With little else to do and the future survival of his adopted daughter in question, Mar’Khabazza and Magnus wander across town to the Crow Club and begin drinking, too morose and confused to bother joining a game of chance.
After some hours pass, Savinia Loresong enters the establishment, gives a nod to Drenla the Sage sitting at his table and heads over to Magnus and Mar’Khabazza. Without preamble she speaks, “Ravenna is recovering well and is in the care of friends. Would you like to see her?”
Wordlessly the pair stand up and follow her out the door. She leads them on a circuitous route through the lower city, a part of town they’d not yet visited. It is much less developed with a more ramshackle feel and whose primary inhabitants are Four Tribes folk.
Before long Savinia takes them to a small house of stone painted a faded and chipped blue. Inside the cramped but cozy quarters are three familiar faces and Ravenna who is lying feverish under a blanket on a stuffed mattress on the floor.
The normally severe expression on her face softened somewhat, Justiciar Mariel Trueheart smiles at the newcomers and says, “Welcome to the world headquarters of the Sept of the Serpent.” Savinia scoffs.
“I imagine you have plenty of questions and we’ll do our best to answer them while Ravenna recovers. Tea, perhaps?” She motions to a pot over a small fire in the fireplace and pours herself a cup. She gestures to one of the men with her teacup. “Postmaster Malown I believe you know and have had business in the past.”
The diminutive and sturdy man nods at the new arrivals and the Justiciar continues. “We have not officially met, but my name is Mariel Trueheart. And this man,” she gestures to the Chakagari man sitting to her right. “This is Merajit the Alchemist the man responsible for saving your daughter’s life.”
The Sept of the Serpent consists of:
Postmaster Malown
Justiciar Mariel Trueheart
Merajit the Alchemist
Savinia Loresong
Kelemis the Lost
Mondaleth the Sage
and an unnamed seventh.
The Sept is a group of individuals who have given themselves the task of studying the Upheaval, its nature, and the events surrounding it’s creation. Trueheart continues, “Once the Upheaval was surveyed, the Empire wasted no time exploiting its mineral resources. It set up the three Jewell Cities and began mining operations with little regard to the fantastic and extraordinary events surrounding its formation and subsequent destruction of Evet.”
“But what caused it? And why?” she pauses to sip her tea. “Of this we know little and great minds like Ravenna’s adopted father Kelemis the Lost, of the unnamed forest, and Mondaleth the Sage, of Akin’s Ridge, have spend decades studying it and everything else in this region.”
The Chakagari man stands up and crosses the room to press his palm to Ravenna’s forehead. “My name is Merajit and it is my pleasure to meet you. I apologize for the theatrics but they were sadly necessary.”
Mar’Khabazza speaks up, “What do you mean?”
Magnus stirs. “This whole trial was a sham. Wasn’t it?”
The Justiciar nods and sips her tea. “Indeed. While the use of Essence isn’t illegal in the Empire, this far north the populace can be swayed by flights of fancy and be swept up in the hysteria of the Upheaval and witchcraft. Ravenna was too obvious and her flinging hexes about was bound to cause problems. We were forced to let Kyle and Elder Sarophas and the Slenderman have their day in the sun and could only hope that Ravenna didn’t do anything rash until we could publicly defang her.”
The Alchemist joins in. “The public spectacle was necessary to give people a reason to forget about her, even to take pity on her. But of course she can still touch the flows.”
Mar’Khabazza speaks up at this. “Why go through all of this for someone you don’t know?”
Merajit is packing a clay pipe with a wide bowl with some kind of black tobacco and lights it with a ember from the fire. “Every creature with a soul has some form of the flow inside them, some latent ability to touch Essence, Mentalism, or Channeling their god’s will. Everyone except for Magnus here, but we’ll get to that in a second.”
“Of that population, maybe one in twenty actively touches that pool and draws power from it. Of that population of active users, perhaps one in a hundred can feel the Arcane Source, the primordial power that drives all creation. Of that population, it is another one in a hundred that can actually embrace it.”
“So in any population, perhaps one in twenty-score thousand can truly call themselves an Archmagus. And yet here are three. In a town of barely three thousands. Ravenna here,” he gestures to her prone form. “Savinia,” he says gesturing to the girl sitting cross-legged on a table. “And you, Mar’Khabazza.”
“What?!” Mar’Khabazza huffs. “I am no such thing. A simple merchant am I.”
“Of course.” Merajit continues. “With your arrival almost two months ago, your cart tripled the number of Archmages in Opal, while also bringing into town a different mystery. Like I said earlier, every creature with a soul has some latent ability in one of the Three Realms. Except you, Magnus. You have no pool whatsoever.”
Magnus shrugs, unimpressed. “I figured I had no soul.”