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The Heartwood
Bordertown
Sometime after Sunset
Rameday, The Twenty-First Day of the Month of Crown of Ice, 2623

At the Dragonstooth with Fred and Ginger

Of course there was a second whap between grizzled farmer and his old-enough-he-should-be-betrothed son.

"See ...

"IT WORKS!"

Dean

He flinches from her soft touch as if his red face could burn her hand. "M-My Lady Bekkah...I assure you I am fine except for the shame of, of..."...tripping you?, falling over you?, throwing you on the ground?..."of...that," he says generally gesturing at the floor.

Dean makes to escort the Lady Bekkah back to her seat and then remembering the feeling of her small foot beneath his boot he asks carefully, "Can you walk?"

Bekkah

Perhaps to his surprise, she does not move towards her seat.

"Accidents do happen sometimes. Especially when one is nervous." she said calmly.

"I'm quite fine, you did not hurt me. I have spent much time walking and working. I am no delicate flower Squire Dean." she said brushing off dust from his shoulders and arms.

"Surely Knight Kevin did not let you stop the moment you made an error in your training? I think not. Let us try again. I'm sure you will do better this time. Please just think of me as any country maid you've asked to dance at a summer festival."

The Heartwood
Bordertown
Sometime after Sunset
Rameday, The Twenty-First Day of the Month of Crown of Ice, 2623

At the Dragonstooth with Fred and Ginger

It is the minstrel then that tilts his head, fingers straying over the strings of his finely made lute.

He does follow Bekkah's lead, picking a fine country dance, a simple bransle, to brighten the commons.

Of course bransles are popular country dances; they are for marketday nights, midwinters or a village gathering but mostly, mostly they are for young men to meet young ladies ...

The Heartwood
Bordertown
Nightime
Rameday, The Twenty-First Day of the Month of Crown of Ice, 2623

Mikal and Longtooth on the top of the Temple Ruins.

Longtooth just looks back at Mikal, unblinking, for one moment, then two.

Then the snarkhound turned and with an easy pace walked directly to the well. He chose a spot, right next to where the rope disappeared and placing both paws on the stone rim looked down into the black depths.

Slowly then, the snarkhound just turned back, and gave Mikal a ...

... a look.

Head low, eyes narrowed, the big ruff just shook his head. It was followed by a short, low, chuff of breath.

A look.

As if Mikal was a six month old pup who somehow missed the big, juicy, obvious bone right beneath its nose.

A definite .... humf.

The Heartwood
Bordertown
Nightime
Rameday, The Twenty-First Day of the Month of Crown of Ice, 2623

Daxia, Kadri, Romana in the Temple Ruins with one very annoyed Eastern Hunting Beast

It was a night for Friends it seems, of small Friends, of Friends of light and not.

From the deepest of the shadows a soundless breeze snapped out, a breeze of shadow that could literally be seen. Like an angry mist it swirled, it slipped, it slid. Like a wave it flowed and swirled about the last of the hunting beasts. The beast turned, it snapped, and like a wild thing it twisted and turned as it was wrapped in Kadri's elemental summoning.

Unlike the rider from the glade, the hunting beast does not cower; indeed its jaws clamped down and there was a shredding of the darkness. Like scraps of cloth bits and pieces of the shade frayed and shed, there for a moment and then faded away. In return it snapped and wove, slipping around the beast like a magical scarf, tightening about its throat.

Now both combattants were thoroughly ... annoyed.

At least, however, wrapped in shadows ... its attention was no longer on the three women.

Daxia
with Kadri and Romana at the Temple Ruins

Daxia looked at the two rather annoyed... things... fighting in the corridor.

"Think good idea wait, see what Kadri little friend do with nasty beast." She looked sidelong at Kadri. "Dazi not get in middle of serious fight. Gilly say that make Dazi cobble-block for certain."

Cesare

He chuckles, not hiding his amusement at the Squire's predicament, though the laughter is not unkind and he did contain himself just long enough to be sure that only dignities had been hurt.

"Want to dance?"

He turns to ask Darian, not sure if this is something she would enjoy but there is only one way to find out. He quite enjoys a dance. Certainly his people have many different dances to celebrate events and he has joined in village dances too, though usually with one aim in mind.

Darian

There was much holding with this dancing which amused Darian no end considering at the end of the night the dancers would all go their separate ways. In the Pack the holding mostly did not happen untl the dancing was over and people retired to their furs.

She grinned and leaned to say to him. "Pack dance different but try. Cesare show, aye?"

Cesare

He grins.

"I'll try, though I don't think it matters too much if we follow any set pattern."

Standing, he holds out a hand to her, ready to head into the space currently occupied by Dean and Bekkah.

Darian

She takes his hand and stands.

"Be good," she says with a chuckle as they join the other two.

Mikal

He grins at Longtooth and approaches the rope and the well, leaning over to look down and see if he can follow it into the darkness below. If this is where Daxia and the others went, there should be some sort of light below to indicate that, as, as far as he knows none of them can see in the dark. Or they may be sounds he can hear as well.

The Heartwood
Bordertown
Nightime
Rameday, The Twenty-First Day of the Month of Crown of Ice, 2623

Mikal and Longtooth on the top of the Temple Ruins.

As far as lighting went, there is none from the well; the rope vanished into the darkness.

As far as sound went, there were odd noises coming up from the depths, faint, perhaps a low grumbling or maybe even a growling-ish sound.

As far as Longtooth went, the snarkhound just blinked, dropped his head and shook it side by side.

The canine version of facepalming, perhaps.

Mikal

He sighs. It is not his favorite thing to go blindly into a dark pit, but in this case there is no telling what trouble those silly women have gotten themselves into. So he slings his crossbow over his shoulder, adjusts his swordbelt so as to not get in his way, loosens his dagger so he can get at it quickly should whatever is making that noise decide to try to bite him on the way down when he can only get one hand free, and begins carefully climbing down.

The Heartwood
Bordertown
Nightime
Rameday, The Twenty-First Day of the Month of Crown of Ice, 2623

Daxia, Kadri, Mikal and Romana in the Temple Ruins with ...

The climb down the rope is not as easy as it might seem, especially in the dark. Longtooth watched from above, looking down upon Mikal until neither can see each other anymore. Stone and night conspired to making the landing difficult; without a light Mikal almost missed the landing; his world now black upon black.

It took a moment, to get one's bearings, in the great temple hall. As his eyes became used to the pitch, both sound and sight became his hints. A lizard-ish growling and flaying down one length of corridor was matched by the telltale glow of Daxia's starlight.

The sound of Mikal's boots was the first warning of his approach; the second his form taking shape out of the shadows, that and the jangle as he moved through the butcher chains; that and the occasional bite of hook and spike.

Romana turned ...

For Mikal it was his first view of the slaughter; the shorn corpses still leaking deep dark blood upon the tiles, the bubbling of sinew and inner organs tangled like a fish badly incompetently flensed. hints of deep dark hair, light hair and tunics that were once green, once black, and once silver.

Attention was focused, however, not on that grisly feast. but at the very edge of the chapel, at the beast between Daxia, Kadri, Romana and the Jvrillian. It twisted as if wrapped by darkness, snapping at the black itself, until suddenly, the Eastern Hunting beast literally arched its body into the and with a harsh and brutal popping fell back to the hard floors with its back shattered.

For the moment, just for a heart beat there was silence, in the dark.

Perhaps the sound of ancient chans rattling, drawing tight, rattling against the stone walls.

A gasp, a choke, an attempt at a cry and against the temple butchery, of corpses fed upon and lizards gutted, that there was the bitter sounds of a stomach being emptied, the sickening smell upon all else, a twisting accent upon the already grisly scents upon the air.

Romana blinked, looking to Mikal, to Daxia, to Kadri. Her eyes went wide.

it wasn't er.

Nor was it Daxia, nor was it Kadri, nor was it Mikal.

" ... Goddess ..."

One word.

" ... oh Goddess, don't tease me, not this, not this, not this on top of everything else, please don't let me go mad."

From behind them.

From the western chapel wall.

All it was a slow look, to turn around.

And there they were.

Bound to the walls, held in black chains and cruel bands of darksteel were two women.

One hung limp, hung still, and the front of her tunics were covered in bile and worse, as if she had opened her eyes and saw something too sick to hold it, something so harsh and hurtful, it was better to let darkness claim her than face it - at least, right now.

She had dark hair and was garbed in torn tunics all in the shade of green.

The second hung in her chains too, but she ... she was awake. Her arms were bound high and she could not help but lean forward.

Black eyes looked across the carnage. The torn carcasses of the once ravenous lizard things ...

... upon the rent corpse in violated tunics of green.

... upon the remnants of the largest lizard's meal, a broken of hair fair clad in black and silver.

Just like her.

She had hair light, and wore tunics black and trimmed in silver.

Kadri turned at the sounds. . and ran over to the nearest of the chained women, whispering soothing and healing words, attempting to take away some hurt - ignoring, for the moment, the hurt that came from moving that fast with her arm hanging. . .wrongly.

"Someone - anyone - help me get rid of these chains!"

Daxia
with Kadri, Romana and Mikal in the Bordertown Temple West Chapel

Daxia turned at the sound of the word, 'Goddess'. Yes, slowly. Yes, with a look of shock and utter disbelief on her face.

"Hoi!" she whispered. "What...?" Her right hand dropped to the pouch at her waist, grasping it almost as if it has the answers to this... this madness.

"No, Kadri. Darksteel." Her voice was still hardly a whisper, but it held so much pain. "Not magicked, Dazi eat boot." She swallowed. Hard. "Ironsilver not cut magicked darksteel."

She gripped her pouch more tightly.

"Beast and Time." Her eyes slid from the green-clad woman to the Verchovai before her. "Coven and Dayalan."

She turned on her boot and strode purposefully to the Eastern Hunting Beast in the corridor and pulled -- fueled by adrenaline, rage, fear -- her sword from the fissure in the marble floor where it pinned the last beast.

"Beast!"

The redhaired Dayalan turned again and stepped into the chapel.

"Time!"

She wiped her blade clean on the edge -- struggling for a moment to find a clean edge -- of her tunic, and resheathed it.

"Blestemul acesta, Kisa! Need be so literal?"

She shook her head, registering the Verchovai's final phrase.

"Pardon, Verchovai," Daxia said, sketching a slight bow to her Pristess. "Dazi think..."

She stopped, gasped, and began again. "Your pardon, Verchovai, for my poor manners. No, you are not going mad. There truly are four of us here. I am Daxia Yurisdotter, Initiate of Dayala, though I suppose that is obvious enough. My comrades are Kadri, who attempts to assist your friend; Romana," she nodded to the tall hooded woman, "and Mikal, whose Contract I hold."

She stepped closer to the older Dayalan -- fullhand and fullhand and so many more fullhand years older, if her suspicion was correct.

"I cannot break the chains that bind you, either of you. How I wish I could! But ask anything else of me, and I will do my best to do anything you bid."

Bright blue eyes looked into the depths of black ones. "My Lady, how... how did this happen? How can I stop this... this horror I witnessed from happening again?"

Mikal

He finally finds the landing after a nerve-wracking descent into blindness, and as his eyes adjust to the total darkness the faint light ahead in the corridor begins to stand out.

As he carefully approaches, form and features begin to make themselves clear in the bluish light.

All he can see at first is blood and gore spattered and pooling everywhere. Guts and pieces of both human and lizard lie all across the floor. His sword is in his hand in a split second, and he moves forward faster.

He can see the women in chains appear as if from a mist, but his attention is drawn immediately to those he knows, and he sighs in relief as his mental count of who should be here matches with those standing, though he sees at once that Kadri seems injured.

It does not matter to him that Daxia seems to be trying to pay deference to those in chains. That is for later. Not much later, as the chained ones do not seem to be in good shape themselves.

After releasing the relieved sigh, he curses a blue streak. One that would have gotten his mouth washed with soap for a week at home had his mother even known he knew such words. Yet, even still, his curses cut off midstream, as if he can feel someone looking over his shoulder and frowning at him.

"Damn it all to ......!!!, by Hadrian's hairy nu......!!!"

He moves into the main room, and once he is certain no more enemies threaten, he approaches Kadri, while keeping an eye on Daxia where she is talking to the chained women. He reaches out to Kadri and focuses on helping her injured shoulder mend.

"I cannot leave you alone for a moment!" He calls in Daxia's general direction. "You went to meet a Priestess of Attera and you find death. What ever prompted you to come down a well filled with these......, monsters, without coming to get me?"

His tone is exasperated, but the relief in his voice can be heard.

Kadri:

She turns at Mikal, her eyes flashing.

"You think us helpless, Mikal? You think me helpless, even now? You think Dazi, she who slew a demon, is helpless? Romana, who has escaped not one, not twice but three times from those who would capture her? Dazi is not - I am not - Romana is not - some child in need of guidance. It might have been a good idea for us to get help, Mikal, but she is not your strayed ward."

Daxia
with Kadri, Romana, Mikal and two Priestesses in the Bordertown Temple West Chapel

As Mikal starts swearing behind, to the side, of her, a slow smile begins to spread across Daxia's face. She did not turn her head, merely closed her eyes, and spoke in a conversational tone.

"Tcha! Mikal! My cursing was much more blistering than that... though, admittedly, it was entirely in Ancient."

She merely shook her head at his admonishment, and Kadri's angry retort.

"Peace, Kadri, peace," she said more softly. "I hold his Contract, I am his employer. He has a right to be worried."

At that, she did turn to look at the two of them, a brief flash of amusement in her eyes.

"At least until Midwinters night, he has the right to be worried.

"I did not come to see the Lady Kay, I came to look at the ruins, Mikal; I merely escorted my sister on her journey to visit her fellow Atteran."

She sighed softly.

"You cannot understand, and I pray you never do understand, what it was like to look up at the outline of a Temple to my Goddess where I never even knew one existed... right above a town your Brothers now hold," she said, with almost preternatural serenity. "I did not come seeking death, drongo, but to walk where my Sisters once stood. Though Imperials now live on ground once sacred to Dayala, it was still a wondrous thing to stand up there amid the rubble in Her light.

"But I found our well tainted with a foulness that I could not even imagine when I stood there in Her light. I looked deep into the well and saw bones; there is no surer way to poison a well than to toss a body in. And there is more than one body at the bottom of that well, Mikal, though I did not know how very many bodies there likely are until I saw the Main Hall."

That was when she bowed her head, eyes closed again.

"Although I told Lady Kay I would do my best to restore the well, I fear that may be beyond my abilities, for I think the Temple would need to be rededicated after the well is cleaned to remove the stain caused by that horror. You did not see what we saw, Mikal," she said more strongly, raising her head and looking him in the eye. "You did not have my starlight to guide you, and be grateful for that. No fewer than a fullhand times a handful of my Sisters died in that room." She paused, holding his eyes. "Mikal, that is the entire number of Dayalans left in the entire world today."

Daxia did not seem to be so much angry, as... reverent.

"Do you really think I would have come down here with only Kadri and Romana if I knew what we would face?" she asked, truly puzzled. "Mikal, had I even the slightest ability to imagine what we would face, I would have fetched not only you, but Darian and the Squire and Cesare and even Bekkah, Camelia and..." She heaved a sigh, rolled her eyes, and grudgingly admitted, "...and yes, even Celi to join us."

The Dayalan looked between the green-clad woman and Mikal several times, a look on her face that seemed to say this probably can't end well. "Perhaps especially Celi," she said, her gaze fixed on the hanging woman. "It might do her some good to speak to a Kinswoman.

"Assuming we can find a way to keep her Kinswoman alive through a night, yes?

"She has risen; I can feel Her Presence once again blessing the world with Her light and I..."

She looked down, somewhat embarrassed. "I have not missed morning devotions since I was four, when Bekkah and I went to live in the Temple. I... I would ask that you return to town and fetch the remainder of our comrades." Daxia looked up at him again. "I don't know how to stop what is apparently a never-ending cycle. Romana, I remember you saying something about living a long life if one is in the gods' favor, but living an even longer one if one is in disfavor."

Instead of looking at Romana, she looked at her Priestess, eyebrows raised... a student asking the teacher if she has found the right answer to a puzzle.

"My armor is wrapped in my cloak at the side of the well. Please have Darian bring my bow and quiver when you tell her there are Beasts to be Hunted." She turned back to him. "This is not your fight, and I would release you from your Contract early if it would not annoy your God, and if you wished it. But I would also ask that you stand with me, and ask the others to stand with me, not out of duty, but out of friendship, out of comradeship. If any choose to stay in town, I will not think poorly of them, nor will I begrudge them their choice."

Those blue eyes examined each person in the room -- her friends, and the ancient Priestesses -- before alighting on her Second for a final time. "Food and water, as well, please," she said softly. "Ask Bekkah what would be best for those who have not eaten in... quite a while. And if Camelia chooses to come, ask her to bring her Deck."

She looked at Kadri, smiled and shook her head. "You wouldn't go if I ordered you to, would you, friend Kadri? And you, friend Romana?" she said, turning to the tall young woman. "DaziDaziDazi would still feel friendship for Romanas if Romanas wanted to leave." And again, for Romana, she smiled and shook her head. "I don't know why, but I... I still feel it is important for you and I to face this -- whatever this is -- together. Will you stand at my side?"

Cesare

Cesare leads Darian into the dancing and what he lacks in knowledge, he makes up for in enthusiasm and invention, bringing in moves from some of the dances with which he is more familiar. Less formal than Dean and Bekkah, their dancing is a little faster, a little wilder and maybe a little more intimate in terms of the holding, twirling and occasional closeness between them.

And there is an easy laughter as the two occasionally tangle or turn the wrong way but there is progress too as the evening wears on. Both of them are lithe and fit, not a bad basis for this activity.

And it will provide further endorsement for the farmer's son.

Cesare will suggest, fueled by the intimacy of the dancing, that they retire early. He had been intending to ask Camelia for a reading but mentally puts that off until tomorrow as his intentions lie in another direction tonight. Though he will bid her and the others good night as they leave for their room.

[OOC took the liberty of moving things on given the pace & direction of the well thread. Hope that's OK? ]

ooc - fine by me!

[ooc no worries Gypsy ]

Mikal

"Helpless, no", he replies to Kadri. "Stupid, rather. Rash. Undisciplined. Disorganized. Let me ask you this", he adds as he finishes focusing healing warmth into her arm. "Had you all been injured here, how were you going to get back up? If you'd been captured by intelligent foes, who would have gone for help? They'd have cut your rope and no one would have known where to look. You should not have gone down here without getting the others, and if you were going to anyway, one of you should have stayed above. If you cannot take basic precautions, do not grow annoyed when you are called out for your silliness."

He steps back and looks at her sternly, though she can see it is more worry. "There. Can you move it now without much pain?" He asks her glancing at her injured arm. "Bekkah will be able to finish healing it better."

He then turns as Daxia takes over the conversation. He nods as she mentions his right to be worried.

"Your reasons for wanting to come down here may be valid, but they are not the same as the methods you chose to do it. I understand you are Dayallan, and you may be used to working alone or in small groups, but we have spoken of this in our small unit tactics discussions. You never, never, never scout an unknown place without having backup and letting the main group know where you plan to go, what you plan to do, and when you plan to return. Never." There is finality in his tone.

"I leave the issue of the Temple and those we found to you. It is your province. But you contracted me not only for my sword, but also for my advice and teaching. Take it to heart. It is learned thru much loss of life and limb and if you will toss it away whenever the fancy strikes you, you belittle it, and me by extension."

He snorts at her talk of ending his contract. "It is not so easy to be rid of me. Much as you may wish to now. The Contract binds both ways. You are bound to listen as much as I am."

He then nods to her instructions. "I will get the others and the equipment. Do you need help releasing those two?" He points at the women chained to the wall, "or do you intend to keep them there until we return?"

Kadri, in the well:

She pauses for a second, biting back something else before speaking again.

"More than anybody, Mikal - perhaps other than Romana, Celi - I am used to being on my own. Despite traveling together we are ... small clusters. Darian always with Cesare. You connected to Daxia, me connected to Daxia, Romana and Bekkah."