NOVEL WEB CHAPTER 52: A CONVERSATION IN THE DARK
Zahara Bardoul, Songmaster, Ivory Lvl 14
Mount Discovery, Province of Aragonia
Zahara Bardoul
Race
Human
Rank/Level
Ivory Rank Songmaster Level 14
House
House Bardoul
Racial Gifts
System Access, Minor House Seal, Limited Inventory, Mindspeech, Eidetic Memory
Attributes
Dominion
15 [Fire] / 50
Speed
39 [Djevek] / 50
Precision
20 [Voice] / 50
Growth
18 [Life] / 50
Arcana
35 [Music] / 50
Tensa Pool
2 ms [770 ks base + 1023 ks tensa batteries]
Gear
Legendary 9 string djevek, Systablo, replacement djevek strings, casual clothing, formal attire, picking glove, etheric amplifier, tensa batteries
Core Grafts
Firebolt [Fire], Divine Chord [Djevek], Babble [Voice], Mend [Life], Backing Track [Music]
Class Powers
Attack
Shredding Solo [Djevek]
Fiery Words [Fire]
Defense
Cacophany [Music]
Utility
Firestarter [Fire]
Summon Instrument [Music]
Amplify Voice [Voice]
Movement
Traveling Song [Music]
Support
Healing Burst [Life]
Encouragement [Voice]
It was fully dark before Zahara could split off from the rest of the team. The trek up the mountain had taken hours, all of it requiring intensive cooperation and assistance. They had transport constructs with them that could handle the rough terrain but it wasn’t easy and they needed her Ivory-rank strength more than once to help with a difficult passage.
Now they were finally set up on a flat clifftop at their first base camp on the mountain. They were only a kilometer up the towering 6.5-kilometer mountain, but they weren’t planning on climbing to the peak: they were setting up search patterns. But there was something Zahara had to do.
Base camp was a busy place. Xander had decided to go with a full Vasilias Reborn team expedition, complete with a non-Reborn staff of ten. They planned on splitting the party and each of the non-Reborn people were expert survivalists or were local mountaineers with specific Mt. Discovery experience. Xander had been extremely thorough in his planning this time. He was quite determined to avoid the disaster that the Water Temple had become.
Zahara summoned her djevek into her hands, already pushing tensa into her fingertips as she began gently plucking the strings. The Divine Chord she wove into her song was a soothing one meant to relax and heal. She hummed a harmony, using her Amplify Voice graft to control her voice’s volume precisely. She was playing so softly and the camp was already abuzz with activity that no one remarked on the tune.
Just as she had planned, once she started playing, the Divine Chord would turn everyone’s attention elsewhere and she could slip away unnoticed. She especially had her eye on Jessaline Braedes. She was a natural psychic with the ability to inveigle her way into your mind and read your thoughts and only Zahara’s advanced rank and training had kept her out. She wanted to hate the other woman for being so intrusive, but found she couldn’t: after all, her suspicion was warranted.
The mountainside away from their camp wasn’t too steeply inclined yet. They were near the base of the mountain and things were relatively easy down here. Zahara made her way quickly and quietly through the forest, just a hundred meters away from the camp, and pulled the amulet her mother had given her from around her neck. The silver snake medallion glittered in the soft moonslight.
With a shudder, Zahara dropped the medallion into the undergrowth and crept away, hurrying to get back to the base camp before she was missed. A voice stopped her in her tracks.
“It’s a lovely night out for a walk, isn’t it Lady Bardoul?”
Jessaline Braedes. Of course, it was Jessaline Braedes. She stepped out of the shadows behind one of the trees that grew so close together on the lower slopes of the mountain. Zahara couldn’t read her expression. There was no triumph, no suspicion, just blank-faced mild interest. She very pointedly did not look where she’d dropped the medallion. Zahara hoped she wouldn’t have to kill Jessaline tonight.
“Please, I wish you wouldn’t call me that. I’m Zahara, just Zahara. I left my House a long time ago.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “I wanted to go for a quick walk around the perimeter of the camp. You startled me.”
Jessaline nodded, walking a few steps closer. Zahara felt herself tense up, her body getting ready to explode into action. Jessaline’s gaze darted over her, her third eye staring directly into Zahara’s eyes. The other woman casually stood next to her and seemed to be at a loss for what to say.
Eventually, Jessaline just came out with it. “I wanted to find you because…well. I’ve not been giving you much of a chance and…” her voice trailed off as she struggled to find the words.
Zahara was astonished. Of all the things she had expected from Jessaline Braedes, this was not it. Jessaline sniffed sharply and breathed out slowly. “And I wanted to apologize,” the woman finished in a near whisper.
Zahara glanced at her from the corner of her eye as she stared out into the night down the mountain not letting her inner turmoil show on her face. Is she peering into my mind right now? Does she know what I did? She thought she was safe from her Stone rank grafts, but psychic Classes were well known for their slipperiness. I could hurl her off the mountain right now and no one would know.
“No apology necessary,” she said, her voice relaxed and light. “You were protecting your leader and your Lord. It’s only natural that you’d suspect me.”
“Oh I’m aware of all that,” Jessaline replied. “But you’ve stuck around when you could’ve gone back to your nice little club in the city. And you’ve saved all of our lives. That’s worth something. A lot.”
Zahara nodded. “I appreciate what it took to say that,” she said softly. “You’re not an easy person to win over, you know that?”
Jessaline shrugged and flipped her pink hair with a flick of her head, “I don’t really try to be, not my job. Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say.” She held her hand out to Zahara and Zahara took it.
Jessaline’s grip was firm. She held the grip for a little longer than felt socially acceptable, then stepped back and let the shadows enclose her. Zahara’s senses immediately lost her and she frowned to herself. She would have to remember just how stealthy Jessaline was in the future.
Zahara let out a shaky breath. That was a close call, she thought. I’m glad I didn’t have to kill her. That would’ve been hard to explain back at camp. She shuddered. Since when did I consider killing a viable option? My mother’s mentality really has infected me.
Hunching her shoulders against a cold that she didn’t feel externally, she hurried back to base camp, doing her best to forget the serpent medallion and her mother.
Jessaline Braedes, Psi-Scout, Stone Lvl 9
Mount Discovery, Province of Aragonia
Jessaline Braedes
Race
Human
Rank/Level
Stone Rank Psi-Scout Level 9
House
House Braedes
Racial Gifts
Stealthy, (Enhanced) System Access, Natural Psychic, Empath, Manipulator
Attributes
Dominion
28 [Swift] /30
Speed
19 [Spider] / 30
Precision
25 [Eye] / 30
Growth
22 [Dark] / 30
Arcana
27 [Mind] / 30
Tensa Pool
720 ks
Gear
Vasilias Stealth Armor, Pulse Sniper Rifle, Spider Dagger, Grapnel, Utility Belt, Climbing Claws, Legendary BOTI Bag
Grafts
Web of Shadows [Dark], Third Eye [Mind], Preternatural Movement [Swift], Danger Sense [Spider], Identify [Eye]
Class Powers
Attack
Subtle Strike [Swift]
Utility
Automap [Eye]
Telekinesis [Mind]
Farsight [Eye]
Jessaline watched Zahara from the shadows made by the dense forest. Nights like this were perfect for her Web of Shadows graft since the moons were all out at once causing stark yet confusing shadows everywhere. She wanted to see what Zahara would do and she hadn’t been disappointed. Of course, Zahara knew Jessaline was suspicious, and her mental discipline was incredibly strong—for anyone who wasn’t a Natural Psychic. Her natural facility with mental-aspected grafts and powers meant that even an Ivory rank Bard couldn’t keep her out for long.
Jessaline had every opportunity to observe Zahara on their journey to and from the Water Temple and then in their near month of convalescence in Heldon while Xander was recovering. She’d constantly tested her defenses in the open and with Zahara’s full knowledge. The Bard had been very confident in her training and her rank.
But Jessaline had managed to inveigle a tiny bead of consciousness within the other woman’s mind. It was enough to get a fleeting image: a coiled silver serpent medallion with jeweled scales dropping into the undergrowth. When she was sure Zahara had left, she returned to the spot she’d been standing in and looked around.
She frowned. There was nothing here. Why was she thinking about that medallion so hard? Jessaline thought. She’d never seen a snake that looked like the one in the medallion. She closed her regular eyes, focusing through her Third Eye.
She was nearly knocked off her feet by the emotional echoes that had soaked into the very ground here. Jessaline focused her Third Eye on where she knew Zahara had been standing. Her Third Eye did not see the world like her other two did.
Standing there in the tiny clearing between trees was a pinkish ghostly image of Zahara: her psychic echo. The image was blurred and transparent, its edges fading into the night. Jessaline carefully modulated her tensa flow, doing her best to stabilize the image. Psychic echoes didn’t last long, though they lasted longer when high emotions were involved.
Jessaline’s Web of Shadows was too tensa-intensive for her to use this close to an Ivory-rank Reborn. There were ways of detecting tensa expenditures even from Stealth type utility powers and grafts and Ivory rank Reborn were much more sensitive to changes in tensa density. She chose to employ the Empty Field advanced anima configuration. Even though the configuration required her to split her focus between her Third Eye and her anima, it was worth it for how effective and subtle the effect was. To any outside observer, Jessaline Braedes would seem to simply fade away into the darkness until all that was there was emptiness.
After a long few seconds of fiddling, the image of Zahara sharpened into focus. Now it looked just like the beautiful Bard save for a bright pink outline. It stood there frozen for a moment, its eyes looking out into the night lifelessly. The image suddenly animated.
Jessaline watched as Zahara reached up, fiddling with something at the back of her neck. She made a curious circular motion with her hands that Jessaline realized was her removing a necklace or, more specifically, a medallion, from around her neck. But something was wrong. She should have been able to see the item that Zahara held in her hands.
She focused on the invisible necklace the psychic echo of Zahara held in her hands, but despite her considerable focus and experience, she couldn’t pierce whatever art still obscured it. That was worrying. Very worrying. Still, even if she couldn’t see it, the object left its odd psychic echoes.
The pink-outlined Zahara let the invisible medallion drop, then turned and moved stealthily away. Jessaline closed her Third Eye, stopping the tensa flow into her graft. A headache immediately knifed into her forehead but Jessaline was prepared for it. The sight the Third Eye granted was hard on the “meat”, as she liked to think of it. She didn’t bother with a health pack since the headache would disappear in just a few minutes.
She thought about the scene that had played out. It didn’t make any sense to her. Zahara comes out in the dark, moves away from the camp humming one of her enchantments to keep everyone relaxed then…what? She thought frustratedly. Mimes taking off a medallion whose psychic impression is so detailed and dripping with negative vibes that it practically screams ‘notice me’ and yet is completely invisible and leaves no trace when dropped?
Jessaline kicked at a rock embedded in the dirt. She hit it hard enough that she dislodged it and it went tumbling off down the mountainside in the dark. She didn’t have enough to do anything more than she already was. Xander wouldn’t hear anything negative about her unless there was proof.
Why am I like this? Jessaline asked herself. Is she really doing anything suspicious? Am I just caught up in the old feud, not giving her a chance simply because her surname is Bardoul?
She’d seen Lady Desalia Bardoul and Lord Marion Bardoul once at an Imperial party Xander had forced her to attend a year or so ago. She’d taken the chance to observe the infamous Bardouls, enemies of her patrons, and had been impressed.
Lord Bardoul had been a tall, thin man with a serious face and a way of lecturing when he spoke. He had a studious nature and was more interested in the intricacies and design of artifice than politics despite his high position. Still, he had cut an imposing figure in his immaculate Mage’s robes with his precisely-trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee and wavy hair and his reputation as a Water Wizard was second to none.
Lady Desalia Bardoul had been his exact opposite. She was cool, charming, beautiful, and efficient. She commanded the room easily and her conversation was witty and easy. Her Jade rank was an obvious point of pride for her—and why shouldn’t it be? So few ever reached that rank and the power it offered was beyond anything anyone could truly imagine. The woman shone with grace and confidence while exuding an air of ambition so strong to Jessaline’s psychic senses that she wondered why everyone else around her wasn’t physically affected. That glimpse of Lady Bardoul had terrified Jessaline.
In her eyes, she had seen utter dedication and utter ambition. This was a woman who would follow the Last Command joyfully and drag her entire house into Ascent by sheer force of will. Would a woman like that leave any resource—even an unwilling one like Zahara Bardoul—unexploited? Jessaline didn’t think so.
Especially when that resource is put in a group with your rival House’s few Scions who are searching for the Reborn whose appearance made your rival a Great House. Jessaline thought as she frowned in the dark again, eyes not really focusing on any one thing. Shit. When I put it that way, it becomes almost blindingly obvious.
But there was nothing there. No trace of the medallion. Only her suspicion and her logic. Jessaline wasn’t an idiot. She wasn’t going to risk her place on the team by insisting a High Lord’s lady love was a double agent working for the House that exiled her. No, that would be political and social suicide. So she would watch and prepare. She didn’t know yet for what, but she’d be watching for Zahara to do anything suspicious.
With that resolution firm in her mind—and fully realizing that this changed nothing about her current approach—she slipped back through the woods toward base camp.