THE FIRST LAND HERALD

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GRUESOME RESULTS FROM ARBITER CONTRACT BREACH

428-08-02.

I was contacted today by Ysei Sanar, a local Trader, who told me that she witnessed what is in my view a profoundly disturbing event. What follows is as she described.

Some andaen ago, a researcher by the name of Dehvra Valdish, of Valdish Enterprises, paid a visit to the Trader guild. She gave a brief presentation in which she revealed that her principal aim was to "[attempt] a controlled access of the Plane of Probability" in order to predict market forces. She said she planned to build upon the work one of her employees had begun, though he was most thoroughly unsuccessful and died in his endeavor.

For any who may not know the current position of the Trader guild (though I detailed it thoroughly in a previous article), only three years ago it successfully completed negotiations with the Arbiter in Darkness, a Greater Concept of the Plane of Probability. Thanks to the diplomacy of Lord Veahmic Turmar, an esteemed elder Trader, the guild was granted access to numerous magical spells of the Lunar variety, though they are quite unlike any known to the Moon Mage guild. These spells are taught in our Plane by a plural being called the Negotiants, a mosaic of tesserae, spun glass, and refracted light. However, in addition to the agreement to grant such vast power, very clearly written into the contract was that the guild must never touch the Plane of Probability.

Dehvra claimed that she had discovered a loophole: "By working through several shell proxies, I believe I can increase the time delay between access and information utilization, which as I outlined previously, evokes the simultaneity clause of my contract amendment." According to Ysei's understanding, the contract stated that the Arbiter must act within a certain time period, and so if Dehvra could delay enough, it would supposedly not be allowed to stop her from utilizing the Plane of Probability.

Today, Dehvra appeared at the guild again and enacted her experimental venture to access the forbidden Plane. She began by creating several illusory copies of herself of coalesced crystal and starlight — the first demonstration of such ability, I might add — which were only discernible by a slight glistening and their tendency to repeatedly perform actions in a series of loops. These copies began to sketch in the air a radiant series of elaborate and extraordinarily complex equations, including such defined terms as "Mean Frequency of Energized Crauyarin," "Variation in Resumption Recall," and "Price of Steel vs. Xibar Phase." This display seemed to form in cadence with Dehvra's concentration, growing rapidly in areas of little concern and much slower in those where she paused to regard them. As it finished, each copy stepped backward and vanished.

Suddenly, Dehvra stared at her hand, and Ysei was aware of what seemed to be an infinite number of Dehvras, as if she were caught between two mirrors.

Dehvra began to scream.

Each mirror image started to shake and then to change. One was dressed in ragged and filthy robes, another bleeding from the eyes, another cradling a baby, on and on. This cascading series began to vibrate, a high keening sound building. The floor cracked and strained and gusts of searing heat and shocking cold billowed around the room. Staring at Dehvra, Ysei found that she was looking instead at the back of her own head. She could only describe this experience as the embodiment of a contradiction.

With a screech of shattering glass, the Negotiants suddenly unfolded from empty air, extending fractal extremities that bristled with red hot crystal needles. They lashed out at the remaining illusions, shattering them, and Ysei heard their crystalline voices in her mind: "You are in breach of contract, Dehvra Valdish, and your gifts are forfeit."

The Negotiants exploded into tendrils and razor-wire and began to spin them rapidly around Dehvra, lashing into her and extracting her embedded avtalia crystals. (I'm told that surgically implanting such an array is a common procedure now.) They etched a cube of starlight around her head, which appeared to immobilize her. Horrifically, they then proceeded to cleanly remove the crown of her skull, tendrils writhing into her exposed brain.

After a few agonizing moments, the tendrils retracted, the skull fragment was replaced and the wound cauterized. The Negotiants began etching a series of starlight diagrams in a perimeter around Dehvra, apparently attempting to contain the contradiction, which appeared to be growing. A mass of shadow and light, space warped and crackled around it, reflections of shattered perspective and prismatic hues of raw starlight and inky darkness rippling against the far walls of the room. Frost dripped from the air around its border, sizzling as it hit the ground, which also rippled from the unseen forces. The room dimensions seemed to shift.

Although the Negotiants continued their work, soon their containment diagrams began to flex and bulge, before finally shattering. Dehvra was gone. From every right angle sprang maddened zenzics and starcrashers. The area pitched like the deck of a ship in a storm. Most present lost their lives in the ensuing invasion.

In time, the invasion was quelled. At the end of it, Trader Jep reported that he saw the Negotiants reappear, saying something about "possibilities were accounted for," before returning to their usual location within the Crossing guildhall.

Master Trader Rafano also reported seeing some "after-images" of Dehvra. "In the first, her face was bloodied. She was silently screaming, beating her fists against an invisible wall. Then she vanished. In the second, her robes were torn. She was running in a panic. She glanced back over her shoulder, then tripped and fell on the ground. All this was silent… only images… like a spirit."

Aside from noting the staggering arrogance displayed today, I would like to add something I heard three years ago from Lady Lilena, an incident that may be considered related. She spoke of an artifact guarded by her House, a set of books that contained "very particular mathematical formulae," notably advanced probability theory. These books were stolen by researchers interested in "seeing things more clearly." According to Lilena, the breach was "extremely brief, just long enough for the fools to get themselves killed." The Arbiter, you see, responded to their meddling, intercepting them before they could cause too much harm. However, as a side effect, a temporal distortion was created at the site of Ulf'Hara Keep, sealing a portion of time away, "forever to repeat, but safely unable to become one with our time, our fate." This contact was the beginning of the now fateful dialogue between House Turmar and the Arbiter.

Fascinating that Lady Lilena described such a temporal bubble, for lack of a better term. And now it seems that Dehvra, too, is contained in some way, no longer on our Plane. Perhaps she is trapped in infinite other worlds, doomed to repeat forever as punishment for her transgression. I will pray to Harawep for her. But in the end, it may have been necessary in order to prevent her breach from consuming our very world.

Traders, you play with dangerous mathematics. I task you to stay within the boundaries of your Contract.

Remain vigilant.

Navesi Daerthon
True Bard, Zoluren's Herald
Editor in Chief of the First Land Herald

There is no contract preventing moon mages from accessing the plane of probability. Perhaps this needs to be a joint venture.