Scheming Princess Quest

Only 13 months since the last update? Perfect.
Anyway, I think I'll try for a minimum of two updates a week. That seems sustainable, even for me.

Winning vote from before:

Year 1, Update 1b

Your plotting is interrupted by an older, heavyset woman briefly speaking to your guard, who stands aside. You frown in annoyance at having your personal time so easily interrupted. Her outfit marks her as an alchemist; most of the well off in Caelis Valera adore the bigger-on-the-inside belt pouches that the journeyman enchanters sell, but few mages go in for alchemically-treated leathers like the ones the woman is wearing. You can’t think what errand an alchemist would be on that would be so urgent your guard let her past without even checking with you. And there is always the chance she is here for some nefarious purpose. Your hand drifts over to the little enchanted knife you were using to peel oranges, the one your uncle gave you for your last birthday. She looks a little familiar, not the stout and matronly figure but the sharp eyes like chips of ice-stone… but you don’t quite recall…

“Come over here and give us a hug, child,” the woman demands imperiously, hands on her broad hips.

Oh. The voice is familiar even if the rest isn’t.

“Granny Wither?” you ask a little incredulously. You stand and allow her to sweep you into a powerful hug that leaves your toes dangling over the stone cobbles. She’s younger than you’ve ever seen her, looking more like someone’s spinster aunt than the wizened crone you knew her as. She must have discovered a superior youth potion to her usual batch. She smells the same as she ever did though, something sharp and actinic and quite unpleasant. You allow your nose to crinkle where she can’t see you.

“I swear you get prettier every year, even if your face will get stuck like that someday,” the older woman croons, petting your long hair like a cat. You don’t know why you bothered trying to hide your distaste, she always knows. She doesn’t care enough to change herself, and people just have to learn to live with her. You can admire that sort of mentality, from a distance.

Granny adds conspiratorially, “You won’t be needing my love potions, that’s for sure. Maybe some of the poisons to kill a man’s ardor. What do you think? For you, child, my prices would be very reasonable.”

While destroying your brother’s libido is a little tempting, it also seems like the kind of thing that would have unforeseen consequences. You shelve the thought.

“Then what brings you here, Granny Wither?” you wonder.

She sniffs. “I don’t like coming back to court where I might run into that young brat Roshan, but your uncle said you were needing a Clairvoyance teacher. And of course I’m the best we have. Naturally, tracking you down was simplicity itself for someone like me!”

You’ve known Granny for much of your life. Your family’s retainers don’t really have a leader or a court mage position, but if there could be said to be a first among equals of that group, then Granny had viciously defended that title for longer than you’ve been alive. Most look to Roshan these days, though. Even though the dark-skinned foreign mage stays meticulously above politics and seems to you fairly unpleasant in person, he is always fair in his dealings and he has your uncle’s ear for reasons you’re not entirely clear on. More importantly in Caelis Valera, his genius for magic is undeniable. He had already mastered two branches of magic when he came to the Caelis Valera’s Great Colleges! It had been something of a shock, when you heard. You hadn’t actually been aware the greedy Barunese or the barbarous Highlanders could produce mages of his caliber.

“Uncle did say he was having trouble finding a mage tutor for me,” you muse leadingly.

“Necromancy, pah,” Granny waves a thick-knuckled hand dismissively. “Why would you even want to learn it? It’s still not popular even now, and pretty or not you know life is a popularity contest.”

“I had reasons,” you mumble. Which you’d had to explain to your uncle, at some length. He hadn’t been precisely pleased, but tradition was on your side in that instance. Allowing a mage to choose her own discipline was common sense in Caelis Valera.

“At least you understand the benefit of Clairvoyance for a ruler!” Granny sighed in defeat. An affectation, of course; you’d never known Granny Wither to give up on anything of her own free will.

“... I’m not a ruler, Granny Wither,” you prevaricate.

“Ha! Of course not, yet. You’ve got the ruthlessness for it, though,” the old bat says conspiratorially.

You allow yourself a smile that means nothing.

“Of course, of course. Well, we can get started before whatever necromancer your uncle found under some rock appears. Come along, child.”

You find Granny patting at your shoulders and arms firmly and then you are hustled off. For such an aged… voluptuous woman (you refuse to even think the word ‘fat’; the woman is your Clairvoyance teacher, after all), Granny bustles everywhere she goes like a motherly force of nature. Your guard allows your pair to proceed him before bringing up the rear, his long stride letting him keep up with Granny's determined bustle. Alice has vanished somewhere, as the best servants do when they are no longer needed.

Granny natters on about star charts and tarot cards and reading the bones as you walk. It is tempting to pay more attention to the lovely blooming roses than to the impromptu magic lesson, but you need to know these things. Your force yourself to pay attention to Granny discussing the reading of live entrails, a traditional form of divination still used today, though thankfully not by you. You might have found a certain unprincessly enjoyment out of hitting other children with sticks, but blood is still icky.

You are nearly to the cluttered little laboratory/cottage that she still owns on the palace grounds (or was gifted to her, you’re not quite sure how she installed herself there so many years ago), when a rapid tap-tap-tapping of metal against ice-stone interrupts you.

You turn to find a man in somewhat ostentatious, cloudy blue robes with silver threading and black geometric designs along the sleeves. It was the sound of his cane tapping as he moved with alacrity to overtake you. To his left was a slightly huffing and puffing girl of about your age in a rich maroon dress. You carefully don’t smile. She was clearly not being made to run about the castle the way you were of late, and was out of shape.

Her slightly wild, wavy dark hair, rather large nose and habit of lining her eyes with kohl allow you to peg her as Sophia Hill. A foundling that your father had sent to be raised by the same nannies and tutors as you and your brother. Your father had called her the last of an old bloodline, and his duty to keep from dying out. But considering the peasant-like last name, you had your doubts. You’d privately assumed her some by-blow of his, and given no more thought to it.

You had never been friends, due to an inferiority complex she had developed early – it was no one’s fault you had been better tutored than her, but she had taken it so personally! You’d occasionally put some minor effort into drawing her into your camp, but she had been adamantly opposed. In fact, she somehow had gotten it into her head that you were her rival. She was rather dreadfully embarrassing, at times.

She huffed at you and began trying to fix her hair. The nobleman with her – the richness of his dress, immaculately kept long hair and goatee, and eccentric use of a cane suggested no less – looked at Granny Wither like she was a species of bug. She returned the look with no less venom.

“Gregory Blackstone,” Granny said with deep dislike. “I had wondered if you’d pulled your head from your old tomes long enough to remember what day it was.”

“And leave you to poison young minds against me?” was his urbane reply. You’re not quite sure what he’s getting at, there. Picking at some old wound, perhaps.

“Ah, does this mean that Uncle has found a second magic tutor for me?” You interject neutrally. The name ‘Gregory Ludo Blackstone’ would almost certainly make him the head of House Blackstone. That was supposed to be a powerful – if eccentric – noble house, though you couldn’t recall what they focused in. You’ve never actually met a noble head before, just the younger generation. Being unsure what respect his rank allows him compared to you, you default to a slight bow of the head towards him. That seems safe enough.

Gregory Blackstone offers you a thin-lipped smile. “Indeed. You and the Hill girl.” He tapped his cane upon the ground to punctuate his sentence. “Now, if you are done playing games, Wither, perhaps we should adjourn to my laboratory and begin lessons for the day?”

“My lab is better stocked, and just around the corner,” Granny points out in a pleasant voice that was somehow… not.

And Sophia is glowering at you like this was your fault. Lovely.

“Perhaps, since we are so close, we could attend our first lesson in Granny Wither’s?” You offer, in the interests of moving this along. As interesting as whatever this is, your focus is learning magic. Your suggestion causes Granny’s smile to widen and grow rather smug.

The whole event rather reminds you of playing with the other noble children when you were younger, and their steadfast determination to claim you as their ‘bestie’ over the others. This seemed like the grown-up, somewhat more dignified version of that old game.

The only thing you learn on the rest of the trip – which is undertaken in strained silence – is that Lord Blackstone’s cane was not actually an affectation, but rather his right leg seems somewhat withered.

Granny Wither’s cottage is a modest affair. The lowest floor is devoted to wide, sweeping racks of shelving with many jars of unguents and pastes and potions, multiple cauldrons set in niches, and what actually looks like some kind of climbing vine trellising its way across the ceiling and hanging down here or there with heavy white blossoms. Papers written in Granny's elegant script rustle and jockey for space along the walls. When your group arrives, Granny Wither tells you sweetly, “Come in, dears. Would you care for tea?”

“Not if you told me you had the rarest Barunese black in stock,” Lord Blackstone said calmly, leaning on his cane and looking around the place with a certain patrician tolerance. That is, making it obvious that he is tolerating the cheerful clutter, and no more.

“I was not offering any to you, Lord Blackstone,” Granny said, smiling with teeth.

“Of course,” he said blankly, before making his slow way to a slate board that looked almost new compared to everything else’s worn, comfortable appearance. “Then, while the witch makes tea, I shall begin. The first task of any budding necromancer is the ability of soul sight. Before one can touch the souls of others, one must first understand them…”

---

Your choice to get the staff on your side is locked in, and will be next. Choose one more event to follow.

[X] Pay a call on the Blackstones. Lord Blackstone did say you were free to call on him whenever you wished.
[X] A day trip into town. Supplies are necessary for a good Clairvoyant.
[X] A dare from Sophia Hill. The girl is flourishing in your shared magic class, and you suspect she wants to show off her new powers in a less… structured setting.
[X] Your teachers are at each other’s throats! It would not be wise to favor one over the other. Abide, and wring from them what you can without getting involved. [+10 Fate points]