OOC note: This Progression was written as part of the Storyweb System, linked here. This post pertains to the activities of the Digmaan's League. Those interested to partake in this roleplay in future missions should seek out the League to offer assistance in roleplay, to fully partake in future posts. Whispers in the Dark The Slizzar, Zzaralla Jisz-Yaotl, had a mission of discovery. The trail is cold, and the rumor is just one of many in the bustling port cities of the Regalian coast, but tales of fortune travel far. Rumorcrafting is a fine art of half-truths and Zzaralla Jisz-Yaotl found herself to be adept at sifting the wheat from the chaff. In a particularly inspired bout of intrigue, the Slizzar jumps between taverns and lines of gossip before eventually finding a barman worth liquoring up and mining for information. Surprisingly, for a smuggler with the disposition of a braggart, this individual has been able to keep personal information about themselves relatively obscure. Regardless, Zzaralla was able to gain some operational information: the smuggler in question is based out of a string of small-scale front warehouses and leads a small armada of fast, reliable cutter boats. They were seen last in the dangerous, lawless, sprawling dockyards of Daenshore, operating under the moniker “Calico Jim”. Of particular note was the one record of said Smuggler being caught, in which he employed traps “from the void itself” to distract and dismember his enemies. The truth of that rumor aside, the Slizzar return to Regalia with this intel. The company of Allar reaches its destination in a relatively speedy manner - the voyage is particularly lucky and arrives spared any difficulties from the monsoons swirling in eddies down the Hadarian coast. As representatives of the Digmaan Yaotl, the small detachment of Allar is received with subdued pomp and an air of slight suspicion. The Es-Allar, Llazzil Es-Yaotl, stands at its fore as its primary diplomat, and the two Al-Allar, Zuzumi and Llozzi'sil Al-Yaotl, stand primed to advise on matters of alchemy. After a round of terse pleasantries, the Es-Allar cuts to the core of the discussion and discovers an issue: because of the discontinuity of records between the various Courts of Alchemists, especially given the dissolution of prior iterations of an Alchemists’ Court, what exactly was lost is difficult to determine. They simply few records that survived the dissolutions. One record did however. Uon Zuzumi inquiring about a particular alchemical study involving military chemicals, the group is granted a sample of one such chemical. It bears no name, itself merely a sample of what could have been taken, but the mysterious jet black liquid may hold answers if the matter was investigated further. Still, they can hypothesize, and the Court of Alchemists is able to speculate sparingly on what the Essa Empire retained in its alchemical stores based on administrative records. With the expertise of Zuzumi and Llozzi’sil, who worked well in tandem with one another, they are able to narrow the near-exhaustive list of potential ingredients and alchemical products. The “most likely” disappearances fall to a range of military chemicals and highly expensive reagents, all of which would be worth stealing, but all of which were destroyed by the Regalian Empire. The group returns with information on what could have been taken, but nothing of what specifically disappeared, other than the mysterious liquid they had been given. The Digmaan submitted his appeal for records, and the noble sea lords of the Admiralty receive the request of the Digmaan Yaotl with deference. The request does not yield much immediately; there were many midshipmen deployed in many different areas of responsibility, and many were discharged, honorably or otherwise, in the aftermath of the Chrystant War. With every counterquestion, the Admiralty clerks provide even more questions and very few answers. The Digmaan would find little answers without a proper representative of the Admiralty by his side. Perhaps a direct word with an influential affiliate of the Admiralty would help grease the wheels.
