"At a guess, she was hoping to assassinate you before the Edict could be pronounced, and didn't move fast enough. That's what I would have tried if I needed to hold against an Edict and was somehow warned when one was coming. Which is to say, if I was both a fool and a military man, which I'm not, but I've read enough campaign journals in my time to guess. If I need to respecialize - well, I've used Fire, mostly for campfires but I think I could de-rust that old training enough to remember the right mindset for a cone of flame or a good-ranged fireball."

"Mmm, that would do it.  I'm glad she was late; she's a good person.  I'd hate to have to fight her.

"We'll have to compare notes on Vigor and Preservation, especially if they synergize, and I do think there's plenty of worth to be found in coordinated Illusions, but I do think only one of us needs to be focused on the Orphan Midwife's Sigil, and - I've something of a knack for it, apparently.  Unless your touchstone is different from mine?"

"No, no, one of her students came down to the Tiers with her sigil and taught us. That's why she's imprisoned, or so I always heard. It's not particularly common with Sages, but we never had the best reputation, and I figured nothing better for getting goodwill than being a healer, and if it kept me together through some nasty scrapes, so much the better. Which it did, fieldwork has its risks even if you don't go for the exciting career-making or -ending jaunts into the Oldwalls."

"Mm, yeah, I do remember that in my own readings.  Well, healing is always valuable.  Don't let it rust.  But what's the difference between the Sigils of Preservation and Vigor?  Not to ask for guild secrets or anything like that, just relevant tactical information, but if Preservation could make the energy expended by invigoration last longer..."

"Extra partial vertical line at the top - it's a bit like you want to make it halfway to Life, actually - and then think about it differently. It's more limited, probably it's one of those unusual accents that happens to be a simpler physical sigil but a complicated effect, rather than a sigil of its own. But it can make weapons and armor keep their edge or be restored for a few moments like they'd just been forged, you can reinforce just about anything against incoming damage, and with a proper ritual you can make a bookcase proof against any damage for decades, centuries if you keep renewing it on the same targets. They'll probably be using that on the walls, when the armies get to Ascension Hall; I know they repaired damage from the last siege with it."

"...I now have some harebrained schemes to exploit the 'like it's just been forged' property, depending upon how it reaches to implement that.  Is it - a magical impression?  Does it try to summon the actual material used in the original?  At what point is a thing - no longer the thing that it was?  What does it do about alchemical reactions?"

"Regardless, I truly hope that we will be able to - skip the 'taking Ascension Hall', bits, and needing to know what Preservation does to large structures.  I'm certainly trying to."

"By diplomacy? Well, it's worth a try, I suppose, but the reasonable ones just took the surrender and stuck to it. I'm not sure Tarkis Arri would prefer a peaceful resolution to stalling us for a year and dying to the Edict."

"By selling them on trying to rise now having been bloody stupid, and buying time for them to cool off as well as common cause in 'fuck Nerat'."

"...And your Scarlet Fury is in on that common cause?," he says, looking worriedly at Verse.

"Nerat's a monster. Just because I like his army doesn't mean I like him."

(...Oh, right, Lantry wasn't there for that conversation.)

"I suppose. Then, well, I don't disagree, I'm just not so optimistic that they'll see it as preferable. Not that they trusted me, but I overheard enough and translated some."

"...Hopefully the evidence that prisoners can be safely traded by at least some parties will get the Disfavored on board.

"...And speaking of the Disfavored; Barik, I think we could get something useful out of Lantry and-or myself taking a look at what's happening with your armor, sometime.  That's not an order, though, just a thought.  I know it's not at all comfortable in there, but letting a strange wizard poke you is hardly something I expect to be moreso than otherwise, even if it's a different sort of discomfort."

"While I dearly want to be extracted from this thing, given it was created by an Edict of Kyros, I think it wise to request a ruling of permission from Tunon first. I have not yet had the opportunity to request it."

"...I see no reason that a thing being a secondary or tertiary consequence of an Edict means that you need Kyros's permission - or Tunon's, for that matter - to look at it.  It's hardly Forbidden Knowledge.  Messing with it...The relevant law is not particularly clear, primarily, I imagine, because not even Kyros saw this coming, but - it is my belief that it is only - somehow subverting the expression of an Edict - that is an offense against Kyros's Law, not - enduring it by whatever means are at your disposal.  I will inquire to Tunon about a similar hypothetical in the bird I'm sending Courtwards; that will be more likely to result in a good outcome than just suddenly asking.  ...At the same time, I have not been smote for telling the Earthshakers to see if they can shape the Edict affecting what was once, and is no longer, Azure; that, if anything, is closer to a bright line than this.

"Still, if you wish to hold off, it is your decision.  I will not rush you."

"I would appreciate your asking him, thank you. I think... as the Sage says, trying to guess what the Overlord did and did not see coming is often foolish, if not reckless."

"Mm, yes, well.  If Kyros did not want us to take the initiative whatsoever, why are we ever given it?

"I think I'd best get to writing these letters, though.  Only so much daylight available."

"...Oh, there's also the - proof by contradiction, I suppose - that you would technically be 'interfering' by daring to continue to move - but I think I'll save that one for argument."

Regardless, daylight is burning and she has letters to write.

The one to Calio needs to be finished, for instance.

Dear Calio,

I regret that I do not write with pleasant news, above and beyond the bit where I am dealing with two Archons having a snit and their forces following their lead; it seems that someone has been stealing from the Court's shipments of iron to the front!  As I cannot track this down from the Lethian end, being trapped inside Vendrien's Well until something about the present situation changes, I thought I might prevail upon you to shake loose what information may be found within the records of the shipping concerns of the Crossing, and so on down, if you have the time.  I'm told that the Iron Guard were hiring on random drovers from whoever was available for the last miles of transport; I believe that's likely where the theft happened, and will be pursuing that on my end, but would like you to do so on yours, if you've the time.  Please tell them that I did not hire them to make sure the iron made it most of the way to its destination.

The shipments were arriving underweight; I'll transcribed the amount that should have arrived, vs. the amount that did, with the shipping information.

Additionally, whoever did it managed to steal the most recent shipment sent to the Disfavored in its entirety, which suggests that they knew before I did that the valley would close - at least, I would not have risked such audacity had I not known that the opportunity to steal Forge-Bound iron was drawing to a close.  And since so much of it is ending up in Vendrien hands...I am concerned.

The crates in question would have borne the Disfavored's mark somewhere, which I have reproduced below.

[Ophelia here retranscribes the mark, actual size, and the various suppliers, shipment sizes, and results.]

I here leave off this scroll to speak to the Scarlet Chorus and determine if they have experienced similar supply shrinkages.

I here resume this scroll, having done so and found...

Something is afoot, in Lethian's Crossing; the last shipments through that location both vanished, Chorus and Disfavored.  Sniggler Dagos, the Chorus's quartermaster, reports that this did not occur in any shipment sent by another route; this is corroborated by the Disfavored's records of barstock trades from the Chorus not showing any theft-like fluctuations, not that I'm sure how that happened.  I expect whoever is leaking our shipments' times and contents to be relatively high-ranking; they would not have had the access to know that Vendrien's Well would be closed, otherwise.

Sniggler Dagos said the concern that would have been transporting his last order was the Yellow Moguls, for the record.  (Additionally, he is rather confident that the shipment "disappeared" after it left the river, which concurs with what is known to me about the thefts of shipments for the Disfavored.)

Please also find attached (I hope):

- One (1) official copy of a judgement rendered with intent that the masses come to know of it and don't waste our time with identical cases, in re: one bronze heirloom falx, arbitrated.

- A letter regarding a perhaps less hypothetical situation than I'd prefer; this is intended for Tunon, but if there are any Fatebinders who know more of where that particular field of law stands, I would equally appreciate their reply.

- A copy of the declaration made subsequent to my reading of the Edict of Execution, and my letter opening diplomatic communications with the Vendrien Guard, for the historical record.

- A corollary judgement to in re: Chorus conscription of Beastmen tribes c. Disfavored, in re: Lantry, at the time a prisoner of the Scarlet Chorus c. Vaudelle

- A copy of a stipulation of events made between myself and a representative of the Vendrien Guard.

- An observation made on the behavior of the Scarlet Chorus in light of Kyros's Second Law.

- Perhaps another thing that does not immediately come to mind as I write this, but I believe the last item to be that which I was wracking my brain for.

In other news, please do reassure Tunon and the others that no matter the news out of Vendrien's Well, I am loyal to the principles of Kyros's Peace, as ever I have been.  I'm running a bit of a con, at the moment, you see.  And on the matter of storytelling...be careful with my mythos, would you?  I don't wish to become a second Nerat; one of him is already more than there should be, really, and I think that at this point I will be proclaimed an Archon whether I like it or not, or end up dead.  There's not much else I - expect as an outcome, knowing what fulfills this Edict and what Cairn thought would save him from the last.

Stay safe.

-- (Exarch) Fatebinder Ophelia Vaudelle

Master Tunon,

I have recently had occasion to contemplate a situation that I do not believe to necessarily be adequately addressed by the existing body of the Law of Kyros.

Let us assume that there is a man who is sworn to Kyros's Peace, who lives in an area that is not.

Let us assume that one day, an Edict is spoken upon the land.

Let us assume that in the speaking of the Edict, this loyal servant of Kyros is for whatever reason caught up in the tumult, and in a position to be lastingly harmed by it - for instance, one could contemplate his being entombed inside a warehouse that was sunken by your order in the Bastard City.

 

What recourse does he have to amend this?

As ever, your loyal and perhaps too curious servant,

--Fatebinder Ophelia Vaudelle

BE IT KNOWN:

That on this the SECOND DAY of the MONTH OF BLOOD, in the year FOUR-HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE by Kyros's TRUE RECKONING, Fatebinder Ophelia Vaudelle did take into her service and thereby expunge of any prior guilt the man LANTRY, formerly of the SAGES' GUILD, who was at the time in the custody of the SCARLET CHORUS, by corollary of the decision made in re: Beastfolk conscripted by the Scarlet Chorus, as challenged by the Disfavored, and furthermore, existing vassalage law,

That no party to this decision challenged it upon grounds of inapplicability, exempli gratia Lantry having hypothetically been prior sworn to Kyros's Peace or as vassal to another, and any such future argument is MOOT;

BE IT KNOWN:

--

Hm, she'll come back to this one later.  She needs to talk to Lantry about his status, and right now she is busy writing.

BE IT KNOWN:

That this memorandum is not of itself a judgement, but is nonetheless a statement containing a position undertaken by a Fatebinder of Tunon's Court, such that it is intended to be referenced in official proceedings thereof;

That this memorandum is upon the practices of the SCARLET CHORUS as personally observed in the territory of VENDRIEN'S WELL,

That in this memorandum this Fatebinder does hold harmless the actions undertaken by the members of the Chorus, especially as regards any testimony given as supplementary evidence, for wisdom of the Law of Kyros is that of the Fatebinders; the members of the Chorus were following the principle of Archon's Privilege, and to shine a light upon what may be higher treason in the form of wastefulness is a purpose more important than to punish petty murder; however, this Fatebinder considers those members of the Chorus she has personally intervened in the cases of so warned such that should they begin an aggressive campaign within the Chorus's ranks without sanction or witness by a superior (witness including such a case as assault of the superior in question), deaths caused would be properly murder, instead of a question of the delegation of Right of Destruction.

This Fatebinder further wishes to note that to follow a direct order illegally given, such that it is known to be illegal, is still a crime; this matter is about Archon's Privilege used to mislead about what is a crime.

BEGINS THE MEMORANDUM:

I, Fatebinder Ophelia Vaudelle, do testify before the Court that I have observed the Archon of Secrets Voices of Nerat and its many hands, such as Fifth Eye, wilfully cultivating an environment within the Scarlet Chorus in which Kyros's Right of Destruction is seemingly intentionally disregarded in favor of the cultivation of inter-hierarchical strife.

"...The words are seeping out of my brain.  Hey Verse, do you mind if I quote you as an example of an absurd but so far as I know legally valid delegation of Right of Destruction, with the way you assassinated the Ass guy?  ...That is a lot of assing."

"Fine Ass and the Ass Gang, it was already a lot of ass. As, like, an example of Chorus rules in action? Sure, go ahead."