#thirdlevelsocietyfirstversion

6 - Meona Bell: Part Two

1281 September 8

I'm trying to piece together what happened since I last wrote. Everything Ivella told me when I first woke up in the University Hospital Wing made no sense to me. How Carter almost caught her...how she got away...her background...

I have somewhat of a vague memory of the Caucus Chamber. It was on fire. Or was it just smoke and sparks? Was that yesterday? Or was it last week? Or a month ago?

I know that Daniel Carter and Julian got into a fight? But why would they be hurling spellfire discharges at each other?

Or was it Kara Martins? Yes. I remember now. Carter wasn't there. Or maybe he was on the Dais. And then Kara lashed out at Julian. First, it was shouting. Then it was spellfire dueling.

Wait. No. Ceri Mains was there. And she attacked them both. She barged in. Either that or one of her cronies slipped into the Chamber among other Members. I don't remember Ceri emerging from the Audience Section though. She was just spontaneously there.

Ivella is telling me that the later in time I think, the worse it is. So I need to go back to the beginning, the morning of September 6.

That does seem clearer to me. So here goes, 1281 September 6:

Shortly after breakfast came a knock on my Guestroom Door. To my complete surprise, I saw standing at the door a very aged version of Daniel Orville Carter, himself.

"Meona now, is it?" he said. When I answered, he shook my hand and gave me a hug. "A very beautiful addendum."

"I didn't know you'd respond so quickly," I said.

"To what?" Carter said, finding himself a seat. "If you sent a message, I never got it. I was staying up the road from here since yesterday. I picked up on your name over the phone with Dungeonmaster Julian." Carter reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. "By the way, I also have an important letter from Miss Ivella; and I need to take this to Julian in person. As you can see noted, we are not to mention this letter to anyone but Julian and his close company. And no one but Julian may open this letter and read it."

"So you've come to get me to take with you to Julian?" I asked.

"You seemed to have read my mind," Carter said, standing up again. "I'm afraid I have no time for coffee and biscuits if that's what your plans were. We'll have that later."

The Campus Watch checkpoint was still up. In fact, they stepped things up by doing a more thorough search of our bags and persons. Within a very short amount of time, however, we were in Dungeonmaster Julian's Office, where Carter handed Julian the letter and ordered him to read it.

"Finally, a sign from her," Julian said grudgingly but relieved. "Right on the day of my big talk." But when he read, the look of relief fell from his face, which turned pale and blank. With his hand shaking, he handed the letter to me. "Meona. Tell me what you make of this."

I looked at the letter. Apparently, Ivella Ogden boarded an airship in Clareon, the capital of the Mid-Westerlies, and intended to ride a flight to Savel, from where she would take a cable train to Ereautea. However, the airship she was on experienced an engine failure, forcing them to make an emergency landing in the island-nation of Monassa. That was, of course, a customs nightmare for her, because Monassa has been an independent country since 1249. So she had to wait for a copy of her passport to be mailed to her.

In addition to that, there was also heavy traffic due to summer travels; so Ivella had to wait a week before finally boarding an airship back to Savel, putting her hopelessly behind schedule.

I read the second part of the letter aloud but in a quiet voice: "...However, Julian, you don't need to be afraid, and I'm saying this for two reasons: first, I know Mary Kormann very well, much more than you think. Despite her demeanor and appearance, she is very resilient. Ceri Mains is no match for her.

"Second, in watching and even involving myself in the protection of the Cabotton community during this uncertain time, I've been made aware, much to my surprise, that Ceri Mains actually has no intention whatsoever to harm Mary Kormann or otherwise infiltrate the Society, despite what certain media sources may say.

"I cannot explain why I am saying this in this letter because that involves disclosing dangerous information that I cannot risk being leaked in the unlikely event that this message gets intercepted, but I promise that I will speak with you when I finally arrive, at which point everything will make sense. In the meantime, I must ask something unusual of you. And that is to have, what you may deem, blind faith in what I've told you and to use your best judgement given the circumstances.

"I will hopefully arrive by this coming Sunday, September 9. Again, once I explain everything in person, you will be left with no more questions on the matter. Sincerely, Ivella Marie Ogden."

Julian shook his head. "That...this just...None of it makes sense," he said hysterically. "At all...I have to be on the podium in..." Julian paused and looked at his watch. "Ninety minutes!" Julian stood up and began to pace frantically. "Ninety minutes from this very moment! I have to reassure the Caucus that everything is going to be alright! And then I have Kara Martins and those other buffoons to deal with!" Julian snatched the letter from me, crumpled it up, and threw it at the wall. "That daft woman, Ivella! How could she say this!? How could she be in complete denial!?"

"She is running that darkfire sanctuary, you know. I'm afraid it's possible she may have been swayed," Carter said, and for a brief moment, I remembered back to when Julian had mentioned that diplomacy was questionable between the two figures.

"What do we do, Daniel Carter? Meona Bell?" Now there was desparation in Julian's voice.

"You're a Dungeonmaster now," Carter said. "Think!"

"Oh great!" Julian said sarcasticly. "Thanks for your encouragement!"

"Let's talk to Mary Kormann," I said suddenly, standing up and lifting a calming hand to both of them. "Let's see if she has some words of encouragement to say...to the Caucus, I mean."

"You're starting to sound like Ivella now," Julian said accusingly.

"Do you have a better alternative, Mackwell?" Carter asked sternly.

Julian paused and sat back down. It seemed that he shrank and grew weaker. "Fine," he said. "Let's try Mary."

1 September 1281

So I have started off the month returning back to Cabotton University on an urgent matter. Apparently, the notorious Ceri Mains, who escaped the Mount Carris Perimeter last month, is especially interested in a vulnerable prodigy named Mary Kormann, who currently is a Member of the Third Level Society. The current Dungeonmaster is Julian Mackwell of whom I know almost nothing save his name. I've been warned, however, that there is a certain amount of treachery this time.

Goodness! It's been years since I've been to the University. I'm sure there's all new faces and none of anyone I knew in the past. I think of anyone I knew there, Oscar Lehman held out the longest. He definitely thought he could not swing the Dungeonmaster position, but I told him to fake the confidence until he found true confidence. Honestly, that might not have been the best advice, but it did work, didn't it. He lasted four years in there, almost as long as Ivella. However, once he was ready to hand the Office to someone else, he left and never dealt with the Society again. I guess I was right in sensing that the Dungeonmaster position is very taxing.

It seems like yesterday that I was dealing with Cray Fenton and Oscar Lehman. That was twenty years ago. So much has changed, both on the outside and the inside. We parted ways that year, but Sari Frame and I went in the same direction, supporting a growing demographic within the ranks of the Third Level Society Caucus, a demographic who had long been voicing a long-ignored desire to create a medieval version of the Arturian Realm, set in parallel to life in Remikra during the age of John Dane and the advent of the hot air balloon. Such a proposal had been made in during the off-weeks Caucus meetings, and had been repeatedly for at least the last two decades; every single time, it never was taken seriously. The number of extra dymensional plane servers needed to be built for this simply put the cost beyond the Society's current budget. Our call was answered, however, by two unexpected individuals: Marcus Terrings and Jon Beyon. We met with them in the city of Cenofan across the Circlarian Ocean on the continent of Canticula. Marcus and Jon had a lot of Canticulan friends, many of whom willing to not only invest in our desired medieval dymensional plane, but to set it up across numerous expansive servers located in branches across the Midland River States. That started in 1261; and by 1267, we were at such a height that I began to believe my life to be defined in major part by this enterprise. Then came the Provans. Their small, tiny state in the far East of Canticula, apparently a republic, came under sway of some sort of a charismatic figure, who invaded her neighbors and then pushed Westward. Nothing could stop the Provans. They played politics, taking advantage of a rivalry existing between the Midland River States and the Chokian Republic by pushing both sides into war. And then, as conflict broke out, the Provans launched their offensive…against both sides. Neither side had the capability to match them. The Provans annihilated both sides in one fell swoop. I personally was not present in any of their grim battlefields, thankfully. But I did ride in an airship over one of the Midland River capitals, which was nothing but a blackened area. Apparently, Provan bombing and created a large inferno that raged there in days past. Rumor has it that the Provans destroyed that city with one large "device of mass destruction." Even today I hardly believe that. To conceive of a single bomb capable of setting an entire city ablaze is something I buy with difficulty. I believe it was most likely the work of a thorough raiding job. Regardless, we were forced to close up shop and locate back to Remikra. Some of us went back to try and retrieve the trecholators. We succeeded in retrieving two of them, but the rest were either destroyed or salvaged by the Provans. In some instances, some of our people were turned back and had to go home. So we were forced to start over.

Up to that point, though, we had become just as guilty as the Third Level Society, in that we never took the time to consider an idea voiced by a growing number of our people: setting up a dymensional plane of Remikra, itself, during the tenth century. Similar to Medieval Arturia back in the Third Level Society, the Remikra imitation idea was never taken seriously due to the ridiculous costs. But now that we were back from Canticula, having settled in West Terredon, Combria, the idea of Medieval Remikra, preferred now by a majority of our members thanks to Jon Beyon and Marcus Terrings having thrown support behind this, finally received the funding and opportunity for implementation that its original creators long asked for. Unfortunately, the idea of rebuilding Medieval Arturia was put in moratorium and has been largely forgotten. Also, the realism expectations of Medieval Remikra have called for extensive research into history, geography, and culture. And it's definitely proven to be as daunting of a task as we feared back in 1267. It is now fourteen years later, and we are still researching.

There have also been quite a lot of changes in my personal life, but I guess I will dwell on those later.

I will end with this, however. I am quite thankful for the Greycloak. Just in case this personal journal gets stolen, I won't disclose who Greycloak is or their specific role, but they are the ones who paid for everything: the whole Canticula agenda despite its downfall; the whole Medieval Remikra agenda which is still ongoing; and even my airship flight from West Terredon to North Kempton, my airship flight from North Kempton to Cabotton, and my extended stay in Guestroom 3 of 327 East Mason Street, where I am located now.

Am I strange to say that I am both excited and dreading the whole Ceri Mains and Mary Kormann thing?

**