Kurts
Prince
Posts: 3,760
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Post by Kurts on Nov 12, 2012 16:22:06 GMT -5
The meeting place of the Council of the Unseen, the ruling body of Asshai, made up of representatives from each known school of magic. The building sits on a cliff overlooking the Jade Sea, the ominous Shadowlands visible in the distance.
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Kurts
Prince
Posts: 3,760
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Post by Kurts on Nov 12, 2012 16:29:00 GMT -5
Answering his summons, Oriax arrives in the council chamber. He removes his silver mask, a rare and traditional sign of respect undertaken when addressing the Council of the Unseen Sciences.
Like most in Asshai, he has a dark and solemn appearance, though some might venture to call him handsome in a haunting way. The white of his eyes and the iris itself had become black, an unsettling affect of prolonged time in the Shadow Lands.
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Post by The Forgotten God on Nov 12, 2012 16:33:38 GMT -5
The councilmembers take their seats; the Magister first, then the others. Magister Labienus is in his fifties, and not the traditional academic; a former general, he brings a military air to a place teeming with books and those who seldom leave the library to see the light of day. "Adept Oriax, word of your travels has reached us. Your work in Yeen was discrete and thorough. Exactly as it should be."
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Kurts
Prince
Posts: 3,760
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Post by Kurts on Nov 12, 2012 16:46:02 GMT -5
"I am glad the council was pleased by my actions." Oriax replied, remembering his treks through the dense plague-ridden jungles of Sothoros. The blood of the strange apes that lived there had sustained him, aiding him in his investigation and experiments in the ruined burial temples of Yeen.
His black eyes scanned over those seated on the council, knowing if he performed admirably the next vacancy could be his to fill.
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Post by The Forgotten God on Nov 12, 2012 17:02:39 GMT -5
"We shall cut to the heart of the matter. We should not be as strong as we are," the Magister said. "Only a decade ago, only three of us could divine the future from entrails. Now...find me an adept who cannot. The arts are growing stronger. The dragons began it, eighty years ago with their hatching of the lizards, but this is something else." He points to a chair, where a coughing, wheezing woman in her early thirties sits. "Rhani here is only one and thirty, and already the Shadow has corrupted her lungs with its disease. This is not natural, nor is there precedent. Until five years ago, the strength of the Shadowlands had been weakening over time. We need to find out what has changed."
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Kurts
Prince
Posts: 3,760
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Post by Kurts on Nov 12, 2012 17:36:39 GMT -5
Oriax considered the information presented, some of which he had suspected himself. Unchecked magic of such power could prove disastrous, as the Doom of Valyria had proven. Yet in his hubris, even in the sigh of the diseased Rhani, he imagined the kind of power a man could wield if he was able to find and harness the source. A man could make himself a god.
"Have the seers determined a destination to begin the search?" he asked.
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Post by The Forgotten God on Nov 12, 2012 17:38:28 GMT -5
"The backwater kingdoms of Westeros. Even they have been getting power, from somewhere," the Magister intones. "They, whose only other claim to magic grows in trees. The Master Diviner has seen it."
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Kurts
Prince
Posts: 3,760
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Post by Kurts on Nov 12, 2012 17:55:11 GMT -5
Oriax grimaced slightly. He had yet to that continent, but did not like what he had heard. The majority of their people served powerless gods and arbhored the practice of magic in any forms. What right did such a forsaken land have to host the source of this new power? The irony was no lost on him.
"Then I will travel the continent and search out this mysterious source. Did the Master Diviner foresee anything else that might aid me?"
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Post by The Forgotten God on Nov 12, 2012 17:56:48 GMT -5
"Yes. We see a dragon rising, becoming an old woman, then a beautiful woman, then a dragon again. There is much of Old Valyria in this resurgence. Their gods are trying to reclaim their hold on the world."
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Kurts
Prince
Posts: 3,760
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Post by Kurts on Nov 12, 2012 23:37:47 GMT -5
Oriax considered the words. Personally, he hated interpreting another seer's divinations. The libraries were stocked full of tomes reinterpreting the same prophecies a thousand different ways. Misread they were truly a sword with no hilt.
"I'll board a ship at first light." he answered, placing his mask back over his face.
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Post by The Forgotten God on Nov 13, 2012 8:11:18 GMT -5
"Good. Come back successful, and there is an empty seat on this council for you." Left unsaid was the alternative.
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