Scheming Princess Quest

[X] Winners: Necromancy and Clairvoyance, Apprentice to an Archmage, No free time

Spoiler

[X] Necromancy [10] – 9 redaeth, Seventeen, Pipeman, Ct613hulu, DarkLight140, LeoAbogos, Bobs Beard, TMIoverload, Mrttao
[X] Clairvoyance [10] – 9 Darkened, Arkeus, Bobs Beard, inverted_helix, Tetsurō, mrttao, Jiven, TMIoverload, Arkeus

[X] Yes [0] – 10 redaeth, Xicree, Seventeen, Pipeman, Ct613hulu, Cassiemouse, DarkLight140, LeoAbogos, Bobs Beard, TMIoverload

[X] None [0] – 16 redaeth, Darkened, Arkeus, Xicree, Seventeen, CptTagon, Pipeman, Ct613hulu, Cassiemouse, DarkLight140, LeoAbogos, Bobs Beard, inverted_helix, TMIoverload, Tetsurō, mrttao
[X] The palace gardens and grounds [0] – 10 redaeth, Darkened, Seventeen, CptTagon, DarkLight140, LeoAbogos, Bobs Beard, inverted_helix, TMIoverload, Tetsurō

You have 0 Fate points.

There’s a lovely little walled courtyard in one of the gardens that you retreat to more often than not when you have the time to… essentially, stop thinking. To sit at your comfortable table and take tea beneath the spreading branches of a crystalline tree, and read a little of one of the absolutely mindless romance novels that somehow snuck their way into the royal library. The tree is a particular treasure, like an exquisite glass sculpture that somehow continues to grow, and spread its flowering branches wide. It’s quite a trick. All the gardens are beautiful, of course; the royal groundskeeper Tom Chaser and his men keep the grounds in excellent condition. The north garden in particular has a very nice bed of red and white flowers coming into bloom in the shape of a compass rose, and the south garden has a topiary maze you’ve seen your brother disappear into now and again. Perhaps you’ll follow up on that sometime.

Studies this year occupy so much more of your time than they ever have, you haven’t found the time for it yet.

You thought Uncle might have liked you once, but he’s been cold and distant lately. Aside from his sudden surprise appearances that seem more like a sergeant making parade ground inspections than a man checking on his niece. Depressing. The courtyard has some power to revive your flagging spirits, though. “It’s lovely, isn’t it, Alice?” you muse. They bloom year-round – you’re pretty sure Tom has someone with inclinations towards Nature magic – but the trees interwoven with the walls themselves seem to put special effort into blooming in spring.

You gently reach out and touch one of the riotous pink and purple flowers covering the tree-like branches that serve the courtyard as a ceiling. Nature magic would have been a tempting field to go into, if things were different.

“Yes, ma’am,” Alice says simply. Your maid companion is easy to overlook, clad in soft whites and blues that a face that could only be described as incredibly ordinary, standing off to the side of your table and keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.

“I do wish Uncle would find himself a hobby other than riding me,” you say casually. “Perhaps he could find some other woman to ride, and produce a few cousins for me to spoil.”

You check to see if the surprisingly bawdy comment causes the guard stationed at the only doorway to the courtyard to get huffy or embarrassed. The armored man in red with the full-faced helmet – you think it might be Titus today, but perhaps not – doesn’t move or react, leading you to believe he is actually giving you some small measure of space. It’s good that they’re respecting your space, but you’re also a little sad you don’t get to tease them. It would be even better if they left you alone entirely, at least within the palace, but Uncle had made it very clear what he would do if that occurred. There had been demonstration dummies.

When he was done, there were no demonstration dummies.

You moodily sip your tea, waving away Alice’s wordless offer of more milk or lemon.

You’ve found yourself with less energy for play of late. Rather than allowing the kingdom’s other noble children to pay court to you and bestowing rare smiles as payment on the cleverest, you find them vapid and uninteresting. Perhaps you lost the talent for joy during that long year of mourning, when the noble families came to court less and less, Uncle became busier and busier, and your father retired more and more to his rooms. You’ll have to relearn the trick to it. Practice would probably do it.

You’ve even seen less of your brother, whose once-frequent matches of wits with you at least always promised to be interesting. He’s been spending less time with you or his pack of male ‘friends’ – sycophants, really – in favor of chasing after the girls at court. You suspect he may have discovered puberty, loathsome beast that it is, in spite of his youth. He’s always been the sort to dive headlong into things which interest him, and this has all the hallmarks of him finding a new hobby to devote himself to. You rather dread the idea yourself. People have always paid attention to you; how could they not, being who you are? But it all seems dreadfully dull. At least time chasing maidens is time your brother isn’t spending productively.

Despite this odd apathy that has infected you, your little courtyard has some sentimental value and serves to recharge you. You can remember reaching out to touch the ever-blooming blossoms with a child’s chubby hands, smelling the heady sweet scent with delight. Your mother read to you beneath the crystal trunk set seamlessly in the center of the courtyard, right where you sit now. Not that such was common, as your mother was often busy with affairs of state, but the memory seems sweeter for the rarity. You swore to put aside the memories and move onward, but perhaps you can be forgiven a few childish things.

“Do you remember the years we spent here, Alice?” you wonder idly, for she had been present even then. They had been good years, mostly.

Your maid pauses, then nods once. A quick bob of the head. “Yes, ma’am,” she says dutifully.

Alice is waiting attentively to see if you need anything, but says nothing more. You pay her no mind. Alice practically raised you while your mother and father were away or busy, and she helped keep you alive and grounded during the long year of mourning, but she hasn’t been the same since Father died.

When you had expressed a desire to learn, Uncle had gone overboard as he often did. You suspect it suited his own plans perfectly, whatever those may be. Uncle brought tutors and masters of all sorts to the castle this year. Men from the army, from the artisan quarter, from the mage retainers on staff. Dozens of them. He’s drafted up a lesson plan crushing in its scope, and no amount of gentle persuasion is moving him this time.

“Where are all the new tutors staying?” you wonder aloud. That seems like information you should know.

“I don’t know, ma’am,” Alice responds.

You sigh. It’s not like you even dislike most of what the old man is planning, but not being able to choose yourself is grating. The servants are bound to follow your commands of course, but in your experience a quiet word or smile tends to get peasants to obey you of their own will; even nobles bend for you if you devote attention to them. It’s not even that you have a taste for power, exactly; perhaps you’ve simply gotten used to it.

But if the regent – or your brother, were he king – gives an order, you must obey the letter of that law, if not the spirit. Your new tutors don’t have that absolute power, but it seems more polite to pretend that they do. There’s no need to upend the game table, as long as you know that you could, if you had to.

Your mornings are blocked off to be spent exercising in the west courtyard followed by learning the more popular army weaponry; the sword for now, although you’ve seen archers and fire-lance specialists drilling with the palace guard as well. There is a certain thrill to be had in taking up a length of steel – properly enchanted, of course, you are not barbarous Highlanders – and trying to beat other children with them while grown men stand around and offer pointers. It would be more fun yet if your brother was not also taking the class, and if he didn’t seem to be stronger than you. He still looks like you, pale, slender, and fair of hair and face. That doesn’t feel fair at all.

Early afternoon is taken up by classes in mathematics and logistics.

Your mathematics tutor is a flighty young man in his late teens. His hair and clothing are habitually disarrayed, but it seems more a matter of forgetfulness than aiming for ‘charmingly disheveled’. His face is fairly appealing and he is certainly brilliant, but you believe you prefer men that actually care what they look like. From him you are learning applied mathematics and introductory engineering. You suspect this will somehow end with a focus on golem-working; Uncle is a bit mad on the subject.

Your uncle is a bit mad about many things.

The logistics tutor is an affable man, Barunese by birth you suspect, although he has no accent. His frame is that of a warrior though his dress is flamboyant, including a quite dapper three-corner hat with a nodding peacock plume. His lessons take the form of thought exercises. Socratic, you think it is called, after some great thinker from southern lands. How do you set up camp, how do you keep supplies coming in, how do you handle discipline problems.

It seems fairly interesting, and ought to have at least a little applicability outside of a war setting.

“I don’t know whether to be grateful I’m not the only one buried in work, or not,” you confide in your maid. You sip again and make a face, gesturing at Alice with your teacup. Spring in Caelis Valera is rather nippy.

Aside from your morning classes hitting things with swords, your uncle is loading your brother down with quite a different course-load. You’ve seen that dark-skinned exotically-colored mage Roshan stalking about with your brother in tow. Roshan’s specialities lie in Evocation and Illusion though the man apparently knows a little of everything. It’s really the best outcome you could hope for; Roshan steadfastly remains above court politics, and if anything seems to hold a bit of a grudge against the aristocracy. You also hear he’s a tremendously troublesome teacher, and nobody particularly enjoys learning from him.

You’ve also heard stories of the prince being buried in law books and forced to attend history classes, and something your uncle has been working on with him has got one of the ambassadors in a tizzy.

You set aside the hand-scribed novel in your lap. Something about a prince and a barbarian queen or some such. It just isn’t holding your interest. You let your fingers trail over the ice-stone table – clear as blue crystal, but not cold like the name suggests – and finally give up the pretense of not thinking. Your mind is simply refusing to still today. So you think, and you remember, and you plan.


Time Passing
As the years go on, you may find you have a plan or a plot or a strategy that you think will see you to victory and the throne. In that case, if five voters agree to the plot you can switch over to a weekly or event-type format instead of the usual ‘lesson-based events’ yearly format. Should you succeed, then no more needs be said. Should you fail (and if events do not go too grievously wrong), you may return to the usual format and try again another year. Note that in the latter case, your brother may well step up his own moves against you.


You consider how you should move…
Subvert your guards [0] – Your guards like you well enough, but they are still paid by the regent. To truly call them your own, actions must be taken.
The servants know much [0] – They are everywhere, and they are all but invisible to the average noble. They would make acceptable pawns.
Acquire a suitor of your own [0] – Men are paying you more and more attention lately. It would not be hard to sort through the vacuous nobles that have been trying to pay court to you for a likely candidate.
Strike at his support [0] – The boys your brother once hawked and hunted with are restless, at loose ends. You could work to make them yours – or simply break them.
Investigate your brother [0] – What is up with that maze? You have to know!
Lull them into a false sense of security [-10] – Do nothing, and save your strength. [Forgo the event and gain Fate points for later endeavors.]

And while we’re at it, how should you run your barony? The seneschal will handle most things while you are busy in the capital (and you are), but a little direction may not hurt.

Focus on providing a steady, if modest, flow of funds to put to use here in the capital. [0]
Focus on building up its limited resources and increasing prosperity. [0]
Focus on ensuring that it can defend itself in spite of its small size. [0]
Your seneschal has his job for a reason; leave him to it. [0]
Write-in any other single directive. Complex or ambitious directives may require fate points to avoid failure. [0+]