Spheres of Influence: Alliance

Aztra arrives on her big fancy flagship! Alongside the usual band of weirdos, of course. She looks kind of annoyed about this entire situation. People couldn't even wait a year before fucking with the elves? One fucking year?

Kor Vurneus and Cregit Exiro arrive. A smaller entourage than to the previous meeting. He didn't wear bandages this time but remained fairly concealed. Several boxes were brought off the ship with him.

Wolfstooth Talksgood comes to the meeting, along with the comparatively less flashier representatives of the Orbona tribes. They came in swiftly, on enormous forest elks - as though they could feel the ill omen in the wind.

They are obnoxiously large, as usual.

A small Nova Kallan force arrives at the emergency council aboard a Phenomena. Surprisingly, it is not Emissary Poveria that emerges, but Yahya Sovez, a familiar face from the Convention. He arrives alongside a few members of the Nova Kallan navy and a secondary translator. Flustered, he pins his hair out of his face, a large backpack in his arms, which seems to be full of papers. To anybody who asks, he offers a flustered apology for both being late and not being the Emissary, and digs through his bag.

The council was held at a humble, by Tiranógian standards, palatial estate courteously loaned by the local lord for the meeting as the appropriate buildings in the capital were still being rebuilt and this city didn't have a hole to the underworld beneath it, with easy access to the sea for the representatives.

Geród stood to address the gathered assembly.

"Thank you all for coming on such short notice, doubtless most of you know already why I invoked the newly formulate article powers for the sake of this emergency meeting. For those who have yet to hear word I have prepared copies of the missive we received from the High Elves. In short, one of their immortal members has hd their property stolen and they request the artefacts that were in their possession be returned to the the Elves, in return for a reward. They were... strident about some aspects of how we use this reward."

"The reason this concerns Alliance security was that the elf in question was supposedly taken by an alliance member state, more inferred by the letter than directly stated, and that failure to co-operate with returning the artefacts or breaking their terms of how we supposedly use the reward would result in unspecified consequences for the alliance as a whole. Had this been virtually any other nation to make such demands this council would hardly need to be so swiftly called but I trust you all understand the problems this unique situation puts us in."

The minor powers had sent minor diplomats. No national leaders had showed up from them; due to the complete absence of information as to what this was about, most had assumed it was more of Tiranóg raising the alarm about there being goblins in the underdark, and the rest had only been able to scramble less important dignitaries on such short notice.

Durgana's face turned to stone when the Elves were mentioned, and she looked to Gerod with a concerned expression.

"Hm. Elves are incredibly dangerous, so you were right to call this Council," she agreed. "Can't say I care much for Elves having their things stolen considering they carried out genocide against my ancestors, but this threat to the Alliance is a serious one. I'd like to see the letter, in any case."

Geród concedes and has the copies distributed throughout the meeting hall.

The letter is unsigned, but it isn't hard to guess that it comes from the Seintheliair elves. It offers a substantial reward - a substantial reward - for someone who can return the possessions of someone called Aileitath Elitin to the forest of Seintheliair. The possessions are listed as such: Three silver rings, one set with amethyst, one with malachite and one with ruby. A clasp of gold filigree shaped like a lily. An enchanted grey cloak, rippling. A magically conjured sword, apparently unmistakeable. A short rod of engraved silver, encircled with thin bands of gold. All the items were currently believed to be in the possession of Kor Vurneus.

Anyone who returned all the items would be rewarded. They would receive 5 million gold, as well as a number of magical trinkets that would be of great use to them. The reward was conditional; if Kor Vurneus saw a penny of the reward, got a sniff of any of the trinkets, the party that shared the reward would face "a terrible fate". Likewise, if nobody saw fit to aid the elves, they would take matters into their own hands, and that would "be something to be preferably avoided by all".

"Well," Durgana said after reading the letter. "I'd like to hear Kor Vurneus's side of this, certainly."

She looked towards the Cregit.

Cregit Exiro also put the letter down, having read it himself. "We have not been contacted by them ourselves, which is, worrying, personally. K'hem. A moment." He closed his eyes, lining up the words.

"Okay. I had heard news of this from my partner, Velpit Nitor, whom has been shown Nogroon's copy, but seeing it myself adds a personal level. We had assumed this was what the meeting is about and brought most of the items mentioned with us. Anyway, originally, we had sent an expedition to the Seintheliair woods, to see what could be learnt of these beings and of the woods, and I'll admit it, most likely poach anything if it seemed easy and harmless enough to take. They found strange tall, white towers we could not approach, that became beacons in the night. The group moved quickly, sensing their presence was known, but for now, allowed. A settlement was found, empty of inhabitants, and scoured of belongings. On the outskirts of this abandoned city, a hidden cache beneath the ground was found, full of scrolls of elven writing. We took them, planning to decipher them. The group returned to the coast, planning to drop off the letters and then return again to see what else could be gleamed, but, we were not meant to find the scrolls apparently. "

"A storm raged, and in that rain, they attacked. Once the night had passed, dozens of men were dead, the scrolls were retaken, and in it's place, a dead elf. Frankly, I don't know how they managed to kill her beyond blind luck in the panic of the attack, but she was dead. What remained took her and the items she wore and charged back to the shore. They came across an outpost near the sea, and set up a camp there. It had happened to itself, be heavily concealed, and abandoned also, leaving drinks of still-warm tea behind. We found a set of silver rods and took those too, perhaps they'd been too heavy to take as the inhabitants fled at our approach. The group was attacked again at dawn, a greater force this time. The body was reclaimed as were the majority of the silver rods, only one of which we kept hidden. The group made it back to the boats and fled."

"Frankly, I don't know why our boats weren't sunk with magic or some ancient tool of war considering the steps they took the second attack. Perhaps at the time they thought a mass slaughter of the troops sent would cause some greater force to be sent and more of their lives lost, I don't know. Perhaps we fled too quickly for them to make such a decision. Maybe this is all some ploy of theirs, I do not know. We have brought the majority of the items with us, except for the cloak I am afraid. The cloak, was destroyed. A magical attack of great puissance disintegrated it and barely saved the life of it's wearer."

"I would assume, the return of these items is to stop the knowledge of their craft being learnt and spread throughout the Alliance, so returning them now and the cloaks destruction will have to be enough I would hope, to save the Alliance their wrath if we chose to accept these threats. Most likely one of these items, which one they do not wish for us to know, is of much greater value than the rest, which they cannot admit to, considering they are willing to gift 'magical trinkets' to us in exchange for return of the entire set."

"Still. I could not risk throwing the Alliance into war over these items, or risk the Alliance being fractured by a clear ploy to separate Kor Vurneus from the whole, as we were not asked ourselves for these items returned. The money and items and the threat of war could theoretically have been planned to force opposition between us members and that can't be allowed right now. Kor Vurneus can't allow that."

"For I believe they have their own retribution in mind for my own people, and hope that an attack on my people by these immortal creatures will not be ignored, no matter how fearsome they may be."

He waved a hand, and the boxes were moved forward, placed at the center of the assembly.

"A question, Cregit Expiro." Geród began. "How exactly was the cloak destroyed? Is there any remains so we can prove to the Elves we're not purposefully witholding it?"

The diplomat for Khuln Thorjron excused themselves from the meeting temporarily, drawing a few stares.

Cregit Exiro watched the diplomat leave, tapping a hand on the desk.

He looked down. Continued tapping. He sighed. "Fine. That response, tells me that unfortunately this matter is still an issue. I had hoped the cloak had been completely destroyed, but, it was ruined when an agent of ours was sent into Thorjron. Their ancient protective runes almost killed our agent. Why did we send this agent in? Because firstly we wished to ally with Thorjron but, we knew almost nothing about their populace except what we could hear of them except from other dwarven holds."

"Knowing that Praterre had been infiltrated by some form of dwarven agent, we decided to confirm that Thorjron's inner populace did not set off any worrying alarms. We found that the populace were treated well, and no sign of any connection to the agent leading to the detonation in Praterre. If any remains of this cloak exist, Khuln Thorjron would have them, but considering the state of our agent after the runic security was set off, we would not expect anything to be salvageable of what may have remained. "

Alyn speaks up with a concerned expression.

"Cregit, this is all very worrying. I don't think I have to say how foolhardy all of this was, especially taking a dead elf's body and possessions with you - though the body was reclaimed - and sending an agent wearing an elven artifact into a dwarf hold. I am glad that you at least had the good sense to bring the artifacts with you here, though I am concerned about King Rykarth's reaction, since that diplomat left rather quickly."

They tap their staff on the floor.

"Regardless, I say we return the artifacts and that the leaders of Kor Vurneus think lest they take such foolish action again in the future."

“I will not speak of Kor Vurneus’ infiltration of Khuln Thorjron til they themselves make a statement. Addressing your infiltration of the Elves, though? Sure you were in their lands, but they jumped straight to complete slaughter of your expedition over simple trespassing. Your expedition was lucky to survive at all, and I believe they were just in defending themselves against completely inappropriate lethal force. If the Elves had acted with reason and employed diplomacy, a lot of death could have been avoided.”

Durgana sighed.

“Now we need to figure out how to respond to their threats, because they are threats. I don’t believe the Alliance is ready for a war of swords or daggers with the elves. On that same note, if we bend immediately we will look weak and they won’t hesitate to push us around in the future. We should at least negotiate with them. Get a bit more money, or something of the sort. If we give our own terms, we can at least look like equals here. With a backbone.”

Exiro clenched his jaw slightly, but held his tongue. Being talked down to was aggravating, but, a verbal drubbing was manageable. "That is Khuln Thorjron's business and I'm sure his intentions are honourable, and that this is simply shining light on a mystery he had been pondering. Some invisible spy had infiltrated his kingdom afterall. We will be doing what we can to offer reparations to Khuln Thorjron, but that is a matter between Kor Vurneus and Khuln Thorjron, rather than the more concerning Alliance matter as a whole of the Elven threat."

"I would agree with Khuln Kalduhr's suggestion, that the Alliance as a whole, with the possible exception of Kor Vurneus in this case, gives a united response including those members not sent letters, Khuln Kalduhr, Des-Accor, etc, if they so wish to be included to show a united front. Similarly to putting a barrier between Kor Vurneus and the rest of the Alliance, refusing to acknowledge other members of the Alliance is a deliberate choice also."

"This is a test to see how far they can push the Alliance's unity and mettle. We must acknowledge our fears but not be ruled by them."

"Just to make this clear for all here so we can get the actual security issue out of the way." Geród said, leaning forward in his chair. "Kor Vurneus, by virtue of bringing the artefacts in question here today, agrees to hand them over so that we may return them to the Elves in order to prevent hostilities. And allowing for Queen Durgana's concerns and the Cregit's point about not appearing weak and disunited in front of the Elves, we will make a show of at least asking for more money in return for the artefacts before we hand them over. Is this acceptable to all here?"

The Deputy rushed in a bit late, and the Postmasters exchanged quiet words as the discussion went on. The Deputy was an older tanned gentleman by the name of Cyrille Gayman, and had a chill-ass vibe. Gaara, however, was on the... exasperated side of neutral. She whispered some guidelines, and excused herself, heading out.

"Ahh, well, no?" The Deputy piped up, in a rather pleasant tone. "Doesn't make us sound very strong or united I think, just uhh, well. Some nerve we have, some misunderstanding of the situation, is the impression I'd get from it. If I were an Elf. Hard shoes to put myself in, but it'd do us well to try, right? The loss of our allies is tragic, but there is nothing to be done about it on this level. Really, we don't think the Alliance should take a reward at all. It's theirs. We stole it. Let them have their trinkets, and keep us out of their business. Can't be bought, just doing what we need to. Says more about our convictions than asking for more blood money."

"I am not thinking its blood money seeing as I am not suggesting we hang Kor Vurneus out to dry here." Geród responded. "Its obvious the Elves are looking to use these rewards to divide us and pit us against Kor Vurneus, which is why I was hoping we might use the gold for something that benefits the alliance as a whole. Something that could arguably not benefit Kor Vurneus directly since not a penny of it went their way." Geród sat back.

"I do have another concern elf related that I have been made aware of. It does not concern us now, but it concerns us in the future, it has to do with the Underdark. I have recently made peace with Queen Barda of Borok, who has agreed to cease raiding alliance shipping. In return Tiranóg will help prevent Under Elven slave raids on their ships down there. They have supplied us with a large map of the waters of the underdark and the nature of the elves who live down there. They are considerably more violent and cruel than the high elves we know of, and they subsist off of constant slavery. While peace can likely be made with the High Elves over this affair, these 'dark' elves are another matter. They have so far capture some adventurers who were mapping the underworld for us into slavery, they have ships that are propelled by magical means and Borok at least considers them such an aggressive existential threat they were willing to make peace with Tiranóg over fear of them. Perhaps the 'rewards' the High Elves give us could be utilised in protecting us in some manner from these more aggressive Elves below us. I'll have the new maps past around for reference."

The Deputy blinked, thinking to himself, does blood money mean something that specific in Tiranógi? He took a moment to look over the map.

"Do you think, at this point, the Elves would not take something that benefits 'the Alliance as a whole' as benefiting Kor Vurneus?  'Arguably' not benefiting them means there is an argument for them to make. And they'll take it. It's a long-term trap. Your dealings with these subterranean elves, how exactly does this tie in? My notes here seem a little lacking," He shuffled them together into a neat pile, smiling, "But that just sounds like. Elves? Getting upset when you trespass on their land, becoming pretty aggressive about it, easily avoidable? I apologize for sounding so flippant, it's a horrific thought and my heart is truly out for our friends, I'm just a bit behind on this under-adventuring. Sounds like a separate issue, unless you have something more threatening to share about it, are we sure it's on topic?"

"We didn't trespass on their land." Geród corrected. "They attacked our ship and kidnapped several of our citizens and if Borok is to be believed, explicitly for slavery. And if the number of ghost ships we've found down there are anything to go by, this was very common long before Borok themselves got down there. I am making a comparison between the Elves who Kor Vurneus offended, who have come to us with a deal, however duplicitous, rather than warfare, as opposed to these other elves who happily attack a stranger's ship, enslave its crew and chase the survivors magically through the waters." Geród explained.

"As to their nature, it seems a tad outlandish, but supposedly these Elves are far more aggressive and delight in battle and are more reckless with their lives than the High Elves on the surface we know of. They supposedly taunt the Borokians who have killed some of their number previously. Queen Barda herself claims she has met the very same elf she had slain twice previously in a battle, who even remembered their previous battle, and whose skull she has a keepsake. Because she's Borokian and thats what they do over there."

"There are so battle mad they treat battles themselves as if they were games, or sport, and if they have some sort of resurrective magic, seem utterly unconcerned with the prospect of death, the polar opposite of the Elves we know of normally. So much so that the quality of the armour the elf in question wears, wether impervious Elf-plate or silken robes that couldn't so much as prevent a quill from penetrating the cloth, depends entirely on their own disposition that day. Borok speculates like the High Elves they must be unable to breed, which is why the underworld hasnt been flooded with legions of these maniacs, but still their numbers never seem to dwindle no matter how many of them are killed. Even if the Borokians are wrong about ths,resurrective, ability of the elves down there, their clear aggression, and slaving tendencies concerns me far more than these surface Elves who scheme and plot."

"It certainly concerned the Borokians enough they were willing to make peace with Tiranóg, their otherwise perennial enemies."

"Are you saying these subterranean Elves have surfaced to do this?" The Deputy tried to clarify.

"I uh, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude by saying this." Yahya suddenly spoke up, pushing a lock of hair out of his face and scribbling something down. His eyes seemed trained more on the map that had been presented rather than the people speaking. "But, and correct me if I'm wrong, I thought this meeting was about Kor Vurneus and their... troubled dealings with the surface Elves. Why are we discussing Underdark Elves? Have I missed something?"

"No, not that I am aware of. Though if there are legends of elves stealing people away floating about, I would now suspect it was these elves that may have done such a thing. The ships they raided were one of our own we were using to map the underworld."

He turned to Yahya. "And we were discussing these under elves as I was using their example as a possible reason why we might want to use the reward money of the high elves to think of ways of protecting ourselves from this new possible threat, I was just further clarifying for the deputy in response to his further questions. Either to refill in the boreholes we have uncovered or some other solution."

"I would rather we focused on protecting the Alliance as a whole rather that explicitly from this new Cave Elf threat. I would have suggested developing some technology that could be used to boost our defences, or perhaps the formation of a temporary task force to investigate the threat of the demolitionist that have been opening up bore holes underneath out capitals. And if we are so afraid of the elves taking these suggestions as obviously benefiting Kor Vurneus and what may come of it then we should be spending any reward we get on defending ourselves against their potential attack frankly."

"I would also be rather more worried of fighting a battle on two fronts against both of these elven forces, especially since one seems to be much more willing to die which is honestly our main defense against the other. How long has Queen Barda been facing this cave elven threat and how has she been fighting them off? Should we assume that the cave elves are less dangerous than the remnants of the civilisation of their surface brethren for some reason?"