(28a) Addendum to (28)

The Regency Campaign (30/1573 Nakege (278+280-1123))

Kalida's Trance

    Kalida drifts into her trance. It's been a while since the last one, and the web is welcoming and familiar. It's still sticky here, however, and she has a bad feeling about that.
    As usual, the web around Nakege is very dense, but even denser than last time she looked. She uses the connection to Zel to the ship where the fighters came from.
    Zel himself seems pretty straightforward. He's getting caught in the web here, of course, but it is pretty linear. The connection back to his ship is easy enough to follow.
    Kalida, however, is looking for the Man in Black. There is a nexus of all sorts of threads going on here. This is big, with connections going everywhere -- to the blockade, way out of system, across towards Jewell, connecting with her. The strongest connection, the biggest bundle, is Kalida herself. There is a direct causality with her. She is causing this; she caused the ship to be here, she caused Zel to get shot down, she caused the nukes to be used, she caused all this. The web tightens in, the stickiness starting to disturb Kalida.
    If Kalida is causing this, there should be something else connecting through her, or her to somewhere else, a connection in common. She finds a thread that feels somewhat familiar, and follows that out to find that it feels like the Duke of Rhylanor is strongly involved in this too, all linked together in this tight bundle. She and the Duke have separate connections that are totally related, parallel threads that wind and coil together.
    She's doing well here, the first time in Nakege that she hasn't been sucked in. This feels good. For the time, she pulls back from there and looks at the connections from the ship to the blockade. This is a big mess, and there is definitely a connection and it's probably all her fault. There's an opposition/cooperation thing going on, resonating and pulling her into its song.
    The resonating song is so strong, but she tries to pull back to herself. Something is badly wrong, not just in the web but physically, she's losing some control of something. She feels stiff, and things are not good at all.
    Kalida relaxes completely and lets go of everything. She breaks clear.