Brand and Vaeol - Chapter 1

--Unto the Right Honorable Secretary of the Society Decemvirate, the Heidmarch Manor Lodge, Magnimar, sends the following account. This recently came into our possession from the estate of the longtime field operative, Master Brand Likario. While many details herein challenge belief, Their Excellencies the Decemvirate will doubtlessly remember Master Likario, who for many years was a member of the Grand Lodge before he emigrated to Varisia. While he seldom visited the lodge, he generously shared stories of his many travels. Yet his favorite ever remained his adventure to Castrovel. Thus when his servant brought this to us, along with news of his death, we were intrigued beyond words. As to its veracity, we leave that for the Grand Lodge’s scholars to decide.

From the Journal of Brand Likario

25. Arodus, 4718 - Absalom
I am writing this because I cannot sleep. I just came from a walk through the streets while staring up at the sky. I came back and found an almost-empty bottle of wine. Then I opened the shutters and stared again at the sky.
In my school days, when I was much younger, I used to keep a journal. This entry may become the start of one. With where I am going, it may become a useful account. Just before dawn, I finally saw it, like an uncannily bright emerald shining in the night. With the moon down, it is the brightest thing in heaven: Castrovel, the Green, which some call the Elves’ home.
Yestereve, I got offer of a commission like no other. At the Chapterhouse, I met with Archmaster Virian Telmex of Oppara. Captain Valsin, who introduced us, advised Master Virian is a member of the Imperial Court, and furthermore a ranking archwizard in the Capital’s guild. Based on that knowledge, what he proposed makes more sense. We met in one of the lesser halls’ galleries often used for such meetings, which looks off over Westgate and gives a nice sight of the coast and foothills. Valsin waved me down while I walked up and had the servants bring wine.
I found Archmaster Virian fairly typical of my fellow Taldorans: haughty in his rank and disdainful of local niceties. He begrudged, however, that he already knew my name and reputation, of my ventures in Numeria and business with the Technic League - both good and bad - and had familiarity with my accounts of some of the more interesting things I had met there. He also knew of my voyages to Tian Xia and Vudra, which at once got my attention, since few outside of the Society know. So he had researched me. I let him know my guess, and also that I wanted to know why, for any business involving my erstwhile homeland arouses my suspicion.
In answer, Master Virian produced a pair of letters. The first he opened and showed without giving me. I saw at the top when he unfolded it the seal of the Imperial Senate. Underneath it showed one large word: ‘Pardon’. With that brief flash of parchment, my whole life flashed before my eyes.
Master Virian shut the writ. “I have you attention?” he asked, grin even. Since there was no point in lying, I answered yes, whereat he passed me the other paper: a fairly standard contract. It included a hefty promise of payment, though not so great that I would suspect him of temptation to break the deal. No, the true worth, which was mentioned in the contract that it would become my property on successful return, was the pardon. He knew what it means to me.
Regarding the venture proposed, Master Virian produced a clear glass vial. I bewared before I took it, for I have enough experience with skymetals to know that some are better off untouched. When he assured its safety, I carefully handled it. At once I could tell what it was not: certainly not adamantine or siccatite, and from descriptions I have studied many times, neither inubrix, horacalcum, or djezeel. Based on the greenish hue, I suspected it a slag of either noqual or abyssium, though his assurance of safety hinted not the latter. When I asked him to confirm my guess, he knowingly shook his head. He spoke an old Azlanti word wherewith I was unfamiliar: corpsicum. When I asked what it meany, he answered it is a skymetal so rare that it should be deemed its own class. He explained the fingernail-size nugget I held in the vial is the only known sample. When I asked whetr it came gtom, he told it had been smuggled out of Kyonin, though that land itself is not the source and instead only the road wherethrough it arrived on our world.
By then I was growing irritated by the slowness whereby Master Virian gloated secrets and bade him speak plainly. Against my wish, he asked what I know of the other worlds that share our Sun. I rolled my eyes, for I foresaw nothing of what this had to do with anything we discussed, and then repeated what everyone knows from the barmy astrologers who delight in such things, that on Akiton dwell red men and green men with four arms, that on Bretheda weird whales fly through seas of mist, and that gibbering, unclean things lurk within the darkness between stars. The archwizard nodded and asked whether I have heard the tale of the Elves having come to Golarion from another world, which I had. He then told me that the Elves’ homeworld was the source of the little nugget he named corpsicum.
When I asked why he had not asked the Elves, Master Virian explained that he would if he believed they would listen. He then laid out that he had learned the truth of the Elves’ homeworld, of the land some call Sovyrian. He told it lies on Castrovel, the morning star that even now hovers in the sky while I write this. He will not get the Elves’ aid, he explained, but has found another gateway yonder, which will cross the millions of black empty miles between our safe home and this wild, fey world whence the Elves brought all their magic and weirdness. He wished me to lead the venture and bring back two stones’ worth of the lumpy green ore the vial showed.
For what purpose he wants corpsicum I know not, though I am unsure I care. That it’s a fool’s venture goes without saying. Yet for better or worse, I have made my reputation on ventures more foolish than this. Maybe because I was a fool, I survived where wiser men would have lost. It is madness to walk through a planar gateway into a mapless land, without knowledge of it, locals, or threats, and no good thought of where to find what we seek.
Yet whenever my better judgement almost gets the better of me, I think of that first letter Master Virian waved before me, the word ‘Pardon’ written thereon. Master Virian has marked me well. I already have money. I already have a reputation. Yet he has offered me the one thing that neither of those things can buy: a way home.
So it looks that, sooner or later, I will be taking Master Virian’s bargain, and will then stand, however impossibly, upon that small green spark twinkling up in the sky.

From the Daylog of Vaeol-Zheieveil u'Zhasaele Zolaemaue be’Son

~Sae voe o’nisa-yei. O’voe-ziari romif o’aveassi, o’hoe theia shivoayela kami-shei.~

Words fall like rain. Yet I let them fall to grow, lest the world falls to time.

1. Koelae, 24,535: Newyear - Son
I am Vaeol Zhasael’s Daughter, Outrider of Son, and soul-seer of the Ihezoshu Esotericum. I have gotten this daylog from Lady-Mother, as both a Newyear’s gift and for my late uprisehood. I shall try to write herein, if not each day, then when something wordworthy may happen. Lady-Mother bade me do only noble deeds so that I may be unashamed when they are read herein.
Today I was dubbed outrider, along with six other maidens from the Citadel. We were led blindfolded to Burning-Mother’s Temple. There we knelt, bathed, and our blinds were doffed. Then we swore our oaths to the City. They clothed us, tied our harness – breastplate, kilt, armbands, and greaves – and handed us our helms. Then they set swordbills in our hands, and we rose.
Right then Burning-Mother shone through the dome’s eyeroof, and all took it as lucky omen. We lifted our blades, and the crowd cheered. The High Matron and priestesses blessed us. I shrive my antennae have throbbed so much they now ache. Also came sundry friends whomwith I had learned at the ihezoshu. It was rather queer to hug them in breastplate, and we laughed at it.
Son is the oldest Lashunta city, founded over twenty-four thousand years ago when our foremothers first swept southward over Asana and rousted the fiendish Moqeva from their warrens. We alone have lasted unendingly. Over time, others have overshadowed us, even Shining Qabarat. Yet we stay.
Less than a year ago I came from El, where I had spent ereyesteryear among the Elves’ Crownburgh, and where I had been thankful for my lore at the Esotericum and the too short while I had spent at the Hall of Stars. The Elves have such starlore as I had never heard, and I would eagerly learn more. Though their observatories are no higher than ours, gossip tells they get much lore from their otherworldly queendom on Blue-Queen’s World, ~Kyonin~ as they name it. No Elf I met shrove they have ever gone there, though some said it is rough, and the Aslanta (who also dwell there) are threatsome. Also, legends warn that Blue-Queen is accursed. Anywise, when I came back to Son, right in time for my birthday, I went to the Shotalashu-fields and bound Ess, whomwithout now I cannot think of being.
I could tell Lady-Mother is proud of my uprisehood, though she looked not straight on me. I am thankful, for unlong ago I feared I was a shame. Both my older sisters are matrons in their own right, and they mislooked my lowly outlook. Yet Lady-Mother reminded that few maidens may claim they have risen from both the Esotericum and the Citadel. Now that I am outrider, she may claim my ladyship. It is well, though I much prefer drilltide and scoutfare than the matrons’ hallcraft.

2. Koelae, 24,535
Today I stood watch at the Citadel, but was bidden merely choose a room and have done so. It will be nice to have my own room and not share with three other maidens. I went home and told Lady-Mother, who gladly bade the grooms gather goods and bring them to the Citadel. I had great fun in readying my own household. It is unmuch: a bed (though wider than but me if I ever be so lucky), a mealboard, some seat-pillows, and a bookshelf for my little lorehoard. Yet I beheld it giddily. I thanked worshipfully when Lady-Mother gave me a small house-shrine, fulsome with Burning-Mother drawn in glyph-shape on a wallshroud. Four years ago, when I outrose from my lorehood at the Esotericum, I swore myself to Burning-Mother's service. After I swept the room and set the other belongings, I set the shrine in a wallnook, hung the likeness-shroud, and lit sweetburn and waxblaze, and prayed a hymn. Then it truly felt like my home. So now I have this new room, as well as the heirloom swordbill Lady-Mother gave me ere my knighthood, which belonged to my great-grandmother Eavol, hero against the Formians.
Soon afterward I got a call from my Lady-Sister Raiale. So I cleansed myself and went to her house. There I waited in her yard for longer than a belltide when at last my other Sister Risodess came out. She looked queerly and greeted me as if I am still a newling. I let it by.
I went into the hall where Raiale sat and hailed her, whereat she asked my thought now that I am an outrider. I answered I should serve and if I may, again uptake my seer-lore. She smiled queerly and said my words were all well. Yet then she asked what thought I had of lovemates and children. I answered what doubtlessly she already knew: as newlings we do not so reckon, for even other maidens still serve their firdhood at this year. She read that I should not wait overlong, and that I should forelook to choose lovemates and prove my ripeness, forwhy I may yet have chance to uptread to Matronhood.
I saw through that she has some game in mind, where maybe she wished me among the Matrons to cleave her camp. I answered I should think and see what may bemeet. She yaysaid and wished me well, whereat I said I must return to watchtide, and left.