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<blockquote data-quote="havenstone" data-source="post: 5393558" data-attributes="member: 61094"><p><strong>Well Met by Moondark</strong></p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“WE NEED TO</span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'"> bring her with us.” Carwyn’s stubborn whisper brooks no disagreement.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“We’ve scarcely known her for two weeks,” Ontaya murmurs back, concerned by Carwyn’s irrationally intense attachment to her new friend Rian. “Why are you so sure we can trust her? She’s not a Northerner – she doesn’t think like us. Most slaves down here would never dream of escaping. They’d turn us in the second they suspected we were planning it.”</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“Ash and Meeshak decided to trust these young Laksharis they just met, even though they’ve spent <em>much</em> less time with them than I have with Rian.” Carwyn warms to her theme. “The fact that she’s a Southerner should make us <em>more</em> eager to get her on our side. Without friends like her who know the South, we’ll be caught again for sure. And she’s young, and terrified of being a slave – it’s new to her, too. We <em>can not</em> abandon her to the nobles here. She’ll be desperate to get away with us. And she’s good with little Tarai – I mean, T’harai. He’s calm around her.”</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Meeshak raises one hand in exasperation. “Fine, Carwyn, fine. We’ll tell her on the night. If she doesn’t want to come with us, I’ll just gag her, tie her hands, and sprain her other ankle.”</span></p><p> </p><p> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">GAUGING THE PATHS </span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">of Aerdrim’s nine moons is a complex art, as they all constantly influence each others’ orbits. In the North, only the most determined of scholars could master the calculations necessary to predict what the moons would be doing one month hence, or to predict with precision what they would be doing in even a few days. Meeshak guesses that either Njitra and Chandur must be a half-decent student of the moons, as it becomes clear that the night of their planned escape will have a lengthy stretch of moondark – a window when none of the moons save Manachorn, the black moon, are visible in the sky. </span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">That night the four brightest moons are all waning, and set early. When the last of them has slipped below the horizon, leaving only the dull red slivers of the twin moons Ascha and Tischa, Carwyn crawls over to Rian and silently wakes her up. “Rian: we are escaping,” she breathes, almost inaudibly. “Come with us.”</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Rian stares wide-eyed at the ceiling for a moment. She loathes slavery, and knows she can’t survive here for long; sooner or later she’ll be caught using sorcery and executed. But the Northern group into which she’s Charmed herself are the most conspicuous group of escapees imaginable, and will be the most hunted-after. They’re sure to be caught and excruciated. <em>As soon as we get over the wall</em>, she decides coolly, <em>I’ll slip away from them and make my own way</em>. She has no sentimental attachment to the strangers or their slightly alarming baby Tarai, and the debt she owes to Meeshak is not exactly a life-debt.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“All right – I’ll come with you,” she whispers.</span></p><p> </p><p> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">THE NORTHERNERS STAND</span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'"> and Meeshak chants a muffled prayer for Silence. As he mutters the last syllable, all sound ceases in the area around the slaves’ sleeping enclosure. Carwyn, Meeshak, Ontaya, and Ash sprint out of the building before its four Xaimani sentries have the chance to notice or understand the unnatural stillness. Carwyn saps her target, who drops like a stone; Ontaya and Ash grapple their two down, knock off their ornamental helms, and pound their heads against the pavement. Meeshak whips a rope around the neck of the fourth guard and begins to throttle him. The mutely choking man lashes out with his mace, but Meeshak manages to hold on until Ontaya arrives, brandishing another guard’s mace, to knock the Xaimani out.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">They step back into the slave quarters just long enough to collect Rian and wake Hamber and Tarai, whose noiseless fussing soon subsides. As they emerge, they see the twin red moons have also set, and the five escapees steal into the gardens of the Tang Estate by starlight. Pebbles crunch beneath their bare feet as they leave the radius of Meeshak’s Silence. Rian is limping badly from her sprained ankle, and Ontaya silently beckons her to hand over baby Tarai. Soon they reach a thin wall of decorative ironwork with a locked door. “On the far side of this wall, the Minister releases great hunting cats each night,” Ontaya murmurs to Rian. “Daoran says they are the estate’s most effective guards. Ash?”</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Ash listens intently and sniffs the air for catspoor. “I don’t sense any of them close at hand.”</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Carwyn has nothing like Darren’s skill with a lockpick, but manages to unlock the door with needles stolen from the Great House. The party creeps through a maze of hedges and reaches the outer wall – a tall stone edifice topped with a battlement and flamelike crenellations. Ontaya and Carwyn, with the children, are the first to scale the battlement. Then the night is split by a horrific shriek, and a half-dozen Xaimani panthers attack the party members remaining on the ground.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Unlike wolves – those famously solitary hunters – the great cats of Aerdrim hunt in packs, closely coordinated, with some flanking their target while others engage head-on. Barely able to see in the moondark, Meeshak bats clumsily at one with a mace, Rian cowering behind him. Ash tries to fend off the others with a guard’s short spear, while trying vainly to use his animal empathy skills to convince them to leave. Ontaya leaps from the wall and manages to land on one of the panthers, breaking its back. The remaining cats immediately spring onto Ontaya, raking her with their talons; Ontaya bellows and lets herself go into berserker rage, battering her feline attackers with her mace and flinging them into the wall. Ash gives up on diplomacy and spears one that has begun chewing on Meeshak. Within minutes, the surviving panthers have vanished back into the lightless outer garden. Ontaya regains control of herself before committing a truly chaotic act – like lashing out at one of her friends – and leans against the wall, drained of energy.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Any hope of a stealthy escape is now gone. Carwyn sees a patrol of five armed guards marching along the battlement from the north, while a dozen-odd torches are flickering in the garden close by. “Behind you – they’re almost here!” she hisses. Hamber and Tarai are wailing in her arms.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“Run,” Ontaya growls. The party sprints off along the wall to the south. The first guards who emerge from the hedges are frozen in place by Meeshak’s Hold Person chants. Six others charge in and clash with Ontaya and Ash, who take dozens of blows on their unarmored bodies to shield their less sturdy friends. By the time they have fought off the first patrol and resume running, both the fighters’ slaveclothes are soaked in their own blood; without Meeshak’s Curing blessings and Ontaya’s ability to heal by laying on hands, they would all unquestionably have been slain.</span></p><p> </p><p> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">FRANTIC BUT HELD </span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">back by the excruciating pain in her ankle, Rian hobbles behind the others as fast as she can. She screams as a new shadow bursts out of the garden, metal armor glinting in the starlight. The Xaimani mace meets her skull, and all she sees is a blaze of color, fading to featureless white.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">When she regains consciousness, she is slung over Ash’s sinewy shoulder as he tries to clamber up the wall of the estate. Ontaya is already fighting off Tang’s guards next to Carwyn on the battlement, while Meeshak helps haul Ash up. “I’m awake,” she whispers, feeling sick as her bleeding head jostles next to the wall.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“Good. Can you grab Meeshak’s arm and hold on?” Ash grunts.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">She manages to twist and keep a grip on the priest. Ash scrambles up over the lip of the ledge and hauls her up after him, then turns to help Ontaya with the remaining sentries on the wall, allowing Carwyn to fall back with the boys. “Forgive me for not Curing your wounds,” Meeshak says drily to Rian, whipping his rope past the fighters and around the ankles of a guard. “But I think we’ll all have a better chance of surviving this if I reserve my blessings for the front line.”</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Rian nods sickly. “Ash – he saved me?”</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“Killed the guard and carried you to the wall,” Meeshak confirms, yanking the enemy off-balance and toppling him from the battlement.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“I owe him a life-debt,” Rian whispers dizzily, revising her plans.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“He probably won’t see it that way. But yes, you do.”</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Ontaya bull-rushes the last guard off the wall. “We’ll be seeing mages and Minister Tang’s honor guard here at any moment,” the paladin barks. “Let’s go.”</span></p><p> </p><p> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">THEY CLAMBER DOWN </span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">the far side of the wall, into empty streets left almost featureless by moondark. Meeshak takes the lead, guiding them down alleys toward the river. Ash picks up Rian again and carries her for a few minutes, but his strength is clearly flagging, and he doesn’t protest when she asks to be put down. Behind them, the chorus of shouts grows ever fainter. </span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">After they’ve been running for five minutes, a burst of white flame ascends into the sky near the estate, hovering like an artificial sun. For long moments, they feel exposed; then the light winks out again. In the houses around them, they hear people starting to stir and candles being lit, but they remain alone in the street. They push on to the banks of the inky Shanyang and head downriver.</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">A half-mile from the estate, Ash spies a pink glow and hisses, “There!” A paper-walled lantern hangs in the stern of a long rowboat. A masked man steps from the boat and waves them closer. “Welcome – but don’t speak our names,” Njitra says softly. “We don’t know if anyone already has eyes on us.”</span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">As the party members hurriedly board, Rian realizes that this is almost certainly her last chance to strike out on her own. For a second, she hesitates – then mutters, “I always pay my debts,” to herself, limps into the boat, and reclaims little Tarai from Ontaya.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="havenstone, post: 5393558, member: 61094"] [b]Well Met by Moondark[/b] [B][FONT=Verdana]“WE NEED TO[/FONT][/B][FONT=Verdana] bring her with us.” Carwyn’s stubborn whisper brooks no disagreement.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“We’ve scarcely known her for two weeks,” Ontaya murmurs back, concerned by Carwyn’s irrationally intense attachment to her new friend Rian. “Why are you so sure we can trust her? She’s not a Northerner – she doesn’t think like us. Most slaves down here would never dream of escaping. They’d turn us in the second they suspected we were planning it.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“Ash and Meeshak decided to trust these young Laksharis they just met, even though they’ve spent [I]much[/I] less time with them than I have with Rian.” Carwyn warms to her theme. “The fact that she’s a Southerner should make us [I]more[/I] eager to get her on our side. Without friends like her who know the South, we’ll be caught again for sure. And she’s young, and terrified of being a slave – it’s new to her, too. We [I]can not[/I] abandon her to the nobles here. She’ll be desperate to get away with us. And she’s good with little Tarai – I mean, T’harai. He’s calm around her.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Meeshak raises one hand in exasperation. “Fine, Carwyn, fine. We’ll tell her on the night. If she doesn’t want to come with us, I’ll just gag her, tie her hands, and sprain her other ankle.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [B][FONT=Verdana]GAUGING THE PATHS [/FONT][/B][FONT=Verdana]of Aerdrim’s nine moons is a complex art, as they all constantly influence each others’ orbits. In the North, only the most determined of scholars could master the calculations necessary to predict what the moons would be doing one month hence, or to predict with precision what they would be doing in even a few days. Meeshak guesses that either Njitra and Chandur must be a half-decent student of the moons, as it becomes clear that the night of their planned escape will have a lengthy stretch of moondark – a window when none of the moons save Manachorn, the black moon, are visible in the sky. [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]That night the four brightest moons are all waning, and set early. When the last of them has slipped below the horizon, leaving only the dull red slivers of the twin moons Ascha and Tischa, Carwyn crawls over to Rian and silently wakes her up. “Rian: we are escaping,” she breathes, almost inaudibly. “Come with us.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Rian stares wide-eyed at the ceiling for a moment. She loathes slavery, and knows she can’t survive here for long; sooner or later she’ll be caught using sorcery and executed. But the Northern group into which she’s Charmed herself are the most conspicuous group of escapees imaginable, and will be the most hunted-after. They’re sure to be caught and excruciated. [I]As soon as we get over the wall[/I], she decides coolly, [I]I’ll slip away from them and make my own way[/I]. She has no sentimental attachment to the strangers or their slightly alarming baby Tarai, and the debt she owes to Meeshak is not exactly a life-debt.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“All right – I’ll come with you,” she whispers.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [B][FONT=Verdana]THE NORTHERNERS STAND[/FONT][/B][FONT=Verdana] and Meeshak chants a muffled prayer for Silence. As he mutters the last syllable, all sound ceases in the area around the slaves’ sleeping enclosure. Carwyn, Meeshak, Ontaya, and Ash sprint out of the building before its four Xaimani sentries have the chance to notice or understand the unnatural stillness. Carwyn saps her target, who drops like a stone; Ontaya and Ash grapple their two down, knock off their ornamental helms, and pound their heads against the pavement. Meeshak whips a rope around the neck of the fourth guard and begins to throttle him. The mutely choking man lashes out with his mace, but Meeshak manages to hold on until Ontaya arrives, brandishing another guard’s mace, to knock the Xaimani out.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]They step back into the slave quarters just long enough to collect Rian and wake Hamber and Tarai, whose noiseless fussing soon subsides. As they emerge, they see the twin red moons have also set, and the five escapees steal into the gardens of the Tang Estate by starlight. Pebbles crunch beneath their bare feet as they leave the radius of Meeshak’s Silence. Rian is limping badly from her sprained ankle, and Ontaya silently beckons her to hand over baby Tarai. Soon they reach a thin wall of decorative ironwork with a locked door. “On the far side of this wall, the Minister releases great hunting cats each night,” Ontaya murmurs to Rian. “Daoran says they are the estate’s most effective guards. Ash?”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Ash listens intently and sniffs the air for catspoor. “I don’t sense any of them close at hand.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Carwyn has nothing like Darren’s skill with a lockpick, but manages to unlock the door with needles stolen from the Great House. The party creeps through a maze of hedges and reaches the outer wall – a tall stone edifice topped with a battlement and flamelike crenellations. Ontaya and Carwyn, with the children, are the first to scale the battlement. Then the night is split by a horrific shriek, and a half-dozen Xaimani panthers attack the party members remaining on the ground.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Unlike wolves – those famously solitary hunters – the great cats of Aerdrim hunt in packs, closely coordinated, with some flanking their target while others engage head-on. Barely able to see in the moondark, Meeshak bats clumsily at one with a mace, Rian cowering behind him. Ash tries to fend off the others with a guard’s short spear, while trying vainly to use his animal empathy skills to convince them to leave. Ontaya leaps from the wall and manages to land on one of the panthers, breaking its back. The remaining cats immediately spring onto Ontaya, raking her with their talons; Ontaya bellows and lets herself go into berserker rage, battering her feline attackers with her mace and flinging them into the wall. Ash gives up on diplomacy and spears one that has begun chewing on Meeshak. Within minutes, the surviving panthers have vanished back into the lightless outer garden. Ontaya regains control of herself before committing a truly chaotic act – like lashing out at one of her friends – and leans against the wall, drained of energy.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Any hope of a stealthy escape is now gone. Carwyn sees a patrol of five armed guards marching along the battlement from the north, while a dozen-odd torches are flickering in the garden close by. “Behind you – they’re almost here!” she hisses. Hamber and Tarai are wailing in her arms.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“Run,” Ontaya growls. The party sprints off along the wall to the south. The first guards who emerge from the hedges are frozen in place by Meeshak’s Hold Person chants. Six others charge in and clash with Ontaya and Ash, who take dozens of blows on their unarmored bodies to shield their less sturdy friends. By the time they have fought off the first patrol and resume running, both the fighters’ slaveclothes are soaked in their own blood; without Meeshak’s Curing blessings and Ontaya’s ability to heal by laying on hands, they would all unquestionably have been slain.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [B][FONT=Verdana]FRANTIC BUT HELD [/FONT][/B][FONT=Verdana]back by the excruciating pain in her ankle, Rian hobbles behind the others as fast as she can. She screams as a new shadow bursts out of the garden, metal armor glinting in the starlight. The Xaimani mace meets her skull, and all she sees is a blaze of color, fading to featureless white.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]When she regains consciousness, she is slung over Ash’s sinewy shoulder as he tries to clamber up the wall of the estate. Ontaya is already fighting off Tang’s guards next to Carwyn on the battlement, while Meeshak helps haul Ash up. “I’m awake,” she whispers, feeling sick as her bleeding head jostles next to the wall.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“Good. Can you grab Meeshak’s arm and hold on?” Ash grunts.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]She manages to twist and keep a grip on the priest. Ash scrambles up over the lip of the ledge and hauls her up after him, then turns to help Ontaya with the remaining sentries on the wall, allowing Carwyn to fall back with the boys. “Forgive me for not Curing your wounds,” Meeshak says drily to Rian, whipping his rope past the fighters and around the ankles of a guard. “But I think we’ll all have a better chance of surviving this if I reserve my blessings for the front line.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Rian nods sickly. “Ash – he saved me?”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“Killed the guard and carried you to the wall,” Meeshak confirms, yanking the enemy off-balance and toppling him from the battlement.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“I owe him a life-debt,” Rian whispers dizzily, revising her plans.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“He probably won’t see it that way. But yes, you do.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Ontaya bull-rushes the last guard off the wall. “We’ll be seeing mages and Minister Tang’s honor guard here at any moment,” the paladin barks. “Let’s go.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [B][FONT=Verdana]THEY CLAMBER DOWN [/FONT][/B][FONT=Verdana]the far side of the wall, into empty streets left almost featureless by moondark. Meeshak takes the lead, guiding them down alleys toward the river. Ash picks up Rian again and carries her for a few minutes, but his strength is clearly flagging, and he doesn’t protest when she asks to be put down. Behind them, the chorus of shouts grows ever fainter. [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]After they’ve been running for five minutes, a burst of white flame ascends into the sky near the estate, hovering like an artificial sun. For long moments, they feel exposed; then the light winks out again. In the houses around them, they hear people starting to stir and candles being lit, but they remain alone in the street. They push on to the banks of the inky Shanyang and head downriver.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]A half-mile from the estate, Ash spies a pink glow and hisses, “There!” A paper-walled lantern hangs in the stern of a long rowboat. A masked man steps from the boat and waves them closer. “Welcome – but don’t speak our names,” Njitra says softly. “We don’t know if anyone already has eyes on us.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]As the party members hurriedly board, Rian realizes that this is almost certainly her last chance to strike out on her own. For a second, she hesitates – then mutters, “I always pay my debts,” to herself, limps into the boat, and reclaims little Tarai from Ontaya.[/FONT] [/QUOTE]
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