Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.3      Making a Splash

1.3.1    An Obligated Noble

1.3.1.9  Unwritten rules

They took their leave and followed Herberto out, while Wellington sighed a little.

Wellington: {I like Camillo. He explains things clearly and gets to the point. A very organised mind.}

Kafana: {Also determined and certain of himself. Are all reality mages like that, willing to tell the world to go stuff itself, if it doesn’t conform to what they wish it to be?}

Wellington: {I have an insufficient sample size. But maybe? Robin agrees with your hypothesis and adds that you will likely be suited to it.}

Kafana: {Robin, your expert system, thinks I’m bossy and headstrong? I don’t like the sound of the multi-dimensional geometry bit.}

Wellington: {That’s the part I do like. Perhaps we should try casting it together? Reality magic is Dro-Cov, and my Dro attunement is higher than yours, while your Cov attunement is higher than mine.}

Kafana: {Sounds a plan. Let’s try to fit it in this afternoon, if we can.}

Wellington: {That would be good. Beltrame got in contact with our legal advocate, Emmanuelle Giambrone, about his offer to share with us one of his three magical innovations. I’d like to ask Camillo’s opinion about the ward and the twined writing surfaces.}

Kafana heard Bulgaria mention kitchens, and switched her attention back to their tour guide. Bulgaria had been asking about assassins, hidden passages and precautions taken to prevent food being poisoned, but now the conversation had moved onto something more interesting.

Herberto: “The servants' passages aren’t really a secret. They’re kept discreet mainly for the sake of appearances, and to prevent drunken guests getting in the way. Candlemas is particularly bad for that - at the Feast of Fools the scullery boy that gets randomly picked as the Lord of Misrule almost invariably orders barrels of our strongest brews to be brought up from the cellars to the buttery and served out to all.”

Bulgaria: “Almost?”

Herberto: “Well, there was one time when Virgil used an illusion to disguise himself as one of the staff. He worked all day scrubbing pots, caught the Mistletoe Crown at the throwing, and proceeded to reign over the feast with a whim of iron, alternating outraging and entrancing the guests with the ‘entertainments’ he devised. I still remember the game where people from each House were required to play the part of their heraldic animal. I think I made a rather good boar.”

Kafana: “Did he get into trouble, when his ruse was revealed?”

Herberto: “Candlemas is a time for chaos and surprises. People give unlabelled presents to their friends, brewers sell mystery potions and crafters display the innovations they’ve been secretly working on all winter. Virgil’s surprise was supremely in line with occasion. I think the deities even granted him a title. It’s in line with his own nature too - I don’t think my mother, Lady Sienna, expected to get pregnant that late in life. He’s been one surprise after another, right from the start.”

He opened a door, revealing another flight of stairs.

Herberto: “We’ve got a few minutes spare. Let’s go meet her, and I’ll escort her down - she’ll appreciate that. And I think she might want a word in private with you about how you left Villa Landi.”

Kafana gulped. She’d met many of House Landi’s retainers during her first days playing the game, after she, Spirit-Kafana had joined with Vessel-Kafana and Vessel-Kafana’s body to become Kafana the Adventurer. And when the Wombles had left the Villa, to travel on foot to the city of Torello, she’d sung them a farewell song. Only she’d been new to casting magic and, without intending it, had formed the song into a magic spell that had affected her audience of retainers gathered to watch the departure. Not just retainers. Lord and Lady Landi had been there too. Oops. She’d rather hoped they’d forgotten that, but apparently not. As Herberto took them up to the solarium, she prepared herself to eat humble pie.

They were met at the door to the solarium by Mariella, the lady’s maid, whose face filled with astonishment when she beheld Kafana, glowing brightly in the corridor with the light from her divine blessing:

Imprimatur of the Deities (DIVINE BLESSING)

The deities have accepted your offer to let them use you as a tool to enact their divine will.

You will glow with holy light, that all about you shall recognise that the deities approve of you and your actions.

+400% to reputation gains.

DURATION: Until you gain the confidence to stop trying to hide your light under a bushel.

Mariella: “Madame Kafana? No, Suor Kafana, guardian of, of all the deities? Twice-Born Bard, the Saviour of Basso??”

She practically fell to her knees, as her mind was flooded with the intuitions provided to NPC by the system on how to address people, and by the full impact of Kafana’s Aura of Power skill that, thanks to her blessing, she was unable to turn off or even dim. The skill description said the blessing would continue until she gained sufficient confidence. It was useful, it boosted her reputation gains, but looking at Mariella on her knees Kafana decided that getting rid of it should go higher up on her priority list. She’d been meaning to ask Lord Landi about leadership. She should ask about gaining confidence at the same time. Ok, now to fix this particular mess.

Kafana: “Mariella, please, rise up. You are my friend, and one of the first people on Covob to aid me. You have no need to kneel before me.”

Mariella weakly rose, still gazing at Kafana, and backed inside to let them in. The bright sunlight streaming through the glass skylights made her aura less imposing, and Mariella gathered herself together, with a visible effort.

Herberto spotted his mother and turned towards her.

Herberto: “Mother, may I offer you my arm for the walk down to the auditorium?”

Sienna: “In a moment. Why don’t you show Wellington and Bulgaria the passage the 17th Count used to travel to the boudoir of his mistress, while I spend a minute or two showing Kafana things more suitable for ladies of refined taste?”

The words had the form of a suggestion, but were clearly an order, and Herberto led them out, leaving Mariella guarding the door and Kafana alone with Lady Sienna Landi.

Sienna: “Your dress is an original from Signora Moda is it not? At the Ostara Debutante Ball, many of the wealthier nobles were wearing her spring collection - she has a distinctive style, and enough influence for her tastes to become fashionable no matter which way they go.”

Kafana: “Influence yes, and a deep knowledge of clothing which she uses as a language to reflect and comment upon the social trends she watches so closely. But whether her taste is good when it comes to anything other than clothes, I wouldn’t care to speculate.”

System: [Skill “Verbal fencing” has reached level 5.]

Had her skill been level 4, previously? She didn’t remember it having been that high. Perhaps Vessel-Kafana had been training it. No, enough distraction, she was getting as bad as Alderney. She’d been away from the game for a day, and already she was less immersed in it than she had been before her day off. Perhaps she was more aware of or concerned about what went on elsewhere, because of taking over leadership of the Wombles? Poor Bulgaria, if this was what it had been like for him. Play your role, Kafana; stay in the moment like Tomsk always says.

Sienna: “So you do not intend to ally yourself with her in anything other than the clothes you wear? You do not intend to take her lead on which people to talk to or which events you appear at?”

Kafana: “That is correct. I listen to advice from many people, but I have no intention of becoming anybody’s unwitting pawn - least of all in matters where I am unconvinced they share my values.”

Sienna: “You relieve me. Many listen to rumours while pretending they despise gossip, but my preference has always been to listen and admit that I listen - when among friends. Listen skeptically, mind you, not accept them as true without evidence.”

Kafana: “Then I am doubly grateful that you count me among your friends, because I too prefer to be free to let the person being gossiped about know what I have heard. I take it there is talk of my visit to Signora? I should add that Signora believes that, because of the financial fortune I now own, it is inevitable that I will be eventually raised to the nobility, and she seeks to raise her own reputation by being seen to be an early supporter of creating a ‘House Sincero’.”

Sienna nodded.

Sienna: “Her reputation for spotting and supporting rising stars in the social world is well deserved, and I don’t disagree with her assessment. But is becoming part of the nobility something you actively desire, and what would you like to achieve with the status and influence if you gained it? Do you wish to stay in one region of Covob in order to administer lands under your control, and protect the people living there?”

Kafana: “It is not something I desire as an end in itself. Cov sent me, sent every adventurer, to Covob in order to protect all those he cherishes, not just the citizens of one region, and I can’t predict where that duty may take me. I do know enormous changes are coming, and not just the influx of adventurers which is going to be much larger than I think most people here yet realise. I think, in days to come, it might benefit Covob to have some adventurers with sufficient social status that their advice and warnings are listened to seriously even by those who only measure a person’s worth by the traditional hierarchy of nobility. If the person who ends up being offered that status is me, and I think I will be able to carry out the obligations of the role to an acceptable standard, then I will accept it and do my best to...how did Herberto put it…’Not be a noble in name only.’.”

Sienna: “You see it as a duty, then, not an ambition?

Kafana paused for a moment, before answering.

Kafana: “I’ve not had long to think about it but, yes, that sounds about right. If it were up to me, I could happily live my life as a bard, just singing to please myself and others. But I’ve received some increasingly unsubtle hints from the deities that I’m going to end up in a leadership role with attached social status, possibly diplomatic in nature.”

Sienna smiled.

Sienna: “Well my dear, what an interesting situation to find yourself in. I believe I shall have a little chat with my husband. In the meantime, let us head towards the auditorium before we become unfashionably late, and on the way I’ll tell you all the news from Villa Landi and you can pass it onto your Vessel to read when she next takes over your body.”