(no subject)

[sythyry]

Glynubla House [27 Hispis 4385; Eigrach; Srineia]

Nothing

I avoided everything avoidable for the next two days. That includes you.

More Nothing

When I dared come out for breakfast yesterday, everyone in the skyboat asked me, "What about that wonderful palace in the city full of slinky, slinky, sleek, sleek Orren?"

"I suppose we could go take a look," I mumbled into a chalice of kathia.

"Yay, we're going to have a palace!" cheered everyone, and danced around, in some cases waving bottles of wine. At breakfast time, yet.

"You already have one!" I snapped, and knocked over my kathia by mistake, and slunk back to my workshop and avoided everything avoidable for the rest of the day. Strayway is every bit as palatial as years of lizard-effort and hundreds of thousands of lozens can make it. Admittedly, much of the money was spent on magical experiments that didn't all work very well, and some parts are better described as 'upsetting' rather than 'elegant', but it's not that bad.

Something

The next day we set off to look at Glynubla House. Which, as it turns out, is on Via Tydirdi, though a bit closer to the main roads than Bwipin's mansion. It's not quite as huge a mansion as that, though it's a substantial layer-cake of green and purple wicker, frosted with pale yellowbuttercream carved wood. Four stories, sixty windows (invisible wood, not so expensive as glass).

The seneschal is an Orren man named Totalie. He's middle-aged and middle-heighted and middle-weighted, and has orange stripes dyed in his cheek-fur, and, today, was wearing a very smart caftan sort of silk thing with an abstract diamond-and-hexagon pattern of crimson and hezarion threads. Good work, too -- as fine as anything I've ever sewn, though of course Grinwipey could do better.

"Good day to you, and welcome to your new home of Glynubla House," said Totalie. He seemed rather bland -- rather carefully bland.

"Hello, and glad to meet you. We haven't exactly decided that we're moving in here; we'd just like to see it," I said. Totalie seemed rather taken aback, as though he couldn't imagine us not moving in.

"Well, then. The Grand Hall is through these doors..." And so it was. Grand, too, by provincial Srineian standards. Not by my standards, which are admittedly rather warped by my own Grand Dining Hall. Admittedly, I don't need a dining room three-quarters of a mile long on my skyboat (I only have one by mistake), and I don't need one that ridiculous in Eigrach either.

We were toured around the bottom two layers of the cake-mansion, all fancy rooms. The decorations were old -- in the sense of "obviously not purchased with me in mind". Lots of portraits of dignified Orren judge-ish personages. Vases of perpetually-frozen flowers. Wooden sculptures of warriors killing monsters -- some of the same Orren who were in the portraits. A rack of glass-edged swords and long spears. Very conquery sort of place.

Luncheon

When the sun burned full, two Orren servants brought out trays of fish sandwiches, boiled peas with butter, chub-beetles marinated in wine.

Phaniet sniffed at the peas, shrugged, and passed the plate to Arfaen without taking any. This is notable, because Phaniet ordinarily likes peas.

"Is something wrong with them, Phaniet?" I asked her. A bit nervously, because, not only had I taken some peas, I had eaten some already. They tasted thoroughly unpoisoned to me, but I am not a Cani.

"No, not really," she said. So I stared at her a while. "The butter's a bit off though."

Totalie curled his tail. "Please excuse, please. We bought supplies when we first heard you were visiting, but that is now a few days past."

"They're not bad really," said Arfaen. "Not quite fresh."

"I shall speak to the kitchen staff about it!" said a very worried Totalie.

"Perhaps I can," said Arfaen. "We've various ways to keep food fresh -- we've got a box of peas from Vheshrame a month ago that's still a bit better than these. I think these got left out on a counter for a couple of days, and the butter, too."

"Well, that must have been an oversight," said Totalie. "We've always had the best food here, and never any trouble with keeping even fish fresh for days."

"The bread's a bit stale too," noted Kantele. "Another three-day-old purchase, I suppose."

"I'm very sorry," said Totalie, and fidgeted in his seat. He did take a large scoop of peas, drizzled sweetened vinegar on them, and gobbled them up ostentatiously.

Inevitably....

"Do you have a suite of rooms that I could use for sorcery?" I asked, because it was required and because I had finished my lunch already.

Totalie wagged his tail, which is odd for an Orren. "In fact, we do. Let me show you them." He stood up from the table, leaving a half-plate of peas and beetles. "Shall we see them while the others finish their lunch?"

"Sure."

So we climbed two flights of stairs. "The former owners' children had their chambers up here." It certainly looked like it, with a playroom of toys -- all ages, baby to adolescent -- in one half, and three nice bedrooms in the other half." "There are plenty of stories in these rooms. In that corner, the former baron, as a twenty-one year old [14 Earth years] Orren lad, quite happily made a gift of his virginity to his best friend."

"I suppose it was a convenient place," I said, for want of anything better to say.

"His best friend being a Cani boy," added Totalie.

"Cani certainly make excellent friends," I said, for want of anything better to say.

"And what do you think of that?" he demanded.

I was starting to get irritated. "Yes, the rumors about me are quite true. If that's what you're after. Try to blackmail me with them and I shall laugh in your face: everyone who cares the least bit about my personal life knows that I am traff."

Totalie leap upon me, grabbed my neck in one hand, and jammed his mouth over mine: perhaps the least romantic kiss I have ever had. Certainly the only one where I have ever felt it necessary to breathe fire into my partner's mouth.

Comments

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.

So MUCH doom.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

...An appropriate response!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

*giggle* Well, it certainly sounds like orren housekeeping.

What's up with Totalie, though? Was he under orders to seduce you? It doesn't sound like he was acting naturally.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

He was administering some kind of oral weapon! Haven't you read Dune? The fire obviously neutralized it though!

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

You sure know how to pick towns...

... and given that they placed this boy to rape/murder you, I think NOT protecting the town from Vae might be in some great order here.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Didn't you read the rest?

[Haven't translated it yet, sorry. -b]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Read the rest of the day's entry first!

[I'll post it as soon as I can translate it, really! -bb]

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

... Let me be clearer.

This town has, in order,

1) Come begging you to help them make war on others,

2) Tried to recruit others of your own crew as spies

3) Assaulted your Party (Although, it was a honest mistake, but still)

4) Has instilled someone to do you physical harm.

Since the Keep is not in the town proper, I am suggesting Conquest to eliminate the offending parties. Minimal innocents will be harmed, and given how they are treating you as an enemy nation, I feel that it's in your right as ambassador to do so.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

I'll wait... but I am telling you, Conquest is high on the list of things you should do...

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Say, community! How would you simulate the extra accuracy / damage / success of a zi ri's normal fire attack against an orren vs. a zi ri's fire attack against an unsuspecting orren into zir mouth? Using the WT system, of course. I would HAVE to say that would add some more damage... those of you who know the system, how would you all do that?

Oh by the way, Sythyry, you can ignore this question, unless you want to do something like describe, um, the amount of weakening this attack actually DID to that particular orren's spirit-holding force, which is a math way of describin damage to one's person, right? You all have numbers and systems to describe that, right?

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Awww! You managed to overcome the utterly professionally staid butler with your zi ri charms! And by charms, in this case, besides the obvious, I mean "not making him feel bad" like the rest of the crew were apparently trying to do.

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

At last . . . hot Orren action! ;-)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Precisely right!

Yet, precisely wrong!

[zeeth_kyrah]

Pretty obviously Cani dressed as Orren, with barely a ninth of a clue how relationships work if they aren't cis.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Doesn't the fire breath have a damage increment? Giving the orren no dodge roll at all (and a normal one to the zi ri) would tend to increase the damage by a few points.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Hooowww is that obvious?!

[rowyn]

Oh dear. I knew you'd be better off selling the mansion and getting rid of the servants. I wonder if poor Totalie is traff and merely wholly mannerless (or perhaps manners are quite different in Srineia? No, surely your native guide would have warned you), or if someone coerced him into it?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Fire breath is a devastating 2 di 2! And I suspect that the victim will be dodging after the first instant, even if preceding activity doesn't count as dodging. I'd give it a specific bonus: perhaps +2s20, like a Wild Attack or a twice-Prepared Attack; both of which sort of make sense. Plus of course no armor in the mouth, etc. -bb]

[mharreff.livejournal.com]

...Azliet? I do not remember this Azliet. I do remember that Arfaen.

Also I wonder if the Orren is(whether the real Orren or not) bribed to do this. Or pressured, thinking that it is the thing you expect of any Orren.

Not-so-patiently I wait for the rest of the day's entry!

[mharreff.livejournal.com]

[I'd agree with you on the latter bit, anyway. Plainly thinks that's how traff relationships are supposed to work. Might have been put up to it - whether with benign intent("keep the mighty wizard happy!") or not ("get close to the mighty wizard and learn zir secrets!").]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[OOC: oops! Thanks for the catch! -bb]

Obviously my translator is being slow. Perhaps you should bite it lightly for encouragement.

[mharreff.livejournal.com]

[Also, this would be pretty much an automatic hit. The attack roll would really only serve to gauge triumph - i.e. how quickly the Orren pulls away, or doesn't.]

[rowyn]

Noooooooo! "Run away" would be much better. At least for Sythyry. Conquest might or might not be what Eigrach deserves, but actually doing it would inevitably bring far, far more headaches than Eigrach could inflict un-conquered.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Well, the other explanation would be that he's trying to act the part of a stuffy major domo while having no clue and quite possibly wild rushing.

[mharreff.livejournal.com]

[The tail-wagging is one indication. I'm not sure about the recitation of the place's family history - sure, Cani keep track of that sort of thing, but in this case it was relevant to what happened next, Cani or no. I'm not so sure a Cani would've failed to consider the spoiled ingredients, though - especially since he probably wouldn't be spending all his time under a Cloak.]