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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilex" data-source="post: 5038015" data-attributes="member: 82687">8x04Happy holidays!  This being the season of Kettenek, may all your celebrations be moderate, sober, cool-headed, and just.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Nyoko joined the group – more accurately, the crowd – as they walked out of the Alirrian chapel and turned right, in the opposite direction from the room where Lurx's body now lay.  She had no problem leaving Lurx behind, of course, but she was a bit bemused by the composition of her rescue party:  heathens and children.  That said, they weren't incompetent.  They'd dealt with Lurx;  they'd dealt with the zombies;  and now, as the Honored Justicar and the servant Arden took the lead, she was pleased to see that they could even move silently and with a modicum of grace when they really, really tried.  Just maybe I will be having a hot bath in Cauldron before too many days pass, after all.The situation brightened a little more as they investigated a small side room decorated with an intricate green and blue mosaic on the floor.  The artwork on the walls was not as fine as some of her Adept brethren might produce, but Nyoko found it pleasing, nonetheless, with its old-fashioned depictions of trees, birds, fish, and water.  What mostly caught her eye, however, was a wall of weaponry:  several quarterstaffs, a rusted scythe, and a couple bows and quivers of arrows.  Nyoko inspected both bows carefully and chose the one less rotted by time:  its string un-frayed, its limbs sound.  Although she would not, of course, make an absolute statement about a technically uncertain future, the powerful feel of the bow in her hand made her very confident that a hot bath in Cauldron was, in fact, an eminently reasonable hope.  The Justicar watched her string and unstring the bow, testing it.  "What is it, exactly, that you do?" he asked."I am an Adept.""Adept at what?""Many things."  Nyoko loaded all the arrows into one quiver and slung it across her back.  "Those of my order are meant to be seen – and to see.  If you wish to hear a song, I shall perform it.  If you require an impartial witness to events, my memory shall provide it.""So are you a tavern entertainer or a court reporter?""You speak of amateurs, Honored Justicar," answered Nyoko.  "I am an Adept.  Among other things, it means that when I get home to Cauldron, I will give a full and accurate report of my abduction and liberation to the proper authorities.""You're a fan of Sovereign authority, then.  Do you support those Inquisitors?""Adepts are above the Circle from the Inquisitors.""I… have no idea what that means.  Are you saying you outrank them?""You might put it that way – crudely.  Why do you ask?""We met some Inquisitors in Lord's Edge.  They gave us a charming welcome.  So charming, in fact, that sometimes as I drift off to sleep I think of them warmly.  In the sense of lighting them on fire."Nyoko quickly decided that the Justicar was exaggerating rather than making a confession of intent to commit mass murder.  Nonetheless, she slid these heathens a few notches up her mental scale of strangeness.  Externally, thanks to years of training and practice, she held back all reaction except a startled blink, and she answered diplomatically, "Lord's Edge is more conservative than most of the Sovereignty.  Their frequent contact with outsiders makes them defensive, and they have held onto many of the old ways despite the Affirmation.  Personally, I prefer the more enlightened atmosphere of Cauldron.""So you outrank Inquisitors, and Lord's Edge isn't your favorite place, either.  I hope you're an influential young lady.""Certainly, Honored Justicar, though my influence is due to the sacred office that I and my fellow Adepts hold, not to my personal reputation.  As a Justicar, I'm sure you feel the same way.""Um, occasionally," he answered.  "Although, in Dar Und, joining the crew of the Great Boss of Justice is not widely regarded as, let us say, the strongest possible career move.  Yet.""Forgive me, I am not entirely familiar with heathen idiom.  The Great Boss of – ?""Excuse me," interrupted the young nobleman, Tavi, as his apparently tame hummingbird thrummed by his ear.  "We really should keep our voices down."They walked out of the room and on down the corridor.  Ahead came an echoing plink … plash of water dripping, slowly and steadily.  The hallway soon opened up into a round domed chamber where droplets slid off stalactites into a still pool beneath.  "Please tell me this is it," said the Justicar."I don't think so," said the Alirrian girl, Savina, "but maybe…."  Nyoko had gathered from their conversation that these heathens were searching for a particular spring, but she wasn't sure why.  She watched Savina step forward, kneel down, and place her hand in the water.  Her trained eye observed that the girl's body suddenly relaxed, as if all her worries vanished at once:  her tense shoulders lowered and she sighed out a long breath.  Savina raised her dripping hand and touched a finger to her forehead and her lips, murmuring a prayer to the godling Alirria.  Then she turned to them, smiling.  "I don't think it's the spring, but it's wonderful," she said.  "Come and see."  First one person, then the next, knelt or crouched around the water and touched it.  Nyoko watched as each in turn relaxed.  The Justicar stuck his hand into the pool, frowning, and then laughed, looking at his dripping palm with astonishment.  "That," he said, "is better than the ale at Günter's Cry of Agony."  Arden hesitated, waiting for the others to have their turn, and then she slipped to the water's edge and touched it hesitantly.  Nyoko saw the bruise on her face vanish, just as if a healer had treated it.  Curious to try for herself, Nyoko dipped a finger into the water.  It felt like normal water, but strength and vitality coursed through her as the last of her injuries, Lurx- and zombie-inflicted, vanished.  It was healing water, clearly.  "Thanks be to Kettenek," she said."But, Lady Nyoko – I mean, Nyoko-san – this is an Alirrian place," said Savina."All things belong to Kettenek," Nyoko replied tranquilly, but the girl looked so confused that she added, "Of course, your worship of the godlings is permitted."  "That's big of you," muttered the Justicar.  Savina gave her a troubled look but turned away, studying the items on the shelves around the chamber's shadowy perimeter.  Suddenly she gasped.  "Oh, my goddess."  "What?" asked Tavi.She turned around, holding a small glass vial of liquid that she'd taken off a shelf.  "This," she breathed.  "This is very holy."  "Holy, as in 'holy spring' holy?" asked Twiggy."I – I think so.  It must be water from there.  This is wonderful.  It feels – it feels almost alive."  "Bring it with us," declared Mena.  "It may prove useful."Savina carefully tucked the vial into her bodice.  "Onward," declared Tavi.  "Already?" asked Savina.  "I feel like I could stay here forever."  "Between the derro and the zombies, this place isn't going to stay peaceful for long," said Mena.  "Let's move."  The corridor resumed on the far side of the domed room.  They went on.### The hallway they were following ended at another corridor running perpendicular to it.  Arden, who was in the lead, realized that she recognized it: it was the crypt-hall, lined with the Alirrian corpses.  To the right it must curve back to the chapel where they'd fought the zombies.  To the left was unknown, so of course the group sent her to explore it alone.  It was prudent, Arden allowed.  Until they knew where the hallway went, it wasn't worth the risk to bring their large party, including the children, through it.  It was all too likely that someone would accidentally knock a brittle finger off a corpse. So here she was again.  Alone.  In a dark corridor lit only faintly by patches of green moss.  Bodies in decaying green robes slept on either side of her.  Lady Alirria, she prayed, forgive my intrusion.  Braced for a lizard's teeth or a zombie's hiss or a hurtling piece of crockery, she crept forward.Arden passed more and more bodies until the walls curved away on either side, the ceiling rose, and she stepped into a large, dim chamber.  She paused by the doorway.  Faintly, at the edge of her hearing, some rustle or whisper seemed to echo and re-echo, though she had made no sound.  Bodies lined this room, too, and columns marched across it.  An ornate symbol of Alirria was set into the floor, spanning the room.  There was a door in the far wall. And glimmering down onto the Alirrian symbol from somewhere just beyond that door was…… sunlight.</blockquote>

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