Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:33 pm
The bard finds Larner's presentation surprisingly engaging, even deigning to take a few notes on the actual lecture, alongside a growing list of Brethren already checked for Brahmbei's sign. Many of the list's entries consist of descriptions only, but he'll fill in some actual names, each time a chance arises to winnow that information from other attendees.
Tending to his facade, the VRS spy makes sure "Brother Crow's" interest perks up when Larner speaks of his home city's cultural richness -- its museums, its fine art, its literature -- and he frowns, with a dissatisfaction not entirely feigned, at the cursory attention which the Zherisian devotes to these topics. As ever, the Fraternity's passionless pragmatism and wizardly biases are borne out in its scholastic pursuits: a perspective which, he suspects, will be frustrating to bards amongst its true members, as much as to himself. Perhaps he can score a few points with Quiret and his associates, for future operations, if he remedies that lapse....
He blinks, as with ingenuous surprise, at being singled out, when Larner speaks of doppelgangers. Were Crow less experienced at his spycraft, the Zherisian's attention might've seemed like a coyly-veiled threat to his own imposture; as it is, he recognizes it for the coincidence it must surely be. Larner is, after all, only fielding a question from a third party, and wariness of such monsters is a prime reason why the man should ask for "Brother Crow's" assistance, in the first place. Even if the VRS spy's cover were well and truly shattered, the senior Fraternity officers would not drop such clumsy hints now, when they still need his -- and, through him, the Oracle's -- eyes.
(Treacherous creatures, doppelgangers, if half the tales of their misdeeds were to be trusted, and perhaps even deserving of a Society monograph or two. He'll have to find out if there's any real substance to the stories, when he visits Kingsley's homeland, but his own direct experience with their kind is limited as yet. It is worth thinking about, though....)
When Larner again asks for questions, the bard offers one of his own, as much to curtail any impression that "Brother Crow" holds such beings to be of interest as for curiosity's sake. If he does look into the matter of Paridon's resident shapeshifters this summer, it certainly won't be at the Fraternity's behest, nor with Alfred Larner's knowledge.
"If I might ask, Brother Larner," he enquires, "what might it be prudent for we mainlanders to know of your city's so-called 'free press'? I gather that the dissemination of information has attained the status of a commercial industry in Paridon, far beyond the humble town cryers or block-printed posters of other realms. With the craft of printing spreading by leaps and bounds on the continent, it may well be only a matter of time before such 'handbills' are to be found in every corner of the Core.
"Given the importance of information to this brotherhood -- its acquisition, its control, its fabrication -- might not this curious enterprise be worthy of direct study, in and of itself? And has the existence of such an inquisitive industry posed an inconvenience to yourself or your Brethren in Paridon, given the presence of its self-proclaimed 'reporters': persons whose very job is to ferret out matters better kept from public knowledge?"
Tending to his facade, the VRS spy makes sure "Brother Crow's" interest perks up when Larner speaks of his home city's cultural richness -- its museums, its fine art, its literature -- and he frowns, with a dissatisfaction not entirely feigned, at the cursory attention which the Zherisian devotes to these topics. As ever, the Fraternity's passionless pragmatism and wizardly biases are borne out in its scholastic pursuits: a perspective which, he suspects, will be frustrating to bards amongst its true members, as much as to himself. Perhaps he can score a few points with Quiret and his associates, for future operations, if he remedies that lapse....
He blinks, as with ingenuous surprise, at being singled out, when Larner speaks of doppelgangers. Were Crow less experienced at his spycraft, the Zherisian's attention might've seemed like a coyly-veiled threat to his own imposture; as it is, he recognizes it for the coincidence it must surely be. Larner is, after all, only fielding a question from a third party, and wariness of such monsters is a prime reason why the man should ask for "Brother Crow's" assistance, in the first place. Even if the VRS spy's cover were well and truly shattered, the senior Fraternity officers would not drop such clumsy hints now, when they still need his -- and, through him, the Oracle's -- eyes.
(Treacherous creatures, doppelgangers, if half the tales of their misdeeds were to be trusted, and perhaps even deserving of a Society monograph or two. He'll have to find out if there's any real substance to the stories, when he visits Kingsley's homeland, but his own direct experience with their kind is limited as yet. It is worth thinking about, though....)
When Larner again asks for questions, the bard offers one of his own, as much to curtail any impression that "Brother Crow" holds such beings to be of interest as for curiosity's sake. If he does look into the matter of Paridon's resident shapeshifters this summer, it certainly won't be at the Fraternity's behest, nor with Alfred Larner's knowledge.
"If I might ask, Brother Larner," he enquires, "what might it be prudent for we mainlanders to know of your city's so-called 'free press'? I gather that the dissemination of information has attained the status of a commercial industry in Paridon, far beyond the humble town cryers or block-printed posters of other realms. With the craft of printing spreading by leaps and bounds on the continent, it may well be only a matter of time before such 'handbills' are to be found in every corner of the Core.
"Given the importance of information to this brotherhood -- its acquisition, its control, its fabrication -- might not this curious enterprise be worthy of direct study, in and of itself? And has the existence of such an inquisitive industry posed an inconvenience to yourself or your Brethren in Paridon, given the presence of its self-proclaimed 'reporters': persons whose very job is to ferret out matters better kept from public knowledge?"