Isla Maranga'nawe, 212
Esther had thought about what Henrietta had told her. Maybe meeting with this so called tribune would be interesting if nothing else. Maybe she could play the two against each other, as she had no reason to do what Henrietta had asked her too.
In the end, she sent a courier with a letter to find the tribune. The courier had to travel with Maris, so as to appear less threatening than a whole ship showing up. Esther's letter contained a lot of grand letters explaining how important she herself was and why she thought they should meet, but it gave away surprisingly little else. She did specify that she wanted to meet alone, but she could arrange that herself if the tribune was unwilling.
"And that... There!"
Katya vaguely indicated a corner of the volcanic tunnel. At this time she was aiding in the construction project Sraker had left behind in Maranga'nawe.
"Yeah the rail... There, yes. All good? No worries, you're all doing a great job here!"
She turned away from the Mutar builders, looking back into the lava pits far below her. Flolem was in there, meeting return her gaze with incandescent eye slits.
"And you just keep makin' babies, there's a good lava monster!" Katya commanded Flolem.
Upon receiving this message later that day, Katya actually grew excited. Never before in her career had she been contacted in this capacity by a foreigner, since most of her affairs were restricted to within Mucron territory, a consequence of the Mucronomicon's limited scope. If ever anyone stopped by it was Sraker they called upon, or probably Henrietta as of late.
The person in question she also found most fascinating. A historian of great renown, she had heard. A woman after her own heart. Katya also seemed to recall, from her time assisting with Flolem's reactivation, that this Esther had been the recipient of demi-godhood from Taumel the Reshaper at about the same time Henrietta had been from Gi'zeal.
So she sent back her reply, stating that she was particularly busy at present with an infrastructure overhaul, but could spare some time for a meeting. The letter elaborated, telling Esther that she took two hours off from her clerical work every day to walk her pet dragon on the beach of Maranga'nawe. She could join her at that time if she wished.
Esther got the reply, but had to consider what to wear befoer showing up. She had wanted to intimidate Henrietta and show they had wealth as well, so the same clothing and amount of jewellery may not be appropriate in this case.
She decided on a cape, the same black as the sails of the Ghost Division's ships, and a widebrimmed captain's hat. The only jewellery she wore were the rubies inserted into the skin below her eyes. She carried a featherpen visibly in one of her pockets, but she had almost stopped taking notes because of her memory improving.
Esther teleported to the beach of this island, but remained invisible as she waited for the tribune. There was no need to show herself alone, and once the tribune showed up with her pet she would reveal herself.
The pet came first, flapping her way around above the coastal dunes, occasionally darting to snatch a thrown stick out of mid air.
Then the Lady Tribune herself appeared, walking the grassy crest of the dune for a moment before sliding her way down onto the beach proper. A nice looking coat had been hastily thrown over gear better suited to construction (and volcanos). The Mucronomicon was nowhere to be seen, but under her coat hung a satchel that was sure to contain it.
Presently, the Mutar official waved another stick for the pet dragon.
"Wassis?! Oooooh, what's this, Daisy?! You reeeeeaaady...? Go get it!"
She threw the stick, sending the dragon she had called Daisy soaring through the air after it.
Esther watched the two for a bit. Henrietta hadn't lied when she described her as a kid. She could see why she'd think that. When the stick was thrown in her direction, she caught it midair and threw it further yet. The pet flew after it, and Esther became visible as she had given her position away anyway.
"I hope I'm not interrupting your playtime." Esther teased, but then curtsied so her cape fluttered elegantly in the wind. "It's a pleasure to meet in person. I am Esther, historian and granddaughter of the Banshee."
Hmm, maybe she should petition someone else to write a title for her. Her grandmother certainly would if asked, but at the moment she had been left in charge of Shipwreck without getting an official position. She wasn't even one of the admirals.
"Esther!" the Lady Tribune called, shocked at the sudden appearance of her guest. She hurried closer. "The pleasure is all mine! Lady Tribune Katya, at your service."
She bowed, lacking anything feminine enough to justify the alternative formality.
"Please don't worry over any interruption; I did invite you here after all. Say, are those rubies real? They're gorgeous!"
Esther grinned as her appearance took the tribune by surprise. The grin grew a bit wider as she was asked about the rubies in her skin.
"Indeed they are. The majority of my piercings were destroyed when I ascended, but then replaced with actual gems." She laughed. "I suppose she wasn't completely clueless to the fashions of my people."
"Well, I would have invited you to my island, but outsiders generally suffer some kind of fatal wound on the way." She joked. "How is your work proceeding here?"
"The infrastructure? We're still in the early stages of development, but so far things have been coming along nicely. It's a lot of work though. Trying to keep this place organised is difficult enough at the best of times!"
Katya began to amble off down the length of the beach, bending down to pull a black lump of driftwood from the dark sand.
"Come, walk with me!" she encouraged, hurling the stick out over the waves for Daisy to catch. Esther followed her down the beach, not walking as much as floating like Taumel might have. She was wondering what they were actually doing here, and if she should concern herself with it. Better safe than sorry, she supposed. She remained silent for a while, waiting to see if Katya would continue the conversation before she did so.
Esther did not need to wait long, for the Lady Tribune also had questions.
"So what's the real reason you came to talk to me, Esther?" she asked. Her voice betrayed no menace or suspicion; in fact she spoke quite casually, as if her motive was nothing more than genuine curiosity.
"If you have anything specific you wanted to discuss then please go ahead, you needn't stand on ceremony! I'd hate to inadvertently waste your time with idle talk of jewelry and infrastructure."
"I have to have a reason to meet with you?" Esther asked with a dashing smile, considering her options. "You couldn't possibly waste my time. My current position doesn't come with much work to begin with."
Other than figuring out my power, collecting secrets and using them against others. She didn't say that though. It wasn't a good idea to be too open.
"Maybe I wanted to pay a visit to fascinating leaders not too far from our own territory." She teased. "But truth be told, a little bird told me about you. She was interested in a book you had, because it may contain her secrets."
Esther shrugged. "I've no loyalty to Henrietta though, but a book of secrets seemed mildly interesting. Interesting enough to investigate at least, especially if it contained the secrets that someone like Henrietta may have."
She had been told the two weren't on the best of terms either, so perhaps there was no harm in letting slip that any information she got about Henrietta might be used against her.
"Maybe she could be the one to regret telling me about it in the end."
For a moment Katya seemed to lose some of her cheerfulness.
"You know Henrietta, then?" she said, opening the satchel and drawing out her Mucronomicon. Halting, she opened the book and began flipping back through the pages, searching.
"Well." Esther coughed, and noticed that she had pulled out a book. "I know her respect lies where it should. I doubt she'd consider me a friend after the gift I brought her though."
"Gift...?" Katya repeated absentmindedly. Before Esther could respond however, she interrupted with a triumphant jab at her current page.
"Aha, here it is! 'Our newest Lady Henrietta Cicera was on this day a host to Esther, Granddaughter of the Banshee, in her own home in yonder City of Gi'zeal, yet nothing of official merit doth arise.'"
Katya closed the book.
"Must have missed that update. Like I said, busy times. But as you can see, the Mucronomicon isn't very forward with the details. It loves to talk about shady business as 'nothing of official merit'. From that passage I would never have guessed that you were discussing important secrets or, um, ill-received gifts."
The Mutar resumed walking as she spoke.
"All the entries about her are like that. I checked and double checked them after she requested a Ladyship, and found nothing openly incriminating! I'm sorry, but if you want Henrietta's secrets you'll have to look elsewhere."
Esther burst out laughing. Oh, this was good. Henrietta feared a book that had nothing of value on her, yet as long as she thought it did she could use it against her. It probably also meant that there would be little details about the Ghost Division's dealings. Esther's own books may contain more secrets than this one did if it excluded shady dealings.
"Brilliant." Esther said. "Say, what does it say about my gang? Does it mention me at all?"
They had dealing in the region it was said to cover, but hopefully it didn't.
"It doesn't exclude downright criminal activity or basic comings-and-goings." Katya said, frowning. "You don't have much of a record, but there's plenty about your pirate friends."
"Oh? Do tell." Esther smiled at her. "It must be even more difficult now that we've joined up with a legitimate city state without written laws. A diplomatic nightmare if you were to get into it."
"I don't think I would call it a 'diplomatic' nightmare." Katya debated. "There was never really any diplomacy between your people and mine. Only bloodshed."
She eyed Esther with a tinge of hope.
"Would I be right in maybe supposing that you came here willing to discuss peace among our people?"
She laughed again. "Ah true, true. Good times, greater memories."
Esther raised an eyebrow at the idea that she had come to discuss peace.
"I've no power to negotiate peace." She stated matter of factly. "The strong eat the weak. Besides, warriors get bored in peace times. There's nothing for us killers to do."
Katya's mouth hardened into an unamused line.
"With all due respect, Esther, those excuses are pathetic. You do have the power to negotiate peace, and in a world where gods literally walk among us the strong needn't have to eat at all if one more powerful than us wished it so."
"I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Do I have power to negotiate peace? I do possess divine power. However, it is a bit more complicated than that. I can't strong-arm my way to peace, nor do I have the diplomatic capacity. Those above me in the ranks would not appreciate it. Despite what you might think, I am not high in the ranks as a newly ascended."
"Other than that, I grew up in a culture without gods where we did kill to get ahead. It only changed recently. Maybe I don't want everything to change so drastically."
"I don't think they want it to stop. I don't think she cares." Esther frowned for a brief moment at her own comment, but soon smiled again.
"My intention wasn't to stir more hatred or trouble. Maybe we should change the topic?"
"If your intention wasn't to stir hatred, maybe next time don't refer to years of brutality as 'good times'!" Katya half-laughed, her indignation momentarily flaring up with humourless hysteria.
"But yeah, we'll drop it for now. Let's see... Of the three great taboo conversation topics, we have so far discussed two; religion and politics. Want to go for the trio?"
Esther didn't understand the problem. It had been good times for her and her people. She had great memories of all that had happened when she had been growing up, when her father had still been alive. She shrugged it off.
"Taboo topics...?" She asked with a confused expression on her face. There was no taboo topics where she came from. Other than suggesting they should stop stealing and killing. If Katya was this much of a prude though, it was fairly easy to guess what topic she meant.
"Like fucking?" Esther asked. "You trying to ask me for advice or something?"
"We of the Mu have a god on call for that sort of advice." Katya said. "I was more thinking along the lines asking whether or not you have a partner back home."
"Huh, you just call her and she shows up to have sex with you? Interesting..." Esther mumbled. "So you're asking if I'm taken. I don't think an allegiance could be struck that way, unless you're hiding more in those pants than I thought."
Esther paused for a moment, looking at her own body. She wondered how much she could change it. She knew Taumel could change her body. Their powers were at least similar.
"Any relationship I'd enter would have to be one where I could get children somehow, or my grandmother would disapprove. Yet I haven't found a man that gains her approval either."
Katya sighed, not answering for a while. After that period she halted, turning to face Esther directly.
"I try to be civil, yet you cannot help but twist my words and insult me and my god!"
The Lady Tribune spoke as if genuinely angered now, her feline ears flattened against her scalp.
"Are you really so puerile that you'd come her for no other purpose? I can only guess that you are in league with Lady Henrietta, sent by her as a cruel joke! Is that it?!"
"What...?" Esther said, a bit surprised that anyone would get offended by what little she had said. She wondered if there was something in particular she had said which had sparked the reaction. "I didn't... What?"
She pushed Katya when she called her puerile. "You think I'm too brutish to understand your words?" Esther laughed. "Pfft, Henrietta is a servant of my grandmother. I'd get her to bow to me if I wanted too."
"How am I supposed to know what you're trying to say when you suddenly jump from peace talks to relationships? It's logical to assume you were willing to give yourself up to me." Esther frowned. "How does it feel to be so weak that mere words hurt you?"
"How does it feel to have the memory of a goldfish!" Katya hissed back, readjusting her coat as she recovered from the shove. "You said 'maybe we should change the topic', so I did! I mean seriously! You must also have the romantic perception of a goldfish if you think that I would ever do such a thing with you..."
Behind her, Daisy had flown off in mild panic, circling far away high above the volcano.
"Hmm, I said we should change the topic, but you chose the topic." Esther smiled, pleased that she had gotten her riled up. "I am a beautiful, dangerous, mysterious and powerful Feyeath. And that was just before I was ascended. I imagine most mortals would want someone like me." She grinned, then patted Katya on the head. "At least you'd have good motivation for it. But maybe you're not into females? Maybe you think you'll find romance one day?" She giggled, a bit too feminine. "I was taught romance is dead, kid."
"I suspect they drowned it long ago where you come from." Katya shot back. She shook her head, turning to walk away.
"Go home to your grandmother. I wish her luck trying to arrange this marriage for you; and I pity the poor fool who falls for your 'dangerous, mysterious beauty'!"
Esther grinned and growled teasingly as Katya turned her back towards her. She made an actual note that the people of the Mu region were stingy and humourless, as she suspected she would deal with them again.
She eventually found out where the tribune lived, and made her way inside to leave a gift for her as well. Kind of like she had done for Henrietta, but not as bloody. It might be argued that it smelled as much though. She left hundreds of red flowers all over her home, then a note in a place where the tribune would find it. It was a suggestive poem that she thought up in no time, but laughed while doing it.
When Katya eventually did arrive home, later that night, to see what Esther had left for her...
"Daisy, eat!"
In a matter of seconds the dragon was coughing up petals in a room completely devoid of ironic affection, except of course for ONE thing... Esther's poem.
The Lady Tribune sat down at her desk to read the latest work of the acclaimed, yet, she had decided, completely psychopathic, writer. Katya's countenance seemed to frost over the further her eyes traveled down the page, though with it, as dictated by the metaphor, a reddening in her cheeks came as well.
As soon as she had finished Katya set down the poem, almost flinging it away from her as it it had suddenly burst into flame. She took a few deep breaths.
Her first instinct was to feed the obscenity to Daisy, but before she could act on this another idea formed in her head.
Opening the Mucronomicon, the Lady Tribune began an entry of her own. The book's format adapted around her words as she wrote, automatically setting them apart so that they could not be confused with the automated accounts. Half an hour later she had recorded as best she could her interactions with Esther, and at the end of this entry was the poem.
Now all those who held the Mucronomicon after Katya would know how Esther had acted on this day. Such information could be of great use to her future replacements, as they would probably have to deal with the immortal demi-god at some point too.
Finally, now that all this was out of the way, Katya dove into the task that really mattered; what had been the topic of Esther's meeting with Henrietta? The book might not say outright, but the historian had given its keeper enough information to draw out the details with questions.
The Mutar picked up her quill. Tonight she would lose a great deal of eyesight...
Sraker - Nightmare Hunt, 212
"You are Sraker of the Mu." the Thaloc hissed. Not only did this one not even try to morph its appearance, it also seemed to care little for how it sounded.
"Demi-god invincible. I see now how you could walk through the Nightmare Hunt without fear."
Nightmare Hunt? Sraker thought. Perhaps this place is not the outskirts of Guran.
"Yes, I am Sraker." he said. "What is your name, changeling?"
"Rajik." said Rajik. "Raj for short."
"Raj. Well Raj, in exchange for saving your life I would like some questions answered."
The Thaloc locked his beady eyes upon Sraker's black ones, bowing his head slightly.
"Agreed. Though Raj was hidden well till you came; would not have fallen prey to Nithoggr."
"Is that so?" Sraker questioned skeptically. "I take it that the worm was this 'Nithoggr'?"
He nudged a lump of worm meat with his foot, as if to clarify.
"Alpha Nithoggr." the Thaloc told him. "King of the Hunt. The most feared creature in this land."
"And where exactly is 'this land'?"
Raj cocked his head, confused.
"You do not know?"
"I was looking for Guran, but seem to have gotten lost in some other part of this accursed forest."
"Guran is west. This place is new, called the 'Nightmare Hunt'."
"Never heard of it."
"Like Raj say, it is very new."
He looked as though he were about to elaborate, but at that moment something caught his eye. The Thaloc dropped to his knees, darting forward at a near-slither to snatch up a lump of exploded Nithoggr, tearing it apart with his bare scaled hands. Two of the beast's teeth were revealed, caught up inside the charred gums.
"Hohooo, yesss..." Raj cackled, standing up and showing Sraker the two enourmous fangs. "You make Raj a happy man today, m'Lord!"
"These teeth are valuable?" he asked, taking one for scrutiny.
"Very valuable. Very rare too. Not easy to kill the Alpha Nithoggr."
Raj took back the tooth, tucking it and its counterpart away in his belt.
"But Raj will not sell these. No, now is an opportunity. Lord Sraker... Is it too much if Raj humbly asks your help in something?"
It was not long before the two of them came to a second agreement.
Raj wanted Sraker to escort him safely through the murderous forest, to a certain place where he claimed an enchanted crafting bench could be found. With the teeth, he now had enough scavenged material to actually create something of tremendous value.
In return, Raj would guide Sraker to Guran. He also continued in his task of bringing the Lord Protector up to speed on all the workings of the Hunt, as well as the rest of Breakopen.
"...And when you drink from it, you get granted gifts of the god Ar'guran, species dependent. It was for this Raj came here at first, but when Raj see that most die when they drink, decides it is a bad idea."
Sraker could detect in the Thaloc's voice a hint of sadness as he said this. He was also beginning to notice a corruption aura about him; dark needles hovering around his head. An indication of some mental disquiet.
"What was your reason for seeking a drink from this cup?" Sraker asked. "You said it was meant for those who intend to join Ar'guran's Leonin."
Raj suddenly appeared uneasy. He scratched the back of his head.
"Yes... You see... I suppose you've noticed, that Raj cannot change."
"I have. I thought that it wasn't something you're kind could control? With my vision I can usually tell if one of you is attempting to deceive me, but you don't even try."
"Is usually instinctive, yes. But I... Have a condition."
Sraker looked across at Raj, frowning.
"Some kind of Thaloc disease?" he probed. Raj nodded, eyes downcast.
"Thaloc disease. Born with it. Not contagious."
It all of a sudden dawned on Sraker just how debilitating such a disease would be. A changeling who cannot change. Thaloc have no cities of their own, so Raj was cursed to be a complete freak wherever he went. The only pity he'd find would be among those who understood his strange appearance, which would be very few indeed since most people still didn't even know of the Thaloc's existence.
"I'm, ah... I'm sorry." Sraker mumbled awkwardly. Raj shrugged.
"Raj has accepted it. Came here hoping that cup would be the cure; for Thaloc it grants improved changing. But like I said, is not worth dying for. Besides," Raj gave a crocodile smile, "Raj learns many useful things from disease. Being forced to hide without the ability to change made Raj a professional thief. When cup proved no good, started scavenging from hunters killed in woods here, getting many things to sell! Lots of dead idiots not knowing how to hide."
Sraker bristled slightly at the implication that he, too, was one of those idiots, but restrained himself from a retort.
