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[Haspen]

You make a spam game and don't invite me over to participate?

You're a terrible person V:

Also, A

[NRDL]

A

[Draignean]

A

[Ghazkull]

C the man is loyal and a wizard. You don't fuck with wizards if they don't fuck with you.

We should concentrate on that decadent Count instead. The Priest is simply pissed off at us because religion. Nothing to worry about there yet.

[Harry Baldman]

You go to see the Queen and give her a full report of what you've discovered about the Vizier's devilry!

That's terrible, she says as you come to the end of your lecture about the horrifying godless practice of necromancy. You can rest assured that she'll not take this sort of thing lying down! Why, the nerve! He'll regret ever hiding things from his liege!

You live to serve, you say as you retreat into the shadows with an enigmatic smile. The man's not long for this world, you expect. Maybe she'll even have you do it.

255 S.I., Late Summer

1

This time, the Queen calls on you! She explains that they've had a bit of a chat, the Vizier and her, and she can't thank you enough for bringing the matter to her attention. The man's research is simply fascinating!

It's necromancy, you protest! He's doing unseemly things with corpses down there!

No, no, the Queen retorts! Necromancy, dear Spymaster, is prodding at dead people, having ghosts knocking at walls and that kind of nonsense. This is life extension! Eternal youth! That sort of thing. Nothing wrong with eternal youth, is there?

You wisely keep silent for the moment.

Anyway, the Queen says as she sips her tea, her and the Vizier have had a few fruitful discussions about the essence of life and that kind of business, and she was wondering if she could have you check up on a matter for her - there is a little thing called the Book of Hez-Shalhoub. The Vizier's been looking for it for a while now, and he seemed thrilled when she suggested that you would know where to find it!

A) "The Book of Hez-Shalhoub? Written five centuries ago by a madman as dictated by a demon? I implore you to stop, ma'am, before your very soul blackens from its corrupting touch!"
B) "The Book of Hez-Shalhoub? Consider it found, ma'am! It'll be whispering dark secrets into your ears before the year's end!"
C) "The Book of Hez-Shalhoub? That's a little bit outside of my paygrade, though if an improvement could be made on that front..."

You make a spam game and don't invite me over to participate?

You're a terrible person V:

I figured you'd notice on your own! I've always thought venerable forumites turning up to your threads is something you shouldn't force. Plus I didn't know this was apparently standard etiquette.

But yes. Yes I am.

[Ghazkull]

Thats what you get for being a tattletale for no good reason :I

[Prophet]

B We're the spymaster not the cleric... we'll suck up to her for now. First we must wait til she has a child... then we dispose of the heathen and anyone who will oppose us. Raise the child and rule from the shadows! Grand ambitions start with small steps though. First we must entrench ourselves into the court and country. We are the Prophet of the Hidden God! Our game is the long game.

[NRDL]

B

[ZBridges]

B

[VoidSlayer]

C dictated by a demon to a madman? Sounds expensive!  Probably real human skin also.  That is always costly.

[Harry Baldman]

You'll have it found in no time at all, you confidently tell the Queen. She leaves your private audience delighted! That's the kind of can-do attitude she brought you in for! Glad she can count on you!

You make a discreet sign over your heart as she leaves jauntily. May the Watcher forgive us all.

255 S.I., Fall

You grimly pore over the reports. The Book is not an easy quarry by any means, infamously something of an unholy grail among occult circles and, contrary to the Queen's own hopes, not really something you can find at a library. If you're going to make a proper operation of this, you'll need to dip into somewhat unorthodox sources.

A) Send spies to infiltrate the Jovanastian Imperial Archive - the secret repositories may have more information on the mad author and where he might have gone back in the days of the Empire.
B) Count Terentius is rumored to consort with demons and worse things beside that. Try and get information out of him.
C) The gnomes are said to know all things lost to time and tide. Prepare a suitably opulent sacrifice and a willing mind for them to possess.
D) Maybe don't look that hard for the damn thing. Gods know bringing it here won't do anybody any good if half of what you've heard is correct.

It is worth noting that the first three options may turn out a little complex. They could benefit from your personal oversight, and the kingdom appears to be stable enough that your secretary should be able to hold down the fort.

A) Put on your woad and padded shoes, it's time for a field operation!
B) Not gonna stick your neck out personally for this, thank you.

[10ebbor10]

A
A

[ZBridges]

A, A

[NRDL]

AA

[Harry Baldman]

The secretary gulps when you leave him in charge, but promises to do a serviceable enough job. You make preparations for a trip to Jovanast, and have an agile sloop ready to take you there before dawn breaks over Ortfast.

Congratulations! Spymaster Vaskir Sitar has embarked on a field operation!

255 S.I., Early Winter

Jovanast! Of all the disparate heirs to the Empire, none can claim to have retained more of its splendor. You suspect the pleasant climate helps. The streets of Khravel are filled with squabbling merchants, suspicious guards and, most favorably for you, unusual foreigners. Many are drawn by the Archive, the single most intact repository of pre-Inimic knowledge in all of the former Empire, and the Empire was notorious for its dependence on well-kept records.

Appropriate, then, that the Jovanastian Imperial Archive itself reminds you of nothing more than a fortress, elaborate spires and arcades filled with statues of long-dead luminaries only halfway disguising the sheer overbearing bulk of the defensive walls. Hooded, anointed librarian-knights patrol the premises with exceedingly sharp claymores, daring any visitor to start trouble.

Despite this, getting into the Archive itself isn't much of a problem - you can easily forge papers to have a reasonable pretext and pass the most basic security checkpoints easily. The trouble comes in getting to the juicy parts of the Archive, the deep chambers. You've heard that the caretakers of the most sacrosanct records have their eyes removed for safety. This is quite incorrect - what they do to them is actually much worse.

As you convene in your small, cramped rented room in downtown Khravel, your chosen dozen agents await your orders. There is little information about the layout of the inner archives, but you do have a vague idea about the general parts of it beyond the Visitors' Area. You thus declare your initial plan of attack as you mull over what reports your "researchers" have gathered:

A) Waylay some of the librarian-knights - their armaments and robes will offer you plenty of access to the inner areas, you expect.
B) Create a distraction - a fire in the drier sections of the Philosophers' Wing ought to grow wild enough to give you the opening you need.
C) Tempt a librarian - surely one of them has some weakness you could use to bend them to your will. It's not like you'd even need them to go too far out of their way.
D) Find a fault in the security - the fortress is old and must have some appropriately ancient stonework and tunnels to assist the entry of a dedicated strike team.