The meeting suite in the subterranian town is heavily secured against evesdropping. Other than the single hallway that you arrived through, there are no other open spaces within 40 feet. Several heavy doors guard the passageway. The seals on each door are good enough that a 2 inch golden sphere traced with mithril between points of diamonds sits in the center of small anti-theft cage riveted to the table to purify the air lest the people meeting here smother.
Various wards glow on the walls, ceiling, and floor in all the rooms of the suite, but only the central room is currently occupied. A small buffet-room, three chamber-pot rooms, and half a dozen smaller meeting rooms (also with enchanted doors and air-freshment) all open into this central room.
All 39 people in the room are wearing floor-length hooded robes and gloves as are all but one of the other participants. The clothing was provided by your hosts, and randomly selected by each of you. The common enchantments placed on almost all magical gear ensure that there is no seperate pool of garments for persons of various sizes. Your faces, feet and hands are additional protected by illusions and blurring transmutations. Similarly, your voices are transformed via transmutation magic into one of over a hundred pre-selected voices (enhanced with a Tongues effect so that everyone's mind hears the words spoken in their own native tongue). Also selected for each robe by the wearer after donning it is a different pattern and a large number displayed on the chest, back, forehead, and wrists.
As the last door is shut and bolted, and the audio-visual alarms are armed linked to ALL the security measures, the only individual who is not disguised rises from the head of the table. This elf is the only one of you girded for war, wearing shining full-plate, and bearing a two-handed sword with a pommel shaped like a rock and a composite longbow.
"Welcome all, and I hope we may find Wisdom and set this world one step further on along the path to Understanding, and, I hope, Peace with our words here. My name is Benir the Fair and I shall be doing my poor best to represent the opinions of the nation of Ruceeglaelsktinag in this discussion. I swear on my soul that I shall bring no violence against any individual lawfully attending this meeting* on account of their words spoken here, even unto high treason or grave crimes against sapient beings and the codes of war intended or already accomplished, save those necessary to preserve the Peace in this room. Any who break the Peace until we have all gone our separate ways, with their actions, whether by strength of arm, or the various means that reality may be bent by the strength of word I shall meet with harsh judgement. Neither will I tolerate shouting people down or the like, as this is also a breaking of the Peace.
We are met here to discuss what is proper and wise to do regarding the actions Ruceeglaelsktinag in matters of the war with many of the nations of the Vedag. Based on my prior experience with this sort of meeting, the dice and the wheel of blind chance would indicate that some of you stand opposed to Ruceeglaelsktinag to one degree or another, and I would not hesitate to do my best to kill you if we met outside this truce. The reverse is also true, that many of you would count it a desirable thing to slay me if you could encompass it, and not all of you would find any violation of your conscience in doing it here and now despite the truce you all swore before arriving. This is a good thing to me. For surely the day when all persons are brothers and sisters who live in peace is far off, if it ever comes in the life of these current worlds. If their must be mortal foes in this world, then King Ruceeglaelsktinag hopes that there would at least be understanding of others, and progress towards understanding, since he believes that mutual comprehension of the motives between foes is more likely to make them friends in the longer run.
Some of you will choose to speak, and some to keep silence and only hear and consider**. I think that both can be a path to wisdom, but even a child or simpleton can ask a question that mighty thinkers would struggle a thousand years and yet find themselves only a little closer to an answer for.
For myself, I will choose to speak in whatever mix of statements and questions I believe will most increase the enlightenment of the world as a whole, and those gathered here in particular. I am most happy when I speak with neither passion nor certainty, for I believe that passion often distorts judgement, and to speak without certainty even of matters where one is quite certain of invites others to show you refinements, or you them. Nay-the-less, I prefer to hear passion and certainty than nothing at all from others.
Speak now your own oaths and introductions, as you yourselves choose, to give the greater assurance to your fellow speakers to loose their tongues to the edification of all."
*((In other words, if someone snuck in invisible to eaves-drop, he would feel free to go to town on them.))
**((Benir the Fair doesn't care who talks and who doesn't, but Draco Dei does, and hopes that as many players as possible will speak.))
Various wards glow on the walls, ceiling, and floor in all the rooms of the suite, but only the central room is currently occupied. A small buffet-room, three chamber-pot rooms, and half a dozen smaller meeting rooms (also with enchanted doors and air-freshment) all open into this central room.
All 39 people in the room are wearing floor-length hooded robes and gloves as are all but one of the other participants. The clothing was provided by your hosts, and randomly selected by each of you. The common enchantments placed on almost all magical gear ensure that there is no seperate pool of garments for persons of various sizes. Your faces, feet and hands are additional protected by illusions and blurring transmutations. Similarly, your voices are transformed via transmutation magic into one of over a hundred pre-selected voices (enhanced with a Tongues effect so that everyone's mind hears the words spoken in their own native tongue). Also selected for each robe by the wearer after donning it is a different pattern and a large number displayed on the chest, back, forehead, and wrists.
As the last door is shut and bolted, and the audio-visual alarms are armed linked to ALL the security measures, the only individual who is not disguised rises from the head of the table. This elf is the only one of you girded for war, wearing shining full-plate, and bearing a two-handed sword with a pommel shaped like a rock and a composite longbow.
"Welcome all, and I hope we may find Wisdom and set this world one step further on along the path to Understanding, and, I hope, Peace with our words here. My name is Benir the Fair and I shall be doing my poor best to represent the opinions of the nation of Ruceeglaelsktinag in this discussion. I swear on my soul that I shall bring no violence against any individual lawfully attending this meeting* on account of their words spoken here, even unto high treason or grave crimes against sapient beings and the codes of war intended or already accomplished, save those necessary to preserve the Peace in this room. Any who break the Peace until we have all gone our separate ways, with their actions, whether by strength of arm, or the various means that reality may be bent by the strength of word I shall meet with harsh judgement. Neither will I tolerate shouting people down or the like, as this is also a breaking of the Peace.
We are met here to discuss what is proper and wise to do regarding the actions Ruceeglaelsktinag in matters of the war with many of the nations of the Vedag. Based on my prior experience with this sort of meeting, the dice and the wheel of blind chance would indicate that some of you stand opposed to Ruceeglaelsktinag to one degree or another, and I would not hesitate to do my best to kill you if we met outside this truce. The reverse is also true, that many of you would count it a desirable thing to slay me if you could encompass it, and not all of you would find any violation of your conscience in doing it here and now despite the truce you all swore before arriving. This is a good thing to me. For surely the day when all persons are brothers and sisters who live in peace is far off, if it ever comes in the life of these current worlds. If their must be mortal foes in this world, then King Ruceeglaelsktinag hopes that there would at least be understanding of others, and progress towards understanding, since he believes that mutual comprehension of the motives between foes is more likely to make them friends in the longer run.
Some of you will choose to speak, and some to keep silence and only hear and consider**. I think that both can be a path to wisdom, but even a child or simpleton can ask a question that mighty thinkers would struggle a thousand years and yet find themselves only a little closer to an answer for.
For myself, I will choose to speak in whatever mix of statements and questions I believe will most increase the enlightenment of the world as a whole, and those gathered here in particular. I am most happy when I speak with neither passion nor certainty, for I believe that passion often distorts judgement, and to speak without certainty even of matters where one is quite certain of invites others to show you refinements, or you them. Nay-the-less, I prefer to hear passion and certainty than nothing at all from others.
Speak now your own oaths and introductions, as you yourselves choose, to give the greater assurance to your fellow speakers to loose their tongues to the edification of all."
*((In other words, if someone snuck in invisible to eaves-drop, he would feel free to go to town on them.))
**((Benir the Fair doesn't care who talks and who doesn't, but Draco Dei does, and hopes that as many players as possible will speak.))
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