Sunday, December 17, 2017

Azaril: Season 1, Episode 1, Final Scene

Overplayer rolls for Tone: Glum - 3, Jovial - 5
Overplayer rolls for Scene:
  • Option A: Rogue Phase, Azaril dashing across a wooded tundra.
  • Option B: Discovery Phase, Azaril in a crowded inn after his escape.
Option A: 2, Option B: 4

The long trek from the Tomb passes through snow covered woods filled with short trees and plains of ice. Mehrunes’ Razor hides beneath the tattered remains of Azaril’s burnt and torn cloak. Hours pass and the sun rises, offering a fair amount of warmth as he returns to Akh’taba’s Fjord, a mid sized town named for the khajiit that first settled here.

Azaril enters The Winter Wall, an inn, for a place to warm himself and get some food to recover from the exertions of the past day. The early morning crowd is filled with refugees from Tamriel, either seeking a warm meal for the day’s start or sharing a drink and trading stories as they pass through. Life in Akavir is chaotic and without the familiar rhythm of civilization.

Shaking snow from his boots, Azaril finds a table close to the kitchen. There are all sorts of people seated at the bar and various tables: elves, humans, a couple of khajiit. His roguish eyes catch sight of a dark robed woman at a table across the way. As she reaches for a mug of a mulled drink, the folds of her robe shift and reveal a blue symbol concealed underneath: three sharp lines covered by a sweeping arc.

Overplayer picks up the dice and hands them to Azaril.

Azaril rolls for Tone: Glum - 4, Jovial - 1

Azaril takes note of the now familiar sigil, keeping his gaze from resting on the woman to conceal his attention. His fingers drum slowly on the table while he waits for his food, ruminating on the past and stitching the few clues he has available. One thing gnaws at him. He had been invisible yet, even before the orb dispelled his concealment, something had known he was there.

He knew that the pull of magicka could attract attention. Summoning something was the most obvious, as the tear into Oblivion was a palpable thing. Illusions, those were subtle. They pooled and flowed around what they were concealing. This other mage couldn’t have sensed him draw magicka to make him invisible.

Azaril reincorporates a Mystery and asks the Overplayer: Who could sense an invisible intruder?

The black clad woman finishes her drink and tosses a few precious septims on the table. Sapphire eyes linger on Azaril a heartbeat too long, then she walks out of the inn.

It couldn’t have been magic that sensed Azaril, but they were senses. The Tsaesci, the Serpent Folk, are part human and part snake. They were cold blooded murderers that had hunted and eaten the previous settlements Uriel had started.

Azaril stares at the door the woman had walked through. There were some that claimed the word “eaten” used by the Monkey Folk meant something else: “assimilated.” The Tsaesci had corrupted the previous settlements and took them for their own.

Who could sense an invisible intruder? A creature whose senses include a sharp sense of taste, forked tongue flicking the cold air…

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