~ Rhian~
Toam thought about Rhian had said and nodded. It was a good plan, and she was probably right that eventually others would come forth with the crystals making them almost worthless. As he thought more on the subject, it would probably take a year or two before anyone really forgot about the crystals and that he could get a good price for it. Still a year or two wouldn’t kill him and he had a few hiding places that he knew of. Toam said,
“Thanks” and then left Rhian to herself.
Sven saw that Toam had left Rhian side and he nodded to her. Sven wasn’t a large man, but he could blend into a crowd like no one’s business. Though Sven was smart and able body, he had never shown any real aptitude or focus on a craft. He instead enjoyed pulling pranks and scouting tunnels unknown and unseen. However, his habit had gotten him into a lot of trouble, scars from knife fights were scattered over his arms and chest. Sven was good with a blade, not because he knew forms or had practiced at it, but because he fought dirty.
Sven looked at Rhian, and gave her a report of the bare facts.
“I followed the man to Lorlyn’s quarters. The man asked Herth to open up, I heard Herth say something like, ‘not today, and not for your kind.’ The man got really upset and started screaming about how Val had sent him and he was only their to talk with Lorlyn. I heard a loud thumb on the door, like someone was bracing the door just in case. The man turned so red that I couldn’t tell where his hair began and face ended.” Sven cracked a smile, and then realized that he was reporting to Rhian.
“He took off after that. However, I stayed a little longer, and that’s when I saw a group of Dek enter the Courtyard. There was about eight of them, and one of them stopped at Lorlyn’s door. The leader of their group waved them on, and I followed them. Seems that Lorlyn made a service entrance into their rooms, one of the top alcoves has a secret door that opens up to a stairway, I recognized one of Herth’s crew sitting in the alcove and talking to the dek team. My guess is that he is on a recruiting drive to protect his sister from people.” Sven stroked his red stubble of a beard as if he was thinking.
“Almost makes you wonder if she had dug a couple other passage ways…” Realizing he said it out loud, Sven stopped his thinking, and put his full attention back on Rhian, waiting for her to comment.
~ Brunhild, Fenilen, Renol, and Sairque~While Fenilen awaited another arrival to the Shrine. Brunhild had flown the eagle to a lower crest opening that Axel knew would lead her to the Shrine. Once again, Brunhild went into the Mount Skyinarta, the tunnels in which Brunhild traveled were hardly used, but thankfully only after 20 feet a small light began to fill the cavern. Brunhild felt that the stone walls and floor had been smoothed by Reimancers, as she continued on she noticed that the walls began to be filled with artifacts that had been collecting dust. Bracelets, combs, glass toys, and metal logic puzzles were placed on pegs with names below each item. Axel had flown her to an unknown entry into the Shrine of those that had Passed. She was walking through the Yasi caverns in a side tunnel that hadn’t been used in a long time. The tunnel seemed to be solemn, until she entered into a nexi point. The rock vault was covered with toys and scraps of clothes from Yasi children, and Brunhild even saw a few floating about playing with toys and silently laughing. The room was made up like a playroom, toys laid about here and there, while ghostly children played or toys floated about. It seemed as if the dead still had time to find fun, and Brunhild looked above the cavern entry ways for the glyph that would lead her to the main room. Eventually Brunhild found the right caverns, seeing a few more ghosts here and there. For some reason, the dead had decided to come out today.
As Brunhild navigated, Fenilen asked his questions of Whisper, and she seemed to think about it for a while. Finally with a click of her tongue she spoke,
“As long as, one of the dead has seen the light of the lamp, he or she will follow it passively. A person could never move so fast as to out distance a ghost.” Whisper paused, walking over to the lamp and opening one of the windows.
“Should the ghosts see the naked fame they will stop, also if you come across an angry spirit the lamp will stop it and make it follow you. However, I suggest you allow me to deal with any angry spirits.”Once Renol told everyone that Jaz a member of Kalfa’s lost crew, Whisper seemed shocked at the revelation.
“If what Jaz says is correct and twenty-four souls are still trapped down there… what could be holding them to this plane?” Whisper seemed to taken back with the idea, throughout the day she had been serving the dead that had come up, but this thought was almost too much. Slowly and as if the thought caused her pain, she excused herself from the group, stumbling from shock to her quarters to mediate on what it all meant. To her ghost were common if they had unfinished business or were just too stubborn to die. She even possessed a skill to trap spirits, but to have bound them this long was beyond anything her mind could comprehend.
As Whisper left, Fereo’s bond came back and with it Fereo’s mind seemed different. To Renol it was like an ocean of thoughts and feelings. Yet now, there seemed to be hard and tangible under those thoughts and feelings. Renol had never really explored the mental landscape of the bond, he had never thought he needed to. Ideas, thoughts, senses, even emotions traveled back and forth without any effort. He knew that Fereo’s mind contained a great deal more of everything, almost as Fereo was several people, but the weird sensation of something hard and solid in his mindscape felt almost alien to the both of them. As Renol thought about it, Fereo pushed him back,
Don’t focus on it, Renol, it is my punishment and raw within my mind. Give me time and we can examine it together.OOCSorry Renol just thought I would set up some of the back story for a previous lives quest of your bird. When you want to explore this more give me a PM. Otherwise, Fereo has no ill effects.Catabasis mind gentle held Sairque’s for a moment. It was the closest thing to a mental hug that she had ever experience. Whatever experience that had drawn him away from Sairque had scared him. Thoughts folded into Sairque from Catabasis,
Fereo is physically fine. He spoke of something forbidden to us, and mentally he is a much stronger bird. Sairque got the impression that Catabasis wanted to say more, but he was also afraid that what had happened to Fereo would be done to him, and quietly Catabasis removed the closeness between them to settle once again in their normal bond.
With Whisper gone, and Renol recovering from what just happened, Brunhild came into the main room to see the three people huddled together.