Session 13

I awoke this morning with the worst hangover and a note on my desk indicating that I…we had been assigned a new task as part of the Magaambya’s service to the city of Nantambu: something about a flood-damaged workshop? It took me a bit to figure out what had happened, but is eventually came to me: Okoro, Ignaci, Chezireh, and I had been playing cards last night, and it looks like we had divided up the assignments as prizes. I had…clearly not won… Look, I didn’t grow up with these paper-and-wood games, and I was mostly there to try Chezireh’s latest batch and flirt with him. Okoro keeps trying to get a group together to play one called “Inner Sea Imperium”. I remember him showing it to us: it came in this chest that was way larger than any of his others with a map of some region to the north called the Inner Sea, cards filled with text explaining each of the factions, and a whole host of colourful wooden figures representing fleets and armies. According to Okoro, we’d need to set aside a whole afternoon for a single game and might not still be friends afterwards. I’m not sure how many of us have the time or attention span for that…

Anyway, I needed a bath. Sinking into the warm water definitely helped make everything feel less awful; and it gave me a chance to break the news of our assignment to one of the others, as Matthuas had also gone for a…definitely-wasn’t-too-early-in-the-morning-at-that-point-bath… I broke the news that we’d scored the boring assignment thanks to my ineptitude at cards, and he responded with a kinda off-colour comment about the others perhaps cheating, particularly the humans. It was bullshit—Okoro loves games, not winning per se: he’s no cheater. Cheating and not getting caught usually involves more effort than actually just playing the game normally, so we all know what Chezireh would do there; and Ignaci… Ignaci’s just not that kind of person, trust me.

After making myself semi-presentable, we managed to find Faran and Meera so that we could go and assess the situation. The only thing we knew was that the workshop in question had suffered some flood damage and that the owner’s name was Amaiké: some well-known local pottery master apparently. Meera was less-than-pleased with being roped into this, so I tried to smooth things over: it was just going to be clearing out some old things and repairing some damage—boring but simple work, right? I’d barely finished the sentence before we came round the corner to face a scene of devastation before us. I could feel Meera’s withering gaze as I started to giggle. Hey, it’s a stress-response for us kholo, ok?

Two of the buildings next to Amaiké’s home and workshop had already collapsed, and his own was already leaning dangerously on its foundations. Part of the canal’s barrier wall had given way, allowing water to flood the area. Amaiké was happy to see that someone had answered his call for help—he’d apparently already tried contacting the mayor’s office about this—but they were dealing with a flooding problem of their own at the mayor’s own residence, leaving him to look elsewhere for help. Amaiké’s two neighbours were fortunately safe with friends or relatives, so we could focus on trying to salvage his own workshop. By our reckoning, it had at best two days before it would collapse completely: we had to act fast.

Matthuas and I went to assess and stabilise the barrier wall, and were able to make sure that it wouldn’t completely fail. In the meantime, Faran and Meera managed to stabilise the house and give it more time, though unless we were able to let the foundations properly dry out, it would eventually collapse over the next few days. The wall seemed well-maintained, and the only other time that such flooding had occurred in the past was after a series of heavy storms (the weather has been fine recently). Faran decided to take a look at the damaged area of the wall and determined that some kind of acid had been used to weaken it: sabotage? I asked around the local community, but no one had seen any strangers messing around with the flood wall. In the meantime, Meera and Matthuas were busy trying to research a suitable ritual to help fix the issue of the remaining water and the imminent collapse of Amaiké’s house and workshop. When it was obvious that I wasn’t getting anywhere with the locals, I headed back to the campus to ask the faculty if they had any ideas of rituals we should try (this was a time-sensitive mission, after all). Teacher Ot had just the one for us: Community Repair—a ritual based in the art of storytelling, whereby members of the community can repair a public work through their shared memories of how it served them and brought them joy. Meera and Matthuas discovered an alternative: Unseen Underpinning—where a collection of unseen servants provide support for the structure at risk of collapse for one whole year. It wouldn’t repair the other structures, but would give the one that was standing enough time to dry out and stabilise; plus it was the easier of the two rituals to accomplish.

All of us agreed that it would be preferable to perform Teacher Ot’s ritual, but we ran into an immediate problem: while I’m no stranger to performance (all young males among my tribe have to at least learn to dance if they want to have any chance of being selected by a female, it’s a whole…ritual of ours…) I knew I wasn’t a good enough storyteller to lead the Community Repair, but we knew someone who might be: Okoro. As we were able to requisition the necessary materials from the academy’s supplies, Okoro was willing to lead the ritual while the rest of us provided support as the secondary casters. Our first attempt wasn’t a success, but we at least had the opportunity to shore up the house to attempt the ritual once more and succeed. Things have been returned to how they should be there, the community is grateful, and we’ve learned to think beyond the resources immediately available to us and how to ask for help when needed.

As for our own projects: Faran’s experimentation with the miracle powder is leading him in the direction of some kind of glitter bomb, Matthuas is working on runes to help strengthen our armour, and I’m still trying to figure out what allows those fragments of the stone ghost to stay both present and incorporeal at the same time. Meera, on the other hand, continues with her reorganisation project of the Tree Stump Library; but this time assisted by members of the caffeine-addicted bibliophiles club.

A pretty strange thing happened during class today: Mariana, our resident “chaos magnet” was presenting on her current project. She’s been working with a large automaton statue, which she had programmed to perform simple manual labour and powered it using wands. The statue had taken a…particular interest in me, for some reason—staring at me at Mariana gave her presentation. Something felt way off here. When that became clear to everyone in the room, Mariana moved to power her project down, but it then batted her aside and proceeded to move to attack me. As the classroom became a battlefield, Nana was able to determine that this construct was possessed by some kind of spiritual entity, so some spiritual damage would be just what we’d need to deactivate it (albeit permanently). Meera, ever the level-headed one, worked out that it was speaking an old form of the Xanmba language (the local language of Nantambu and its environs). As she’s a native speaker, she was able to attempt communication with it while the rest of us attempted to dodge its blows. As I raised my new shield, the statue focused its attention on that and announced “Foul oneiromantic presence detected”. So it turns out that it hadn’t taken exception to me as a kholo, but to my shield? In any case, Matthuas was able to remove the wand from the holder on its back, which seemed to “blind” the statue to the presence it had detected. Meera was then able to convince it to stand down in order to not risk harming any innocents. It turns out that the wand Mariana had used to power the statue was one for detecting evil…

I’d checked the lead covering that we’d created for that eye-like gem in the middle of my shield again and again, but how was that statue able to detect whatever “presence” there might be surrounding it through that metal? None of this makes any sense. Well…some of it does… Oneiromancy is the school of magic connected with dreaming—I’d been researching it enough to start unlocking my mother’s sorcerous gifts. It comes from her side of the family, after all: these intense and bizarre dreams. Nana and mother both had them while they were still alive, and both Fang and I have them too. They can be frightening, but there’s wisdom to be found in them if you know where to look or the right questions to ask. This connection with the unknown has led to the other clans viewing witch kholos with fear and mistrust, but also with a good deal of respect for our magical abilities. Though after what happened to father…no, don’t be a coward about this: after what I did to father… I’m not sure we’ll ever be trusted again, least of all by the sweetbreaths. So much for all your planning and scheming, dad. You never cared about what anyone else wanted, did you…?

Janatimo has another task for us: street performers have been being robbed in broad daylight, including several of our professor’s friends. The targets of the thefts have been mostly the day’s earnings and instruments—portable, and of at least some financial value, but hardly high-stakes. We needed to investigate.

Through asking around, we developed a picture of the outfit we were dealing with: a gang of four led by a black-scaled and scarred iruxi, the other members being a fellow iruxi, a human, and an elf. Let’s just say that even the more unsavoury parts of society are willing to give up some information if they feel it’s in their best interests to cooperate with the kholo showing off his fangs at them—plus it sounds like that this group is creating a bit too much “noise” for the rest of the underworld, so no love lost there. We set up some bait: my dancing skills came in handy, and we earned ourselves a pretty penny, but evidently the gang members must have seen through our ruse. I went unmolested (but then again, given how I look, they might not have seen me as an easy target), but Matthuas was able to tail them to a set of dilapidated buildings on the outskirts of town. Meera was able to bribe some rats with crumbs from our supplies to case the buildings and figure out which of them was still occupied: unsurprisingly the most intact of them. After a brief fight with three of the four gang members (their leader had decided to hole up in his own room), we were able to subdue them and get them to start talking. It turns out that they had been working for a different gang previously; but had become frustrated with their slower, more long-term planning, and wanted a quick money-making operation. This other gang is run by a certain tripkee called “Frog-legs”. Her name has come up before…