The Lady Tailen’s chambers prove to be a suite in one of the stalactite towers that rise high above the mass of House Urbasano proper. From within her foyer, you can look down onto the teeming city below through a large, ornately machined glass window. In the near distance, just outside the walls of the House, lies the Platform, the city’s noble district. Though you were just out there—fighting for your very lives outside the gates of House Urbasano—your view of it from here is very different. In the fight, the place felt like an open-plain battlefield. From here, you can behold the actual design—the wide, sparsely populated avenues of the Upper Market, the great flying buttresses of the Spider, and the glittering mass of the Earthmote. It is at once peaceful and serene. Hardly reminiscent of the killing ground you so recently occupied.
Having delivered you, Modred looks around quickly and departs, seeming angry but subdued. If he’d been looking forward to watching one of your mistresses punish you, the sight of Tailen’s rooms—barren of both mistress and anything that might possibly resemble torture equipment—leaves him looking disappointed. With his departure, you’re left alone, cooling your heels in a warmly furnished apartment, resplendent with intricately carved statuary, tightly woven geometric rugs, and softly glowing globes of magic light. As a whole, the place is both Spartan and lavish. Spartan in design and minimalist in furnishing. Lavish in its sheer size and scope and in its view of its surroundings.
The Lady Tailen enters a moment later, accompanied by the shadar-kai librarian Ilvani. Tailen wears a set of simple black combat leathers offset by a rapier with a jeweled hilt. Behind her, Ilvani looks much the same as before, save that she now appears both healthier and more focused.
Tailen looks out over the city below briefly before turning back to you. “I’ll come straight to the point,” she says. “I was pleased with your performance at the gates outside House Macjyata last week, and then pleased again when I learned of your actions in the Macjyata library. It must have taken real courage to stand against soldiers from your own House. But males of my race tend to be arrogant and thoughtless wretches who often need a lesson in discipline. You were, of course, lucky that no one but I found out about what happened, but as far as I am concerned, no one else needs find out… so long as my needs are met.
“So. As you might imagine, the fight with the Macjyatas badly depleted our reserves of common foot—what you might call ‘fodder’. Particularly our kobold ranks. My mother has assigned Nymeria to lead an expedition into the Mortal to replenish our supplies, and I have taken action to ensure that you will be a part of the expedition. What I need are loyal and intelligent agents who can participate fully in the mission and then report back to me. Tell me… have I found such in you?”
Fortune