The Princess Jorino has declared the Seafarer Guild an enemy of the Crown, in a public paper.
This follows a lock-down of the Docks district, again through the Princess' Defender Regiment, and again the point of which was to disrupt Seafarer business.
I asked Jessica Whyte how she intends on addressing the issue.
"It's already being taken care of," she replied.
I feel a bit unnerved by Jessica. She seems different.
I can't help but wonder about her lanceboard scheme, and those pieces she knocked down. A symbol for death, surely. But then I remember she is no killer. She is cruel, yes, but not a killer. I know this, because I have known her since she was a small girl.
Today I thought I heard Jessica speaking with someone in her office.
I entered, silently, and I swear I saw someone - a small figure, cloaked in a rather regal, expensive, rare looking cloak, but...
When I squinted to confirm my sight, there was nothing.
And Whyte, of course, was silent. Staring at me.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Nothing," I replied, and left.
I was sure she was was talking to someone...
Reyhenna Jorino, it seems, has left the military. It happened so quickly I can't fathom how.
She published her venom in the papers, this time directing it to the Bank of Peltarch. And then apparently a crowd of rioters attacked the bank.
Following this, a military tribunal was held, in which a littany of Jorino's military misdeeds were conjured up. Apparently her regiment, which is far too large for the current General Sally Williams, is to be split up.
Rather than let that split happen, Jorino decided instead to defect from the military and create her own mercenary company.
I asked Whyte what she thinks of all of this. Surely, I suggested, she must be happy that her opponent Jorino has been defanged so.
She smiled, and simply said: "Yes, it's a step in the right direction."
The Magistrate Shannon d'Arneau has apparently convinced the Regent Damian Fisher to raise taxes in a manner that specifically targets the Seafarer Guild's generous rates. And apparently the Regent's daughter, along with the Royal Council - Roslyn Underhill, Jonni Aelthasson, Isolde Garibaldi, and others - support the maneuver.
Naturally, Jessica Whyte is most displeased.
Again I asked her what her plan was to settle the issue, or re-negotiate with the Crown.
And again she replied, "It's being taken care of."
Today, for the first day in a long time, Jessica Whyte was her old self again. At least, she felt the same way she did before, some several years ago. She even confided in me.
She told me she was hesitant about her plans. A vaguery, to be certain, but I welcomed her approach, even though I had no idea what her plans might be.
"Perhaps you should revisit your plans," I counselled her.
"Perhaps," she conceded.
"Perhaps I can help?" I suggested.
"Let's go for a walk," she said.
We walked then to the pathway to the East, leading to the Royal Estates.
I heard Princess Jorino spent most of her time there these days. A curious destination, I thought. Surely she was not going to visit the Royals, let alone the Princess.
Then of course we found Princess Jorino, walking along this path, with her companion, the beautiful Isolde Garibaldi. Again I am left breathless at the sight of this Bardess.
We were luckily stuck in the rain together. All four of us (myself invisible), plus Whyte's assistants. Under a canopy from the walls nearing the pathway.
I was distracted by the beautiful Isolde.
When I finally regained my senses I noticed, and I believe, Jessica was trying to tell them something. She was turning around an issue and I could see, finally, when I looked Jessica's way, that her eyes flickered the manner they do when she tries to muster the courage to explain something embarrassing. I confess, however, I have not seen her this way since she was much younger.
I remembered then that Jessica Whyte and Reyhenna Jorino used to cooperate, not so long ago. Prior to the Docks Union debacles, they were rather closely aligned on certain issues.
It was at that point that the beautiful Isolde Garibaldi surprisingly remarked about Jessica's teeth. Isolde pointed out how yellow and ugly Jessica's teeth are. It is true that ever since she began to smoke tobacco and pipeweed, Miss Whyte's teeth have grown yellow and indeed it has not helped her complexion either.
The contrast between the gorgeous Bardess Isolde Garibaldi, and the rather dishevelled Jessica Whyte was so glaringly obvious in the moment that I felt rather awkward. It certainly reminded me Miss Jessica is most physically unappealing. In particular, when compared to the miss Garibaldi. It is painfully clear.
And the assistants all saw it, too. Many of them tried to hide smiles because it was amusing I suspect to see such a contrast between the hardened Jessica Whyte and the very pretty Isolde Garibaldi. I believe I heard one of them stifle a laugh.
At that point Jessica's eyes stopped flickering. She had an assistant show her a mirror, to inspect her teeth. Then she shut her lips and fell quiet. She stared ahead, and waited. She waited for the rain to end. And when it did, we moved along in the opposite direction. Away from the Royal Estate. And away from the Princess, and Miss Garibaldi.
"Where were we going, again?" I asked her.
"Just for a walk. We're going back home," she replied.
Since that day, I have not seen Jessica Whyte smile with her teeth again.
Today, I saw Jessica pacing in her office.
She seemed most reluctant to proceed with or talk about whatever it is she is concerned about.
She fell silent for a time.
I noticed, out the window (note that her office overlooks the docks), the Princess Jorino, standing alone by the pier.
"There is the Princess," I remarked, candidly.
"She's early," Jessica replied, to my surprise. Early for what, I wonder? Was Jessica even expecting her? I wondered, indeed.
Not for long, though, for Jessica immediately reached for her coat and made her way out of the building to speak with the Princess.
I followed her, stealthy and as invisible as always.
When she finally met with the Princess, Jessica had the same look in her eyes as she did the few days before when we were stranded in the rain. Hesitation. I am convinced she wished to confide something to the Princess. Perhaps even ask for her assistance.
Then the Princess remarked, "You are nothing to me, Jessica Whyte."
"You are irrelevant. You are an absolute nobody, who will never do anything worthy of anyone's memory, anywhere," the Princess continued.
"You are so far beneath me I cannot even see you," Princess Reyhenna Jorino concluded.
I could see that Jessica's face was growing red at this. Out of embarrassment, surely, for I certainly felt embarrassed for her at the stark words.
Then, however, after a minute or so of this, Whyte seemed ... almost relieved, in my eyes.
She grew quiet, and unnaturally calm.
Eventually, Whyte simply replied: "Thank you."
Then we left.
Today it was announced that Triloquist was the real culprit behind Lorrin Wilkes' murder.
I remembered Whyte's lanceboard, in which she used the "T" piece to knock over Lorrin Wilkes.
"T."
The same letter which begins the name "Triloquist."
The name of the one behind Wilkes' death.
I am gravely unsettled. I must speak with Jessica about this.
I was on my way to ask Jessica about Triloquist and Lorrin Wilkes' murder. That was when I saw Jessica meet with a strange man.
The man was unknown to me. And yet, he seemed to know the entire layout of the Seafarer Headquarters.
He walked in and appeared to treat the place as though it were a quaint cottage on a riverbank that he used to visit when he was an infant.
He had a small, gray beard, and wore a businessman's clothes. He was quite adept at conversation, given his interactions with the clerks and staff.
When the staff asked for his name, he didn't give one. No one seemed to recognize him and this appeared to amuse the man, as though he recognized them.
Whyte, however, did know him. Indeed she appears to be the one who invited him in.
This time, I decided to not only be invisible, but also to avoid Jessica Whyte's notice. I made sure that, even though she quaffed a potion of invisible sight, I nevertheless used my natural stealth to avoid detection.
I dropped eaves on the conversation.
The man told her that he escaped from another realm, and only recently returned. The man seemed to know all it was that Whyte had been up to in recent times.
The man then congratulated her on what he called her "successes."
The man asked her about Lorrin Wilkes, and asked whether she was the one who set the events leading to his death in motion.
Whyte seemed almost proud that the man was even asking.
She did not deny it.
Then the man indicated that he admired Jessica's tenacity, and in particular, her plan involving a one Mister Elias Frogmouth. He asked her to confirm that she was indeed the one behind Mister Frogmouth.
Again, she did not deny it.
The name Elias Frogmouth immediately brought me back to the lanceboard. The lanceboard, which Whyte used to explain her plan. Her plan which, when stripped to its bare minimum, was a plan for murder and for war.
It dawned on me, as I listened to the two speak, that Whyte has been and continues to be cooperating with Triloquist. I realized, then, that she must have used Triloquist - convinced him somehow to act against Wilkes and, indeed, to act against her other enemies. It further dawned on me that Wilkes was dead, and that Whyte is the main beneficiary of that death.
It dawned on me also that the lanceboard was a plan to plunge Peltarch into war. I remembered all of those pieces, organized and cajoled by Elias Frogmouth. All those pieces, coming to Peltarch and then Jessica Whyte knocking over those pieces that represented the royal family.
All those pieces, knocked over. And the "J.W." piece standing in the center.
I immediately snuck out of the room. I was on my way out of the Seafarer Headquarters. I was on my way to the Magistracy, to the Crown, to anyone - to let anyone know - when I suddenly froze.
I could not move.
Though I willed my muscles to obey and run, they could only rebel. And stand perfectly still.
At that point, a -different- man, an elderly man, far older than the one Jessica was in the other room speaking to, approached me. This elderly, different man had blue eyes, and wrinkled skin, wearing a black hood and cowl. It was as though no one else in the Seafarer Headquarters could see him but me. He was very obviously a spellcaster of some sort. He wore around his neck a small horned symbol on a simple string that I could not quite make out.
I recognized him. From before. I had seen this man here a year ago at least.
He smiled at me so indifferently that I knew he meant me harm.
And yet I could not shout, or yell. Or even run.
This different man then walked into the room in which both Jessica Whyte and the other man were speaking.
Shortly after, Whyte exited the room, alone, and ordered the Seafarer Guards to take me away.
I have been placed in a prison capable of containing a mage.
I tried to escape, but the prison nullifies my magic completely. And I never was one for brute strength. Nor was I ever one for picking locks.
She came to visit me only once, since.
"Did you think I wasn't having you watched?" Jessica asked me.
I didn't know what to say. Then I remembered her lanceboard scheme, Triloquist, and Elias Frogmouth.
"I didn't think you were capable of mass murder," I remarked, bitterly.
"Then after all these years, even you don't know me," she replied, her tone so cold I shivered.
Before she left, she had the mercy of leaving me with my book and a quill with ink.
"To write in, so you don't get bored," she said. "It isn't as though anyone will read it."
Old, odd men and women in black robes and cowls whisper to the elite and the powerful. Strangers that I have never before met appear to know more about this city than people who have lived here all their lives.
I re-read this book, and the pages I have documented and I know that something is amiss.
Yet my disappointment in Jessica Whyte has overcome my fear for the future.
I don't feel like writing, anymore.
I don't feel like much of anything.
[DM Xanatos Gambit]
[Plot Finale - The Iconoclast.]
