Lineage 4172 of Akkad Kuri

The Tuppi-Sharrat Matriline (Keepers of the Wedge)
From: Akkad Kuri of Assyria

Lore

In the age of renaissance, the libraries of Assyria swelled with rediscovered histories, and the Royal Court needed hands that could read what the first scribes had pressed into clay. The Tuppi-Sharrat matriline rose to fill that need. Their founding mother, Ummi-Belet of Balawat, was a quarry overseer’s daughter in the State of Kalhu who spent her youth copying mason’s marks from the granite faces of the Southern Highlands. After her Quickening, her dermal patterns grew in rows that resembled lines of Sar-Wedge more closely than the circuitry common to her kin. The Firelords of her local Flamecitadel judged this a sign of Ashurak’s favor and sent her to study among the archive halls.

Ummi-Belet spent ninety years gathering broken tablets, melted inscriptions, and fragments carried out of the crater where Zorath once stood. She trained her daughters to do the same, and they trained theirs. Within three generations the matriline held a charter from the Queen to copy, verify, and seal every decree written in ceremonial Sar-Wedge. Their workshops also became known for rune work. When artisans of the era perfected the practice of raising an item’s tier through runes, it was Tuppi-Sharrat scribes who cut many of the wedges into the metal.

The matriline teaches that a decree is only as strong as its record. Their daughters are raised on the tale of Queen Sar-Ishtar and on the Broken Shield, and they hold that restraint in the written word guards the nation as surely as its walls. Rival houses say the Keepers hold too many secrets, since those who copy the laws also know every flaw in them. The Keepers do not answer the charge.

Titles and seals pass through the mother. A daughter inherits her mother’s stylus, her tablet case, and her place at the copying bench. Sons serve as couriers, quarry agents, and guards of the archive vaults, and they marry into other houses carrying the matriline’s training with them.

Appearance

• Skin: Pale and ashen, with a smooth porcelain look, often dusted grey at the fingertips from clay and stone powder.
• Dermal patterns: Dark grey to black, arranged in tight horizontal rows along the forearms, collarbones, and spine. The rows resemble lines of Sar-Wedge script, and each individual’s arrangement is unique.
• Eyes: Amber or deep crimson, most often with a copper sheen that shows in forge light or lamplight.
• Hair: Dark and straight, commonly worn bound at the nape with a cord of woven metal thread so it stays clear of wet clay.
• Face: Sharp and angular, with high cheekbones, a strong jaw, an aquiline nose, and subtly elongated canine teeth.
• Build: Tall and slender. Females commonly stand 5 feet 9 inches to 6 feet 2 inches, and males 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 4 inches, with dense and resilient frames.
• Hands: Long-fingered, with calluses along the thumb and first finger from years of stylus and chisel work.
• Dress: Layered robes in ash grey and dark red, a broad belt carrying a stylus sheath and tablet case, and a sash for house seals and archive badges.
• Death: The patterns fade completely, leaving a form like a flawless porcelain statue. The matriline records the lost pattern on an Ember Shard before the Flame Return.

Positives

• Aetheric Scrutiny: The avatar tastes ambient magic, senses ley lines, and notices the discharge of powerful spells as part of ordinary sensation. Keepers are practiced at noticing when an inscription or rune still carries power.
• Refined senses: Sharp hearing, a keen sense of smell, and superior low-light vision suit work in torchlit vaults, steam tunnels, and ash-veiled streets.
• Magic-sustained metabolism: In a magically rich environment the avatar can go long periods with little food or water, which serves well on long archive expeditions and quarry surveys.
• Dermal Weave slot: The row-like patterns of this lineage accept Dermal Weave gear, such as alchemical inks or fine metal filaments, in addition to the avatar’s other slots.
• Scholarly upbringing: A childhood at the copying bench gives a ready background for training in scribing, rune cutting, library research, and identification through the Mind’s Eye.
• Language grounding: Raised reading both Sar-Wedge and Sar-Lin, the avatar has a strong footing for roleplay involving decrees, contracts, old inscriptions, and court procedure.
• Long life: A span of 300 to 400 years leaves time to train many skills.
• Standing: The matriline’s charter and seals open doors in guildhalls, Flamecitadels, and archive halls across Assyria.

Negatives

• Magic dependence: In places of low or absent ambient magic the avatar weakens in body and mind, becomes lethargic, and in time suffers a painful wasting sickness.
• Dampening effects: Magic-dampening items, areas, or conditions such as Magic-Drained strike this lineage harder than most.
• Hostile environments: Deep underwater settlements and regions dominated by pure water or nature magic are uncomfortable and may be draining.
• Readable identity: The script-like patterns are as distinctive as a fingerprint, so the avatar is easy to identify, describe, and track unless the skin is covered.
• Intimidating bearing: Other races often read the avatar as arrogant, unapproachable, or tyrannical regardless of behavior.
• Obligations: The matriline expects obedience to the mother of the house, loyalty to the Queen, and silence about what is copied. Breaking these duties can cost the avatar its seals and standing.
• Suspicion: Rival houses, merchants, and foreign diplomats assume a Keeper knows secrets, which invites spying, bribery, and pressure.
• Sedentary training: Years at the bench leave less experience with weapons and field survival than the warrior houses provide.

Tags

Humanoid, Akkad-Kuri, Assyria, Renaissance, Matrilineal, Scribe, Dermal Circuitry, Aether-Sustained, Rune Cutter, Long-Lived, Magic-Dependent, Low-Light Vision, Metallic Eyes, Ashen-Skinned, Archivist, Sar-Wedge, Dermal Weave, Aetheric Scrutiny, Disciplined, Regal Bearing, Royal Charter, Kalhu

Name

• Avatar name: Nin-Tuppi Sharrat-Belet
• True name: Nin-Tuppi, daughter of Ama-Sharrat, of the ninth bench of the Tuppi-Sharrat matriline, sealed at the Flamecitadel of Balawat

Tier 1 stat modifiers (10 points total)

• Strength: +1
• Agility: +1
• Endurance: +1
• Intellect: +3
• Perception: +3
• Charisma: +1

Skills (tier 1 maximum of 6 per skill)

• Scribing (Sar-Wedge and Sar-Lin): 4
• Rune Cutting: 3
• Library Research: 3
• Identification (Mind’s Eye, with a focus item): 2
• Stonework: 1
• Stylus and Chisel (weapon type: small blades): 1

Age

• 62 years, a young adult for a race that lives 300 to 400 years

Height

• 5 feet 11 inches (180 cm)

Weight

• 162 pounds (73 kg)

Speed

• 30 feet per turn on foot

Motivation

• Nin-Tuppi seeks the lost tablet fragments said to lie in the still crater of Zorath, so that her bench can complete the matriline’s record of the Ashenfall.
• She wants to earn her own house seal before her mother’s hundredth year at the bench, which would give her the right to verify royal decrees.
• She is uneasy about a flaw she found while copying an old charter, and she wants to learn who altered it before a rival house learns that she knows.

Worn Armor of Nin-Tuppi Sharrat-Belet

Bench-Robe of the Ninth Wedge 3861

• Slot: Chest
• Rank: Tier 1, Common
• Armor Check: +3
• Attunement: Simple, one minute
• Weight: 6 pounds
• Item health points: Resilience 10
• Description: A layered robe of ash-grey cloth with dark red trim, quilted across the chest and back with thin plates of fired clay sewn between the layers. Rows of Sar-Wedge run along the hem, naming the ninth bench of the Tuppi-Sharrat matriline. The sleeves fasten back to the elbow with copper toggles.
• Abilities:
  • Kiln-Fired Lining: While attuned, the wearer has resistance to fire damage from mundane sources such as forge sparks, hot steam, and lamp oil.
  • Clean Hands: Clay, ink, soot, and ash do not cling to the robe. It sheds them when shaken once.
• Suggested value: 40 silver

Archive Mantle of Balawat 7204

• Slot: Shoulder
• Rank: Tier 1, Common
• Armor Check: +2
• Attunement: Simple, one minute
• Weight: 3 pounds
• Item health points: Resilience 10
• Description: A short mantle of dark leather covering both shoulders and the upper back, stiffened with strips of grey Kalhu granite cut thin as a fingernail. A copper clasp at the throat bears the mason’s mark of Balawat.
• Abilities:
  • Scholar’s Poise: While attuned and openly worn, the wearer gains 1 temporary skill point in Library Research.
  • Stone Shoulder (reaction): Once per day, when the wearer is hit by a physical attack, the granite strips harden and reduce the damage taken by 1d4.
• Suggested value: 35 silver

Vault-Walker Boots 5519

• Slot: Foot (left and right, one item)
• Rank: Tier 1, Common
• Armor Check: +2
• Attunement: Simple, one minute
• Weight: 2 pounds
• Item health points: Resilience 10
• Description: Soft-soled boots of dark leather, scuffed at the toes, with a small wedge mark pressed into each heel. The soles are layered felt and thin cork treated with alchemical resin.
• Abilities:
  • Quiet Step: While attuned, the wearer’s footsteps make no sound on stone, tile, or packed earth when moving at half speed or slower.
  • Sure Footing: The wearer has advantage on saves against falling prone on wet clay, loose gravel, or ash-covered ground.
• Suggested value: 30 silver

Dermal Weave of Copper Script 1648

• Slot: Dermal Weave (Akkad-Kuri only)
• Rank: Tier 1, Common
• Armor Check: +1
• Attunement: Ritual, at least 10 minutes
• Weight: None
• Item health points: Not listed
• Description: Alchemical ink mixed with fine copper dust, worked by an artisan into the grooves of the script-like patterns on both forearms and across the collarbones. In lamplight the rows show a faint copper line, matching the sheen of her eyes.
• Abilities:
  • Steady Draw: While attuned and with the forearm patterns exposed, the weave regulates the wearer’s absorption of ambient magic. In an area of low ambient magic, the onset of weakness is delayed by one day.
  • Conductive Rows: While attuned, the wearer gains 1 temporary skill point in Rune Cutting.
  • Covered Loss: If the forearm patterns are covered by clothing or armor, the abilities and Armor Check of this weave are suppressed until they are exposed again.
• Suggested value: 60 silver

Total Armor Check from these four items: 8

Weapons of Nin-Tuppi Sharrat-Belet

Wedge-Stylus of the Ninth Bench 2937

• Type: Small blade (melee, thrown)
• Slot: Held in one hand, stored in the stylus sheath on her belt
• Rank: Tier 1, Common
• Attack bonus: +1
• Base damage: 2 piercing
• Range: Melee, or thrown at Extended (15/30 feet)
• Attunement: Handheld, instant when held
• Weight: Half a pound
• Item health points: Resilience 10
• Description: A bronze stylus as long as a hand, triangular in cross-section, with one end ground to a hard point for pressing wedges into clay and the other flattened into a narrow blade for trimming tablets. The grip is wrapped in dark red cord, and a single row of Sar-Wedge along the shaft names her mother’s bench.
• Abilities:
  • Scribe’s Tool: The stylus counts as a tool for Scribing and Rune Cutting and is attuned when held for that work.
  • Marking Wedge: When an attack with this weapon hits, the wielder may leave a small glowing wedge mark on the target. The mark is visible to the wielder for one hour through walls and darkness within 60 feet. Only one mark may exist at a time.
• Suggested value: 25 silver

Quarry Mallet of Kalhu 8410

• Type: Hammer (melee)
• Slot: Held in one hand, carried on a backpack weapon slot
• Rank: Tier 1, Common
• Attack bonus: +0
• Base damage: 4 bludgeoning
• Range: Melee
• Attunement: Handheld, instant when held
• Weight: 3 pounds
• Item health points: Resilience 12
• Description: A short-hafted stonemason’s mallet with a head of grey Kalhu granite banded in iron. The haft is ash wood, darkened by years of handling, and the mason’s mark of Balawat is cut into the butt. It belonged to her grandfather, a quarry agent of the matriline.
• Abilities:
  • Mason’s Tool: The mallet counts as a tool for Stonework and is attuned when held for that work.
  • Breaking Stroke: When used against an unattended object of stone, clay, or ceramic, the mallet deals double base damage.
  • Ringing Blow: Once per day, when an attack with this weapon hits, the target must make a save or be Dazed until the end of its next turn.
• Suggested value: 30 silver

Decree Tablet of the Kiln 6075

• Type: Spell conduit (ranged)
• Slot: Held in one hand, stored in the tablet case on her belt
• Rank: Tier 1, Common
• Attack bonus: +1
• Base damage: 3 fire
• Range: Complex (30 feet, -2)
• Attunement: Handheld, instant when held
• Weight: 1 pound
• Item health points: Resilience 8
• Description: A palm-sized tablet of fired red clay, its face covered in five rows of ceremonial Sar-Wedge and its back smoothed by her thumb. When a decree is spoken over it in Akkad-Sar, the wedges glow like embers and the tablet grows warm.
• Abilities:
  • Kiln Spark (spell): The wielder speaks a short decree and a dart of ember-bright fire leaps from the tablet at one target in range. This uses the attack bonus, base damage, and range listed above. It requires no ammunition.
  • Chanted Decree: The spell follows the rules for Silent, Normal, and Ritual casting. A Silent casting deals 25% less damage, and a Ritual casting of more than 6 seconds deals up to 25% more.
  • Warm Clay: The tablet gives off enough heat to dry wet ink or clay in one minute and enough glow to read by within 5 feet.
  • Brittle: If the tablet is reduced to half its item health points or less, Kiln Spark does not function until the tablet is repaired.
• Suggested value: 45 silver

Apparatuses of Nin-Tuppi Sharrat-Belet

Copper-Rim Reading Lens of the Archive 4382

• Type: Tool (identification focus)
• Slot: Held in one hand, hung from a cord on her belt when not in use
• Rank: Tier 1, Common
• Attunement: Handheld, instant when held
• Weight: Half a pound
• Item health points: Resilience 8
• Description: A disc of clear volcanic glass the width of a palm, ground smooth and set in a copper rim. A row of Sar-Wedge circles the rim, and a short handle of dark wood is wrapped in the red cord of the matriline. When held over an inscription, the wedges on the rim glow faintly copper.
• Abilities:
  • Identify: The lens serves as the focus item for active use of the Mind’s Eye. The holder uses an action and concentrates for a few minutes to read deeper information about one object or inscription viewed through the glass.
  • Reader’s Aid: While held, the holder gains 1 temporary skill point in Identification.
  • Faded Wedge: Script that is worn, melted, or painted over shows through the lens as a faint copper outline, provided some trace of the original marks remains in the surface.
  • Cooldown: After three uses of Identify in one day, the glass clouds and the ability does not function until the next Helios up.
• Suggested value: 50 silver

Scribe’s Clay Press and Seal Case 9156

• Type: Tool (copying and sealing kit)
• Slot: Carried in her backpack, set on a flat surface for use
• Rank: Tier 1, Common
• Attunement: Handheld, instant when held or operated
• Weight: 7 pounds
• Item health points: Resilience 10
• Description: A hinged box of dark ash wood with bronze corners, about the size of a loaf of bread. The lid folds back to form a small screw press with a bronze plate. Inside are a sealed tin of damp archive clay, a wire cutter, three blank cylinder seals of grey granite, a pot of alchemical resin, and a folded cloth for rubbings. The mark of the ninth bench is burned into the underside.
• Abilities:
  • True Copy: By pressing fresh clay against an inscription, carved surface, or seal for one minute, the user makes an exact impression. The Kiln-Warm Plate then hardens the impression into a durable tablet in ten minutes.
  • Kiln-Warm Plate: The bronze plate heats when the press is closed, enough to harden clay or set resin. It does not grow hot enough to cause damage.
  • Seal Cutting: The kit counts as a tool for Scribing and Rune Cutting when carving cylinder seals. A finished seal rolled across clay leaves the user’s chosen mark.
  • Copyist’s Aid: While operating the press, the user gains 1 temporary skill point in Scribing.
  • Limited Clay: The tin holds enough clay for ten palm-sized tablets. It can be refilled with any clean river or quarry clay.
• Suggested value: 55 silver

Resume and Personal History of Nin-Tuppi Sharrat-Belet

Resume

• Name and standing:
  • Nin-Tuppi Sharrat-Belet, apprentice-scribe of the ninth bench, Tuppi-Sharrat matriline
  • Akkad-Kuri female, age 62, tier 1
  • Home bench: Archive hall of the Flamecitadel of Balawat, State of Kalhu, Assyria
• Current position:
  • Senior apprentice copyist, ninth bench (22 years)
  • Copies and checks decrees, quarry charters, and temple records in ceremonial Sar-Wedge
  • Cuts runes into finished gear for local artisans under her mother’s seal
• Previous positions:
  • Junior apprentice, ninth bench (18 years): Prepared clay, trimmed tablets, fired copies, and kept the bench’s tools
  • Quarry tally-keeper, Balawat granite works (4 years): Recorded block counts, mason’s marks, and shipments bound for the Zab River rafts
  • Vault runner, archive hall of Balawat (2 years): Fetched and returned tablets, learned the shelving order of the lower vaults
• Education:
  • Compulsory state schooling in Balawat until adulthood: Akkad-Sar, national history, engineering principles, and the tenets of Assyriasm
  • Bench training under her mother, Ama-Sharrat, in Sar-Wedge, Sar-Lin, and seal cutting
  • Stonework instruction from her grandfather, a quarry agent of the matriline
• Trained skills:
  • Scribing (Sar-Wedge and Sar-Lin): 4
  • Rune Cutting: 3
  • Library Research: 3
  • Identification (Mind’s Eye, with a focus item): 2
  • Stonework: 1
  • Stylus and Chisel (small blades): 1
• Languages:
  • Akkad-Sar, spoken and written in both scripts
  • Reads older forms of Sar-Wedge found on quarry faces and temple foundations
• Notable work:
  • Recopied 340 cracked quarry charters of the Southern Highlands after a vault flood
  • Cut the binding runes on a set of steam-hammer gauges for the Balawat sawmills
  • Catalogued a crate of heat-warped tablet fragments attributed to the Zorath crater
• Memberships:
  • Tuppi-Sharrat matriline, apprentice rank, badge worn on her sash
  • Local guild of Balawat, registered as a scribe for hire
• Marks and titles:
  • No character marks
  • No house seal yet earned

Personal History

Nin-Tuppi was born in Balawat, in a stone house cut into the mountainside two streets below the archive hall. Her mother, Ama-Sharrat, had already sat at the ninth bench for more than thirty years. Her father came from a warrior house of the northern plains and returned to his own mother’s household when Nin-Tuppi was small, as was the custom between their families. She saw him at festivals and remembers him mostly as a tall figure who smelled of oiled metal.

Her grandfather filled the space he left. He was a quarry agent, a son of the matriline who had spent his life walking the granite works with a mallet and a tally cord. He took her up to the quarry faces before she could read and showed her the old mason’s marks cut into the stone, some of them older than the town. She learned to tell one cutter’s hand from another by touch. When he died, in her fortieth year, his mallet came to her.

As a child she was mundane like every child of her race, pale and unmarked. She did well in the state school at letters and history and poorly at the drill yard. Her Quickening came in her sixteenth year. Over the following months her senses sharpened until the hum of the ley line under the Flamecitadel kept her awake at night, and the first rows of script-like patterns rose along her forearms. Her mother inspected them by lamplight and said only that they were straight. Among the Keepers, that is praise.

She entered the archive hall as a vault runner and then spent four years at the quarry as a tally-keeper, a posting the matriline gives its daughters so they learn where the stone and the records begin. It was at the quarry, during a lesson with a borrowed chisel, that the tool slipped and opened her left palm. The scar is still there. She took her place at the ninth bench in her twenty-second year as a junior apprentice and has worked there since.

The bench is slow work. A daughter of the matriline may copy for a century before she is trusted to verify. Nin-Tuppi learned patience from the clay, which cracks if it is hurried, and from her mother, who corrects an error by setting the flawed tablet in front of her daughter and waiting. In her forty-first year a spring flood reached the lower vaults, and she spent the next three years recopying the damaged quarry charters. The work earned her the rank of senior apprentice and the copper-rim lens she now carries.

Two things have unsettled her since. The first was a crate of heat-warped fragments that arrived from a temple in the east, said to have been carried out of the Zorath crater generations ago. She catalogued them and found that several pieces fit together and that a large part of the text was missing. The matriline’s record of the Ashenfall has the same gap. She has thought about that crater ever since.

The second came while she was recopying a charter that grants a rival house the timber rights along a stretch of the Zab River. Under her lens, one row of wedges showed a second, fainter row beneath it. Someone had smoothed the clay and pressed a different line before the tablet was fired. The copy on record is therefore older than the change, and the change is older than anyone living at her bench. She has told no one, including her mother.

Her mother’s hundredth year at the bench is approaching, and with it the custom that a daughter who has earned her own seal may stand beside her at the ceremony. Nin-Tuppi does not have one. She has begun taking work through the guild of Balawat, cutting runes and reading inscriptions for those who will pay, and she has packed her press, her lens, her tablet, and her grandfather’s mallet for travel beyond the town.

Relationships of Nin-Tuppi Sharrat-Belet

Community

• Balawat townsfolk:
  • The miners, stonemasons, and engineers of Balawat know her as “the ninth bench’s daughter.” They bring her contracts to read and boundary stones to check, and they pay in coin, lamp oil, or cut stone.
  • She is respected more than liked. Her stillness and her habit of studying a document before greeting its owner are taken as coldness.
  • Quarry crews who remember her years as a tally-keeper treat her with more warmth and still call her “Tally.”
• The Flamecitadel of Balawat:
  • She attends the weekly Flamevow and works the polishing bench during communal metal-shaping. She is observant but not fervent.
  • Firelord Erishum-Kadur, who oversees the archive hall, values her accuracy and gives her the damaged tablets no one else wants. He also watches the Keepers closely, since the temple and the matriline share the vaults and do not fully trust each other.
• The Tuppi-Sharrat matriline:
  • She holds apprentice rank and wears the badge on her sash. The elder mothers of the other benches regard her as capable and slow to advance.
  • Bench-Mother Belet-Nashira, head of the house in Balawat, assigned her the Zorath fragments and has not asked for a report. Nin-Tuppi does not know whether that is trust or a test.
• The guild of Balawat:
  • She is registered as a scribe for hire. The guild clerk, a stout dwarf named Hodrek Flintledger, passes her rune-cutting and inscription work and takes his fee without haggling.
  • Other guild members find her useful and hard to talk to. A few adventurers have asked for her by name after she read a worn inscription that others could not.
• The rival house:
  • House Zab-Durani holds the timber rights along the Zab River under the charter she found altered. Its agents in Balawat are polite to her. She avoids them and has begun to wonder whether they have noticed.

Family

• Ama-Sharrat (mother):
  • Verifying scribe of the ninth bench, nearing her hundredth year there. She is exacting, quiet, and spare with praise.
  • Their bond is deep and largely unspoken. They work side by side most days and seldom talk about anything except the work.
  • Nin-Tuppi wants her mother’s approval more than she admits. Keeping the altered charter from her is the first secret she has ever held against her.
• Kadash-Ili (grandfather, deceased):
  • Quarry agent of the matriline and her mother’s father. He taught her stonework and the reading of old mason’s marks, and he was the one person who laughed easily around her.
  • She carries his mallet and visits his Ember Shard in the Flame Vault beneath the temple on the anniversary of his Flame Return.
• Shamash-Nadin (father):
  • A drill officer from a warrior house of the northern plains. He lives in his own mother’s household and sees his daughter at festivals.
  • Their relationship is courteous and distant. He sends a letter each year, written by a hired scribe, and she corrects its grammar before she answers it.
• Nin-Kalla (younger sister):
  • Age 38, a junior apprentice at the same bench. She is quicker and more outgoing than Nin-Tuppi and is already favored by the elder mothers.
  • Nin-Tuppi is protective of her and uneasy that her sister may earn a seal first.
• Ummanu (cousin):
  • A son of the matriline who serves as a courier on the road between Balawat and the capital. He carries her private letters without logging them and brings back gossip from the larger archives.

Friends

• Iltani of the Lower Vault:
  • An elderly Akkad-Kuri vault keeper, past 300 years, who taught her the shelving order when she was a runner. Iltani remembers which tablets have been moved and by whom, and she is the one person Nin-Tuppi has considered telling about the charter.
• Brusk Ashhand:
  • A half-orc quarry foreman who worked beside her during her tally-keeping years. He is blunt, loyal, and unimpressed by her house. They share a meal at the quarry canteen once a week, and he is the only one who teases her.
• Sebet-Anu:
  • A rune-smith at the Balawat sawmills, an Isekai soul who remembers a life as a clockmaker in another world. The two trade techniques at the bench, and Sebet-Anu’s stories of other worlds are the reason Nin-Tuppi first thought of traveling.
• Pell Greywick:
  • A halfling trapper from the deep forests of Kalhu who sells rare woods and herbs in town. He once paid her in pressed flowers for reading a land dispute, and he has offered to guide her through the Whispering Woods if she ever needs to leave Balawat quietly.