Post from Z'leyra on actions...                                         

"Yes, I do intend to pay for eveyone's meal tomorrow. Not as a bribe
but as simple courtesy since they will be my guests." replies Z'leyra
to Kell.

In responses to Arawn she replies "Good idea. I will ask Corona and
another volunteer to keep watch. " ;
"No. I don't know what, if any, connections she has. I wouldn't be
surprised if they hear of my return. But that isn't necessarily bad.
Many folks get caught not because of crime, but because they were
caught trying to cover it up.";
"I hope that I am treading carefully. Were I not, I would have come
alone and there would be no one to watch my back or ask questions if
something happened to me.";
"As I recall I was practicing the Levitation spell. I didn't keep
track of who was in and out of the lab and no questions were asked
about it.
It is unlikely that anyone will be a reliable witness to my presence
from that long ago. I had no motive and if I was guilty of something
why would I be the one dredging up this past history?"

When feeding Corona his fish before dinner she asks him to keep watch
and warn her if anyone is trying to overhear her conversations while
they are in Ticasi.

Over dinner with the party she reprises her history. "Some of you
already know this, Those newer to our fellowship may know only parts.
This as I told the story to Kaylle the Lengendmaster."


More than a quarter century ago a promising young Ticasi scholar of
a well to do family came upon and verified the interesting fact that
weapons made by the Kameri tribe were known to be stronger, less
likely to break than other weapons made by human hands. Somehow the
steel was made tougher. This scholar, a charming and adventurous man
and knowledgeable in metal crafts scandalized his family by traipsing
off into the wilderness seeking the Kameri in hopes of learning the
secret.

With pluck and luck the scholar, Tiren by name, made it though a
thousand miles of wilderness terrain inhabited by hostile tribes to
the Kameran, the lands of the Kameri. Quite the adventure, unfortunately
his notes about the trip were later destroyed in a fire. For his
winning a word challenge the Kameri gave him one month’s visitation
privileges, only to be extended by word of a shaman. In that month
Tiren managed to impress and marry a young Kameri shaman, Z’nayha.
By all accounts they truly loved each other and were happily married.
Z’nayha extended his visit month by month until she died.

Less than a year after his arrival in the Kameran, Tiren was the
father of identical twin girls Z’layha and Z’leyra. In the
following years Tiren and Z’nayha had two sons and another daughter.

Tiren did learn the Kameri metalworking secret, though to do so he
had to swear great oaths of secrecy. After eight years in the Kameran
Tiren managed to send a message to Ticasi saying that he was well,
had married and had children. Almost another ten years would pass
before an event would uproot his life and send him back to Ticasi.
Their daughters had been inducted into the mystic lodges, Z’layha
and Z’leyra had been taught the greater secrets and just initiated
as young shaman when Z’nayha, wandering in the woods as she was
wont to do, failed to come home one night. Her body was soon found
where she had apparently stepped into a deathtrap that a hunter had
set for a rogue bear. Her death ended Tiren’s visitation privilege.

At Tiren’s request the tribe considered his desire to take his
children with him and ultimately allowed him to take one of his
children, Z’layha or Z’leyra having finished their studies and
of an age to make their own decisions. Tiren thought that Z’layha’s
pet wolf would be harder to fit in Ticasi society than Z’leyra’s
pet eagle. The tribe determined that Z'leyra was a redundant shaman
and allowed her to be sent with her father back to 'civilized' lands
after he had told the elders and chiefs the advantages to having
someone learn civilized skills and magic. She was 17 years of age
when she left.

After another harrowing thousand mile trip (this time including a
trip down much of the River Dirla), Tiren and his daughter Z’leyra
arrived at his families home in Ticasi and got the welcome of a
prodigal son. His father had done well and been elected to the Council
of Scholars. Though he only served one two-year term, that qualified
Z’leyra to subsidized instruction in the field of her choice. She
chose to study Balance Magics as a complement to her Shaman skills.

A shy student, treated as an outsider because of her barbarian
heritage and upbringing, she naturally gravitated towards other
outsiders who also enjoyed the woodlands and became friends with
some Sidh who introduced her to Sidh and Elder magic. During this
time Z’leyra became friends with Varange, a Faerry Sidh Magician
who spent time in Ticasi as a diplomat and scholar. Z’leyra had
managed to do well enough in her healing studies, primarily because
of her earlier shamanic training, that she was recognized as a Master
Healer.

  From her father as part of her training she learned how to be a
  Master Armorer and Kameri Weaponsmith. The training she received
  from the Sidh also instructed her in the skill of Jeweler in which
  she became quite competent if not quite a Master.

Tiren, having reestablished himself in Ticasi society, attempted to
attain the rank of Counsel of Metal Crafts. His blades were wondrously
strong but he was up against a clan of metal workers that had
controlled the post, with one two-year exception, for generations.
In one test the judging was obviously biased, two years later in the
next test in which he had arranged for powerful neutral observers to
watch, his examples were stolen and replaced with shoddy substitutes.
While making items for the third test the forge in his house
mysteriously caught fire and burned the house to the ground, killing
Tiren and destroying all his notes.

This left Z’leyra homeless. After seven years in Ticasi she was
ready for a change. Her father was dead and her grandfather had died
years earlier. All the rest of her father’s relatives snubbed her,
thinking and talking of her as ‘that barbarian brat’ and treating
her as a servant or slave. Her closest friends were in the forest, not
the city.
After conferring with some of these friends she realized that only
by leaving and coming back obviously rich and powerful would she
change how they thought of and treated her.

This fit in with her other long term plans: becoming powerful enough
to find and expose her father’s killers then ultimately going back
to Kameran with enough knowledge and power so as to be respected
rather than ostracized for leaving the Kameran. She knows that the
longer she takes the more impressive she must be as she will be
compared with her sister who will have been advancing in skill as a
shaman for years.

Z'leyra was ready for adventure when it offered. Part of her training
and later work as a healer had her acquiring enough fame as a healer
that one night she was woken up to care for a man dying from an exotic
poison. While unable to save the man, she was alone with him when he
decided that his mission required him to pass a package to her with
instruction to get it to his comrade in Aratad. The next morning
Z’leyra closed up her affairs in Ticasi, gathered the equipment
she could and took off for Aratad.

Twenty days of hiking later Z’leyra arrived in Aratad after an
uneventful journey. Here was the real start of her adventures. She
delivered the package to the designated recipient, Cortez Aqula,
a merchant.
The next morning Cortez Aqula, impressed with Z’leyra and her
honesty in delivering the package, hired her to make another delivery.
In making the delivery she heard about Varange and managed to get to
 Clima to join in his rescue.

"Good friends, at the lunch tomorrow amongst others we should have
from the Magic Department Deputy Councilman Burl Tiesmorten the Law
Department Counselman Silaius Duke Jewel Crafting Teacher Yalenka Narda
Medicine teacher Professor Garr
Dancing teacher Ira Armanth
and hopefully a number of other worthy witnesses.
This is what I propose to tell to our guests tomorrow."

Honored guests. I asked you here to listen and hopefully to witness.
 Oh Julis 5, 1632TH my father, Tiren, was in his workshop working on
 a masterwork for demonstrating his craft and vying for a council
 seat when the workshop caught fire and burned down, Tiren dying in
 that fire. It was proclaimed an accident. Though I was studying
 other subjects I had spent many hundreds of hours acting as my father'
 s apprentice. I knew the shop and my father's habits. I could not see
 the fire happening by accident, but I had no way to prove otherwise.

These other subjects I studied were medicine and magic. Both of which I
did very well in. I had been practicing levitation when I heard of the
fire. Afterwards I had little to hold me here. I had passed my
apprenticeships, yes I had studied hard and learned more than one, and
helped out in the infirmary while pondering what to do next.  There I
agreed to a dying man's request which set me off on a series of
adventures which now have me living in Sivas.

I kept up my magical studies. I had learned the basics of the difficult
and even dangerous Akasha spell that allows one to see into the past.
If I got skilled enough at that spell I could use it to see what had
occurred when the workshop burnt down. Potentially useful, but that
would provide no proof to others if I had a vision thru a spell. So
I also considered how to make the vision of the past visible to
others. My idea is to make a Ward that will cast a translucent
illusion of any Akasha spell cast in its area of affect. Translucent
so that one can see what was happening both inside and outside of
any walls. With magically adept witnesses they can see that I am
not casting an illusion myself when I use the Akasha spell to see
into the past.

I made a staff, and later a wand and other items to assist me in my
 spell castings. They can be examined to show that they do not have
 any improper enchantments, that they are not enchanted to cast an
 illusion.
I hope that after we have eaten we can go to the site of the workshop. 
Make sure that I, or anyone else has not recently cast magic there,
and witness me cast the Ward and Akasha and see a vision from the
past showing what DID happen to set the workshop alight. Whether it
was an accident or if some other thing or perhaps person was the cause.

"Any suggestions?"

In the evening, after dinner, she will return the days visitation
ribbons to a guard.


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