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Message: <blockquote data-quote="simmo" data-source="post: 1490286" data-attributes="member: 9744">Part 26 Reading the PastThe heart seer of Tomeri draped the beautiful black magical dress over her arms and let the soft, silky material slip between her fingers. It was a pleasant sensation and the seer felt that her confidence was higher when she wore the garment. Even thinking about it made her want to put it on and her intuition told her that she would probably be able to alter the dress if she wanted to.Closing her eyes and focusing her gaze inwards, Serena took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. She repeated this several times as she focused her mind on the dress. Tracers from her mind reached out towards the dress and Serena felt the world fall away as she delved in to the origins of the item. In her minds eye another world appeared.The room was dark with no lit candles in the chandelier on the ceiling. Silk sheets covered the bed under which lay a prone figure who appeared to be in a deep slumber. A golden goblet that had either been knocked over or dropped on the ground lay next to the bed and the remaining liquid had soaked in to the carpet. The room stank of rich perfume and spilled wine that was almost overpowering.In the underground temple the clergy preferred to keep many of the rooms and corridors barely lit, thereby enhancing the atmosphere of romance and intrigue of the place as well as making it easier to meet for secret liaisons to hatch plans for good or for ill. A lone figure snuck quietly as a mouse along the edge of the wall down the corridor and paused every so often to listen for anyone approaching.The figure stopped part way down the corridor and slowly inserted a key in to the lock. The long black cloak that the figure wore to conceal her movements slipped, revealing a beautiful red haired young woman with a haughty bearing. She quickly pulled the cloak over herself and once again blended in to the shadows.As the woman noiselessly slipped in to the room she pulled out a scarf and wrapped it around her face so that she would not pass out from the fumes. She'd been in the room a few hours earlier pretending to be drinking with the occupant of the room in order to make sure that the other woman consumed the drugged wine. Unfortunately a magical perfume bottle had broken as the other woman passed out, forcing the would-be-thief to depart. Now that some hours had passed the woman had returned in order to complete her search for the magical dress undisturbed.The owner and creator of the dress lay fast asleep in a drug induced slumber and was completely oblivious to the under-priestess rummaging through her things to locate the dress. The woman in the bed was older than the one moving around and her skin was a lot darker in comparison. Her hair was a rich brown colour that shone in the sunlight and brought her much attention from male admirers.She'd originally woven the dress and imbued it with magic in a temple far in the desert where a hallowed black marble altar lay that was watched over by a beautifully carved cat-headed statue. The creator of the dress had spent three weeks of fasting and praying, as well as performing the correct sacrifices at the designated hours in order to make sure that the enchantment were woven in to the material of the dress.Finally after much effort and the blessing of the goddess whose symbol was a cat-headed statue the dress was completed. It now provided its wearer magical protection and increased influence in social interactions that the goddess considered her primary area of concern. The red haired and pale-skinned under-priestess eventually found the dress and fled the temple. Her travels led her away from her faith and on to the path of sorcery where she blossomed in to a capable agent for the Anakharim knights.The vision of the past that the seer had extracted from the psychic impressions left on the garment faded away. Serena folded up the dress and carefully packed in to her bag. She felt relieved that it did not appear to be a blatantly evil item, but on the other had she was intrigued and wary of priestess who'd created it.“Hey, you're a cleric.” Serena said to Caleb. “Do you know anything about a cat-headed goddess?”Caleb shook his head. “I PREFER TO RESTRICT MYSELF TO THINGS OF A MORE EARTHLY NATURE.”“Is that a no?” Serena asked. Caleb sat in silence for awhile to think about the answer. Before he could respond, the seer asked yet another question. “Does Littleby know much about religions?”“I THINK THAT HE DOES. BUT HE IS IN TOWN AT THE MOMENT TRYING TO FIND OUT A PORTAL BACK TO SIGIL.”“Do you know anything about religion Andrew?” Serena was desperate to find out more about whose symbol the statue was and Sir Osbourne had indicated that it was not of any deity residing on the Mount.“Yes,” Andrew said bitterly. “Stay away from them.”The mystery still remained of why the dress was not able to be taken in to the Garden properly and so the heart seer decided to read the impressions left on the psionic torc that she'd purchased in the Friendly Fiend shop run by A'kin. The arcanoloth was unique in that he was a friendly shop-keeper who was intent only on pleasing his customers and not corrupting mortals, weaving intricate and long-reaching schemes as well as other nefarious activities that the rest of his fiendish race were infamous for.As Serena opened her mind to the past owners of the psionic accelerator that enabled her to use mind-powers without using quite so much energy. She felt a rush of energy come from the torc in to her thoughts that stripped away the awareness of the world around her and replaced it with a visage of a lush jungle terrain in which an elderly halfling woman stood next to a large crystal tower.The light passing through the crystal tower was refracted by the many facets of the crystal and a rainbow of colours illuminated the ground in a large area around the tower. The very old halfling woman was busy working with tools that appeared as if they had been grown rather than forged and carefully melded the psionic torc in to the shape that she desired.The halfling woman was alive with power and Serena felt waves of mental power cascading off her. She positively hummed with energy and it was clear to the heart seer that the halfling shaper was transcending her mortal shell. As the shaper drew upon the energies that were being channelled by the crystal tower, Serena could make out more of the dark spots that marred the bright yellow sun and threatened to cover it entirely causing it to become a darkened sun. Light enveloped the halfling shaper and then the world went dark.Much later after the jungle had receded and sand covered the land, the tower was gone and only a few ruins remained visible of the great civilization that had existed before. The descendants of the former near god-like beings had fallen a very long way indeed and had descended to the level of cannibals.A half-dwarf came running in to view through the ruins in order to avoid the pursuit of the hunters behind him. The man was powerfully built and covered with old scars that he had received during his many years in the arena. The mull was aware of an extremely rare magical doorway that lay nearby and that the gith claimed led to a world beyond their own. The halfling hunters had almost caught him when the man tripped over the torc. He grabbed it and immediately felts the power contained within. Not wishing to slay his pursuers he simply put them to sleep and quickly located the doorway. The man who had a core of goodness and selflessness deep inside was sad to bid his world farewell, but he felt that his search for finding limitless water and a means to cast off the yoke the despotic draconic rulers was more important.Years later he man had changed a great deal in his appearance and his attitude to the world. The travels around the planes of belief had altered him, especially his terrifying trip to the elemental plane of Water. Just before he went to the Gatehouse in Sigil in order to seek help or release from the madness that afflicted him he willingly sold the torc to a friendly shop-keeper who had helped him many times in the past.“I'm going to find Littleby.” The seer pondered the double-edged nature of being able to see things that belonged to a different time and place. Whilst it let her see things that she would not otherwise know about, making sense of those visions was a separate matter. “If anyone knows about cat-headed things then its him. Also he might know something about halflings and crystal towers.”</blockquote>

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