Quest for the Prince [23 Nivvem 4385]

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Me: “No spare Prince Rastomil in the mansion?”

Jagraton: “Nowhere I could find him.”

Phaniet: “So, perhaps he is transformed into something…”

Jagraton: “I have a perfectly fine magic sense for noticing such things!”

Phaniet: “And I have a perfectly fine illusion-spell to hide such transformations. I doubt I could get it past the Eye of Mirizan and Melizan, but I could hide it from an un-augmented Sythyry. And I am not so much of an illusionist.”

Jagraton: “Sythyry! I invoke you in the name of all that is sacred to Barency, take your eye to the mansion of Noshi and seek for Rastomil!”

Me: “Well, I think you should let Phaniet finish. She was about to say something sensible, I believe.”

Phaniet: “I was. Perhaps Rastomil is held in an extra-dimensional pocket universe. Perhaps Prince Rastomil is being held somewhere else in Hanija, or in the countryside. Perhaps he is killed and his body disposed-of. There are other options as well.”

Me: “That leaves rather a lot of universe-and-environs for us to search.”

Jagraton: “All the more urgent that we begin swiftly and exhaustively!”

The Updated Plan

Tomorrow morning, I will start trying to reconstruct an arcane connection. The procedure I am using might work, or might fail. If it works, it will give a very fragile connection, which might succeed in locating Rastomil, or might fail. This is not a good plan.

Other people will attempt detective work.

Detectives and Detectives[22 Nivvem 4385]

Investigating a noblewoman in a foreign city is not the easiest of tasks.

Jagraton attempted to chat up one Yodathzo-Jam, an old Herethroy woman who cooks for Lady Noshi, whom he chanced upon (with considerable effort) in the market right across a narrow canal from Noshi’s mansion.

“Hello there, my good lady!” said Jagraton.

“Yes, yuss. Hello. You said hello to me, young man,” said Yodathzo-Jam.

“You seem to be having a bit of trouble with those bags of vegetables, ma’am,” said Jagraton, for the old woman certainly was. She was missing a mid-leg, and supporting herself with a walking-stick in the other mid-leg, and that left her rather off-balance. “May I offer you some assistance?”

“Yes, yuss. Yussistance. You take this stick, young man. These are beans in the bags — my beans — and I won’t have them manipulated by an amateur!” Yodathzo-Jam handed him the walking stick, and proceeded to walk around using her mid-leg in the way her creator god intended (or one of the ways, viz., for walking on). She was rather worse balanced that way.

“I’m not after your beans, ma’am. I’m just going to be waiting here for an hour or so, and I might as well be helpful to a sweet old Herethroy as, say, sit and stare into the fountain and not do anybody any good,” said Jagraton.

“Yes, yuss. The fountain. That fountain. I lost my heart in that fountain once, I’ll have you know, young man,” said Yodathzo-Jam.

“Oh? How did that happen, ma’am?” Jagraton was secretly delighted; the old woman was in a garrulous mood, which might well lead to Useful Information.

“It slipped out of my head, between my antennae! Fell right out into the fountain! I’ve looked in there every time I come to the market, but, no, noesss, it’s not there anymore. Lord Kethji snapped it up, he did,” said Yodathzo-Jam.

“Oh? You’re fond of Lord Kethji?” asked Jagraton, all innocence outside, and inside all gladness that she was talking about the household.

Yodathzo-Jam shook her head. “Can’t abide the man. He took my heart. ‘Tweren’t his heart, after all. ‘Twere my heart, and he took it for hisself. Stuck it in a box on his dresser drawer, he did. Awful man.”

“Why do you work for him?” asked Jagraton, thinking: we could bribe this disaffected servant quite easily, enough to be comfortable for the short rest of her life.

“He’s got my heart, sonny! Didn’t you listen to me with hearing the first time? A squeeze on that heart and I’m out of the putter, you hear me?” shouted Yodathzo-Jam.

“Oh, he’s got it that way, has he?” said Jagraton.

“Yes, yuss. Many’s the night I spent lying by his door, crying like a snowfish. Now it’s Lady Noshi’s door, of course,” said Yodathzo-Jam.

Jagraton decided that he had enough of her confidence to ask. “What about the new one? The one who calls himself Prince Rastomil?”

“Oh, oh, I’m sure I’m going to be crying by his door soon enough too. What kind of a city is this, when a lord can scoop up a young girl’s heart in the fountain in the marketplace, I ask you?”

“It’s such a shame, truly, ma’am,” said Jagraton. “Do you know what became of the real Prince Rastomil?”

“Carry those packages to the pantry for me and you can see him!” said Yodathzo-Jam with a hideous laugh.

Jagraton was delighted. This could go quite well. It could also go quite badly, so he made sure his sword was loose in the sheath.

# # #

Jagraton snuck around behind Lady Noshi’s mansion with Yodathzo-Jam, and into the pantry to leave behind all the day’s food. Thence, into the parlor, where the fake Prince Rastomil was sitting on a sofa, going through the contents of a well-used etui that Jagraton had never seen before, and tossing out old reciepts and rusks.

“Yes, yuss! There’s your Prince Rastomil for you!” cackled Yodathzo-Jam.

“Rastomil?” asked Jagraton.

“What, you’ve come around here again?” said Rastomil. “I do believe that I told you not to. Now begone!”

“I shall do no such thing! I insist upon having my questions be answered!” said Jagraton, suddenly floundering.

Rastomil, uncooperatively, answered no questions (though Jagraton asked many), and returned his attention to the etui. Jagraton harangued him for a few minutes. Then the household’s warriors came to remove Jagraton; and, when he resisted them, a couple of the city guard. Including my old friend, the Guard-Mage.

Guard-Mage: “Someone else from Strayway, getting in legal trouble?”

Rastomil: “So it seems. High Lieutenant Mage Zineng, please do me the kindness of removing him from the premises, and charging him with anything you can find to charge him with?”

Guard-Mage: “Jagraton, I believe your name to be — please come with me.”

Comments

[relee.livejournal.com]

"which might succeed in locating Jagraton, or might fail."

Who we have lost, since he ran off into the street searching for Prince Rastomil?

*giggle* Maybe you should do a word search for their names to double check if you have them right before publishing? <3

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Bard rips its left head off before Sythyry can do it. -bb]

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

Well, at least it wasn't tears of glass. . .

[rowyn]

*carefully reattaches Bard's left head*

[relee.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better, you're writing quite fantastically. The Herethroy maid is just fantastic, and her tale of woe.

My current guess is that the thing that possesses Rastomil isn't magic, but a monster. Probably one that always lived where Hanija is, and was trapped inside when they built the walls. If I'm right, way to go! If I'm wrong, you're inspiring some feats of imagination. <3

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I'm starting to wonder if there's a reason for Hanija's restrictive laws regarding sex. If there was a group of monsters in the city that take over bodies via that act, the only way to trace them would be through very careful monitoring of who gets involved with who.

"Never tear down a fence until you know why it was raised." -- Robert Frost

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

It does seem like monstrous behavior of some kind!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Mentavore! Eeeeeeeeeeeee!

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Orren are cute when they go rushing!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I thought about it more and it's definitely not the same species as Kijji because he'd know all the memories of someone he'd eaten although he also isn't any good at really acting like his victims.

But it might be a monster with mind-eating body-stealing powers like him eeeeeeeee!

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

I was actually thinking just the same thing, after following your nightmares. Perhaps not so much a Metavore as a...hijacker? A creature that uses copulation to transfer itself physically into the victim?

[foomf.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly, though I spent too much time researching and failed to click 'post' until after you posted the same conjecture.

[rowyn]

Jagraton really isn't too bright, is he?

My suspicions that Kethji took over Noshi first, and then Rastomil, are only growing stronger! I do wonder why Kethji was bothering with the servant, though. Maybe he just likes having leverage over his servants.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

No, but Jagraton is very good at rushing around and Doing Stuff.

Eventually, he'll learn!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Or rot forever in prison. One of those.

[rowyn]

Maybe he'll learn while he's rotting in prison? n.n

[kibbe.livejournal.com]

More to the tail from the old lass than might be expected.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Intimate physical activity. Exchange of bodily fluids.


Right.


Has none of you ever read Heinlein?


It's ... if not physically obvious, then intuitively so, that Rastomil's body is in front of them. It's also obvious that his mind is not in control of that body, and that the disconnect is not due to magic (outside the normal operant magic that makes the World Tree function) and that suggests the presence of a puppeteer of some variety. And the use of a nasty-tasting drug, one which provides either nutrients for the inhabitant, or suppresses the immunity of the inhabited, very strongly suggests that presence.

I am curious whether the "brain" -- the organ which interfaces the mind, maintains memory, and operates the body -- is still present and not replaced wholesale, but the lack of memory suggests that the puppeteer has no ability to access the original mind, for whatever reason.

This, to me, suggests that the monster might well be something created by the Mentador god, because so many Primes are afraid of his verb and thus refuse to use it in situations like this, where it would be the obvious tool for uncovering the monster.