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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2332576" data-attributes="member: 143">Glad you enjoyed it. I made a few edits to the story, but nothing major. I'd say the compiled version is 99.9% identical to the original threads that I posted here a few years back. I just got offered a chance to teach a summer night course at a local community college, on top of my regular 8-5 job, so it looks like my writing time is pretty much gone at least through mid-August. I do have a fair amount of Asylum done, but I'm going to switch to a M-W-F posting schedule for now, and may have to cut it back further to once or twice a week, depending on how the summer develops. * * * * * The Shackled CityBook XI: “Asylum”Chapter 413Dana Ilgarten walked through the long grass, the night wind blowing her hair and her cloak out behind her as she walked. Fat drops of rain struck her face, cold, hard.  Mud squished between her toes; this rain was only the last of a series of storms that had struck the region, and more would be coming, if what her senses told her on the wind were true.  She was clad only in the long silvery sheen of her mooncloak, and carried no weapon or other gear, other than the milky white icon at her throat, the moon mote that, like the cloak, was born of the sacred moonfire of Selûne.  It was cold here, far colder than it had been in the south, and it would not be unheard of for snow to come with one of the later storms.  She had warded herself against the cold, but even so barely noticed the weather, so immersed she was in her own thoughts and feelings. On this rainy night, it was as if she was utterly alone in the world. That was not true, she knew.  This world was full of living things, many of which wanted to hurt her.  And there were other worlds that touched this one as well, places of darkness and horror and blight.  In many ways she was a fool to be here, alone, vulnerable.  She should have remained in her quarters, secure within the radius of Cal’s private sanctum.  Hiding under her bed, perhaps. She spat out a curse, one of the ones she’d learned from Benzan.  Self-pity was not becoming.  But nor could her anger at herself obviate the great rent she felt inside herself, a pain that nothing could fill. She came to a squat crag that jutted out from the meadow, little more than a collection of boulders that had probably sat here for generations, absorbing sun, wind, and rain with equal equanimity.  It was a place she knew well.  Moss grew on the ancient stones, and mud slicked everything in sight, but she did not hesitate, scaling the boulders to the small flat space atop the tor, fifteen feet above the waving grass below. Here the full force of the storm battered her, as if indignant that this puny mortal creature would dare to challenge its rights here.  No, it seemed to say, in each gust of wind, each gust of rain, you belong in a shelter, beside a warm fire or under a thick quilt.  Begone from this place!  You do not belong!Dana ignored the wind and the rain.  She knelt, welcoming the hardness of the stone beneath her knees.  It helped to distract her from the pain. But her mind could not be so easily distracted.  It traveled back, over a conversation earlier that day. ”Dana, are you all right?”She looked up at the warm eyes that were filled with concern.  The feeling there was not easy to find, surrounded by such a harsh exterior, but Dana had known Lok for many years, knew him perhaps as well as anyone, better even than his own people. She could not speak.  She turned away, looking down at the objects she’d laid down in the matted grass at her feet.  Lok recognized them as her bracers, the ones that she’d worn into battles for years now, the ones she’d worn earlier that day, on their second invasion of Shatterhorn.  Blessed of the goddess, sacred product of the moonfire, like her cloak and amulet. “I do not understand.”  Of course you do not, my friend… how can you know, my failure…  Go away, she willed, not wanting to expose her frame before her friend.  He would not judge her but that did not matter; she had already judged herself, and despite all her vaunted wisdom, despite knowing that she was wrong, it did not help. He was not going away.  He was standing there, looking down at her…  It would have been easier with Cal.  But the gnome was gone, seeking aid for their cause.  She looked up at Lok, forced herself to meet those deep gray eyes. “I could have saved him,” she said.“We did everything we could,” Lok replied.  “No.  I could have saved him,” she repeated.  With these,” she added, kicking the bracers with a foot, as if the inanimate metal could feel her ire.  “They grant the power to dimension door.  I should have gone right through the wall of force, not waited for Cal, not turned to him… I should have gone right through, and stopped her from taking him…”Lok shook his head.  Lok, always the quiet one, despite his deadly presence on the battlefield, quiet… who nevertheless saw so much.  “That spell-creature would have killed you.  We would not have been able to help you in time, you would have been alone on the far side of the wall, and it would have killed you.  It would have accomplished nothing.”She knew the words to be true, her gods-damned wisdom saw that, saw even without that infernal periapt that sharpened her will, turned her insight into a dagger that cut both ways.  But knowing the truth and knowing the truth could be different things… She shook and quivered, weak, crying, mewling with the pain that she could not hide, not from her closest friends, not from herself.  First Delem… then her father… now, the man that she loved, taken from her.  She would fight.  She would rage and those who had taken him would know fear.  Yes, that would come.  But for now, as she felt rough, strong arms encircle her, she knew that for now, the best thing would be to let the grief out.Now she was alone, in the wind and the rain.  The others would have come… Cal would have insisted, in fact.  She’d made the decision for them when she’d dimension doored out of the camp, using the bracers that had betrayed her before.  Or had she betrayed them?  The goddess provided the power, but it was up to the wearer to use them properly, to further Her goals.  The night was dark, with little moonlight making its way through the storm clouds banking the sky above.  It did not matter; Selûne was there, and her follower could feel Her presence.   Dana slid out of the cloak, exposed herself to the storm.  Her skin seemed pale white, too white, in the faint light that penetrated the storm.  The sigil at her throat seemed to glow with its own opalescent fire, the light of the moon reflected here upon the earth.  She opened her mind.  It was not easy; even with decades of prayer, reaching the necessary equilibrium did not come easily this night.  But her patron offered solace as well as power, and finally she succumbed to that familiar embrace. On some nights she had remained in that blissful exchange for almost the entire night, stirring only with the setting of the moon in advance of the rising of the new day’s sun.  But this night she had a purpose, and Selûne granted the power she needed. Completing her prayers, she opened her mind once more, and began the casting of a powerful spell.</blockquote>

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