Chapter Four: The Manifest of the Harikan Squall

Mordred finds little information to be gleaned from the relatively bare state of the altar. Culsu seems to be a largely ignored deity in Hazard these days.

The man in the brown cloak, meanwhile, continues to approach the shrine. When he comes to within speaking distance of Zangua, he says: "Luke! We meet again."

How about an Insight roll, Zangua?

As Zangua slips back into the shrine, he recalls that "Luke" was the pseudonym Mordred made up for him when they met with Adan Tuell in Beerpool.

The man's face was obscured by his hat but you can't rule out that it isn't, in fact, Adan Tuell.

The door to the shrine swings open. The man in the brown cloak stands about ten feet outside the doorway, his stance wide, his hands behind his back. "Luke, is Jek in there with you? It has been many days since we last spoke! Now, I told you to send Zora to the Shrine of Culsu should she arrive in Hazard, not yourselves -- you seem to have misremembered me. But it is good to see you as well, and these friends of yours."

He takes a step forward. By the sound of his voice and his now-visible face Zangua and Mordred can plainly see that it is indeed Adan Tuell. What you take at first for a pewter brooch on his chest moves slightly, and you realize that it is actually a large bluish-gray beetle.

"Let us talk! We were duplicitous with each other the last time we spoke. We should try honesty and plain dealing this time, and perhaps the outcome will be better for all of us. It is not my desire to see any harm come to Zora Kells, or her mother -- but if I am left with no choice but to extract her by force from the House of Gahmez, well, I will do what I must. Help us all to avoid that ugly outcome. Please. You fellows are perhaps the only ones who can negotiate a bloodless resolution to this terrible misunderstanding. Speak with me, I beg you."

This Adan looks corporeal to Mordred, but can he trust what his senses tell him?

"Her mother knows," Adan says quietly. He takes a few more steps closer. "Prophecies are for fools, Jek, and myths for children. I and my brothers are no dream-chasing mystics. Our plans and purposes are rooted in the reality of this universe. When Edvers Kells and I communed with the First Servant in the deepest crypts of Nethuns' temple, he heard the same words I did. What led him astray, I will never know. Perhaps his proximity to the Sphere itself drove him to madness. But this mad chase, this peril his daughter finds herself in -- this was never what he wanted. Let us put an end to it. Deliver Martjan va Locra to us, that she might show us where the Sphere is hidden, and all of this conflict will recede into the past."

Since you'll have go to back out the doorway he's standing smack in front of, there's no way to sidle around behind Adan that won't be incredibly obvious to him. Still want to try?

Adan sighs. "Demanding a show of leverage is the sort of thing that turns a civil negotiation ugly, Jek." He taps the beetle on his chest on its head. It spreads its wings and flies slowly up and away. "But I will see what I can arrange. As I told you -- brute force is a last resort. While the chance remains that a few persuasive words could end this, that is the path I will pursue. The Iron Sphere of Sthombo has been invested with a terrible purpose. One day or another, that purpose will be fulfilled. It could be for the acquisition of base, temporal power, as was originally intended, or it could be for something greater, something new in the Werld, something unbound by time. Right now, one individual has thwarted the grand designs in which the Sphere had a part. This cannot be. Help us to correct this error, or die trying in vain to protect these women who do not even understand why they oppose us. This is your choice."

Could he have literal bugs planted on us?

You haven't noticed being particularly bug-infested lately, certainly not by beetles almost as big as the palm of your hand.