Against the Jade Empire IC

[Affili]

Cedric was seated near by to Marisa, and for the first time actually noticed the dress she was wearing, he was mesmerized by the colors for a moment before rejoing the conversation just as Rhyven spoke about the other half of the crystal.

Cedric sighed a little uncomfortably "Recent developments" he began as he gestured towards Albajo " Would suggest that the other half of Jade's crystal is indeed not missing anymore, so the rite may be possible once more." Cedric paused for a moment "but it has been so long since the last attempt, I don't see how they could be prepared for it as soon as it seems.

Cedric absently drew the dagger and ran his finger down the blade.
'So much trouble you have caused me as of late' he thought to himself, before resting the dagger down on the table, and taking up a glass of ale.

"It seems you have fared well Rhyven given all the circumstances and tension growing through Ilegesia as of late. I am Cedric, High Priest of The Order of Light and it indeed a pleasure to meet you. That reminds me Lady Jade. I should like very much to get a letter sent to the Order. is that at all possible? No doubt they will begin to miss my presence soon and given the circumstances, I should hate for them to send a search party out on my behalf. The Jade soldiers have been so vile as of late, I'm sure they'd easily dispose of a search party from the Order of Light."

[Swanmarkedblade]

Marisa lifted her head up, and her gown started sparkling. So, Shea was a commander, though seemingly more like a lieutenant than a general or other higher rank. He still seemed like a boy, at least at heart... He clearly wasn't as aware of the powers of the dreaming as she was, probably having only touched them briefly.

Cedric, as she knew, was the High Priest of the Order of Light. He clearly knew the significance of the dreaming, but he did not appear to use it, as it conflicted with the magic he normally used. But, he had introduced himself, so she decided to as well. Raising her voice in such a manner as to make it both soft and fully audible, Marisa proclaimed:

"I am Marisa Starheart, cousin of Jade and daughter of Lady Anaxel Silanes, the Queen of the Nethlim. And I welcome all of you." She nodded at each of them in turn.

[tirgesfu]

Albajo moved from his dancing spot back to his seat. They were all spouting their names, Cousins of Queens, Priest of Something, Guards of Kings, and Captains of Knights, all important people. Such important people. They spoke of death, power, shadows and mystery. They moved like dancers and warriors between each other, around each other and into each other. They were brought together for some purpose. It was not just to share a meal and consume grapes. He is here. Why is he here?

Albajo moved his hand to rest on his pants right where his part of the crystal lay underneath a flap of his skin. The stone was in the void. He was in the void. Now they are both here watching grapes fly and strange dresses dance.

A deep dread took hold of Albajo. His thrill of being out of the void slowly slipped away. Were there places worse than the void? Until right now he had never thought so.

[Pockets]

Rhyven frowned. "So let me get this straight. All six crystals are in this room? Even the other half of Jades broken crystal? The Empire is after them for their thrice be damned Rite of Mirar? You've no idea how Alernon even found you guys and you," he pointed to Sven. "Believe I gave you that Gauntlet when I don't remember ever seeing you before?" He sat back in thought.

"Well what'd you call me here for?" He asked. "Unless it involves Shadow Walkers im not really a great deal of help."

[Orion86]

Shea thought that he should start paying some attention to what was going but he was determined that he was not going to lose the war of fruit with Callistan. He placed three grapes in his hand and looked at them for range. Shea was going to go for some massed fire power and press home an advantage against Callistan. As he was looking down his palm at his grapes he heard Rhyven talking. He decided that he should probably try and enlighten himself and Rhyven,

"...I think that you may have been summoned to explain him..." Shea looked up from his grapes and pointed at Albajo. The group needed to know if the man was indeed a Shadow Walker and if he could be trusted to join them or if he was something altogether more sinister. Shea, still talking, focused back onto his grapes.

"...Al ba jo..." Shea was trying to role the name around his mouth but he couldn't quite get the connective between ba and jo, his Justrim accent working against him. He just couldn't say it right so he would need to make a shorter name for the man,

"Al, over there. He came out of literally no where, swooped in and saved Cedric from a rather painful meeting if the forest floor. However I also have a question, what is the 'rite of Mirar'? Maybe I wasn't paying attention but can this rite really be that bad and do they just need Jade's crystal or is this why we are all in trouble?" As he finished speaking he quickly flicked three grapes at Callistan, he hoped that his archery skills translated into flicking fruit.

[Affili]

Cedric waited for Shea to finish and decided it was best he left Ryhven to do the explaining of the rite, as until a moment ago, he could not even recall the name of the cursed thing.

"Here's what I can gather in regards to Albajo, but he can also explain some things further. Been in he void for Lord knows how long and he is nearly stripped of a personality right now, long years in the void will do that to a man and it is indeed expected, since the void is basically an infinite emptiness." he paused and gave a thoughtful sigh.
"What continues to prick at me however is how in this emptiness he was able to get his hands on the piece of the crystal so conveniently placed where he could find it as well as the signature black blade he is wielding" he nodded his head at Albajo's sword, and then to Rhyven's.
"Wouldn't it take a great deal of magic to pinpoint someone's location in the void if at all even possible, let alone, to place and object inside it? Lord Rhyven, I would never accuse you of such things, without solid evidence so don't misunderstand me, but it would appear there is another Shadow Walker roaming the continent besides yourself, and perhaps Albajo here." he glanced around to the others before sipping some ale. At least they seemed to be paying attention for right now.

"However Albajo has only displayed basic traits of being touched with shadow magic and given that he saved my life, well I'm not exactly sure what to make of it all right now." He finished his glass of ale and resisted the urge to take another right now.

[Lillian Thorne]

Callistan had actually been paying attention when the first of the grape missiles hit her. She coughed little on her fruit juice, not a pleasant sensation for her abused throat, she dodged the next and managed to bat the third away before shooting Shea a droll look and offered him a one finger salute before turning back to the conversation. She had plans and would get even with him, but she needed him to relax and not expect it.

“I believe Jade said something about heading over to the empire and doing something directly about it. I think you were to help in that but she never did explain how. Though now that I am thinking about it, us all sitting here together with the crystals they desperately need seems foolish. Wouldn’t it be better to split up and not be such a neat and tidy target for them?”

She paused to take another sip of her juice, her eyes flitting over the lot of them, noting weaknesses and divvying them up into groups. Her bodyguard training, meant to see things from a defensive point of view saw the lot of them sitting there as a huge liability, especially since the enemy knew exactly where they were.

“Seems to me that if we all sit here together, we have done half their work for them. Is hand delivering the crystals to them all that wise? But then, I don’t know about this rite you keep talking about but not telling us about Jade so maybe begin there.”

[Pockets]

Rhyven studied Albajo, barely listening to the rest of whatever Cedric said. "No," he muttered absently, there doesn't necessarily have to be another walker around. Magic is drawn to magic. Rule one of magic use is when there are multiple types of magic in a room they will either feed off each other and become stronger or they will repel each other and become stronger AND unpredictable. Dreams and Shadows are similar in several ways so... if he was in the void the crystal would have been drawn to him like a magnet. The question is how long was he in the void?"

"The Rite of Mirar... frankly is an abomination. It is a Rite meant to Peirce the Veil between Life and Death. For what purpose we don't know. Either to prevent death or to return life we're not sure. We've killed Alernon several times bu he's still alive, seems like they don't need the rite, whatever it does but we have a theory about that, just nothing to prove it."

"I think that Alernon is actually a golem. An animated lifeless hulk. We kill one and another is simply made to replace it. I believe the Emperor is controlling it from the Throne across the Sea of Storms."

Jade looked at Callistan as her husband finished speaking. "Yes, normally keeping all the crystals together might seem foolish however, the empire can track us. They can sense the frequency of energy given off by the crystals whether we use it or not. If we split up they'll just keep attacking. At least all together we have greater strength in our numbers as opposed to going off in pairs where we will be easily overrun."

"If you're heading for the Eastern Continent you'll need to use the Drat'Al paths through the Shadow Realm. And I need to finish quelling hostilities there before you need to." Rhyven looked to Jade for confirmation. "The paths can turn a three month boat trip into a two week walk. Its just more dangerous."

[Affili]

Cedric found his eyes wandering over to Marisa while Rhyven was talking.
'Great, we got strange magic, That damned rite, and now Golems on the scene now' He thought agitatedly.

"If they can track our crystals, it is definitely better to stay together I think. I'm also wondering, if they can track us, can we track them in any way so that we aren't caught off guard again?" he offered and both asked at the same time.

He shuddered at the thought of another long journey at sea before looking at Rhyven's seemingly unseeing Eyes,

"Two weeks sounds a great deal more appealing than three months in any case. How much time do you think you need Lord Rhyven? and is there any way I may be of assistance?"

The Order of Light had been trying to remain in the legend's favor, for as long as the History of the Order had been scribed, but Cedric was not so simple minded as his older counterparts though. He would not just follow Rhyven, or anyone else blindly without careful deliberation. Albajo's sword was still a concern for the High Priest though, as Rhyven had seemed to cleverly dodge the mention of it, but Cedric let it rest for the meantime, there were more important matters to address right now. He sighed once more as he poked at some fruit on his plate.
'I must contact Jian later in my room, when I can actually focus' he thought to himself, while assessing his new companions, and once again, his eyes lingered on Marisa, before focusing on the dagger in front of him again.
'there's also her too'

He was reminiscing on his experience in the darkness after he fell earlier and wondered at all if the void had been anything like that for Albajo.
'It would seem as though the crystal in this dagger is woven into whatever plain I was in earlier, perhaps there is a way to control it without draining myself again and losing sight of reality...yes I must experiment with that also as it may come in handy again, especially if the wall of energy that manifested to save Jade is in anyway connected to it.' he concluded before looking up from the dagger again.

[Orion86]

Shea was waiting for Callistan to respond with her own salvo of fruit, he was just hoping that she would stick to grapes. Some of the fruits that he had seen on the platters looked heavy and he didn't fancy having to explain a black eye for a thrown apple. Rhyven was filling in a few of the blanks but it seemed that they might have been going over old ground as well. Shea knew that they were being chased and that they were in danger, quite imminent danger if the mornings attack was any indication. He focused on Jade and Rhyven,

"It seems to me that we are safer travelling than we are staying in one place..." Shea stood up and began to pace around in small circles behind his chair, it was what he often did when he was thinking and planning. One Eared Dick often said that Shea's planning left him feeling dizzy,

"...We are a burden and a danger to any settlement or people that help us. In my opinion we head for cover, go to ground, we take the Nethlim's best pathfinders and we work our way deeper into the forest. You know the land, they don't, that gives us an advantage. Numbers can be nullified by landscape and a small group would definetly work in our favour, we can travel faster and lighter than an attacking force. Plus I don't fancy three months at sea, I would rather travel to the gates of hell and back..."

Shea features turned visibly greener as he thought about travelling on a boat. He was woodsman and believed that man was not meant to live a life on the oceans,

".... than travel on a boat." Shea's voice had changed it had lost some of its humour while he was planning. Despite his carefree attitude he was a considerate Leader, as he knew that a poor tactical decision had a real and lasting affect on the men he commanded.