@Device(PostScript) @Make(Report) @Style(Spacing 1.5, Leftmargin 0.75 inch, Rightmargin 0.75 inch, SingleSided, Font = TimesRoman, Size 10) @comment(Set these values appropriately for each character profile) @string(name="Arrani lle-Tuvan Moses") @string(realname="Arrani lle-Tuvan Moses") @string(playername="Player Name") @string(id="768645") @include (/mit/abstract/Characters/Sheets/cover.mss) @MajorHeading(@value(realname)) Y'know, some days it plain just doesn't pay to get out of bed. You spent weeks working with that hatchwing, trying to set up experimental conditions in which every variable was controlled. You'd trained it to run a maze, open hatch doors, even respond to colored lights. Weeks worth of grueling, frustrating work just went down the tubes. That leather-skinned, blue-winged beast has gotten loose! Not that you were getting much in the way of data out of her, anyway. At first, your project seemed to be going great: you had finally managed to isolate the genetic factor that produced ptaavhood in humans, and had produced a viral serum that would produce the same condition in a test subject -- or so you had hoped. This had been your pet project ever since you joined the College of the Seventh Day's Work, with the ultimate goal of successfully curing ptaavhood, the crippling genetic handicap that made certain humans born without the capacity to perform magic, or even to make use of the magical artifacts created by others. If you could synthesize it, perhaps you could someday cure it, you thought. First, though, you needed a test subject. It wouldn't do to inject the virus into a normal animal; normal animals don't use magic anyway. And while you @i(could) have found some human subject to try it on, the College would probably have frowned upon that (figures, for all that they claim ptaavs aren't discriminated against, they certainly wouldn't want to @b[be] one! Typical bigots ...). So it was practically a gift of the Gods when that hatchwing, ensorcelled message scroll tied securely to its back, landed, unconscious and clearly injured, almost in your lap. Hatchwings were magical beasts, of course, so you reasoned that if your virus worked, then a hatchwing infected by it would likely fall ill and die. You tested this theory, to no avail - the beast remained alive and well, healthy as a lark. There were some inexplicable behavior changes, though -- at first, the animal had alternated between scrabbling at the locks and lying perfectly still inside its cage (similar to the sort of "playing dead" that opossums engage in), but after the virus had incubated it simply spent its time running around the inside of its cage. Clearly, it had @i(some) effect -- but what??? Maybe it would make more sense if you knew a little more about hatchwing physiology. You're a biologist, and one of the best in your field; if anyone had the information you were looking for within the College, you'd be it. On the other hand, hatchwings @i(are) magical beasts, so maybe the College is the wrong place to look for information. Luckilly, you have another source available. When you were young, your dad was a professional scribe; you'd spent a lot of time helping him transcribe many of the grimoires of local mages. They never cared much, since he and you were both ptaavs, and thus beneath their notice, but nevertheless you came to know a great deal about magic -- in the theoretical sense. For a long time, you envied those mages, and studied the art of prestidigitation to simulate actually having magic, so your colleagues remained mostly ignorant of your ptaavhood. Sure, you come off as a bit eccentric, walking everywhere and sending all your messages by hand, but scientists are supposed to be a little odd. Although you've since gotten over the sense of inferiority and the @i(need) to hide your handicap that all ptaavs are brought up facing, that aspect of your childhood has resulted in a rather ironic twist. You've managed to apprentice yourself to Chalideans Tuvan, of the Wizard's Conclave, and if all goes well, by the end of this week you'll be a full-fledged mage. This is the ultimate joke on the "normals" -- that a "mere ptaav" could apprentice himself to a mage, pass all their tests, and gain a link to the Orb of Nairaphi! Even if you @i(can't) cast any spells, the power-source might prove useful someday -- and besides, it's the principle of the thing. Tuvan doesn't seem to be much into teaching, anyway, which suits you fine -- the less he interacts with you, the less likely he is to discover your secret. Working with Tuvan also has had some other advantages. Your fellow ptaav and colleague of yours, Shallar Rebecca of the Guard of the Realm, approached you not long ago with a crate and a magic device vaguely resembling a magical transport spell; she said that she needed it activated. When you asked her about it, she said it had to do with the Eastern War, and that she was working undercover; she was telling the truth, so you told her that you'd take care of it for her. You've always had a knack for telling when people lied to you. You brought the device to Tuvan, giving him some story about having found it in the Conclave archives, and did he know what it did? After looking at it for a few minutes, he identified it as a combination of a diminution spell and a high-powered transporter (he may be a twit at times, but he's fairly competant as a mage), and demonstrated how it worked by aiming it at the crate that you were "coincidentally" sitting on. You nearly cracked your skull on the floor, as he intended -- and as you had (practical jokers are @i(so) predictable!) You decided to give him a surprise of your own by making the box "disappear" before his eyes -- thereby solving the problem of explaining it away. (The slight of hand you learned to hide your handicap was really becoming useful!). It's things like that, though, that have fired up your resolution to achieve equality for yourself and your fellow ptaavs. After all, what kind of a nation makes it impossible for a sizable minority of its population to gain access to public transportation, communication, or most jobs, forcing them in many cases to live as slaves and menials, without hope of support? A perfect example of that situation is your colleague and fellow biologist, lle-Victory Sorsha. She was sold into slavery when her parents discovered her "problem," and would have remained a slave if she hadn't ... well, if she hadn't been Sorsha. Instead, she entered to the Gladiator's Arena, and did the impossible: won her freedom in the Trial by Combat! You've often heard mages point to her as an example of why "those ptaavs are exaggerating their problems," after all, if one person can make it... But Sorsha's an exceptional lady. Brilliant, talented, one hell of a swordswoman, and easily the best forensic biologist the Realm has ever seen; if anyone can prove to the complacent mages and normals that ptaavs are human beings in their own right it's her. Which is why you just can't understand what she sees in an arrogant halfbreed like Shelaphi Vellad. True, he's a good physician, but not nearly in Sorsha's class -- and yet she always seems to be conferring with him on one point or another. This has been especially noticable ever since those dozen soulless bodies were found, which makes no sense -- what in the World could she be asking him about, after all @i[she's] the expert on forensics! It's Sorsha's close association with Vellad that prevents you from ever discussing your real research with her. She has a real fondness for Vellad's hatchwing Dreamfellow, even speaking to it as if it understood her (although she does look rather fetching with him wrapped around her shoulders, his copper body and golden wings reflecting the sun into her hair and eyes). She'd probably not take kindly to hearing about a hatchwing being used as a laboratory animal. Even if she did, she'd tell Vellad, and you @i[know] what his reaction would be! In any case, though, she @i(is) exceptional. So is Rebecca, in her own way, which is why you approached them both years ago about forming a political lobby of ptaavs in order to achieve equality. In scouting out the political territory you'd met Dodani Yitzok, the Master Smith, who turned out to be another of the exceptional ptaavs who made it, and who, like you, had kept his ptaavhood a secret. With half of you maintaining the illusion of normalcy, the Ptaavs (as you called yourselves, perhaps not too originally) became an underground organization -- but no less dedicated to its cause. Somehow, you'll find a way to even the scales. Your test hatchwing might prove to be the answer. If you can get the virus to work and find an antidote, the problem is solved, but even if an antidote turns out to be unfindable (and though you have a good idea of what it would involve biochemically, you can't imagine where you could find it...), the virus itself presents a number of options: you could blackmail the Realm and the Conclave into passing ptaav-equality measures into law, or simply release the virus into the population (if your calculations are correct, it's likely to spread via transmission of body fluids), for example. Even if none of that works, you have other possibilities in mind. Yitzhok has mentioned a magic licensing bill being presented to the Table of Peers, that would place the Wizard's Conclave under the jurisdiction of the House of Guilds. You mean to see it passed. And your work in the Conclave's archives (being a scribe's son has done you some good after all!) has pointed you in some interesting directions you didn't realize were relevent until recently. The book was old and tattered and falling apart; nontheless, you were able to piece together the story of something called the "Creation Gate", a portal to Tualoha's realm, that was indirectly responsible for the Holy Wars. The text seemed to imply that the gate could be used to travel between realms, and that it was the only way to cast the Orbs of Power out of Gaea's realm, and -- most interesting of all -- that it could be found on the last of the Castles in the Sky. A bit too esoteric for your tastes, but getting the Orb of the Wizard's Conclave out of the World would certainly make magic much less common in the Realm, and therefore less of a problem. First of all, though, you have to deal with that damned hatchwing. If nothing else, isolating the ptaavhood virus would virtually clinch your acceptance for the grant the wizard Kalerege is offering. The amount hasn't been exactly stated, but is bound to be considerable, and the funds could make the crucial difference between success and failure. Your lab is in the vicinity of the menagerie; maybe when the animals were being rounded up, your hatchwing was also. Couldn't hurt to look. And you still have the scroll of strange sigils that the hatchwing was carrying when you found him, though you haven't been able to make heads or tails of them -- still, maybe you can use those to get the creature back. In any case, remember this week might well prove to be the turning point for you and your people, if the Ptaavs can accomplish their goals. If you are careful and clever, perhaps your people will finally be free. @newpage @heading [Items, Abilities, and Spells] You begin the game with the following items: @begin [itemize] A small cage with a broken lock A small silver key (19175) A small brass key (37623) Several empty glass vials (in satchel) A scalpel (in satchel) Several small vials of associated reagants (in satchel) A long thin glass tube (in satchel) Two daggers A laboratory dissection kit A metal funnel (in satchel) A fine gold ring with an inset ruby (26947) A dagger A vial of grey power 15 pieces of glowstone 15 pieces of phosphorus A scroll with strange sigils @end [itemize] These are your abilities: @begin [itemize] Detect Lie Prestidigitation Biology Knowledge, Level 2 Speak Biology Jargon Magical Knowledge, Level 1 Speak Magic Jargon Read Languages Graphology Forgery Ptaav @end [itemize]