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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4565829" data-attributes="member: 3285">Fox and Geese: Part 5b – Scouting the Corpse GateAll hell broke loose.  The fireball caught the Nierites by surprise, incinerating crate and warrior alike.  Just as Sebastian cast his spell, Beldin cut the reins of the horses.  The explosion and the appearance of the dark-kin drove them to maddened flight.  The horses galloped forward, crashing into sacks of flour and knocking one Nierite off of his perch.One of the Swords of Nier, who looked just like all his other companions, pointed at Kham.  “Witness the full beauty of Nier’s glory!”Kham tapped his lenses with one pistol-fisted hand.  “No thanks, I…Althares!”  There was a blinding light, so bright that it felt as if it had ignited the back of Kham’s skull.  And then all he saw was white.The sound of an arrow whistled past his ear.  “What now?” came Ilmarė’s voice.“I’m blind!” shouted Kham.  “The bastard blinded me!”  “Well get out of the way then, you’re blocking my shot!” she shouted back.Kham felt around desperately.  He was in the middle of combat, completely exposed.  It would just take one hack of the Nierite’s swords to finish him.Think.  THINK!  What would dad do?He would use every advantage at his disposal.  Kham took a deep breath.  Kham heard Beldin’s familiar grunt to his left as steel met steel.  He had only seconds before one of the Nierites took advantage of his position.  The gift!  Kham had used it to see into the future.  Perhaps he could use it to see the present, as it was before he was blind.He concentrated.  In the awful whiteness of his mind, a pinpoint dot came into sharp focus.  It was the warehouse.  He was looking at it just as he did before he went blind.  Everything and everyone was frozen. Kham looked around.  It was like staring at a set of museum pieces that were all perfect reproductions of the originals.  The Nierite priest had his finger outstretched, but Kham wasn’t interested in him.  He looked around for the nearest escape route. The window!  There were no windows on the first floor but there were on the second.  The jumping potion was still in effect.  He could make it, if he timed it perfectly.Kham turned his body and lifted one arm.  It felt distance, like he was pulling on strings to make his limbs move. He fired.  The glass in the window shattered.  The path was clear. Now he just had to jump the twenty feet to the exit.  There was another WOOSH of flames near him.  He felt the heat.  Hopefully that was one of Sebastian’s spells.  But it could just as easily have been from the Nierite sorcerer.Remembering where everything and everything was, Kham took a short hop forwards.  Before he landed, he hoped to Althares that the terrain hadn’t changed…He landed.  Judging from the hollow thump beneath him, it was a crate, just as he remembered it.  Now was the hard part.  There were three crates lined up in a row, then a ten-foot gap.  He had to time it perfectly.“Are you insane?” shouted Ilmarė.Kham didn’t have time to respond.  Taking three mighty strides, he hurled himself through the abyss.Something tinkled around him; bits of glass, he guessed, still falling form the window.  The sounds of combat were muffled, behind him.  He smelled fresh earth.  Kham was outside. He reached out, felt the wall, sagged against it. The world was still blindingly white.Eventually, he heard the approach of footsteps.  Kham whipped out both of his pistols.  “Stay back!”“You’re still blind?” asked Beldin.  “I don’t believe it.  I thought for sure you—““Yeah, well, let’s just say I have a good memory.”“We’ve got all the Touched.  I’m going to bring them back to the Prior Andrea in the cart.  I figured you could use a ride.”Kham nodded and holstered his pistols.  A firm hand gripped his and hoisted him to his feet.  “I’m feeling a little touched myself,” said Kham.</blockquote>

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