PRELUDE

A crisp, predawn mountain wind strengthened by the speed of your stallion stings your copper scaled face as you ride, but that's not why your jaw clenches so tightly. Two soldiers you once trained and haven't seen in nearly a decade ride before you, but your reunion with them is far beyond your mind. The hooves of three horses on a dirt road strewn with frost echo across the expanse of the Klybbenmyr plains around you, but the sharp, uneasy fear in your stomach isn't from being out in the open. Your eyes are fixed to the sky. Beneath a pearlescent gibbous moon and above the cathedral ridge line of the Spyremist mountains ahead, a deep, dark sky grows the faintest shade of blue and silhouettes what all three of you had hoped was just your imaginations – smoke.

The others speed up, you follow suit, and only the Divines know what's faster: the horses or your mind. "How could it be? Maybe it's a coincidence? There's no way someone else could have known… right?" You don't even register entering the woods until the soft white trunks of silver birch bark all around you begin to reflect an orange glow. The sound of flittering leaves in the morning wind is joined by a fanfare of flame, announcing welcome to your unfortunate destination and an end for the horses efforts. But if this was a race, it was never a fair one. For while the blazing homestead before you is a finish line for the horses; for you, it's just the beginning.

"Dra'tesh! To the door!" A cloaked figure dismounts her steed and runs alongside another figure, both silhouetted in orange against a bonfire of a well built, 2 story cabin. You dismount Porridge, your trusted and somewhat out of shape equine companion, land in a crunch of frosted leaves and soil, and run over to your two fellow travelers standing by the cabin entrance, yet to be engulfed in flame. 

 "On it," the second figure says in a quick monotone. A tan skinned male appearing in his late 20's with high cheekbones and short, dark, messy hair shaved down clean on both sides of his head away from pointed ears, and clad in the worn gambeson of a reachman of Ophanheim prepares to shoulder check the door.

"No, Terri.” The first figure acknowledges your arrival while still talking to the soldier, revealing the face of a tan skinned female appearing in her mid-late 30's with similarly high cheekbones and pointed ears; her hair pulled back in a dark braid and her face stern with focus.

"Gear check," she commands.

Terri quickly glances over to you with a look of recognition. Immediately all three of you turn away from each other to begin inspecting your own equipment. You reach down to untie your brown weathered boots, aged from soil and sun, and retie them, taking great care not to look at the others. 

"Dra'tesh and I will handle this," she continues.

"You sure?" Terri's voice responds.

"I need you to ride to get help."

"No way a fire brigade'll get here in time."

"That's why you'll ride to North Shillings Nullpriest outpost down the road and inform whoever's on duty that Lieutenant General of the Reach, Aeryna Silvanus, requests immediate assistance at the homestead of the First Blade of Ophanheim".

You sense Terri stop.

"Please," Aeryna continues; "whatever Mars found, if it's in there, if HE's in there... we need all the help we can get. Now."

After a short pause, Terri responds, "And when they read our minds, what then?"

"We've done nothing out of gear check."

"And if they dig deeper than an eye read?"

“I’ll request to postpone.”

“And if you’re denied?”

“I won’t be.”

“Sure about that?”

You hear a crash from within the home as it begins to collapse in the blaze.

"We don’t have time,” you hear Aeryna say shortly, “if you know another way to salvage this, speak up or ride on. Now."

There's a pause as you closely inspect the buckles on your left gauntlet, then the sound of boots impacting the forest frost around you takes your attention. "Fun little reunion, huh," you hear Terri say sarcastically. Without looking towards him, you listen to the sound of footsteps trail off. "Frying pan's never big enough, IS IT?!" he yells in frustration as a horse snorts against the chorus of flames around you before becoming a gallop of hoof-falls into the night. You hear Aeryna exhale deeply as you continue to avert your attention from her and onto the buckles of your boots.

"You take downstairs, I'll take upstairs," she begins again. "Anything looks important, don't look close, but grab if possible. If Mars is-" she falters, "down, don't look close, either. Call me first. Gear checked?"

"Gear checked," you reply flatly. You stand to face Aeryna as she turns around and slaps a hand on your shoulder with a grin.

"Be careful, general captain."

You almost smile. You almost remind her its been a decade since you were a reachman of your station, but you know the time for memories is not now. You charge the door. As it breaks clean off its hinges, the hungry blaze from within tastes a morsel of fresh air and instantly grows ravenous to consume you in searing teeth of heat and flame. A thick tongue of smoke violently smothers you in the jaws of fear and you instinctively protect your watering eyes and mouth with your forearms, but in so doing, inhale. Even such a shallow breath sends a sharp, hot pain deep through your throat and lungs, burning you from the inside as much as the outside. You burst into a coughing fit and crouch low as Aeryna bolts from behind you and races to the stairs, covering her mouth with her cloak. As your coughs subside, so does the fiery hunger of the cabin entrance, visibly retreating enough to clear a path deeper into the home. But, you know this beast's appetite is not yet sated, and as you gaze deeper into it's belly for the path you are about to take, you are soberly aware of a simple truth – here, you are food.

As you clear your throat, you whisper under your breath:

[YOUR RESPONSE: PICK ONE]

[A] “Let's do this”

[B] “Yeah, I've still got it”

[C] “Don't be home... don't be home...”

[D] “I'm too old for this”

The heat threatens goods, moisture, and hope. As you rush towards the back of the home, hunching as much as your 6.5 ft tall Dragonborn body can, you struggle to keep your watering eyes open. Wood creaks and splinters all around you. The house is collapsing, yet you keep your burlap sack ready for anything that might look important. You can tell the hearth room was beautifully decorated with heirlooms, armors, and even some art, the remains of which you pass by. You find a few thick rectangles from a desk, an odd shape on the floor, a partially burned leaflet of some kind and fit them into your bag. You do so blindly, not just because Aeryna suggested it, but because the fire and your watering eyes demand it. Your cough worsens. You stop to catch what breath you can. You swear your sweat is steaming. Wiping your eyes to see seems only to add more sweat to boil over them.

"I FOUND HIM!" Aeryna yells from upstairs.

You jolt around mid-cough and head to the stairwell. Flames drape the banister as you ascend the stairs. You hear a loud *CRACK* of splintering wood nearby. You don't have time to think about it. The beast grows hungrier. The heat is more intense at the top of the stairs and you see Aeryna coughing and frantically gesturing you to follow her with her cloak over her mouth. You follow down the corridor thick with smoke and notice ...floral aromas?

"He's alive, but some-" she coughs, "something's wrong!" 

You turn the corner and find yourself in the final moments of an alchemist's chamber, seasoning you with delicious sage, fennel, and garlic, but also earthen, bitter, and putrid scents stemming from various plants, now burning, fastened to the walls and ceiling. Meanwhile, before you lies the strong, early 30's body of a human man you know as Mars Polyphebos, Paladin and First Blade of Ophanheim, writhing and convulsing involuntarily. His eyes move arrhythmically and independently of each other. 

"We've gotta get him out of here!” Aeryna calls out. “Get his shoulders! I'll get legs. On 3. One. Two-". As you prepare to lift him, you notice a trickle of blood pouring out of his left ear. "-THREE!"

You and Aeryna lift Mars's squirming body overhead and begin to carry him as best as you can through the flaming home, a task made even more difficult by the heavy smoke and oppressive heat. As you reach the stairs, another *CRACK* sends a heavy crossbeam from above down across your path, splintering the stairs below you with a crash and a spray of embers. Just then, a large portion of the first floor ceiling bows with a groan and collapses, covering your intended escape route with a wall of flame. Then, as the briefest moment of cool morning air reaches you, the flames consume it all, raging in their hunger for you and the night.

“Find another way!” Aeryna shouts through a fit of coughs.

As you reverse course back towards the smoky corridor leading to the Alchemist’s chamber, a series of small explosions go off as something volatile finally catches fire. Not wanting to gamble your lives on the nature of what explosive materials remain in the alchemist's chamber, you eye a corridor window. With a swift sidekick, you shatter it open and the fires around you lunge hungrily for new oxygen.

"We'd both break our legs jumping from this height without Mars. Besides, " Aeryna clears her throat, "can you even fit through that window?" 

While the frame is large enough for her, she was right. There's no way you'll be able to fit. Still holding the shifting body of Mars on your shoulder, you begin to strike the wall around the window frame with your free hand.

"Maybe the way behind is clear!" Aeryna yells, unable to hide the growing desperation in her voice.

A flash of light and fire erupts from deep down the corridor and engulfs all three of you as you get thrown to the floor by the force of an unstable reaction of alchemical ingredients. Immediately, your breath leaves you and the moment you inhale, the intense heat of the air around you brands your lungs. The spiral of pain making you cough creating more pain forcing your cough joins the heavy smoke in making your head spin. Prone and swirling in a searing nausea, you watch the ceiling above you splinter and prepare to snap shut the flaming jaws around you. Above you, you notice the massive crack in the support beam responsible for holding up what’s left of the ceiling bow with weight it wasn’t designed to handle alone. You try to move out from under it, but fits of coughing overtake you as the corridor has run out of usable air to breathe. You hear a loud snap and in a moment that seems to stretch for an eternity, await the inevitable end and shut your eyes. In a lifetime of battles, you had often thought of how your end may come and in those visions, you had always seen yourself facing your demise with your eyes open, yet here you are. Somehow, you still have time to reconsider and against the heat and the sweat and the pain in your body, you force your eyes open to witness your final moment.

Through eyes thick with smoky tears, you make out the jagged end of a splintered crossbeam hanging suspended less than a foot away from your face. You watch through an incessant coughing fit as it lifts gently upwards and begin to question whether what you’re seeing is part of the afterlife or not. Suddenly, the roof over you lurches completely up off its moorings and gently floats to the far side of the homestead.  As you look above the blaze, your blurry vision is strong enough to notice a single point of intense blue glowing against a dark sky. That light grows brighter and brighter until it consumes the entirety of your blurry vision as the sounds of the inferno fade into a single, high pitched note, ringing in your ears. Then, it’s gone.

Gentle sounds of leaves, birdsong, and the natural landscape surround you. The pain is gone. The need to cough is gone. Oxygen flows to your lungs freely as you breathe at a relatively normal pace. You feel a presence close to you and you open your eyes, no longer blurry, to watch an intense blue glow like the one you saw in the night sky diminish to reveal a robed figure pulling their forehead away from yours. Immediately, you recognize what has just occurred. Everything you had just seen and experienced was for the second time today as the being before you finishes reading your mind’s memory of your eyes.

"Detection complete", says the nullpriest in alert monotone.

Now on flat ground outside the completely doused, but still smoldering homestead of the First Blade of Ophanheim, the morning light gives you a good look at the one who saved you. A pale green/gray skinned male appearing in his early 20's with an under-bite and a pair of small lower tusks barely peeking out from behind his lower lip. He's dressed in white robes with a cobalt blue lining and a matching sash around his waist. Multiple holy symbols on wooden necklaces hang loosely around his neck. The most striking detail about him, however, is the elaborate brass circlet upon his head with amethyst crystal earplugs, small, circular, brass plates that completely cover the eyes, and a deep blue gemstone of some kind of quartz, about the size of an eye, held prominently in the centerpiece over his forehead. He looks to Aeryna then back to you as if the brass plates were not obstructing his vision at all.

"Account of events memory verified by former general captain, Dra'tesh Stonescale. Active suspects: none. Acting lieutenant general, Aeryna Silvanus, objection to deep search noted. Mars Polyphebos transferred to Ophanheim Central Hospital for treatment. Thank you, Mr. Stonescale, for your cooperation." The blue gem on his forehead glows bright for a moment as the nullpriest moves their hands in accordance with the somatic components of the spell they are casting before it fades again.

"...Report filed. Will that be all?"

You look around for Mars, realizing you don’t remember what happened to him, but he is nowhere to be found. You expect the twisting of the scales on your neck to be sensitive from the burns you sustained, but notice you feel nothing out of the ordinary. Looking at your arms, they look normal as well. No evidence of burns seem to remain on you.

"Yes, that will be all, thank you," Aeryna says with a voice that doesn’t appear to have suffered the coughing fits from earlier this morning.

"Thank you, and have a pleasant day.” The orcish nullpriest looks in the air above him and a blue arcane glyph begins to materialize in the air over his brass plated eyes without any effort from his hands. The central gemstone of their brass headset glows bright blue once more, and in a flash, he disappears entirely.

In the absence of hurtling horses, raging fires, and collapsing buildings, you finally take in a moment of tranquility in the dawnsong of the local robins, swaying birch branches, and cool mountain breeze. 

"I. TOLD. YOU. SO!" Terri erupts as he makes his way over to Aeryna.

"I told you we'd be fine, and we are", she says, exhausted.

"Fine? Our one lead can't talk, his house is a crime scene, and now we're either suspects in the fire that nearly killed the First Blade or suspects to whoever went after the First Blade in the first place. How in the hells are we fine!?"

"Firstly," Aeryna says as she begins disconnecting a pouch underneath her blackened cloak, "we're all alive, even Mars, and secondly, we're not exactly empty handed. The problem is, if I show you, it'll break gear check."

Terri stands there subtly shaking his head. He laughs under his breath.

"What's so funny?" Aeryna asks with a furrowed brow, still attempting to conceal whatever she found underneath her cloak.

"You," he answers.

"I'm trying to save us."

"Really? How?"

"You know the protocol," Aeryna says with a glare.

"No, specifically how are you gonna show us and save us? Walk us through how you're gonna show us-" Terri points a finger at the pouch Aeryna is holding, "-that without putting each of our lives in danger?"

"I was getting to that if you'd just let me finish."

"Uh-huh, go on," Terri says flatly as he leans over and shoots a glob of snot out of his nose.

Flustered, Aeryna uncrosses her arms and starts, "Well, first we'd start with turning everyone around, then I'd give the bag to Dra'tesh. After he sees it, he can turn the bag inside out and then set it down in the soft grass where you can hear him walk to it. Then YOU can go over without looking at it, flip it right side out, and-"

"I like your optimism," Terri says with a solemn air as he walks over to Aeryna, "but do you hear yourself? Do you see that house, there? Do you see where you almost died? I may not be the sharpest knife in the knife thing, but even I know, if whatever's in that bag matters even a little bit, and knowing you, it does, then I also know whatever master plan you're cookin up... isn't..." He stops and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Look, I'm sorry I got upset, but no one played it safer than Mars and if they can get mr. paranoid, they can get us, too. You’ve always been good at rules, Aeryna, but the game’s changed; it won’t be the system that saves us and playing by their rules won’t save us, either, so if you’ve got something to show us, just show us." 

Aeryna looks over her shoulder to the smoldering ruin of the home of the most careful person she knows as a cold wind whips through the rustling forest leaves in the morning light, then back to the soot-stained burlap pouch in her hands, then finally, to you. "I was hoping to protect you from as much risk as possible,” she says as she approaches, "but Terri's right. Whether we meant to or not, we likely just made some powerful enemies by saving Mars. If secrecy couldn’t keep him safe, then it probably isn’t that safe for us, so our next best defense is speed and uncovering as much of the truth as fast as possible. Here. It's time to find out just how deep this dungeon goes." Aeryna pulls the strings of the charred bag and from within, she procures a single object: a soot covered brass circlet with brass plate eye coverings, amethyst crystal earbuds, and a large, citrine quartz gemstone as a centerpiece - the same kind of headset the robed figure from earlier was wearing.

"Ah shit," Terri mutters under his breath.

"Mars had no reason to purposefully have this technology," Aeryna continues, holding the brass headset gingerly, "he's known to be publicly against these UHC devices and his retreat from public appearances in concert with nullpriests hasn't been subtle since the widespread adoption of them. Also, in the time I've known him, I've never seen him as secretive as he's been the past few weeks, hence the unorthodox nature of our intended meeting this morning. I did want you to make the choice to act with us only once you saw someone else corroborating our claims or something close, but mostly this timing was decided because Mars was being extraordinarily cautious with, well, everything."

"So much for that," Terri chimes in, looking over at the fading embers of Mars' collapsed homestead.

"It got him far enough."

"But you say he was wearing this when you found him?"

"Yes," said Aeryna quietly.

"Was he already messed up?"

"Definitely."

Terri pauses. "I thought these things were supposed to give you magic powers? Couldn't he just cure himself?"

"Possibly, but he couldn't move on his own when I found him. I wonder if he couldn’t think on his own either."

“So do you think his condition came from wearing the headset or before it?”

“I don’t know, but if it did come before he put on the headset, he wouldn’t be able to put one on himself and why would someone put one of the most expensive, restricted, and generally rare pieces of magical technology known to the Ophanic Empire on an already indisposed man? It’s not impossible, I suppose, but something else seems more likely.”

"You think this thing made him that way?"

"Given his stance on these," Aeryna says, nodding to the circlet in her hands, "I'd say it's unlikely he would ever wear one on purpose, unless... maybe he was testing something?" She shakes her head, "but he'd know better than to do any test by himself, especially if he was already planning on meeting us."

"Hold on," Terri stays focused on the circlet as he walks towards Aeryna. "Can I?"

She nods and hands it over to Terri.

“The half-orc fella who was here before, his headset was blue. All nullpriests headsets I’ve ever seen have had gems that were blue. But this one…”

He holds up the device so the morning sun illuminates the headband's light yellow gemstone from behind. While a faint, warm hue is cast upon his half elven face, within the gem itself, another color becomes visible. You step closer and within the gem see a white, hairline fracture appear dramatically deeper as Terri slowly turns it in the light. The crack now appears from top to bottom as a thick ribbon of white amidst the yellow refracted glow of the gem.

He looks up towards Aeryna, “could you tell if this was glowing when you found him?”

“It was not.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea what would happen if you wore a broken one of these?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t imagine it would function at all.”

He thinks to himself a moment. “What do you think would happen if it broke while you were wearing it?”

Aeryna sighs and shifts her weight. "Best case scenario? Nothing."

"And worst case?"

"I don't know," Aeryna says, shaking her head, "could be any number of things."

"You ever hear of any horror stories about these things?"

Aeryna folds her arms and looks pensively into the forest floor. "Honestly, I hardly hear any stories about the nullpriests at all to begin with and I'm sure that's by design." She looks up and inhales, "Not to mention the unknown factor of whether and how a different gemstone equates to a different function. Are you thinking what happened to Mars was because something went wrong?"

Terri’s eyebrow shoots up, "Don't you?"

Aeryna pauses for a moment, looks back to the dirt, and begins pacing. "Assuming something went wrong with the device's operation also assumes too many other things that don't seem to fit with what we know about Mars. From his stance against this technology to his paranoia to his care in meeting with us this morning... the idea he was up to something with one of these... feels out of place. If something went wrong, then he either had some hidden, convoluted motivation to publicly spread propaganda against this technology but support it in secret while also risking his public image unnecessarily or something changed last second and out of desperation he felt it was necessary to experiment with it immediately without assistance right before meeting us at the crack of dawn. However, Mars' increased suspicion has only ever increased his standards for security, not thrown it to the wind. While an act of desperation is not impossible, I believe something far simpler could be true," She stops and looks to the circlet in Terri's hands. "The device worked as intended."

Terri inspects the headset for a moment. "You think? How?"

"I don't really know yet, but I know someone brought this to him and either tricked him, or more likely forced him, to wear it. The nullpriest didn’t see any other bodies in the remains, so I assume whoever it was didn’t die in the blaze and was probably the one who lit the fire somehow.”

“You don’t think the headset was, I dunno, rigged to explode or cast fireball, somehow?”

“Well, if it was rigged to explode, he wouldn’t have his head and if it was rigged to cast a significant fire spell then the walls of his alchemical room wouldn’t have been there to explode on us after we found him. Unless it was also rigged to cast a fireball spell exactly within the walls of his home, walk him perfectly up his stairs and down the exact length of a corridor for some reason, then give him a seizure, someone got this on Mars, then they lit a fire, and escaped. Presumably, he was incapacitated as part of that process and he was left to die with this on, possibly to hide it under rubble. If we hadn't found him, he'd most likely be ash, like the rest of his home." 

"So, this was a hit?"

"Yes,” she pauses for a moment, “kind of."

"Kind of?"

Aeryna turns to what remains of Mars' homestead, completely charred from its violent end. “Well, if their goal was assassination, then daggers, poisons, or even hired mercs would suffice. Murder is cheap. You don't need the single most expensive and advanced magical technology in the Klybbenmyr to carry that out, even against a veteran warrior like Mars." She walks towards Terri. "This?" Aeryna nods at the device, crossing her arms again, "This may have been a weapon in Mars' downfall, but it wasn't the job." She turns around and looks up at the cloudless morning sky as she resumes her pacing. "This is a means to an end."

"And that end is...?" Terri asks. 

"It’s what remains when the fire burns the truth away." 

"And what, exactly, is that?"

"I don't know enough to give a long answer," she pauses, "but the short answer is fear."

Terri intensely scans the woods surrounding you. "Any idea whose?"

"Probably not ours, though it's always good to double check." Aeryna joins Terri in doing her own scan of the perimeter around the forest before resuming her pacing. "If Mars' body was to be ash, we interrupted that. If they knew we might intervene, we would likely have faced more direct resistance the way Mars did, including the fate intended for him, but we didn't. If they knew about us and didn't plan on neutralizing us, there wouldn't be much point in the fire either - unless they were trying to have us take the blame for his death, but the Nullpriest report and the fact Mars survived, not to mention the eye read they took from Dra'tesh, conflict with that directly and would be more conclusive than any rumor against us." Aeryna stops. "No, I think whomever did this had their one and only target."

Terri folds his arms loosely with a huff and turns to look toward his sister. "But they'll be lookin for us now, too, won't they?"

Aeryna nods. "That eye read works both ways: It protects us from blame, but it's also likely that anyone who has access to the highest level of Nullpriest technology can also access Nullpriest reports and eye reads. Whoever's behind this, if they didn't know about us… if they didn't see us as targets before today…" Aeryna says with a sigh, "they do now."

Terri looks over at Aeryna, "So who's 'they'?"

"That's the big question, isn't it?" Aeryna reaches toward her boot and tugs at something around the lining before removing what looks to be some parchment. She smooths it over her knee to get some of the soot and crumples out. "I found this in Mars' coat pocket when I took the circlet from him. Tried to save reading it until later, but I’m not sure there’ll be much space for later anymore if we don’t read it now." Folded in thirds and bearing the wrinkles and subtle tears of rushed smuggling, a yellow sheet of parchment unfolds in Aeryna's hands. She reads the letter silently to herself and as she finishes, looks up into the distance with an audible sigh. 

"Well?" Terri asks with upturned hands, looking deep from under his brow with slight impatience.

"Sorry," Aeryna says snapping out of thought. She passes off the letter to Terri. "Here." You look over his shoulder as he begins to read the simple note.

"A- Remember for today; just weapon, time, target. I'll do the rest. Very grateful for your help in these matters. Again, do not pursue Autumn Edict. For the sake of Ophanheim and the life of the Septarch, you must hold your station."

Terri looks up from the short letter with a sobering air. "The Autumn Edict... So it’s real?"

"Appears so."

"Still doesn't tell us anything about it."

Seeing the confused look on your face, Aeryna turns to you. "The Autumn Edict. This was why we were originally going to see Mars, specifically to see what he knew about it. A few months ago I caught a glimpse of a private memo I don't think I was supposed to see in General Barabus's office that balanced figures for a military exercise I'd never heard of. I only barely caught a glimpse of the document, but I did catch the phrase Autumn Edict. I was also caught in the act by Barabus himself. Long story short, I thought that would be the end of my military career and even my life in Ophanheim, but instead I was promoted to the 3rd highest rank among ground troops in active service of the Reach and for a short while, I really thought I had dodged punishment-”

"-But then she realized the new job was the punishment," Terri interjects.

Aeryna looks back to you. "Yeah, who would have thought that one's dreams could hold you hostage so well? Anyway, I have no idea why I wasn't punished in a more traditional way with demerits or discharge or something, but the hours have been brutal, I'm rarely out of Barabus's sight, and even with my higher rank, I feel I'm being tasked to a squire's duty. Of course I will serve my home in the way that is asked of me, but the whole thing feels wrong; the promotion, the speed at which it happened, the hyper-vigilant supervision, not to mention the fact that I never knew how to learn more about the Autumn Edict because, so far, my only lead is also my judge, jury, and executioner.” She takes a deep breath, "Somehow, I've managed to achieve the highest status I've ever had, and in so doing, become completely powerless – that is, until I noticed Mars' increasingly antisocial behavior. As one of the most virtuous figures in Ophanheim, I began to suspect he knew something. After we gained each other's trust, we finally agreed to meet."

"Aaand you can see how that went over there." Terri nods sarcastically to the burnt down home.

"Hey, at least he thought it was possible it would go well," Aeryna says, holding up the parchment.

"But 'weapon?'...'target?'..." Terri says, shaking his head. "Did I read that right? What was he trying to get us to do?"

"I think..." Aeryna reads the letter again with a finger on her lips, "...to protect the life of the Septarch."

Terri looks to her. "But why would someone want to kill the Septarch now? He won't even be in power after today."

"I think Mars is talking about whoever replaces them today."

"Oh... OHHH" Terri says with a look of realization. "Is the Autumn Edict an assassination conspiracy? Did Mars know about it with plans to stop it and that’s why he was targeted?"

"That’s one explanation. Of course, we won't know for sure until we actually get to hear it from Mars… or from someone more directly involved."

"Can’t imagine we’d get the chance to talk to him anytime soon. He looked rough."

"Even if we did..." Aeryna looks the letter over again, "I don't think he knew, either. He clearly had suspicions, other leads, but it looks like he was asking for our help as much as we were asking for his."

"Well, at least he trusted us."

"I hope he still does."

Terri puts his hands on his head and exhales with closed eyes. "Well, let's do something to make sure he was right to. What do we do now?"

Aeryna looks to you with a furled brow of concentration as she takes a deep breath of smoky mountain air. "We, right…"

Leaves crunch underneath her military issue boots as she makes her way to stand before you. "I'm going to be as clear as I can, I need your help, Dra’tesh – a lot of it. There is a lot we don't know. Even less now that we don't even know what leads Mars was going to give us, which means the only way we're learning anything more today is from good, old-fashioned sleuthing; sneaking around, talking to people, connecting dots ourselves... and that leaves us with limited options. Given my short leash and high profile as Lieutenant General, Terri's patrol schedule, and Mars' health, I don't foresee any of us truly being able to have the time and ability to do that with the high profile ceremony happening today. But you…" She takes a slow step closer and looks up at you with intense determination, "You've seen evidence of the threat, you know what we know, and you have years of military training in those scales that I trust. Initially, I asked for your help for my own personal issue and you accepted, but this has gone far beyond my own needs. Then, I asked for your assistance, but now that other peoples lives are at stake, I must accept there's no other option. The mantle of responsibility is now thrust upon you, perhaps unfairly, but nonetheless urgently, for if you do not act on this matter, I am at a loss to know who will. Assuming that loss, I fear what comes next – not just for me, or my brother, or Mars, but also any and all who seek to uncover the truth like us in the future. Not to mention that if this is what they're willing to do now… then not even justice has much time."

She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath before opening them again. "We may all be involved, but right now, you're the only one who can do something. But while I can prepare you for the road, help you on it, even give you my vote of confidence that there is no one better suited for it, the most important thing I cannot do: I cannot make this choice for you. There is but one person who can. So I ask of you, for the sake of the people, the Septarch, and for justice itself, will you take upon the mantle of responsibility and risk blood for bond to investigate the truth behind what happened and what has not yet come to pass today at the Rite of Succession?"

[WHAT DO YOU SAY?]

[YES] Accept the mission (Go to page P.1.1)

[I HAVE MY OWN PROBLEMS] Decline the mission (Go to page P.1.2)