Brad comes to an abrupt halt, then spins, facing the lawyer. "Did you say my mother's grandfather?" He stares at the man. "You're serious, aren't you Mr. Massys. Did you know my mother? Where is she? Nevermind, I'll go back inside. But I have questions for you when this is all said and done."
Braden heads back within the chambers. "Supposedly, I'm related to you all on my mother's side. If it's true, well, I guess it's nice to meet you all." He takes the knife and gives himself a cut without hesitation. "The name's Braden, or just Brad."
Rowan looks around the room.
"Thank you, Braden. By my count, we only have 9 of 11. Ikvvy and Eldrian, we need your blood to know more. And Vigar, can you distribute the folders?"
He moves toward them with the knife and crystal, holding it as to not disturb the other drops.
"Ari", Arean acknowledges Brad.
"Huh? Oh, yes. I'm Tassira." She acknowledges Brad as well. She's quite focused on the crystal projector device.
"Huh? Oh, yes. I'm Tassira." She acknowledges Brad as well. She's quite focused on the crystal projector device.
"Huh? Oh, yes. I'm Tassira." She acknowledges Brad as well. She's quite focused on the crystal projector device.
Vigar distributes the folders out as per Rowan's request before heading back to his place, leaning against the wall.
Vigar distributes the folders out as per Rowan's request before heading back to his place, leaning against the wall.
"Thank you, Vigar", Arean says, taking the folder, held through the cloth of one sleeve.
Tassira nods to Vigar as she takes a folder.
She looks back to the memory imager.
What did the professor want to tell us? I hope it isn't something to do with how he died... then again, that might be what it is. He was perfectly fine when I saw him before he passed away...
Ikvvy followed everyone into the room and listened carefully at the lawyer's information. She have her doubts about the device and the crystal on sight, but she says nothing. It still had to work to check if she was right. The half-elf took the box and opened it, and was analyzing it when her brother took her out of the wondering. She looks at him to guarantee he watch her eyes while she speaks. "I just don't know."
Her eyes show that she is lost at the matter, since there's clearly more than she understands right now. There's a simple way out of this: The crystal. "Let's solve this mystery brother." She gives a meaningful gaze at Arean and moves to get the dagger, applying just a little bit of pressure to get it, before finishing her part and handling the dagger to Eldrian.
"I can see how some of you may be related, but I can't see how I am. I'm Dwarf of House Trin. How could I possibly be connected to all of this"
Krag looks at the folder that Vigar has handed to him and starts leafing through.
"I would like to suggest that there has been some confusion, but as the events are unfolding I think this less and less likely. These events are proving to be somewhat of a riddle to me."
Eldrian looks at the dagger for a long moment before taking it. "And I master Dwarf have not a trace of human blood either. This concerns more than blood relatives of the man, clearly not a simple will reading. Old men manipulating others for their ends. Very well, let us see what magical message awaits us." He looks meaningfully at Ikvvy as he relieves his body of 1 drop of blood. "There are many things magic can do with blood... He didn't feel the need to finish the sentence or explain.
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Once the crystal is placed into the slot waiting for it, a soft low pitch droning sound comes from the device for a few seconds until the table seems to fade away, although you can still feel the wood of it beneath your hands, in its place the image of an elderly human male appears. For those of you who knew him it is easy to recognize Professor Crispin, for the rest of you he is a tall thin man, with green eyes that catch your eyes and seem to stare into your soul, a neat trim grey beard completes the picture. He is sitting in a rather comfortable looking armchair and when you compare notes afterward, each of you experience the Professor facing you directly.
“So you’ve all made it here. Good. I won’t say that I didn’t have doubts but they really were very small doubts. I’m sure you are all wondering what you are doing here and some of you are wondering who I am. That’s good too, things are going to plan. I’ll admit it might not have been a good plan but we’d tried several others and things” he hesitates and licks his lips “things didn’t go well.”
”I’ve had a very long time to plan this meeting, and I still don’t know where the right place to begin is. If I who am widely considered a gifted speaker appear to fumble this please forgive an old man, and perhaps a foolish old man at that, this minor thing. The gods know that there are much more difficult things for you to forgive as you will discover as you listen to the things I have to say. He shakes his head. ” Still you are alive and I regret doing nothing that enabled that fact, maybe the circumstances that made some of those actions I took needed, but I don’t regret acting to ensure your survival.” A rather savage looking expression complete with a dangerous grin comes over his face. ”My brother may have found me and cleaned me up but I’m still a gutter rat at heart, hurt me and mine, even have the potential to hurt me and mine, and I’ll see you dead and bleeding in the street for the dogs to feast on.”
“And there we have a beginning. How can you all be mine? Well therein lies the story of my life but if you were not related to me by blood you would not be here today.” He raises both hand and starts tugging at his hair. ”Don’t think I wasn’t confounded myself when I realized that an elf, a dwarf, and an aasimar would be sitting here among you. I figured out Krag and Kareil’s reason for being here fairly quickly,” he stops tugging at his hair and starts stroking his chin with his right hand. ”But, you Eldrian, I spent years trying with you and never managed to get it narrowed down beyond three things. The first two are each unlikely, and third is simply admitting the answer is something I never thought of.”
He shakes his head and seems to look over your shoulder at something in the distance. The self deprecating tone that had worked its way into voice with the last few sentences is gone as he continues.
“There’s a storm coming. It will be a storm unlike any you have ever seen. It’s going to take more than one form. There will be a very real storm and it will be the most powerful the world has ever seen, but there will also be a political storm from those who would use it for their own advantage.” He shakes his head back and forth.
“The physical storm it’s a backlash from the magic that was used to end the Great War with the Tien Empire 200 years ago.” His voice takes on the quality that both a good story teller and a teacher possess. It raises and falls in tone, varies in volume, draws in the listener, and grabs his or her interest. “ Used, I should have said unleashed. This storm will not only affect the physical world but the very nature of magic itself. Think of the damage a hurricane does, a tsunami, a tornado, a major earth quake, a volcano,” with his words you can see the water fill the air, feel the earth shake, taste the smoke from the fire, “now imaged all that devastation occurring at one time, everywhere.”
”And that’s won’t be the worst of it, no the very worst of it will be the storm‘s effect on and use of magic itself. There will be a great wave or raw magic that will ride along the edge of the storm front.” he holds his hands parallel to each off to his side a few inches apart and moves them across the front of his body to his other side as he speaks. His first hand he holds straight and steady, the second hand he makes twitch and jump about. ”And everything that wave of magic touches will have the potential to be changed, or will be changed right at that moment. Some changes will be minor maybe a dog will suddenly sprout a second tail. Some changes, let’s call them warps, will be strange, the dog suddenly meows instead of barks. Some changes, let’s call them twists, will be deadly, the dog now has venomous fangs and a taste for the flesh of children.”
He sits back in his chair again and looks grim.”If the coming storm weren’t enough, there are those who know it is coming and are not seeking to avert it. They are not seeking to withstand it. No they welcome it; they seek to use it for their own ends, to increase their own power. They see the storm as a way to achieve goals that no mortal should strive for.” A look of disgust and perhaps regret comes over his face. ” Chief among them is a man named Vors Ancona. He is a man who has undertaken the darkest of deeds and sworn the darkest of pacts for his quest for personal power. I don’t think he can be truly thought of as human anymore. He’s my grandson, the father of Tassira, Ikkvy, and Arean, and Braden’s uncle.”
A hand reaches out, later no one would be able to tell whose, and touches the image, causing it to pause in place.
Vigar snarls to himself.
"So the man reveals himself to be a rather promiscuous man who even after death decides to put in a meddling hand. He has named but a few, don't think I play any thing within this upcoming saga. Storm indeed. An understatement if I ever heard one. At least I can see that some of them are closely related..the pity perhaps."
In a lower whisper to himself.
"Blood calls to blood indeed."
Tassira watches the image of Professor Crispin. The mentions of storms coming cause her to shiver.
Great. Just what I needed; more sleepless nights.
The idea of a political storm didn't disturb her--hell, that sort of thing was expected in the case of an inheritance. It was the magical storm on the horizon that frightened her. Who knows what could happen?
The mention of her father being the professor's grandson really catches her attention. Especially when she learns that Ikvvy & Arean are her sisters.
"Wait--what?" She turns to Ikvvy & Arean. "You're my sisters?" She puts the ring of House Alenkine & the necklace on.
Marcos begins to jot things down, names, places, on a napkin.
"I'm going to need to get a notebook soon, just to keep this all straight."
I wonder if I should believe this Professor Crispin. He seems sincere enough. But it would be much easier to be sincere using a magical crystal than in person.
"So Tassira, I guess I'm not the only one meeting new family here, if this man is to be believed."
"Wait--what?" Tassira turns to Ikvvy & Arean. "You're my sisters?" She puts the ring of House Alenkine & the necklace on.
Arean had positioned herself near Ikvvy for the evidence their similarities would offer. She had planned a smile, but when Tassira turned to ask her question, Arean was frowning, struck. {Dogs turning to monsters?}, she had thought, {My Papa... is not my father?}
But Arean smiled at the question, and at the prospect of real family, after her years of semi-errant self-exile since the Library. "So we are told.", she reasoned aloud. "Do we chose to believe it?", she asked, her smile hinting at her vote.
Eldrian is taken aback at being called out by name but he says nothing and continues listening.
I have a notebook, and I am still having trouble keeping up.
After setting up the device, Rowan had taken out his journal and had written everyword said. He continues with every reaction, every movement of the beneficiaries.
I wonder how I am related to Crispin. I know my father didn't like to speak of his, and he did not like magic. Maybe he resented the magic in his family...Maybe thats why the old man chose me as a student...
He looks in the folder. Perhaps there is a geneology in here...
Ikvvy have once again a confused look. She eyes her brother beside her, scanning him for something, but not finding it. He seemed as confused as she, if not more. She knew fate was getting his pawns into motion, but haven't imagined that she would have to be something, instead of doing something, but now she realized she had two other half sisters and a cousin. Her father was seemingly a monster, and her half²-brother was more lost than her, it would seem.
She moves her gaze to Tassira when she speaks, but a feeling of confusion and sadness makes her turn her gaze toward the image and keep focused. There was more.
Furnok shifts in his seat. My kin? This man is either the biggest liar and madman or this world has gone crazy. Either way, my father is my father and it isn't this image before me.
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Someone’s hand reaches out and the image comes to life again.
“So this tale has to have a beginning, so let us start with me. My father was a weak willed man who gave into every vice that came his way, including that of sleeping with the house maids whether they were willing or not. His wife had my mother thrown into an asylum when she found out she was pregnant with my father’s bastard. My mother died giving me birth. I’m told if the guards had bothered to get a healer she would have lived. I eventually ended up in the slums of Marthos. At the age of 16 I was a making a poor living as a pickpocket and petty thief when my father finally died. It really shouldn’t have made any difference to me as I didn’t know who he was, but my older half brother found out I existed. He sought me out and civilized me to an extent. He saved me in ways I didn’t know I needed saving. He enrolled for a term of service in the 3rd Scout Detachment and using an archaic law that only applies to members of great houses had me enrolled as well, as his squire.”
”A week before we left for The Guardian my brother gave me a bag of gold and a list of items to buy to take with us into the military. I don’t think he realized then just how much a single gold coin can buy in the slums, or how much wealth that same coin is to the ordinary man. If he did he certainly would have never told me to ‘keep the change’. I got everything he wanted and spent the next two days and nights with my best friend Ami ‘the Quick’. Ami and I had done everything together including trying to see if someone needed to be double jointed to duplicate all the positions in the illustrated holy text of Arshea. Turns out you don’t but everyone participating has to be very limber. Anyhow after we’d practiced illustrations 45, 81, 99, and 115, all over again I gave Ami what was left in the bag and told her she should use it to get out of Marthos or at least out of the slums. I went back to my brother and in a few days he and I were off to the Scouts.”
”16 years later Ami, who had married a man named Fletcher, contacted me for the first time since I gave her that money. She told me that our twin daughters, Ivy and Rose, were starting to show signs of magic. She wondered if I could: a) make sure the finders didn’t take them; and b) stay out of their lives. I had developed something of a reputation for recklessness. I had already become only the third person in history to earn 2 of those little trinkets that adore the necklace I gave to Kariel. Add to that the fact that my brother’s oldest son and wife had just been assassinated, and I could see her point for wanting me to stay away and to help her keep the secret of our children’s parentage. I called in a favor and got the girls listed with the Intelligence Bureau as deep cover assets. Which added them to the do not recruit list for a reasons listed simply as For The Good of the Empire. The fact that both became bards eventually lent some unexpected credence to the excuse. Rose was Rowan’s grandmother, Ivy was Furnok’s.”
”After about a year into our tour of duty we got briefly assigned to special team to investigate the Greyport Ruins. You could be generous and say that we were a handpicked squad, the best the Empire had. I think somebody just wanted to get rid of the misfits. There was Centurion Gratus, William DeAngelis, myself, my brother Greg, Gorin Al’Trin, and a number of others all who died there. We left the ruins with having only glimpsed its secrets only to be told good job when we returned. It turns out no one else had every come back from there at all.”
“Well I was mad at that, real mad, no one had given us any warning of that nature before we left. So I stormed off after the debriefing. We were based out of one the Northern Elves’ pegasi bases and there was this snotty elven teenager always hanging around who thought he knew a thing a two about dice games. I decided somebody had to pay for my rage and that if I really educated that kid about dice that would do. I found him and turns out he was mad at his father for some reason and had liberated some 400 year old elvish whiskey his old man, who was away with the Pegsai scouts, had stored away. Things get extremely vague after that, but I do remember Gorin showing up later, and the dice game becoming a drinking game.”
”The next morning, the elf is long gone, and Gorin and I are waking up in a Temple of Hembad. The local priest starts our morning by telling us that now that we were awake we could finish the marriage ceremony we had started. Gorin, sputtered out that he was already married with 2 sons, and I vomited into the priest’s trash can. The priest didn’t even bat an eyelash; he said he had used a spell that showed marriage bonds when he started so he had used a version of the ceremony that permitted multiple partners. I vomited again, and Gorin made it clear that he wasn’t interested in having another spouse as the one he had spent all his money. The priest said that maybe with a donation large enough to the temple the ceremony could be reworked into a blood adoption ceremony and the two of us would become brothers.”
”That is why you Krag are here. I’m your uncle; I probably owe you a lot of birthday presents, sorry about that. As for the elf I never saw that kid again, and I never did get his real name, I just called him Swimmer because he did that every morning, and because it made him mad.”
”So what was left of our special unit was sent to the Guardian. I think the plan was for us to be the core of a new type of unit. Something designed to explore ancient ruins. A unit designed to investigate the mysterious events that occur now and again. If so nothing ever came of it beyond a few new faces joining our little team. Neyissa Devin, Maric Vantyev, Cassandra Wylde, Jenae Greenfields, and Eldrian’s Father were added to us.”
”I was just a few weeks shy of my 18th birthday when Greg had the bright idea to explore the uncharted levels below the Guardian. You have to understand the location the Guardian is simultaneously a great and terrible place to build a citadel. Strategically, tactically even it’s a perfect place for a fortress. It’s also so tempting a target that no enemy can ever pass it up. It’s been captured, burned down, and rebuilt at least 10 times over the course of the Empire. It has layers and layers of underground levels that are insanely dangerous to venture into. So naturally that’s where we went.”
”Things went okay at first but several levels down something large, furry, with sharp claws and pointy teeth ripped into our scouts – Jenae, Cassandra, and Neyissa. It left Jenae dead, Cassandra unconscious and drug Neyissa off into darkness before we could kill it. Well we tried to pursue it but it lost us after we followed it down deeper into the darkness than I think anyone had been since the first Guardian was built. We ended up in this huge natural cavern lit by a glowing fungus. Sitting right in the middle of it was a Thassilonian monastery devoted to Curchanus. It looked defensible and at time we needed defense. So we went in.”
”Now Curchanus has been dead for a long time, but the instance we crossed the threshold we knew we were on holy ground. We explored a bit here and there, but we were really looking for a place to tend Cassandra and maybe find some freshwater. Suddenly William opened a door and there was this courtyard before us containing a large fountain with clean, pure water flowing in it. Maybe we shouldn’t have done what we did next, but we did. We drank from the fountain, and we bathed Cassandra’s wounds in it.”
”The water changed us all. For me among other things it gave me a vision of this very room and all of you sitting around this table, of course that was mixed in with bits and pieces of many other things scattered up and down what was I would later come to realize was my own timeline. I wasn’t the only one to be given visions of things to come; both Greg and Gorin had visions of the storm. William I figured out later had at least a vision of his death. We were all stronger, faster, tougher, and more capable then we were before and it never faded. I also know that it retarded the aging of at least Cassandra, Maric, and Gratus.”
”For me the furthest into the future I saw was this meeting here and now, which surprised me a great deal after I figured out when my death would occur. So I spent years trying to figure out who you all were and what made you so special the last important event of my life should be you gathered together.”
”Now let me make a brief side point here. Magic runs in our family like water down a mountainside during the spring melt. Before the end of the Great War, perhaps one person in 100 might have some minor magical talent. Today that number seems to be 1 in 10,000. For the Alenkines the ratio has always been much greater. Even today the ratio seems to be at least 1 in 20. Among my descendants the ratio is even higher than that running about 3 in 5 as far as I was able to discern. I believe the reason for that is that is that most of my children were born after I drank from that fountain.”
”To get back to what happened next. We made our way back to the surface with William leading the way. Every turn, every pause, every choice, he unerringly picked the right way until we came into the cavern with a trio of 2 headed horrors blocking the way. He turned to us and said ‘Don’t worry it has to be this way, there is a passageway fifty yards farther on that will eventually take you to the surface, and Vors don’t take it personally my sister isn’t all that fond of men.’”
”A month later, just after my 18th birthday I brought back William’s sword and shield to the DeAngelis’ Steading only to find out that his father had died and his sister Grace had been named Castellan and Caretaker until William was to return from his service in the Legions. She took the news of his death well I thought and that night took me to her bed, and every night after that for 2 weeks. She then had me escorted from the castle and told me never to return, saying that I had done what was needed. I heard later that she did claim the family title in her own right. I’m not sure what memories you have of your great grandmother Marcos, but she was a strong powerful leader every bit of deserving and entitled to be The DeAngelis of the DeAngelis as any of your other ancestors.”
The image pauses again.
Vigar is stunned.
That...That Old man Gratus is that old.....I don't know what to believe...and that Imperial Starburst of Extreme Heroism, he earned two!!! I thought only five was given out and of that two was given to the two legends of the Legion?
And Rowan is a direct descendant as well...this keeps getting better and better. If I'm his magical double or something...I swear someone is going to get a beatdown.
Vigar's expression is guarded but his jaw is clenched.
"My father serves the empire. Does he know anything of this?" Looking like he had heard alot of things he didn't wish to hear Eldrian asks the recording a question. If it saw this room maybe he heard me... You're crazy Eldrian you know that?
Tassira is thoroughly dumbfounded by the professor's tale.
Maric... Daddy served with him? He drank from a fountain that prolonged his life? He...wha...
"...what?" Is all she can say.
...does he still have that text of Arshea?
Rose... My Father's mother. Come to think of it, she wasn't Ulfen. And she was famed in the village for her enchanting singing voice. At least this explains the relation.
Rowan turns the ring over in his hand repeatedly as the message continues.
Out of all these magical children, why wasn't I born with some, even the tiniest bit...Well at least I inherited the Professor's intelligence and love for knowledge.
"Fascinating. I never knew any of this, and never imagined I might belong to another House as well. This will require much research going forth."
Marcos sits in contemplative thought, pondering the massive historical and genealogical lesson.
Ikkvy keeps trying to remember and connect everyone, but the tree is not complete yet. There's more.
Brad just listens as the professor rattles off a list of names he didn't recognize. But one thing he did notice: the family had a reputation for producing magical talent. "Too bad I couldn't make much use of it," he thinks.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Furnok scratches his chin. Grandfather then, this makes things easier to handle. Talks a country mile though, rather interesting tale and I wonder if we could find that magic fountain?
Professor Crispin's wife, great grandmother of Ikvvy and her half sisters is Marieta.
Crispin and Marieta had two children, a son Heinz, and a daughter, Alessa.
Alessa married Tomas Ancona and had two children Vors, and Mara
Mara marries Leopold Swanson.
Mara is Braden's mother, Lord Stanburg is his sire.
Vors has three children, but only is married to Calinda of House Rastar who is Tassira's mother
The Professor's son Heinz marries Felice daughter of Gratus they have one son Vigor
I actually have another half a dozen to a dozen names, but these are the ones which I think will matter the most to the players at the moment.
Again I can't thank you enough.
"Now that you mention it, my father did mention an uncle to me. He used to tell me and my brothers stories when we were children of their time in the legions."
I should send word to father... If Crispin is dead he will want to know.
[b]"So... My Cousins. What do we do now?"[b]
"We let the crystal finish? We review our folders. We embrace, if we feel it, if it's welcomed. And we forgive any who doubt it, because if I were not quite used to knowing things I could not possibly suspect, I would not believe it.", Arean says with unpracticed diplomacy.
"So, from me, all who doubt are forgiven, though the doubt is no crime. And any who wish, might have embrace. And those who don't wish, are forgiven of that, too."
She smiles.
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Things changed rapidly after that. Greg and Gorin both had their own plans. Gorin decided to become the leader of his house and he planned to make the under the mountain portion of Khorfe, his home city, a fortress that could withstand the storm. Greg, well, Greg started insisting he be called Gregor in public and he started seriously planning his bid to become Emperor and depose Alric the 4th of House Stanburg, or whatever Stanburg weasel replaced him before Greg was ready. The two plans were not in direct competition with each other but they occasionally competed for resources and Gorin eventually parted ways with the rest of us.
Long before that point however the Legions had broken most of our team up. Over the next year we got really good at our jobs, and we were noticed by powerful people because of it. Gorin and Gregor got an assignment to the Imperial War College, and then were assigned directly to the Imperial General Staff Headquarters. Gratus went back the 204th and spent time as a trainer of new recruits, and new officers. Eldrian’s father, myself and the newlyweds Maric and Cassandra got assigned to various intelligence units. Maric and Cassandra to that team of assassins that 3rd Scouts swear doesn’t exist, Eldrian’s father to the Office of Strategic Management (don’t the let the name fool you once I had the clearance high enough I saw the paperwork showing he had a literal license to kill), and I was ‘loaned’ to the Investigation and Security Division of Imperial Justice.
When I was 19 I was given a mission to infiltrate a gang of bandits with suspected ties to an illegal slavery ring. In case you don’t remember your history Alric the 4th had made slavery legal again, but showing his usual incompetence, left plenty of loopholes that Justice could use to shut down and imprison slavers with some pretty stiff prison terms. I quickly proved my usefulness and inside a month I was one of the gang’s top lieutenants.
We got word of an aasimar child born with wings and the leader decided that he could make a lot of money selling her to a slaver he knew. I saw this as my chance to bust the slavery ring, so I led the team to the girl’s village. Only the girl was gone and most of the famers who lived there were dead or dying. Her father died in my arms but he lived long enough to describe her kidnappers and beg me to look after his daughter. The classical education that Gregor had shoved down my throat finally came in handy and I realized she had been taken by members of a cult of one of the Elder Gods.
It didn’t take long to track them down, but they had already started the foul rite by which they intended to summon their mad god. They had cut off one of the little girl’s arms and one of her wings and she was lying on their foul alter bleeding. The bandits and I were as better at violence as the cultists had been better than the farmers they had cut down earlier, with one exception. He was as fast as I was, and I hadn’t encountered that in a human since I drank from the fountain. I saw at least 2 arrows hit bare skin and just bounce off him. He killed five of us in less than 10 seconds with a wild grin on his face the whole time, but he forgot about everyone else when he saw me.
‘You can’t stop the Storm, Trickster’ he said as I desperately nudged his blade away from my heart into my arm. ‘If even one of the Blood fails to gather you have no hope at all’, he cocked his head toward the girl on the alter ‘and she’s not looking so good’. I drove the dagger I had in my left hand into his chest and pulled it out again only to see no blood and no wound and I knew then although he looked human he wasn’t. It took everything I had to keep him from finishing me off. As it was he cut me up badly and I was losing a lot of blood. The whole time he was taunting me about the dying little girl and casually killing anyone who tried to help me as easily as I would swat a fly. My vision was starting to go grey around the edges when Oleg (one of the bandits - dumb as post, strong as an ox, and loyal like a hound) who carried his demon hunter grandfather’s cold iron great sword chopped the thing in two with one mighty blow from shoulder to crouch.
I dropped my weapons and stumbled over to the toddler and fought to stay conscious. I could see that she was dying, she was bleeding from the amputations still and I knew I couldn’t do anything for her, for that matter I was pretty sure I was dying. I picked her up with my hands still covered with my own blood to hold her so she wouldn’t have to die alone, and as my blood and hers mingled I felt a rush of warmth and I passed out.
I woke up a month later in an abandoned farmstead with Oleg wiping my brow with a cold cloth. It seems that a golden light had enveloped the girl and me when I passed out and the child’s wounds had healed over enough that it looked like she had been born without her amputated appendages. My condition hadn’t been as good. My wounds had stopped bleeding but they wouldn’t close and they oozed a black, foul smelling, bile like substance. The bandit chief took the girl and ordered the others to leave me where I lay, but Oleg refused and he stayed behind when the others left. He took me away from the battle to safety. I quickly developed a high fever and Oleg tended me day and night until my fever finally broke and my wounds finally started to heal.
By the time I recovered my health your trail Kariel had gone cold. Oh I tracked down and destroyed a number of slavers, bandits, and other villains but you had always had already been sold or moved somewhere else. I spent 2 years on your trail before I was to give up the search for you. Gregor had need of me in the capital.
My experience with the blood adoption ritual I had gone through with Gorin has me convinced that when our blood mingled something like it happened between the two of us. I spent a lot of time investigating this bond we shared and I don’t believe it made us brother and sister. I think it made father and daughter. I’m very sorry that I failed to protect you so long ago, and that I failed to ever recover you all these years. I never gave up on you and I never stopped searching for you at least not until I realized that the angel sitting in this room was you. Maybe its better I never found you I know of no magic that could have restored your arm and wing. I pass on that medal on your necklace to you in recognition of what you endured all those years and in recognition how you have the courage to face each day without hatred and with forgiveness. I don’t know if any means anything but you birth father begged me to take care of you and protect you. While I was alive I didn’t do a very good job, please accept the things that I have left you and use them now to keep yourself safe.
Now, if any of you are wondering about Oleg, somehow I never turned him in, timing never seemed right. He stayed at my side for more than 40 years, friend, companion, sounding board. Gregor actually issued him a pardon when he came to the throne. He died the night Vors killed Vigor’s Parents, and Tassira’s mother. Singing at the top of his lungs and somehow wielding that sword of his grandfather’s one handed after losing his left hand earlier in that battle.
It turned out that Gregor needed me make in the capital because he wanted to forge an alliance with a powerful, extremely wealthy merchant family. He was an Alenkine, and so was I sort of, but there are hundreds of members of house Alenkine and our father Roland had almost completely run through our share of the family wealth by the time of his death. If Gregor was going to further his plan and attain the Sword Throne, he needed a war chest of impressive size.
The Vorloi family had that sort of wealth, but not the status of being even minor nobility. Gregor had brokered a deal with them to sponsor the head of the family for a barony in exchange for their generous support of his goals but they wanted a marriage to seal the arrangement. Gregor had arrange for me to marry the soon to be baron’s oldest daughter Xemme. She was very pretty and highly trained in all the social graces and duties expected of a high society lady. Her head also contained about as much substantive content as a soap bubble. The latest fashion, the latest gossip, going to the right parties and being seen by the right people were the only concerns and thoughts that filled her head for morning to night. We had nothing in common.
I seemingly had nothing in common also with her younger sister Marieta. Marieta was 20 years old, making her a year younger than me, and had just earned a double doctorate in engineering and mathematics form the Imperial University's main campus. She had a brilliant mind and an engaging personality and she saw right through my every falsehood. We went and got married the day we met and then had to go to explain to Gregor and her father what we had done. Well Gregor and her father found a cousin with the Alenkine name to marry Xemme. The twit was just as into all that social drivel as Xemme was and the two were surprisingly happy together for more than 50 years.
Marieta and I had more than 30 years together before she died in what every investigation I ever ran showed to be a simple accident. She bore me two children Alessa and Heinz.
So is my father one of the ones wanting to take advantage of the storm? He never mentioned anything ominous.
When the Aasimar who's name he couldn't remember curled into her wings he felt sad for her. He shifted awkwardly on his feet and removed one hand from his arms being crossed almost reaching out to touch her shoulder but but didn't get halfway before retracting his hand. He didn't know how he felt about being a part of this family. If it wasn't for Ikvvy he might not even think the explanation of his connection reason enough to be here. Surely this dead wizard had some way that he wanted to use us. It always sounded like a cause worth fighting for. His father had tried to do the same thing to him. Until he showed no magical promise whatsoever.
Perhaps he wanted my help with his plans. Father and son. But I became a failure to him.
When Ikvvy had started exhibiting strange phenomena around herself he knew that the next time his father, who had no idea yet that she wasn't his, would take her away to be used in whatever schemes he had. He would not let ANYONE use her. Not even this professor.
Tassira looks over at Kariel as she folds her wings about herself.
Yeah, I know... it's a lot to take in at once.
She says nothing. Her finger is no longer bleeding. She's starting to understand where she fits in all this... she just needed to hear more.
Marcos also sits quietly, absorbing what he can of the convoluted story, and observing his new cousins as they do the same.
"And I thought my life was hard..."