#elsewhere

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Kerri finds Frank in the main hall. "Mountain...we need to speak." She sounds concerned.

Frank stands. "Something wrong?"

"Not...exactly. It's about the treasure gleaned from Leech's trove. Symon has had a chance to get a good look at it. Have you?"

Frank grunts. "Didn't need to look, really. I could feel it. But yes, I also used my eyes when it was safe to do so."

She nods, sighing. "We need to figure out where he got it from...and we need to figure out where it's going."

Frank nods. "When Brekke gets up, we'll meet and talk."

"I am here," Brekke's voice rumbles from up the stairs, and she makes her way down to join them. "What news?"

Frank approaches and kisses her cheek, less restrained around Kerri (who, really, has seen it all).

"We were discussing the Treasures taken from Leach. And what to do with him is something else to discuss."

She returns the kiss on the cheek, then nods. "I am tempted to turn him over to the Count. But the treasures...that must surely be part of settling the centaurs safely."

"Yes," Kerri says, "but there is more than money and gold there." She looks to the Mountain to continue.

Frank tells her of the harp, other items, and... the Balefire ember.

A startled look at that last. "Are you certain?"

"I am, Brekke."

"We need to know where it came from, Chieftain," Kerri says.

"Mm." Brekke nods, brow furrowed. "I could try to whisper it."

"That is a powerful fuel to tap into." Frank points out "I have no doubt you could do it but... it does not know you."

"True. Do you have another suggestion?"

"Balefires are wyld energy; raw Dreamstuff. They can be greatly influenced by one who cares for them. This ember would be a... a baby. An infant. Subject to imprinting, I would think, and I can't say for sure it would know its own source."

"We can try Willowwhisper but be careful."

"Oh," Kerri says, "maybe Olgar might have better luck with it."

A grunt.

Kerri gives him a look. "He has the Dreamcraft, Mountain."

"He does." Frank agrees.

"Mm," Brekke nods. "I will Whisper, and he can keep the ember contained within itsef."

Olgar called for, does respond, "What's up?"

A quick explanation of the situation from Kerri. "...so we need to figure out where it comes from, but we also need to keep it from, I don't know, going wild or however you'd describe it."

"Can it be done?" Brekke asks?

"Yeah, sure, it's not so different from inducing a mediation in the bale, a sense of no expectations, just being. " Olgar nods and he digs for some chalk "Donn't let my calm demeaor fool you. I'm stunned that SOB got an Ember. "

"I'm a little worried about how he got it," Kerri says. Then, "No, make that a lot worried."

Frank quietly goes to get the jar with the ember in it.

Brekke gets a somewhat distant look as she seeks out the bunk for the WillowWhisper.

She murmurs a bit of poetry she learned long ago:
"Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze"

She speaks it close to the jar held in Frank's hands, attending to the signs of reaction.

Olgar has worked his own magic, holding it steady

And...then it waits

"From which balefire were you taken, Ember?"

A blink. "What was your firebrand's intended destination?"

"To a hold that never existed. False paper work in the Noble Bueracracy works wonders"

Olgar.. fights a chuckle

Brekke gives him a glance, then whispers to the ember, "Who facilitated this deception?"

Brekke nods, looking to Frank to make sure he got the other bureaucrat's name, too.

Frank nods; he got it.

His eyes narrow; a thinking expression, and not happy thoughts.

The spell sputtered out

Brekke looks to him as the cantrip ends. "Leech has been able to amass this treasure over several lifetimes. He must have an extensive network to support that plan."

"Well, that's.... actually GOOD news. It's fair game, the ember I mean"