(12-16-2017, 12:48 AM)Ningalu Baal\urki Wrote: [ -> ]"Me born in cave... we live in mines, sometimes hunt in caves downriver, mostly fish. Me sometimes watch cave entrance, even hunt on surface, at night when big folk not see... fish in big river.. bad Unreth came.. he eat us, but me learn his magic. Me learn to hide and fight."
"This Unreth sounds fascinating, any chance I can meet him? Even in abdeath?" the ambassador asks.
[OoC: Betimi knows "abdeath" means Abnormal Death. It's equivalent to most world's undeath. Abdead would mean undead. ]
Once Ningalu talks about his home, Tomeal will jump in and quickly tell the daemon some information about Cantus. With so little time left he doesn't dare try to obfuscate any facts that the ambassador might want.
Finally the Magistrate states firmly,
"Ambassador, I believe these people have fulfilled their part of the bargain. Now I must ask for your decision."
"Leaving so soon," the ambassador states with disappointment.
"I had hoped we could learn so much from one another. But if you must..." He draws out a long black quill pen from one of his inner pockets and casually dips the tip into an ink well on his desk. A single red drop drips from the tip and then he signs a scroll that just appears in front of him. Suddenly all of you feel an intense burning sensation on the palms of your hands. While grinding your teeth against the pain, you gaze down at your hand and see deep cuts gouging into your skin. The blood fills the etching in your flesh where it suddenly bursts into flame. After a few moments of agony you can finally see that a symbol is actually being gouged then fire-branded into your flesh. The whole process takes about a minute but it felt like ten times that length of time. The scroll suddenly vanishes from the desk and appears in the Magistrate's hands.
Vansetty whisper now becomes cry.
"We have one minute and 25 seconds left!"
"If you are finished, Magistrate," the ambassador says smoothly,
"I have work to do."
The Magistrate waites until the miserable, pitiless resonance of
work to do to do to do had died down . The echo makes your stomachs pitch.
"Oh, yes, yes, ambassador," he replies.
"We'll speak again soon, I hope."
The ambassador inclines his head in a polite nod, then pulled out a stack of papers from a drawer in his desk. He licks the tip of the pen and begins marking papers.
Behind you all, Vansetty twiddles at nobs and depresses various buttons, and the wooden floor begins to tremble as if in some earthquake. A hum builds up around you all, wobbling you in your little energy field. The foul air vibrates up and down your bodies. Suddenly the ambassador bulges and splits and disappeared in an instant, like a heliotype in a fire. The moiling carmine light bubbles and evaporates, as if it seeped out through a thousand cracks in the dusty office walls. The darkness of the room closes in around you like a trap. Vansetty's tiny candle gutters and then goes out.
The Magistrate peeks out the door to check that they are unobserved, then all of you stumble from the room. The air feels deliciously chill. You spend a minute wiping the sweat from your faces and rearranging your clothes that had been buffeted by winds from other planes.
You notice the scroll the Magistrate held seems to be made of some kind of leather (A knowledge Religion or Planes of 15 will reveal it to be human skin.) Now that you were in proper light you all inspect the marking on your palms. You see this symbol...