Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.3      Making a Splash

1.3.1    An Obligated Noble

1.3.1.11 Acknowledged precedents

7:00 am, Saturday June 10th, 2045

2 bells of the afternoon watch

Zerday full, 14th day of the month of KrevinBelember, A2F1600

Alderney: {I’ve never heard “Get your asses down here, before the food goes cold” said so politely.}

Wellington, mindful of Camillo’s talk about buildings and geometry, was studying the hall with a measuring eye.

Wellington: {I think the room’s base is a perfect double cube. 40 meters long, 20 meters wide, 20 meters high. I don’t know if there is a specific magic placed upon it, but I wouldn’t bet against it.}

The base might be simple, but complex additional structures had been added. Kafana looked around slowly, as she descended the stairs. There seemed to be five layers. The lowest layer was a parquet wooden floor, currently empty, except for bustling servants. On the next layer up and overlooking the floor on three sides, was a wide carpeted surround with plenty of doorways leading to rooms beyond. The north side of the room faced the formal gardens, and was a mixture of clear and stained glass panels. At the eastern end of the hall, the surround widened into a large stage area, where a high table had been set out.

The auditorium she’d played her violin at was on the third layer, at the opposite end to the stage, and the balcony extending around formed a mezzanine directly above the surround, where guests could withdraw from events to sit upon benches to cool themselves and observe or chat. Above the mezzanine, at the center of the southern wall above the main entrance, were organ pipes, although she couldn’t spot any console for them. Finally the top layer, just below the ornate ceiling, had rows of evenly spaced bronze jars and an unlit balcony behind a mesh screen that couldn’t be seen into from below, but presumably allowed a clear view out. She hoped it wasn’t intended to hold archers.

They were led to the high table and seated by alternating genders, with Kafana seated to the right of Claudio and Alderney to his left. Wellington was seated between Lady Pia and Lady Sienna, who was already chatting warmly with Bulgaria and a female ship captain on his other side. Beyond Lady Pia was Tomsk followed by Tori and then Bungo, while Herberto was next to Alderney and Kafana’s other companion was Camillo. There were other guests, further down the long table, but they were too far away for Kafana to chat with and she just asked System to note their identities for her, in case they became relevant later. She guessed that, if her etiquette skill were high enough, there were all sorts of political conclusions she could draw from the seating arrangement about groupings, status, intentions and other such things. She added a note to the Womble’s shared event/task queue for someone to ask Bartola about it.

Servants with platters of pastries, broths, slices of pigeon arranged upon green salads, and many other dips, sauces and small appetising morsels circulated around the table, letting each diner pick their preference and then unobtrusively serving it directly onto the diner’s plate. While she didn’t have to worry about weight on Covob, only a bar indicating level of satiation, she restrained herself and concentrated upon conversing. No more multitasking until her stamina recovered!

Kafana: “How old is your violin? I looked at it with magic sight, but couldn’t tell. I’m hoping that High Master Giovanni will craft something special for me, if I can lay my hands upon suitable materials, but I’ve not had a chance to study any of this world’s great instruments.”

Claudio: “Giovanni? He’s good, probably the best in Torello, but he didn’t make mine. You’re right, it was made by Grandmaster Bertolotti in Tucano, nearly two hundred years ago. It isn’t a mage’s instrument, but I’ve never found a fiddle with finer tone or better response. But you speak of ‘this world’ when you refer to Covob. What can you tell me of music in your world?”

Kafana: “There are things the deities do not wish us to tell you, for good reason and your own protection.” Chiefly, she thought, that you are but computer program living as an NPC in a game that will probably be turned off in a decade or two, once no longer profitable - an uncomfortable truth that some players, notably Bungo’s evil fanatic of an estranged father (Irus the Blind), seemed to delight in spreading.

Kafana: “But I see no harm mentioning a few things about music in our world. The population of our world is larger than yours, nearly nine billion people, with fast communication across long distances and a history which includes many similarities to your current period. So we are familiar with your type of music and instruments, though we also have some that you would find strange.”

Camillo: “But you are not familiar with our magic or monstrous races, so perhaps among them you will find instruments and music that will be as new to you as some of yours is to us?”

Kafana: “I dearly hope so. From a distance I once heard the drumming of the fauns, and it was a music I could have drowned in.”

Claudio: “What else may you safely tell me of your world, that I do not yet know?”

Alderney: “Some of what Adventuring spirits see here, may also get seen through their eyes by others on our world. For example, the duet you just played with Kafana - how many people would you normally expect to hear it during your lifetime?”

Claudio: “Hmm, I shall probably trot it out on future occasions when I can find a suitable person to play with. So, several hundred? More, if my self-serving organ-playing son has his way and turns it into a trio sonata that becomes popular with other musicians. Even then, no more than ten thousand in my lifetime.”

Alderney grinned. “So it might surprise you to learn that, through my eyes in the audience, it has already been listened to with much approval by more than half a million people and within a month you will have fame and popularity among more people than any musician on Covob who lived before adventurers arrived.”

He looked a little stunned, but hid it well, going motionless in his chair, fork halfway to his mouth, his eye twitching just a little. His family and Lady Pia were less restrained in their reactions.

Tomsk apologised to Tori: “It does have some downsides. Tori, I’m sorry to say that, after people heard you speculate about the true contents of the Cor Focis shrine in your garden, it is possible that other Adventurers may be given quests to discover the truth of the rumour, on your behalf. It may be prudent to station some guards near it, the next time you host a social event that permits guests entry to your gardens.”

Tori winced as her mother gave her a disapproving look, of the sort that makes even dogs slink away with their tails between their legs.

Claudio: “Who selects what this larger audience sees? Wellington, Herberto has requested my permission for him to escort you and High Master Camillo to view the contents of our House Vault. By doing so, would we be revealing the contents to every Adventurer on Covob, and every person those Adventurers decided to talk to?”

Wellington: “It is something we can choose to restrict to just the six of us, plus our Vessels who can see in dreams anything we do and have their own free will to decide whether to share that information.”

Sienna: “I see. So no matter what our eyes may have led us to believe, today our House is, in truth, being graced by a full dozen guests? Lady Pia, I believe you also make monthly exchange with that most stolid of correspondents, Giovio of Tucano? Do you remember his description of the brothers Colloredo and the evening he dined with them? They were born with conjoined bodies, and remained so despite the many mages and priests that attempted to separate them. You couldn't entrust one of them with a secret unless both agreed to keep it. You couldn't invite one of them to an event while excluding the other. Neither the law nor the nobility knew quite what to do. The debate carried on for years until their Sanctuary gained a new (and more pragmatic) High Priest who issued a summary finding that the cause of the brother's situation was neither an accident not a curse but, rather, the will of the Deities and not to be questioned."

Lady Pia: “Ten years or more have his words rested in the cellars of my mind, yet I laid them down with the same care due vintages such those your Steward serves us. The younger brother wrote an epyllion about a perfume trader's bride that detailed increasingly salacious infidelities with every stanza; while the elder brother had invested heavily in shares backing the trader's most recent voyage. I remember thinking at the time, that the invite to the celebration of the ship's safe return which the trader pointedly worded to offer food and hospitality only to the elder of the two, was a discourtesy unworthy of any well mannered host. I hope Torello gives a better account of itself. Or, rather than Torello, should I say whichever Torrelan noble first finds themselves in a position to set a precedent?"

Claudio sent a questioning glance towards Camillo, who answered in a dry voice that gave no hint at his own personal feelings on the matter.

Camillio: "My Lord, Torello does not currently have a statute on its books, dictating how the law should respond to the fact that any trust an individuals or companies grants to a Questing Spirit can not reasonably exceed the trust they are willing to also grant to the partnering Corporeal Spirit. It could be ruled that neither Spirits may be held liable for breaking a contract, or that contracts are only valid when doubly signed, or that one spirit may appoint the other to act on their behalf. As to whether befriending an Adventurer is to befriend both parts or neither, that is a social matter and entirely not within my purview."

Claudio chuckled ruefully, aware that as the wife of the Marquis of Torello, Lady Pia had more social influence than he did, and it was clear which way she wanted him to go.

Claudio: “Very well; here is my decision. Herberto, you have my permission, provided Vessel Wellington also pass welcome at the threshold, and that both of them do pledge upon their honour not to broadcast any details of the vault or its contents without first gaining permission from my marshal.”

Wellington and Herberto both inclined their upper bodies in formal acknowledgement, and Claudio turned to Kafana.

Claudio: “Adventurer Kafana Sincero, at Villa Landi I named you as a personal friend and ally to House Landi. Everything I have learned of you since makes me think I was granted insight by the deities when I made that decision, for none that night foresaw all you would accomplish in the following month. Yet it appears I did make one mistake, and that I shall now correct.”

Claudio: “I met only the Questing Spirit part of you, and in addressing only her I unintentionally slighted that part of you that is your Corporeal Spirit, once that of a good and faithful retainer of my House, whose person and welfare I should not have forgotten so easily just because the physical form had changed. Vessel Kafana, I now do explicitly acknowledge you to also be my personal friend, and grant you a minor boon in your own right as apology, for you to name at a time of your own choosing and when Spirit Kafana is absent.”

Kafana: “On her behalf, until she gets an opportunity to say it herself, I thank you. I cannot say if the deities foresaw what has come to pass, for I did not, but having since learned of Torello’s other five prime Houses, I can say with certainty that there are none more deserving of my respect and liking, or who I would feel more closely allied to my values. So far you have aided us far more than we have aided you, and that is something I am determined to change.”

[Skill “A way with words” has reached level 7.]