Letter 25: A Plan Well Executed, The Death of an Emperor, A Betrayal...and i die

General Summary

Mother, what a strange time we've had.
We spent an interminable amount of time planning. Who goes invisible? Who sneaks? Who can move through the shadows? Who can climb? And each of those things changing each time, switching roles, trying hard to maximize our time and make the best of each skill. Also to collect as many artifacts as we can, so that we have them when this cycle ends and the dome drops. We spent an entire cycle just planning, changing the plan, planning again, and then changing that plan.
One thing did happen, though, which I cannot explain: we were temporarily banished. In the middle of a discussion, everything went away. All I remember is that Alyona was stumbling around right before it happened, and then we disappeared. We went, each of us alone, to a black place; nothing. A vast nothingness. Perhaps this is a warning of what's to come if we fail? It lasted only a minute and we returned to our regular chaos. Nobody seemed to be overly affected, so I said nothing, and we got back down to our planning.
Finally we settled. Finally.
But before we enacted our plan we decided to do a dry run.
And also, Ingoria was quite interested in knowing more about her ‘Baxi heritage from Verryn. So the two of them went to the university while the rest of us reconnoitered the skyship crash site. Our plan was to infiltrate the citadel at that crash site.
Ingoria learned that her people began as Sylvan volunteers. Volunteers! She also learned that her claw bracelet gives her the ability to mark a target (just as I do) and also to misty step through shadows (as Alyona does). Quite an excellent combination of abilities!
With the actual crash site well understood and firmly in our minds, we prepared for our assault on our next loop.
Which we did.
All of us went off on our separate paths to the keep. I flew to the library to retrieve the two books on People, as that was my primary priority, then flew quickly back to Verryn, who popped us both into the keep. I would be the most difficult to sneak in, what with the way The People are viewed in this world, so it made sense for him to bring me along with him as he teleported directly these. We stood outside the door to the emperor’s clone and waited as the others arrived. I drank a potion to provide advantage on my next attack, and the others did the same.
We gazed from one to another…and nodded.
Verryn went to the door to begin unlocking it. We knew that the clone would throw a fireball as soon as the door was opened, so we all hid in the stairwell. Baermak (who remained invisible from his sneaking in) created a mirror image of himself, which stood by Verryn, who busied himself unlocking the door.
Alyona cast a blessing on the rest of us as the door slowly creaked open. Vessyr and Ingoria used scrolls to make multiple images of themselves.
…yet no fireball appeared.
We had waited, pensive, knowing what was next, yet that next thing never happened. So...
We held our breaths and pondered our next actions…
…and then we crept into the room. A huge ornate circular room with a strange chamber in the center. The chamber is broken, shattered, and surrounded by fluids. Bloody footprints lead to a throne to the north. And on that throne sat a very Sylvan Sylvan. Perhaps the most Syvan Sylvan I had ever seen. Silver hair and silver eyes...not silver pupils, but his entire eyes! No whites, no pupils, just silver, very much as Verryn had described. He absolutely radiated Sylvan.
I shot him.
As I focused on him I felt…I felt that my focus was not entirely…focused. It was fuzzy. Not... it's hard to describe.
I shot anyway. And two of my shots found their mark. He didn't even try to move.
But when the arrows hit, they passed through him and made the unmistakable sound of embedding in the wood behind him; the emperor was an illusion.
The illusion looked at me and said, “Well, this is something different.”
Immediately scanning the room, I could see no other occupant, nor any place for that occupant to be hiding. No place. I did see some strange scrawl on the far wall, but could make nothing out from this distance. I readied myself for an ambush, but the illusion simply walked down off of the dias and asked us why we were there.
I turned back to the illusion as our team spread out, still fearing a fireball.
“He’s here!” shouted Verryn as a cry of startled pain came from behind one of the pillars surrounding the chamber in the center of the room. We all moved toward it.
The real emperor looked nothing like the illusion he projected. The illusion appeared, perhaps, as he perceived himself. Youthful, vigorous, vital.
Not the words to describe his actual appearance. Haggard, decrepit...rotting. The real emperor was as intimidating as his projection, though in a completely different sense.
Ingoria (and her mirror images) charged forward, peering behind the column. I heard a word…the emperor spoke the word. I hate that these people have our words!
It was far more compelling than the Sun Knight’s effort. Far more. I almost…
Anyway, he spoke a word.
Then he spoke again, but in a strange sub-aerial language, and a cold darkness spread out from the center of the room, enveloping all of us but Alyonna. She immediately cast a spell on him, but it served only to anger him.
The enveloping coldness was extremely uncomfortable, and I moved out of it was fast as I could, as did everybody else. Boris did not make it in time, and crumbled to the floor. I focused and shot the emperor’s clone. Mother, I have been watching Ingoria closely: the way she can take advantage of her quarry’s lack of attention to attack them while distracted. I paid much attention. So I got just close enough to have a good shot, knowing he would be focused on Ingoria, who was directly next to him. He would be paying utmost attention to her. But not to me. Allowing me to sneak an attack in.
He deflected the first arrow and I saw a bright flash, blinding me. Maintaining my focus to remember where he was I shot him again. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard the impact of arrow in flesh, and I grinned.
Even blinded I will kill him. And all like him!
I heard Ingoria yelp with pain, then squeal a little with delight; I could hear movement in the room: our team closing in.
A searing pain cut through my thoughts and became my entire focus. A bright, sharp pain, almost bringing me to my knees. I could think of nothing else. I lowered my bow and brought my hand to my temple. A hot knife, slicing...
I felt Alyona next to me and my blindness was gone. The emperor was now across the room, away from the group. He glared at Alyonna, who winced in pain. I shot him.
My first arrow went wide, the pain in my head distracting me. But even through that fog my second arrow landed squarely.
Baermak closed with him, short sword in hand, and stabbed the clone in the side. Baermak’s mirror also attacked, but didn’t seem to inflict anything. Perhaps it simply mirrored Baermak’s actions?
The emperor then attacked Verryn with a spell, which Verryn seemed to easily resist.
As he attacked Verryn, Ingoria closed in from behind, slashing him deeply with her claw. She was doing the sneak attack! I had learned this very move from watching her! He screamed, I thought from the wound, but then screamed getting louder and louder until a huge swirling black mass of shadow spewed from his gaping mouth and landed on the ground in front of him, writhing. He remained standing.
But the cold darkness in the center of the room was dispelled.
The emperor was extremely displeased with Ingoria and zapped her with a lightning bolt. The lightning coursed through her, singing her and nearly dropping her. Ingoria tensed as the shock coursed through her and almost instantaneously passed across to Verryn, then to Baermak, and then to Vessyr. All of them looked badly hurt.
Alyonna healed Ingoria a bit and Vessyr cast a spell on the emperor. The shade at his feet then joined in, attacking and destroying Baermak’s mirror. The mirror served its purpose.
The emperor used the word again.
But this time it worked.
I tried, mother, I tried. But the pain in my mind did not allow me to resist; I fell under his command.
His command was to attack my friends. The first friend I saw was Vessyr, who I shot. Twice.
I was able to force myself to miss, otherwise there’s no way he could have evaded my aim. And I was successful at that. I missed both shots. The act of concentrating on missing (which is exceedingly difficult for me to do) somehow cleared the pain from my mind. My mind was clear! Though under control of somebody else.
Verryn and the emperor engaged in a magical tussle, rapidly exchanging spells. The emperor suddenly disappeared with a loud Pop! And I was no longer under his control.
“Now hold them off!” shouted Verryn as we heard the sound of armored footsteps on the stairs outside. And he disappeared.
Baermak turned his focus on the shadow, which remained, and blasted it with magic.
Ingoria turned to the first Sylvan who appeared in the doorway, and I noticed the the emperor’s illusion had also disappeared.
Alyona healed her grandfather, who ran up closer to the shadow horror. He threw a shadowy blade at it, which seemed to pass right through it. I shot at it, hitting both times, though it seemed not to do as much damage as I wanted.
Baermak continued attacking the horror, and Ingoria scrambled away to heal and hide.
More Sylvans poured into the room, including the Sun Knight, who tried the word on me. But it did not work.
I would kill him today.
I turned from the shadow to the Knight and shot him. I hit, but he blinded me just as the emperor did. I shot him again anyway, my rage limning him through my blindness, and I heard it hit flesh.
Success!
I heard Ingoria hiss and growl, and knew she was also attacking the same target. Gunshots close to me told me that the guards were shooting, probably at Ingoria and Vessyr. I then felt my focus come free, meaning that the shadow horror was gone. Baermak had probably finally finished it.
What I had not heard was the Sun Knight moving; I shot at it again. Still blinded, I sent both arrows to exactly the same place I had shot before, hearing both hit flesh.
My blindness subsided. Near the Knight stood Baermak, rubbing salve on his many wounds. What had I missed?
Vessyr also had an arrow in his side…one of my arrows. The Sun Knight must have pulled it out and stabbed him with it.
Ingoria crept in (sneaking again!) and sank her claw deep into him, drawing a furious glare and certainly his murderous intention.
There were two Sylvan soldiers in the room as well, and they were shooting at Alyonna. One of them hit her, but then his gun exploded. Alyona ducked over to her grandfather, who had been taking a huge amount of damage, and healed him.
The other soldier shot at her as well, and his gun faced the exact same result! Both of them were now out of the battle, fiddling with their guns. Vessyr cast spells on the Knight and one of the soldiers. The soldier stopped moving.
Held!
But the Sun Knight…the Sun Knight suddenly appeared next to Ingoria, looked back at where he was, and cast his column of fire onto Vessyr and Alyona.
Vessyr fell without so much as a whimper. He never even saw it happen. Alyona dodged mostly out of the way, but not completely.
I flew across the room to get a better shot at the knight and landed an arrow squarely in his chest. I said the word to him. It had no effect, of course, but it made me feel better. I shot him again, and saw him try to do the flash of light. I closed my eyes just in time, but he was able to deflect the arrow. I probably flinched as I closed my eyes.
That was unfortunate, but I know the first arrow did great damage.
Ingoria, badly wounded, clawed at him, ripping more gouges in his skin.
One of the guards closed with Alyonna, stabbing her with his rapier. She cast a spell on him in return, causing him to scream in pain and drop to one knee. He looked…drained. She then finished him.
...but not with her shadowy fists. She had yet to use those. Perhaps they didn't work as well against - no, they worked fine. I'm not sure, but she was casting far more spells than usual.
The other guard tried the same trick with his rapier, also successfully stabbing her. Twice.
She fell.
The Sun Knight smiled, looked at Ingoria, and struck her down.
My team, mother, my team was falling. This was not what we had planned. I was not panicked, by I could feel it, just below the surface, watching, pushing, waiting for the right moment. That moment was not now.
Only Baermak and I remained.
I shot the Knight. I hit.
He stood.
Baermak healed Ingoria, who stood and slashed with her claw, then dashed away.
The Knight immediately took Baermak down and ran to Ingoria. Baermak lay in an expanding puddle of his own blood, eyes wide.
I shot the Knight, trying desperately to keep him from Ingoria, but he used his reflection to try to blind me. I anticipated again, so it didn’t work, but he did deflect the arrows. Again.
Ingoria clawed at him, but he would not go down. We were dealing great damage, she and I, but nothing we did appeared to be enough.
More guards ran into the room. One of them shot me, while another closed with Ingoria, stabbing at her. Instead of hitting her, it hit her final mirror image.
Somebody shot me from behind…
…and we were on that street again, outside the cafe.
I had died, shot in the back.
And our mission had failed.
We erupted into discussion about what must have just happened, and why. Alyona was furious! She had been skeptical of Verryn's motives from the beginning, but we all had our opinions. Did Verryn simply abandon us to our deaths as he escaped? Were we pawns in his scheme? If so, why did the loop reset? And why didn’t he drop the banishment spell on the emperor so the emperor could finish us? Why waste his energy? Or did he need something from the emperor that would allow him to now break the cycle? Did he know we would die, but also knew that the loop would reset and bring us back? Was there some artifact he needed to retrieve? Why didn't he tell us?
But if he did retrieve some artifact or other, he has now lost it due to the loop. Was it information he was after? That he would retain. So is this now the final loop? If so, why did he have us run around and retrieve things (like my library books) as if that was the final loop?
To make matters worse, apparently the emperor had a chat with Alyonna in her head. He claimed that he was not the source of the loop; the architect was the source, maintaining an artifact. And wasn’t Verryn the architect?
Was he?
And what was the artifact?
Your wisdom would have been so very appreciated. As much as I might look to Alyona for her wisdom, she was in no state to provide it. She seethed with anger.
We needed a new plan.
Should we go talk to the emperor in this loop? See what he has to say? Or go look for Verryn? We don’t know where he is when he’s not at the Golden Chalice. I suggested that we should: if we found him there, that would indicate a lack of malice. He knows that we’ll look there for him. Avoiding us would be a simple matter. So if he’s there, he’s not avoiding us...
And if he’s not avoiding us he has nothing to hide.
The team strongly disagreed. Emotions, as you can imagine, we running extremely high.
But we headed to the Golden Chalice.
And Verryn was there.
Raging.
He was screaming at the barkeep, who, bewildered, dodged wine bottles and ran for cover.
I tried to listen in on his diatribe, but Alyona immediately cast a spell on him, freezing him in his tracks. Vessyr bound his hands and Baermak poured wax on his mouth to seal it shut. Ingoria and Alyona went through his possessions.
I felt we might be overreacting, but also felt powerless to intercede. And, honestly mother, I was also a bit skeptical. What was going on!? I did not participate, but I did not intercede.
We found nothing special on him. Nothing that he would have gone to retrieve while we got killed, one at a time. Ingoria twice.
Alyona beat him bloody.
Her eyes beamed rage.
We finally melted the wax gag, and Alyonna dropped her spell. He was furious!
But he had left us! Who should be more furious? If the plan had worked, and the loop had ended, we would be permanently dead.
He claimed that there was no other way, and that his plan had failed. The loop remained, and we were trapped.
But the fact remained that he had left us.
Why?
And what now?

Report Date

14 Aug 2023