Session 102 - Spoiler Tags of War
The officers of the Starfall successfully attended a Cardian party in honor of Isa's sister Myrta's birthday, and not only did no one die, no one even caused a scene. Yves may have promised himself to another as a tutor, or perhaps a life partner, but considering the last social gathering Yves attended, this can only be considered a success.
Lady Myrta Osler commanded the room with an ease honed over years of training, warmly welcoming all of Isa's friends and happily engaging them all in casual conversation. The rest of the Oslers who were present served as gracious hosts or chatty guests, depending on their link to the host.
Free to leave Cardia at their own pace (rather than under cover of night and/or pursued by a series of airships), the crew of the Starfall took to a pair of new projects; determining their next course of action, and for something far simpler, learning what the Alternan artifacts lifted from the Seventh Dawn were and what, precisely, they could do with them.
We join our brave adventurers in one of the Starfall's many free rooms with their haul, joined by a few of their good friends and a few others besides...
**
Orrey sits eyeing the creepy dragon mask. Celeste chews on the end of a paintbrush as she peers through a magnifier, holding a marble game piece up to the lens, held precisely between two gloved fingers. "Why did you steal this, again?" she asks the room at large.
"I grabbed anything I recognized as Alternan," Orrey says, unable to look away.
"Mmm," Celeste says, her tone not betraying any opinion on the matter. Bast pushes the white key away with a weary sigh. "Seems identical to the one that led us to the Starfall in everything but color. And that's about all I can get from it. If there's another ship like this hidden somewhere..." Isa is sitting in a corner, relieved to be back in her shipboard dress. She is reading a letter from Bertholt detailing the damage done to her chalet's wine cellar; she seems impressed by the effort the crew put in and equally impressed that they didn't do much damage otherwise.
Artemicion looks at the Frost Fair Blade like he might propose marriage at any moment. Jasmine said earlier she caught him composing poetry. The moogle is moved. "There wasn't much strategy in the heat of the moment, Celeste." Linnet has not brought the fan with her; it's tucked in a hatbox in her quarters, cushioned in several clean scarves. "Something in there was strategical in nature and we had about negative three seconds to figure out what."
"Well, something besides the obvious. The fan's staying with me, by the way; it's pretty and extremely delicate and that's about it. It's safely out of Triscuit range. I think."
"Have we tried -- Linnet," Shula says, scowling as Linnet's sentence leaps in front of her train of thought.
"We have tried Linnet! Many times! I am applicable to many a situation." Linnet bats her eyes at Shula. "Apologies. Do continue."
"We are not storing priceless artifacts in any room that ball of knives has free access to," Shula insists.
Behind Linnet's back, Bast has freed his hands to make talking motions at each other.
"Okay, okay, I'll move it after this meeting, but my trunk is double-locked. Were you going to propose something else?" "We could make our own vault, and install traps?" Shula asks, looking over at Jasper for support.
"Traps," comes Jasper's flat reply.
"Storing them all in one place worked out so well for the Seventh Dawn," Isa points out without looking up from her letter. "What about hiding them in plain sight?" Orrey asks. Ivy and Willow sit at a comfortable distance from the doll. Ivy's lap holds a sketchbook with the pattern of the doll's dress recreated. Willow holds a knife, in case the doll comes at them. They don't seem particularly excited about doll duty.
Natron dutifully documents everything everyone mumbles or mentions, writing with his good hand. Barea sits next to him, leaning against his shoulder. They are rarely more than a few feet from each other. Bast gives Orrey a puzzled look. "Do we have a pile of other Alternan artifacts to use for camouflage?"
"...or were you talking about props?"
Orrey waves at the mask. "Yves' various terraria will hide one more mask." He shrugs. "We have loads of artisans on board, we could camouflage them ourselves if they're obvious to someone casually looking."
"Speaking of the mask," Apoc says, leaning his chair against the far wall. "Orrey? What have you learned?"
Orrey, surprised that Apoc's even talking to him, pauses before responding. "It's a dragon."
"-it's a what now?" asks a startled Bast.
"They're a dragon? I'll let Yves figure all that out, since that's his recent specialty." Orrey grins.
"Another one?" Isa asks.
"There were...are?...many dragons." Orrey explains.
"Oh. That kind of 'it's a dragon.'" Linnet closes her eyes. "Let's drop that one off with Yves and give him some time to figure that out after he unravels that letter from Millie." Isa hms. "Hm."
"Sure, I'm just adjusting to the kind of life where you unexpectedly find yourself traveling with a dragon." Bast taps his fingers on the countertop.
"Better to plan for it," Isa concurs. Most of the crew is also observing the mask now after learning it's a dragon.
"Cunning Midgardsormr, commanding Bahamut, swift Tiamat, powerful Nidhogg, wise Hraesvelgr. Others, too, though whether they survive is unknown. Ratatoskr, Vrtra, Azdaja, and Vidofnir." Orrey adds.
Isa listens to Orrey like she is making a "to-do" list.
"Whichever one of you's going to start monologuing, take it outside," Linnet commands the room at large.
"Don't suppose this one's introduced itself by name yet?"
Orrey responds to Bast, "This mask is Shinryu, one of the oldest of the dragons. More powerful than all of the other dragons. More powerful than them all combined. Or so it is written."
"Hm. Definitely let Yves do the talking," concludes Linnet.
"By who, I wonder," Apoc says quietly in response to Orrey.
"More than just talking. He's got some experiments to do. The eye sockets are made of the same material as the Starfall's hull. Now THAT'S mysterious." Orrey says. "Oh, and try getting close to the mask, and you'll feel this wave of pure malice. Very unsettling." Orrey shudders a bit and finally looks away as if he's purged himself of something evil.
"Worse than Midgardsormr?" Isa seems almost impressed.
Orrey tosses Isa the mask. "You be the judge."
Ivy and Willow weigh Creepy Doll versus Malice Dragon and are not sure where the scales tip.
Bast rubs his forehead, looking put-upon. "Definitely talking before any experiments." He stands up, walks over to the mask and leans down to peer into the aforementioned eye sockets.
Isa catches the mask, tilting it so Bast can see as well.
Now that Orrey has pointed it out, the blackened edges of the bone mask do hide the edge of the same ceramic metal that lines the hull of the Starfall, though it is not exactly silver anymore. The hate pouring off of the mask is palpable.
If anyone in the room is watching Isa instead of the mask, they might swear they saw an extremely faint smile.
Bast nods slowly as he straightens up, blowing out a quiet breath. "Yeah. Yves is going to have an interesting time with this one."
Isa nods. "I'll bring it to him later," she says. "Speaking of, Yves sends his apologies, probably from underneath a substantial collection of pipes and blankets," Apoc says. "I have his notes here on the sphere recovered from the heist."
"What did you do to the poor boy?" asks Linnet, but her heart's not really in it.
Apoc just shakes his head, then pulls out a piece of paper from his unbuttoned shirt pocket. "It is almost certainly nethicite, an Alternan relic. A crystal of highly compressed magical energy called either 'aether' or 'mist' depending which scholar is swaggering their weight around in the paper. It has the unique property of absorbing all magic that comes into contact with it, which I believe you two discovered firsthand," he says to Orrey and the captain.
"Yeah, that part we knew." Bast holds out his hand for whatever else the notes contain. "Anything on why someone might want to plug a chunk of it into their ship?"
"Good way to keep something contained," Isa suggests.
"They had a replica of the Luminous Engine," Apoc says. "Alterna used machines to take the absorption properties of nethicite and apply them to a wider area. Defense, most likely. The largest of those machines was the Luminous Engine, and it protected the entirety of Alterna from any hostile magic."
"Could it be how they could enter Alternan airspace?" Orrey asks. "The Luminous Engine's destruction almost certainly heralded the end of Alterna, when one considers the state of the ruins now. The machine on the Seventh Dawn must serve a similar purpose."
"I was wondering if that could be channeled into a shield from magical attacks somehow. Like that time Alterna tried to set us on fire." Bast pages through the notes, squinting at Yves' handwriting. "Looks like I have some historical engineering to brush up on."
Isa nods. "It's one thing to draw magic off the battlefield, but a nation..."
Bast stops mid-page, frowning. "Doesn't quite explain why Alterna stopped acting up when they were around, though, instead of attacking the Dawn and bouncing off this." "The two people who might know more," Apoc says, "are the two people who designed the ship. Franz Alberich, Director of Alberich Industries, based out of Saron, or Isara Marquez, 19-year-old engineering wunderkind. Almost a certainty to be granted land in Caerwyn, though as of yet still resides in Machanon."
"...it's on record who designed the Seventh Dawn?" Linnet looks baffled. "Wait, of course it is, it was sold publicly. What would be baffling is if they knew who designed this beastie, but that's a chocobo of a different color. Or something."
"You figure Alterna suppression is a feature of the base model, not aftermarket?" Bast looks skeptical.
"Seventh Dawn is a prototype," Isa points out, "who knows what they put in there at the yard."
"Alterna specifically, no, but if your client said 'I want giant anti-magic shields' and had the kind of money that the Seventh Dawn has to fling around..." Linnet speculates.
"Yves theorized they would know who Dr. Dural went to next, if it wasn't one of them who did it," Apoc says.
(Linnet is staring off into space muttering bits of poetry about the menacing god-beast Shinryu, nothing relevant.) "It's a lead." Bast nods absentmindedly, then goes back to the appendices to Yves' notes: "-no, no, not within fifty miles of land, maybe, not even if Kuganepo himself comes down to sign off on this, no..."
"What was the fan?" Celeste asks.
"Not much. It's shiny and extremely delicate and probably ludicrously expensive and shouldn't be on a ship with the likes of us." Linnet shrugs. "It's in a hatbox with all my most delicate scarves around it, in a locked box in another locked box. Pretty sure Triscuit hasn't learned how to pick locks yet this week."
"Someone might be able to sell it for us, but until then we're locking it up."
(Linnet cranes her neck to figure out what wouldn't pass even a god's approval.)
"That's it? Just....valuable?" Isa looks incredulous.
"I'm not comfortable with the idea of selling it until we know more about it. It could have some hidden effect." Orrey says.
Linnet gives him a Look. "It moves air in a very shiny fashion, but you're welcome to poke at it further."
"Shiny air?" Orrey asks, intrigued.
Linnet's forehead smacks into her palm. "Shiny accessories. Sometimes a decoration is just a decoration, Orrey."
"So. Recruit a wunderkind or try to poach the head of a company?"
"Maybe...but if it's just a shiny, why was it in a Vault with all these other impressive pieces?" Orrey asks.
Isa tips her head toward Orrey in agreement.
"Because it's expensive and that's what goes in a Vault, sweetheart. Museums have guards too." Linnet smiles at him, but the smile is looking a little strained.
"I feel that the Seventh Dawn isn't really worried about money." Orrey says, but cedes the point.
"Isa, your sister received one very like this as a birthday present. That level of expensive."
That gets Isa's attention. "She did? Did you notice from whom?"
"Um. The Ondore heir? The teenager with pretensions of poetry?" (Linnet was not particularly impressed.)
"Huh," Isa huhs.
Bast looks over at Ivy and Willow keeping up their reluctant vigil. "Anything on the doll? Or the scabbard?"
Ivy and Willow look at each other before some amount of Hive rank is pulled, and Ivy speaks. "Three feet tall, very well made. The attire marks her from the 920-975 period, but we don't know if she was made then, or was made to look like then. She's designed to look about 14 years old, but you can tell Anholm wasn't focused solely on realism."
"Caris Anholm," Willow fills in. "We found that name stitched into the bottom of the dress. It might be the crafter or just the dressmaker."
"Very pretty. Right, we should get together some sort of minor vault to keep Triscuit and Boo out of there, at least. Solid crate in the library, perhaps. No traps necessary, just a deadbolt. And nobody teach the kitten how to pick a lock." Linnet's moved on.
“Could be the name of the doll?” Orrey asks.
Linnet shrugs. "So I guess our next goal is that Alternashield, then, unless anyone has a museum in mind that would love a doll and a fan?"
"There's also the matter of this game," Celeste says as she moves her magnifier off of her eye. "This is the only known copy of Alba & Ater, the legendary precursor to chess. I know of at least one person for whom this is their life's goal, and last I heard he was offering a quarter of a million gil if anyone found one."
Linnet's whistle echoes off the ceiling. "And that would be part of why a vault was needed."
"I don't think this is actually a game at all." Owen has been stone silent this entire time, holding twelve small cards in his oversized hands. "There are only twelve cards. I think this is a weapon."
"Twelve cards, twelve gods. No coincidences." Orrey says.
"The cards have designs and names on them. The Balance, The Spear, The Spire, The Arrow, The Ewer, The Bole, The Saint, The Sinner, The Deep, The Remedy, The Might, and The Ruin." He cycles through the cards, reading the names out. The scabbard that held them rests across his lap. "There are initials on the bottom right corner of the back, JB, and I think it's meant to be Jerun Byrde. He worked in a theoretical design store before finding his true calling of prophecy."
He is definitely reciting this. Bast visibly hesitates before asking "...and what, exactly, is a 'theoretical design store'?"
"Perilune didn't say," Owen says. "But she told me about him when she was reading my fortune."
Isa says, completely straight-faced "Bespoke cosmology. For the people wealthy enough to have the meaning of life customized to their wishes."
There are at least two beats of complete silence.
Then Linnet replies, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I go through trashy romance novels like they're popcorn. Clearly, that shall be at least one of our retirement plan."
Bast stares at Isa for a few seconds, trying and failing to decide whether that was supposed to be a serious answer. His quietly muttered "...nobles..." seems to work either way.
"Artemicion, can you make glass?" Linnet asks out of the blue.
"I have," Artemicion says like it hurts.
Linnet does, in fact, notice, and changes tactic mid-thought. "We might have a use for some later; for now we'll probably just put stuff in crates. The scabbard we'll box up in the armory. Anyone wanting to practice their fortune-telling can dig out an old tarot deck instead."
"Anything interesting in your fortune, Owen?" Orrey asks curiously.
"It wasn't a good one," Owen says. He is unwilling to elaborate.
"Well, clearly we just need more practice." Linnet winks at him. "Pretty sure I have a deck on my bookshelf. Celeste, where was your contact?"
"The Triad," Celeste says. She carefully puts the game piece back in place.
"Quarter million's a lot of operating funds," Isa points out.
"Didn't we just leave the Triad in rather a hurry?" Linnet points right back.
"We'll want to be careful about how we offload any of these. Don't want them leading the Dawn right back to us."
"Who can we sell things to that won't inform on us?" Orrey asks Bast.
"Anyone make any friends at the party?" Isa asks.
"The zweihander guy seemed nice." Orrey says. "Baron...oh boy...um..."
"No idea, I don't often have a quarter million to throw around" Bast replies to Orrey, then looks up at Isa's question. "I think I hit it off pretty well with your uncles, but that's not exactly a new connection. I don't suppose you know about any banks that arrange anonymous sales for this sort of thing?"
"Wedge was there, but he's probably not buying much. He says hi, by the way," offers Linnet.
"Claussell!" Orrey smiles as he remembers.
Isa thinks about this. "I could probably get someone who would be willing to take it off our hands discreetly, but not for that price. Maybe a hundred thousand." Isa throws this number out as if apologizing for how small it is.
The actors in the room make faces.
For once, Bast seems to be fully on the actors' side. "No one interested in some light work as a middleman and known for keeping their mouth shut?"
"We also don't have to get rid of that thing right away," Linnet points out. "We could, y'know, not fence the most expensive thing of the entire haul immediately. I don't know how dealing with loot usually works."
Isa shakes her head. "No. They'd take it, put it on display somewhere, and when word eventually got out to Celeste's friend they might consider parting with it. More likely they'd just issue an invite to visit and play a game."
"What about donating to a museum? Give the items to someone who'll keep them for the public to experience?" Orrey asks.
"Hm. They might loan it out, with a sufficiently fancy plaque," Isa concedes.
"Um. Orrey, museums aren't really known for being sworn to secrecy about their donors." Linnet hesitates. "Unless you want to heist the thing into the place, that's very likely to be traceable back to us."
"It's not like you can just push a hundreds-of-years-old fan or the only copy of an ancient board game through the book drop slot."
"We could donate anonymously." Orrey says.
"They don't stay anonymous under pressure." Linnet looks skeptical. "That works for money, but not for a physical object that needs some care in the handing over. I'm picturing any of these on public display, one of the Dawn walking in, and someone in Dural's office an hour later giving the name of whichever of us handed it over."
Isa nods. "If that long."
"We had a messy divorce case where the rare book collection wasn't supposed to be part of the assets that were 'donated.' Didn't end well." Linnet shudders visibly.
Isa adds, "It's why you want private collectors. They can be extremely discreet about where their pieces come from."
"So, we need to decide where to head next?" Orrey asks.
"So let's start looking for both a fence, and someone who knows what to do with that sphere. And if we're holding a bunch of stupidly valuable stuff, I for one am not in favor of bringing the matter to a company president without a lot more information. Isa, what do you know about the name Alberich?" Linnet turns to their most knowledgeable spearlady.
"All I know is that it sounds like Albarea, and that sounds like bad news, but that's not a logical basis for a plan."
"Close enough to the Dawn crew to build them a custom ship sounds like plenty of bad news already. If we want to dig in that direction, Marquez seems like a safer choice."
"Despite his name, he's not Cardian," Isa points out. "And you're lucky you're asking me, and not my uncle. I use fewer profanities. He's...innovative," she says like a curse, "but unquestionably brilliant."
"I wouldn't mind a trip back to Saron, but let's not let that sway our decision." Orrey says.
"Okay, now I want to hear it with profanities." Linnet looks eager.
Isa gets to her feet. "Later, with drinks," she promises. "I'm going to go see a viera about a very angry dragon."
Lady Myrta Osler commanded the room with an ease honed over years of training, warmly welcoming all of Isa's friends and happily engaging them all in casual conversation. The rest of the Oslers who were present served as gracious hosts or chatty guests, depending on their link to the host.
Free to leave Cardia at their own pace (rather than under cover of night and/or pursued by a series of airships), the crew of the Starfall took to a pair of new projects; determining their next course of action, and for something far simpler, learning what the Alternan artifacts lifted from the Seventh Dawn were and what, precisely, they could do with them.
We join our brave adventurers in one of the Starfall's many free rooms with their haul, joined by a few of their good friends and a few others besides...
**
Orrey sits eyeing the creepy dragon mask. Celeste chews on the end of a paintbrush as she peers through a magnifier, holding a marble game piece up to the lens, held precisely between two gloved fingers. "Why did you steal this, again?" she asks the room at large.
"I grabbed anything I recognized as Alternan," Orrey says, unable to look away.
"Mmm," Celeste says, her tone not betraying any opinion on the matter. Bast pushes the white key away with a weary sigh. "Seems identical to the one that led us to the Starfall in everything but color. And that's about all I can get from it. If there's another ship like this hidden somewhere..." Isa is sitting in a corner, relieved to be back in her shipboard dress. She is reading a letter from Bertholt detailing the damage done to her chalet's wine cellar; she seems impressed by the effort the crew put in and equally impressed that they didn't do much damage otherwise.
Artemicion looks at the Frost Fair Blade like he might propose marriage at any moment. Jasmine said earlier she caught him composing poetry. The moogle is moved. "There wasn't much strategy in the heat of the moment, Celeste." Linnet has not brought the fan with her; it's tucked in a hatbox in her quarters, cushioned in several clean scarves. "Something in there was strategical in nature and we had about negative three seconds to figure out what."
"Well, something besides the obvious. The fan's staying with me, by the way; it's pretty and extremely delicate and that's about it. It's safely out of Triscuit range. I think."
"Have we tried -- Linnet," Shula says, scowling as Linnet's sentence leaps in front of her train of thought.
"We have tried Linnet! Many times! I am applicable to many a situation." Linnet bats her eyes at Shula. "Apologies. Do continue."
"We are not storing priceless artifacts in any room that ball of knives has free access to," Shula insists.
Behind Linnet's back, Bast has freed his hands to make talking motions at each other.
"Okay, okay, I'll move it after this meeting, but my trunk is double-locked. Were you going to propose something else?" "We could make our own vault, and install traps?" Shula asks, looking over at Jasper for support.
"Traps," comes Jasper's flat reply.
"Storing them all in one place worked out so well for the Seventh Dawn," Isa points out without looking up from her letter. "What about hiding them in plain sight?" Orrey asks. Ivy and Willow sit at a comfortable distance from the doll. Ivy's lap holds a sketchbook with the pattern of the doll's dress recreated. Willow holds a knife, in case the doll comes at them. They don't seem particularly excited about doll duty.
Natron dutifully documents everything everyone mumbles or mentions, writing with his good hand. Barea sits next to him, leaning against his shoulder. They are rarely more than a few feet from each other. Bast gives Orrey a puzzled look. "Do we have a pile of other Alternan artifacts to use for camouflage?"
"...or were you talking about props?"
Orrey waves at the mask. "Yves' various terraria will hide one more mask." He shrugs. "We have loads of artisans on board, we could camouflage them ourselves if they're obvious to someone casually looking."
"Speaking of the mask," Apoc says, leaning his chair against the far wall. "Orrey? What have you learned?"
Orrey, surprised that Apoc's even talking to him, pauses before responding. "It's a dragon."
"-it's a what now?" asks a startled Bast.
"They're a dragon? I'll let Yves figure all that out, since that's his recent specialty." Orrey grins.
"Another one?" Isa asks.
"There were...are?...many dragons." Orrey explains.
"Oh. That kind of 'it's a dragon.'" Linnet closes her eyes. "Let's drop that one off with Yves and give him some time to figure that out after he unravels that letter from Millie." Isa hms. "Hm."
"Sure, I'm just adjusting to the kind of life where you unexpectedly find yourself traveling with a dragon." Bast taps his fingers on the countertop.
"Better to plan for it," Isa concurs. Most of the crew is also observing the mask now after learning it's a dragon.
"Cunning Midgardsormr, commanding Bahamut, swift Tiamat, powerful Nidhogg, wise Hraesvelgr. Others, too, though whether they survive is unknown. Ratatoskr, Vrtra, Azdaja, and Vidofnir." Orrey adds.
Isa listens to Orrey like she is making a "to-do" list.
"Whichever one of you's going to start monologuing, take it outside," Linnet commands the room at large.
"Don't suppose this one's introduced itself by name yet?"
Orrey responds to Bast, "This mask is Shinryu, one of the oldest of the dragons. More powerful than all of the other dragons. More powerful than them all combined. Or so it is written."
"Hm. Definitely let Yves do the talking," concludes Linnet.
"By who, I wonder," Apoc says quietly in response to Orrey.
"More than just talking. He's got some experiments to do. The eye sockets are made of the same material as the Starfall's hull. Now THAT'S mysterious." Orrey says. "Oh, and try getting close to the mask, and you'll feel this wave of pure malice. Very unsettling." Orrey shudders a bit and finally looks away as if he's purged himself of something evil.
"Worse than Midgardsormr?" Isa seems almost impressed.
Orrey tosses Isa the mask. "You be the judge."
Ivy and Willow weigh Creepy Doll versus Malice Dragon and are not sure where the scales tip.
Bast rubs his forehead, looking put-upon. "Definitely talking before any experiments." He stands up, walks over to the mask and leans down to peer into the aforementioned eye sockets.
Isa catches the mask, tilting it so Bast can see as well.
Now that Orrey has pointed it out, the blackened edges of the bone mask do hide the edge of the same ceramic metal that lines the hull of the Starfall, though it is not exactly silver anymore. The hate pouring off of the mask is palpable.
If anyone in the room is watching Isa instead of the mask, they might swear they saw an extremely faint smile.
Bast nods slowly as he straightens up, blowing out a quiet breath. "Yeah. Yves is going to have an interesting time with this one."
Isa nods. "I'll bring it to him later," she says. "Speaking of, Yves sends his apologies, probably from underneath a substantial collection of pipes and blankets," Apoc says. "I have his notes here on the sphere recovered from the heist."
"What did you do to the poor boy?" asks Linnet, but her heart's not really in it.
Apoc just shakes his head, then pulls out a piece of paper from his unbuttoned shirt pocket. "It is almost certainly nethicite, an Alternan relic. A crystal of highly compressed magical energy called either 'aether' or 'mist' depending which scholar is swaggering their weight around in the paper. It has the unique property of absorbing all magic that comes into contact with it, which I believe you two discovered firsthand," he says to Orrey and the captain.
"Yeah, that part we knew." Bast holds out his hand for whatever else the notes contain. "Anything on why someone might want to plug a chunk of it into their ship?"
"Good way to keep something contained," Isa suggests.
"They had a replica of the Luminous Engine," Apoc says. "Alterna used machines to take the absorption properties of nethicite and apply them to a wider area. Defense, most likely. The largest of those machines was the Luminous Engine, and it protected the entirety of Alterna from any hostile magic."
"Could it be how they could enter Alternan airspace?" Orrey asks. "The Luminous Engine's destruction almost certainly heralded the end of Alterna, when one considers the state of the ruins now. The machine on the Seventh Dawn must serve a similar purpose."
"I was wondering if that could be channeled into a shield from magical attacks somehow. Like that time Alterna tried to set us on fire." Bast pages through the notes, squinting at Yves' handwriting. "Looks like I have some historical engineering to brush up on."
Isa nods. "It's one thing to draw magic off the battlefield, but a nation..."
Bast stops mid-page, frowning. "Doesn't quite explain why Alterna stopped acting up when they were around, though, instead of attacking the Dawn and bouncing off this." "The two people who might know more," Apoc says, "are the two people who designed the ship. Franz Alberich, Director of Alberich Industries, based out of Saron, or Isara Marquez, 19-year-old engineering wunderkind. Almost a certainty to be granted land in Caerwyn, though as of yet still resides in Machanon."
"...it's on record who designed the Seventh Dawn?" Linnet looks baffled. "Wait, of course it is, it was sold publicly. What would be baffling is if they knew who designed this beastie, but that's a chocobo of a different color. Or something."
"You figure Alterna suppression is a feature of the base model, not aftermarket?" Bast looks skeptical.
"Seventh Dawn is a prototype," Isa points out, "who knows what they put in there at the yard."
"Alterna specifically, no, but if your client said 'I want giant anti-magic shields' and had the kind of money that the Seventh Dawn has to fling around..." Linnet speculates.
"Yves theorized they would know who Dr. Dural went to next, if it wasn't one of them who did it," Apoc says.
(Linnet is staring off into space muttering bits of poetry about the menacing god-beast Shinryu, nothing relevant.) "It's a lead." Bast nods absentmindedly, then goes back to the appendices to Yves' notes: "-no, no, not within fifty miles of land, maybe, not even if Kuganepo himself comes down to sign off on this, no..."
"What was the fan?" Celeste asks.
"Not much. It's shiny and extremely delicate and probably ludicrously expensive and shouldn't be on a ship with the likes of us." Linnet shrugs. "It's in a hatbox with all my most delicate scarves around it, in a locked box in another locked box. Pretty sure Triscuit hasn't learned how to pick locks yet this week."
"Someone might be able to sell it for us, but until then we're locking it up."
(Linnet cranes her neck to figure out what wouldn't pass even a god's approval.)
"That's it? Just....valuable?" Isa looks incredulous.
"I'm not comfortable with the idea of selling it until we know more about it. It could have some hidden effect." Orrey says.
Linnet gives him a Look. "It moves air in a very shiny fashion, but you're welcome to poke at it further."
"Shiny air?" Orrey asks, intrigued.
Linnet's forehead smacks into her palm. "Shiny accessories. Sometimes a decoration is just a decoration, Orrey."
"So. Recruit a wunderkind or try to poach the head of a company?"
"Maybe...but if it's just a shiny, why was it in a Vault with all these other impressive pieces?" Orrey asks.
Isa tips her head toward Orrey in agreement.
"Because it's expensive and that's what goes in a Vault, sweetheart. Museums have guards too." Linnet smiles at him, but the smile is looking a little strained.
"I feel that the Seventh Dawn isn't really worried about money." Orrey says, but cedes the point.
"Isa, your sister received one very like this as a birthday present. That level of expensive."
That gets Isa's attention. "She did? Did you notice from whom?"
"Um. The Ondore heir? The teenager with pretensions of poetry?" (Linnet was not particularly impressed.)
"Huh," Isa huhs.
Bast looks over at Ivy and Willow keeping up their reluctant vigil. "Anything on the doll? Or the scabbard?"
Ivy and Willow look at each other before some amount of Hive rank is pulled, and Ivy speaks. "Three feet tall, very well made. The attire marks her from the 920-975 period, but we don't know if she was made then, or was made to look like then. She's designed to look about 14 years old, but you can tell Anholm wasn't focused solely on realism."
"Caris Anholm," Willow fills in. "We found that name stitched into the bottom of the dress. It might be the crafter or just the dressmaker."
"Very pretty. Right, we should get together some sort of minor vault to keep Triscuit and Boo out of there, at least. Solid crate in the library, perhaps. No traps necessary, just a deadbolt. And nobody teach the kitten how to pick a lock." Linnet's moved on.
“Could be the name of the doll?” Orrey asks.
Linnet shrugs. "So I guess our next goal is that Alternashield, then, unless anyone has a museum in mind that would love a doll and a fan?"
"There's also the matter of this game," Celeste says as she moves her magnifier off of her eye. "This is the only known copy of Alba & Ater, the legendary precursor to chess. I know of at least one person for whom this is their life's goal, and last I heard he was offering a quarter of a million gil if anyone found one."
Linnet's whistle echoes off the ceiling. "And that would be part of why a vault was needed."
"I don't think this is actually a game at all." Owen has been stone silent this entire time, holding twelve small cards in his oversized hands. "There are only twelve cards. I think this is a weapon."
"Twelve cards, twelve gods. No coincidences." Orrey says.
"The cards have designs and names on them. The Balance, The Spear, The Spire, The Arrow, The Ewer, The Bole, The Saint, The Sinner, The Deep, The Remedy, The Might, and The Ruin." He cycles through the cards, reading the names out. The scabbard that held them rests across his lap. "There are initials on the bottom right corner of the back, JB, and I think it's meant to be Jerun Byrde. He worked in a theoretical design store before finding his true calling of prophecy."
He is definitely reciting this. Bast visibly hesitates before asking "...and what, exactly, is a 'theoretical design store'?"
"Perilune didn't say," Owen says. "But she told me about him when she was reading my fortune."
Isa says, completely straight-faced "Bespoke cosmology. For the people wealthy enough to have the meaning of life customized to their wishes."
There are at least two beats of complete silence.
Then Linnet replies, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I go through trashy romance novels like they're popcorn. Clearly, that shall be at least one of our retirement plan."
Bast stares at Isa for a few seconds, trying and failing to decide whether that was supposed to be a serious answer. His quietly muttered "...nobles..." seems to work either way.
"Artemicion, can you make glass?" Linnet asks out of the blue.
"I have," Artemicion says like it hurts.
Linnet does, in fact, notice, and changes tactic mid-thought. "We might have a use for some later; for now we'll probably just put stuff in crates. The scabbard we'll box up in the armory. Anyone wanting to practice their fortune-telling can dig out an old tarot deck instead."
"Anything interesting in your fortune, Owen?" Orrey asks curiously.
"It wasn't a good one," Owen says. He is unwilling to elaborate.
"Well, clearly we just need more practice." Linnet winks at him. "Pretty sure I have a deck on my bookshelf. Celeste, where was your contact?"
"The Triad," Celeste says. She carefully puts the game piece back in place.
"Quarter million's a lot of operating funds," Isa points out.
"Didn't we just leave the Triad in rather a hurry?" Linnet points right back.
"We'll want to be careful about how we offload any of these. Don't want them leading the Dawn right back to us."
"Who can we sell things to that won't inform on us?" Orrey asks Bast.
"Anyone make any friends at the party?" Isa asks.
"The zweihander guy seemed nice." Orrey says. "Baron...oh boy...um..."
"No idea, I don't often have a quarter million to throw around" Bast replies to Orrey, then looks up at Isa's question. "I think I hit it off pretty well with your uncles, but that's not exactly a new connection. I don't suppose you know about any banks that arrange anonymous sales for this sort of thing?"
"Wedge was there, but he's probably not buying much. He says hi, by the way," offers Linnet.
"Claussell!" Orrey smiles as he remembers.
Isa thinks about this. "I could probably get someone who would be willing to take it off our hands discreetly, but not for that price. Maybe a hundred thousand." Isa throws this number out as if apologizing for how small it is.
The actors in the room make faces.
For once, Bast seems to be fully on the actors' side. "No one interested in some light work as a middleman and known for keeping their mouth shut?"
"We also don't have to get rid of that thing right away," Linnet points out. "We could, y'know, not fence the most expensive thing of the entire haul immediately. I don't know how dealing with loot usually works."
Isa shakes her head. "No. They'd take it, put it on display somewhere, and when word eventually got out to Celeste's friend they might consider parting with it. More likely they'd just issue an invite to visit and play a game."
"What about donating to a museum? Give the items to someone who'll keep them for the public to experience?" Orrey asks.
"Hm. They might loan it out, with a sufficiently fancy plaque," Isa concedes.
"Um. Orrey, museums aren't really known for being sworn to secrecy about their donors." Linnet hesitates. "Unless you want to heist the thing into the place, that's very likely to be traceable back to us."
"It's not like you can just push a hundreds-of-years-old fan or the only copy of an ancient board game through the book drop slot."
"We could donate anonymously." Orrey says.
"They don't stay anonymous under pressure." Linnet looks skeptical. "That works for money, but not for a physical object that needs some care in the handing over. I'm picturing any of these on public display, one of the Dawn walking in, and someone in Dural's office an hour later giving the name of whichever of us handed it over."
Isa nods. "If that long."
"We had a messy divorce case where the rare book collection wasn't supposed to be part of the assets that were 'donated.' Didn't end well." Linnet shudders visibly.
Isa adds, "It's why you want private collectors. They can be extremely discreet about where their pieces come from."
"So, we need to decide where to head next?" Orrey asks.
"So let's start looking for both a fence, and someone who knows what to do with that sphere. And if we're holding a bunch of stupidly valuable stuff, I for one am not in favor of bringing the matter to a company president without a lot more information. Isa, what do you know about the name Alberich?" Linnet turns to their most knowledgeable spearlady.
"All I know is that it sounds like Albarea, and that sounds like bad news, but that's not a logical basis for a plan."
"Close enough to the Dawn crew to build them a custom ship sounds like plenty of bad news already. If we want to dig in that direction, Marquez seems like a safer choice."
"Despite his name, he's not Cardian," Isa points out. "And you're lucky you're asking me, and not my uncle. I use fewer profanities. He's...innovative," she says like a curse, "but unquestionably brilliant."
"I wouldn't mind a trip back to Saron, but let's not let that sway our decision." Orrey says.
"Okay, now I want to hear it with profanities." Linnet looks eager.
Isa gets to her feet. "Later, with drinks," she promises. "I'm going to go see a viera about a very angry dragon."
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