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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 2039495" data-attributes="member: 5808">Part the Ninty-Eighth:In which: the squeaky weasel gets the grease.Master Genichi is by no measure a young man.  Thin and a bit frail looking, the years have left him with only a fringe of wispy white hair around the edges of his skull.  Although he compensates for that lack by cultivating a long mustache, whose ends blend into the body of his long, thin beard.He greets the party courteously, but with a touch of confusion when he learns they are not pilgrims come to travel to the Vale of the Holy Spring in honor of Kettenek’s Ascendance in a few days time.   “I am certainly curious to hear of the purpose of your journey, then,” he says with a bow.  He turns to a girl—slightly older than the boy who met the group—sitting on her heels behind him.  “Satsuki, fetch refreshments for our guests.”The girl does not move.  “Let Hatsumi do it,” she says, gaze flicking to the boy and then quickly returning to glare at the party.“Satsuki… go.”Grudgingly, she does.While she is gone, the party attempts to explain their errand.  First, they tell Master Genichi that Inquisitors are on their way.Master Genichi’s eye give the barest flicker, but all he does is expresses the hope that they will arrive in time to make the pilgrimage.“Is Komatsu one of your followers?” Lira tries.A pause. “He is.”“Have you wondered why he isn’t back yet?”  Eva mutters.“I have sent him on an errand.  I had not yet expected his return.”Lira decides that the indirect route is getting them nowhere.  “Master Genichi, we have it on good authority he’s been taken by the Inquisitors!”The Abbot’s bland gaze becomes gently puzzled.  “What cause would they have to detain a member of the faithful?  If what you say is so, I am sure he will be released soon.”After having spent half an hour thoroughly failing to convey to Master Genichi the urgency of their mission, the party finally allows Hatsumi to escort them to a long, low bunkhouse where they can spend the night.###Once alone, Eva finds herself the reluctant center of attention.  She shrugs.  “I don’t know.  There must be something going on here, but I guess I can’t blame him for not trusting us.”Kiara is practically vibrating with the need to say something.  “I can shift into swallow form, then I can go back and listen.  Maybe he’ll say something when we’re not there.  Come on… Please?”  She looks around desperately at the others.  “You never let me do anything.”Reyu looks up from where she sits, leaning against Paws’ back.  It’s actually not a terrible plan.  No one else has any objections, and Euro quickly offers to go too.  Since the residents of the monastery have already seen Euro, Annika casts invisibility on the weasel and soon a swallow and a faint set of tracks are leaving the lodge.  Over their empathic link, Lira reminds Euro to use his tail to brush out his footprints.###Master Genichi sits in his chair, staring at the fire.  There is a faint scratching sound near the eaves, and he looks up at it for a moment before continuing his contemplation of the flames.He pays no notice to the silent, invisible weasel listening under the door.From her hiding place, Kiara watches as Satsuki enters with a cup of tea, which she gives to Master Genichi before settling once again on the floor.  Only then does she speak, apparently continuing a previous discussion.“They’re obviously lying.”Genichi responds not so much to her as to the fire.  “It seems that it must be a trick of the Inquisitors.  But if they truly have Komatsu, then they have no need of tricks, and if they do not, how do they know all that they know?”Satsuki stares sourly.  “They come now, when everyone else is on the pilgrimage to the Spring.  Just at the moment when we are most vulnerable.  It is an Inquisitor trick, Grandfather.  You must send them away.”The old man smiles, with just a hint of indulgence.  “You are young…  I will think on this matter.”The girl rises.  “You should go to bed.”He waves her off.  “I will be fine.”Eventually, the girl leaves.  Kiara waits, but after a half-hour passes marked only by the slow breathing of the old man and the beating of her own heart, she gives up.  Quietly, she backs out of her hidey-hole and— after signaling Euro—flies back to the others.###In the bunkhouse, two things happen nearly simultaneously.The first, is that Kiara swoops into the room in a burst of feathers that quickly spins, stretches, and… somethings… until the little bird has been replaced by a little girl.The second, is that Lira suddenly sits bolt upright squealing.  “Eeeee!  Cold weasel feet!”(Oops!  Sorry ‘bout that, Boss)Benedic watches with amusement at what he can only assume is an invisible familiar climbing up to settle on top of Lira’s head.Kirara is already telling her news as quickly as she can get the words out of her mouth.  “… So we need to go talk to him right now, and tell him about the relics, and how we contacted Komatsu, and everything, so he can protect them.”“Polish!” That interjects.  Kiara stares at him like he’s nuts.  So does most of the rest of the party.  “Komatsu could have been about to say, ‘the relics must be safely polished.’  I’m still hoping,” he concludes, a bit petulant as he goes back to polishing his armor.“It is true,” Anvil allows, “we do not know what Komatsu wished to tell the Abbot to do.”“Well whatever he has to do,” Kiara retorts, “he does have the relics and the inquisitors are coming and we have to let him know that we know, so he can do it.” “If we tell him right now, it will only let him know that you were spying on him,” Annika points out.Lira finishes getting Euro’s run-down of the exchange.  “It sounds like he’d like to believe us.  Maybe we should give him the night to think it over.  Talk to him in the morning and see if anything has changed.”“We’ll still have more than a full day before the Inquisitors arrive.” Reyu points out.Kiara is most of the way to a full-blown fit.  “But what if what he has to do to the relics takes two days to do?  Then it will be too late!”There is no response.Kiara looks around the room.  When she arrived, most of the party had been preparing for bed.  None of them seem to be changing that strategy anytime soon.  “You never listen to me!” she finally shouts, turning on her heel and heading for the door.Annika goes after Kiara in an attempt to forestall any drastic action and mollify her sister, while the rest of the party tucks in, and for the first time in nearly a week, takes a full-night’s rest.###The next morning, while Reyu, Paws and Benedic leave the monastery to attempt to obscure their tracks from the previous night not wiped out by the snow, the rest of the party meets Master Genichi for breakfast.  Contrary to any optimism they might have had the night before, it seems that the light of a new day has done little to decrease the Abbot’s wariness towards the party.Satsuki hardly bothers to conceal from the newcomers her earnest wish that they be gone as soon as possible.As they eat, Eva explains to Master Genichi how the party met Komatsu in Dar Karo, his mention of his monastery, and the means of her communication with him since their encounter with the Inquisitors on their way to the Lake of Exalted Heights.  Master Genichi listens politely, then says, “I do not know what business the Inquisitors may have here, but I am sure we have done nothing to invite their wrath.”“With all due respect,” Eva points out, “we already have.  Whatever you’re doing, the inquisitor already suspects that we’re involved with it, and has as much as promised to kill us if she finds out we’ve been here.  We want to help you.”“Well,” Master Genichi replies dryly, “I thank you for troubling yourselves on our behalf.”Eva sighs, and looks over at Anvil, who removes Professor Alexandra’s headband of sending and offers it to the Abbot.“We’re not spies.  You can use this to contact Komatsu yourself and ask him.”Master Genichi makes no move to take the headband from Anvil’s outstretched hand.  A silence falls over the group as they realize, almost as one, that “put this magic thing on your head and think of Komatsu” is probably not a terribly attractive proposal from his perspective.Running low on other tactics, Lira tries blatantly stating the obvious.  “Look, we’re not from the Sovereignty.  We don’t care about these relics, whatever they are.  We don’t want them, we don’t care that you have them.”“Then why don’t you just go?” Satsuki mutters.Eva tries again.  “Look when I spoke with Komatsu, he mentioned the goddess—”  Master Genichi, Satsuki, and Hatsumi all make a ritual warding sign against heresy.  Eva trails off, puts her hands in the air.  “Look, you can worship dwarves for all I care, but don’t die because you wouldn’t believe us.”“You can cast a zone of truth on me,” Thatch offers.  “Or Anvil can, and I’ll answer anything you want to know.  That kind of magic always works on me.” “Alas,” says Master Genichi, “Those are not within my abilities, and I am afraid there is no means you can offer which will persuade me you are telling the truth.”The party visibly deflates, but Master Genichi continues.  “I, however, do have a means by which you might prove your sincerity.”“Well, what is it?” Kiara demands.“One of you must undergo a test.  If you are truthful, you have nothing to fear.  If you are lying, it means your death.”</blockquote>

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