Nyroth Update 10: Aeaea

Previous Update: The Ancient Library 
==Aeaea==
From the second round of island explorations. Yes, it’s called Aeaea. They make vowels there.
Aeaea was known as an exceptionally wealthy and prosperous island-city. Their chief export, other than vowels, seems to have been automata.
===Introduction===
While the main expedition team is being assembled, Bilgewater sends a light clipper to the island to take a look around and report back. The vessel returns two days later, but whereas it set sail with a complement of two dozen sailors and researchers, it comes back into the port of Stormhaven almost empty. The expedition’s leader, Professor Uuni of the Marai, hands over the written report with visible annoyance. It seems that the rest of the expedition, including the ship’s captain, insisted on remaining on Aeaea for “further investigation”.
The report describes a tropical paradise of generous, friendly people
 living in harmony and plenty, with gleaming golden automata seeing to 
their every need. They have heard of Bilgewater’s generous acts on Avalon and Emain Ablach,
 and welcome them as heroes and friends—apparently, Bilgewater’s scouts 
had barely made it off their ship before people started shoving drinks 
into their hands and throwing floral wreathes over their shoulders. Both
 the automata and the Nyrothian natives speak a translateable modern 
dialect, and they are fascinated by stories of Valoran and Bilgewater. A
 Nyrothian woman named Desmeya, who appears to be a sorceress of 
considerable renown on the island, has graciously provided 
accommodations for the members of the expedition.
The report stops there. Professor Uuni explains, with considerable 
dismay, that the report’s authors slapped their half-finished writeup 
into her hands before hurrying off to a lavish party being hosted by 
Desmeya that evening. (Perhaps it was some sort of Harrowing
 festival, though by the sound of it the Aeaeans party like this 
year-round.) The professor fills in a few more details herself: Desmeya 
and the others on Aeaea appear to be well-apprised of Bilgewater’s 
adventures, and are particularly curious about the Padonian automata 
that Bilgewater recruited on Avalon.
 (The Aeaeans added that they would be happy to repair or upgrade them, 
if that is the automata’s wish.) She inquired about the impact the 
cataclysm had on Aeaea, and was told that it temporarily disrupted their
 ability to manufacture and maintain automata, but that it was 
eventually repaired.
From Uuni’s perspective, the good news is that Aeaea is a learned 
culture with a friendly disposition; she expects that they could learn 
quite a bit about Nyroth from further discussions. The bad news, she 
explains, is that Bilgewater had gone to Aeaea to find automata, and 
there do not seem to be very many present, nor do they seem at all 
interested in leaving the island. It is true that the automata they did 
encounter were quite remarkable: like the Padonian automata, they are 
clearly sentient, with developed individual personalities and points of 
view. (She adds, after making sure that no Padonian automata are nearby,
 that these automata if anything seem rather more intelligent.) They 
are, nonetheless, completely dedicated to serving the natives, and 
appear very happy to do so, whereas the Padonian automata seemed 
somewhat resentful of the Nyrothians.
It seems that the Aeaeans do have one request. They have noticed some
 ethereal fluctuations recently, and (their cheery dispositions cooling 
just slightly) wonder whether, just maybe, the Valoranians’ 
recalibrations of the other islands’ nexuses might have caused them. 
They say that if so they’re sure it was just an innocent mistake, but 
they would like to exchange notes on what exactly Bilgewater did on 
Avalon and Emain Ablach, and ask for some help smoothing out the local 
distortion that has resulted.
Professor Uuni’s recommendation is to visit the island as planned. 
She admits that, though she can’t quite explain why, something doesn’t 
seem to quite add up about Aeaea…but, she adds, on reflection it should 
not be surprising that at least some of these island civilizations have 
recovered and even advanced in the many centuries following the 
cataclysm. Who says they have to all be full of zombies or 
plant-monsters?
When asked, the Padonian automata confirm that Aeaean automata are 
known to be quite…sophisticated. Most them seem a little disdainful of 
the “dainty” Aeaean automata, who are apparently designed more for 
service, research, and other light-touch duties than for heavy industry 
or combat. (The Padonian automata, in contrast, are much sturdier in 
design, with sterner personalities.) They are nonetheless curious to 
meet them; they have spent centuries thanklessly battling their berserk 
“kin” on Avalon, and would like to at last have other non-crazy automata
 to talk to.
As for the Nyrothians in the floating city above Yoroth, they express
 some degree of envy: apparently, Aeaea has closed its borders to other 
Nyrothians, only very occasionally granting passage. Those who are 
allowed in—mostly scholars and mages—tend to take up permanent 
residence. In fact, the Nyrothians add, they can’t think of anyone who 
has ever come back. Seeing the alarm on the Valoranians’ faces, they 
hastily add, “…that may have sounded more sinister than intended. Who’d 
want to leave Aeaea?”
=== Conclusion ===
Bilgewater dispatched Katarina and Twisted Fate to Aeaea, with 
authorization to barter for some of Aeaea’s assets. Nami privately 
instructed them to see if they could work out what exactly was going on 
with this island; it did seem too good to be true, and she didn’t want 
to be blindsided. No military forces were sent, so as not to offend the 
Aeaeans; instead, most of the expedition was made up of Summoners and 
other scholars, as well as some of Bilgewater’s merchants. Nami 
expressed hope that as powerful an enchantress as Desmeya could perhaps 
accelerate their progress on the creation of a new moonstone.
They were, of course, just in time for a party the following evening,
 and Desmeya smilingly insisted that they come. She touched Katarina’s 
shoulder as she made the invitation, and Twisted Fate was somewhat 
surprised that the enchantress didn’t lose a hand in the process. (A 
trained agent of espionage, Katarina could flawlessly perform covers as 
varied as a quiet Piltovian scientist and a giggling Demacian debutante.
 Nami simply wasn’t paying her anywhere near enough to let Twisted Fate 
leave this island with stories of her doing so.) The rogue gambler 
interposed himself into the awkward silence that followed, explaining 
that where Katarina’s from they aren’t much for parties, but that a 
Bilgewater boy like himself made it a point of honor never to turn down a
 lovely lady’s invitation. As he departed with Desmeya to begin 
discussing terms of trade, Katarina set out to identify the most 
important sites in the city and ascertain their greatest 
vulnerabilities, with the intent of slipping in undetected that evening 
to see what she could find behind locked doors. Her business was 
somewhat postponed when she noticed a curious sight within a dozen yards
 of where the conversation with Desmeya had taken place: a man who 
seemed to be the only scowling, brooding person on the whole island, 
sitting at a beach-side bar counter not drinking anything. Intrigued, 
she sat down beside him, noticed that Desmeya had a namesake drink on 
the menu, and firmly ordered something else.
She spoke as though to no one in particular. “Noxians have excellent parties. We have true
 accomplishments to celebrate at them. Bilgewater’s idea of a party is a
 bunch of unwashed sailors disinfecting their guts with moonshine in a 
creaky bar.” That seemed to catch the man’s attention, and they spoke at
 some length. She had expected him to be a visiting Nyrothian from the 
floating city, a disaffected expatriate; he told her somewhat dejectedly
 that he had been born on Aeaea. Katarina found his comments about the 
island interesting and the drinks reasonably priced—the bartender 
refused to charge a “Hero of Avalon” for anything, and Katarina had no 
objection to being rewarded for Bilgewater’s hard-won victory—and she 
spent much of the evening there.
Indeed, most of the expedition members pursued their assigned 
missions with a healthy share of dining, dancing, and drinking mixed in,
 but this if anything seemed to their benefit: the natives were very 
excited to meet them, and seemed extraordinarily educated. One could 
hardly spend five minutes with one of them without being offered a 
fascinating and valuable tidbit of Nyrothian history. More than one 
Summoner became sufficiently inebriated to blurt out, “We thought you 
were gonna turn us into pigs or something!”, which led first to 
surprised silence, and then to boisterous laughter and a great many 
enthusiastic pig impressions.
Katarina targeted one of the island’s laboratories that evening. She 
discovered Aeaeans working late into the night, but found the building’s
 arcane defenses astonishingly primitive, and quite susceptible to 
evasion by the sophisticated shadow magic she had learned in Noxus. Her 
most astonishing find was an enormous hex-screen displaying the small, 
efficient letters of the Aeaean dialect. Unfortunately, Summoners as a 
whole are very poor infiltrators, and she was unable to bring any along.
 This left her with only her more limited command of arcane translation 
spells, and the Aeaean lettering proved quite resistant. (Pressing the 
enchantments risked causing some damage to the screen, which would 
surely raise suspicions.) The enchanted reader she’d brought did seem to
 highlight a few small sections, which she quickly realized were 
transcriptions of what she and the other Bilgewaterians had said. She 
found every word of her conversation with the man in the bar printed 
without error, and her thoughts returned to the sleek silver automata 
who had attended her there, continually offering her new morsels to 
sample or refills on her glasses of fruit-infused wine. The High Command
 possessed devices which could transcribe conversations through 
enchantment; perhaps the Aeaean automata were fitted with something 
comparable. She sensed arcane signatures approaching, and was forced to 
depart before making further investigation.
The next morning—late the next morning—Twisted Fate came over to 
Katarina looking even more pleased with himself than usual, and 
presented her with a draft contract. The Aeaeans, he said, were prepared
 to lend them the services of one of their sage-automata—”a lanky metal 
fellow, goes by Thaskos”—as a guide to the islands of Nyroth, and would 
provide the Padonian automata with all the repairs and upgrades they 
wished. He said that unless their Summoners blew the nexus open trying 
to fix it, he didn’t see how the deal could fall through.
They did not blow the nexus open. Indeed, the Summoners did a 
flawless job of realigning it to compensate for the changes the 
Valoranians had made on the other islands. One tidbit of information did
 catch Katarina’s attention: a Summoner informed her that, while 
repairing the nexus, he noticed that it lay at the center of a vast 
network of enchantments that covered the island. Though she did not 
speak the thought aloud, Katarina immediately recalled the hexscreen she
 had observed the night before. The Summoner told her that small bursts 
of spell energy seemed to be continually radiating out from and circling
 back to the nexus.
In the end, the Bilgewater delegation made its polite farewells, 
exchanged a few more trinkets, and set sail for Stormhaven once more.
Next Update: Argyre