Eydis Webb

Lady Eydis Webb is the founder and leader of the Dunryd Row spy agency in.

She can be found on the second floor of Hadret House in the Brackenbury district of Defiance Bay.

Background
This woman clutches a thick stack of parchment with spindly, wrinkled fingers, their flesh stretched thin to near translucence with extreme age, a gossamer veil over pale blue veins. Ink splotches and candle burns dot and stripe her hands like a quilt patterned after some great, indescribable truth. She does not look up from her reading.

Lady Eydis Webb is the head of Dunryd Row, an elderly woman surrounded by mystery and lies, the spider at the center of the web. She gathers knowledge through any and all available means: Exhaustive research, spying, bribery, and less savory measures. Whatever the knowledge demands, she pays it in full, for nothing has greater value. Beyond her skill as tactician and analyst, she is also an immensely powerful cipher who prolonged her life through a variety of procedures to ensure she lived long enough to finish her job and learn as much as possible. The accumulated experience and power bore fruit when she "convinced" the reigning duc to fund the Dunryd Row in 2800 AI, installing her at the head of a secret network of gifted investigators. This position allowed her to work towards protecting the Dyrwood and its independence with the full power of the duc and his erls at her back. Her most recent focus is the Leaden Key, a terrorist organization targeting animancy and Defiance Bay. Her attempts to get an agent inside their ranks failed, losing four ciphers in 2823 AI alone.

It is more than just a professional matter for her. Lady Webb is a former member of the organization and one-time lover of Thaos ix Arkannon. Before Dunryd Row, the lady had many suitors, all fine-looking men of good stock. Her raw power as a cipher allowed her to peer into their thoughts and realize that they were shallow, unimpressive. She toyed with them while resenting each and every one. It changed when she met Thaos,  a man whose mind was a mystery to her. He understood her, knew her at a glance, told her things she didn't know about herself. Although neither handsome nor charming, he was all she ever wanted. He used her gift, asking her about seemingly random people and learning their secrets.

It was only a matter of time until she was intiated into the Key. When one day he asked her if she trusted him, she said she did. Then she was donning a silver mask and swearing oaths to Woedica, using her gift to advance their agenda. However, her curious mind chafed under the secrecy demanded by the Key. Living in the dark is a powerless, hopeless feeling. Every day she did things without knowing their purpose. Every day she loved a man without knowing his thoughts of her, sensing that there were things he wanted to tell her. She sensed that he knew everything the Leaden Key was created to hide. But Thaos was unyielding.

So one day she disappeared without a word. He would kill her for it and she knew that. She just wanted to see him plunge the knife, because then she would have her answers. But the day never came. He has left her to wonder. It inspired her to devote her years to learning everything she could about him, in hopes she would find some clue as to who he really was, and why he felt he had to keep his secrets locked away. While she failed at understanding Thaos, she succeeded in a tangential effort, the creation of the greatest intelligence agency in the world.

Quests

 * The Hermit of Hadret House: Lady Webb enlists your aid in learning more of the Leaden Key's activities, guiding the Watcher's efforts. As the animancy hearings near, however, she unwittingly attracts the attention of Thaos. When the grandmaster assassinates Duc Aevar and the Row is occupied trying to contain the damage, lady Webb is left alone at Hadret House. Thaos visits her. They share a moment and then he kills her, a death long in coming. In that instant, however, he also opens his mind to her, granting Lady Webb the answer she sought for so long. Although the Watcher can witness their exchange through the medium of Webb's soul, they do not learn what the answer was.