“In a seemingly monumental move, Tanar'Ri forces grapped control of the hotly contested hill in Othrys known as 'the Stones of Draetilus'. Although located in one of the most inhospitable swamps in the multiverse, the Draetilus stones have remained one of the most coveted prizes in the Blood War. These stones reportedly act as powerful portals to numerous realms and burgs throughout the multiverse. Governor Tenemus Al Karak, Second Librarian of the Vault of Knowledge, told SIGIS that historical records indicate, the stones open conduits to strategic places in Mungoth (third layer of Gehenna), the Prime and even onto the Cage itself."
Report on SIGIS
Third Lower Day of Tithing, 126 HR
A little lost in thought, Morânia leaned against a windowsill in her house in the Market Ward and watched her husband Naghûl set the table: he put down glasses and two carafes, one with water and one with Ysgardian ice wine. Then he fetched plates and forks and proudly placed a homemade cake on the table. Morânia had to smile a little at his joy and enthusiasm. The kitchen was his domain, so she didn't interfere. And as they were expecting guests, Naghûl had of course not missed the opportunity to bake something - not that he had ever needed a special reason to do so. After the unexpected and quite upsetting experiences in the House of Visions, they had all had to sort themselves out a little, but they had planned to meet at Morânia's home a few days later. Unfortunately, Lereia had had to cancel on the same day as she had been called to a meeting with her factol. Sgillin couldn't come either - urgent business, as he said, about which he didn't want to give any details. Morânia had asked Naghûl about it, but he had only shrugged his shoulders and explained that he did not know anything about it. But Sgillin would certainly know what he was doing. Morânia hoped so too, of course, but she couldn't shake off a slight uneasy feeling. In her experience, deals that you didn't want or weren't allowed to tell your friends about were not the most desirable. But she contented herself with it for the time being, and so they now waited for Jana and Kiyoshi. The young soldier arrived right on time, the sorceress only a few minutes later. In contrast to Kiyoshi, who remained standing not far from the door, silent and polite, even serious, Jana immediately looked around curiously.
"Nice here," she remarked cheerfully. "Cozy and quiet."
"Thank you," Morânia replied with a smile. "I've lived here for quite a while. For ... about fifty years, my goodness."
"Oh dear." Jana's eyes widened as she looked at Morânia. "If only I still looked this fresh in fifty years' time."
The bal'aasi was quite familiar with this kind of reaction, especially from short-lived species like humans. She raised her shoulders almost apologetically. "Well, this mixed heritage must have some advantages."
This answer seemed to irritate Jana a little and she frowned. "Well, that's a huge advantage, isn't it?"
"I think so," Morânia conceded. She blocked out the thought of the disadvantages, especially her own, and certainly didn't want to discuss them at the moment. "If you're lucky enough to find a partner to whom that also applies. Otherwise, it can certainly be stressful."
She briefly thought of Lereia and Sgillin - by no means the only couple to whom this was true, but the last one she had dealt with recently. Now, fortunately, Naghûl intervened, jokingly rebuking them and asking them to drop the gloomy topics and honor his cake instead. They all agreed and took their seats around the laid table. Naghûl cut the cake and distributed large pieces onto the plates, while Morânia offered the guests drinks. She noticed that Kiyoshi refused the ice wine and contented himself with water. Whether he considered himself to be on duty, generally didn't drink alcohol or simply didn't feel like it, she couldn't quite fathom. Then they turned their attention to Naghûl's, as always, excellent cake. Jana's table manners left a lot to be desired, but Morânia tried not to let her slight displeasure show. She already knew the sorceress, after all. Kiyoshi, on the other hand, didn't seem to know how to use a fork, but tried bravely. The bal'aasi suspected that he would probably have preferred two chopsticks if the culinary customs of his culture were comparable to those of Sigil's Lotus Blossom District.
After the second piece of cake, Jana looked at Morânia. "Are you back in Sigil more often now? Because of the prophecy and all that?"
The bal'aasi nodded. "Indeed I am. The matter of the prophecy is the reason why I have given many of my duties in the Order of Light in Meresin to someone else. I know I need to be in Sigil more often now."
The sorceress sighed a little. "And I trust Terrance and believe him that this is very important. That's the only reason I'm here. But what's the next step? I think we need to find the other Chosen and make a complete transcript of the prophecy. We obviously only know fragments, so ... I think we should urgently try to find the missing parts as well."
"I agree," Morânia replied. "Especially since I suggested that ... strange choice of words ... that members of other factions also know about it - and that some of them are working against us."
"Yes, that's the next point," Jana said as she took a third slice of cake, much to Naghûl's delight. "We really should find out who our opponents are. Besides, I can't make heads or tails of these abilities. I mean, I seem to be able to see certain things, that's pretty simple at least."
"Simple is my ability," Naghûl replied. "I see jumbled numbers and nobody is able to make use of them. But maybe we already have some clues about the other factions."
"Do we?" Jana asked with her mouth full.
"Yes. Do you remember what Toranna said? She had two visitors before us and they wanted information too. From the description, the woman was probably Red Death. The man might have been a Guvner or a Taker."
"Red Death." Morânia sighed deeply. "Great."
"With them, at least we have the advantage that Sarin and Mallin are getting along," Naghûl pointed out. "But what Skall might be planning in the matter, I don't even want to know. I just imagined him standing in front of the God Machine and commanding True Death to the entire multiverse." He shuddered and Kiyoshi looked at the Sensate, clearly unenthused.
Jana also shivered briefly and then took a deep breath. "I'll keep the picture in my head. As a reminder of how important this matter is. ... So you think that these very factions, similar to ours, are working together and thus against us?"
"Well, there are a few factions that I could imagine working together," Morânia said. "The Dustmen might well cooperate with the Bleakers and the Sinkers."
"And the Mercykillers?" Jana objected. "They can't be really interested in True Death of all beings in the multiverse. That would also affect the innocent."
Morânia swayed her head thoughtfully. "Who knows if they're in on it too. What if they're working with someone else? Like the Guvners or the Fated?"
"A thought just crossed my mind," Naghûl interrupted her musings. "The Envoy said that the Chosen don't have a soul signature, didn't she?"
"That's what she ... I ... said, yes." The bal'aasi realized how difficult it still was to settle into this new role. Even the appropriate choice of words presented her with certain challenges.
"But there was also this skeleton that had no signature," Naghûl continued his thought. "Could it be that only beings with a consciousness have a signature? After all, we are talking about the signature of a soul, which in my opinion is clearly linked to a consciousness."
Morânia raised her eyebrows in alarm at this conclusion. "Um ... do you want to imply that we have no consciousness? No soul?"
"Well, I do have a consciousness," Jana stated briefly and matter-of-factly.
"Oh, nonsense," the tiefling immediately reassured her. "We're just special, I guess."
Morânia had to laugh a little. "You're wangling it in a way that suits yourself, aren't you?"
"Well, I think," Jana interjected, "that Lereia's ability is just as specific as the rest of our gifts."
The bal'aasi couldn't make the connection to Naghûl's remark and therefore frowned questioningly. "What do you mean by specific?"
"Well, I don't see just anything," the sorceress explained. "I see something very specific, carefully selected, it seems. Just like Naghûl sees something very specific, namely a number. Or Sgillin, who certainly doesn't swap his body with just anyone."
Now Morânia began to understand. "And I give specific answers and Kiyoshi hears specific things from metal grimaces on the walls. You mean Lereia just doesn't notice us so we recognize each other?"
Jana clapped her hands. "That's exactly what I'm saying. Whether someone has a signature or not is something we know. And that we know for a reason. I mean, maybe there's more to it than that, but there is a reason, I'm sure of it."
"Exactly," Naghûl agreed with her. "And I am convinced that it also has something to do with consciousness. That's why a simple, dull skeleton doesn't have a signature, but the upscale, arrogant vampire does."
"Because he has a soul ..." Morânia nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, that's possible."
Jana ate the last piece of cake and pushed her plate back with a sigh. "But then we have two completely different criteria that can determine the existence of a signature. One is the existence of a soul or a consciousness and the other is the fact that we are somehow special. In one case, someone doesn't have a signature because they don't have a soul and the other - because they are like us." She ruffled her hair and gesticulated violently as she spoke. "Otherwise it would have been too obvious ..."
At that moment, Kiyoshi raised a hand and his often expressionless look was now clearly confused. "Forgive me, but do you hear that?" he asked.
Morânia paused for a moment to listen, but then shook her head. "I can't hear anything except our conversation."
The young man's gaze became even more irritated and he seemed to be listening for something.
"What can you hear?" Jana wanted to know.
"Words ..." Kiyoshi replied slowly and stood up. He turned his head, apparently trying to make out where the sounds that only he could hear were coming from.
Naghûl also looked around, listening, but shook his head. Jana took a notebook out of her bag, as if she wanted to stand in for the absent Lereia, who otherwise always wrote everything down.
"Can you repeat the words?" she asked the young soldier.
Kiyoshi's dark eyes wandered around the room seriously and attentively. "Heart," he then said. "Winter ... fear ... alone ... go ... please ... morning dew ... dust ... thistles ... cold ... why ..."
Jana hurriedly wrote down everything he said, while Morânia looked at him with some concern. "Do you experience something like this regularly?" she asked.
"Not really," Kiyoshi replied. "The words are … the Old Tongue and ..." He interrupted himself abruptly and did not continue speaking, but closed his eyes and held his temples as if he were suddenly in severe pain. Then he opened his eyes again and shook his head as if he was trying to get rid of something. He seemed to be fighting against an invisible force - but then it burst out of him. "Rudhirena!" he shouted, almost desperately. Then he sank back into his chair, exhausted.
Morânia wanted to go over to him, but when Kiyoshi called out the word in the Old Tongue, the room suddenly went dark and a sense of menace settled over her like a heavy blanket. Very briefly, she sensed the presence of something ancient and powerful. And then she was sure that this word had changed something in the room ... It only took a blink of the eye and then it was over. Jana had huddled in her chair, shuddering, her head between her shoulders. A quick glance at Naghûl told Morânia that he was just as shocked as she was. And Kiyoshi himself seemed hardly less horrified by what had just happened. Morânia let her gaze wander around the room, trying to determine if the feeling that something was different was true. However, she couldn't detect any changes ... until she finally looked at the floor. There was a large pool of blood next to the bench near the entrance …
"Oops!" She rose quickly and pointed to the spot to draw the others' attention to it.
Jana turned pale and Naghûl swallowed hard. He also stood up, went over to Morânia and reached for her hand - still without a word, which was very uncharacteristic of him.
Kiyoshi was still sitting in his chair, visibly shaken, and now turned to Morânia. "Forgive the inconvenience," he apologized, "But I guess that was me."
"I ... fear that too," the bal'aasi replied and took Naghûl's hand.
She felt that she was still shuddering. Of course she knew illusion spells, that was nothing unusual in Sigil, where they were mostly used for entertainment. She had also encountered them on her adventures, usually in less harmless or amusing variations. But this had been different. Somehow stranger, darker ... And was it even an illusion? Or had Kiyoshi created real blood here? Jana was obviously asking herself the same question, because she rose to step closer to the spot next to the bench. Then she carefully dipped a finger into the blood and tried to smell it, but as soon as it was on her hand, it faded and was gone in the blink of an eye. She hesitated briefly, then knelt down and tried to lick up the blood from the floor.
"Jana, please ..." Morânia shook her head. She had known Jana for a while and was aware of her sometimes unusual behavior. But the sorceress always managed to irritate her.
"I can't feel or taste anything ..." Jana explained matter-of-factly as she stood up again. "Well, it's definitely not real."
Naghûl had also stepped a little closer to the pool of blood and was now casting a spell that Morânia could classify as an attempt to banish magic. But the blood remained. So it was not an illusion in the true arcane sense. Then, suddenly, a thought occurred to her.
"Naghûl, I remember something ..." She walked around the bloodstain to the bench. "I once sat here after I was injured fighting that tiefling at the Ditch. That was over thirty years ago, remember? I lost quite a bit of blood here, but not before you pulled his dagger out of me."
Naghûl's eyes widened in surprise. "Yes, of course! That was messy ..."
Suddenly, she was completely sure. It was the exact spot where she had lost a lot of blood back then. "I think the amount would match the pool here."
"There's a stain here too," Jana remarked. She pointed to a spot further into the room. They had been so focused on the first stain that they hadn't even noticed that there were more in the room ... "Were you standing here when you were injured?" Jana asked.
Naghûl shook his head. "No, I took her to the bedroom."
Yet, Morânia remembered and it made her feel a little uneasy. "But I once killed a cranium rat in that corner that had come into my house ..."
"Now you're scaring me ..." Jana murmured quietly.
Kiyoshi rose from his chair and bowed briefly to Morânia. "I ask your forgiveness for making a mess of your house," he explained apologetically and as matter-of-factly as if he had just knocked over a glass.
Morânia had to smile a little at the seriousness of his words, which did not fit the situation at all. Just as Naghûl had described him to her, in fact.
Jana, on the other hand, had gone a little paler when a new thought occurred to her. "What if we see blood everywhere now?" she asked tonelessly. "All that was spilled somewhere at some point?"
Alarmed, Naghûl stepped to the window and looked out. "Well, I don't see anything outside," he explained. "And for the life of me, I can't imagine that no blood has ever been spilled there in the history of Sigil. Even here in the Market Ward."
Morânia peeked into the kitchen and found her next suspicion confirmed when she found blood there too. "Naghûl, you cut your finger pretty badly there in the kitchen once, the floor was covered in blood." She looked at Kiyoshi. "You seem to be able to visualize where blood was spilled in the past."
"It would seem so, honorable Morânia-sama," he agreed.
Jana pointed to another spot near the entrance. "And what happened here?"
"That doesn't really tell me anything," the bal'aasi explained. "Maybe it happened before I moved in here."
Kiyoshi looked at the stain thoughtfully. "Or maybe blood will be spilled here in the future."
"Yes, who knows?" Morânia sighed softly and looked uneasily at the many bloodstains in her house. "I just hope it goes away." She shook her head. Already the second meeting between her and the other Chosen had taken a very unexpected turn. And something told her that this was just the ridiculously harmless beginning ...
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played May 31, 2012
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