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Entry 59 - Sours And Delights

Entry 59 - Sours And Delights

8th Light beneath the twelfth Moon

3761 Cycles beyond the Dark

722 Years after the Repentance

Entry: 1/059

Dear self,

I noticed Vamera brightened for some unknown reason. There were some more mumblings audible from where she hovered in the branches of the Tunmtumm tree. Other than Rahph literally flying around and seemingly swimming after the little lights tat spawned from Vamera there was nothing for me to occupy myself with, so I narrated my day to Vamera on a whim.

She seemed to brighten when I brought the Bubbleshil up, and momentarily brighten whenever I talk about my experiments with the Frost Bubbleshil and the ultimate product. My suspicion is that it might be related to her Fortuity affinity, which would mean there was some degree of fortune involved in having gained the Frost Bubbleshil. It’s understandable as having the Bubbleshil turn into Frost Bubbleshil was a lucky bit of happenstance that I just happened to be able to make use of.

Unlike the silly games I tried playing with added randomness to the rules, the Bubbleshil was something truly out of my control arising from the chaos of possibilities that is the world. Gaining substantial benefit from what was merely an opportunity might also have contributed to having a connection to Fortuity. Getting something that requires a lot of luck in a situation where it is absolutely useless to you wouldn’t be very lucky for instance, and it wouldn’t be luck either if you could control the outcome.

You might consider that true Fortuity involves a confluence between happenstance and opportunity in a scenario where such scenarios might actually be pursued. In many ways Fortuity would be when you make use of the opportunities afforded to you. Which would mean that you could aid Vamera by just being aware of what opportunities are available to you and following them spontaneously to where you might benefit from them.

Our trek towards Aunt Ekelyn was made more difficult than normal because of the heavy snow. There are no proper roads towards her tree, so getting to the orphanage requires being familiar with the way through the forest. Anora had the biggest struggle hauling a large bag on her back which she didn’t want to get wet from the snow.

The children squealed at our approach. No doubt they’ve been kept in-doors for the last few days with the blizzards. Even using a spell against the worst of the weather just walking to the orphanage was difficult for us, and most of these were around three or four Cycles old. We gathered in the main hall and let the kids run around excitedly while Anora took out a couple cloth woven toys. They weren’t amazing, or magical, but it made me wonder how she got them. I Have not seen her have much opportunity to make them after being home and she hadn’t carried much when she had arrived.

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The children caught on to the treats I had brought them. I had to usher them into polite rows while I handed out the candied balls I had made for them. It had turned out that Frost Bubbleshil combined with a lot of sugar turned into a very chewable treat that was impossible to swallow and hard to spit out. The cold flavour enhanced the sweetness for some reason as well. It was a perfect way of keeping the kids busy with just one treat each. That way I’d have time to esca before they come ask for more.

With a little inspiration from Tori’s incident with having a bird voice I also incorporated Jingsnicker into the candies. It only made your voice sound higher or lower pitched at random, but the children were endlessly amused by their altered voices. The best was when one of the twins got their share. Their voices swapped so that the boy sounded exactly like the girl, and everyone thought it was hilarious.

The frosty breath they all got was an inevitable side effect. It might have been a more interesting effect in summer but in winter it was little more than a deterrent to taking too think I’m going to name them Bubbleshil Delight for now. We did get annoyed at the constant chewing eventually, which in hindsight should have been inevitable if I had thought about hearing that for longer than a half hour.

We got a request from the constabulary in Tintinnabulis which both I and Mother answered. The wanted to us to appraise a delicate chain necklace with a filigree sphere of fine metal wires hanging from it. It was clearly an opened cage for something really tiny. They wanted to figure out who its rightful owner would be.

Mother assed it using Subtle Magic to figure out who had the strongest Sympathetic attachment to the object. I mostly just observed to learn and to be a second pair of eyes in case of any obvious mistakes. We concluded that the cage itself was strongly linked to a specific adventurer while what traces remained of its contents suggested that they had a stronger attachment to the Dauthulscha woman who had supposedly stolen the filigree cage from said adventurer.

It was nothing conclusive, as Sympathetic attachments are not the same as legal rights in any way, but they are slightly suggestive to how the constabulary needs to investigate the case further. The Dauthulscha woman claims that the cage contained a pixie which the other adventurer had kidnapped. The adventurer claimed both the cage and the supposed pixie as his property. There aren’t exactly any laws in Tintinnabulis surrounding the rights that creatures at the level of pixies have, so after the evidence is gathered whatever judgement is ultimately made will set a precedent. It might even end up applying to how Tintinnabulis responds to slavery in the future, so its been as much the talk of the town as the “adventurer menace” themselves. Mostly there are just some of the locals worrying if it will affect what they are allowed to hunt in the forest.

Hope we fare well.

Regards,

Me.

~*M*~