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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hbarsquared" data-source="post: 3018956" data-attributes="member: 4550">Chapter One, Part ThreeAbrina awoke with a gasp to find the cleric kneeling next to her, his hands hovering over her side.  The wound had healed, but she could still feel the warmth of wet blood on her skin.  She struggled to rise and found she had returned to her normal size.  Abrina was no longer the towering giant but as she glanced around the dark alley she discovered there were no more enemies to worry about.“Are you okay?” asked the cleric.“Yes, I’ll be all right,” Abrina responded.  She tilted her head to one side with a half-smile.  “I should be asking you that.”The cleric chuckled and offered his arm, helping her to her feet.  “Ruphus,” he offered.Abrina raised an eyebrow as she steadied herself.  “No, my name is Abrina.  What is yours?”Ruphus paused for a moment, his mouth opening to explain himself.  Deciding against it, he smiled and said, “My name is Ruphus.”  He turned, taking no notice of her reaction, and motioned with one hand down the alley where lay the three bodies of the cleric’s attackers.  “These men will die without our aid,” he said as he approached the closest one and prayed over his broken body.Abrina scolded herself for a moment.  “Ruphus, of course,” she muttered to herself, and yanked up her pack that had been discarded during the fight.  She dug through her belonging and found a length of rope.  She would not leave the attackers to die, of course, but neither would she simply watch them walk away.  Quickly, she tied the hands of the attacker that had first challenged her and dragged him next to the others before whispering a prayer to relieve his ragged breathing.  Ruphus revived the others and prodded them with his mace.The three did not project the same air of confidence they had when attacking Ruphus only minutes before.  Their eyes darted from side to side and they squirmed in the bindings.  Abrina turned her attention to the attacker that had first challenged her and first ended up at the end of her spear.  “Tell me,” she said forcefully to him, “Why were you assaulting this cleric?”He stared wide-eyed at her, his face turning to glance at Ruphus kneeling at Abrina’s side.  Black and white makeup ran in rivulets down his face, mixing with blood and mud to form a thick clay that fell from his cheeks to the cobblestones.  “I . . . we . . . we were told to roughen him up.  Just a bit.  We weren’t going to kill him or nothin’.”“Why?”He glanced at his companions and shrugged.  “We needed the money.”“No, why did you need to ‘roughen him up?’  Who paid you?”All three attackers grew increasingly nervous, averting their eyes from Abrina.  In the distance, barely heard over the rain, Abrina could hear the sound of clanking armor and boots striding through puddles.“Tell me,” she said, nodding back to the street, “and I’ll let you go before the guard arrives.”One of them spoke up.  “We were supposed to send a clear message to the Church of Enlil not to go pokin’ around the orphanage.”“What orphanage?  Why not?” Abrina asked.“The Lantern Street Orphanage,” said the cleric, his brow furrowed.  “Four children were kidnapped from there three nights ago.  That is where I was coming from when they attacked.”The third man nodded, then shrugged.  “But we don’t know why.  It was nothing big, we weren’t going to hurt him.  Not really, anyways.”“Who hired you?” questioned Abrina.  “Who are you?  And why are your faces painted like that?  What does Urikas have to do with it?  What about my message?”  Her questions tumbled from her mouth faster than her prisoners could form answers as she shook the collar of one.  He shook his head from side to side, obviously confused.“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said emphatically.  “We don’t know.  The Last Laugh hired us, Jil was going to pay us—”He stopped abruptly, a crossbow bolt appearing in the side of his neck.  His body stiffened and his last words ended in a strange gurgle.  Abrina dropped the man, already dead, and fell back, glancing quickly around the dark alley, trying to see shapes through the slanting rain.  The other two attackers scrambled away from the body.“Well done!” cried out a voice, a familiar voice.  Ruphus scanned the roofs of the bordering buildings and pointed to a dark shape clinging to a section of one wall.  The figure emerged from the shadows and Abrina immediately recognized this painted face.  The woman, the same that had assaulted her the night before, was barely discernable in the moonlight filtering through the streaking rain.  She wore a hooded black cloak that whipped around her in the wind, and her black boots and black leather gloves clung to the brick like the splayed legs of a spider.    “You have no need for any more information he might have given you,” she said, “You have my name, not that it matters much.  The cleric lives because we of the Last Laugh wish it so, not because of your misplaced bravado.”    She pointed a baleful finger at the cleric. “Take these words back to your temple, priest. The children are lost and no longer Enlil’s concern.”  The woman, Jil, Abrina now knew, turned and rapidly climbed the wall like a spider, and before either Abrina or Ruphus could respond, Jil swung herself over the ledge and onto the roof.  The pounding rain covered the sounds of her footfalls and was gone, leaving the two clerics staring into the rain.Abrina lifted the two attackers to their feet, shoving them against the same brick wall where they had pummeled Ruphus.  She waited for the patrol to arrive, and did not untie them.“Hey, you said you were going to let us go!” said one, shifting wild eyes from the dead body, half-submerged in the miniature tributaries of rainwater flowing through the stones down the sloping alley, and back to Abrina.Abrina kept her grip tight on the arm of the one who had spoken as four town guards turned the corner, stopping abruptly at the entrance to the alley.  “I lied,” she said from the corner of her mouth.The four men wore hooded cloaks in an unsuccessful effort to keep out the rain.  The folds billowed out with every gust of wind, revealing breastplates beneath and short swords strapped to their sides.  Each carried a short halberd, and at the sight of Abrina’s two prisoners and a dead body, the guards brought their weapons to bear.One stepped forward, unsheathing his short sword.  “What is going on here?” he demanded.It took some time for Ruphus and Abrina to explain the circumstances, but after both revealed their holy symbols of Enlil and Ninurta the guards immediately lowered their halberds and the captain sheathed his sword.  A cloak was placed over the body of one attacker as a guard was sent for a wagon.  Abrina handed the tied attackers over to the town guards as the captain eyed one intently.“You may go,” the captain said after taking both their names, not looking at them but waving both away with one hand.Abrina and Ruphus retreated as the rain continued to pour.</blockquote>

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