#I have always really loved how the SMN questline mixes magic with Allagan science

[idanwyn-et-al]

(XIV||22-18): Lurid. (Extra Credit!)

(Continued from here.) (♪)

Having a guest over was always a little strange for Oakmoss. A customer was one thing; if they were there to purchase a card reading, a tincture, a guided mushroom trip, she knew what to expect, how to conduct herself. The first time she and Miovont had met, he was a customer; here, in this erstwhile lair of hers that didn’t even belong to her, he shared her pixie apples and gazelle jerky for breakfast, washed down with dark syrah. They even helped one another shower beneath the gentle falls that served as her door; casual intimacy that they both pretended was something mundane, when below the surface it was anything but.

She hadn’t felt this way about anyone since Daníval, the father of three of her children. The other seven had different fathers; not at all uncommon for her kind who chose the traditional way of life. He had been a good mate, and had sought her out in Kisne three times. Later, he bent Veena traditions to visit her and the children she bore him, bringing them gifts he’d woven with delicate care from his post in the mountain forests. His glacial-water eyes were always warm when he looked upon them, his summer-sky hair full of beaded braids swooping in a caress upon his children’s shoulders when he crouched down to listen to their tales. Even now, almost a hundred years later, the thought of him stirred a gentle warmth within her heart; she hadn’t heard from him in decades, and didn’t have the courage to try to find out if he still lived.

Instead of seeking closeness with Daníval or any of her ten grown children, she’d fled from Othard, leaving them all behind. It irritated her that Miovont’s presence dredged up these memories from the peat bog of her past; especially because it made her have to wonder if she knew what love really was. Devotion, she understood, perhaps better than most; but love? She feared it whenever it grew close, like a great shadowy beast stalking through the wood that she hoped would pass her by.

Fortunately, she and Miovont had a common purpose. Duty, too, was something she knew well, even if others labored to see it. Everything she did was in service to her Goddess; to right the balance, to take back what was taken. To give, too, in equal measure; to never lose sight of the day-to-day symmetry in favor of the big picture.

As the pair walked through the caves, she in her summoner’s garb and he in the same too-clean getup from the day before, she pretended not to notice the local Duskwights who skittered forth from their hiding places to exchange information with him. Associates, he called them, reluctant to use the word ‘spies’; it seemed they supported his efforts in culling corrupt nobility. So long as they kept intruders out of the Allagan facility, she was content to refrain from prying; it pleased her to see that they’d constructed some manner of local ward over the emptiness once covered by the heavy door. Miovont unlocked the ward with an engraved coin; she asked about it, and he demurred, which she respected. Oakmoss had many secrets of her own, and knew that those like her often kept such confidences to protect others more than to deceive others for personal gain. Some of her personal deceptions were not strictly necessary, she supposed, but there was fun to consider, too.

Once inside the facility, Oakmoss pulled her eidolon into being, its oranges and golds providing lurid contrast to the dull green and blue lights around the trio. It insisted upon playing one game of tic-tac-toe with Miovont; something he was familiar with, she’d learned, since he had once been the koinonos of another descendant of the Sophic line; Nepenthe Isidoros. Oakmoss could understand why the woman had chosen Miovont for the position of summoner’s guardian; he was discreet, competent, and fully grasped the weight of an oath. He was also easy on the eyes, and had a jovial personality despite the curse that killed him a little more each time he availed himself of its powers.

There was that thought again, that beast stalking the wood; love, or at least companionship. She couldn’t ask him to swear to her; she wouldn’t. Comfortable allies were one thing; the deep bond required between a summoner and her koinonos was something Oakmoss quailed away from.

As Fotiá and Miovont’s game concluded---a cat game, again; she should really teach it new games---she instructed the eidolon to patrol the hallways as it had before. The Summoner and the Dark Knight examined the forges that could have made his Kulix Sacrae in relative quiet. It was only after he examined the chimerical dragon in its biostasis vessel nearby that he started asking her questions.

A lot of questions. And the Balance demanded she answer them. She knew how to; but she didn’t want to do what she needed to in order to make it happen. The roiling fear grew within her; an even-larger companion to the dread beast of love, of bondings. An oath that had allowed her line to survive as long as they had without resorting to selective breeding like the Isidoros line had.

Oakmoss extracted a few more binding promises from Miovont before giving him the key to what he sought. She could only hope that this time, the program wouldn’t tax her like it had before. That he could show restraint in its usage, though their presence within this facility increased her capabilities. That when she returned to herself, someone would think to share the knowledge she accessed with her, since ‘Oakmoss’ wouldn’t remember it at all.

These were the conditions of the vow her distant foremother took when she encountered the greatest Allagan summoner to ever live: He would allow her line to continue, but they must become part of the Allagan defense network comprised of all the Meracydian summoners that had tried to defeat him.

She hated him. That hatred was passed down in the blood. And yet, he had understood the true nature of a summoner by his end; to pass on the story from master to pupil. To keep the strength of deities alive and in the hands of their worshippers. To protect the lands that gave them life.

“Initiating Sari’s Directive,” said Miovont, the command unraveling her ancient robes, mutating their form

“Executing Sari’s Directive. Port Sigma-Ypsilon-Alpha-Gamma-Alpha, alias unit SJAGA, online.” It was her voice, and it wasn’t. Everything faded to ersatz blue; not like Daníval’s hair or eyes, gentle and natural and pure. The great beasts had come, and she had stepped right into their path.

(Continued here!)