Amdirlain’s PoV - Culerzic

When the Gate closed behind Nûr, the chamber dimmed, and Amdirlain slumped cross-legged to the ground. The hours they’d spent had left Amdirlain emotionally numb from the toll of continually dredging up unpleasant emotions. She didn’t shift position when she heard Torm behind her, simply taking in his concern. Without a word, he knelt in place and rested a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Closing her eyes, she leant back, and without comment, he let her rest against his chest. Raising his free hand, he started to caress her hair and let the silence linger.

“By the way, you stink,” Amdirlain muttered after nearly a half hour.

Torm’s first response was a rumbling chuckle before he pretended to smear his fingers along her hair. “I cleaned with multiple spells.”

“There is a miasma sitting around you at present,” explained Amdirlain.

“You could have told me before leaning against me,” murmured Torm, and Amdirlain grabbed his ankle as he tried to rise.

Giving a little mew in protest, Amdirlain didn’t relent. “Don’t go. I’m enjoying my hair being stroked.”

“You told me I stink,” noted Torm.

“I’m going to have to clean up anyway now, so you might as well keep going,” insisted Amdirlain. When Torm settled back into his previous position, Amdirlain leaned back against him and let out a content sigh.

Laughing when she tilted her head in an invitation, Torm resumed stroking her hair, and neither spoke for a time. “Nûr sent me a message, told me she’d run you ragged.”

“Made me march down a gauntlet of emotions and get beat up by them,” offered Amdirlain. “Problem: when looking to project emotions, you need to open yourself up to them first.”

“Well, at least I found out you’d been back and training a while,” teased Torm.

Twisting around, Amdirlain caught his tone too late. “Oh crap, I messaged Erwarth to brief her, and it completely slipped my mind to let you know.”

“Relax. I’ve been gone for days at a time,” reassured Torm, only to earn a disgruntled huff.

“I messed up, but please don’t tease,” admonished Amdirlain. “I feel all raw and beat up.”

Torm lent forward and gave her a light kiss in apology. “I’m surprised you haven’t gotten an enchanted bathtub arranged at some point.”

“Hadn’t even thought about it. I think I’d need to set up a shielded room to relax. Maybe a circle to keep the energy contained, surrounded by another to keep the abyssal energy out,” considered Amdirlain.

“Seems extreme for bathing,” murmured Torm as he ran his fingers through her hair. As Amdirlain wiggled back happily against him, he gave a deep chuckle. “Or do you think you’d need to contain your ecstatic reaction?”

“I was thinking I could purify the inner circle area after I get it set up,” declared Amdirlain and felt Torm tense in surprise behind her. “Then I could relax instead of having the Abyss gnaw at me.”

“Seems excessive to get a bath,” teased Torm.

Amdirlain waggled back against his chest. “Please, I never got my undead bounties from Verdandi. Maybe I should tell her I need an enchanted bathtub—at least on loan—since I can’t get to the Silver Chalice to collect my bounties. Yeah, I should get that set up. It would also give us a space to breathe without Culerzic’s desires digging at us.”

“You want one that conjures and removes the water?” Torm asked carefully as he tucked a loose strand behind her ear.

“Not just that, it needs hot and cold water, soaps and oils, all under the user’s control,” declared Amdirlain.

Torm’s bass rumble of laughter drew a smile from Amdirlain.

“Now that sounds excessive,” declared Torm playfully.

Giving a playful huff, Amdirlain reached back to poke his thigh. “Cleaning with Inventory gets old. I need a proper bath. It’s been years, years and years. I shouldn’t have avoided them at the monastery, but I didn’t want to intrude on the girls initially, and then it just continued. I bet I would have wept in dismay at what they considered baths; I loved the time there, but they take ascetic to the extreme.”

“I agree, I can’t see any of them stretched out, wiggling their toes in warm water with smelly oils,” Torm replied, and Amdirlain caught a well-concealed cheekiness in his tone.

“Oi, no insulting bath oils,” admonished Amdirlain playfully. “If I’ve said this before, I apologise. I miss a relaxing soak; my body doesn’t need it for recovery, but I think my brain does.”

Torm gave the exposed ear tip a teasing tap. “Smelling of flowers makes it hard to hunt things with any sense of smell.”

“How did the hunting go?”

“We took out a compound and freed a score of mortals,” offered Torm. “Munais’ information has been really useful of late.”

Unease crawled across Amdirlain’s shoulders. “Maybe ease off on taking out his customers a bit.”

“We’ve been taking out the competition he’s been spying on,” explained Torm.

“From an espionage point of view, one way to find leaks is to silo the information individuals can get to and see what happens,” warned Amdirlain. “He could still use the information on his competition to figure out what is happening inside his operation. Hold information on some of them in one place and on others in a different place to see which get hit. Then narrow it down, rinse and repeat.”

“How do you know about espionage?” asked Torm.

“Mainly from reading and company security issues. I know a little about that from the work I handled in IT—not directly with security but overseeing the management of an issue’s resolution. From an IT perspective, we’d track who has accessed what information, basically put in ways to see who has altered or viewed information. Sometimes it'd be in obvious ways that any staff can see, but other times it's subtle and hidden, except from the admins, and logged in different ways.”

Torm’s caressing halted, and he just rested his hand on her shoulder. “What are you most concerned about?”

“Wards can track who has entered an area and trigger messages. I used messages to write into a book for Livia. If he only stores an opponent's files in one room and tracks who enters the room, then the operations of that opponent get repeatedly hit in ways that tie back to the information in that room that narrows who he needs to monitor. Rinse, repeat, track more rooms, and put in time-sensitive information to see if it's acted on.”

“I’ll let Caltzan know,” conceded Torm.

“I’d suggest going quiet for a while and pulling Munais out, but continue her routine until you can,” suggested Amdirlain and frowned when Precognition still wasn’t happy. “Something is up with Munais’s situation, and Precognition is making my skin crawl. I’d get her out. I know it's not your call, and if you tell Caltzan the warning is from me, he might ignore it. Not sure I’ll be able to tell more; I’ve only met her once.”

“Caltzan hasn’t told us a lot about her location, and the few times Munais has made a meet, she’s stayed quiet about it. I don’t even know the Wizard’s name,” admitted Torm.

“If you feel you must stay, can you at least ask to switch to a different cell operating on Culerzic?” asked Amdirlain.

The wince made Torm’s view clear. “Caltzan was the one that took the time out from the cell’s work to escort me around initially.”

“Too darn loyal, Torm,” grumbled Amdirlain. “You can respect someone even if you no longer work with them.”

“I’ll do my duty and be as careful as possible,” consoled Torm.

“There is no way to be careful if someone is ignoring warning signs and won’t let you look for traps,” countered Amdirlain.

“Shall we do some magic or weapons training today, or do I get to hear you sing?” asked Torm.

Amdirlain almost objected to his change of subject but stopped herself. “I’m wiped. I think I might spend some time meditating. Nûr wants to resume again in eight, well now seven, hours.”

“Pushing yourself?”

“Nûr claims it's the only way I know how to do things,” joked Amdirlain. “I think Erwarth and the others want me too exhausted to think about sticking my nose into places it doesn’t belong.”

The first session was merely a gentle warmup for the following months; in each session, Nûr pushed her control and patience to the limits. It was never the same twice, with sessions ranging from holding a single emotion during sparring to quickly projecting a gambit of emotions while working a ritual. Sometimes the session would last only an hour, and other times Nûr would run well over time, keeping the demands on Amdirlain unpredictable. The progress in control over emotions and song was her only consolation.

The test came without warning, except for Nûr messaging her to lock her emotions down before the Gate opened. Amdirlain understood why when Nûr stepped aside, and Moke followed her through. His features didn’t look like he’d aged a day since she’d activated his Celestial bloodline, though aspects of that were clearer. Black-haired, with dusky-gold skin, his cat-green eyes almost glowed in the chamber’s dim lighting.

His angular features were as lean as ever, straight nose and raised cheekbones that lead down to a wide generous mouth above a firm chin. Yet the set of his mouth was now more serious than flirtatious. His walk contained a feline grace that spoke of his family's old tie to Bast and accented the litheness of his build. However, it was a poise that expected the need to react to danger rather than the swaggering confidence of youth.

Upon seeing him, she almost expected him to be in the pattern bonking skeleton clothing she’d made years ago; instead, he wore a sedate dark blue shirt and black linen pants tucked into solid boots that came up to mid-calf. The years sat heavily in his gaze, the sorrow and regrets having compressed much of his wildness into the determination of a survivor.

“Lady Amdirlain,” Moke intoned formally before he gave an elaborate bow. “Eivor wanted to come herself. After much discussion with Nûr, she finally allowed that it would be best if I helped you in this matter.”

“Moke, it's been years; hard ones for you, I see,” Amdirlain said, unsure what to make of his presence; she kept Resonance under tight control.

Frown lines showed around his mouth, but he simply shrugged. “Others have had harder years than I. While I’m given to understand I’m perhaps not your favourite person, allow me to point out that in one aspect, I’m the best suited for these tests.”

“And what is that?”

“Of all the people that your priesthood could risk asking, my incapacitation won't be a loss to your cause,” explained Moke.

“I don’t think anyone is expendable, Moke, and you underestimate your contributions. Certainly, if Apollo’s plans had been different, you would have led rescuers to the site of my imprisonment,” countered Amdirlain.

“I made a mistake searching for your original summoner, which took the investigation in the wrong direction. Earlier, I’d gained information on that Artificer and the High Priest. For that reason, once Ebusuku passed along their names, it was a matter of digging out the information and confirming they were still present at the summer palace,” declared Moke. “If I hadn’t failed you-”

Moke cut off instantly at Amdirlain’s raised hand. “Were others looking?”

“Yes, but I was handling investigations in Egypt and Crete,” objected Moke.

Amdirlain stepped closer and let the light from the Gate wash over her, and Moke blinked in surprise at her Anar form. “You can’t get a new beginning without things changing, Moke. Mistakes happen. When we fall, we need to get up, learn from it, and start again. How about you give yourself a chance at a new beginning from this guilt?”

Though he nodded awkwardly, Amdirlain could tell he wasn’t so easily swayed. With a shadowed smile, Moke motioned around the chamber. “I hope this isn’t the extent of your quarters.”

“No, this is just to prevent Nûr and the others from ringing the Plane like a giant bell,” reassured Amdirlain. “I’ve got multiple floors and rooms for variety when I don’t wish to go to the surface. I’ve rooms for various crafting work, studies, libraries, and training, among others.”

“Why don’t you play us a few songs, Moke?” asked Nûr, and both snapped their gaze towards her like she’d grown a second head.

Moke looked back at Amdirlain wide-eyed and raised his hands. “Ode to the Dawn was never about you, that I swear. How could it be? You were already awake when I woke up on the hillside.”

“Relax, Moke. I’ve been told that confusion got cleared up,” reassured Amdirlain, but couldn’t resist teasing. “Eventually.”

Moke rubbed the back of his head before he reached down and pulled a lyre from the storage pouch at his waist.

“What am I meant to do while he is playing?” asked Amdirlain.

“Project whatever emotions relate to the words or the music for you. Keep it low enough that Moke can still function,” instructed Nûr.

The first dancing notes gave Amdirlain the impression of a bird floating on a breeze. His repertoire of songs, poems and stories ran them from light, joyous dancing to dark tales of hungry undead. He finally paused after hours of playing, and Amdirlain took the chance to ask a question.

“What do you feel about the situation with the gods?”

“Unsettled, with the accord the hag you knew as Usd’ghi forced them to sign to allow peace from her curse. The gods have made it clear being Human and faithless or false means you answer to her in the end. Anyone faithful goes on to their primary patron’s Domain, which may be nowhere near your ancestors. The Adventurers’ Guild bards are unaligned missionaries spreading the word of all the surviving gods' teachings as unbiasedly as possible,” explained Moke. “Your cadre opens portals to let priests access regions where their gods were unknown. Those nations where some gods survived cling to their own. Now, instead of thousands of gods, we have fifty-six—though some argue even that count includes mere heroic figures—its chaos.”

“Not my cadre; they’ve their own agenda,” argued Amdirlain, holding back a wince at what Epochē had managed.

“Well, their own mission that they dedicated to your name and tenets, to keeping peace and humanity alive,” declared Moke. “Hamlets, villages, and towns were going up in flames left and right. Then they got involved—hearing repeated tales of forces being wiped out by earthen spikes and fireballs cooled the head of even the most blood-thirsty warrior.”

“I understand it didn’t cool heads in Eyrarháls,” queried Amdirlain.

“That was early on; Þiúðmundr’s eldest tried to get out Eyrarháls’ guard to have the cadre enforce his rule over neighbouring jarls. Now his sister, Lady Angrboda, serves as the Steward of Eyrarháls for the cadre. Most won’t even speak his name without spitting, especially after he cut his brother’s throat for trying to get them to stand down.”

“Hrafn?” asked Amdirlain, and at Moke’s nod, she continued. “Was he still the Jarl’s spymaster and bard during his brother's rule?”

“He was, but they’d been butting heads on several issues, the cadre’s compound among them,” Moke said with a shrug. “I would have expected him to handle it smoothly, but Hrafn wasn’t too right in the head after Odinn’s death. It wasn’t uncommon for former priests to handle things less than delicately during their time of mourning. Your desired power transition to Ebusuku spared your priests that fate. Eivor and the others were in shock and quiet. I was waiting for the storm to start to rage, then before they broke fully, Ebusuku spread the word there was hope for you.”

“Was it that way with all the changes?” asked Amdirlain, and she hurried to clarify before he could start. “I mean the priests, like with Hrafn, the erratic behaviour and bad endings.”

Moke grimaced as if he’d bitten into something foul. “I think it depends on the nature of the new Liege. A lot of Thor’s priesthood killed themselves in fits of madness after Raivo claimed his Mantle, that was the worst. Everywhere there was mourning for the fallen. I don’t know if that eased the Hag’s curse or made it worse with people seeing their gods falling like leaves from a rotten tree.”

“I wish I’d been there to stop it,” murmured Amdirlain.

“I think you could have killed most of them with your eyes closed,” said Moke. “Yngvarr told me about your butchery at the Dragon’s fishing hole. He made it sound like you were death incarnate.”

“I’ve met an Aspect of Death. I wouldn’t want to cross him,” deflected Amdirlain, glad to change the subject. Though she was unsure if she wanted to know what Yngvarr had to say about her.

Moke’s gaze lit up with excitement. “Do you know their name? Am I allowed to know it?”

“Why do you ask?”

“The Hag is the only Goddess of death left in the pantheon. Some people want to pray to someone to ensure their loved ones transition peacefully. I’d prefer them not give her power,” explained Moke. “She’s responsible for hundreds of thousands of extra deaths in the wars, and for her to gain that power from their belief and prayers makes me sick. I want to pray my mother’s Soul is safe, but I won’t pray to that bitch. I don’t know if I even need to do so, but once I would have prayed to Anubis that she was safe in the afterlife.”

“He’s a servant of the Titan. I’m not sure he’s allowed to answer prayers, or if any aspects in his service can,” cautioned Amdirlain.

“I’ll just have to hope he’s listening and can help any lost souls,” imploredMoke. “Know any others?”

The steely look in Moke’s gaze had Amdirlain shaking her head. “Only four others, but I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“The worst that can happen is that they don’t respond to the prayers,” said Moke. “Better to pray to a being that won’t answer than her.”

“They’re primordial beings, Moke; I don’t know how they’ll react. You’d be better off proposing people pray to the Concept itself.”

“People are used to gods with names, not a faceless Concept. Isn’t that our choice, to risk it or not?”

His question had her biting back a denial, and Amdirlain exhaled sharply. “You folks like hitting me with that question. Having a name doesn’t mean they have a face. Gideon is the principle Aspect of Knowledge, and they appear like a spherical gemstone with infinite facets. I’d bet the golden scripts of announcements people saw were from Gideon. It also manages classes and even that rush of energy people get when they’re progressing because it knows how meaningful everything is to individuals and their progression.”

Moke struck an exaggerated pose with his arms upstretched. “Would you please help me figure out the best way to order my library, oh great vast and wondrous Concept of Knowledge?”

Lowering his arms, he folded them across his chest before dramatically tapping his chin. “Not feeling it. I think Gideon is far better, especially since it might encourage people to treasure knowledge if they look like a gemstone. But seriously, you knew the name of the being that determines our classes advancement, and you wouldn’t share it?”

Catching his teasing, Amdirlain kept her tone light. “I’ve shared it with non-mortals. The four other aspects I know are Laodice, who is War, Eleftherios is Death, Theinas is Law, and Ruithor is Oblivion.”

“Those last four sound Greek,” noted Moke. He checked the spelling with her, getting out a stick of charcoal and a piece of parchment as he did so.

“The Titan was originally from the same realm as the Greek gods. He fled their imprisonment and torment. His crime was that he was born not a God but a Titan, a primordial being not in need of worshipers, so they hounded him and killed his loved ones until he left their realm. Eventually, he created this reality with the help of his songbird and three primordial dragons. The Greek gods eventually weakened in that other reality and came here hoping to wrest this realm from his care,” recounted Amdirlain.

“That account begs so many questions,” Moke exclaimed, his eyes gleaming with an excitement previously absent.

“The Titan hoped they would change, or at least the good ones would break away from their corrupt leadership. Your world was a chance to prove to him they had, but they blindly followed Zeus and triggered not one but two Gods’ Wars,” stated Amdirlain. Catching the surprise from Nûr, Amdirlain held up a hand to stop Moke’s questions. “I’m not explaining more, Moke. I’m not sure I should have even provided that much information.”

“Why did he create this realm? It's such an imperfect place, so many evil things prosper,” grumbled Moke.

The tone of accusation had Amdirlain grinding her teeth, but she recognised in part it was an old frustration of Orhêthurin at work. “The Titan and his songbird had never created a world before this realm, Moke, and they set about creating millions of worlds. I think they tried their best, by creating rules for an entire reality in a way that it could grow. Would that really be a simple feat? From what I’ve learnt, they were in pain and mourning their lost family even when they created this place. Does anyone do the best work in such a situation?”

“Why did they create it then?” Moke asked.

“It wasn’t just for themselves. The realm was a refuge for others who’d also suffered at the hands of beings that held power over them. They wanted a challenging place but also one that would hold individuals to account. Are there problems? Yes. Do we have options to improve things for ourselves and others? Yes. Do enough people do that? No.”

Moke frowned in dissatisfaction. “So it's just on us to fix it. How is that fair?”

“Life isn’t fair, and no one person has to fix everything. You can improve things, leave them as they are, or look to make things worse. That is the key question at the end of anyone's life: are people better off because I was around or because I’m no longer around?”

“Have I helped or hurt the most?” murmured Moke.

“Exactly, but a mortal’s death isn’t the end of the negative impact they can have on existence. Those evil and vile enough, their Soul will carry their corruption into the Abyss. Here it will remain, weighing the realm down until the destruction of all the demons that spawn from that vileness.”

“How can good win against that?”

“Evil feeds on itself as much, if not more, than it feeds on the realm’s good. Trillions of demons die yearly on their Home Plane without a good being having to lift a hand. Though it's not something to be relaxed about because—from that destruction—stronger demons can grow. Do you think the Abyss was always evil?”

“Of course, it must have been,” declared Moke.

“No, it wasn’t. The material in the Abyss is from a place called The Far Chaos and has the potential to be shaped into anything with enough power. But that makes the Abyss a place without rules and limits, so it attracts souls only interested in themselves. It used to be a wild, unpredictable, and even amoral place, but it wasn’t originally evil or corrupt. The corruption soaked into the Abyss with the vile souls that found their way here, slowly transforming it. Have you spoken to Livia since she got appointed to one of the High Justice seats?”

“No,” admitted Moke. “She’s in Nova Roma since her appointment, working with an ex-slave who calls himself Marauder.”

“Ask her how many jarls and lords are trying to blame her or other high justices for problems that existed even before the Gods’ War. Heck, even the people that caused the problems try ‌to blame them for not solving the problems. There will always be people wanting to shift the blame to someone else rather than rolling up their sleeves to do their share of the work. Can they agree on a name for either of the combined kingdoms yet?”

“No,” grumbled Moke, and Amdirlain got the impression it was an argument he’d given up on seeing resolved.

“Do me a favour, just propose ‘The Republic’ to Livia,” offered Amdirlain. “Tell her to use it in paperwork and see if it takes off. I’ll leave it to someone in the Adventurers’ Guild to figure out their name.”

Moke narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but Amdirlain could tell he’d caught onto her having fun. “Why that name? The Republic? It sounds strange, but not elven.”

“Because I’ll find it slightly funny if they adopt it—not perfect, but slightly suitable. Plus, if other kingdoms decide to join, the name doesn’t have to change.”

“What would be a perfect name?” questioned Moke.

“Oh, ‘The Old Republic’, but ‘The New Republic’ might work. Though a republic isn’t exactly what they’ve formed. If it was a republic, everyone would have a vote on matters important to their region, yet still within the overarching laws that the cadre set. The three combined kingdoms have the new senatorial system of Nova Roma, and the Norse elected jarls, but there are still hereditary lords from Darius. Anyway, I’d prefer some republic name over The Empire, or anything like that,” mused Amdirlain, and motioned to his lyre. “I’d like to wind up for today, Nûr. Instead of practising emotions, can Moke teach me a few songs?”

“That would be Moke’s choice,” teased Nûr.

“Would you do me the honour of hearing you sing?” asked Moke. “I’ve heard the Lómë’s songs in the grotto this time, well, some of them at least. Nûr said others were being sung that I couldn’t hear.”

“I remember the purification song didn’t react well with the curse,” recalled Amdirlain with a frown. “That was years ago; I’m surprised you remembered me trying to get you to hear them?”

“I remember that and all the rest of my ignorant assumptions,” sighed Moke. “I’m glad you were forgiving of my youthful obliviousness.”

“May I?” Amdirlain asked and pointed to a dagger hilt poking from the top of his boot. Moke scrambled to unsheathe the blade and quickly presented the hilt to her.

Taking the blade from him, Amdirlain turned it over, took in the blade’s balance, the sound of its good steel, bereft of enchantments, and began to sing. Soon the burnished steel took on a liquid silver sheen, and when its glow settled, she passed back the now mithril blade. He turned it over in his hands with an almost reverence before he secured it away.

“Thank you for that gift, and that honour, Lady Amdirlain,” breathed Moke. “I never thought I’d hear a Goddess sing today. It was like listening to a waterfall of sound wash through my mind. I’ve not felt so inspired to write a song in years.”

Amdirlain fixed Moke with a beaming smile. “My name is Amdirlain. I told you, no lady needed, and I’m not currently a goddess either, just a prisoner of the Abyss because of my cursed state. Now, would you teach me some songs, particularly some ribald ones, please? I’ve got a friend I want to get to blush.”

Moke coughed in surprise, but quickly started the first song. By the time they wrapped up, Amdirlain had a dozen new songs memorised. Teleport set her in the training hall, which was unexpectedly empty. Shifting between other rooms they ‌were currently using in the hideaway provided the same result. Finally, appearing at the doorway to Torm’s study, she spotted the memory crystal on his desk and teleported to the main meeting hall.

“Guess I’ll entertain myself for a while.”

Restraining her giggles, Amdirlain started with The Imperial March, enjoying the echoes of sound that came back to her from the tunnels.