Details of a Betrayal [18 Lage 4385]

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Zascalle hugged Ochirion to her chest, and snarled at me defiantly.

Zascalle: “You are here with terrible weapons at the ready! Would you kill the boy you worked so hard to heal, Sythyry?”

Me: “Great staring gods!” They were staring at us, too; that’s easy to see from Ketheria sometimes. “You are using your own child as a meat shield.”

Zascalle: “You have befouled and corrupted every other defense I had!”

La Hish: “Oddly, I do not feel befouled or even corrupted. I feel relieved that a certain minor problem of the last few months will be resolved.”

Me: “Zascalle. First of all, I want my money back.” Anyone with half a magic sense could tell I was carrying enough enchanted weaponry to run a whole duel-war, and then another. Direct threats were, thankfully, unnecessary.

Zascalle threw her purse at my feet. It landed with a dull amberish clunk; it was heavier than I was, and mostly with coins.

Me: “A good start. Next, the greater part of the theft — my missing bank accounts. Start with the one that pays the bills for Castle Wrong, where some thirty or forty of your friends — they are your friends, are they not? — still reside, and hope to reside for a long time more.”

Zascalle: “I can’t do it from here. I need to get to Trunk’s Amber.”

Me: “You shall write down letters, instructions, account numbers. Saza’s accountant and the banks of Oorah Thrassen will confirm that you have done it properly. Also, you shall give me all of your private notes and accountings — do not look so innocent, Zascalle, your degree of innocence has already been established. I know you have kept records of your deeds.”

It would have been extremely reassuring to use a truthspell on her, to know that the tiny, neatly-printed slips of paper she took out of the heel of her boots were complete and correct rather than yet another ruse within a ruse. I could have done it … but I was rather too squeamish. I was fairly sure I would have to kill or maim her in front of her children, but I wasn’t willing to read her mind. I hope this will be counted a virtue.

Me: “A good start. Care to explain all the details?”

She did not much care to explain, but she did. She had been trickling money out of my accounts for a long while, and then pouring, and then gushing, and then, for the last few days, when she panicked and knew that she must flee with her children from Vae, deluging. It was getting scattered around eighteen banks and suchlike up and down the main trunk. Inter-branch banking is a fairly new matter, with very confusing laws and customs governing it differently everywhere. So, Exempleia has strict laws of privacy of customers, which are well-motivated and utterly sensible. Egeia has strict laws preventing fraud, also well-motivated and sensible, but when money comes from Exempleia, Egeian banks cannot apply those laws very well, so they don’t try. Zascalle tracked down a number of such anomalies, and took advantage of them.

Five of the accounts are easier for me than the others: I am officially the one who owns them, pursuant to the laws of those city-states, though Zascalle has full rights to use them. Now that I actually know about them, I am going to toss one of them at Castle Wrong and another at Strayway, for short-term expenses, and use two of the others to pay off the bribes I owe the wizards of Oorah Thrassen.

The other fifteen parts will take a while to untangle. Untangling will be much easier with Zascalle alive and cooperative. My fortune, or at least my convenience, is held hostage for her life. to

I will say, I was sufficiently annoyed to consider killing her anyhow. But that seemed ungracious, as she had been (approximately) cooperative at that point.

Comments

[dracosphynx.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you need to come up with a pocket universe spell suitable for graciously imprisoning people in until you can retrieve them.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem like it should be that hard to imprison a non-mage for a short while. Cr Ru Su Lo [Co][Hr] - not a simple spell, but likely well under Sythyry's maximum in the relevant arts. The verbs and Locador make the pocket universe and put the target in it, and I'm not sure if Ruloc would help move it so that its point of attachment is always handy for the caster, or if accessing it from a distance would require mightier Locador; CrSu and the optional nouns for furnishing it and, perhaps, giving it a larder. I should think Sythyry is able to cast such a spell that would shut someone up tight for a few days.

On a simpler level, Nowhere Prison (Cr[Su]Lo 15) is stated as having the victim not lack for the essentials of life - but even the sustained version lasts only minutes. Bumping the duration a few orders - minutes to hours to days - hmmm, I'd guess another 15 there(one step is listed as typically 5-10 complexity) while keeping Sustenoc. To ensure the victim doesn't starve, though, might require pairing it with a suitable CrSuHr cantrip to make some nonperishable biscuits or the like - bland but nourishing fare - and an additional 10-15 complexity. Still, it seems likely that the resulting spell would still be around cplx 50 or less - serious sorcery, but nothing zie hasn't already surpassed.

Imprisoning a Locador mage would of course be more difficult.

[dracosphynx.livejournal.com]

Well, I think the keyword here is *graciously* imprisoning them. Particularly since the kids may or may not have to be tucked along with them for the moment. More sort of 'nowhere protective custody' than a 'nowhere prison', perhaps.

I would, of course, suggest imprisoning her in her own mind, but SBCL gets disturbed when I suggest a vast array of highly useful Mentador spells for some reason.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Pocket dimensions are pretty gentle prisons. The Co and Hr are what I suggested adding to make the place reasonably comfortable, by way of furniture and food. If what is made is very specific, always the same whenever the spell is cast, it might not even need to be quite as complex for that part(compare the simple Cr Il spells - the cantrips make a specific image, the cplx 10 equivalent lets the caster choose the image). The Ruloc might even allow you to shove some other stuff in there with them - existing reading material, for instance - and such a prison could hold several people as easily as one, so long as none of them are magically deft enough to breach it. (The kids aren't. Zascalle isn't. Thiane has been described as a fair hand at sorcery, but not capable of enough Magiador to sever arcane connections herself - if she is, in general, not much of a deep-mage, she probably wouldn't be able to either, especially considering the power Sythyry would have in such a cast.)

[rowyn]

I would not automatically assume that Feralan, who is presently half Locador demon, is easy to imprison.

Not that I expect Sythyry to imprison Feralan or Ochiron anyway. They didn't commit any crimes.
But zie might arrange for visits to their mothers, assuming zie allows their indefinite existance. Zir best bet is probably to ensure that Zascalle & Thiane prefer whatever fate they have to suffer while doing what Sythyry wants over whatever hideous 120-power curse would be in effect if they tried to escape it.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

You are right in that Feralan might not be so easy to imprison even if his prime self is no great mage! This is true, I concede that.

It's also true that the kids are less likely to be imprisoned in the first place. Perhaps if it were phrased appropriately - "I wish your mothers to stay here, so that they will be out of harm's way while I try to recover my property. You are welcome to stay with them, if you wish, or [alternative, probably around staying out of the alternate-dimension prison and with Sythyry or one of zir clients]" - they might go there and keep their mothers company(and vice versa), and not be inclined to leave anyway.

But Zascalle especially seems quite willing to exploit her sons for personal gain, so I don't doubt she could talk him into trying something - whatever the cost that happens to have to his Rassimel spirit.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Being locked in solitary confinment for extended periods is basically a form of torture though.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure torture as a punishment is socially acceptable in Veshrame.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Yes, but does Sythyry want to torture Zascalle?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Yes. Also no.

[rowyn]

I think torture is practically the socially-required form of punishment. O.O

Though Levande didn't have Thery tortured for betraying her, so I guess mercy is permissable in some cases. Zascalle's betrayal is rather more substantial and thorough than Thery's was, though.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

She didn't? I think everybody involved got tortured by everyone else. Including me.

It's not a comparable situation. Thery's crime was far smaller, and Yarwain's social status (and hence, by courtesy, Thery's) far closer to Levande's. The choices seemed to be having them resolve the matter among themselves, which they did, or some sort of mediation, which they did, or some form of vendetta, which they did.

[rowyn]

There's a terrestrial saying that goes something like 'If your enemy be hungry, give him food to eat. If he thirst, give him water to drink. For in so doing, you will heap hot coals upon his head.'

Which was pretty much the Levande-Thery-Yarwain indirect method of vendetta.

The typical Prime vendetta seems to involve heaping the hot coals directly, though.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, I think most of the principals thought of it as a tug-of-war over Thery's loyalties. The rest of us knew.

Prime vendettas come in all flavors. I do like that quote, except that heaping hot coals sounds quite cozy.

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Which means the equivalent for fireplace-dwelling lizards would be "If your enemy is hungry, give zir food; thirsty, give zir drink; cold, heap hot coals upon zir, for in doing so you blight zir feathers with crawly sparks.

More suitable? :3

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I understand! I understood before, even. Just pointing at the species-related gap.

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Yes of course, but seeing no true orren about, I must fill the role and give proper teasing about it. Now, the universal debt has been settled. :3

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

I imagine a longer-term version would be entitled Nowhere Land. :-)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The whine!