[pnpgm] Ticasi - proposed speech

[Alex Koponen]

"Yes, I do intend to pay for eveyone's meal tomorrow. Not as a bribe but 
as simple courtesy since they will be my guests." replies Z'leyra to Kell.

In responses to Arawn she replies "Good idea. I will ask Corona and 
another volunteer to keep watch. " ;
"No. I don't know what, if any, connections she has. I wouldn't be 
surprised if they hear of my return. But that isn't necessarily bad. 
Many folks get caught not because of crime, but because they were caught 
trying to cover it up.";
"I hope that I am treading carefully. Were I not, I would have come 
alone and there would be no one to watch my back or ask questions if 
something happened to me.";
"As I recall I was practicing the Levitation spell. I didn't keep track 
of who was in and out of the lab and no questions were asked about it. 
It is unlikely that anyone will be a reliable witness to my presence 
from that long ago. I had no motive and if I was guilty of something why 
would I be the one dredging up this past history?"

When feeding Corona his fish before dinner she asks him to keep watch 
and warn her if anyone is trying to overhear her conversations while 
they are in Ticasi.

Over dinner with the party she reprises her history. "Some of you 
already know this, Those newer to our fellowship may know only parts. 
This as I told the story to Kaylle the Lengendmaster."


More than a quarter century ago a promising young Ticasi scholar of a 
well to do family came upon and verified the interesting fact that 
weapons made by the Kameri tribe were known to be stronger, less likely 
to break than other weapons made by human hands. Somehow the steel was 
made tougher. This scholar, a charming and adventurous man and 
knowledgeable in metal crafts scandalized his family by traipsing off 
into the wilderness seeking the Kameri in hopes of learning the secret.

With pluck and luck the scholar, Tiren by name, made it though a 
thousand miles of wilderness terrain inhabited by hostile tribes to the 
Kameran, the lands of the Kameri. Quite the adventure, unfortunately his 
notes about the trip were later destroyed in a fire. For his winning a 
word challenge the Kameri gave him one month’s visitation privileges, 
only to be extended by word of a shaman. In that month Tiren managed to 
impress and marry a young Kameri shaman, Z’nayha. By all accounts they 
truly loved each other and were happily married. Z’nayha extended his 
visit month by month until she died.

Less than a year after his arrival in the Kameran, Tiren was the father 
of identical twin girls Z’layha and Z’leyra. In the following years 
Tiren and Z’nayha had two sons and another daughter.

Tiren did learn the Kameri metalworking secret, though to do so he had 
to swear great oaths of secrecy. After eight years in the Kameran Tiren 
managed to send a message to Ticasi saying that he was well, had married 
and had children. Almost another ten years would pass before an event 
would uproot his life and send him back to Ticasi. Their daughters had 
been inducted into the mystic lodges, Z’layha and Z’leyra had been 
taught the greater secrets and just initiated as young shaman when 
Z’nayha, wandering in the woods as she was wont to do, failed to come 
home one night. Her body was soon found where she had apparently stepped 
into a deathtrap that a hunter had set for a rogue bear. Her death ended 
Tiren’s visitation privilege.

At Tiren’s request the tribe considered his desire to take his children 
with him and ultimately allowed him to take one of his children, Z’layha 
or Z’leyra having finished their studies and of an age to make their own 
decisions. Tiren thought that Z’layha’s pet wolf would be harder to fit 
in Ticasi society than Z’leyra’s pet eagle. The tribe determined that 
Z'leyra was a redundant shaman and allowed her to be sent with her 
father back to 'civilized' lands after he had told the elders and chiefs 
the advantages to having someone learn civilized skills and magic. She 
was 17 years of age when she left.

After another harrowing thousand mile trip (this time including a trip 
down much of the River Dirla), Tiren and his daughter Z’leyra arrived at 
his families home in Ticasi and got the welcome of a prodigal son. His 
father had done well and been elected to the Council of Scholars. Though 
he only served one two-year term, that qualified Z’leyra to subsidized 
instruction in the field of her choice. She chose to study Balance 
Magics as a complement to her Shaman skills.

A shy student, treated as an outsider because of her barbarian heritage 
and upbringing, she naturally gravitated towards other outsiders who 
also enjoyed the woodlands and became friends with some Sidh who 
introduced her to Sidh and Elder magic. During this time Z’leyra became 
friends with Varange, a Faerry Sidh Magician who spent time in Ticasi as 
a diplomat and scholar. Z’leyra had managed to do well enough in her 
healing studies, primarily because of her earlier shamanic training, 
that she was recognized as a Master Healer.

  From her father as part of her training she learned how to be a Master 
Armorer and Kameri Weaponsmith. The training she received from the Sidh 
also instructed her in the skill of Jeweler in which she became quite 
competent if not quite a Master.

Tiren, having reestablished himself in Ticasi society, attempted to 
attain the rank of Counsel of Metal Crafts. His blades were wondrously 
strong but he was up against a clan of metal workers that had controlled 
the post, with one two-year exception, for generations. In one test the 
judging was obviously biased, two years later in the next test in which 
he had arranged for powerful neutral observers to watch, his examples 
were stolen and replaced with shoddy substitutes. While making items for 
the third test the forge in his house mysteriously caught fire and 
burned the house to the ground, killing Tiren and destroying all his notes.

This left Z’leyra homeless. After seven years in Ticasi she was ready 
for a change. Her father was dead and her grandfather had died years 
earlier. All the rest of her father’s relatives snubbed her, thinking 
and talking of her as ‘that barbarian brat’ and treating her as a 
servant or slave. Her closest friends were in the forest, not the city.
After conferring with some of these friends she realized that only by 
leaving and coming back obviously rich and powerful would she change how 
they thought of and treated her.

This fit in with her other long term plans: becoming powerful enough to 
find and expose her father’s killers then ultimately going back to 
Kameran with enough knowledge and power so as to be respected rather 
than ostracized for leaving the Kameran. She knows that the longer she 
takes the more impressive she must be as she will be compared with her 
sister who will have been advancing in skill as a shaman for years.

Z'leyra was ready for adventure when it offered. Part of her training 
and later work as a healer had her acquiring enough fame as a healer 
that one night she was woken up to care for a man dying from an exotic 
poison. While unable to save the man, she was alone with him when he 
decided that his mission required him to pass a package to her with 
instruction to get it to his comrade in Aratad. The next morning Z’leyra 
closed up her affairs in Ticasi, gathered the equipment she could and 
took off for Aratad.

Twenty days of hiking later Z’leyra arrived in Aratad after an 
uneventful journey. Here was the real start of her adventures. She 
delivered the package to the designated recipient, Cortez Aqula, a merchant.
The next morning Cortez Aqula, impressed with Z’leyra and her honesty in 
delivering the package, hired her to make another delivery. In making 
the delivery she heard about Varange and managed to get to Clima to join 
in his rescue.

"Good friends, at the lunch tomorrow amongst others we should have from
the Magic Department Deputy Councilman Burl Tiesmorten
the Law Department Counselman Silaius Duke
Jewel Crafting Teacher Yalenka Narda
Medicine teacher Professor Garr
Dancing teacher Ira Armanth
and hopefully a number of other worthy witnesses.
This is what I propose to tell to our guests tomorrow."

Honored guests. I asked you here to listen and hopefully to witness. Oh 
Julis 5, 1632TH my father, Tiren, was in his workshop working on a 
masterwork for demonstrating his craft and vying for a council seat when 
the workshop caught fire and burned down, Tiren dying in that fire. It 
was proclaimed an accident. Though I was studying other subjects I had 
spent many hundreds of hours acting as my father's apprentice. I knew 
the shop and my father's habits. I could not see the fire happening by 
accident, but I had no way to prove otherwise.

These other subjects I studied were medicine and magic. Both of which I 
did very well in. I had been practicing levitation when I heard of the 
fire. Afterwards I had little to hold me here. I had passed my 
apprenticeships, yes I had studied hard and learned more than one, and 
helped out in the infirmary while pondering what to do next.  There I 
agreed to a dying man's request which set me off on a series of 
adventures which now have me living in Sivas.

I kept up my magical studies. I had learned the basics of the difficult 
and even dangerous Akasha spell that allows one to see into the past. If 
I got skilled enough at that spell I could use it to see what had 
occurred when the workshop burnt down. Potentially useful, but that 
would provide no proof to others if I had a vision thru a spell. So I 
also considered how to make the vision of the past visible to others. My 
idea is to make a Ward that will cast a translucent illusion of any 
Akasha spell cast in its area of affect. Translucent so that one can see 
what was happening both inside and outside of any walls. With magically 
adept witnesses they can see that I am not casting an illusion myself 
when I use the Akasha spell to see into the past.

I made a staff, and later a wand and other items to assist me in my 
spell castings. They can be examined to show that they do not have any 
improper enchantments, that they are not enchanted to cast an illusion. 
I hope that after we have eaten we can go to the site of the workshop. 
Make sure that I, or anyone else has not recently cast magic there, and 
witness me cast the Ward and Akasha and see a vision from the past 
showing what DID happen to set the workshop alight. Whether it was an 
accident or if some other thing or perhaps person was the cause.

"Any suggestions?"

In the evening, after dinner, she will return the days visitation 
ribbons to a guard.