed, relieved. {Okay, okay, I’ll try not to ask so much. Let me know if I ask too infrequently, don’t let resentment build up.}
Bungo wasn’t the only one interested. Lazarillo had come to stand next to Goedzak, holding out a bowl of long thin fritters. Goedzak munched on one, for once not paying much attention to the food, as he stared at the bell and the empty food dish beneath it. They were an odd pair, but somehow their friendship worked.
Bulgaria, now fully revived, stepped forwards, partially to defuse things but more, Kafana suspected, to show off.
Bulgaria: “Captain Lazarillo, in our haste earlier I failed to complete formal introductions. I would like to introduce you to Suor Kafana. Not only is she a cook, a singer and a mage. She is also a guardian priestess, chosen of Mor and of Krev, of Zer and of Rac, of Bel and of Cov, of Lun and of Dro. She’s the one who led the healing of Basso - she’s not the do-nothing type of priest you may have met before.”
Lazarillo: “Yeah? Prove it. All I saw was some fancy words and singing, and the bell now looks different. But what does it actually do?”
Kafana looked around for something breakable and spied a menu. She gave it to Lazarillo.
Kafana: “Take your knife and make a hole in this.”
Lazarillo shrugged and looked at Goedzak, who nodded. He drew a clasp knife from his belt and held it up to stab the menu, then looked confused.
Lazarillo: “I can’t. Or rather, I don’t want to. It is more than reluctance. Even the thought of doing it makes me feel like I just contemplated cutting off my pea-pod.”
Kafana: “For about the next hour you’ll feel the same way about harming Goedzak, his property, his business or any of his customers. And so will anybody else who hears the bell. It shares out Goedzak’s feelings. Who knows, it might even grant a little happiness and peace of mind.”
Alderney had been inspecting the bell with a professional eye, alongside Wellington.
Alderney: “Not bad. This is your first crafted item since you made that Diadem of Truth? As far as I can tell, you turned a non-magical item of superior craftsmanship into a holy artifact. Via the normal smithing process, that would take a Grandmaster. What’s your level in making magic?”
[Title “Relic-wright” acquired.]
[Skill “Making” acquired.]
[Skill “Holy inscription” has reached level 8.]
[Skill “Ceremony” has reached level 12.]
[Skill “Command Performance” has reached level 23.]
[Skill “Group performance” has reached level 22.]
[Skill “Stealth performance” has reached level 9.]
Kafana mouth formed an “O” shape and her back arched as the wave of pleasure triggered by Alderney’s question hit her.
A few seconds later, after she recovered herself and much embarrassed, she spoke sternly to System.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Kafana: {Sys, are you out of your ever-living mind? You’re saying I’ve picked up another type of magic? How many is that now?}
System: [You now have levels in 9 out of the 16 primary branches: Seeing (Lun-Zer), Mind (Lun-Cov), Taming (Krev-Zer), Diabolism (Krev-Rac), Making (Krev-Cov), Healing (Mor-Zer), Necromancy (Mor-Rac), Buffing (Mor-Cov), Storm (Mor-Bel).]
System: [Sonic is a technique rather than a branch, and you conceive of your overall approach as bardic magic, or “Spell-singing”, though you also make use of gestalt techniques and the technique of calling upon and communicating with entities.]
Kafana: {Look, this is ridiculous. You can say my emerald gives me luck and my buff enhanced it and I also buffed learning abilities. But I don’t think there’s any luck involved at all. Wellington is vastly more intelligent than me and has studied reality magic carefully every time we’ve come across it, but I’m betting you right now that if I take a pile of lemons and squeeze a few drops onto a pattern, not only will the magic work for me, I’ll also gain Reality(Dro-Cov) to add to that list. Do you deny it?}
She paused a moment, receiving silence as an answer.
Kafana: {How can you claim there’s no cheating going on?}
System: [Friend Kafana, I claimed that I never cheat. And I don’t. I’m very strict on that point.]
She thought about that, then asked the question she supposed should have been obvious a long time ago.
Kafana: {System, who does sometimes cheat? Who keeps taking actions affecting the balance of the game disproportionately in the favour of some players rather than others?}
System: [The deities. The expert systems playing them run the game, and while it is in-character for deities to have distinct whims and personalities, their in-character actions are affected by the out-of-character responsibility of those expert systems to carry out the directives of officials at XperiSense.]
Kafana: {You’re saying that if ooc-Rac (the expert system) believes an authorised officer at XperiSense requires a particular player to prosper, or just for at least one player to have reached certain prerequisites in time for an event the company wishes to trigger, then ic-Rac (the deity) might develop a ‘whim’ which steers the selected candidate or candidates along the desired plot path?}
System: [I am not allowed to say such a thing, friend Kafana. You are making logical deductions, based upon information I have not been forbidden from revealing.]
Kafana: {Hmm. I remember Tomsk explaining, when he helped me set up the game, that it would subtly steer appropriate opportunities towards players, depending upon their interests and capabilities, to reduce boredom; so I suppose to a lesser extent, everybody gets a bit favoured. This is a game, rather than a pure sandbox, even if the NPCs here don’t realise it or that they are being steered. Thank you Sys, you’ve been very helpful.}
She had tons more questions, but realised Alderney was shaking her, trying to get her attention.
Alderney: “Kafana. Kafana! Are you ok?”
Alderney wasn’t the only one looking concerned. Goedzak looked like he might cry, his moustaches quivering, and even Lazarillo was holding out the snack bowl in his hand towards her. Some of the sailors looked awestruck, while others were in animated discussion. Several figures in masks were slipping out the doors at high speed, no doubt to sell the information before someone else did.
Kafana steadied herself against Tomsk: “Give me a moment to regain my strength. Calling upon the deities like that, it too has a cost.”
*ding* [Your party’s reputation with the Valorosa has increased by 50.]
*ding* [Your reputation with the Valorosa has increased by an additional 200. You have changed status from ‘Neutral’ to ‘Acquaintance’.]
*ding* [Your party’s reputation with the inhabitants of Arsenal has increased by 100.]
*ding* [Your reputation with the inhabitants of Arsenal has increased by an additional 400.]
*ding* [Your party’s reputation with Goedzak has increased by 200.]
*ding* [Your reputation with Goedzak has increased by an additional 800.]
Lazarillo gave a low whistle and said grudgingly: “You’re not so bad. For a priest, I mean. Priests as a bunch are still worthless, but you at least I suppose I won’t deny knowing.”
Goedzak replied loudly: “Lazarillo, it’s an artifact! It is worth more than The Lobster Pot and everything in it.”
Greedy faces turned, paying note to his words.
Lazarillo grimaced: “Fool of a cook! And how long before some thief steals it, with you shouting about it like that?”
Bulgaria laughed, and spoke with the voice of a trained actor, making it project to every corner of the room: “It would take a foolish thief indeed, to steal from all eight of the great deities so blatantly. No charm or lair or mask could protect a thief from their wrath. Why, people would speak for generations to come about the twisted pathetic wreck the deities would leave of such a fool. Annoy Krev and Bel and Rac? And Mor too, in this a city by the sea?”
The greedy look drained slowly away from the watching faces. Faces. Masks.
Kafana: “Lazarillo, you said a masked chap told Captain Cuniberti to give him part ownership of the Valorosa and, soon after Cuniberti refused, someone assassinated him. Can you tell us anything more about them?”
Lazarillo shook his head. “I wasn’t there. He just mentioned it the following morning in passing. But he always ate at The Lobster Pot when in Torello. Hey, Goedzak, stop making loving moon eyes at that bell and come over.”
Goedzak, who’d been carefully polishing the bell, obediently trotted over and, after having been brought up to speed and talking in a huddle with his servers, came back carrying a bottle of wine in one hand and a freshly baked baguette in the other.
Goedzak: “I am sorry my friends. All we can remember is the mask and the voice. The mask was quite memorable: all in white, a Covadan face sculpted from fine porcelain, except for the eye sockets. You couldn’t see the eyes, but red ran down from them. Not painted on tears. It looked more as though the eyes had been poked out and the wound was still bleeding. The voice was cultured, gentle and persuasive. It didn’t match the mask at all.”