(no subject)

[sythyry]

Thiane's Clan-Friends [17 Lage 4385]

Finding Thiane's clan-friends was a matter of some guesswork and trouble. She had not actually given us their names or addresses. Feralan had sent some letters to Lithia and Tingula, and Ochirion sent a couple of very scribbled get-well cards to Quendry, but they had been brought by Orren street urchins and didn't say where they were from. (Oh, and both children were supposed to come back to get healered at, but they wrote sweet notes asking to be excused, which was fine with me at the time.) Thiane is clan-related to half the Cani in town -- or in anywhere -- which mean she's clan-related to every family.

We asked at the clan offices of her primary clan Carn, and got several suggestions, none of which proved to be right. Then we went on to her secondary clans: Reran, another failure, and Reffen, which did turn up Raliet-and-Falk-and-Jyme-and-Leiska, with whom Thiane had been quite friendly.

By late afternoon we were at a long baskety longhouse in the not-that-nice part of town, sitting by a small pool full of splashing puppies and adolescents.

Raliet: "How can I-jivu help you, foreign wizard?"

Kantele: "We're looking for the wizard's companion and assistant Zascalle, to clear up a small matter related to her shipboard obligations."

Raliet: "She and her family have stepped out; she said they would some museum or other, and then take dinner in a restaurant such as meets their fancy afterwards, and then attend a ballet. I do not know precisely where to find them."

Me: "Well, it is somewhat urgent. May I stop by the guestroom they are staying in? A tuft of her fur would let me locate her anywhere in the city."

Raliet: "I'm afraid not -- location spells like that are against the law in Eigrach. They are too intrusive for a freedom-loving and privacy-respecting frontier society such as ours." None of us had known that before, not even Jyondre; his home city of Heleshario has no such law.

Phaniet: [secretly, via insignia] "I don't smell any Rassimel in here ... they haven't been here today."

Me: "A pity. May we see their guestroom in any case? I promise not to break the law of Eigrach, and to be responsible for all the consequences if I somehow am unaware of the law."

Raliet: "No, you may not. I do not wish to have foreigners wandering and poking about my house. You understand, of course."

I did understand, of course. A century ago, I had refused to let the brilliant and talented Iska be my roommate because she was foreign.

Me: [privately, to the wrongfolk] "There are connections a-plenty to Zascalle and Thiane aboard the Strayway. I shall go there and break Eigrach's law. May I prevail upon the rest of you to investigate by more mundane means as best as you can?"

Phaniet: [privately] "We shall do so! Jyondre, may I prevail upon you to collect a city guardsman or two, to lend an air of legitimacy and authority to our otherwise personal and foreign endeavours?"

Comments

[rowyn]

Can't say that's unexpected. Thiane has made good use of her connections here! Hopefully, Phaniet shall make good use of yours in guardsmen-collecting.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

And hopefully, in stealing from the household of their honoured heroes, the runaways will have done something that Jyondre and Yerenthax can prevail upon the guard to relax certain strictures about anyway. Even if it is legitimization after the fact... having their help on the matter wouldn't hurt, I should hope.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Does either Thiane or Zascalle have enough skill in Destroc and Magiador to manage something akin to There is None who Knows Thee? That could make things tricky - or, for that matter, it could be tricky if they thought of it and got some clan-friends to provide such a spell cast.

Also, would it be a better idea to scry for them inside Eigrach's walls, or out of it? My guess would be to go ahead and do the scrying from Strayway, because they probably aren't still in the city... but I have been known to misread people I know far better than those two.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Neither of them could possibly cast that. But see the next entry!

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

I await it most eagerly!

(And though the fact that they couldn't cast it makes things more complicated, they're plainly already taking advantage of clan connections, so yeah...)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

They have recently come into a great deal of money. They are evidently willing to spend some part of it to make sure they can keep the rest.

[rowyn]

Tuftears made a good point in the last post -- that, unfortunately, a reputation for being a softie is liable to land you in predicaments like this again, if you're not able or willing to deal harshly with the perpetrators.

I feel kind of sorry for Zascalle; I suspect she's obsessed with helping Feralan at any and all cost. On the other hand, showing her too much mercy will send a signal that you're a safe target for criminals and conmen.

So, at the least, you'll want people to think you've punished the thief horribly.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I am not the sort of person who can torture or kill a parent in front of their children. I've known that for a long time. (And don't consider it a personal flaw!)

And, whatever else, I am also somewhat obsessed with helping Feralan -- I feel responsible to clean up after Vae -- so I have to be careful. Killing his mother, say, would make it rather difficult to work with him.

I hope I can think of something. Any suggestions?

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Torture or kill, no. And even other dirty tricks - something that made clear to Feralan that his mothers were taking him from the one person known who had the best hope of putting him back to his proper self(sure, you were working on Quendry, but that's because you had other than a theoretical solution there), and thereby making him uncomfortable with the situation, would be... cruel to him. (Possibly to them, but they are the parties that have done wrong here.) They(all of them) should be made to understand that you want to make Feralan healthy, but that nobody who promises to do it instantly is likely to be trustworthy AND affordable.

Ideally, whatever punishment is inflicted on them should be something that is over the heads of the children(until they're able to understand the larger issues themselves and think with something resembling reason on the matter).

If you are able to track them down and recover your money, doing just that - and accounting for as close to every lozen as is possible, to make sure they didn't squirrel some away with friends - may be a large part of enough. At that point, they won't have the resources to run OR to get treatment for Feralan.

And, of course, find someone else to do the accounting. No matter how much Zascalle may grovel if she finds herself beholden to you again, she has just proven that she doesn't deserve to be put in charge of so much as a terch. Disgrace(of both the missing adults) might not make for a very visible punishment in this case, but it's something they and the rest of the crew can understand, while the kids aren't likely to misconstrue it and see you as horrible.

Oh. And if the boys want to know why their mothers don't get along with other people anymore, said mothers get to explain that they stole from everybody else. With someone suitable - perhaps Yerenthax - standing nearby to make sure they get it right.

[rowyn]

From a reputation standpoint, it's more important that people believe she and Thiane were punished than that they actually are. So, for example: using some variant on Your Own Corpse to give the impression of great wizardly torment upon them (you can solicit Vae for information on how she punishes her own enemies, if your imagination isn't up to it), while what you actually did was just permanently transform them into another species and lay a geas on them to stop them from telling anyone who they really are. (Eg, some hideous spell that will be set off if they talk about what you did). Which is still harsh, but *some* actual punishment is probably in order.

The latter assumes you can actually find them, of course. The former you might be able to acheive even if you can't, and might be worth doing.

Another option: coerce them to offer their service to Kvarse, or some similar path of great hardship by way of atonement. Something difficult and arduous, but at least in worthy service rather than merely hideously tormenting.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Turn them into rubber balls, or dolls or something. Then Feralan can play with them whenever he wants, but you don't have to worry about them doing any further mischief.

Alternatively, forgive them... at the last second, very publically, when someone else begs you to be merciful because of the extenuating circumstances which they outlay in detail.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

My suggestion would be, recover the money in full, indenture the mother for whatever part you are unable to recover plus the expense of pursuing her, plus the cost of treatment for Feralan. The type of indenture should vary with how difficult she proves to be to find and how much hurt she throws at you along the way.

What you want to show is that you have control of the situation. If a geas is out of question due to proscriptions against Mentador, then there might need to be punitive measures in place should she elect to rebel - thus you might take Feralan as hostage against his mother's safe-conduct while she works off her indenture somewhere. (and you want him close to hand for treatment anyway and observation anyway)

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

IIRC, Magiador is one of the nouns that is generally not useful in day to day life, so people who are not professional wizards tend to be significantly worse at it then the more practical nouns like corpador, herbador, etc.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

And I knew that one of them(Thiane, as it turns out) had been described as a fair hand at sorcery, so there was every reason to think one of them might have studied Magiador.

Seriously, I've read the source material(and Sythyry's journal to date) backwards and forwards multiple times; while I might miss things here and there, odds are good it won't be something that basic. :)

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

It sounds like these cani are covering for their friends who were never there at all, which you'd instantly realize if you were shown to their supposed sleeping chamber.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Precisely our thoughs as well!

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

It's stuff like this that proves, I suppose, that I am a monster, because I would like to find the bunch of them and all their little friends who are covering for them and bump them all into a pocket dimension for a while. With amenities, of course, but certainly somewhere they couldn't spend any more of that large amount of money that isn't theirs, and somewhere they couldn't betray you again, whether they thought they had a Good Reason for it or not.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea (assuming I can find them, which, as of eight hours after that entry, is not a sure thing). I'm not quite sure, though. That might spur Feralan to excercise the Locador-demon side of his nature --- whichever side of the universe he's on --- and that sounds like a bad thing.

Which is to say: the topic of what to do with Zascalle and friends is much under discussion by the primes on Strayway.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

The more I think about it, the more I come to this conclusion: If you are able to catch them and repossess what was stolen, leaving them largely without resources on their own, their own disgrace is going to be quite hefty punishment. It will leave them dependent on you - perhaps not for daily living(given that Thiane has those clan-friends to call upon), but A) it's doubtful how far she could stretch that and still maintain a relationship with Zascalle, in Eigrach; and B) if they really want Feralan back to normal, the fastest way to get it done is probably through you.

If nothing else, should there be a suitable volunteer, you can probably get Feralan, his mother and her partner, likely Ochirion, and(if not among that number) said suitable volunteer up to Yis-Karioth faster and more reliably than they could scrape up on their own. (If that apparent pile of lozens could maybe have got one person up to Ketheria, getting four or five up there with slightly less would... probably be more dubious, no?)

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure asking Vae to help find Zascalle would both cover the "Finding Zascalle" and "Punishing Zascalle" in one simple step.

Might be some collateral damage though.

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. I suspect Thiane has already decamped for someplace else. I just wonder why.