Location: Kirimansk, Vossoriya
Present: Rosyln, Penny
@Force and Fury, and Khaliun
@YummyYummy
The small group had gathered at the small church in the blue quarter.
Among them, Roslyn watched as the students divided into smaller groups. Already, each one had their own tasks in mind, leaving her uncertain. Her hazel eyes darted about and watched them depart, noticing their general direction. The whole time she kept near the first student who’d recognized her. She pondered her options, her head held down and in thought. Movement caught her attention from the corner of her vision, causing her head to raise.
Penny started moving south. She glanced behind herself.
"You come or you don't, but I think we're near the edge," she announced.
Meanwhile Khaliun shadowed the one-legged teen, keen on not actually entering the field. This forced Roslyn's hand as she followed them with a quick step to catch up. She pulled out the map of the area she had received and a chiseled down piece of coal. She hoped to note down the state of magic in each area.
As they continued along the eastern side of the church, their magic seemed to grow in strength. Khaliun no longer strained to keep aloft, causing Roslyn to jot down notes. The last of the haziness faded as they moved down to the southeast corner. There a wall loomed in their path and blocked them from progress.
Penny glanced up at the wall, feeling magic surging through her again.
"I say we jump it," she recommended, glancing at the other two.
Roslyn's gaze rose to measure the wall in her mind. Securing the map and her coal piece in her dress pocket, she nodded in agreement. She readied to follow Penny despite the hesitation in her core. As they managed to scale the wall, Roslyn's shoe slipped. She reeled back just when Penny's arm snapped out and grasped her. The one legged student gritted then jerked her the rest of the way onto the wall.
"Thanks," Roslyn panted as she caught her breath.
Little did she know, this was only one of a number of obstacles they had to overcome during their mission. Their path took them across the river, another cliff side, and onto the terrain outside the walls, following the edge of the anti-magic zone. Once they reached the corner of the city walls on the opposite side, the familiar gently circular pattern ended abruptly. It curved outward rather than in, creating a sharp corner rather than a continuation of the expected gentle curve.
From here, the students split. Roslyn walked closely to the wall and followed it, casting a small bit of magic to gauge where the fade began and where it extinguished. After a bit of travel, she couldn't cast anything.
Penny, juggling the map and coal with her crutch, continued to map out the border. Behind her, Khaliun rose into the air and got a sense of how high the effect went. Seeing the speck of the student high above them, Roslyn decided to regroup with Penny. She suspected trying to match Khaliun's height would've churned her stomach. No one needed to see her last meal again.
Their new course led them to yet another steep cliff. As they considered their options, Roslyn glanced downward. She noted the building jutting out and a stairwell carved into the rocks. Below them, numerous bodies milled around the ground. Based on what her map showed, they had stumbled upon the monastery where the monks of St. Artyom dwelled. It only took a brief glance when both girls decided what to do. With the magic still null, they started their descent.
With decent grace, Roslyn trailed down the rocky terrain and dipped into the building. None of the monks below seemed to notice her. Her mousy form peeked out as she watched Penny follow after. Everything seemed to move smoothly until Roslyn spotted her classmate slip. As Penny began to slide downward, her arm shot out and grabbed the girl’s malformed hand. Using her vice-like grip, Roslyn pulled back. She jerked her partner inside. Both students collapsed into a heap, panting heavily.
Penny thanked her, rattled by the misfortune.
"That was too close for comfort. Let’s try to be more careful, okay?"Their eyes spotted the pathway leading deeper into the cliff.
Roslyn inhaled, pulling upright, and dusted herself off. She moved toward it and saw stairs leading down a faintly lit hallway. Gradually, they both followed it down. Shadows of figures darted across the walls as they jumped from one hiding spot to another, their eyes watchful and paranoid, managing to stay out of sight. The tunnel twisted into a labyrinth the deeper they went.
Strangely, the magic here flexed between present and absent despite what they had learned. Finally, the pair came across five odd doors. Each had certain features that stuck out to Roslyn as her eyes shifted from each one.
The first door had red stained words carved into it, but neither girl knew what it said. The second door was smaller than the first. The third one was large, with grooves in the floor. The fourth one was old and worn, with religious inscriptions on a plague. Finally, the fifth door held words in blue.
Roslyn had reached for the first and cautiously cracked it open. Words shouted from farther down causing her to shut it. In a panic, she slipped into the second one just as the first opened. Scared they might follow her inside, the girl ducked farther down the hallway. Her eyes watched it for several moments, but nothing came. It was then that Roslyn realized she had lost Penny. With held breath, she carefully edged back the way she came. Her hand reached out to touch the door knob that suddenly began to jiggle. The girl froze on the spot, her eyes wide with horror.
A muffled sound echoed behind causing it to stop. Footsteps moved away and down the hallway. Breathing in relief, Roslyn exited and vanished into the darkness.
Both Penny and Roslyn wandered around for quite a while after that. Magic reappeared, disappeared, and reappeared again and they somehow managed to evade capture. The deeper areas remained very much off-limits, however, being quite heavily occupied. Finally, the two girls ran into each other.
"Oh thank Shune!" Penny breathed.
"Where did you go? I thought they'd nabbed you!" She was quite out of breath.
"I'm sorry, I thought you were right behind me," Roslyn said, her voice squeaking slightly. Taking a moment to calm her racing heart, she continued.
"I fled into one of the doors. I nearly thought I was going to get caught once as magic seemed to come back, and then disappear. I don't know what is going on."Penny nodded.
"Merde. Me too. Big door. It was... some sort of... natural cave. There were people in there. When the magic came back on, I sensed them." She furrowed her brow.
"Hegelans, I think." She cast about. The magic was currently back, but Penny did not like this uncertainty. "We get to the bottom of this now or come back later? If we can sense them, then..." she trailed off, leaving the rest implied.
Roslyn's inner curiosity warred with her common sense. Naturally, the prior won in the end. With a deep breath, she spoke with all the strength she could muster.
"We leave now, we might never find out what is going on. The fact magic can stop working is rather frightening. I don't know about you, but I couldn't sleep knowing there's something here like that. Let's go, and I promise I won't leave you behind this time."Penny inhaled, held it, clenching and unclenching her fists nervously around the grips of her crutches, and let it out.
"Okay. Illusion all the way, hide ourselves, but let's try to be stealthy, even without." She started moving, but paused and twisted halfway around. "Wait - which door?"Roslyn paused, thinking a bit. She gestured for Penny to follow,
"I think I recall the way. Come on."As she walked, she whispered what she knew.
"I came to a hallway with five doors. I originally tried to go through the one with blue words, but someone shouted and I hid in the smaller one. I haven't investigated far though."As the girls continued along, silence swirled uncomfortably around them. Penny had been the first to break it. She shot a glance back in her acquaintance/friend's direction, not strictly speaking seeing her.
"So," she whispered.
"I'll admit to being a bit surprised. What... brings you here? Was it the Zenith or Arch-Zeno Harrachora?"Roslyn gave a slight smile.
"After you all left, Jocasta came to me and mentioned something about misinformation. Something about a crate and it needs to be opened. I will admit, I'm rather surprised to be sent."Penny fell strangely silent for a moment. She'd received... unique instructions of her own.
"We all have something to offer," the one-legged girl responded with a shrug.
"It doesn't feel like it in my case," Roslyn admitted, her voice telling more than she wanted. She didn't see herself being much use especially with the magic not being consistent.
Then, they were upon the doors. As people walked by, they remained cloaked in the interior dimness, bending light around themselves to keep unseen.
"Which door?" Penny whispered when there was a small gap, and Roslyn discreetly pointed to the smallest. "That one.
"They'll notice if we don't time this just right, unless..." Penny hmmed.
"Leave the illusion to me."Catching what Penny said, Roslyn looked toward her ally and narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"What are you planning?""I'll need every bit of my focus," said Penny determinedly.
"I'm gonna make it look like that door never opened at all while we go through." She smiled ruefully, but there was some mischief to it. "Of course, if I screw this up...""That might work. I can try to help. If they do spot me... I can always take off. If they are chasing me, you can sneak in there. I might be able to lose them and I can try to follow afterwards." Roslyn tried to hide the slight waver in her voice over the idea. She wasn't keen on getting caught, but they had to learn what was happening.
Penny blinked.
"Right. Let's go."They waited until there was a break. Roslyn rushed forward and pushed the door open, gesturing for Penny to follow. The door clicked closed behind them and they found themselves back in the hallway. It was… normal sized, but most of the doorknobs… That was it! Each door’s knob was lower than normal.
It was a strange thing to notice, and Penny almost missed it, but she glanced at her partner in crime.
"Why are they so low?" she whispered.
Catching what was said, Roslyn turned her head to examine the knobs. Her eyes narrowed in confusion,
"I don't know... Can we try and open one? Just a crack to see what's beyond them."Penny reached out with her energetic sense, scanning beyond. She could not be sure of the exact positions of all the walls and doors, but there were people close to the nearest one, and all that needed to happen in order for she and Roslyn to be found was for someone to open it. Down the hallway was one that seemed empty. She emerged from the shadows for a moment and silently pointed at it, setting words to action and starting to make her way over.
It was at that moment that a hand seized the doorknob they had just stood in front of moments earlier and turned it.
Roslyn caught the gist of Penny's meaning as she nodded, rushing in her friend's wake. Her breath held in her chest until her lungs stung. She caught the sound of the door clicking open just when the door closed behind them. Roslyn jerked when she heard the soft thump echo, betraying their presence. She hadn't been able to stop as the last person inside.
Foreign voices spoke in the hallway, rattling on fluently and rapidly. It didn't sound like Vossoriyan. This fact didn't bring Roslyn any comfort. Her eyes scanned the room for a place to hide. It appeared to be a pantry, full of simple cooking supplies. Roslyn's beating heart drowned out nearly all sound. Her fear over being discovered stifled her common sense.
"I am a bag of flour," Penny whispered. "Be the flour. Channel the flour."
Despite her better judgment, Roslyn closed her eyes and a barrel popped into her mind.
"Behind me!" the Perrenchwoman hissed, as footsteps drew near.
Roslyn struggled to make her body obey.
"Move, barrel!"The door opened and the golden-orange spread of a lantern's light wavered across the contents inside. A voice spoke in a harsh accent, but they did not understand a shred of it. Penny pulled her knee to her chest and remained as still and silent as humanly possible. Roslyn just froze like a deer caught in the lights. There was a second voice and the light continued to shine down on them. A few of the unfamiliar words repeated themselves.
Penny blinked and tried to focus on them.
One of the voices spoke in words they could understand. "You, girl."
'I'm caught...' Roslyn thought and braced for whatever came next. A subtle tremble rippled across her form, dreading the worst. The pair started to chatter between themselves, amusement filling their tones.
"You very bad hide."
"One girl very bad."
"Two girl little bad."
Penny started. She looked up. Roslyn remained frozen like a deer in a hunter's sights.
The best speaker of the two continued. "You lucky we see you. No Vossoriyan."
Penny began to gather her energy, and she shielded her eyes. The speakers were hegelan.
"Calm, girl. Okay. We no tell." One reassured them.
Roslyn's mind fell out of its petrified state. She blinked and then crunched her eyes at the pair standing in front of her. She was speechless for a moment. She didn't know what to say to the drastically different scene happening from what she expected. Mustering up the courage, her form relaxed and she faced the two.
"Uhh, w-why?" Roslyn managed to spit her words out, though rather softly. She couldn't believe their luck.
The pair had strange bindings around their wrists and ankles. They looked at Roslyn when she spoke. "Why? Hah!" barked the one who spoke a language that they knew.
"Fuck Vossoriyan." He shook his head. "Now... why you here?"
Penny glanced at her friend who'd had the courage to speak.
"I wandered down here. I got curious." Roslyn's eyes finally noticed the strange bindings on their wrists and ankles, "Why are you here? And what are those?" Her finger pointed to the strange things.
"V...vander?" questioned the hegelan. The two of them glanced between each other and conferred in quick, low voices. "You want know what here?" he asked.
Penny nodded vigorously. She spoke slowly and simply.
"Yes. We want to know. We think it stops the magic."The one hegelan translated for the other. Then, there were further footsteps down the hall, and a voice addressed someone in Vossoriyan and not the hegelans' strange language. Roslyn tensed, her calm now gone again, when she heard it. Her eyes widened and glanced wearisomely at Penny.
"It bad. We work. We do bad. This..." he struggled for a word, unable to find it, and then rapidly closed the door in their faces.
A tense few seconds passed. Then, there was an exchange outside. It was mostly in what sounded like Vossoriyan, but some seemed to be in the hegelans' language. It ended with some barked words from the unfamiliar voice, and subservient ones from the hegelans. Penny held her breath. Roslyn bit her lip, her fingers clenching her dress in anticipation for whatever came next. Her eyes pinned on the door with dread. The doorknob rattled for a moment.There were more words.They could practically feel the hand resting on it.
Then, Penny snapped.
In one smooth motion, she rose, grabbed the door handle, and pushed it open.
"Don't-" Roslyn's voice squeaked, but it was too late. The man on the other side was half-dressed as one of those monks, but he did not have either the look or the demeanour of a religious man.
Penny heard Roslyn, but it was too late to turn back now. She'd never been much of a healer anyhow. Some were Eshiran's promised. She slammed the door into him and he stumbled back. The first thing that she did was warp the sound itself, forming an anti-sonic bubble. She leapt out wordlessly as he staggered back, falling on his rear.
"Roslyn," she said with surprising calm,
"get out of here now. Make your escape." She turned back to face the monk.
"I'll handle this."Roslyn's hands leapt to cover her mouth. She was surprised at Penny's reaction as she heard the woman's statement. Worry, fear, and adrenaline surged through her veins, causing her feet to move. Deep down, she knew in a fight she was dead weight.
"Okay... don't get hurt, please." Her voice cracked with shame as she darted past and back down the same path they had come from.
Penny faced the man. The two hegelans rushed in towards her. "No hurt!" said the one who could speak some Avincian. "No hurt!" he insisted, and she whirled.
"Is... is he your friend?" He hadn't seemed like a friend to these people.
The hegelan shook his head as the monk rose, rubbing at his head. He began to draw energy.
"No. Not friend. You hurt he, we hurt. Under stand?"
Penny stalked forward, drawing and casting.
"Roslyn!" she called.
"Roslyn, I need you."Hearing Penny's holler behind her, Roslyn's heels dug in. She skidded to a stop and glanced back. Ignoring the slight sting budding in her legs, she flipped about and rushed to her ally's side.
Penny's telekinetic shove hurled the monk into the stone wall opposite with significant violence, and the man crumpled to the ground, leaving a bloody streak behind him.
"You're a chemical mage," she said matter-of-factly, as she began binding the head wound.
"He's only unconscious." She worked on him some more.
"I think."Struggling to keep her calm, Roslyn nodded. She focused on the blood, turning its chemical make up into pure water. The clear liquid dripped from the wall and vanished into the floor. Upon hearing the questionable statement about the man's condition, she stepped closer and leaned down. Her fingers pressed to the area of the pulse. A bit faint, but gradually getting stronger. "He'll be alright. I've seen workers who got heavier bashes than him." She reassured her friend.
"Broke a bit more than I meant to," Penny admitted.
"I panicked. Dammit." She shook her head and focused.
"But yes, I can fix him." It took the better part of a minute until her work was done, and it fell to Roslyn to placate the two panicking hegelans.
Roslyn immediately turned to them, noticing their rapid and uneased chatter. It didn't take a genius to know they were upset.
"It is okay. Did any of you get hurt?" Her eyes shot over their forms, looking for any injuries between them.
"No we!" one of the hegelans practically shouted, voice high and strained. They both pointed. "He! He hurt. They hurt we!"
"Okay, we are not going to hurt him. We will figure this out." Her hands rose in front of her and gave a lowering gesture, hoping to get them to calm down. Even if it didn’t work for them, it helped her own nerves.
Penny was finished with the healing, meanwhile, and she flagged Roslyn over, glancing as much evaluatively as apologetically at the pair who'd helped them. The Hendlishwoman started to pull away, departing with one last instruction:
“Keep an eye out for more people.” Roslyn hoped that giving them a task might help distract them as she came over.
"Now here's the tricky part," the Perrenchwoman advised, as her partner arrived.
"You're better with Chem than I am. I need you to go into his head and...rearrange a few things with Gaze of Confusion. We need him to forget we were ever here." She paused as an idea seemed to come to her.
"And... can you fake the chemical symptoms of drunkenness?"Roslyn’s eyes narrowed, recalling the lessons. A wily smirk crossed her lips,
"So how hard? Something light like ale or something harder? Firetail Whisky tends to be an ass kicker.""Vodka," said Penny,
"So yes. That sounds about right." She propped the monk against the wall and let her partner in crime work.
Roslyn inhaled then focused on her drawing and casting. She knew the finer details of what caused a drunken state as she boosted certain chemistry in the man’s body. Once finished, Roslyn turned to the men.
"You mentioned if he hurt, you hurt. How does that work? What causes it?"They blinked, confused. "Yes. He hurt. We hurt. They hurt we." They did not seem to understand some of the words she had used.
"We have to move him," Penny advised,
"now.""Yes!" one of the hegelans replied. "Move him now!"
Roslyn bit her lip, trying to figure out a better way to ask. However, before she could, Penny interrupted her thoughts. All questions escaped her as she nodded. She moved and opened the door to the supply room. With a beckoning wave, she indicated to the hegelans to put the monk inside.
"If we put him in here, it keeps him out of sight and might be more convincing."The hegelans looked at her skeptically.
"In there?" the one who spoke Avincian asked.
They glanced towards the other room they had come from. "He drink." It was accompanied by a gesture.
The second one nodded and pointed towards
that room's door. "He drink there!"
"Yes." She frowned, not fully understanding.
"We can't take him there," Penny said. She flexed and was actually kind of muscular.
"Not strong," she clarified.
"Can't lift." She mimicked the act of it.
The hegelans glanced at each other. "This," they insisted, pointing at the door down the hallway. "Big room. All people drink there."
Roslyn sighed, shaking her head. Realizing this wasn't working, she moved from the door.
"Penny, can you hold the door open? This isn't working and we're wasting time."Penny arched an eyebrow. She drew a bit of energy and telekinetically lifted the man from the ground.
"Forgot we could do this?" she teased, voice still just above a whisper.
The hegelans looked uneasy. They shook their heads. "No," said the one who did not speak Avincian. "No. This is bad. They know." He pointed again at the other room. "This better."
Regardless, the unconscious monk was lifted and dumped into the closet. The door was closed behind him.
"To be fair, I just started to learn most of my magic last year... I tend to mainly use it for the brewery." Roslyn countered quietly back.
The two small men spoke rapidly in their strange language and their eyes darted warily up and down the hall. Somewhere around a distant bend, a door closed. "You go!" one insisted. "You go now!" They pointed urgently up the way that the women had come from.
Whatever Penny might've said back was cut off by the sudden urgency. Pulling from the heat somewhere deep behind and beneath her, further into this complex, she boosted her movement speed, almost gliding as she ran-hopped.
"Rose, unless you wanna help me bust more heads...""I'm afraid to say, I can't fight at all. I'm more likely to freeze up again..." Roslyn already felt her fear coming to choke her again, her feet slowly backing up and her form twisting.
She took off like a thunderbolt, plenty fast but loud. Her illusion abruptly dropped in her wake. It was up to Penny, who'd been party to at least a few such scrapes previously, to cover for the both of them. Unsurprisingly, the one-legged woman lagged behind, but the two hegelans were still in the hallway. When the red-capped monk noticed them, he began issuing orders and they scrambled to carry those out.
There were cheek-clenching moments along the way, but they made it through the door they had entered from, and then the hallway that led towards the exit. During their escape, the entire complex seemed a hive of activity. As they looked upon the scene below, two escape options stood out to the girls: the particular structure of a long and winding staircase down the cliff face, or a magically-enhanced leap.
Penny glanced behind her.
"We jump. Come on." "Okay, though I don't like this idea..." Roslyn piped up as she readied her magic.
Penny had to glance the other way to roll her eyes, out of politeness. No time to sync up their jumps, they launched off the edge and into the ground below. Penny hit first, followed by Roslyn. A sound of rushing footsteps drew the latter student's attention. Her hazel eyes darted to the narrow staircase. She spotted a cluster of monks rushing up it.The idea of their near discovery caused her to shudder before she quickly caught up to Penny.
The Perrenchwoman had made it to a tree and hid behind there, sitting on a low hanging branch and letting her illusions fall for a moment.
"See?" she chirped,
"I told you we could do it!"Roslyn gave a smile, her skin a paler color.
"I'm glad, but that was a close one." From out here, aside from the unusually high number of monks, it looked like a fairly normal monastery. They shuffled about on their daily errands, and some made time for their devotions. There was not much of note to see... and that only pricked Penny's sense of danger even more. She reached for the energies around her, of which there were clearly many and then...
She couldn't feel them.
The magic, once more, was gone, and they were stranded inside this place's walls without it. Also no longer sensing anything, Roslyn's concern returned. Their situation looked more dire than before. Before she could speak, however, sounds of a fight rose in the distance, and then rushing footsteps.
"Roslyn!" called Penny, peering out from cover,
"It's now or never!"Roslyn cursed in Hendlish beneath her breath.
All the monks seemed too distracted to notice them as they skulked forward. Their forms remained low to the ground while they moved. They wove through the trees and around the outbuildings for what seemed like forever. In reality, it was only ten minutes. When the moment came, Roslyn's legs curled beneath and then snapped herself forward. Feet slammed hard into the ground sending her sprinting into a flat out run. All her thoughts focused on getting away as the two fled from the monastery.
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