conversations.from: system
conversations.value: A city besieged for eight years, its court taking refuge in a dead spiderdrake's heart.  But the world outside has fallen silent.  It's time to emerge and see if anything else has survived.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: The letter is brief, and written in neat if spiky handwriting; it asks that the court consider you one of her agents.
conversations.prefix: letter from Magus-General Megret (copy):
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Tarostong is a lithe womanform who is always sheathed in a flowerfall of elaborate robes.  They are also the fifth child of the Jirai enemy's duke.  As such, they were forbidden to learn arms, but their gift with words brought them many friends in the years before the war broke out.  When the siege began, they swore allegiance to the city's court, and their behavior has been impeccable, but not everyone trusts their motives.
conversations.prefix: Poet-Supreme Tarostong (copy):
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Repair the relationship between Megret and Eledreth.  Their powers are important assets to the city; surely they work better together than otherwise.
conversations.prefix: Hearts of Bone and Porcelain:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Megret's copy of the key, which will open a certain casket in the Arsenal.  They clatter dryly, like bone rather than metal.
conversations.prefix: The Key to the Black Casket:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You've never heard of a spiderdrake anywhere outside the city.  Surely it was not a singular beast.  But where did it come from, how did it meet its doom, and why not take a more conventional shelter?
conversations.prefix: Uncover the Mystery of the Spiderdrake's Origins:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: It's made of fragile paper, and it is cautious of people--but it has eyes, and those eyes see, and its inky nature may allow it to convey some scrap of warning.
conversations.prefix: A Timorous Inky Spiderling:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: The letter is brief, and written in neat if spiky handwriting; it asks that the court consider you one of her agents.
conversations.prefix: letter from Magus-General Megret:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: As Eledreth says, marrow-wights fear spiders, if not bone.  The necklace's glittering eye-beads can ward the wights off--for a time.
conversations.prefix: A Necklace of Spider-Eyes:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: There's an old heart-hurt between Bonemistress Eledreth and Magus-General Megret, this much is clear; and just as clear is the fact that Eledreth still respects the latter woman--even craves her approval, perhaps.  This information may yet prove a weapon, although it could just as easily backfire upon the wielder.
conversations.prefix: Rumors Are Not Unfounded: The Magus-General and the Bonemistress:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Uneasy bonecurrents shift and murmur at the socket where one of the spiderdrake's eyes once dwelt.  Facet-images flicker at the edges of the black, black gate, the struggles of prey long-ago dead, and lovingly wrapped in silk for later consumption.
conversations.prefix: An Eye-Gate to the Skull's Outside:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: The two guards are human in form, but composed of articulated steel.  Each has a single eye: one in the left side of its face, one in the right.  Neither has a mouth.  They wield matching swords, whose pommels are set with black opals.
conversations.prefix: Get Past the Eye-Gate's Two Guards:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: While the dreamcurrents are not strongest here, they can yet prove a distraction if you allow them to root themselves in your mind.
conversations.prefix: Resist the Dreamcurrents' Trancing Effects:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Set in the hallway are facetlights, allegedly carved from the spiderdrake's fossilized eyes.  They are said to have warding properties, although the specifics are obscure.  One of them is loose--it looks like maintenance in this area has been neglected--and may be taken, although its light will not last forever.
conversations.prefix: Facetlight:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Something about your demeanor leads others to trust you, whether or not they should.
conversations.prefix: A Face to Trust:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: It's hard to get the drop on you so long as you hear or see the danger coming.
conversations.prefix: Quick Reflexes:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: If it requires finesses or dexterity, you've got it covered.
conversations.prefix: Clever Hands:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: At some point in your past, you've grown inured to the stresses of battle, and how to survive them.
conversations.prefix: Combat-Hardened:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You don't know where you get these ideas, but you've learned that listening to them rarely serves you ill.
conversations.prefix: Intuitive:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You draw the eye wherever you go, and people look upon you with favor.
conversations.prefix: Beautiful:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You've spent so long mewed up in this microcosm of the city.  You want out.  And you're not sure you care if you'll have to sell someone out to get it.
conversations.prefix: Conflicted Loyalty:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Somewhere there's a lie that you've been telling everyone about who you are or what you do.  And at some point it's going to come out.
conversations.prefix: Tangled Up in Lies:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Suffice it to say this is not a good phobia to have in a spiderdrake's heart.
conversations.prefix: Fear of Spiders:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You have trouble feeling a full range of emotions, or understanding it in others.
conversations.prefix: Limited Emotion:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: While others may find your optimism reassuring, you often expect better of others than they give.
conversations.prefix: Naive:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: It isn't your fault, exactly, but the siege took its toll on your body and it shows.
conversations.prefix: Frail:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: When it gets bad enough, the hallucinations are not far behind.  Fortunately, it doesn't always get bad.
conversations.prefix: Insomnia:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You just can't stay away from a challenge.
conversations.prefix: Daring:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You get lost in your own thoughts, with results that are sometimes hilarious, and sometimes less so.
conversations.prefix: Inattentive:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Your honor or your loyalty has been questioned in some way.  You are determined to clear your name.
conversations.prefix: To Prove Yourself Loyal:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Whatever you may have done before, dueling is your only passion now.
conversations.prefix: To Establish Yourself as a Poet Supreme:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Someone important to you died in the siege.  You're going to make sure the Jirai pay.
conversations.prefix: To Avenge Yourself Upon the Jirai:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: It is said that spiderdrakes have a third eye, which resides within their hearts.  They use this to scry the secret flaws of their prey; useful for hunting, no doubt.  One of the room's walls sheens obsidian, and sometimes visions can, with the proper rituals, be induced to appear in it.  Lately, however, the room refuses to show any sign of the world outside the spiderdrake's heart--the city proper.
conversations.prefix: The Room of Lenses:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Every black dream the spiderdrake devoured in life made its way into this chamber in some form or another.  Some of them can, with varying degrees of safety, be weaponized.  The contents of the Arsenal shift from time to time, and whisper to each other just beyond people's ability to comprehend.
conversations.prefix: The Arsenal:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Hannos is both scholar and warrior, a broad, bronzed man in his prime.  The city's denizens call dueling "the poetry of the sword," and Hannos is acknowledged as the city's best poet.  He is obsessed with taking vengeance upon the city's Jirai attackers.
conversations.prefix: Calligrapher Hannos:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Properly speaking, the entirety of the spiderdrake's skull is an ossuarium, but when they say the Ossuarium, people are referring to Bonemistress Eledreth's quarters.  They are guarded by a gate of interlocking fossilized teeth, which make unsoft gnashing sounds.  Most of the teeth aren't sharp, but they are nevertheless very large.
conversations.prefix: The Ossuarium's Gate:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: There's a story from before the siege that Eledreth had two lovers, who quarreled over her.  Without her knowledge, they dueled over her hand (as if she were chattel to be won).  One died in the duel, while the other perished three days later of the wounds.
  
  Eledreth was known for a certain exacting sense of humor.  She cleansed their skeletons and reshaped them into a single bone-construct bound into her service.  It followed her into exile and serves as an unliving reminder of its mistress's temperament. 
conversations.prefix: Bonemistress Eledreth:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Every item in this room is well-organized, from the books of bamboo strips strung together to the stoppered phials of quicksilver medicines, yet the place entire gives the impression of great clutter--a clutter of light and shadows battling.  A single mirror upon her desk, half-hooded, admits no reflection.  The whole place smells not unpleasantly of obscure teas.
conversations.prefix: Magus-General Megret's Study:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Your mission sounded so simple: live among the city's people, learn what they knew, get that information to your captain.  You didn't escape the exile in time, however, and you've been stuck in the bonedrake's heart all the while.
conversations.prefix: Jirai Spy:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You have the ear of certain people who wield great influence in the court-in-exile.
conversations.prefix: High Connections:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You have the ear of certain people who wield great influence in the court-in-exile.
conversations.prefix: High Connections (copy):
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You've seen many, many bizarre goings-on since the exile.  A little more isn't going to faze you.
conversations.prefix: No Stranger to the Strange:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: At the center of the spiderdrake's heart lies an eight-sided chamber.  It is here that the city's elites hold court, as though they ruled still.  The tapestries, moon-sheened, are prone to eating careless rats.  (They disdain insects.)  Lanterns as pale as memory sway from the ceiling, as to the war-drums no one can quite hear from within the heart.
conversations.prefix: The Shadow Court:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: A dark, tallish woman with one eye obliterated by scars, Megret is equally deadly with the ritual arts and her sword, Swanfall.  She is dying; has been dying since the court fled within the spiderdrake's heart.  It is said that so long as the court remains in exile, she cannot accept death's embrace.
conversations.prefix: Magus-General Megret:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Tarostong is a lithe womanform who is always sheathed in a flowerfall of elaborate robes.  They are also the fifth child of the Jirai enemy's duke.  As such, they were forbidden to learn arms, but their gift with words brought them many friends in the years before the war broke out.  When the siege began, they swore allegiance to the city's court, and their behavior has been impeccable, but not everyone trusts their motives.
conversations.prefix: Poet-Supreme Tarostong:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Magus-General Megret has summoned all of you to a meeting at the eighth tolling of the bell, in her study.
conversations.prefix: Find out what troubles the Magus-General:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: The city's elite guard are distinguished by their mechanical wings, which are good for short flights (although the wearer is not terribly maneuverable, especially when wearing armor).  You served with honor during the start of the siege, but an early injury permanently damaged the implant that interfaces with the wings.
conversations.prefix: Unwinged Veteran:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You have an interest in the calcified nature of the spiderdrake's heart, which you call scholarly and others call morbid.  It can't be denied, however, that you have a knack for finding your way through the heart's labyrinthine corridors.
conversations.prefix: Bone-Delver:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: One of the city's magi, now deceased, summoned you for defense during the siege.  Although you resemble the reflection of the person from which you were forged, you are immediately identifiable by your silver eyes.  As an automaton of image, you are indefatigable and need not sleep, but are vulnerable to weapons of glass.
conversations.prefix: Imago:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Although you can appear as human as you like, your ancestors were the high foxes of the ancient woods outside the city.  You are one of the elder courtiers, albeit one with a habit of sleeping through long periods and waking to see what new intrigues await you.  Admittedly, it's becoming harder and harder to resume foxform, but you're determined not to let on.
conversations.prefix: Foxfolk Courtier:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Or, in other words, a thief with a certain amount of experience.  Thievery is an honorable tradition in the city--no worse than dueling, anyway, and certainly less wasteful.
conversations.prefix: Knight of Keys:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: It has been years since anyone has seen your face.  When you dedicated yourself to the spiderdrake's spirit, you took on a bone-visor glamour.  It's questionable whether you remember what you look like yourself.  Still, the bone-visor comforts the dead, who will sometimes spill their secrets to you.
conversations.prefix: Knight of Skulls:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You're no soldier, but you are known for your skills with unchancy weapons, from blades to guns.  Dueling is the highest form of poetry in the city; even so, you make a point of studying more standard forms of verse as well.
conversations.prefix: Aspiring Poet:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: People know you best by the small curved scissors and scalpels you carry, although your remedies take many forms.  For the worst cases, curdled dreams must be extracted through trepanning; a rare procedure, and you are one of the few trained in it.
conversations.prefix: Knight of Scissors:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Being trapped in the bonedrake's heart has caused you to exercise great ingenuity in pursuing your calling: inventing ever more ingenious devices, whether to repulse the Jirai someday or to shatter your way out of here.
conversations.prefix: Knight of Angles:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You are one of a number of people assigned to watch the obsidian wall in the Hall of Lenses for any warning auguries.  You have also received some training in the interpretation of such signs.
conversations.prefix: Scrywatch Apprentice:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You've trained since childhood in the cult of spider-worship and its elaborate dances.  People often come to you with sins to be danced away, and you are regarded with great respect by most citizens.
conversations.prefix: Spider-Dancer:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: It wasn't possible for the court-in-exile to avoid social stratification.  You have the sympathies of any number of people who move in lower circles.
conversations.prefix: Low Connections:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: It wasn't possible for the court-in-exile to avoid social stratification.  You have the sympathies of any number of people who move in lower circles.
conversations.prefix: Low Connections (copy):
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Your loyalty is to the city itself rather than any individual in it--but it's a loyalty that runs deep.
conversations.prefix: Patriotic:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: If there's a roundabout, sneaky way to get the job done, you'll see it.  Whether you'll actually use it depends on the circumstances.
conversations.prefix: Devious:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Your hours spent studying texts and lore of varying kinds may pay off yet.
conversations.prefix: Well-Educated:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: It's hard to sway you from a path once you've chosen it.
conversations.prefix: Determined:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Whether or not your size is impressive, you have a way of getting people to back off when you want them to.  Less useful on nonsentients, alas.
conversations.prefix: Intimidating:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You pay attention to what your senses tell you, which has saved you on more than one occasion.
conversations.prefix: Keen Senses:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: While you don't have perfect recall, your memory comes pretty close, especially for anything you've had a chance to study in detail.
conversations.prefix: A Map for a Memory:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: It's questionable whether your body or your mind is more scarred by the injury you took during the city's defense.
conversations.prefix: An Old Wound:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: It's difficult to get drunk in this world of exile--but not impossible.
conversations.prefix: Addiction to Liquor-of-Mist:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Your very presence rattles people.  While that can be used to your advantage, most of the time it simply emphasizes how different you are.
conversations.prefix: Unsettling:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: While the situation calls for a little reasonable paranoia, you take matters further than that.
conversations.prefix: Paranoid:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: It's that mouth of yours, getting away from you again.  And you almost stayed out of trouble this one time, too.
conversations.prefix: Braggart:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Once you get an idea into your head, you won't let go of it even when it becomes bad news.
conversations.prefix: Obsessive:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: And to do that, the court-in-exile must free itself of the stifling spiderdrake heart.
conversations.prefix: To Restore the City to Its Old Glory:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You're honest, all right, even when a little discretion would serve you better.
conversations.prefix: Untactful:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: This siege has gone on long enough.  Surely things are as bad for the Jirai as it is for you.
conversations.prefix: To Bring Peace to the Jirai and the City:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You've adapted to life in the spiderdrake's heart, and you have no great desire to leave it.  What need have you for those who were left out?
conversations.prefix: To Declare the Court-in-Exile an Independent Realm:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: It's clear that the spiderdrake's heart is home to any number of unusual properties.  Your greatest interest is in cataloging them.
conversations.prefix: To Discover the Inner Logics of the Spiderdrake's Heart:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You're in here and they're out there.  This wasn't acceptable when the exile began and it's not acceptable now.
conversations.prefix: To Rejoin Your Lover:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Only you know what you did that was so terrible.  Everything since has been all about erasing that one moment.
conversations.prefix: To Escape the Knowledge of Past Failure:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Be they the teachings of your people or your profession, you are concerned that this trapped, artificial existence will bury the things you know.
conversations.prefix: To Keep Your Traditions Alive:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: She's called you here for a reason.  But why now?  And why you?
conversations.prefix: Learn of the Situation from Magus-General Megret:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Magus-General Megret would not leave you unarmed against the perils--however elusive--that may await you.  She does not control the Arsenal, but she can tell you something of its location and secrets.
conversations.prefix: Find Out About the Arsenal:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Created from the carefully (not to say lovingly) crafted bones of Eledreth's two ill-fated lovers.  Its visage is of shining bronze; the bone is winter-white.  No one has ever heard Eledreth address it by name, whether that of one of the component lovers, or some new one of her own devising.  Nevertheless, one toys with the construct at one's peril, for Eledreth's charms defend it.
conversations.prefix: Eledreth's Bone-Construct:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: The bare bone of the walls is little concealed by Bonemistress Eledreth's distinctly funereal taste in furniture.  All her tables, chairs, shelves, cabinets are the painful white of mourning clothes.  There are empty picture-frames on the walls: if you look into them you can see round eyes staring out.  Incongruously, the place smells of cardamom and cloves.
conversations.prefix: The Ossuarium:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: "Closet" is the best word for it.  There is nowhere for anyone to lie down, or sit, or any of those concessions to mortal frailty.  Yet for all that, the closet is lavish in space, and the walls are hung with tokens of the Bonemistress's affection (if you can call them such), from squirming origami frogs pinned to tapestries to wind-chimes constructed of crystal and hollow bone.
conversations.prefix: The Bone-Construct's Closet:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: There is love that goes beyond boundaries, and love that goes beyond death; surely it cannot be right for the Bonemistress to bind this creature to her service forevermore.  More horrible thought--what will become of it when the Bonemistress inevitably succumbs to death herself?  Surely the construct deserves to define a better future for itself.
conversations.prefix: To Wean the Bone-Construct from Its Mad Devotion:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Sometimes you need to do something Now, before hesitation sinks you.
conversations.prefix: Bold: