Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-17114085-20140607115511/@comment-24736819-20140703190951

Back in the Sanctuary, Astrid thanked Loktar for a job well done and proceeded to show greater paranoia concerning Cicero and his insanity. She confessed that she was a little concerned about the Night Mother's Keeper, Cicero. The strange and erratic jester had been locking himself in the chamber with the Night Mother's coffin and frantically whispering to someone. Astrid feared a conspiracy and asks Loktar to spy on Cicero to see what he is up to. However, in order to effectively eavesdrop and not be detected she asked him to hide in the coffin with the Night Mother's corpse. Loktar nodded and make his way to the chamber and entered the Night Mother's coffin by picking the lock.

After a few seconds Loktar started to hear Cicero begin to address someone. He pleads for his companion to speak, and complains that he must do all the work, but is ever obedient. Suddenly, Loktar was surprised by a red glow and he realized that the Night Mother is in the coffin with him; she begins to speak and he realizes that she pities Cicero. He has been attempting to communicate with the Night Mother all along, however the Night Mother refuses to speak to Cicero because he is not the Listener. Outside the coffin, Cicero despairs of the Night Mother actually speaking to anyone and at his failure at finding a Listener. Again, the Night Mother addresses to Loktar, naming him The Listener and tasking him with traveling to Volunruud and speaking with Amaund Motierre. She instructs the orc to tell Cicero a covert phrase: “Darkness rises when silence dies”.

The coffin opens and as Loktar steps out of it, the horrified Cicero demands an explanation and the orc say to him the signal phrase the Night Mother gave, “Darkness rises when silence dies”, and Cicero becomes ecstatic and dances a little jig. Astrid suddenly bursts into the room, alerted by the commotion. She comes to realize that there is no treachery or traitor, but is a little put-off by Loktar's assertion that he is now the Listener and when the orc explains what the Night Mother has asked, Astrid becomes defensive claiming:

"I'm still the leader in this family".

Astrid says she needs time to process all of this and sends Loktar to take a contract from Nazir, rather than allowing him to go where the Night Mother commanded, Volunruud, while she thinks about this turn of events. Loktar also needed some time to think about all that just happened so he decided to take the contracts and return there only after finishing them and thinking about what all of that really meant.