Dialogue Hesvar #152 - Explain Something To Me

Hesvar #152 - Explain Something To Me
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Or Read a summary of the first 149 episodes in Episode 150 - Recap.

We join the Mayor of Singard in one of her meeting rooms.



Mayor: "Ah, you must be the Vespin specialist I requested. Please come in."



Dawn: "Madam Mayor." *Bows.* "Yes, I am Vespin specialist Dawn. How may I be of assistance?"

Mayor: "I just need some help understanding the recent rumors regarding Vespi's plans. Please, take off your cloak and have a seat. We keep the rooms here plenty warm."



Dawn: "Please forgive me Madam, but I did not realize I was meeting directly with you this morning. I hope you don't mind, but I think it would be more appropriate if I stood and remained cloaked."



Mayor: "I understand there's something of a clandestine nature to your job, but surely you understand there is no need to conceal your appearance from me. I like to know who I'm working with so I'm afraid I must insist."



Dawn: "Of course Madam Mayor."



Dawn: "Good enough Madam?"

Mayor: "No. Remove your entire cloak. If I saw what I think I just saw I am quite displeased."

*Dawn replies sheepishly.* "Yes Madam."



*Dawn hangs her head as she reaches up and unfastens her cloak letting it fall into one hand while she holds her unfastened shirt closed with her other hand.*



Mayor: "So I did see what I thought I saw. Is this what you consider appropriate attire to meet with your Mayor? Obscenely barely dressed?"

Dawn: "No Madam. Of course not. As I said I didn't realize this meeting was directly with you."

Mayor: "Well whomever you thought you were meeting with do you think that is an appropriate way to dress at city hall? Or for that matter as a representative of Singard anywhere?"

Dawn: "No Madam, but..."

Mayor: "Never mind. This discussion is a waste of my time. I'll leave it to your supervisor to discipline you and instruct you on proper decorum. You are an actual Vespin specialist at least right?"

Dawn: "Yes Madam."

Mayor: "Then take a seat. Presumably you were chosen to meet with me as you're actually good at your job since clearly it wasn't based on your understanding of Singard's protocols."

Dawn: "Yes Madam."



Mayor: "You know it's really hard to accept you as an expert or take your counsel seriously with you dressed, or should I say undressed like that."

Dawn: "Yes Madam, that's kind of the point."



Mayor: "Excuse me? That's quite the unacceptable attitude. Maybe I will handle your discipline myself."



Dawn: "Oh no Madam Mayor! I'm sorry! I don't mean it here with you! I mean in my job. I'm planning to speak to the Vespin soldiers in town to find out how serious the Vespin plans for war are. Provocative dress like this works wonders at loosening their tongues."



Mayor: "Such an approach sounds quite distasteful, but I suppose possibly useful. Just how far are you willing to go in this provocation? No wait, I'd rather not know. I will overlook your dress today as you did not expect to see me. Let's move on to the matter for which I summoned you here today."

Dawn: "Of course Madam. I will answer any questions as best I can."

Mayor: "Good, because this has really been bothering me."

 

Mayor: "Why are the idiot Vespins talking about a WAR?!?! At best it burdens us both and it could even destroy us both! And why right after we somehow killed their 'invulnerable' minister? With our implied new power they should just accept the slightly more favorable to us trade terms I've proposed and count themselves lucky we stop with the minister."



Dawn: "Unfortunately I don't have absolute answers to your questions Madam Mayor, but I'll try to address them as best I can."



Dawn: "First, I agree war seems entirely impractical and unproductive for us, but Vespi with their wealth and superior metal weaponry has a unique historical record of reaping rewards from it. Their religious dogma even prescribes Vepsi as the unquestioned center of power on Hesvar. In light of this asking even a reasonable concession might be objectionable to them."



Dawn: "Second, as to the minister's death not creating the fear in them you expect, it's possible that the minister's invulnerability was nothing but a ruse on their part. So her death is not a surprise to be feared but an inconvenience of the ruse being exposed. The latter might even increase their interest in war to show the world Vespi is still superior to Singard.

Of course that's just a thought off the top of my head as you asked me for a reason, but it is a hard one to believe. The invulnerability of the minister is strongly woven into Vespin culture all the way back to the legends of its founding. Every portrait and description of the minister I've encountered matches almost perfectly with the minster just killed."



Dawn: "On that topic Madam may I ask you a question? Of course I understand you have no obligation to answer even if you say I may ask."

Mayor: "You may ask."

Dawn: "Thank you Madam. Just how did we kill the minister? Would that not answer whether or not she was actually nigh invulnerable?"



*The mayor sits down with a sigh.* "Actually we didn't kill her and we have no idea who did nor how. She was found dead in the street with a large hole clean through her head. The ground was covered in blood but none of it seemed to be from her wound. It's a mystery what would make such a clean hole and cause no bleeding."



Dawn: "Interesting. That actually fits some rumors I heard when I was last down in Vespi that say the minister was injured at an inn just outside Vespi and that the attack left a perfectly clean hole in the inn's walls."

Mayor: "Do these rumors say who wounded the minister?"

Dawn: "Not directly, but it is said she was there to punish a heretic who'd been making false claims of a new source of metal outside of Vepsi. Unfortunately said source is apparently it fell from the sky. Clearly poking fun at the Vespin creation story and asking to be punished as a heretic."



Mayor: "Hmmmm, I think there may be some truth to those rumors. This is not to be shared outside this room, but the Lord of the Mines *himself* actually paid me a visit not long ago where his main concern was reinforcing the fact that Vespi was the sole source of metal on Hesvar and stating that any rumors to the contrary were clearly false."



Dawn: "Oh wow! The Lord of the Mines almost never leaves Vespi. I haven't even heard any mention of any recent travel by him. I was also surprised that the minister was here in Singard as well as that's also quite unusual."



Mayor: "She was here at my request. After the Lord of the Mine's visit I wanted to publicly honor Vespi to shore up our cordial relations. Obviously that didn't work out so well given we now may be at the brink of war. Back to this heretic though, was there nothing more about him in the rumors than his heresy?"

Dawn: "Not much. The descriptions are pretty inconsistent. I'd say the two most common aspects are that he is male and he wears some form of metal bird insignia, most commonly gold. I figured that bit was added to the rumors as part of the metal from the sky aspect though. Unless such insignia means something to you or your advisors?"



Mayor: "Off the top of my head the only golden bird symbol I can think of is that sculpture at the Golden Eagle Apothecary way up in the hills. I can't see that old sheep making a trip down to Vespi though. I'll query my advisors to see if they know of any others.

Given our discussion today I'm going to reassign you. If there's any chance these rumors could lead us to the man that killed the minister we must find him and learn how he did it. If it is something special perhaps we could even obtain something similar for Singard. This is now your top priority. Remember we're trying to head off a potential war and this man may possess a power that could do so. Please proceed as quickly as possible."



Dawn: "Yes Madam Mayor. I will inform the head of the guards of my new assignment and get on it at once."

 

Sigh it seems the DoA image caching is especially bad today. Multiple missing pictures and it didn't even issue the request to my server to load them. The full set of images is definitely visible at the link at the top of the first post.

 

I agree it could be trouble. Seems unlikely they'll see eye to eye on that.

I wouldn't be surprised if she's at least trained to be able to defend herself. I don't think there's been any elves before. (Pretty sure I only have two elf dolls.) Pris has very similar hair color to Dawn though.

It's been a while since I used the alternate hands so I figured I'd break them out again. Try to do a little more detail in the photos although it's a lot of extra energy. Then they don't load... sigh.

Her necklace is actually the cord that would normally close her top, just a handy place to keep it. You can see it's not metal in the highest resolution images. I don't think it would be viewed as a sign of wealth. (You maybe but probably can't make out in these photos similar cord tying the sides closed.)

 

I did wonder how you forgot Pris in the fantasy hair color department.

To make you feel better about your eyesight it's gold colored cord.

The hands are harder to change than I'd like. Vinyl is really tight on the frame.

 

I used to change the hands more often but as my body got worse it just got harder and harder to do so I mostly stopped, not even counting the 2.5 years I basically stopped posting stories.

 

Yeah the mayor is a little full of herself, but compared to the Lord of the Mines she's not too bad. At least there's no threat of being tossed in the mines for saying the wrong thing. Definitely questionable priorities but at least she did get back on track eventually?

You mean with the mayor or just in her job as a "Vespin specialist" aka a spy.

Yeah I've had to resort to that at times too. The two finger V hand is just impossibly tight though and this is even after I've stretch them with pliers and a hair drying. Stupid wrist joint stem snapped getting it off. Grr.

 

Thanks. Politics exist anywhere there's more than 2 people right?

 

In this operation Dawn gets a raise for not wasting nearly as much of the Mayor's time prattling on in the passive tense and all that.

 

I'm pretty sure I've never made this extensive of edits to stories after posting them before. I was just shocked at how bad some of the dialogue flowed in these stories. Clearly I'm rusty. You all should tell me when it's really bad.

For me most of old story edits are fixing the seemingly endless supply of typos. Converting stories to the new comic format has really pointed out a lot of those. Wait why is that speech bubble pointing to that character? Oh it's had the wrong character listed for 3 years now. And I don't know how many mismatched " and * delimiters I've found.

 

Wow I thought making the simple but constantly changing sets for Hesvar was a hassle. Busy city sets? Only in your dreams.

I do still have a lot of stage direction randomly in my stories. I always wonder should I? I mean there's a photo, but I still often call out the action anyway.