Byzantine

[Inkfinger]

The Church of the Ethereal Sway had many interesting artifacts in the offices of its priests and workers, and the office of Portal Keeper Antanas Bukowski was no different. There were talismans and tokens and totems, and off in the corner was a small partial dome on a carved pedestal of white marble.

The dome was supposed to be used for scrying and summoning and communications in equal part - it hadn’t been used for those purposes in months, if not years. In fact, it hadn’t been used as anything but a reflective surface for him to use as a mirror to trim his beard with in a long, long time.

He was doing just that this particular morning, carefully…but not carefully enough to avoid scoring a vibrant red line across his own jaw when the thing actually spoke.

“Portal Keeper Antanas?” The voice that came through warbled as if it were traveling underwater: wavering and faint, but audible. Antanas scrabbled for a handkerchief to press to his cheek, staring at the surface of the dome. Sway, if it was one of the high priests and they’d seen him…!

"This is…" He stammered, "I-yes, I mean, I am Antanas, but how did you-"

"Does it really matter? All that matters is I did." There was a vocal tone very much like a smirk in that voice, audible through the warbling. "You may call me Foxlight. I possess some…information for you, and would look forward to continuing to give you this information for a...nominal fee. Do you have paper nearby?”

Antanas’s handkerchief stayed stuck to his cheek when he grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from a stack at random, ignoring Viktor's tight, paranoid scrawl that filled the front of the page. “Yes?”

The voice went on to tell him many things. Names. Many many names: names of villages and towns and fiefdoms, but never routes, roads or modes of transportation, and it seemed to go on forever. Antanas was almost dozing off to uneasy daydreams of insurgents on ice drakes when the voice suddenly cut off, leaving a silence so loud that it was almost a sound all on its own.

It did not speak again.

Antanas stared at the globe for a moment before he looked down at the first name on the long list of places. Aouk. They could get there easily enough…

He fetched a clean piece of paper and began drafting a request for a troop contingent.