Aeryna looks over her shoulder to the smoldering ruin of the home of the most careful person she knows as a cold wind whips through the rustling forest leaves in the morning light, then back to the soot-stained burlap pouch in her hands, then finally, to you. "I was hoping to protect you from as much risk as possible,” she says as she approaches, "but Terri's right. Whether we meant to or not, we likely just made some powerful enemies by saving Mars. If secrecy couldn’t keep him safe, then it probably isn’t that safe for us, so our next best defense is speed and uncovering as much of the truth as fast as possible. Here. It's time to find out just how deep this dungeon goes." Aeryna pulls the strings of the charred bag and from within, she procures a single object: a soot covered brass circlet with brass plate eye coverings, amethyst crystal earbuds, and a large, citrine quartz gemstone as a centerpiece. You immediately recognize it as nullpriest technology. “He was wearing this when I found him”.
"Ah shit," Terri mutters under his breath.
"Mars had no reason to purposefully have this technology," Aeryna begins, "he's known to be publicly against these UHC devices and his retreat from public appearances in concert with nullpriests hasn't been subtle since the widespread adoption of them. Also, in the time I've known him, I've never seen him as secretive as he's been the past few weeks, hence the unorthodox nature of our intended meeting this morning. I did want you to make the choice to act with us only once you saw someone else corroborating our claims or something close, but mostly this timing was decided because Mars was being extraordinarily cautious with, well, everything."
"So much for that," Terri chimes in, looking over at the fading embers of Mars' collapsed homestead.
"It got him far enough."
"But you say he was wearing this when you found him?"
"Yes," said Aeryna quietly.
"Was he already messed up?"
"Definitely."
Terri pauses. "I thought these things were supposed to give you magic powers? Couldn't he just cure himself?"
"Possibly, but he couldn't move on his own when I found him. I wonder if he couldn’t think on his own either."
“So do you think his condition came from wearing the headset or before it?”
“I don’t know, but if it did come before he put on the headset, he wouldn’t be able to put one on himself and why would someone put one of the most expensive, restricted, and generally rare pieces of magical technology known to the Ophanic Empire on an already indisposed man? It’s not impossible, I suppose, but something else seems more likely.”
"You think this thing made him that way?"
"Given his stance on these," Aeryna says, nodding to the circlet in her hands, "I'd say it's unlikely he would ever wear one on purpose, unless... maybe he was testing something?" She shakes her head, "but he'd know better than to do any test by himself, especially if he was already planning on meeting us."
"Hold on," Terri stays focused on the circlet as he walks towards Aeryna. "Can I?"
She nods and hands it over to Terri.
“The half-orc fella who was here before, his headset was blue. All nullpriests headsets I’ve ever seen have had gems that were blue. But not this one…”
“Yeah, I was thinking about that”.
He holds up the device so the morning sun illuminates the headband's light yellow gemstone from behind. While a faint, warm hue is cast upon his half elven face, within the gem itself, another color becomes visible. You step closer and within the gem see a white, hairline fracture appear dramatically deeper as Terri slowly turns it in the light. The crack now appears from top to bottom as a thick ribbon of white amidst the yellow refracted glow of the gem.
He looks up towards Aeryna, “could you tell if this was glowing when you found him?”
“It was not.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Any idea what would happen if you wore a broken one of these?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t imagine it would function at all.”
He thinks to himself a moment. “What do you think would happen if it broke while you were wearing it?”
Aeryna sighs and shifts her weight. "Best case scenario? Nothing."
"And worst case?"
"I don't know," Aeryna says, shaking her head, "could be any number of things."
"You ever hear of any horror stories about these things?"
Aeryna folds her arms and looks pensively into the forest floor. "Honestly, I hardly hear any stories about the nullpriests at all to begin with and I'm sure that's by design." She looks up and inhales, "Not to mention the unknown factor of whether and how a different gemstone equates to a different function. Are you thinking what happened to Mars was because something went wrong?"
Terri’s eyebrow shoots up, "Don't you?"
“No”, Aeryna says with confidence.
[WHAT DO YOU SAY?]
[MORE] “So what do you think actually happened here?” (Go to 45)
[WHY] “You never told me why we rode here in the first place.” (Go to 42)
[WHO] “You want ME to investigate a WHAT now?” (Go to 43)
[HOW] “How do you know there’s to be an assassination today?” (Go to 44)
[ACCEPT] "I know enough, I'm in." (Go to 49)
[DECLINE] "I have my own problems" (Go to 50)
