Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ellinor" data-source="post: 5957167" data-attributes="member: 14561">29x03Tavi stared over the garden courtyard along the eastern wall of the Temple.  It was filled with people, trampling the shrubs and throwing debris at the temple.  A tall, intricately carved obelisk stood in the center, blotchy from rioters’ wet projectiles.  Across the way—50 feet away, he guessed, and a few feet lower than the Temple balcony—was another balcony, on another building, holding half a dozen people in Alirrian robes.  50 feet doesn’t seem so far on the ground, he thought.  Up here, it might as well be a mile.Fifty feet is nothing! Phoebe piped up, and flew back and forth to the other balcony several times, as if to prove it.Not helping, Pheebs, Tavi thought in reply.  The problem was that everything was just a bit too far away.  His sword allowed him to switch places with someone, but its range was only about 25 feet.  And even if that worked, he’d be stuck on the other side of the courtyard.  His boots allowed him to fly, but not that far.  He couldn’t teleport more than 25 feet, either.  “I think I’ve got it,” said Twiggy.  “We just need to extend the range of that sword-switchy thing.”“But then I’m stuck over there,” said Tavi, repeating his thought process. “You’ll need to teleport when you’ve flown about halfway back.  You worry about that.  I’ll do the sword.”  She knelt down and started pulling little bits of fur and feather out of a pouch, and muttering, touching the sword, calling on her vast knowledge of arcane forces to squeeze just a little more juice out of the spell.  “That should work,” she said, eventually, with enough confidence that he believed her.He held the sword hilt with both hands and thrust its point downward at the stone of the balcony.  As it hit, BAMF, he felt the pull of its teleport power, and WHUMP, he felt the inhalation of rematerializing.  It had worked.  He was across the courtyard.  The Honored Mother was on the other side, with Savina and Twiggy.  They motioned for him to return.  He muttered pleasantries at the Alirrians around him, activated the boots, and aimed himself in an arc over the courtyard.  At the top of the arc, he felt himself start to fall, and Now! Now! said Phoebe, and he stared at the one empty spot on the balcony, and BAMF, he activated the teleport.  It worked.  Savina put her hand on his shoulder.  “You are alright?” she asked.  Tavi nodded “yes.”The Honored Mother looked from Tavi to Twiggy to Savina.  “I regret to tell you,” she said, with the slightest of smiles, “that Brother ‘Trickling Fountain’ met with an unfortunate accident earlier this morning.  He tripped and fell.  Into the very middle of the lake.”  She looked back toward the center of town and grinned, and then swept her robes to the side and led the way downstairs toward the Synod Chamber.  “Let us hope someone took the time to teach the titular head of the Alirrian church in Cauldron how to swim…”###“Sister Sweet Scent is in there?”  Kormick asked Untaro.  The young guard stood with five other fresh-faced young guards before a heavy door carved with a large symbol of Kettenek.  “And she hasn’t been harmed?”Untaro nodded as he opened the door.“Well done, all of you,” said Kormick, and clapped Untaro on the back.  “We need you upstairs now.  All of you.  Go up there; Adept Unsuku will tell you what to do.”  In an impressive show of obedience, the guards followed Untaro down the hallway.  Arden hoped Unsuku would have enough sense to keep them out of harm's way with time-consuming, meaningless errands. For Arden and Kormick there were more pressing matters.  Inside the small, open room were dozens of baskets of scrolls—on shelves, on the floor—and two guards.  Behind the guards, manacled and sitting on the floor amidst the baskets, was an unhappy—but, to Arden’s relief, unhurt—Sister Sweet Scent.  Arden hardly expected the Temple to have official holding cells, but seeing Sister Sweet Scent imprisoned in a basement storeroom—it underscored the illegitimacy of her incarceration.Kormick addressed the guards.  “Release her manacles.  We are here to take her into custody.”  Jan “I never lie” Kormick, Arden thought wryly, wondering if the Justicar's mentor Brother Scribe had intended to teach his pupil that it was perfectly all right to mislead as long as you didn't technically lie.  “I have orders to hold her here,” said one of the guards.  “We don’t have time for this,” Arden snapped.  “The Governor and the Mother Superior are waiting.”  She was no slouch at technically not lying, herself.  “We answer only to the Mother Superior herself,” said one guard.  “Not to heathens,” spat the other, putting his hand on the hilt of his sword.Arden heard the last of the five young guards’ footsteps disappear up the stairs, and did the math in her head.  Two remaining guards, possibly Tidesmen.  Kormick and herself.  One innocent woman in chains on the floor.  She took a step to the left of the guards.  Kormick took a step to the right of the guards.“We won't ask again,” said Kormick.  One of the guards began to draw his sword.  “Simply release the prisoner to us, and—“The guard’s sword was barely out of its sheath by the time Arden and Kormick had each lunged forward, flanking the guards between them.  Arden stabbed one in the gut and Kormick bashed him on the head with his warhammer.  Arden slit the other’s throat while Kormick broke his spine.  Both guards were dead before they could even cry out.Kormick picked up the bloody keys from below the heaped guards and unlocked the manacles.  “You two stay here,” he said, patting the dead guards with a sticky hand.  “And you,” he said to Sister Sweet Scent, “If you will join us in the Synod Chamber, we can put an end to this corruption once and for all.”</blockquote>

Verification