Day 130:Council of the guild stewards
I want to give Mehra Milo time to reach the monastery of the Dissident Priests. I thought that clearing up some loose ends in the Mage's Guild would give her some time. I may have been too right for my own good. By the time these loose ends are taken care of she may well have been able to crawl the length of Azura's Coast on her knees.
When I teleported into Balmora this morning and told Ranis about meeting the last survivor of the Dwemer her red eyes flew so wide I was afraid they might pop out of her head. "Trebonius gives you an impossible mission as a way to get rid of you," she said, "sending you out to solve the mystery of the age, and a week later you find a Dwemer. He is going to birth a litter of nix hounds right there on the spot when he hears this."
"That would be interesting Ranis," I said, "but technically I haven't completed the task yet. Trebonius could very well bluff out that Yagram doesn't really know what happened either. I want to wait for the translations of Egg of Time and Divine Metaphysics before I tell him about it."
"But surely," she protested, "you have discovered something beyond anything that pompous fool could have expected. This has got to be reported! The very foundations of magecraft could be shaken. You can't keep information like that to yourself."
"I'm not. I told you."
Slowly a grin twitched the corners of her mouth, then broke into a full smile. "You devious s'wit! You are leaving him out of the biggest discovery of the age, based on his own demands! He will have no one to blame but himself."
"Well, not really," I admitted. "He is going to blame me, no doubt about that, but he won't be able to make that stick when it is obvious that I wasn't trying to keep anything to myself. I will stand behind saying that I was just trying to fulfill his instructions to the best of my ability. We have to make sure that the guild sees things my way, but there is no question that Trebonius won't. He is going to be furious."
"Arvil, he has risen to power in the guild because he is a master of the school of destruction. He is liable to roast you in a fit of anger. The guild's agreement that you were in the right will roll heavily against him, but that won't bring you back from the dead."
"Then I guess I'll have to keep myself alive; won't I?"
Skink-in-trees-shade and Edwinna arrived in the afternoon. Due to her rank it fell to Ranis to bring them up to date. Edwinna was ready to depart immediately for the corprusarium at Tel Fyr. "Edwinna," Ranis said in her most reasonable tones, "you are an outlander. I say that as a fact, not a slur. An outlander of tremendous talent and ability, but you sometimes don't look at the big picture of guiding the guild here in Morrowind. First of all, do you think Divayth Fyr is just going to allow a train of guild members, headed by a hall steward no less, to barge around his tower. He is a Telvanni, and one of the most ancient wizards of my race. I can tell you that he is not."
In the excitement Edwinna was a little carried away, but she does understand the politics. She wouldn't have been appointed to her current position otherwise. She sat back down. "You plan to use this information to bring down Trebonius," she sighed.
"Not my plan," Ranis replied. "His." They all looked at me.
"We are here and Trebonius is not," Skink said. "He can be shown once again to be out of touch with events, but intentionally keeping him in the dark makes us wrong, not him."
"His task for me was to find out what happened to the Dwarves. I haven't done that yet. He was very clear about not wanting to see me around unless I accomplished my task, so he won't."
"But you are telling us," Edwinna said. "That shows that you know the value of the information. You know it has to be reported. The Guild stands for the sharing and spreading of information and magic. You can't keep something like a surviving Dwemer a secret."
"I'm not! I'm telling plenty of people, people who are my superiors in the guild. I'm not hiding it or being ignorant of its significance. I'm just being thorough in completing my task. Edwinna, I'm only talking to you because you are a valuable source of information on the Dwemer. I'll be delivering the translations of the Dwemer books first into your hands to complete the research. Everyone knows Trebonius is no scholar. That will be the best thing to do, no one but him will question that. Ranis, you told me I need a wizard's staff, I'm working on getting one. We are only discussing how I can fit that in with my primary responsibility, which is to the Archmage. Skink, you said there was a necromancer in the guild. She fled Telvanni territory. She is somewhere in the West Gash or the Bitter Coast. I'm only able to take care of that for you because I'm headed there anyway on a mission from the Archmage. I'm not reporting this find to you, I'm just letting you know that I can take care of your necromancer while I pick up the Dwemer translations for Trebonius. There is no harm in taking care of your problem on the same trip, no crime in telling you why I am making that trip."
"He is devious as a Dunmer," Edwinna muttered.
"He has learned a lot from one," Skink said with a glance at Ranis, "and learned it well."
When I teleported into Balmora this morning and told Ranis about meeting the last survivor of the Dwemer her red eyes flew so wide I was afraid they might pop out of her head. "Trebonius gives you an impossible mission as a way to get rid of you," she said, "sending you out to solve the mystery of the age, and a week later you find a Dwemer. He is going to birth a litter of nix hounds right there on the spot when he hears this."
"That would be interesting Ranis," I said, "but technically I haven't completed the task yet. Trebonius could very well bluff out that Yagram doesn't really know what happened either. I want to wait for the translations of Egg of Time and Divine Metaphysics before I tell him about it."
"But surely," she protested, "you have discovered something beyond anything that pompous fool could have expected. This has got to be reported! The very foundations of magecraft could be shaken. You can't keep information like that to yourself."
"I'm not. I told you."
Slowly a grin twitched the corners of her mouth, then broke into a full smile. "You devious s'wit! You are leaving him out of the biggest discovery of the age, based on his own demands! He will have no one to blame but himself."
"Well, not really," I admitted. "He is going to blame me, no doubt about that, but he won't be able to make that stick when it is obvious that I wasn't trying to keep anything to myself. I will stand behind saying that I was just trying to fulfill his instructions to the best of my ability. We have to make sure that the guild sees things my way, but there is no question that Trebonius won't. He is going to be furious."
"Arvil, he has risen to power in the guild because he is a master of the school of destruction. He is liable to roast you in a fit of anger. The guild's agreement that you were in the right will roll heavily against him, but that won't bring you back from the dead."
"Then I guess I'll have to keep myself alive; won't I?"
Skink-in-trees-shade and Edwinna arrived in the afternoon. Due to her rank it fell to Ranis to bring them up to date. Edwinna was ready to depart immediately for the corprusarium at Tel Fyr. "Edwinna," Ranis said in her most reasonable tones, "you are an outlander. I say that as a fact, not a slur. An outlander of tremendous talent and ability, but you sometimes don't look at the big picture of guiding the guild here in Morrowind. First of all, do you think Divayth Fyr is just going to allow a train of guild members, headed by a hall steward no less, to barge around his tower. He is a Telvanni, and one of the most ancient wizards of my race. I can tell you that he is not."
In the excitement Edwinna was a little carried away, but she does understand the politics. She wouldn't have been appointed to her current position otherwise. She sat back down. "You plan to use this information to bring down Trebonius," she sighed.
"Not my plan," Ranis replied. "His." They all looked at me.
"We are here and Trebonius is not," Skink said. "He can be shown once again to be out of touch with events, but intentionally keeping him in the dark makes us wrong, not him."
"His task for me was to find out what happened to the Dwarves. I haven't done that yet. He was very clear about not wanting to see me around unless I accomplished my task, so he won't."
"But you are telling us," Edwinna said. "That shows that you know the value of the information. You know it has to be reported. The Guild stands for the sharing and spreading of information and magic. You can't keep something like a surviving Dwemer a secret."
"I'm not! I'm telling plenty of people, people who are my superiors in the guild. I'm not hiding it or being ignorant of its significance. I'm just being thorough in completing my task. Edwinna, I'm only talking to you because you are a valuable source of information on the Dwemer. I'll be delivering the translations of the Dwemer books first into your hands to complete the research. Everyone knows Trebonius is no scholar. That will be the best thing to do, no one but him will question that. Ranis, you told me I need a wizard's staff, I'm working on getting one. We are only discussing how I can fit that in with my primary responsibility, which is to the Archmage. Skink, you said there was a necromancer in the guild. She fled Telvanni territory. She is somewhere in the West Gash or the Bitter Coast. I'm only able to take care of that for you because I'm headed there anyway on a mission from the Archmage. I'm not reporting this find to you, I'm just letting you know that I can take care of your necromancer while I pick up the Dwemer translations for Trebonius. There is no harm in taking care of your problem on the same trip, no crime in telling you why I am making that trip."
"He is devious as a Dunmer," Edwinna muttered.
"He has learned a lot from one," Skink said with a glance at Ranis, "and learned it well."
posted by Tim | 10:49 AM
4 Comments:
Another brilliant chapter to add towards your collection. Great way to add more life to the characters of morrowind.
Thanks to you, i am now starting to wtite my own morrowind journal, and i hope it will meet the same reception as yours does.
I do have one query though, why do you not update this exceedingly good journal on weekends?
That is a good question frankowhaterver. It is the only thing bringing this down (Not by much though.). Great chapter. I was almost laughing at the "loophole" that Arvil found. Keep it up.
Because propelbly that it would take too much time.
Well...a good question deserves a good answer. I must admit though that the first thing that crossed my mind was 'when you are six months into writing your Morrowind Journal I am going to remind you of this question.'
But the real answer has already been given, in a much less smart aleky way...time. Now, as real from the heart advice to you and anyone else who wants to start this kind of thing...make a promise to your readers that you can keep, then keep it. Sometimes I write three or four episodes in a day and save them as drafts. Sometimes I write on the weekends, and save them as drafts. Because some days I don't get to write at all, but I post EVERY Monday through Friday, as promised. If I didn't I would expect to lose readers, and rightly so. Had I promised to post every day I don't know where the extra fifty episodes would have come from over the past six months, since I am currently a total of one ahead.
Anyway, I am anxious to see your journal, please e-mail me the link when you get it going...and if you keep to a promised posting schedule for one month I'll post the link on my serial fiction links on my blog.
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