Centoriel

[Sareth]

Lillith gave the beaver a disgusted look. Not only was it an abuse of the natural to create the miserable things, this one was apparently unstable even for a constructed perversion of nature. Still, she said nothing about it, but just looked away after assuring it wasn't about to attempt to start gnawing on her leg.

As Sister Rose climbed into the wagon and settled with an arched eyebrow, Lillith debated. That looked like an invitation. Should she accept? On the one hand, she doubted very much that time spent with Veracian clergy would be very enjoyable for her, or for them. In fact, they could very well get in her way at the site. But at the same time, if she understood that look correctly, she was being asked to come into a place she'd meant to sneak into anyway. If she was invited, they could hardly object to her being there, now could they? If she saw anything of interest, she could come back for it later. And if not, then she managed to verify that without any real risk.

She looked up at Sister Rose with an attempt at a friendly smile. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

[Drannin]

Argus walked up to his familiar. "What's the matter with you? Brain damage?" More than usual?

"Bossshhh, tha' wood..... somethin' tangy..." Harker was clearly out of it, and Argus thought he knew why. The ground was saturated with leaking magical energies. Harker had just chomped on a tree growing in ground saturated with said energies. This meant that he was currently buzzing with concentrated magic. He was drunk on magic, high on life energy, and annoying as all crap. Fortunately, there was a cure.

Picking up a decently heavy rock, Argus brought it down hard on the beaver's head. There was a loud CRACK! and Harker fell over, still and silent. In the sudden, shocked silence, loud snoring suddenly could be heard emanating from the downed familiar. Argus turned to the others. "Familiars are nearly indestructible," he noted, before leaning over Harker. Grabbing the small figure by his tail, Argus heaved Harker over his shoulder, staggering slightly under the weight of countless implements. On the bright side, Harker's snoring subsiding to near silence. Something about the angle, probably.

"Well, at least I've discovered a fool-proof way of shutting him up."

[Viking-Sensei]

Sasha considered the situation for a moment before easing herself back onto the cart, taking up position on the far side of Argus and Harker. Once the cart was moving and her actions were less conspicuious, she pulled out a small slip of paper, made some quick notes on it, and passed it to Argus.

Don't trust half-elf. Don't say anything now, will talk more later.

[Graybeard]

"I don't know," Sister Rose said. "Just what are your skills? But tag along for a minute while you explain." She put down a hand to help the young woman onto the wagon, noticing that Sasha was scribbling something on a piece of paper.

Before Lillith could answer, Brother Miguel picked up a carrier parrot arriving from points north. It was early in the day for that, and surprisingly soon after the previous, classified parrot; evidently the base was following through on its intention of sending more birds to make up for the delicately-phrased "attrition" among classified message carriers. The parrot circled a time or two before finally settling into the tree that Argus had impaled and Harker had munched on. The wagon had only moved fifty feet or so, so Rose sighed and stopped it again so that Miguel could retrieve the message.

Interesting, Miguel thought. It doesn't seem to like that tree either. Some parrot-ish sixth sense, or does it simply mean that Lillith is a bird brain? The code words were exchanged, and the parrot glided down to where Miguel was sitting. He thought for a moment before retrieving the message. Hmmm ... The group dynamic has changed here. This "Lillith" makes me want to be a little more cautious. I think I'll read this one and paraphrase, rather than sharing it around like last time. He scanned the message and pocketed it, a frown appearing on his face.

Rose's Empathy spell had worn off by now, but Miguel wasn't hard to read. "Something wrong?" The bird had used the GOLDENROD code word, so things couldn't be too bad, but Miguel's facial expression implied the contrary.

Miguel nodded. "News from Kiyoka, and it's not good..."

[Sareth]

Messages being exchanged by birds? Lillith knew that these people were on some sort of mission that was of some import. Apparently, though, it was important enough to have them being updated. She may be new at this, but she knew one thing. If she kept quiet, they might share out something they probably shouldn't. But if she spoke up, it was a guarantee she'd not learn a thing.

Sitting on the cart, she kept still and quiet.

[Drannin]

Argus quickly glanced over Sasha's message before willing it to disperse into tiny filaments which drifted away on the wind. He caught her eye and gave a brief nod. Message received. In truth, Argus had no strong opinion on half-elves. They existed, and where there were half-elves, supposedly elves followed. He had heard rumors about some sort of elven pogrom against their spawn, but didn't know any details. Didn't really care. either. It just wasn't his problem.

But this half-elf raised his hackles. Maybe it was her religion. He didn't know. Just a hunch.

Hmm. First time I've agreed with another Tsuirakuan in a looong time.

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose secured the parrot and set the cart in motion. "Okay, what's the story? Talk as I drive," she told Brother Miguel.

"Sister Margaret says the Cardinal Inquisitor has arrived," Miguel said. (Rose winced; yes, that by itself would make for bad news.) "Apparently it didn't take long after that for things to go to hell in a handbasket. There was some kind of disturbance when he got there. A Kiyokan delegation met the boat at the dock, for Luminosita alone knows what reason. Argus' good buddy Captain Kitaura was part of the delegation." (Now it was Argus' turn to wince.) "Details from that point are sketchy, but apparently there was some kind of confrontation involving the Homeland Security people and some of Cardinal Cosmo's group."

Now everyone was looking both concerned and puzzled, so Miguel paused to explain Veracian Church politics to the relative newcomers to the party. "Cardinal Cosmo is the Cardinal Inquisitor for the Veracian Church. He's paying a visit to our mission in Kiyoka. He is a member of the ultra-conservative branch of the Orthodox Church, with all that that implies -- I'm sure you can figure out some of the implications." The looks on Sasha's and Lillith's faces suggested that they'd figured it out, all right. "And some of the people with him are even more conservative than he is. They will not take well to, shall we say, the nuances of interacting with cultures other than their own."

"How bad a confrontation?" Rose asked, not sure she wanted to know.

"Unclear from Sister Margaret's message," Miguel said, "but apparently not totally trivial. Brother Farley's girlfriend, that nice young battlemage Corporal Yugawa, was, quote-unquote, 'slightly injured' in whatever happened. Margaret says it's not serious, but Farley is still completely beside himself. She says he was threatening to renounce the Church over it. He's calmed down now, but things are still pretty tense ... And that's before the Inquisitor even made it to the mission itself."

Rose shook her head sadly. "I was afraid of something like this happening. Great bloody fools shouldn't be allowed to represent the Church and the country in interactions with other countries." She turned to Sasha and Lillith, an ironic smile flickering across her face. "See how much quieter and more boring life out here is for us of the Church? A veritable stroll in the countryside, I assure you..."

[Sareth]

Lillith listened to all of this quietly, her face a mixture of confusion and disbelief. The way these two were talking about this Cardinal Inquisitor... Either she really didn't understand the Veracian Church (and what was there to understand, really?) or they were trying to feed her a rash of goods.

She glanced at the two Tsuirakans sitting in the cart. The Veracians certainly weren't known for their tolerance towards anyone. But Tsuirakuans? There were old grudges there. And yet these two Veracians were quite calmly employing a pair of Tsuirakuans in their quest to find this missing man of theirs. This was more complicated a situation than she thought.

"This has something to do with that man you're looking for, doesn't it?" she asked, still clearly cautious.

[Graybeard]

"This has something to do with that man you're looking for, doesn't it?"

The question was fair enough, Sister Rose reflected, but that didn't make it any more comfortable. She decided to follow the same principle that Brother Miguel had articulated to Argus: the truth, nothing but the truth, but not necessarily the whole truth. "It does. He's a senior member of the mission, the assistant abbot in fact, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances a few days ago, right around the time of another civil disturbance in Kiyoka. We're not sure whether the two things are connected, but the Cardinal Inquisitor wants to know what's going on. Meanwhile, we're pretty sure that our assistant abbot is around here somewhere, or at least has been recently. He grew up in a small town south of here, and we've received reports that someone meeting his description has been seen on the road between there and Saus. If we can find him before the Cardinal Inquisitor gets too ... enthusiastic ... it'll save a lot of people a lot of trouble. Now excuse me for a minute, this is tricky."

The road was going through a particularly sinuous stretch, and Rose applied herself to guiding the horses, who clearly didn't like it. They inched their way around a sharp hairpin curve on the way down to a canyon bottom -- not really all that deep, but the road was steep and quite exposed on the downhill side. The route back up the other side was similar but longer, and the horses' flanks were heaving by the time they hauled the wagon to the top. They paused for breath, then crested a short hill at the top ...

... And found themselves looking into the depths of a remarkably vertical shaft perhaps two hundred feet wide and deeper than they could see. The wagon was starting to roll downhill, and Rose had to quickly rein in the horses to keep them from falling headfirst over the edge. A few stones did roll over, and disappeared with a lack of sound that the wagon riders found unsettling, to put it mildly.

"Well, I'd guess we know where that golem came from," Miguel observed, as the crash of stones hitting a surface a remarkable distance below them reverberated up through the shaft.

[Drannin]

Argus hopped down and walked over the the side of the chasm. Looking down, he saw... well, nothing, really. Just a lot of black that symbolized the absense of light. "Interesting. Definitely some sort of storage... I wonder if the golem was just buried under tons of dirt and forgotten, or if this was the official way to release it again, 'just in case,' I mean." He looked around. Gaping gash in the ground. Absolute devastation heading in the general direction of Tsuiraku. A war-golem was not subtle. Of course, you didn't send a massive magical weapon out to deliver birthday cakes (though many small boys would no doubt be overjoyed at the sight of such a figure at their birthday party.) Incredible power...

"Is anyone any good at light magic? Maybe we can illuminate the pit..."