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Chapter 9 (Duvanith)

“Why the Hells would you say yes, Mwaxa,” Duvanith asks, seated atop the heavy wooden Governesses desk inside the dressing room, much like she once did when Karoleena had been fitted for dresses in their childhoods. 

“Decorum, Negotiation, I don’t know, Duvanith. As far as ground I gave up, it didn’t seem like that much.” Mwaxanare said from her rigid fixed position, around her, a humanoid form made of brass and steel extended measuring tapes along her limbs and inspected its assessed distances with an array of telescopic optical devices. 

It was a Bobbinwright; she had dealt with earlier versions in the past; she and Karoleena would always laugh at their inhuman mannerisms and unsteadiness on the castle floor. Now, watching it was slightly different after her time in Choilit and her return to the Castle. She had seen what powerful magic wielders could create, like the Magus behind the wasting curse, the strange Arbiter at the balloonliner dock, and the wickedness of Crone Magic. She had to ask herself, without the capacity to understand, was this automatic seamstress just that, or were their fragments of blood or soul fueling its calculations? 

Warmachines didn’t operate without pilots, right? Then how could a Bobbinwright? 

“Mwaxanare, look at this.” Duvanith motions at the machine, sparing much of her internal commentary about its nature. 

She watches Mwaxanare look up and down at the articulating arms of the device. Duvanith continues, 

“When I told you about Matchmakers in the jungle, they aren’t just people-” 

“It’s a system. It usually is.” Mwaxanare correctly adds. Duvanith scrunches her face and watches the bobbinwright move to Mwaxanare’s other side. 

“It is, though I think institution might be a better word.”

“What are you trying to say, Duvanith?”

“By saying Yes, you’ve signed up to be treated like every Imperial Noble kid.” 

Duvanith watched Mwaxanare’s face as the Bobbinwright retreated from her, playing the all too familiar ‘You may relax’ sound from its record box, which Duvanith had heard hundreds of times. Mwaxanare’s face didn’t shift much; there wasn’t a hint of any concern or frustration that she may have fallen for the King’s ruse to make her look weak or somehow infantilize her. 

Mwaxanare then addressed the issue,

“Maybe I have. I maybe didn’t know the Imperial Nobility was so keen on the notion of Industry that they’d extend it to their children’s marriages. Still, it’s also impossible to sew division from the outside.” 

Duvanith partially understood what she was saying and could tell there was already a plan piecing itself together behind Mwaxanare’s beautiful brown eyes. 

“It sounds like you have a plan.” Duvanith hops off the desk and down to her feet, grabs Mwaxanare’s folded gold dress, and steps towards Mwaxanare. She gave Duvanith’s notion of a plan nothing more than a smirk while brushing herself off where the bobbinwright had done its work. Duvanith instinctually leaned to the left and the right, checking each side of the dressing gown for stains as she had always done for Karoleena; poorly maintained wrights sometimes would deposit voidstone dust or oil on garments.  

“You’re good,” Duvanith announces, extending the gold dress. 

“Good?”

“They sometimes leak,” Duvanith says, motioning her head toward the bobbinwright, making loud calculation noises in the corner of the room. 

“Oh. Right.” Mwaxanare says, scooping the dress from Duvanith’s arms and placing it immediately back down on the desk, reaching down and pulling the dressing gown over her head. Duvanith turned her head, occupying her sight line with the visuals of the number-crunching bobbinwright. 

Of course, she didn’t need the dressing gown; Mwaxanare’s dresses didn’t have structure the way Imperial Gowns did. They never had. She had ceded herself to repetition, an instinct, just like she did every time she took a measured shot from her bow; the repetition and instinct derived from just wanting a slight brush of the hand or arm as the dress gets handed off. 

“Mwaxanare?” She breaks her gaze from the bobbinwright and turns her head to look at her, knowing those few moments would have been all that was required for her to put her dress back on, given it lacked all of the Imperial underpinnings she had just been measured for.

“Yes, Duvanith?”

“You know there’s rules at Court, right? If you’re planning on causing some sort of scene, you should probably know them.” Duvanith could feel the tips of her ears burning with a combination of embarrassment over handing Mwaxanare her dress, and that her suggestion about ‘breaking the rules’ in this context certainly would have sounded like an innuendo to her in this context in the past; she had indeed wanted to hear such a thing in one of the dressing rooms in the past. 

“I’d assume not wearing the correct garments is one of them, given all of this.” She said, motioning around to the dressing room. Duvanith could feel a bit of the flush leave her face. 

Ding. 

The bobbinwright in the corner sounds that its calculations are complete and begins regurgitating its findings onto a piece of parchment, then came the inevitable knock on the door and the prim voice of a Castle Governess slicing through what ever was left of both the moment and Duvaniths embarrassment. 

“Finished?”

“Yeah,” Duvanith shouts at the door. It cracks open, and the Governess assigned to measure them slips into the room and moves towards the bobbinwright. 

“Did everything go well Lady Mwaxanare?” 

“You’ll have to tell me,” Mwaxanare responds. 

The Governess raises a pair of chained spectacles up to her face and closely inspects the printout before proclaiming. 

“Error-free. Thank you so much for being so still for your first time with a wright Lady Mwaxanare.” 

“It’s not a problem.” 

“I’ll bring these measurements to the dressmakers at once, and we’ll have you dressed in no time.” She moves towards the door. 

“Woah. Aren’t you going to reset it? I need to be measured.” 

The Governess slides the glasses off her face and back around her neck. 

“No, dear, I’ve been informed that you’ll be seated with those under Imperial Writ; you’re welcome to wear whatever uniform you please.” Duvanith shakes her head in disbelief and disapproval. 

“I’m a Lady of the Court; I’ve always sat with the Ladies of the Court. Who’s going to be Mwaxanare’s Attendant?” Duvanith rebuttals. 

“You are no longer a Lady of the Court, and she’s a guest of the King; he hasn’t extended an invitation for an attendant. Consider yourself fortunate you get to attend at all. Now, I must get this to the dressmakers.” The Governess scurries out of the room, Mwaxanare’s measurements in hand.  

Duvanith ran her tongue over her teeth in frustration, watching the Governess depart, but eventually felt Mwaxanare’s hand squeeze her arm and say quietly. 

“Tuwa, it’s okay, I’m going to be fine.” 

She took a deep breath and let the frustration fade away.

#dieselpunk #fiction #short story #ttrpg community #original character #worldbuilding #dungeons and dragons #fiction writing #fantasy #ttrpg stuff

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Chapter 9 (Karoleena)

Karoleena’s heavy footfalls echo throughout the Castle’s stone passageways with a blatant disregard for the instructions of Madam Keentree so many years ago to ‘step lightly’ to avoid drawing stares for the wrong reasons. 

“It was just unreasonable,” she vents aloud, knowing that Lucille was following in her wake, albeit with far lighter steps drowned out by Karoleena’s words and stomps. “I offer a single iota of counsel, and he just gets to snap like that. So what I went to, Choilt, so did Uncle Castiel and Auntie Luciana. What is the difference?” Karoleena asked aloud; there was no response from Lucille. This is when, during her childhood, Duvanith would have popped in with agreement and maybe a snappy insult against the person she was frustrated with. Lucille didn’t offer that aside from lacing her stays, she hadn’t offered much. 

Karoleena wheels around to face her attendant, who had already stopped seemingly in anticipation of her turning, her hands poised neatly in front of her. 

“What do you think Lucille.”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, what do you mean?” 

Karoleena grits her teeth in frustration and then says,

“Just Karoleena is fine when it isn’t a Court function.” Saying this served two purposes for Karoleena; not being called ‘Your Majesty’ all the time and it may endear her a bit to her new attendant. 

“Karoleena, what do I think about what?”

“The way my father addressed me.” 

“Well,” Lucille weighs her words so carefully that Karoleena can see it on her face. “The political situation with the collapse of the colonial government in Port Currington is a delicate one; I suppose I can understand his frustration, but I also find that it may have been better not to directly address it given the fact you’re likely mourning the loss of your fiance and his family.” 

It was a complete non-answer if Karoleena had ever heard one, but it was better than Karoleena just venting into the high ceilings of Castle Asker. 

“Tell me about yourself, Lucille; seeing an attendant at Court my age is strange.” Hells, it was strange to see a Royal Family member her age at Court; most of them had paired off and moved out as fast as she had once tried to.

“I grew up in Askerstad; my father was a bank executive, which got my mother access to enroll me as a potential attendant at Court, and the rest is history.” 

The story was typical for most attendants and echoed Duvanith’s own story of a father who was a lawyer and a mother interested in her daughter's social mobility. 

“I find it hard to believe that someone at Court or their Footman didn’t fancy you, why are you still here?” Karoleena asks gingerly, as it could be a sensitive subject for some. 

Lucille furrows her brow in thought and then responds,

“I think I wanted something more than what was on offer at Court.”

She seemed sincere, though it was a strange comment when she was still at Court. Karoleena smiles at her,

“You should speak to my old attendant, Duvanith; I think she felt the same way. She’s an adventurer now.” 

“I’d like that. Karoleena, can I ask you something.” 

“Of Course,” Karoleena beams back, pleased that Lucille felt comfortable enough to ask something of her or change the topic. 

“What is Port Currington like now that Mwaxanare has removed the Imperial Provincial government?” 

Karoleena mulls the question; she wasn’t sure how to answer. She didn’t know what it was like with the temporary government. 

“I’m not sure; it’s a beautiful place; the folks there seem happy enough. Though some infrastructure-related issues are likely closer tied to the Wasting Curse than anything else.” Karoleena says, offering her best, most complete answer.

“I’ve heard stories that undead and beastmen walk the streets and alleys now. Is it true?” There was an earnestness to her question; the phrasing was certainly Imperial, but it didn’t seem like she was trying to drum up horror stories. 

“I think you’re thinking of the Dimofolk; they’re jungle dwellers that helped Mwaxanare take back the city. Many of them have a very high station in her government.” 

“And the undead?” Lucille asks again. 

“That, I’m less sure of. I’ve seen them; they clean the streets at night and sometimes will squabble with each other, but I know that Mwaxanare also has,” Karoleena lowers her voice to just above a whisper, “A necromancer that manages them.” 

Karoleena watched Lucille’s face looking for any sign of shock or disgust to materialize; it never came. She stood still, seeming to process what Karoleena had said, the stillness eventually unsettling Karoleena, so she added.

“But that’s a secret.” 

Lucille comes to in response to this assertion. 

“Of course Karoleena.” She smiles back, the moment passes and Karoleena snaps to why they had been in the hallway at all in the first place. 

“Oh Gods, whats the time?”

Lucille recovers her timepiece from her Attendants Chatalaine. 

“Ten Past two Bells.” 

“Gods, I’ve forgotten how long it takes to walk across this damn place. We’re going to be late for the fitting. Madam Keentree was always insistent about punctuality, if you’re not five early you’re late.” 

Karoleena began walking, faster then before, in the direction of the governesses wing of the Castle. 

“You had Madam Keentree as well?” Lucille asks; Karoleena’s stuck with a bit of excitement. 

“I did! Which class were you in?” 

Karoleena thought it right to ask; Lucille’s half-elven features betrayed her age much in the same way’s Duvanith’s elven features did; a babyface. 

“One of her later ones,” Lucille responds, walking a bit closer to be at an appropriate distance for a moving discussion. 

“Ah, same, we must have missed each other. She died not that long ago. I saw the Obituary while I was in Rackhallow.” 

“Did you hear what happened?” Lucille offers slyly, clarifying the salacious nature of what she would say. 

“I didn’t, and I had thought it was old age.” 

“She walked in on a Baron’s daughter kissing a member of the Castle staff and keeled over dead. They brought the Arbiters in an everything.” 

“The Arbiters, that Baron must have some pull with my father.” The exchange felt correct, like she was back at Court, swapping gossip and stories with her attendant while on the way to have a gown fitted for a party, but no matter the little jumps of excitement she felt sharing secrets and gossip with her new attendant there was no replacing the overwhelming dread that she felt regarding looking across the Court chamber floor and Edmerton not being there.

She knew the evening's festivities were going to be rough.

#dieselpunk #dungeons and dragons #fiction writing #short story #ttrpg community #original character #ttrpg stuff #fantasy #fiction #worldbuilding

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Chapter 9 (Mwaxanare)

Mwaxanare kept talking circles in her mind as she walked to where she had been instructed to meet the Imperial King, Karoleena’s father. On one hand, her Uncles old refrain on negotiations played on a loop. 

‘You’ll never get what you want in a first meeting, but a first meeting means their open to a deal.’

That notion is interspersed with the fact she had already succeeded; she had only wanted to place her and her Champion amongst those who could point them in the direction of the Chalice, and by that measure, she had already won. 

“I’ll be right outside the door.” Duvanith offers as she saddles alongside one of the ornately dressed guards flanking a finely crafted double door with deep carvings of Imperial fairy tales and myths. The guard shifted uncomfortably away, but Duvanith kept him within a few feet. 

She gave Duvanith a small smile to Mwaxanare. Duvanith’s plan was now laid bare: if something happened, she’d be taking one of these guards’ weapons, given she was not allowed to carry one herself and then coming to find her.

Mwaxanare pushes the door open enough to step through, with neither Royal Guards willing to do so and Duvanith unwilling to occupy her hands in their presence. 

“Lazmē” Duvanith whispers as she passes the threshold into the room; it was a shortening of a Choiltan phrase that she often whispered to Duvanith in much the same fashion when she set out into the jungle. Short for llāxolazmēplōm, its closest Imperial colloquialism would be ‘good luck’ said to one’s romantic partner, but a more complete definition would read closer to ‘Do this skillfully and while making it look as good as possible’.

No amount of luck would ever save Duvanith from an Imperial Warmachines cannon, just as no amount of fortune could get those Warmachines out of Choilit, but skill might. 

She pushes the door closed behind her and is welcomed to the chamber by a chorus of hushed murmuring. She turns as gracefully as she can manage despite the unsettling feeling of eyes on her. 

A large feast table spans the center of the room, which was entirely populated along the far side; there were men dressed in Military uniforms, Arbiter Uniforms, well dressed as far as imperial sensibilities went, and smack in the middle of the array was a heavier set man, with a full red beard, and a small band running across his head. 

The circlet didn’t betray the fact that this man was the King as much as the roundness of his face and cheeks; it was easy to see parts of Karoleeena in his face. 

She approaches the seat across from the man, pulls the chair out, and takes a seat with a cadre of empty chairs to her left and right. The murmuring slowed to silence as the Imperial dignitaries seemed poised for either regent to begin discussions, and given she requested this meeting, she strikes first. 

“King Asker thank you so much for having me and for having your lovely daughter broker this meeting.” 

The hushed murmurs punctuated her statement but ended abruptly when the King spoke. 

“While I don’t believe I would have taken this meeting without her urging, she was not authorized to broker it regardless. Please cease any diplomatic work through my daughter.” The King responded fairly to the point opening statement but did avoid naming or titling her, which seemed rude, but no reason to make a scene yet. 

“Of Course, I had misunderstood the nature of her visit to Neparāticue. Perhaps we should stop discussing these secretarial matters and discuss the Ilmerryite.” 

This once again caused a stir amongst the King’s advisors. 

“Very well, what are you proposing.” He rolls a quill around in his fingers, ready to jot down notes. 

“We are willing to trade a month-to-month stream of Ilmerryite in a negotiated value for an end to Imperial Army presence on the peninsula, and we’d also like the extradition of Cabal mercenaries that were employed as government officials during the Provincial Government.” 

The opposing side of the table erupted into squabble, sending quick words and snippets between each other and towards the King. They were loud enough this time that Mwaxanare could make sense of some of the barks. 

“Consider the Voidstone, your majesty.” 

“Sea whaling still isn’t what it was before the Giant War.” 

“Do not forget refugee relocation.”

Mwaxanare feels the blood rush to her ears. Which refugees and from where? In an attempt to not tip her hand, she remains poised until the squabbling dies down. 

Before the King speaks, a man beside him in the now familiar steel blue Arbiter uniform leans in and whispers something to the King, which he only acknowledges with a quiet.

‘Aye.’ He then continues. “We have mining interest in the area.” 

“I believe you’re speaking regarding Waxilomxitetl or what you would call the  Brikenhead Imperial Mine. Miners from the Great Silt Sea have been brought in to mine it. You can speak with your man Beckwith if you don’t believe me, and before considering offering an Imperial Company perhaps with better terms, I understand that the Silt Sea’s mining equipment is as fine as its glass.” 

“Admiral,” The King turns to his right to address one of the men in a forest green uniform. “I was under the impression we were occupying this area.”

“As was I Your Majesty, I’ll have an internal affair-”

“No.” The King cuts him off, his face getting flush red. Mwaxanare could tell he was at least frustrated, if not angry; she had seen a similar red build in Karoleena’s face when she had spent an entire lunch trying to use a Pick Spanner to free a seized bolt from a Voidstone engine. The King turns to the Arbiter that had whispered to him. 

“Arbiter Adjunct.” 

“Yes, your Majesty.” The man responds quickly. 

“I wish to speak to the Annulus’s Chairman; I can’t continue this negotiation without understanding this failure of our understanding of the situation.” 

“Of course, your majesty.” The Arbiter began scribbling furiously. 

“Mwaxanare,” The King struggled with the pronunciation but eventually got there.

“Yes.” 

“Would you mind if we tabled these negotiations until we can sort this out? I do apologize.” 

“That’s fine; I have other business I can tend to.”

“Anything we can assist with?” He offers inauthentically.

“Are any of you familiar with a Mr.Reeve.” 

There was hushed discussion amongst the Kings advisors once again. 

“Well?” The King asks his side of the table. 

“Isn’t that Lord Mendonhall’s man?” 

The partner of a Lord, while that made sense with the amount of money that had changed hands it did make the notion of taking the Chalice back likely more complex, private guards, perhaps a manor with grounds or a keep. 

Which was fine; thats why she had Duvanith; She had already done it to the Ashsnap’s; surely the Mendonhall’s would be no different. 

“So it is then. Excuse us.” 

Mwaxanare obliges, rising from her seat and departs the room, as she cracks the door the King catches her. 

“You should attend the Court function celebrating Karoleena’s return this evening. I’m sure she would be thrilled to have you.” 

Mwaxanare mulls this over for a moment and decides the polite thing would be to accept, perhaps Karolleena could even tell her more about the Mendonhall’s. 

“I’d be honored.” 

The King beams back a smile that seem inconceivable just a few moments ago and says. “Very well I’ll have the governesses informed.” .        

#fantasy #original character #short story #fiction writing #worldbuilding #ttrpg community #fiction #dieselpunk #ttrpg stuff #dungeons and dragons #legally distinct

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Chapter 8 (Karoleena)

Karoleena’s return to her childhood bedroom had been even more dismal than expected. It had remained untouched in her absence as though her parents had always expected her to return. Despite its grand canopy, ornate windows, and fine textiles, it was the details smaller than those that had bothered her, the facets of her girlhood on shelves hanging from innocuous places:

A childhood toy here.

A piece of more childish jewelry there.

The box of compiled objects from her friendship with Duvanith still lurks in the dusty back corner of one of the rooms’ many built-in closets.

It all hung around her like a looming spectre. Before bed, she had brushed aside a few wooden horses and her old dance flats for a place to place her leather flying cap she had received as a birthday gift from Edmerton her first year after moving out and the Pick Spanner Socket she had smuggled out of Choilt down the front of her corset, a tiny shrine to the new life she had had surrounded by the soon to be reanimated corpse of her old one.

Adrielle’s retellings of their time apart had been sweet, but they had also felt like prognostications of what was to come for her: Court, husband, child, estate keeping, in that order. They felt even more inevitable this morning than they even had the night prior when Lady Lucille had knocked on her door, with bags under her eyes lacking not even a hint of makeup and announced herself as Karoleena’s new attendant, a woman who just the night before she had thought was there for Adrielle. 

“Is that tight enough, your majesty?” Lady Lucille asks from behind her. It wasn’t, but between having to explain spiral lacing versus fan lacing to her, she wasn’t exactly ready to let this woman cinch her down the way Duanith once had. 

“It’s perfect, thank you.” 

“I’ll go get the dress,” Lucille announces. 

Karoleena scrunched up her face and began to pace; she knew the Governesses wouldn’t allow Duvanith to be her doing this, nor was it really within the realm of what she did now, but it felt empty without her. 

She was going to have breakfast with her parents this morning, and she had seen them briefly the night before, dressed in their night clothes, for a quick hug before bed.

‘Need a good night’s sleep before meeting this Rogue Queen,’ Her father had said, a preposterous thing to utter when in nothing but a nightshirt and askew sleeping cap, but she wanted him to have a fruitful meeting with Mwaxanare; maybe they could find some common ground; ground she was hoping to seed at breakfast this morning. 

Lucille re-enters the room with a dress in Karoleena’s trademark blue color, or what had been her trademark blue color during her days in Court; seeing it again turned her stomach. 

“Here we are, Your Majesty,” Lucille says, holding the dress low to allow her to step into it. She does so, and Lucille draws the dress upwards, allowing her access to the arms.

As Lucille makes proper the collar before closing the outfit, her hand brushes against Karoleena’s shoulder. It was cold, unlike Edmerton’s or Duvanith’s had been; Cold, in a way, reinforced her feelings about her return to her situation here at Court.

They finished getting ready and walked to the East Dining room in silence, which was eventually shattered by her father’s jovial exclamation at her entrance to the chamber. 

“Please! Sit Karoleena. How was getting ready for Court this morning? Your mother tells me the Governesses had the utmost trust in Lady Vallencourt.” 

Lucille offered a small bow in appreciation in response. 

“It was wonderful,” Karoleena responds with a bold face lie, hopefully, the only one she would need to tell. 

She takes a seat, with Lucille settling in next to her.

“How are things with you, Papa?” Karoleena asks politely, laying a napkin down across the finely woven silk of the dress she had just been so poorly dressed in. 

“There has been so much political rabble-rousing by the Baronies it’s been making my head spin, and of course your mother and I have been missing you dearly, especially with all they’ve been reporting in the Informer about the state of the Ashsnap Manor. We feared the worst.” 

There was so much nuance in what her father had just said, he was a master at speaking a lot and saying very little, much of it was simply his personality; he often leaned into it tactically when speaking of matters of state or when wanting people to overshare, or ask the right questions. 

“Sureley, the Arbiters are looking for answers.” 

Her father offers a heavy sigh in response to this before answering. 

“They have their best investigators looking into who this butcher could be. They wish to speak with you, but I’ve waved them off. No need to traumatize my little daisy any further.” 

“Do they have any strong leads?” Karoleena presses, she of course knew exactly who the ‘butcher’ her father had mentioned was. What she was more interested in was if the Arbiters had found the connection to the Blood Cult Duvanith had been speaking to Mwaxanare about aboard the Humboldt. 

“None they’ve shared with me. I’m just so pleased you weren’t there when it happened. Could you imagine?” 

But she had been there when it happened, in a barred room. Had the Arbiters not shared that detail with him? The fact that there was a jail cell in the highest tower of the Ashsnap Manor was a detail they thought wise to omit. Before she crafts a question to try to lead into a discussion regarding that fact, the door to the room opens again, her mother triumphantly leading a small cadre of kitchen staff bearing steaming plates of breakfast. 

“A proper Castle breakfast for your first day back.” Her mother announced. This was a thing her mother had always done, entering with the food, but it seemed silly to Karoleena now, a weak attempt at mocking up domesticity. The Castle staff were the ones who cooked, plated, and even carried the food into the room, but her mother must have just waited in a nearby room until it was time for the food to be served. 

Karoleena reckoned her mother had never touched a pan in her life, both before and after marrying her father. To Mwaxanare’s credit, Karoleena had seen her warm her own kettle at least once; she probably knew how to cook. 

“It looks delicious, thank you!” Karoleena beams outwardly, observing the food neatly separated on her plate into the pancake, meat, and egg sections as it had been since her childhood. “How are you this morning, Mother.” 

“Well, dear, so well.” Her mother smiles at her, not a performative Court smile like the one she had just offered her, but a legitimate loving smile. “So happy to have you home and, more importantly, safe.” She turns to Karoleena’s attendant, “Lady Vallencourt.” 

“Yes Your Majesty.”

“How did last evening and this morning go? Do you find yourself adjusting well to your task as an attendant?” 

The question was odd for a number of reasons. The first was her mother had never once paid Duvanith any attention at meals like this, and the second was the inference in her mother’s statement that Lucille had not served as an attendant before. There was no way the Castle Governesses would assign a new attendant to a Royal family member returning to Court; they’d almost certainly poached one from a recently married Lady or something of the sort. She wasn’t twelve. 

“Quite well, your Majesty, thank you for asking.” 

The two share a polite smile before turning to their food. 

The polite banter was getting her nowhere, so she ripped the bandage off. 

“Father,” She says, laying as much formality on her words as she could muster. “You should listen to what Queen Mwaxanare has to say and give her a fair trade deal on what she’s come to offer.” 

A silence permeates the table, making the sound of her father’s utensils being laid down on the porcelain as loud as the Grand Chapel bells. 

“I will do what is best for the Empire to represent the Baronies within it.” he says with a deathly serious tone to his voice, “Nor will I take guidance from my Daughter who has spent several weeks in this Rogue Queen Court without writ.” 

Karoleena felt the veil of shame and discomfort close in around her, manifesting as a pins and needles sensation across her shoulders and down her arms. She had wondered what the response to her trip would be, and there it was, behind the pleasant Court smiles, and staff made breakfasts, it was frustration, maybe even anger. 

She returns to her eggs. 

#dieselpunk #original character #fiction writing #short story #fantasy #ttrpg community #worldbuilding #dungeons and dragons #ttrpg stuff #fiction

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Chapter 8 (Mwaxanare)

Mwaxanare hadn’t slept well; this wasn’t because of the flower arrangement, though she had been further perturbed that Duvanith’s room hadn’t featured one. The lack of sleep was, without a doubt, from being in an overtly hostile place, from the Empire’s politics to the bone-chilling cold that radiated from the stone walls of their guest chambers to the oddly nuanced flower choice to greet her.

Duvanith had spent the night in her chamber, propped up in a corner with a pillow underneath her to shield her from the floor chill, engaging in the sort of half-sleep that only elves could run on. Duvanith had explained that it still came with the groggy feeling of a full night of poor sleep, but to her benefit, it kept her separated from dreams in all the forms they came to her in. 

Mwaxanare’s eyes wander back to the arrangement in the center of the room. Atzācnizquip was not a negative thing. It could mean accepting death, relief in a loved one’s passing, or even celebrating one’s life. This is what gnawed at Mwaxanare’s mind; someone from Choilit would know better than to place that flower front and center in a welcoming arrangement. However, someone with a passing knowledge of the Atzācnizquip might believe it to symbolize death as a blood-moted gold coin does in the Silt Sea, as a threat. 

It could have had a different meaning here in the Imperial Castle, such as Joy or Welcome, that her Champion was too absentminded to remember.

THUMP. THUMP. Muffled knocks thrum through the chamber from the banded wood door; before Mwaxanare could even rise, Duvanith had popped up in a hurry from her meditative position and took up an offensive posture towards the door; it was clear even her half sleep had been light. 

While Mwaxanre was appreciative of the quick response, she couldn’t help but afford herself a small laugh at Duvanith’s expense. She was a skilled and deadly fighter with the weapons she had trained for years on this Castle’s grounds, and in the Choilit Jungle, she’d be of little effect in a sleep shirt and underwear. 

Mwaxanare extends a single hand and, with a ‘patting down’ motion, wordlessly indicates that the knock at the door was probably fine; Afterall, who didn’t feed their guests in the morning.

Mwaxanare watches Duvanith’s posture relax and makes her way to the door. 

Upon opening it, she discovers a girl about two-thirds her height, no older than thirteen, with most of her face obscured by a large metal tray. 

“Good morning, My Lady.” The girl says, moving the tray to the side, revealing a set of glasses amplifying a set of milky eyes that would be unsettling to most but reminded her of her grandmother’s unseeing but knowledgable. “L-l-ladies?” She adds as Duvanith presumably moved into view in the room behind her. 

“Good Morning,” Mwaxanare said, panning her eyes over the tray. It was what constituted a traditional Imperial Breakfast. 

“Thomas, Thomas!” The girl blurts down the hallway, “They’re both over here.” Following that declaration was a rattling commotion of feastware on the tray as a mousy brown-haired boy pulled up behind the girl. 

“My Ladies, can we come in to place down your breakfasts?” the girl asks, pulling a crutch tight into her side in preparation to move. 

“Of Course.” Mwaxanare steps aside as the two bring in the food; once the girl had relieved herself of the tray on the room’s central table and resettled her crutch under her arm, Mwaxanare spoke, figuring there was no harm in trying.

“Excuse me, I didn’t catch your name.” 

“Anne, My Lady.” The girl says, turning to face her. Mwaxanare masks her voice in the nicest, most approachable tone she can muster. 

“Miss Anne, do you deliver flowers often?” 

“I do, My Lady.” 

“Do you know anything about what the flowers mean?” 

“A bit, though I’m not exactly a botanist.” She says, pushing up her thick glasses, as her fellow staff member Thomas whacks her arm as though the way she had poised that statement was rude. Mwaxanare pays the decorum little mind. 

“What can you tell me about that arrangement.” She points to the flowers on the table she had just placed the food on.

Anne takes a step-forward leading with her crutch and gives the flowers a once over. 

“Orange in the middle, so grief, joy maybe. It’s never really clear with that color. The smaller pops I’m not good with on account of shapes.” She pushes her glasses up for effect, as though it wasn’t obvious she had impaired vision. “The green on the sides, though -”

“Yes?” Mwaxanare steps forward, inquisitive, to look for herself. 

“We only ever give green framed arrangements to Arbiters, Soldiers, and families of departed heroes. I think they represent Glory or Sacrifice.” 

Mwaxanare mulls that before motioning to the boy. 

“Any input, Thomas?” 

“N-No, My Lady.” He responds. 

“No Worries, Thomas, you’re about as adept as my Champion in this matter.” Mwaxanare turns to look at Duvanith, who had already happily sat at the table and consumed several strips of Bacon and around a quarter of a pancake from the tray Anne had placed on the table, who shot back a ‘Who Me?’ look with a cheek still chewing the food. “Thank you both for Breakfast and your input, Anne. Have a good rest of your morning. 

“You too, My Ladies.” Anne bows before the two exit the room, closing the door behind them. 

“I’m shocked eating in your chambers in front of the staff isn’t against Castle rules,” Mwaxanare says, pulling out a chair to join Duvanith. 

“It is,” Duvanith says dryly after swallowing her mouthful. “But these aren’t my chambers.” 

There was a wry smugness to Duvanith’s point as though she was reveling in breaking the rules, but also, she was following them to the letter; there was no one else here to try the Queen’s food, so she did it before Mwaxanare even had a chance. 

#fiction #original character #short story #ttrpg community #worldbuilding #fiction writing #fantasy #dungeons and dragons #dieselpunk #ttrpg stuff #legally distinct

[wikifido]

Chapter 8 (Duvanith)

The walk from the Middle City docking yard to the High Gate was slow going, at least by Duvanith’s standards; between Beckwith’s injury, Karoleenas needed to catch Adrielle up on all she had seen in between Rackhallow and Neparāticue and the pace of the strange shambling Arbiter who would occasionally cut down alleys and reappear in unlikely ones along their route. 

This had put Duvanith on edge; each time the rhythmic clicking coming from beneath its thick coat faded down an alley, an uneasy sensation would run along her shoulders, a sensation that reminded her of the times in the Jungle that Anghagros’s Crones would use their dream magic to peer through her eyes. While she didn’t imagine the Arbiter was wielding Crone magic, its otherwise unsettling nature manifested itself in her senses that way. 

She panned her eyes across the alleyways and rooftops they passed, catching glimpses, or so she thought, of the Arbiter’s figure in all manner of places: windows, rooflines, dense brush hanging from the side of a clocktower.

She shudders. 

“Once we get to the Castle, I’d be happy to show you to your rooms.” Lady Lucille said, her voice laced with the kind of court-ordained faux sweetness that Karoleena had mastered and Duvanith had long forgotten. 

“Lady Lucille. I didn’t catch your family name.” Duvanith says, doing her best to tear her eyes from the repeated appearances of the hooded Arbiter across all manner of vantage points. 

“It wasn’t offered, but Vallencourt.” Lady Lucille responds, keeping her eyes fixed in the direction of travel. Mwaxanare shot her an inquisitive glance as if to inquire if the name rang any bells for her. 

She shook her head to the contrary; when they had been at Court together, Adrielle’s attendant had been one Elluin Blackford, a half-elven woman like Lucille but one that was happily managing some corporate executive or baron’s estate staff now. 

Lucille Vallencourt was a new name, Duvanith even had no point of reference for her surname, but her pointed ears betrayed that her presence at Court might have been much like Duvanith’s own, imported from the area around the Alobazi Badlands after one of her parents, the elven one almost assuredly, cut a political deal to pierce the veil of the High Gate and into Imperial High society. 

“Were you in Adrille’s court class?” 

“No, I came before you all in Court,” Lucille explains, still keeping her eyes fixed forward. Duvanith sensed the opening in Lucille’s statement; it was inviting follow-up questions, and Madam Keentree was always quick to remind them that.

‘One never asks a Lady why she remains at Court.’ It felt only fair to abide by her former Governess’s advice here, given it wouldn’t be long until Karoleena found herself in a similar situation, In Court longer after most of her class had been paired off and sent to the ends of the Empire.

The group slowly passes beneath the High Gate; Duvanith scans the tops of the gate and the distinct rooftops beyond it, both searching for the hooded Arbiter form watching them from a distance, but because it had been a ritual of hers upon entering through the High Gate when she was a girl. The utilitarian mortar and brick buildings like those the Empire had foolishly put up in Neparāticue during their occupation faded away and were instead replaced with buildings with irregular plots, beautiful landscaping, large windows, and constructed in a complementary style to the slope of the Mountian that the city was constructed on; It felt like a different place, as though you had taken a portal to another world or culture because in effect you had. 

The Castle looms over the area beyond the High Gate; there was something about its towers and the unsettling rhythmic blinking of the warning light for flying vehicles that was more sinister than she remembered it, or perhaps its angular mixed material towers were always this unsettling with the right context. 

She grabs Mwaxanare’s hand for the briefest second, slipping her hand into the Rogue Queen’s to offer a quick squeeze of comfort before freeing up her hand quickly again, noting that the soft clicking of the hooded Arbiter was once again missing from their small traveling group. 

The square, dark wood castle doors groan open as they approach the Great Entrance hall, normally lit via natural light pouring in from the Castle; many glass windows were dark, illuminated only by small flames inside light brown glassed lanterns. 

“I will ensure the Princess finds her chambers safely.” The half-giant Arbiter announces, turning to look at the other members of the party inviting Lady Lucille to take Mwaxanare and Duvanith anywhere but along with him, the Royal Guard engaged with Beckwith and seemed to ferry him off; perhaps they had kept a Royal Surgeon up for the night to have a look over him.

Lady Lucille extends a hand off to one side to indicate her intended direction of travel Mwaxanare begins to follow, and Duvanith falls into her usual four-step following distance. 

The interior of the Castle was also unnerving at night, but it was the kind of sensation that she was used to; anytime she had stayed over with Karoleena in the Castle, their evenings had involved roaming the halls looking for ghosts, sneaking into the library, and hiding from the guards that roamed the halls at night. How creepy it felt was part of the allure then; now, it was less of a highlight. 

Lucille was leading them towards where the dignitaries for larger visits stayed; these were the rooms where Barons executives or translators might stay. She knew the area of the Castle but had never been in any of the rooms.

She wasn’t expecting luxury. 

At the top of a small set of stairs that led into a hallway with rows of doors on one side and tall grand windows on the other, Lady Lucille reached into a small pocket on the belt she was wearing and materialized two keys, handing one to each of them. 

“Room One; Room Three. Your luggage should already be present.” She says, extending a key to both Mwaxanare and Duvanith, respectively, “Have a good night, you two.” She smiles an inauthentic Court smile and departs them.

“Two rooms for a Queen and Champion?” Mwaxanare questions aloud with a scoff. 

“I’m sure it’s just because they don’t know Mwaxanare, trying to give us each our own space for modesties sake or something. I’ll go get my bag.” Duvanith says, jostling the key in her hand and taking off down the short staircase. 

“Modesty’s sake, Isn’t it Attendants who help get Court members ready in their ridiculous dresses? Wasn’t that your job?” Mwaxanare said, following Duvanith down the stairs to the first door on the left. 

“Fair enough.” Duvanith allows she understood the point that Mwaxanare was making and didn’t have the care to explain that there were still things Ladies of the Court did to ready themselves for Court activities independent of their attendants just for those reasons. Duvanith passed the door for Room 2; the fact they had placed a room worth of separation between them had been the thing most bothersome to her; she had to imagine Room 2 was packed to the gills with Arbiter monitoring magic and equipment, everything possible to snoop on the Rogue Queen of Chult and perhaps even her, given what had happened in Rackhallow. 

Duvanith reseats the key in her hand, but before she can place it in the lock, she hears a short yelp come from Mwaxanare’s now open door. The key slips from her hand as she breaks into a full sprint and hooks into the room with his fists up. Mwaxanare stood in the middle of the room, looking at a table in it’s center; upon the table was an ornate vase with a beautiful arrangement of flowers. 

“Mwaxa, what is it?” Duvanith asked, her confusion cutting through what little adrenaline she had built up. 

“Look,” Mwaxanare points at the arrangement to a center pop of floral color.

“Marigolds?” 

“Atzācnizquip. The Death Flower.” Mwaxanare clarifies. Duvanith exhales heavily, relief washing over her. 

“In Court, people send arrangements like this to each other. Every flower means something else; the only ‘sad’ or ‘bad’ arrangements I’ve ever seen were condolence arrangements. Dark red Roses usually.” Duvanith explains. 

“What does this arrangement mean?” Mwaxanare predictably asks; Duvanith grits her teeth, looking over the colors and types of flowers.

“I’m not sure I wasn’t exactly showered in arrangements of my own.” She submits. 

“And you never dwelled on those that Karoleena received?” Mwaxanare, clearly flustered, cut back.

The opposite was actually true; she had tried not to dwell on them. 

“Karoleena would know; we should ask her. Let me go get my shit.” Duvanith says with a sigh.   

#fantasy #original character #short story #fiction writing #ttrpg community #worldbuilding #fiction #dungeons and dragons #ttrpg stuff #dieselpunk

[wikifido]

Chapter 7 (Karoleena)

 The excitement of the trip had faded with the Humboldt now in locked-dock. There was nothing more to look at or marvel over; there was no more time to run fabricated scenarios past unsuspecting bartenders. There was simply the idle nervousness manifesting in the unconscious shifting of her weight from foot to foot and her fingers rubbing over her thumbs. 

Karoleena once again looked down at the purple-black splotches on the skirt she had decided to wear for the reception. It was the least stained of those Mwaxanare’s staff had provided her after arriving in Cholit’s port. The steady diet of things to tamper and disassemble that had flowed through the old Imperial providential residence had manifested on all her clothes, manifestations the Imperial Governesses would be quicker to Banish than an Arbiter a banshee. 

Karoleena kept her eyes fixed forward on the exposed locking mechanism of the disembarkation hatch, tracing its simple mechanisms with her eyes as a means of keeping herself disengaged from the small argument Mwaxanare and Duvanith were having behind her on Imperial etiquette and in what order bowing or curtseying should occur in. 

Duvanith’s explanation was correct, of course, having been a repository for that type of information for Karoleena for years. Still, Mwaxanare’s point that she also had a Title that should be considered in Duvanith’s‘ etiquette logic problem’ was also correct. 

The type of dresses Mwaxanare wore also lacked the volume for a proper Castle curtsey, but she was sure Duvanith would get there. 

Click

Click

Click

A metal-on-metal echo flowed from the hallway opposing them, cutting Duvanith’s point regarding ‘Imperial recognition of titled status’ short, followed by the rustling of her jacket, perhaps placing herself to intervene should the source of the clicking be hostile. But why would it be? Had something hostile been aboard, it would have attacked them thousands of feet in the air, not when a cadre of Royal Guards and Arbiters was feet away through less than two inches of steel.

Instead of looking towards Duvanith’s change in posture, Karoleena looks to the source of the sounds as it draws nearer. Eventually, a figure rounds the corner dressed in a stretched and pressed white military uniform, his Valor accolade and Gearpilot badge gleaming on his chest. It was Caleb Beckwith. He seemed in good spirits, happy to be back home, having taken time to be sure hair was far better kempt than when they had first met; the only sign of the wound Duvanith had inflicted on him was a finely crafted cane that had been the source of the clicking. 

“Caleb.” She beams at him, “You look well; I hadn’t realized you were aboard with us.” He bows the best he can with his injury before responding. 

“They placed me in a very fine cabin, Your Majesty. I didn’t have much incentive to walk around.” He wags his cane slightly to emphasize his point. 

“How is your leg doing?” Karoleena asks empathetically; behind her, she hears the slightest groans from Duvanith, which dredged up a chide from their childhood. 

‘You just think the uniforms look good on the boys because they actually cut them to fit them right.’ An observation usually coupled with a playful shove. She was probably correct; Caleb looked quite handsome in the ceremonial dress uniform the Embassy must have given him compared to the duty uniform Mwaxanare and Duvanith had dragged him out of the jungle in, though she wondered.

‘Who was Duvanith to make that judgment anyways?’ 

Clunk.

The sound draws her eyes away from Caleb and back to the mechanical fixing of the disembarkation door, which had articulated and retracted the locking bars from the frame of the ballonliner. She nervously shifts her weight and looks over her shoulder at Mwaxanare and Duvanith.

“Ready?” 

Duvanith nodded semi-confidently; Mwaxanare provided her no more than a glance in acknowledgment. She must have been nervous, far more nervous than Karoleena herself was. 

The door lowered, allowing the yellow-brown lights of Askerstad’s Middle City to flood into the ballonlier. As the disembarkation door was laid flat and the Airship authority employees worked to lay the ramp over it, Karoleena surveyed the platform. 

‘Eight people, less than expected, but for the late hour, reasonable.’

“Your Majesty is free to disembark.” One of the Ramp layers said with a deep bow. So as to not keep anyone waiting, she pressed forward down the ramp, straining her eyes against the city’s lights to determine the identities of her greeting party. 

“Your Majesty!” A familiar voice gushes as one of the smaller figures takes a few steps forward, extending their arms as she exits the ramp. Karoleena squints against the lights as her eyes continue to adjust. 

“Adrielle?” She asks before the figure fully comes into view and embraces her; she hugs back, tucking her head over her friend’s shoulder while getting a soft bop in the face by Adrielle’s brown braided ponytail. Her eyes now adjusted, she peers over her friend’s shoulder to the rest of the greeting party: Four Royal Guards and two Arbiters in their Iconic steel blue frocks. One of them was a giant of a man dwarfing the other more spindly figure whose frock had been modified with a large, heavy hood. Next to them was a woman with soft round features and a blonde braid crown wearing a dress similar in color to the one her face was currently pressed up against Adrielle’s Attendant, most likely.

“I heard about Ed. I’m so sorry.” Adrielle said, squeezing the hug tighter.

“Thanks, I’m alright,” Karoleena said, squeezing back; it both was and wasn’t a lie. Adrielle releases her and steps back; Karoleena watches her give Caleb a once over before moving on to Duvanith. 

“Duvanith Elenos? Really? You haven’t aged a day.” Adrielle says in a far more forced attempt at pleasantries. 

“I’m an elf, Adrielle. It comes with the fucking territory.” Duvanith says flatly in response; Adrielle’s expression shifts slightly with the vulgarity, and she looks to Karoleena and asks. 

“Did she always talk like that?” 

“She did”-” I did,” She and Duvanith answer in concert.

‘Though maybe less so in front of people.’ Karoleena concedes to herself.  

“Well, I’ll have to tell Gifford you’re back. I’m sure he’d love to catch up.”

Gifford was Adrielle’s husband and had been Edmerton’s Footman at Court; he and Duvanith had spent a lot of time together during the initial stages of her and Edmerton’s romance before she had Duvanith dismissed. 

“I’m good, really.” Duvanith clarifies. Before Duvanith could launch into how Karoleena knew she felt about Gifford, a booming voice cuts into their reunion. 

“Your Majesty, if I could have you and Lady Adrielle come back and join Lady Lucille so we could check your traveling companions, it would be much appreciated.” The mountain-of-an-Arbiter’s voice pierced through the night. 

Karoleena turned and panned looks across Mwaxanare, Caleb, and Duvanith before listening to the Arbiter’s instructions and following Adrielle back towards the other woman who had now been indirectly identified as ‘Lady Lucille.’ Once they were clear of the ramp, the taller Arbiter waved one of his large hands slightly, and the spindly hooded partner began to walk forward. 

The Arbiter’s gait was unwieldy, looking much like an over-liquored Lord moments before being pulled from the court chamber; with each step and bob, an ominous clicking sound emanated from beneath their frock. Despite the unsteady appearance, the Arbiter never once fell or faltered on approach to the three she had left behind at the ramp; they were unlike any Arbiter that Karoleena had ever seen. The tall one was clearly a half-giant, and that was irregular enough, but this figure that at best looked like a part of a marionette show, a far throw from the dashing Arbiters that had roamed the Castle in her youth. 

As the unstable Arbiter began to circle Caleb, Duvanith, and Mwaxanare, they drew their hooded head close to each of them, unnervingly oscillating it back and forth as though they were a librarian reading in detail or a sommelier taking in wine's notes. 

“She’s prettier than the papers make her out to be,” Adrielle says quietly as the Arbiter circled Mwaxanare. “Is she as dangerous?”

“I haven’t been keeping up with the papers,” Karoleena admits as the Arbiter retreats from her three traveling companions and gives its half-Giant partner an indecipherable hand sign.       

#fiction #original character #fiction writing #ttrpg community #short story #worldbuilding #fantasy #dungeons and dragons #ttrpg stuff #dieselpunk

[wikifido]

Chapter 7 (Mwaxanare)

Mwaxanare had forgone Karoleena’s in-depth tour for the baloonliners cable mooring system, as convenient as the Imperial Princess’s unforeseen interest in mechanical and transportation-related Voidstone technology had been for keeping her quarantined within the provincial residence in Neparāticue Mwaxanare needed time to continue managing Cholitan affairs while away on this romp; and to that end she had isolated herself off in the drawing room’s small office space. 

“Mwaxanare?” Coaxach’s voice murmurs from the floating bloodmist before her. 

“Yes?”

“The diplomatic venture to the Silt Sea after you return, your Uncle was inquiring how many to expect.”

Mwaxanare stitches her fingers together and stares into the mist in thought. Coaxach had placed the venture about a month out on her calendar at her direction. She figured that would give her sufficient time to do what she had to do in the Empire and return home with enough downtime before setting out again. 

“I think myself, yourself, Taentōn, and a contingent of katāim,” Mwaxanare says, waiting for Coaxach’s inevitable question, one he likely knew she didn’t want him to ask but one he would believe would be in her best interest to be asked aloud. 

“Should I anticipate the champion returning with you but remaining behind in Neparāticue?” 

A far more gentle approach to the question than she had expected, this was the second time within a year Duvanith had gone home to the Empire; she had returned the first time with a childhood friend and, albeit unknowing, romantic interest from her past, then withing weeks they were once again headed back at her insistence to their hometown. 

That was her gut reaction, how she felt emotionally about everything that had happened, but rationally, she knew there were layers, layers that complicated both her and Duvanith’s processing of the situation. 

Duvanith had found the Chalice at Mwaxanare’s request. Duvanith had used what she might have believed in her last moments to make sure that Mwaxanare would have been able to find it during the excavation of the Kwtēntāmtāxi palace; as calm as Duvanith had been at the revelation Mwaxanare had sold it to feed the Port knowing her Champion there had been a burning sensation in the back of her head that had made her say ‘we’ll get it back.’ 

A rapping emanating from the wood-veneered metal door

“Queen Mwaxan-” Coaxach’s voice was cut off by Mwaxanare sliding a few pieces of parchment she had been using for notes over the mirror she had used to cast the spell, snuffing it out. 

“Yes?” She asks the door. It cracks open, and Duvanith pokes her head through the crack. 

“We’re here getting reeled in do- Why the Hells is it so dark in here, Mwaxa?” Her Champion opens the door fully and turns the switch to the gas fixtures higher, flooding the office with soft golden light. 

“I don’t mind working in the dark, plus I’ve heard the horror stories of lighter-than-air craft and fire.” Mwaxanare fibs as Duvanith enters the small room and sits on the fourth rung of the ladder featured on the mostly ornamental bookshelf. 

“Karoleena said that fire nonsense was only with pre-Void-” Duvanith cuts herself off as Mwaxanare rolls her eyes. Mwaxanare knew this from records captured from the Wondermakers Temple and her industrial contacts in Tolyarom, though she wasn’t surprised to learn it was new information to Duvanith. Her mind quickly shifts after noticing Duvanith ride from the ladder and her nostrils flaring slightly; she hadn’t cut herself off because of Mwaxanare’s eye roll. 

“You’re doing Blood Magic in here? Mwaxanare, c’mon.” Duvanith says, motioning down to the papers, which only bore the slightest red tinge from the minute amount of blood she had used to hail Coaxach. 

“Do you truly think Imperial customs is that adept, Duvanith?” She shuffles the papers off to the side and picks up the now red-tinged hand mirror. “A hand mirror?”

Duvanith throws her head back and lets out an exasperated groan.

“Maybe Mwaxa, the Castle-the Arbiters have Auraseers. They see the latent magic on everything. I think you’d call them yeycamtzāczēll.”

Mwaxanare lets a small smile break her lips on account of an earnest attempt on Duvanith’s part to use a part of the Cholitan language outside of her station’s usual words. 

“One has yeycamtzāczēll Tuwa; one who has it is a Tayeycamtzāczēll.” 

“Whatever,” She responds in exasperation, “you know what I meant.” 

Mwaxanare did; Tayeycamtzāczēll, or Auraseers as the Imperials called them, were magic users with a special connection to the Vale that allowed them to see, as Duvanith had said, ‘see the latent magic on everything.’ She had never met one personally and didn’t doubt that a nation like the Empire would find and highly covet individuals with the gift most nations would Tēntāmtāxi had before its destruction. 

She had heard stories of their abilities growing up, advising Queens, selecting candidates for positions as Royal Necromancer, and warning about the coming storm of Anghagros. It wasn’t until she had been able to review moldering records pulled from the Kwtēntāmtāxi Palace that she came to understand that the Tayeycamtzāczēll’s abilities to see magic were not all-powerful. Some had easier times detecting certain schools or origins; the more powerful or complex an enchantment, the more difficult a time lesser seers would have detecting it. 

Her hand mirror was made from ancient Kwtēntāmtāxi glass enchanted to behave as a material in Blood Magic only for individuals in the matrilineal line of the Tēntāmtāxi throne. 

In other words, she was the only person in the world who could cast a spell with the mirror; she felt confident if it couldn’t be detected by most seers. 

“Yes, I know what you mean. I think it will be fine. It is very arbitrary magic.” She answers her Champion; before Duvanith could answer, the ballonliner’s metal frame let out a hearty groan of strain followed by a clunking sound that filled the drawing room and it’s annexes for more than a few moments as it echoed off every available surface that would have it. 

“Woo!” Karoleena’s voice shouts from the other room. “We’re here. That was the docking lock.” 

Mwaxanare motions to the office door towards the direction Karoleena was shouting from. 

“And look too late already; the ‘docking lock’ is in place.” She enunciates the technical jargon in a mocking tone while slipping the hand mirror and note-taking parchment into the small bag she had carried aboard.

“So I guess it is.” Duvanith relented, turning herself on her heel and marching back towards the door, obviously allowing her frustration to burn off before stopping at the doorway and looking back at Mwaxanare. “Ready?” 

“Of course, I’m ready, Duvanith; as I said, I did all my thinking about Imperial Customs and their capabilities in advance. I only brought what I ne-” Her Champion cuts her off and clarifies her question, a hint of care and maybe a warning tucked in her voice.

“I mean for all of it.”

That Mwaxanare was less sure about.             

#fantasy #fiction writing #short story #original character #ttrpg community #dungeons and dragons #fiction #worldbuilding #ttrpg stuff #dieselpunk #legally distinct

[wikifido]

Chapter 7 (Duvanith)

It had been several hours since the ballonliner had dropped its cables and was bound to its track system; it was a process that would help the lighter-than-air craft traverse the peaks that run along the Spine of the Imperial Baronys. Duvanith knew this not because she had started the journey with the knowledge but because Karoleena had rushed her from observation deck to porthole to point out and identify every step of the procedure coupled with the rather dull history of the invention and its ties to the seas impassibility during the Giant Wars; with her education complete and their journey back underway she had returned to the window that the Royal Airship Authority had provided and remained there for the duration of the travel over the peaks. 

The peaks were beautiful from the air, jagged and foreboding as they seemed from the ground, but more approachable on account of the balloonliner’s capability, granted by its cable system as Karoleena had instructed, to sail over crags and cliffs that would take ground transportation hours to traverse. 

Eventually, the spires receded into the darkness as the sun set across the Empire, leaving Duvanith with a view of the ink-black sky, ink-black in an unsettling way, almost unnerving now. She had observed the phenomenon when she had been in Rackhallow, but something about being up in the air, closer to where the stars should be, made their lack of presence more substantial. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Karoleena’s voice asks from behind her. Duvanith wheels around, realizing she had been staring transfixed into nothingness. 

“I’m not sure.” Duvanith says, “When I was out in the Jungle, the skies were covered in stars more than I’ve ever seen.” 

Karoleena gets up from her seat, placing the book she had been parsing through to the side and joining Duvanith at the window. 

“Not the skies, that.” She points to the right, far off into the distance. 

Just on the horizon was the imposing profile of Askerstad, the imposing tiered city that consumed an entire mountain, the seat of Imperial Royalty, and where Duvanith and Karoleena had grown up. 

In the dark, it appeared as a cone of Amber light, though that light was born from the windows of residences, shops, and factories that had their lanterns on this late into the evening. It was a landscape-scaled Midwinter tree that was choking the stars out of the sky with its light. Given the balloonliner’s now cable-tracked approach, it’s not as though she could chart her direction as she had to Tēntāmtāxi; there was only one star to set a path by, and it was the very place itself. 

“Wait?” Karoleena asks, “More stars than in Ne-par-�� 

“Neparāticue.” Duvanith guides, “And yeah, there’s still light there, just less than Askerstad; a lot less.” 

“Is there something you’re looking forward to seeing being home again? See your mom, maybe?” Karoleena asks sweetly, as she often would in their childhood, to make sure Duvanith knew she was asking earnestly. 

Duvanith quickly checked over her shoulder, surveying the drawing room for Mwaxanare. She wasn’t present, but the act of doing so filled her with guilt. 

“Releena,” Duvanith forced out; it was a nickname she hadn’t used with her since they had last spoken in Askerstad before an ornate window but decided to try for sincerity’s sake. “I don’t know that I’m exactly going to have free range of the city like I once did.” 

Duvanith watched a sad realization come over Karoleena’s face; as her attendant, Duvanith had always had the run of the city. When there wasn’t always an Arbiter or cadre of Royal Guards to go into the city with a royal family member, so instead Duvanith would go and pick up things for Karoleena from local tailors, florists, and jewelers in the lower parts of the city. 

“Right.” She responds solemnly before softly changing the topic, “You know ballonliners are too big to dock at Castle Asker.” 

Duvanith didn’t know this; it wasn’t surprising, but it also meant that the vessel they were on would be landing and disembarking in the middle of the city, not the top. 

“What’s the protocol for that?” Duvanith asks. In the Castle, there was protocol for everything: who wore what and when, how women’s hair was done, who was present at certain ceremonies, and in what order they entered chambers; it was without a doubt there was a protocol for this. 

“Royal Family member disembarking in the Middle City?” Karoleena thinks aloud, a heavy air of skepticism in her voice. 

“Perhaps visiting dignitary? Maybe they’ll default to that since Mwaxanare is here?” Duvanith offers, watching the blaring lights of the city begin to obscure all darkness below them. 

“Unlikely,” Karoleena says flatly, which Duvanith took to mean that Karoleena didn’t believe the Castle would see Mwaxanare as a dignitary, something Duvanith agreed with. “They might modify that protocol though, send down a Castle representative as they normally would to walk the guest, or me in this case, to the High Gate.” 

“But more Arbiters?” Duvanith questions while knowing the answer. 

“So many more Arbiters.” Karoleena laughs; Duvanith understood why the sentiment might have been amusing to Karoleena, a wildly strange breach in Castle protocol causing the Governesses to panic about how formal her reception should be contrasted with the Royal Guards’ interest in how secure it should be. She’d likely also be amused if Mwaxanare hadn’t been with them; her mind raced to adjust. 

‘Arbiters were the Empire’s best; they were Adventurers under the direct order of the King. Hells, they were better than Adventurers; no one sends Adventurers to stop breakthroughs at the Trench. Sure, Beckwith had stopped one, but he had been wearing a mechanical suit of armor that contained almost every piece of technology the Empire had ever produced. Arbiters sometimes wore thick armor, sometimes robes, sometimes they limply rested their hands over the pommels of their paper-thin rapiers, and that is how they would be sent on missions, or so the stories went.’ She had only ever seen them at the Castle, so was her idea of them based on some unspoken Castle protocol in its own right. 

“Duvanith! Do you hear it?” Karoleena exclaimed, whacking her arm several times, snapping her out of her line of thinking. She pads down her thoughts to clear her mind and listens. 

“That twangy sound?” She asks Karoleena. 

“Yes.” She confirms enthusiastically, “Tensile strain on the cables. They’re reeling us into the dock.” 

Duvanith takes a deep breath in. 

“I’ll go find Mwaxanare.”   

#dieselpunk #fiction #original character #short story #ttrpg community #worldbuilding #fiction writing #fantasy #dungeons and dragons #ttrpg stuff

[wikifido]

Chapter 6 (Karoleena)

The red in Duvanith’s face had long faded from her and Mwaxanare’s ribbing regarding her ‘nice guy ex-cultist’ and had been supplanted by a palish green to accompany her obvious airsickness. 

The red in Karoleena’s own face had faded from the finale of Only Academic Intrest, where after a siege of keep overrun with criminals, the lead and her girlfriend retired to the library where the author had chosen not to be scant on the details of their interactions.

The book had read much like its Landier-based counterparts she had read in captivity, albeit with a few different anatomical descriptors. After finishing, she had taken a pass at the drawing room’s bookshelf, but all of the Academy books here bore the black crest of the ‘Deceny Standards’ that had prompted Mwaxanare to gift her the story she had just finished. 

She quickly glanced at the Ocean view the room had high above the water and then into the room itself. Mwaxanare had retired to get some rest, and Duvanith was unceremoniously sprawled over a settee, trying to keep down her inflight meal. 

She moves to the drawing-room door, opens it as slowly and quietly as she can muster, and slips out of the room into the labyrinthine corridors of the Baloonliner. She reaches a hallway intersection and, scans the many directional signs, and eventually picks out ‘The Tapsander Lodge’ as her destination. 

Tapsander was one of the many dense forests to the East of the Empire, and given the location of the ‘lodge,’ she assumed it was some themed restaurant or watering hole. 

She was right in that regard; after navigating several hallways and tracking the signage at each intersection, she eventually stepped through some lighter-than-they-appear wooden doors into a dark, windowless, and mostly peopleless room outfitted to look the part of a hunting lodge or at least what regular people might think a hunting lodge looks like. 

‘Far too many dead animals on the wall; Uncle Castiel’s lodge didn’t have so many on the wall; Or maybe Uncle Castiel is just terrible at it.’ She laughs to herself, taking a few more steps in.

“Welcome in, Ma’am. Have a seat anywhere, and I’ll be right with you.” The sole other person in the place says. He was a man in his early 40s positioned behind the dark wood bar, with a well-manicured mustache, and an Airship Authority Paneled hat cocked slightly on his head. 

‘Anywhere?’ she repeats mentally as she scans the expansive open room, tables, booths, a roped-off area likely for special events. At the Tame Tulip, she had similar paralysis at the door, and a polite Dimofolk employee had walked up and asked her if it was ‘just one’, and she had said ‘I don’t know’ and had gotten directed to a booth seat. At the Tame Tulip, Duvanith had stood at the bar by herself and talked with the bartender since it was just her and the employee that seemed right. 

She approaches the bar selects and stool, and tries to mimic the pose Duvanith had been doing while waiting for drinks in the Tame Tulip, except on account of their height difference, she wasn’t exactly able to lean against the stool with her butt just barely on it, it just dug into the small of her back instead; She resigns herself to crawling up into the seat instead, her bright blue dress contrasting starkly with the dark wood and forest green aesthetic of the establishment. 

The employee hands her a small drink menu. 

“Here you are, Ma’am. What brings you in at such a strange time.” 

There was that honorific again; it was just ‘Ma’am’. Not ‘Your Majesty’, or ‘Princess’, just ‘Ma’am’. It was refreshingly simple, without baggage, at least to her.  

“Just finished reading a book, so I thought I would take a break before whatever was next.” She offers, turning the drink menu over in her hand and parsing the selections. 

“Ah, very well then, can I get you something from that.” He asks, motioning to the menu. Karoleena scrunches her face up and places the card down at the Tame Tuplip, the Dimofolk employee who had just brought her a delicious drink and asks with a hint of enthusiasm to spur the man on. 

“What do you serve that you don’t think they’d ever serve at Castle Asker.” 

“Can’t say I’ve ever had anyone fish for a drink recommendation like that,” He chuckles in response before noting, “Usually the opposite was true.” 

She didn’t need help knowing what on the menu they’d serve in the Castle; there was a wine by the bottle section, and she had seen several wineries she recognized at the top of it. 

“Humor me?” Karoleena offers back. The man navigates to where she had placed her menu down; he flips it over so the wine list faces the bar’s dark wood and drops his finger on one of the entries in the middle of the heavy paper. 

“A Tapsander Warmachine?” She asks aloud.

“Coming up.” The man says slyly, slinging a handcloth over his shoulder. 

“What in the Hells is that? Tapsander doesn’t have Warmachines.” Karoleena points out. 

“I think that’s part of the joke.” The man says while pouring a dark liquid into a tall glass stein; it is nearly black, almost oil-like; was that also part of the joke? 

A silence falls, occasionally broken by the clinking of bottles and glassware. You’re supposed to talk to bar and tavernkeeps, right? Get rumors? Bounce Ideas? The Landiers did in their stories; Allison, the Captian from Only Academic Intrest, did, as well. It’s just what Adventurers did; maybe it’s what ‘Ma’am’s’ did, too. 

“What’s your name?” She asks, a soft opener after her drink order. 

“Sebastian, Ma’am.” 

“Are you from Askersad?”

“Aye, Born and raised, live in the Clock District.” He states while filling a second, much smaller piece of glassware with a separate dark liquid. 

“Same, headed home.”

“Clock district, too?” The man asks, digging through a drawer now.

“No, uh, Fabric.” She lies. 

“Seem unsure.” He plops down the large flagon in front of her, places a hinged apparatus atop it, and then the more minor bit of glassware on top of that. 

‘Of course I’m unsure, I’m lying.’ She flagellates herself internally over her inability to manage such a small mistruth

“What in the name of the Gods is this.” She asks, motioning to the drink. 

“A Tapsander Warmachine; pull those tabs.” He motions to the apparatus. “Makes that fall in there, the drink gets fizzy, you drink.” 

“Elaborate.” Karoleena marveled momentarily before following the man’s instructions and taking a far more fizzy than she was expecting.

“See? Now, just drink it like a standard ale.” Karoleena allows for a beat. 

“Sebastian?” Karoleena asks. “Would you mind if I run something by you?” 

“No problem, Ma’am. Shoot.” 

‘Just like the stories.’ She takes a bit of a breath; the easiest mistruths are rooted in familiarity. 

“I haven’t given you my name I apologize. I’m Celia.”

“Pleasure, Miss Celia.” He nods his head respectfully. 

“And there’s the problem,” a quick allusion to the ‘miss’ coupled with a snappy point, “the man I’m courting, Al” 

‘That had to be the ‘Decency Standards’ name for her, right? Al- Allison, whatever, it didn’t matter.’  

“Alright.” Sebastian leans in with what seems to be feigned interest. 

“I cannot tell if he’s serious about me. Do you think he calling me Ceel is a pet name?” 

“Seal like the sea creature or a shortened version of your name.” 

Karoleena chuckles through her drink, having not considered the implications of using the other characters’ names straight from the book. 

“Well, hopefully not; I’d think it’s a shortened version of my name.” 

“I’d certainly at least ask him, Ma’am if it seems sweet enough.” 

She supposed it might ‘seem sweet enough’ there wasn’t a sea creature called a ‘Mwaxa’.  

#fantasy #original character #fiction writing #short story #ttrpg community #worldbuilding #fiction #dieselpunk #dungeons and dragons #ttrpg stuff

[wikifido]

Chapter 6 (Mwaxanare)

After her experience boarding the Ballonliner H.M.V Humboldt, named for Baron Humboldt the Third as Karoleena had so enthusiastically explained, had, in a sense, brought her a level of understanding as to why the Imperial Provincial Government in Neparāticue had implemented the licensed guide system for expeditions going out into the Jungle; Bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. 

“First, we recover our tickets from the Ticket Desk,” Karoleena’s instructions had started. 

“Then drop our Luggage at the Luggage Desk.” 

“After that, they’ll check us over for any Voidpowder or Spellcasting implements at the Security Desk.”

“Our ticket gets checked at the Boarding Desk right before we get on board.” 

The way Karoleena had confidently and authoritatively listed these steps suggested to Mwaxanare that this is how airship travel is done when flying an Imperial Air Vessel.

“Why can’t they just consolidate all of the Desks down into a single Desk.” She asks as they walk down the enclosed metal gangway, chilled air radiating off the walls; evenings in Tolyarom got cold, though she was sure Askerstad would be colder. 

“What?” Karoleena asked in return, slightly baffled at her suggestion. 

“All of the stops in the boarding process. Why are there so many?” Mwaxanare clarifies, looking to Duvanith for backup, who shrugs off the question. 

“Well, I don’t really fly.” She’d probably say, but Duvanith should know at least a little. Askerstad supposedly had quite the airship yard. 

“It’s just always been like that; maybe it was adapted from the Coach ticketing system from before air travel, but modified for the needs of-” Karoleena trails off, her head sinking into her hand with her eyes panning back and forth as though she was reading an imaginary book in front of her. 

With only their hollow footsteps on the metal walkway as sound between them, Mwaxanares’s thoughts float back to the Empire Informer and its top-billed story without anything else to distract her. 

When Duvanith had shown up with Karoleena in tow several weeks ago, much of her frustration and anger had come to bear on why a Princess of the Empire was on her shores. Once that anger fizzled into problem-solving, she had never thought to press what had happened before her feet hit the dock in Neparāticue. 

Perhaps she had projected her jealousy and frustration onto Duvanith, and she assumed that Duvanith had just killed Karoleena’s husband in some alley one night and offered to take her home the next. That certainly would have been bad because surely Baron of the Imperial Province’s sons get stabbed and dumped in allies constantly. Perhaps after a raucous night at a pub watching whatever sport little rich boys gamble on in the Empire. 

Not her Champion, though; it had to be far more complex than that, not only in execution but in ramifications on the grander political scale. Six weeks was a long time for them to find nothing, though Imperial publications lie and lie over the smallest of things, like the idea of Jet Landier with a woman. 

They had snaked their way through the vessels passenger hallways following signs for the ‘Royal Drawing Room’, the ‘finest traveling accommodations aboard’, according to one of the workers at one of the many Desks they had visited; She reckoned it was likely because Karoleena was here, the ‘Royal’ in the title of the room likely wans’t for her.

Karoleena excitedly through aside the room to reveal a modestly sized room with a sitting area, bookshelf, a wall encompassing glass window currently displaying the scenic view of the concrete of the Tolyarom Airship yard and a door that took the drawing room’s passengers to their sleeping quarters. 

Karoleena quickly enters the room to a barely audible slew of oohs and aahs, regrading things as fine as the carved bookshelf and as minute as the hinge to crack a few panels on the large window.

Mwaxanare tosses herself into one of the sitting area seats and watches Duvanith do the same across from her. 

She composes her thoughts. 

“Do you truly think they have no leads?” Mwaxanare asks, her voice somewhat low to keep the conversation semi-private, electing to avoid criticizing Duvanith’s choice to do what she had.

“No, I know they do,” Duvanith responds plainly.

“What!-” Mwaxanare exclaims losing her semi-private tone; before she can continue, Duvanith extends a reassuring hand to quiet her. Karloneea seemed to either have missed the outburst or was willfully ignoring it; either was acceptable. 

“Lady Ashsnap’s son was mixed up with the Cult of Axphin.”

“The Blood Cult?” Mwaxanare’s Uncle had often shared stories of the brutality of these cultists; the fact they were operating in the Empire was interesting, perhaps more interesting, ramifications of the Wasting Curse.

“Yeah, Mwaxa and plenty of blood was there to put them onto that scent.” There was a severe and punctuated tone to her voice that read as an admission the combat she had gotten up to inside the Ashsnap residence was much different than the precise single arrow she had used to kill the Son of the Dimofolk leader that had tried to betray his people to Anghagros’s Crones a year and a half ago.

A wave of relief floods over her; Duvanith had been thinking. There had been a strategy; using the brutality of the Cult of Axphin as a cover was easily more confusing than some little arch-baronling getting similar treatment in an alleyway; there was a lot of mystery around the Cult and their methods of worship. It then hit her like a ton of poorly grouted imperial bricks. If the Cult of Axphin originated from The Great Silt Ocean and were a pest to her Uncle, and Duvanith had grown up a sheltered little Court accessory for the even more sheltered Court accessory sharing a drawing room with them, how had she known? 

“How the Hells do you know about the Cult of Axphin?” She asks. 

“Met an ex-member doing some cleanup work in Rackhallow,” Duvanith explains matter-of-factly. “Nice guy, actually.” 

It was that statement that Karoleena could not willfully ignore. 

“Who? Who was a nice guy?” She prods after spinning around with a quickness from the bookshelf. 

“Yeah Duvanith. Tell us more.” Mwaxanare smugly piles on.  

#fiction writing #fiction #short story #ttrpg community #original character #fantasy #worldbuilding #dieselpunk #ttrpg stuff #dungeons and dragons #writeblr #legally distinct

[wikifido]

Chapter 6 (Duvanith)

“You have to trust; I find that hard to believe.” The Imperial official prods from across the table. She had been split up from Karoleena, Mwaxananre, and benevolently Beckwith and planted in a spartan room with two chairs, a table, and a single lantern struggling to fill the space with light. 

“I swear to the Gods, I’m no one. Duvanith Elenos, go digging in your files maybe you’ll find one of my school photos or something.” 

She understood the official’s paranoia regarding her; she had shown up with an Imperial Princess, an Imperial Gearpilot, and the Rogue Queen of Choilt. Had the roles been reversed, she’d likely find her lack of importance suspicious too, and maybe rightfully so. 

Throughout her sporadic interview with this bedraggled Imperial Agent, she thought about the Empire Informer article that Karoleena had shown her. 

How could there have been no leads in the Ashsnap case? Mind you she had done all of the killing within those walls, but Rackhallow had also been dealing with a violent cult and massive political unease in the aftermath of the Wasting Curse. There were easily three or four groups that the local constable could stick the case on to close the issue from an investigative standpoint or use it as additional fodder for charging one of them to get a maximum sentence. 

‘It could just be media sensationalism,’ She assures herself, looking over the Imperial Agents’ iron grip on their pen as they jot down senseless notes about her non-answers and demeanor. ‘Six weeks was a long time to be running stories with no definitive answers.’ She concludes. 

The Arbiters were likely on the case, though, especially given Karoleena’s proximity to the Ashsnaps; perhaps that was why there was a veil of secrecy over what happened in the general media, though the six-week time limit still doesn’t sit right with the Arbiter theory. If the Academy of Romance can correctly surmise the distribution of freckles on the face of a Great Library bookbinder, you would think the most elite Imperial Intelligence Service would have a bit of an idea of what happened at the Ashsnaps residence.

‘Hells, they work at the leisure of the Crown, and the Queen was who put me on Writ; seems a bit like a no-brainer investigativley.’ 

The agent finally speaks up again, having concluded transcribing his thoughts. 

“And Profession?” 

“My Profession?” Duvanith clarifies.

“Yes, Ma’am.” 

“Uh,” She struggles. “Adventurer, I guess.” It was the closest approximation to what she did as Champion; the man looks back skeptically, his pen hovering above the paper as though he was waiting for a ‘but’ or ‘and’ in place of satiating that notion, she motions down to her devoid belt where her holsters and sheaths lie empty after the agents of the embassy had confiscated them ‘for everyone’s safety’. 

“Right; which Company are you on Writ with?” He asks.

“I’m not,” Duvanith says; during the Wasting Curse. it had been Same Skies and, more recently, Individual Writ from Queen Asker, but without any supporting paper, a pencil pusher like this wouldn’t believe that. Individual Writ was for the Cobalt Landier’s of the World, mighty heroes that could single-handedly tackle a giant to the ground.

“So, would you say you’re between jobs?” 

“No, I wouldn’t say that.” 

“I see; you wouldn’t happen to have a recent paystub or invoice?”

“I don’t really get paid like that.” She says before quickly thinking, ‘How am I paid? Am I paid?’ 

“Very well, we’ll go with Unemployed then,” The agent says, placing down his inkwell pen to parchment to note that down. “And you’ll be traveling to Askerstad with the others?” 

Duvanith, before she could jump to arguing further about her employment status, felt a knot arise in her chest; she had figured that Karoleena and Mwaxanare were off in their approximations of the room she was in, likely with better-cushioned chairs and more light, wheeling and dealing with regards to Karoleena and Beckwith’s return to the capital. 

“Define others,” Duvanith instructs this was important. She was very outwardly an Imperial elf and wanted to be sure that ‘others’ included Mwaxanare. 

“All of the characters you arrived with.” The word ‘characters’ was loaded with such distaste that it was easy to identify that this was this beaurocrat’s worst day since the Wasting Curse ended, but ‘All’ included Mwaxanare. Duvanith feels a smirk develop on the right side of her mouth.

Mwaxanare was serious; she wanted to steal it back. The Queen of Choilit was going to the Empire, Ashsnap investigation be damned. 

“I will.” She confirms.

“Wonderful, I’ll be sure to add you to the manifest Missus.” He checks his paperwork, searching for her surname, “Elenos” 

“It’s just Miss, do I fucking look married.” She says once again, motioning to her outfit and gear.

“Right.” The agent says, rising while executing a short sideways strike on his paperwork.

“Am I, like, free to go or whatever?” Duvanith asks, prepping her self to stand

“Of course, why wouldn’t you be?” The agent responds, opening the door to the room. 

The answer to why she wouldn’t be was one of two reasonably simple answers, the room looked like a prison, and she may very well be the person of interest in an Arbiter investigation. 

“Just checking.” She clarified, following the agent out of the room and down a comparably dreary hallway to the well-adorned lobby where Karoleena greeted her with an excited wave, and Mwaxanare looked up from the floor-staring she had been doing to meet her gaze; she smiled slightly after seeing the smirk still planted in the corner of Duvanith’s mouth. 

“They’re sending us home via a luxury balloonliner,” Karoleena announces. 

“Sounds posh.” Duvanith offers reckoning that Beckwith was nowhere to be seen; was he still being interviewed? What was he telling them? What had she said in his presence? She wracked her brain for answers to those questions but ultimately pushed it out of her mind. They would be fine; they were bringing Princess Karoleena home. It wasn’t exactly what the Queen had placed her under Writ to do, but in the light of the Ashsnap Residence investigation, she was sure Queen Asker would just be happy to have Karoleena back. 

#dieselpunk #fantasy #short story #ttrpg community #fiction #worldbuilding #fiction writing #original character #ttrpg stuff #dungeons and dragons

[wikifido]

Chapter 5 (Karoleena)

Tolyarom is just as it had been described in books, both her girlhood textbooks and ‘Only Academic Interest,’ vast heavy buildings made from concrete poured over metal cage foundations with large windows thick enough to distort your features if you stood the proper distance away. While she had never been here before herself, Karoleena could see why the city-island looked as it did, though she did wonder how many of these fortress-like structures were a result of the Giant War and the result it had wracked on the seas. 

“Mwaxa, this is ridiculous.” Duvanith implores again from behind where she and Mwaxanare are walking; Karoleena steals another look back in response. Duvanith and Caleb Beckwith were walking side by side, a basket filled with flowers suspended between them, masking the set of handcuffs binding the two together. 

“We don’t exactly need Tolyarom’s Executive seeing me leading a man around in handcuffs. We’ll be at the Embassy in no time.” 

Karoleena turned around and laughed at the pained, maybe embarrassed looks plastered all over Duvanith’s face. 

She leans over towards Mwaxanare while still maintaining their walking pace. 

“This is the closest I’ve ever seen to her holding hands with someone.” There was an olive branch in her statement; she knew that her presence on Choilit had not exactly put her on Mwaxanare’s good side, though she had found that placing a ribbing on Duvanith was almost a sure way to elicit a somewhat positive relation from her. She could tell they were close and could see the same barbs and jabs she and Duvanith had exchanged when children reflected on how the Chultan Queen and her Champion communicated. 

“I’m sure.” Was all Mwaxanare mustered in return. Karoleena could tell that she had business at the forefront of her mind and that she’d likely be wise not to interrupt that with musings about Duvanith’s hand-holding proclivities. 

“Embassies have specialized staff, mostly Clerical - though not actual Clerics of any particular Temple, though they might. Wondermaker’s Temple has a specific interest in Tolyarom’s Industry.” Karoleena offers a drastic break in the conversation to provide something of value at a minimum and hopes to assuage Mwaxanare’s hesitations, if any. Mwaxanare turned her head to engage with her; clearly, the subject was more in line with what Mwaxanare wanted to discuss. 

“Guards?”

“There’s Embassy Guard, mostly ceremonial. I think the Imperial Military’s sentiment is if they can deploy there quick, it’s more risky to stack well-trained and Armed Guards.” Karoleena explained, the trip she took just before her last year in Court to the Graun Swar Islands was already doing a lot of work in this conversation as she began to wrack the annals of her memories for any last thing Mwaxanare might ask next. 

“What about Arbiters?” 

“Oh no.” Karoleena laughs slightly at the sentiment but quickly reverts to information-providing mode. “The Crown wouldn’t use Arbiters to stand around an Embassy unless they were working locally on Writ, or the Embassy was being assailed in some way and were sent in advance of a larger Imperial Military Group. 

Mwaxanare stops and turns around. 

“See, Duvanith,” She had a snide edge to her voice. “We don’t want to seem like we’re raiding the place, and what better way to do that than with flowers.” 

Duvanith groaned audibly; Caleb seemed equally embarrassed but less willing to be vocal about it. He probably just wanted to be home, see his family, and have his life return to normalcy after this big adventure, so to that end, he was playing along to get within the walls of an Imperial Embassy. 

She wasn’t sure she wanted to return to her life before this adventure, at least not yet. 

“Princess Karoleena,” Mwaxanare invokes her formal title, distracting her attention from the embarrassed odd pair behind them. 

“Yes?” She asks. Mwaxanare gently uses three fingers against her shoulder to turn her to face to her right. 

“You’re up.”    

In front of her, after her turn, was a large structure that popped out from the gray and blocky Tolyarom streets. It was made of many of the same materials. Still, instead of harsh lines, it had a more swooping naturalistic feel to it, given that it had no background or natural feature to blend into it made the natural characteristics of the frames of the windows and even the perimeter fence seem to pop, stand out in a way such a building wouldn’t in the Empire. 

Karoleena’s heart turns in on itself, and she wordlessly marchest forward at the richly adorned front double doors. 

She pushes one of the doors open to reveal a beautiful front lobby. 

“Hello, welcome to the Imperial Embassy; how can I help you.” a middle-aged woman asks from behind a beautiful carved front desk, which bore the appearance of crashing waves. 

Karoleena looked around the room; it was empty except for the woman, the desk, and two Embassy guards beside individual doors wearing shiny helmets and dressy uniforms. 

“Hi,” Karoleena says, her nerves immediately getting better. Mwaxanare nudges her sharply, and she forces the rest out. “I’m Princess Karoleena Asker; I’d like passage for myself and a diplomatic retinue to Askerstad.” She motions to Mwaxanare and the absurd scene of two people linked together by a flower basket. 

The woman reeled in light of the proclamation; Karoleena could also hear the shuffling and adjusting of the two guards at the doors. She does her best to maintain eye contact with the woman at the desk. 

“Let me get my supervisor.” She says, scurrying away from the desk and through one of the doors flanked by the guards.

“Now what?” Duvanith asks.

“Paperwork.” Beckwith quickly quips at her. 

This was a common sentiment among so many of the Agents of the Empire that Karoleena had witnessed her father work with. Things must be filled out and filed; sometimes, multiple copies to different agencies, record numbers sent to the Great Library, etc. She never had to experience it, but she wasn’t sure she was excited about it in the same way Choilitan food or the Wondermakers tools she had provided had. 

“Let’s get out of the doorway,” Duvanith suggests, tugging at Caleb via his wrist in the direction she wanted him to travel. Mwaxanare moved along with them; Karoleena stepped up to the ornate greeting desk and traced her eyes along the working surface. Her eyebrows jumped at seeing the curly text ‘Empire Informer’ at the top of the coarse grey paper. 

‘Papa’s favorite, the Informer.’ She thinks to herself, reaching over the desk, grabbing it, then snapping it open.

‘Into it’s Sixth Week, Ashsnap Investigation turns up No Leads.’ 

The headline read. Karoleena gasps audibly but quickly silences herself, folds the paper down, and walks over to where everyone else is standing. 

“Duvanith, look.” Karoleena hisses at her as quietly as she could muster, folding the paper so Duvanith could see it. She watches Duvanith’s eyes parse the letters of the article. 

“I didn’t kill that old bitch, she wasn’t home when I cut through the place.” 

“Karoleena, can I read that?” Mwaxanare asks, producing a hand, her tone serious. 

“Sure.” She extends it to her. 

“Princess Karoleena?” A new voice speaks, 

“Yes?” Karoleena wheels around to face the voice.

“Please follow me,” the newcomer motions to one of the guarded but now open doors.    

#fiction #fiction writing #original character #ttrpg community #short story #worldbuilding #fantasy #dungeons and dragons #dieselpunk #ttrpg stuff #writeblr

[wikifido]

Chapter 5 (Duvanith)

The rhythmic rise and fall of the Skiplane had unsettled Duvanith’s stomach. Something about the repeated rise, weightlessness, and fall cycle that ended in a crash against the waves before repeating wasn’t good for her. She, of course, had experienced a sense of weightlessness and falling before, from much greater heights, even during her exploits in the jungle, but something about not being in control of the sensation put her on edge.

That said, Mwaxanare, who preferred to have her feet on solid ground since departing the cliffside monastery where they had met, seemed utterly unbothered by the sensation the machine was putting on their bodies. Maybe this was because she had made the journey once before to Tolyarom for some trade negotiations. These talks had likely netted them the fancier passenger pod versus the harsh-looking jump seats they had walked by upon entering. 

Though the whole operation had her on edge, when she had recommended stealing the Chalice back, she had imagined something other than what Mwaxanare had settled on.

A Two-person diplomatic mission that would develop into a caper, while Duvanith knew that this was likely in part to appear friendly before the Imperial Government when arriving with the King’s Daughter in tow. 

Though there might have been a level of expectation of her arriving with Karoleena that Mwaxanare might be leaning on, the Imperial Queen had asked her to make sure Karoleena was doing well in Rackhallow. She had, in a sense, done that, but in her haste to get back to Choilit, she hadn’t closed the loop on that by seeing Karoleena directly to her mother. 

She should have, though a question had plagued her since she had learned of Karoleena’s illegal detention,   

‘Where had the Arbiters been? Hells, where were they now?’ 

The concern was born from stories of how Arbiters tend to resolve situations like the one they found themselves in; with violence. 

“Oh.” Karoleena vocalized surprise again, moving the book slightly away from her face as though to break the spell the words had on her momentarily. This behavior had been relatively common since Karoleena had begun reading the book; she had now reached the middle of the story based on her progression through the pages. From what Duvanith had heard, that’s usually where the heaviest romantic material was. 

She had never read any Academy of Romance books, not because they had never featured her contrary to Mwaxanare’s jeering, but simply because they just seemed as though they were bolting famous heroes’ names into smutty stories where it was easy enough to mix around the gender and description of the leads, the Imperial Deceny standards had in a sense been proof of that. 

Though with ‘Only Academic Interest,’ she knew there were grains of truth to it, albeit however minor, just from the cover. How these filth-peddlers had gotten any of that information was beyond her.

‘Anything to sell copies, I suppose.’ 

“Oh my.” Karoleena verbalizes, this time with a hand shooting up to cover her mouth before turning the page.

That was enough for Duvanith; while she was sure Mwaxanare had some specific intent with providing that particular reading material to Karoleena, not knowing what was prompting her exclamations had officially pushed her past her limit of willingness to remain here feeling somewhat sick already from the traveling motion of the Skiplane.

She articulates the buckle of her restraint system to the left and right, ensuring all five retaining clips disengage, and she stands, the skipping sensation becoming more pronounced as the sensation of weightlessness now coupled with her feet leaving the floor when the plane dropped. 

She quickly adjusted to this by matching the rhythm of the plane, articulating her feet to adjust to where it was in its motion; it felt similar to when she needed to move dramatically in a fight or from just as numbers would begin in her childhood dance lessons. 

‘The dance has already begun by the time you are getting on your toes the first time,’ Madam Keentree had always said. 

‘True if the dance was a fight or a number,’ She thought before announcing. 

“I’m going to go check on Beckwith.” 

Both Mwaxanare and Karoleena didn’t look up from their reading. Karoleena offers a short friendly wave, and Mwaxanare a ‘well shoo then’ variation of the same wave. 

She had probably been able to sense Duvanith’s ill-at-ease demeanor. 

Duvanith slips out of the cabin, closing the door behind her, and moves towards the back of the vessel, taking measured and rhythmic steps to avoid being tossed around with the ship’s motions. 

Eventually, the looming figure of the Imperial Warmachine, once again clad under a canvas tarp but this time ratcheted down by chains to the vehicle cargo deck, comes into view, along with its pilot, sitting just beside it, handcuffed to a jump seat that was gently articulating up and down along with the plane. 

“Beckwith, how are you? Need anything.” She asks on approach; he looks up at her, shifting his seating position slightly or as much as he can because of his moored arm.

“Gods, how are you not falling over yourself right now?” 

“Four years of ballet in Court.” She sits a few jumpseats down from him, feeling the sensation leave her feet and resume throughout her core. “You need anything, water, snack?” 

“You were at Court?” There was a sense of bewilderment in his voice. 

“Aye,” She responds intentionally using a childhood colloquialism this time. “Princess Karoleena’s attendendant.” 

“I didn’t think; I wouldn’t have expected.” He stumbled. 

“Me either. Did you spend any time at Court, Beckwith? I know you’re not a Lord or a Sir, but maybe as a Footman?” Duvanith asks; maybe he would know this, Mr. Reeve. She hadn’t had time to ask since reading the ledger. 

“I can’t say that I have; my parents weren’t exactly movers and shakers in even that way.” There was a sheepishness to his answer that Duvanith decided to leave alone. It had been about what she had expected; it’s not often a member of the Court ended up in the Third Line at the Trench, but you never knew. 

“There’s a section of the Court floor for the Military, you know,” Duvanith offers. “The Nobles aren’t supposed to engage with the guests there, but Attendants might,” before hastily adding, “or Footman.” Though she knew risking such behavior would be risking running afoul of the Governesses. 

He laughs,

“Are you thinking I might get an invitation?” 

“I think it’s probably fairly likely,” She begins counting off on her fingers. “Gearpilot, pre-existing Valor award, as nice as we are, you are a Prisoner of War, returning with the King’s daughter and your war machine intact, objectively attractive by Court standards. You’re a shoo-in.” 

Beckwith chuckles,

“I’ll take all of those to the Royal Bank except for the Prisoner bit.”

“Maybe you can ask them to leave that out of read-in.” Duvanith offers, leaning her head back into the headrest of the jump seat.

“I don’t know how I’d dance with an Attendant with my kneecap in the shape it’s in.” He jeers back at her; there is acceptance, almost thanks, in his voice. Duvanith wasn’t sure if the thanks were for coming out here and asking if he wanted a snack, suggesting he’d be invited to Court, or just for not killing him. 

“Karoleena won’t tell anyone you were shot running unless you do. I’d use that heroic wound to your advantage rather than worrying about dancing.” Members of Court Classes would, almost by decree from the governesses, be sure to fall over the King’s Uniformed wounded behind the velvet rope.

In return, he provides a sly and thankful smile and places his head back, mimicking her position—the sounds of the crashing water encroaching on the silence between them.       

#dungeons and dragons #fiction writing #original character #short story #ttrpg community #fiction #worldbuilding #fantasy #ttrpg stuff #dieselpunk #writeblr

[wikifido]

Chapter 5 (Mwaxanare)

They had not stayed out too long after locating Karoleena the previous night, a few drinks, and a lot of teasing Duvanith about her early missteps in her Adventuring career in Neparāticue. It seemed to be the one thing Karoleena and she could agree on that lightly making fun of her Champion was an all-around good time. 

After they had called off their festivities and returned Karoleena to the Residence, Duvanith had asserted that she was going to stay up a bit longer, maybe stare at the stars a bit, hoping to stave off any Pillōmpāll nollōplēm that might disrupt her sleep, she had found that getting her rest later in the night would make for less dream heavy sleep. 

She had instructed some attendants to pack her bag for a weeks-long political trip; upon opening her bag, she expected to find the usual long flowing Kwtēntāmtāxi silk dresses she preferred for such things. Today, however, Mwaxanare had dressed much as she had the day before except now, free of bulky leather armor or dark red stains. At the same time, she would have preferred to dress slightly fancier to be met in Tolyarom; she dared not risk even her middling finery to the dirty annals of a Skiplane whose pilot was willing to run an Imperial Blockade. 

‘The last time there was a second crew member behind the pilot sitting on a huge oil drum who pumped oil into the machine each time the system got below a certain pressure.’ She hand reminded herself, tucking in her shirt this morning. Her dress had survived that particular outing, but she hadn’t wanted to retake the risk given the rarity of Kwtēntāmtāxi Silk. 

“What would it not fit into your bag?” Duvanith asked of the brown paper-wrapped package tucked smartly under her arm. She scoffs. 

“No,” She adjusts it in her hand. “It’s for Karoleena.” 

“What is it?” Duvanith prys.

“A surprise,” Mwaxanare says back, feigning an innocent smile; she figured that Duvanith would disapprove of the gift or perhaps even find it inappropriate; Invasive even, but Mwaxanare knew that it wasn’t going to be a conversation that Duvanith would willingly start with her childhood friend. Maybe the gift would prompt it, of course not for Karoleena’s benefit, but Duvanith needed to get more comfortable speaking about it. 

The two turned into the Wacuīchextell Cuimācnāl; before them was the familiar sight of the court Necromancer and a skeleton assistant working on fixing and better-defining lines that had been smudged by the back and forth of feet the day before. 

Karoleena stood to the side, next to Coaxach, who had collected her from the Residence that morning, transfixed by the seal on the floor, the skeleton assisting, and the annoying, slightly irritable-sounding goblin making the corrective marks. 

While Karoleena had seen a similar display before as Mwaxanare and Duvanith approach, it becomes evident as to why Karoleena was so interested, Clokz so irritable, and why Coaxach had a smug look on his face seeming to enjoy watching the Necromancer get frustrated. 

“But how complicated could a seal to Askerstad be?” Karoleena asks, bouncing her finger from sigil to sigil around the Necromancer as he works. 

“There’s something like four million variations to the traditional teleportation circle format, not to mention regional sigil variations that could also serve as variables,” Clokz explains, not looking up from his work. 

“But what happens with a bad combination? Does the Vale just eat you or something?” Karoleena questions 

“Two scenarios with a bad combination.” He responds, gently reforming the chalk line of a circular-looking sigil. “Either nothing happens, or the combination is ‘good enough, and you teleport to wherever that corresponding circle would,” He punctuates the word. “Exist if it had been divined out of the Vale, meaning you could end up ten thousand feet in the air or ten thousand leagues under the sea.” 

“So maybe we should let him do his work accurately, Karoleena,” Duvanith suggests, seeming to break Karoleena’s laser-like focus on interrogating her Court Necromancer. 

“Good point.” She admits. 

“This is for you, for the trip.” Mwaxanare extends the brown paper package. Karoleena takes it gingerly from her hand. 

“Oh, thank you. You didn’t have to do that.” 

Mwaxanare does her best to offer a genuine smile in return. She didn’t have to do that but was glad she did. 

“Alright, we’re good,” Clokz announces, tip-toeing off the circle and extending a hand, inviting the three women into the arcanely divined sigil combination. Mwaxanare turns to Coaxach, 

“Try to keep everything running smoothly until I get back.”

He provides a severe and dutiful nod in return.

Mwaxanare turns and looks at Clokz and gives him a corresponding nod. 

The familiar blinding light envelopes them, dumping them again into the old lighthouse’s bottom floor. This time, instead of the metallic scent of blood, the air was heavy with incense to mask the smell of the minor skirmish that had happened there, not but a day before. 

She blinks off the teleportation blindness and looks around. Duvanith was suffering her usual complications from teleportation, but from experience, she knew unless a fight was unfolding, she would stand still. Karoleena, on the other hand, was stumbling around slightly, her eyes wide, bewildered, not looking down at where the bottoms of her heeled boots were coming down on the ancient floor. 

Mwaxanre grabs the inside of her arm high, just under the armpit, and holds her steady. 

“Blink.” She instructs. Karoleena breaks her eyes from her bewildered stare and does as she’s told. Once it was clear her vision was restored, she regained her footing.

“Thanks, Mwaxanare,” Karoleena says with a smile, restoring a solid grip on her gift. Duvanith also looks up, having recovered again after expressing her frustration with an exasperated sigh during the process. 

Mwaxanare moves to the door to see a wide, flat plane between the two remaining docks with stubby wings and a tiny nub of a cockpit jutting from its front. A few warriors stood around the open door to the side of the craft, speaking with its pilot. 

“Do we have our guest and cargo aboard?” Mwaxanare asks

“Yes, Your Majesty.” one of the katāim responds. 

“Wonderful,” She turns to look at the pilot, a more petite man, half-Dwarf perhaps. “How long until we reach Tolyarom do you expect?”

“Four hours, your majesty.”

‘Not only is he making good time, he got good information on terms of address,’ She thinks to herself. 

“Let’s find a seat.” 

The interior of the Skiplane was bare, but tucked into the cargo compartment was a box featuring a handsomely stained door, behind which was a small room of well-adorned travel compartment, far better than the last time she traveled to Tolyarom. However, the material she brought with her prompted some nicer accommodations this time. 

Once they were seated, she motioned to Karoleena, 

“You should open it.”

Karoleena smiled, clearly relieved she didn’t have to wait til there was a polite moment to do so. She tears into the paper, pulling it back, revealing the book cover.

‘Only Academic Interest’; Its cover bearing a pale ebony-haired elven woman in a loose black shirt unlaced halfway and a mousy freckled half-elf woman with her glasses askew, suggestively pressed against a library bookshelf bearing the genre tag ‘Romance’ in an overt betrayal of the contents of the novel. 

Mwaxanare could feel Duvanith’s stare boring into the side of her head, but she stayed focused on Karoleena. 

“No censorship, as the author intended.” Mwaxanare offers. 

“Thanks, curious how different it’ll be.” She says with a thankful smile

#dungeons and dragons #fiction #original character #short story #ttrpg community #worldbuilding #fiction writing #fantasy #ttrpg stuff #dieselpunk #writeblr #legally distinct

[wikifido]

Chapter 4 (Karoleena)

The Tame Tulip was thrumming with life; this had marked Karoleena’s first evening out on the town in Port Currington, and she was spending it sitting by herself in booth seating at the Port’s only bar. There had been no persistent presence of Cole, a cadre of guards, or some other advisor around the Residence she had been staying in. It felt as though there was an unspoken invitation from Mwaxanare to walk about the town after assisting her with asking questions of Caleb. 

She was still measuring her feelings on having used her family name and station to get answers from the Gearpilot, but the smooth citrus drink that the Dimofolk bartender had poured was seeing her through.

She had seen Dimofolk through the windows of the Residence, eight foot tall, with leather-like skin, wings, and colorful beaks. It wasn’t like anyone you’d see walking the streets of an Imperial City; just like the skeletons, goblins, or even her, all things you couldn’t see on Imperial streets. 

She sips her drink again and considers where she’d be in a few weeks, off of Imperial Streets, no doubt, but also right back at Court. 

‘And back at Court, old, and without Ed,’ She thinks to herself; it was without a doubt that her parents were going to foist her back into Court life to try again to find a suitable husband. She hated that notion, and she didn’t want to see another suitor. She wanted Ed back. 

Unfortunately, she knew that wasn’t possible; she had tried. No quantity of Ilmerryite would bring him back. He was lost to the Wasting Curse.  

‘You have to wonder if that’s what set his mother off or if she was always such an unjustifiable bitch; Though she had other sons, Ed was of course, the best of them.’ 

She takes another sip, and the music, piped in by some mechanical music box, screeches to a halt. She looks up from the slushie yellow-orange of her drink to see Duvanith and Mwaxanare standing in the entryway. 

Mwaxanare issues a short wave with her hand, and the music commences again. 

Karoleena’s insides turn. Should she be here? Was the lack of attention an invitation to be out and about? Should she have kept ahold of the drink menu since people would join her? 

Her last consideration was a fleeting Court decorum suggestion from the governesses; she pushed it from her mind despite knowing it would, unfortunately, be handy again soon. 

Mwaxanare makes a direct line towards her booth while Duvanith breaks off to talk to the Dimofolk bartender. Karoleena shifts and adjusts in her seat, ensuring she is dead in the middle. 

Mwaxanare slides into the seat across from her, finding its direct center. 

“Enjoying the drinks?” She asks. This hadn’t been what Karoleena was expecting, though it did seem to confirm her suspicion that she was afforded less oversight today than other days. 

“I am the first one,” she says, lifting the earthenware mug she was drinking from as a prop. Mwaxanare flashes her a polite smile before looking at the bar where Duvanith was leaning, watching the bartender fill a flagon from a cask of ale. 

“It used to be a brothel, you know,” Mwaxanare says, making a circular motion around her head. 

“Oh?” Karoleena says, more confused about the topic than the history of the business. “During the Imperial government?” 

“Yeah, the Madam intended to be rid of the Imperial government. She held Duvanith in the basement here before she traveled into the jungle.”

“Oh,” Karoleena said, legitimate surprise in her voice. She was trying to figure out why Mwaxanare shared this with her; she didn’t think it was to besmirch Duvanith, maybe just trying to show how different she was now versus when they were girls. 

As if she didn’t know. 

“Did you ask about Reeve? Karoleena scoot over.” Duvanith says, slipping into the booth beside her. 

“Reeve?” Karoleena asks. 

“A Mr. Reeve. My height, weasel face, brown hair.” Mwaxanare describes while giving Duvanith a dirty look.  

“Does the name ring a bell? I’m thinking someone’s Footman from Court, maybe?” Duvanith prys as she extends a short glass towards Mwaxanare and slides the flagon slightly towards herself as if to claim dominion over it. 

“Not offhand, why?” 

“Found it on some paperwork, figured we’d check,” Mwaxanare says before taking a tiny sip of the drink Duvanith had pushed toward her. 

Karoleena wracks her brain ‘Reeve’ and focuses on the family name versus the man Mwaxanare was asking about brown hair or weasel face. 

“I don’t think there was anyone from the Reeve family in Duvanith, and I’s Court class, but I do recall a Reeve family high up-ish from the Barony in and around the Iron Haven area. The family crest is like a tree with a shield in it.” 

“Well, thats something,” Duvanith says looking at Mwaxanare and motioning at Karoleena. “Come on, Mwaxa.” She pleads an unspoken point met with a second dirty look from Mwaxanare, who takes another sip from her beverage. 

The table falls silent for a moment; it was clear that this silence was being afforded to Mwaxanare to mull the ‘Come on Mwaxa’ imploration Duvanith had made.

Karoleena sips in concert with Mwaxanare. Duvanith and Mwaxanare’s relationship had been interesting to try to detangle for her; they truly hadn’t known each other that long. They have some sort of work relationship regarding Mwaxanare’s role as monarch, but Duvanith has been the only person to call her ‘Mwaxa’. Generally, her father’s employees don’t use nicknames for him in his presence, only behind his back, albeit those nicknames were less endearing than ‘Mwaxa.’

“Karoleena, have you ever been teleported before?” Mwaxanare asks, shattering the thoughtful silence she had been offered.

“Like Magically? No.” 

Mwaxanare nods her head thoughtfully in response. 

“Ever ridden in a Skiplane?” There question had a knowing quality regardless of the answer, Mwaxanare knew that Karoleena would want to ride on a Skiplane. 

That being said, she hadn’t; it was a particular Voidstone-powered aircraft, if you could even call it that. They were plane in shape but didn’t create lift; they just sort of ‘skip’, as the name implies, over the top of water. 

“No. I have flown a normal plane, though.” 

Duvanith flashes her a disbelieving look.

“Really?”

“Yeah, Ed took me for my birthday.” 

Mwaxanare cuts the revelation short. 

“I’ve called in a favor from Tolyarom, and we’re going to get you home starting tomorrow.” 

Karoleena felt dread bubble up in the pit of her stomach, not on account of the fact Mwaxanare had just suggested that they would be running an Imperial soft blockade in a Skiplane, but because she wasn’t sure she was ready to go home, back to Court. It was why she was here in the first place. Duvanith had stuck her on a paddle steamer in Rackhallow heading upriver to Askerstad, and she had disembarked and caught Duvanith’s windjammer liner to Choilt instead. 

She wasn’t ready to go back; she might never be. 

She takes a long sip of her drink and changes the subject, hoping it will rid her of the building dread. 

“Duvanith, why were you in a brothel?”  

#fiction writing #fiction #short story #original character #ttrpg community #worldbuilding #dungeons and dragons #ttrpg stuff #fantasy #dieselpunk #writeblr

[wikifido]

Chapter 4 (Mwaxanare)

It was plain on the page they were smugglers; it didn’t explain Gearpilot Beckwith’s presence, but the ledger laid what had happened here bare. 

“Oi” 

‘Oi’

‘Oi’ 

Her Champion had slipped into her childhood regional colloquialisms to quickly rush the warriors from the room, which meant she was showing her feeling on her face, however minute.

She blinked it off as though it was teleportation blindness.

“Mwaxanare, what’s wrong?” 

She snaps closed the leatherbound ledger in her hand. 

“Nothing, it seems they were smugglers. Perhaps your Cabal inclination was correct.” 

“Mwaxanare,” Duvanith says, a severe and accusatory tilt to her tone. “What’s wrong.” 

She probably would have been fine in most other contexts, able to blink it off and press onwards with her daily responsibilities. Still, her Champion knowingly needling her about this particular thing was a bit much. 

She turns away, giving Duvanith her profile, obscuring at least one of her welling eyes. 

“We should open these boxes and have Clokz or Coaxach start inventorying what’s here.” 

She feels Duvanith hand clamp down on her upper arm and apply a bit of pressure to turn her back towards her; she gives in and turns back towards her Champion, feeling a matching hand on her opposing arm after she does so. 

“Mwaxanare,” Duvanith repeats. “What’s wrong?” 

Mwaxanare takes a measured breath. She had wanted to have this conversation with Duvanith since she woke up, but there had never been a good time.

First, there was her recovery.

Then she went home.

Then she came back with a geopolitical timebomb in tow. 

There had never been a good time.

There never would be a good time.

She extends the ledger to Duvanith, who takes it gingerly from her hands and flips it open in her own, free of the encumbrance of the log. Mwaxanare leans against the heavy desk and observes her Champion pouring over the document, waiting for her to find the entry. 

‘Chalice, Skull Shape, Private Buyer, sixty thousand gold pieces.’

The aftermath of the Wasting Curse had been harrowing. The Imperial Provincial Government had devastated Neparāticue’s few fields and had all the livestock sent to slaughter out of fear that the Curse had been spreading through the food supply. That was early in the Curse, and the people under the Provincial Government had survived the Curse on dry goods and stored grain. 

The problem with dry goods and stored grain is that they were a finite resource that began expiring just as she expelled the colonial occupiers of Neparāticue. 

To some degree, she knew that the dwindling food supply had been why it was so easy to sway the population to her cause; earlier efforts to remedy the problem were met with expected responses.

Limited blockade.

High import tariffs. 

But people needed to eat, and Mwaxanare knew somewhere in the Empire of the Vale, a rich creep would inject some money into the Port when there was none to be found and provide some political pressure to alleviate the blockade. Simple baubles and antiquities weren’t cutting it either; she had tried. There wasn’t interest in things that didn’t bear magical or influential status.  

It had worked; the people of Neparāticue ate as the Port began to operate under her care, but at the expense of Chalice of Ichillhez.

The equivalent of Karoleena’s father selling the crown off his head to ensure his Empire’s bills were paid, with the added layer that it had been a thing Duvanith had recovered from the Kwtēntāmtāxi Palace.

She had gone out of her way to ensure Mwaxanare could find it even when she knew she would die. 

Mwaxanare looks at Duvanith watching for the moment she finds the entry.

Her brown eyes eventually stop moving and hover on an entry.

This was likely it. 

“So, who was the private buyer?” She asks 

This wasn’t the reaction that Mwaxanare had expected, but that expectation was likely born out of her fear of the worst-case scenario. 

“I’m not sure.” 

“Strawman purchase, then, I assume?”

“Done through a representative.” 

“Does this representative have a name?” 

“He does.” 

“Perfect.” 

In conducting this conversation, Duvanith had yet to look up from the page, but her brow and eyebrows telegraphed that she was thinking despite her questions seeming flat and calculating. 

She snaps shut the ledger, places it on the desk, and takes up a spot directly next to Mwaxanare on the decaying leather top.

Duvanith looked happy, pleased, and giddy at her revelation. It was far from the frustrated anger that Mwaxanare had expected, but maybe that had been her projecting her feelings about needing to sell it onto Duvanith as a means of coping. 

“We have a Warmachine and a Pilot. No way we can’t get that back.” Duvanith finally says, keeping unsaid the fact that they also had the King of the Empire’s daughter as well. Mwaxanare had, of course, thought about this, but she was not willing to trade people for things of value. “What was this chucklefucks name?” Duvanith asks.  

“The representative?” Mwaxanare clarifies. “Mr. Reeve.” 

“Reeve.” Duvanith parrots, running her eyes back and forth as though checking some internal address book. “It sounds Askerstadian, but not at Court. I don’t think we can ask Karoleena, maybe Beckwith too.”

Gears were turning in her Champions head, which wasn’t a bad problem to have, necessarily better than having a mindless wall of meat as her right hand. 

“Duvanith,” Mwaxanare says knowingly. “I don’t want to sour my relationship with the Empire anymore. I’ve made a deal, and I should abide by its terms.” 

Mwaxanare could see it in her face; Duvanith wanted to get it, steal it; it would be fun, an adventure, something more interesting than stamping export documents over an ale at the Tame Tulip. 

Duvanith pushes herself off the desk and squares off in front of Mwaxanare, taking up a familiar pose suggesting she is about to make an emphatic point. Mwaxanare knew this as ‘lawyer pose.’ She imagined when Duvanith’s father had argued cases before the Imperial Courts; he had looked a bit something like this. 

“Mwaxa, you can abide by its terms and still find where it is.” 

“Then you’ll steal it,” Mwaxanare says, rolling her eyes; that was clearly what was going unsaid here. 

“I’ve stolen it before; I’ve stolen from shitty Imperial nobles. Come on.” 

Lifting a ruby off the neck of a drunk courtier was hardly the same as what Mwaxanare figured would be involved here if they could even find it. 

“They’ll know it was us.” Mwaxanare offers back. 

“No, they won’t.” 

Something was reassuring about her Champions tone; Duvanith was sure of this. If that confidence was born out of a need for adventure and danger, it was a high degree of certainty that had her almost convinced herself. 

It was a slight problem they could fix while bettering relations with the Empire for the time being, Mwaxanare began to think.

She felt Duvaniths hand on her chin and then a quick connection of their lips; before she could react, her Champion completed the kiss and moved towards the door. 

“We’re gonna get it back,” Duvanith asserts, lingering in the doorway. 

‘Of course we are; she is great at stealing things,’ Mwaxanare thinks to herself, lamenting the short, unexpected kiss while pushing herself up from the desk and following her out of the door.       

#dieselpunk #fiction #original character #short story #ttrpg community #worldbuilding #fiction writing #dungeons and dragons #ttrpg stuff #fantasy #writeblr #legally distinct