Chandra favors Keranos with a smile. You are welcome to ride on our humble cart and we appreciate your offer of protection and help. But know that just because I am a historian and scholar does not mean I am helpless.
In demonstration, she cups her hands together for a moment and something begins to glow from within. She lifts her top hand to reveal a small flame floating in the air above her palm. It takes the shape a of a lithe, serpentine dragon before it loops around her arm as it travels to her shoulder and over her head, where it spreads its fiery wings and dissipates into embers that wink out one by one.
An insignificant display of power, I will grant, she says as her cantrip creation vanishes. But I fear that anything more formidable would provoke the crowd, even under the aegis of your protection. There is no truth to the belief that tieflings bring misfortune when they gather in numbers, but that does not prevent people from thinking it to be so.
Fortunately for Chandra and her companions, Keranoss occasional warning is enough to keep hecklers at bay on their journey to see the king.
Codex updates:
#
The parade moves forward once more, with Sagishi engaging in an acrobatic number in an attempt to make things more interesting while Fhiess does his best to advise and provide inspiration. The sharp bursts of the firecrackers are generally well received (except perhaps by Nyx and her headache), but Sagishi at his peak performance simply pales as the following act to the clown and his accompanying dancers on the float immediately preceding them. Ludwig, as always, is the object of much curiosity and fascination and prevents their float from being a total washout for following in the wake of one that has demonstrated a more cagey allocation of resources rather than investing it all in a single dubious sculpture.
The entertaining float in front of the delegation pulls to a stop in front of the balustrade where the young king is seated on a gilded chair. He is young, perhaps even younger than one might have imagined him. Over his right shoulder stands man bearing a scarlet sash of office--almost certainly the regent tasked with the administration of the Telmurian government until King Dio comes of age. On the left stands a noble-looking man in gleaming plate armor and a sash bearing a coat of arms featuring a green dragon rampant on a black field that Nyx would recognize as the standard for the Province of Durmas in distant Westreach.
The clowns tune changes now that he stand before the king. It grows increasingly uptempo as the cartwheeling dancers move in patterns and routines that grow ever more complex. Dio claps in time with the beat, and in short order so does the crowd in the immediate vicinity. The spectacle ramps up gradually, but constantly, until it rises to a frenzied peak. Just before it threatens to spin out beyond all control, the clown launches into a tumbling number that ends with him on his knees at the forefront of the float, only a meter below the balustrade.
Without warning, the song comes to an end as the clown pulls the pipes away from his lips and the dancers instantly grow still. A toothy grin on his face, the clown holds his arms wide and accepts the thunderous applause as it washes over him. A marvelous show, the regent says, coming forward to rest one hand on the railing. There is no gift so fine as that of an experience that can never be had for the first time again. My compliments to your troupe and your obvious effort.
The clown snaps to his feet and bows so low the belled tips of his hat brush the black surface he stands upon. What, that? he says as he stands back up. Oh, that was no gift, sir! That was stuff and nonsense, a happy little frolic to occupy our talents while we awaited our opportunity to present ourselves before the throne. No no no no no, that was only prelude! A precursor! Prologue! Some other word that starts with the letter P! Our gift is far more magnificent, far more grand than any such as that!
Adopting an expression so serious that it comes full circle to being ridiculous, the clown turns his back to the boy kings retinue and raises his hands high above his head. He wiggles his fingers and babbles nonsense words in a mockery of spell-casting as a trap door slides aside in the roof of his float and something covered in a sheet of black silk rises through the opening. It stands vertically, wide and tall, with a depth of but a few inches. Feast your eyes on this! the clown hisses as he pulls the silk aside.
The mirror is half again as tall as a man, and half as broad. Its frame appears to be carved from the same dark ebony as the float. The carvings are unsettling, but it is difficult to describe why exactly this is the case, because ones eyes have only a fraction of a moment to look upon them before the catastrophe begins.
The sunlight reflects off the silver surface of the mirror directly on King Dio. It is bright--too bright--and Dio hangs suspended in motion and bleached of all color within its beam. As quickly as it began, it ends, and nothing is left of Dio but a retinal afterimage superimposed over where he sat on the throne.
The crowd erupts into chaos.
In demonstration, she cups her hands together for a moment and something begins to glow from within. She lifts her top hand to reveal a small flame floating in the air above her palm. It takes the shape a of a lithe, serpentine dragon before it loops around her arm as it travels to her shoulder and over her head, where it spreads its fiery wings and dissipates into embers that wink out one by one.
An insignificant display of power, I will grant, she says as her cantrip creation vanishes. But I fear that anything more formidable would provoke the crowd, even under the aegis of your protection. There is no truth to the belief that tieflings bring misfortune when they gather in numbers, but that does not prevent people from thinking it to be so.
Fortunately for Chandra and her companions, Keranoss occasional warning is enough to keep hecklers at bay on their journey to see the king.
Codex updates:
#
The parade moves forward once more, with Sagishi engaging in an acrobatic number in an attempt to make things more interesting while Fhiess does his best to advise and provide inspiration. The sharp bursts of the firecrackers are generally well received (except perhaps by Nyx and her headache), but Sagishi at his peak performance simply pales as the following act to the clown and his accompanying dancers on the float immediately preceding them. Ludwig, as always, is the object of much curiosity and fascination and prevents their float from being a total washout for following in the wake of one that has demonstrated a more cagey allocation of resources rather than investing it all in a single dubious sculpture.
The entertaining float in front of the delegation pulls to a stop in front of the balustrade where the young king is seated on a gilded chair. He is young, perhaps even younger than one might have imagined him. Over his right shoulder stands man bearing a scarlet sash of office--almost certainly the regent tasked with the administration of the Telmurian government until King Dio comes of age. On the left stands a noble-looking man in gleaming plate armor and a sash bearing a coat of arms featuring a green dragon rampant on a black field that Nyx would recognize as the standard for the Province of Durmas in distant Westreach.
The clowns tune changes now that he stand before the king. It grows increasingly uptempo as the cartwheeling dancers move in patterns and routines that grow ever more complex. Dio claps in time with the beat, and in short order so does the crowd in the immediate vicinity. The spectacle ramps up gradually, but constantly, until it rises to a frenzied peak. Just before it threatens to spin out beyond all control, the clown launches into a tumbling number that ends with him on his knees at the forefront of the float, only a meter below the balustrade.
Without warning, the song comes to an end as the clown pulls the pipes away from his lips and the dancers instantly grow still. A toothy grin on his face, the clown holds his arms wide and accepts the thunderous applause as it washes over him. A marvelous show, the regent says, coming forward to rest one hand on the railing. There is no gift so fine as that of an experience that can never be had for the first time again. My compliments to your troupe and your obvious effort.
The clown snaps to his feet and bows so low the belled tips of his hat brush the black surface he stands upon. What, that? he says as he stands back up. Oh, that was no gift, sir! That was stuff and nonsense, a happy little frolic to occupy our talents while we awaited our opportunity to present ourselves before the throne. No no no no no, that was only prelude! A precursor! Prologue! Some other word that starts with the letter P! Our gift is far more magnificent, far more grand than any such as that!
Adopting an expression so serious that it comes full circle to being ridiculous, the clown turns his back to the boy kings retinue and raises his hands high above his head. He wiggles his fingers and babbles nonsense words in a mockery of spell-casting as a trap door slides aside in the roof of his float and something covered in a sheet of black silk rises through the opening. It stands vertically, wide and tall, with a depth of but a few inches. Feast your eyes on this! the clown hisses as he pulls the silk aside.
The mirror is half again as tall as a man, and half as broad. Its frame appears to be carved from the same dark ebony as the float. The carvings are unsettling, but it is difficult to describe why exactly this is the case, because ones eyes have only a fraction of a moment to look upon them before the catastrophe begins.
The sunlight reflects off the silver surface of the mirror directly on King Dio. It is bright--too bright--and Dio hangs suspended in motion and bleached of all color within its beam. As quickly as it began, it ends, and nothing is left of Dio but a retinal afterimage superimposed over where he sat on the throne.
The crowd erupts into chaos.
))