Before Dinner in the Star Chamber Ingrey DamienIndex | Time Under Chaos | Game Logs | Before Dinner In The Star Chamber | Before Dinner in the Star Chamber Ingrey Damien Islain returned the smile with one that was reassuring but slightly troubled. "Whatever her troubles are, I know they are not my business unless she shares them with me, but she is a sweet girl and I enjoyed showing her Rebma those years ago. I hope... Perhaps you could tell her that I am here and that I would love for her to return the favor and show me how Amber has changed?" Damien noted the exchange between Vikund and Islain with some interest, even if she'd forgone his arm for that of The Spider. "If you'll excuse me," he said with a disarming smile as he broke away and crossed over towards Ingrey. Ingrey had recently finished his conversation with Chadwick, and turned toward Damien as he approached him. Ingrey gave a grazing nod of the head to welcome conversation. "Damien. So, have your efforts in the capture of Johann rewarded you with a title or position that I should now employ in addressing you?" Ingrey enquired. "Not as of yet... though I may be providing you with an appropriate patronymic one day soon," Damien said with a smile. "Oh?" Ingrey perked up his ears at Damien's response. His eyes betrayed his curiosity. "Is it someone that you are going to reveal that you already know, or something you are going to discover and reveal to all, including yourself?" "Oh, no... I've known all along," Damien said with a lazy flourish-wave of his hand, "... which ought to give you a good hint as to who the candidates are," he said as his lips became lopsided. "Perhaps it does." Ingrey agreed with a nod of his head. "I would not, however, discount the possibility of surprise in terms of the identity of your parentage. While I still frankly have difficulty understanding the obsession in hiding one's parentage here, I do understand that its unveiling is an event of no little significance." "Perhaps even a fete or ceremony of some sort will accompany the revelation?" Ingrey enquired. "Perhaps..." he said as he critically examined Ingrey's outfit. "I noticed that you and your fellow Chaosian guests are all wearing the Emperor's colors to some extent... does the Chaosian court have some variety of court dress, then?" "Now that" Ingrey took a sip of his glass of wine. "is a subject that I could speak at great length about, if permitted to do so." Damien motioned for him to continue, but smiled wryly, for both knew Damien had arrived late and it would not be espeically long before Flora summoned them to dinner. He nodded to Damien. "The reason why, for example, Her Excellency and myself are favoring the Emperor's colors is simple--we are here as his emissaries, his envoys, his representatives from the Embassy. The Embassy and its staff and denizens have fealty to the Emperor, to the Courts." "Now, if we were in Thelbane and having this party, it would be more likely that Her Excellency and myself would favor our House Colors, since we would likely be representing our Houses. Even if we were there for an Ambassadorial function." Ingrey said. "it would be understood that we would always be representing our Houses and so would highlight that." "And as long as those colors are displayed, the variety of permitted Chaosian Court Dress, although formal, varies from Emperor to Emperor, House to House and even function to function." Ingrey finished. "And your forms? I imagine the flesh in the room would be a bit more colorful were this chaos... or is the fashion these days to assume a human form?" Damien asked by way of follow-up as he snagged mellon wrapped in bacon - an abomination that had clearly escaped Flora's eagle eye. She had, after all, specified Parma ham wrapped around the melon. "Forgive me." Ingrey gave a slight grazing nod of the head. "We are two cultures separated by a common language. Although the variety and breadth of the ability of shapeshifting is wide in the Courts, by the term Dress, I refer not only to simply clothing, but the mutability and display of forms as well. There are many in the Courts who often dispense with outward garments, and shift their external features and dermal layers in the name of fashion, often spending hours to obtain the desired effect." "In general, however." Ingrey continued. "There are advantages to a bipedal form with articulated limbs that it is a common core form amongst Chaosians, and used in social situations. It can be difficult." Ingrey smiled slightly. "to get a read on someone in the form of a mostly transparent air elemental, to say nothing of the collateral damage such a form causes." "Though, I imagine, some things being universal, there are those who delight in the opportunity to show off their shifting prowess?" Damien asked as his smile grew into a smirk. "Of course." Ingrey agreed readily. "One has to be careful about such things, however. There are some powerful Chaosians who are not very skilled in shaping...but are skilled in sorcery and the sword, and take egregious displays in their presence as a social comment." "Duels can result from such confrontations." Ingrey explained. "Ah, yes... I've dealt with courts prone to such traditions and temperments. In my experience, it is a tragic, tragic way to lose gifted, proud mathematicians who lack a few social graces," Damien said with a smile which hinted he'd be happy to continue with his story if Ingrey were interested. "Mathematicians?" Ingrey raised an interrogatory eyebrow. "I am familiar with precious few worlds where such personages have places of prestige in the halls of power. Do continue." Ingrey said, titling his head slightly to show his interest in Damien's gambit. "Ah, but in many shadows they require patronage, just as artists do... but, being far more experienced in such things, artists have little shame in requesting another to stand in, or the social grace to avoid fault in the first place. Not so for the budding astronomer or topologist..." Damien went on to describe how an astronomer with which he was familiar had lost his nose to a duel, only to replace it with a gold cap, and then died 'of embarassment' rather than rise before the king gave leave for his guests to leave... or the other proud young mathematician who had dueled over a proof with someone not nearly so bright, but much better with a sword... and in dying, set back his field twenty years. Ingrey furrowed his eyebrows slightly as Damien related the small vignettes, giving a nod after each one, listening intently, asking probing questions to clarify small details. "I admit that I had not thought that such shadows would be the sort that you and your former comrade would favor." Ingrey admitted. "Certainly, the variety of shadows make anything possible, but I admit that shadows where mathematicians duel with weapons rather than papers is an unusual concept." "Of course." Ingrey added with a smile. "there are demons, in Chaos, which might be considered more as mathematical abstractions than actually physical entities. Dealing with such is an interesting and educational experience." Ingrey said, offering the bait for his own tale in repayment for Damien's. "Please, pray continue..." Damien said as he motioned for him to continue and reached behind himself for a full glass without taking his eyes from Ingrey as he spoke. "Its a cautionary tale, too." Ingrey said. "The human form is relatively common in Chaos, as we have already discussed. I myself favor a form which is relatively ordinary by Amberian standards, but that's the job of a diplomat, to provide bridges between cultures." "Chaos is not always congruent to Amber, however." Ingrey continued. "There are places in and bordering Chaos which twist at the mind just to gaze upon them. And twist at the body, too. I do not." The Wererathe Ambassador smiled "merely speak of things such as rooms where you might walk on any of the walls as if it were the ground, or other such things found in a book of art. I speak of places, close to the Pit, where dimensionality itself can be variable." "Permanent denizens of such realms." Ingrey continued. "have forms which transcend the ordinary physical. We call them demons like the sort with which you are more familiar. However, their taxonomy is far more complex. Creatures which are abstractions which manifest as projections into lower numbers of dimensions, stabilized and shaped by the underlying physical fields of the universe itself and the constants that drive them.""Thus, creatures that you might say are made of Mathematics itself." To communicate with such a creature even on the most basic level requires long study." Ingrey continued and then paused, lost in thought. He considered Damien blankly for a moment as his mind cast back, to that strange Crosshatch realm that Wererathe had once sent him. Ingrey finally continued his story. "Alas, I have chosen to focus on Diplomacy of a more straightforward sort, Damien, and cannot speak much further on what is involved. As you can guess, there are those who possess the skills and temperment to combine their study of Diplomacy with Demonology, and they commune with such beings on a regular basis for mutual gain." Ingrey smiled. Solitaire Helgram had never been one for entrances and tonight was no exception. As the assembly continued their discussions throughout the Star Chamber, another figure simply appeared in their midst, as if she'd been there all along. Obscured beneath a black capelet and dressed in velvet that shimmered from blue to violet, she hovered at the edge of the crowd like an iridescent spirit. Lace-trimmed fingerless gloves caressed her pale arms, accenting the silver serpent that wound about her wrist. The snake slithered in continuous circle as she moved about the room, perhaps a trick of the light. Ingrey managed the tricky balancing act of continuing to give Damien his attention, while his eyes flickered over, prompted by her abrupt appearance in his field of view. She paused briefly to remove her capelet and hand it to a servant. Her violet eyes scanned the room for a moment before settling on Ingrey and Damien. A faint smile of apology formed upon her burgundy lips and she provided him with a nod. Ingrey returned the nod and gave a welcoming tilt of the head. Damien was just finishing his first sip when Tear made her appearance. He studied her face with penetrating eyes, and smiled. Continued in Before Dinner In The Star Chamber Ingrey Damien Tear |
