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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ladybird" data-source="post: 2947661" data-attributes="member: 10689">The party continued to wind their way through the forest, still following the bandits’ trail towards the fortified village. As the trees closed in around them, deeper and darker, the sounds around them began to change – there were fewer animals rustling in the undergrowth, and fewer birds chirping overhead. Therefore, it was easier for Kit to hear the strange, dragging footsteps as they approached the path from ahead, even if she didn’t immediately know what they were.Kit and Gyles barely managed to jump out of the way when the basilisk appeared. Jet and Alessandre, immediately behind them, were neither as lucky nor as quick to react. Alessandre slipped off her horse and frantically put up her hands to shield her face – and was frozen in place with her hands up, turned to stone by the basilisk’s fearsome gaze. Jet too managed to fling himself free of his horse, but he hit the ground with the massive, earth-shaking thump of a stone statue.“Don’t look!” Gyles shouted. “Keep your eyes away from it!” The party stood, as still as if they too had been turned to stone, not daring to move or make a sound. The only noise in the clearing was made by the slow, dragging footsteps of the giant lizard, pacing around….and around…and then away. The party exhaled.“How many did it get?” Gyles asked, brusquely surveying the scene as the party started to swarm worriedly back into the clearing. “Just Jet and Alessandre?” Honore rushed to attend to her fellow priestess, while Kashan studied both petrified people with an almost clinical curiosity, and Varya fluttered anxiously overhead.Moving almost as quickly as Varya, Kit paced around the clearing, her mind racing. “What do we do, what do we do?” she muttered. “How can we fix this?” “My, my,” Toby murmured, as he bent over to study Jet’s stone legs. “I know what this needs!” He stood back, poising his hands to cast a spell, while Twang looked up at him, beady eyes full of hope. With a dramatic flourish, Toby cast Prestidigitation, conjuring up small stone pedestals for the statues to stand on.“Toby!” Kit snapped sharply. “Not helping!” She looked down at Jet’s stone face, frozen in a terrified grimace, and winced at the expression. “Do we know if they’re even conscious in there?” A collection of blank looks greeted the question. “Well, there’s one way to find out,” Kit muttered. She drew in a long breath and carefully sent a Mindlink towards Jet. Within the stone head, she found a very conscious, very active, and very agitated mind. Kit! By all the gods, you’ve got to find a way to get us out of this! the cook thought anxiously. Please!I’m trying! Kit’s own thoughts were rising to just as fevered a pace as Jet’s, and she clamped down on her fear with only the greatest of effort – it wouldn’t help to add her agitation to Jet’s. Honestly, I am. I’m working on it. She looked around the clearing – Gyles was looking expectantly at her, too. And so was Varya. And…Then an idea hit her. “Wait! Sir Bernard said that there was a mage’s tower somewhere around here. Varya – can you fly up and see if you can spot it from the air? If there’s a mage around, he or she might be able to help turn them back.”Up Varya soared, high above the treeline, surveying the landscape. Higher and higher she went, until finally, far away, she spotted a small stone tower atop a hill.“I think I’ve found it,” the owl reported, as she fluttered back down to land on a branch near Kit. “It’s about a day’s travel to the west, but the path looks clear, and we should be able to make it without too much difficulty.”With a profound sigh of relief, Kit said, “Thank you! All right. We need to get Jet and Alessandre on the Hanalians’ horses – if we load them sideways, the horses can probably carry them. Gyles, you and – “ Kit cut herself off. Her first instinct was to call on Jet when heavy lifting needed to be done. And he was hardly in a position to help right now. “Everyone,” she said instead. “Let’s get them on the horses and get going towards the mage’s tower.”“But Lady Katherine – “ Gyles began.“What, Sir Gyles?”“Ahem. It’s just Gyles, my lady.”“If you’re going to promote me,” Kit snapped, “I’m going to promote you. Now what is it?”“Er. Ahem. Right. Er. Won’t this divert us from our mission against the slavers?””Yes, it will,” Kit admitted. “But we can’t go on without Jet and Sister Alessandre. And I won’t leave them here.”Thank you! came Jet’s frantically grateful thought into Kit’s mind.Don’t worry, Kit thought back, in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. We’ll get you out of this. Then, aloud, she said to Gyles, “This is worth a diversion of a day or two. We’ve got to get them back.”</blockquote>

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