Kytitia's Katalogue: Kold Kompany (Winter Event RP Musings)

[Litarath]

The snow leopardess, Kytitia Pyrrithia, paced around the guild house at her home, Mithril's Bastion, with numerous scrolls of papyrus and stone tablets stacked in neat piles, all carved in her paw with an elegant script. Most of the Gifted (and non-Gifted for that matter) of the Realm of Order well knew where to find her and they were also aware that she had more or less taken a lead position in investigating the nature of the recent deep freeze. She was, after all, the unparalleled, premiere Sorceror of the realm too, so it was only natural that one with both her talent and knowledge investigate such a thing!

While it was true that she quite enjoyed the cold snap, given that she was a Snow Leopard, or snow-mew, as she called herself, even she had limits on how much she could endure. It wasn't too bad for her just yet, the blizzards had only just started blowing in naught but a day or two past.

In the middle of her home, there was a large shimmering, crimson crystal, about her size, secured within a 'bracket' of marble and mithril. It seemed to be pulsing with a resonating ripple of pink magic, which anyone versed in at least a small amount of magic could tell was of the mind-type.

She paced around her home, talking out loud and the crystal would shimmer and pulse, as if it were recording everything she said even as she wrote things down upon the countless shards and papyrus sheets around the house.

"It is now the 23rd Rising of Yranuja, the weather around Istaria seems to be growing more and more hostile and colder, not outside of my tolerance yet, of course, but its starting to have a noticeable effect on those of the Living Races that aren't nearly as well-adapted to the cold as I am. Of course, I'm not completely immune to its clutches either, but I'm still comfortable. Since, about two or three days ago, roughly, intense blizzards embraced the lands and even Dralk itself and the volcanic regions have succumbed to the cold and snow, though, the lava flows haven't frozen yet, which still means that those regions are the warmest. I've noticed that even smelters in varying areas have frozen over and have had to thaw out a few myself, quite the inconvenience!"

She turned away from the crystal and lifted up two of her many marked upon papyrus sheets, "I've taken it upon myself to help lead investigations into these occurrences, but the leads we have had are few. This unnatural weather has been going on since about... roughly the 21st Rising of last Cedeberm and about two weeks ago, the deserts succumbed to the cold and snow. Before that though, all of the warmer regions in our land resisted the cold and snow, but those more temperate did not. As the time passed on, more and more of our land has been consumed by this intense and sudden, what I'm calling, 'Frost Binding'."

She made her way over to some stone tablets that also had writings and etchings, after setting down her sheets of papyrus, "At first, I thought it as merely a... surprising winter storm that would quickly blow over, as did many of the Gifted, although we were quite surprised to see new... odd creatures, like mimics masquerading as gift boxes. The treants themselves though, I think were the first to feel the bite of the cold and reacted aggressively, perhaps feeling that those who had 'invaded' their lands brought this on. There have been more than a few casualties of those... less fortunate, who do not possess the Gift, but an equal number of Gifted have been slain by these enraged creatures. I wasn't too concerned about the treants, however, as they did not appear to be of the blighted kind that first attacked a number of years ago when I was still in training. These seem to be the regular treants, although enraged, of course, so I do not anticipate that the Aegis could have motivated or somehow convinced them to attack."

She set the tablets down, moved to another table, and lifted both a scroll and a tablet, "We first began to really worry about conditions when the deserts froze over and succumbed to the ever-intensifying cold. As for myself, I still didn't see too much to worry about and considered perhaps this was just a year where the weather patterns would be acting a little more oddly. The occasional, bad winter storm has blown through our realm before, of course, and there are areas that are constantly scoured by blizzards as well."

She turned back to the shimmering, pulsing crystal and walked towards it, where she set down the scroll and tablet, then pulled out a book and began thumbing through its pages, "However, because of the growing nervousness of the Gifted around the time the deserts froze over, I began looking into investigating the situation. I've talked with the gnomes both at Winter Vale and in New Rachival itself, but even their miraculously genius minds cannot seem to comprehend this odd weather. I also spoke with an Ancient or two, looking to see if they still had their star charts from their Ancient Rites of Passage. I was fortunate enough to find some that did and proceeded to review the star charts with the Gnomian Rachival Research Labs... or whatever their little organization is called... I tend to forget that, after all, I don't REALLY dabble too much with the 'science' aspect of things, although I am an accomplished Tinkerer. My studies focus mostly on the arcane nature of things with an equal representation of the mystic nature of things. I like to think of myself as an authority on magic, given both my natural prowess with it and my ability to wield and manipulate it to do things thought to be impossible."

She walked over to a bookshelf while reading the book, "I digress, however. Well, that's probably to be expected, I am a Saris after all! At any rate, a few days ago, after these blizzards started blowing through our lands, I felt it best for me to seek the aid of the rest of the Gifted. I don't know how many have actually considered researching this phenomenon, but it seems I postulated many theories that none of the ones I spoke with had considered already... so, I guess that goes to show that perhaps not all of them are taking this nearly as seriously as they should be, though there are a few who seem to be doing so."

She placed the book on the shelf and returned to the largest pile of scrolls in the Guild House, "I've written down all my theories and postulations so that I can keep track of them. Among the many theories I have postulated, or have had presented to me, include: acts of the Aegis and certain factions, magical overflow at places of power, though... on a flip side, a magical shortage at places of power, Gifted experimentation, natural phenomena, imbalances between the planes of magic and existence, disturbances at the Towers of Power, and weakening of the Artifacts of Magic and Power. In order to attempt to find out if any of these could be the case, I assembled two teams of Gifted to investigate two particular theories that seemed to pull to me the strongest. The first being an act of the 'Winter Faction' of the Aegis, led by Gruk the Frigid, I believe. The second being perhaps influenced by those of the Northern Faction, the 'Ritual Undead' consisting of Seliena and those that follow her and Lem the Cold. My idea was to attempt to capture and interrogate those of said factions, hoping to avoid a battle to the death as is wont to happen between us Gifted and the Aegis. I felt that perhaps they may be able to provide some sort of information upon this subject. Unfortunately, neither group was successful in either capturing, or finding those we wanted to interrogate. How odd for them to be... gone at a time like this, it only made my suspicions feel more founded..."

She pulled out a few of the scrolls and laid them out upon the tables she'd had set up near the pulsing crystal, "Today, however, something... quite unexpected occurred... General Sarsilas herself approached us and demanded to know why we would do such a thing as plunge the world into an eternal winter. Needless to say, a number of us were quite surprised to learn that even the Aegis were worried about this 'Frost Binding'." She paused for a moment and looked quite pleased at herself, "Though, funny thing... I think I managed to get a little more information out of Sarsilas than what she might have expected to give, but I'll get to that in a moment."

She shuffled the scrolls aside as she pulled two more from the pile behind her table, "At any rate and with the willingness of the present Gifted to not attack Sarsilas, given the fact that she wasn't aggressive towards us, though she still maintained that sinister demeanor to her, we were able to question her. Of course, this also means that we had to share some of our information with her as well. One of the things I learned about this cold snap is that it could actually be quite detrimental to the Withered Aegis, in fact, equally so as to those of the Living Races. Much as I would LOVE to see them suffer... considering what they did to my parents and me so long ago..." Her paws clenched and her expression darkened before she pounded the table and accidentally burned part of it, though thankfully not her scrolls.

She took a moment to catch her breath and closed her eyes, relaxing herself, "Keep it together Kyt... focus..." She sighed and rubbed her temples as if she were trying to block out a terrible memory and experience, "Back to the topic... we already know there's multiple factions within the Aegis and we did learn that Sarsilas is with the 'Plague Faction', meaning she answers to General Reklar Plaguebearer himself. I suggested to her that perhaps it could be one of the Aegis' factions, such as the Winter Faction's actions, but she didn't seem to agree with that, though she did admit to there being faction-to-faction tensions, which is good to know, if you ask me. She did say that each faction does work to achieve one, ultimate goal... The domination, blighting, and subjugation of any world they enter, but that they don't agree on how to go about pursuing that goal."

She put away two of the four scrolls she had out and pulled out two more, "I attempted to learn if perhaps any of the Aegis' Allies, such as the Kwellens, Vexators, Hounds, Mylocs and others might have shifted their views and goals and be willing to turn on the Aegis as a whole, but she avoided answering the question, which leads me to suspect that such a thing is perhaps not entirely impossible. Her mention of the faction-to-faction tensions also seem to support this suspicion as well. Nevertheless, she did appear to seem quite confident that none of those that serve the Aegis would consider using magic other than that of the blight type to destroy a world, though... I did notice some hesitation as well, which means... perhaps it isn't entirely impossible that a faction within the Aegis MIGHT be willing to use other types of magic to forward their agenda."

She tapped her parchments with her stylus as she continued to compile her thoughts, "Sarsilas, mentioned that she suspects that there may well be a third party responsible for this 'Frost Binding', which gave me an idea. I suggested that perhaps a rupture between the Plane of Ice and the Plane of the Prime could have taken place. One of the other dragons present, Zarnec, I believe, asked about the possibility of an Ice Portal, similar to the Aegis' Blight Portals. Sarsilas told us a bit how Blight Portals work as well, though, it didn't seem to be too far off from what everyone contemplated. She suggested that perhaps it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable for such a thing to happen, although she also admitted to not knowing of any sentient or living things on the Plane of Ice, though... I'm not too surprised there, she is, after all, from the Plane of Blight and generally the Planes don't interact with each other unless by some machination."

She wrote down a few notes on one of the sheets of papyrus, "This led me to believe that perhaps there is some technology, somewhere, that might be used to cause this situation. Of course, most of this is all conjecture, but for the sake of argument, the General did agree to treat the situation as if neither side had done anything, which gives us a sort of partly neutral ground to stand upon and gives us a 'Common Foe' and 'Mutual Interest' to see this situation resolved. After all, neither side wants to be removed from existence and we surely don't want the other to conquer the world. Zarnec, foolishly, I feel, called this 'cooperation' an 'alliance' but I corrected him and affirmed that its not a true alliance, more of a coalition that is mutually threatened by this situation. Either way, I feel we do have to get their help to cover more ground in an attempt to find the culprit."

"I have no illusions that this will be a VERY temporary arrangement and I told Sarsilas that I feel it best for their own agents to search in their own lands and at their outposts. We Gifted hold no illusions that the Aegis aren't friendly and certainly wouldn't pass up the chance to smish a few Gifted, or non-Gifted for that matter, if they run across us. I also told the General that should it appear that those small patrols that are dispatched get out of line, we would quickly send them back to the Aegis in pieces. I also told her that we fully expect them to do the same if we cross too far into their lands as well. In conclusion, however, I did give her a number of rolls of parchment to take notes upon of anything important that their agents find and requested for them to be written in Common Tongue for us to more readily process them with speed and efficiency. She accepted the rolls, but made it clear that she and the Aegis, by no means plan to stop what they do in their attempts to conquer the world. Not that any of those present were very surprised by this, but it only further supports the feeling that this is a very temporary situation."

She looked up as she finalized a scroll and wrote on another, "After Sarsilas departed, I suggested to those present that we might want to investigate at places of Ice's power, such as the Mage's Tower, Tower of Sorcery, and the Tower of Summoning. If anything relating to this 'Frost Binding' comes from the towers... those would be our best bets to investigate, as well as the areas in which our Artifacts of Magic stand guard against the Blight. Unfortunately, I've been too busy to get too much done on this research myself... I'm only one Saris, after all. It'll take everything we...and the Aegis has to get to the root of this problem. Hopefully, we find more answers soon."

She finished her writing and rolled up the scroll before settling into a chair, looking at the shimmering crystal, "You'd better have caught all that, you know. I wouldn't be happy if you didn't." In response, the gemstone pulsed a few times and began playing back everything she'd just said to it, at least, until she waved her paws and cut it off, "Yes, yes, I know you got it all, I still have to make sure you do so! Why did I never get Memni to make me one of you sooner?" She pulled out one of her books from the still-large pile stacked near her chair, "Well, I'd better keep doing research on this... Those Gnomes better make me a member of their Research Assistant team after all this..."