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Knight Commander Kybele
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The first thing Kybele will notice when she wakes up is almost certainly the enormous pain in her chest. It's not that there's a shortage of things to notice, in the middle of a busy market square mid festival, but that's the kind of thing that really tends to grab the attention. Wherever she fell asleep, she certainly isn't there now.

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In that case she'll try just singing it, which tends to work significantly more often than you'd think with other good people. There's something about the music that seems to resonate with such people and it's worth a shot to see if that applies here.

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"I can probably at least reproduce the opening few notes."

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"That'll have to do, then. Do you need any healing before you go? I assume not, but it's not like I'm using my first circle spells for anything else at the moment."

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"I have this weird persistent possibly cursed chest wound but nothing acute that I'd expect to respond."

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"We don't get remove curse until third circle, unfortunately, and I'm pretty sure the count focuses on injuries and diseases. I could try a heroism if you wanted, though, it might at least help with any symptoms for the next hour."

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"If that happens to be convenient I'd appreciate it, I never know what's going to startle me into doing something that aggravates it."

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Heroism, as it turns out, feels pretty great actually. Any unendorsed self doubts quiet themselves a bit, still there if she looks for them but not intruding without permission, leaving only the concerns she feels are worth listening to. There's a sense of increased confidence, but confidence that comes from being more capable of doing things, not of just expecting things to work out for the best anyway. For someone with good self reflection, the spell seems to be informing her that she'll be better at most things she tries.

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"Oh, I could get used to that, what a neat spell."

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"I'm quite fond of it. There are supposed to be two better versions you can pick up at higher circles, but neither of them last as long so they sound less useful for blowing people's socks off in a concert or dealing with an ongoing emergency so I'm not sure I'd get as much use out of them. May Desna aid you in your travels!"

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"Thanks!"

She samples some of the food on her way out, learns some names, smiles at some people, corrects a mispronunciation of her name, and then is on her way to look for the plumed fellow.

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There are a couple of injured crusaders over there with some civilians that seem to be being seen to by a young girl with burnt arms and a crow on her shoulder, but none of them seem to have a plume on their helmet.

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She'll swing by the girl - elf might well mean pointy ears, the Storyteller had those. "Good day."

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"I hope it'll be a good day too. There are a lot of people who are hurting from all the fighting, but if we all do our best we can help everyone, and maybe then people will stop lashing out at everyone else out of pain and fear. Most people make better decisions when they're doing better."

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"Are you Ember?" It's a weird choice of moniker for a person with burn scars who is not, because of weird local rules, an illustrati, but it's none of Ky's business.

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"Yes, and this is Soot," she says, gesturing to the bird. "Do you need help? You look like you're in some pain, but I can't see any injuries on you, so maybe I'm wrong."

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"I actually do have an odd curse wound but I'm coping and channels don't fix it. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to maximize the odds that tomorrow will be a good day, by forming a party suitable to cover an attempt to fix the wardstone."

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"I'm sorry to hear that; maybe someday I'll figure out how to help you but I don't know it yet."

The girl looks like she considers it her personal responsibility to make sure everyone is always okay and this is her failing her job.

"The way you say that, it sounds important, and you don't seem like you're afraid so maybe it's a good idea, but I don't know what that means or what you'll be doing."

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"The Storyteller - I don't know if you're acquainted - says that the stone can be repaired with some of Deskari's blood. I have a sample. In theory I just need to go apply the blood to the stone. But there's a lilitu in there, among others."

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"That does sound hard. I would love to be able to help demons too, but they've spent their whole life learning that the only way to get anywhere is to constantly be willing and able to hurt and betray everyone around them, or else bow their heads and obey the orders of whoever can until that changes, and it's extremely difficult for them to heal from that kind of hurt when they're constantly stuck in the same situation. I mostly try putting them to sleep if they're in the middle of hurting people, but that doesn't last forever and then sometimes people try killing them while they're asleep which makes things even harder."

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"- I had not come by the impression that they were able to recover, I'd love to see an example if you've gotten that far with anybody!"

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"Mostly I just try to work with helping cultists recover, since nobody will let me keep a demon long enough to see if I'll get anywhere; they all get nervous about the fact that it's probably a trick and I can't guarantee I'll be able to stop them it they change their mind. But they're people, just like you and me and Soot, that can have experiences and change and grow, just ones that have suffered terribly. Is it really so hard to believe that some of them could come to be better and not worse?"

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"It seems plausible but I'd never seen one before yesterday so I didn't have many preconceptions either way. Your bird is a person? Hello, Soot, I'm Kybele the Curator."

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The crow caws something that sounds affirmative at her.

"He is! Grandmother sent him here to help me, though he has a hard time using words with most people. You can talk to a lot of animals if you know what you're doing, but most of them can't carry on much of a conversation and aren't nearly as smart as Soot is."

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"There are people who are very good with birds back home but I think not in quite this way." Will Soot let her pet him.

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Soot will tolerate this as long as she is gentle about it.

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