Cevdet Tarik's Sanctum, Western Elazig District, Hazlan
May 14th, 761, 11:25 PM; Day 58 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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Rock wrote:"Nizam? Nizam! Where is the passage you used to get in here? I doubt any of us wishes to go back the way we came in by."
The apprentice offered a small smile to Lia, and gestured to the tunnel from which you had come. "That way. The other end of the tunnel leads to the manor's basement.
Nathan of the FoS wrote:His plans coalescing rapidly, Charles goes back to where Nizam stands. "I think," he says, "you need a new master, and a better man. All of this is yours by law, is that not correct? But you'll need a legal guardian until you come of age, as well as a master. Would you be amenable to having Rishad Nisanci take the role?"
Nathan of the FoS wrote:"But the circumstances of his disappearance should not be. A mysterious disappearance while investigating the properties of the Ethereal Plane...all too common...apprentice distraught, of course, but these studies are hazardous and accidents happen. Basler opens and closes the investigation, and all is well."
The apprentice's eyes go wide with wonder as he listened to these plans for his future. You felt a stirring of pity for the young man, whose life had been irrevocably altered in barely one evening. From apprentice to murderer to vagabond to landowner in less than a few hours.
"Sir... that would be wonderful, wonderful beyond belief." Nizam apparently grasped the implications of Charles's scheme faster than anyone. "I'd.... have a place.... a future. Thank you, please, let it work."
YalenusVeler wrote:"What was he trying to do? What was so important here that he was willing to do...this?"
Nizam sighed, and the shadow of old fear and sorrow mixed with something else, for a moment. Grief? The apprentice took a deep breath, brushing off his black robes as he sought to find an answer to the question. "It's.... complicated. I'll tell you on the way out."
Lostboy wrote:Calling to the others he shouts "The Krenshar breathes! Nizam, can you control this creature shoudl it be brough back to health?"
The shout from the floor of the cavern turned young Mulani's attention. He frowned momentarily, then nodded. "I...
think so.... Masal is as used to me as she is to anyone, I'll take care of her."
For the first time, Nizam smiled bitterly. "Not as though we've anyone else in the world."
Kaitou Kage wrote:"The gift he gave me," Kuzan said quietly, "It was just what it appears to be, right? There're no spells on it that will do anything to me? It's just a neat little picture of a ship?"
"I'd think so..." Nizam answered, and there was a kind of melancholy pride in the young man's voice. "Master Cevdet made many illusions of art, but he needed to link them to something tangible for them to work. So he made little bits of wood and placed them in the floorboards or kept them in drawers. We've hundreds back in the manor."
Tarlyn wrote:Ulsaon exits the lab with a book in her hands and what looked like a rod tucked under her arm. "Hey , look at what I found in the lab!" she says as she holds out the book in one hand and holds the rod in another to everyone.
"Oh... those..." Nizam nodded absently, not paying much attention. "Keep them if you want.... that's Master Cevdet's spare spellbook and casting rod. I... don't want them, and I doubt anyone will ever come down here."
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A short while later, as Kuzan leaned down to place his hand on the barely living krenshar, Nizam kneeled before the great beast's head. Slowly, as the life-giving energy entered Masal's body, her breathing grew stronger, steadier.... and eyelid fluttered, and the immense feline lifted her head, looking at Nizam with strangely dull eyes. You held your breath, not particularly keen on being part of the situation if Masal decided to try and bite someone's face off.
"It's me.... Masal..." Nizam crooned to the beast, resting a hand on the huge, flat forehead. "It's just us now... Master is gone."
The krenshar looked at the apprentice with dawning comprehension, and then just slumped foreward, an expression of utter defeat and loss writ large on her features. Nizam mumbled some soothing words, then stood, leaving the familiar to her own, personal grief.
"She'll.... be fine, in time." Nizam offered, turning to the others. "She'll cause no harm, I hope."
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And then the apprentice turned to go up the ramp to the plateau, where Lia had laid out his master's body in a dignified pose. "Thank you...."
For long minutes, Nizam just stood there, stone still, and what thoughts passed through his mind you couldn't even begin to guess, though you didn't doubt they were conflicted in the extreme. And the conjuror made a quick, silent gesture with his hand, and the corpse began to burn, a purifying fire, perhaps one that cleansed away whatever sins Cevdet Tarik may have committed in life. Masal raised herself creakily and rose onto the plateau, taking up a place beside Nizam.
"Goodbye."
And with that one word, Nizam left his master's pyre, and the rest of you, explorers, children, and krenshar alike, followed him.
Cinnabar Tunnels, Western Elazig District, Hazlan
May 15th, 761, 12:04 AM; Day 59 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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"I suppose it began when Master Cevdet first bought this estate, a decade ago. It had a number of mines on it, but they were abandoned for one reason or another. So Master Cevdet began to explore them, and expand them."
Nizam spoke softly as he lead the way through the tunnels beneath the Elazig district. There were miles of them, a maze of tunnels that lead everywhere. You didn't think you'd ever find your way out, but Nizam stepped quickly and assuredly, Masal dogging his heels.
"Not long later, he found that chamber beneath Ghostdeath Knoll. I'm not sure what the crystal is, but Master Cevdet thought it was a Vossath Nor collection device, something that harvested the ghostly emotion of the Ethereal Plane and transformed it into a kind of harmless energy. That's what that mist and those faces are... undigested ghosts."
"And somehow....he got the idea that that energy could be used to give someone magical power. Master Cevdet was an illusionist of high skill, but he wanted to advance farther yet, and as a commoner-born, he couldn't."
"But first, he needed to test the idea. He decided that a child would be more 'flexible', is what Master Cevdet said, more capable of channeling the energy. He found a.... Mulani child.... and ten years ago tried the first of four experiments." Something fathomless flashed in Nizam's eyes. "He tried to use ghosts' energy, and it sort of worked, but the child was driven mad for a time, and ever after saw spirits as they were, not that many spirits walked there."
"The second experiment, seven years ago, involved Master Cevdet deciding that since ghostly energy was unusable, he'd use living children, to create a sympathetic relationship between subject and victim. He'd kidnap them while acting under an illusion spell, with a bit of enchantment to convince them to follow."
"Again he used the Mulani child, but the experiment was mostly a failure. Or at least, not nearly the success Master Cevdet thought it would be. A bit of magical power was granted, but he couldn't apply the ritual to himself, not yet."
Nizam stared ahead as he spoke, the apprentice's voice emotionless and dry as he recited the litany of acts. You wondered where Nizam was during all this.
"The children were.... a bit damaged, in their minds, and they'd seen too much, so Master Cevdet shipped them off to an orphanage in Kantora."
"The third time was four and a half years ago, and Master Cevdet decided to change the formula by seeking a Vistani child. And this time it worked beyond belief. The child, Kemal, I think, became a powerful,
powerful sorcerer. More powerful then Master Cevdet imagined."
"Kemal broke out the day after the experiment, and Master Cevdet spent almost a year tracking him down to some village in Lamordia." Nizam glanced at Otto, but remained silent. "The three of us... Master Cevdet, myself, and Masal glamoured to look like a human, went to retrieve him. But.... something went wrong..."
"We didn't
mean to kill him." Nizam's eyes begged to be believed. "But... in the heat of battle.... things happened. Master Cevdet was a month recovering from the burns, and I still have a patch of dead skin on my arm."
Nizam sighed. "And that's what brought us here today. A fourth attempt, only this time Master Cevdet would be prepared. And at the height of the ceremony, he'd transfer the energy the Vistana child held into himself."
At this point, Nizam looked up curiously at Lia and Charles. "Only... I don't think Master Cevdet's been out of the labratory for at least three days except to go to the manor. So who's this Miss D'Envers of yours?"