Nautkia, and the South

[Sareth]

Lillith, eyes still vaguely red, slipped into the greenhouse in a somewhat furtive manner. She felt frightened, nervous... She'd found help, but it hadn't been the help that she'd been sent to look for. Worse, she'd encountered an elf and given that elf further evidence that there was prey to be had here. She'd messed things up badly. She only hoped that she hadn't messed them up too badly.

She glanced around, looking for one of the people she had spoken with earlier, but didn't find anyone at first. She began wandering up and down the rows of plants, wondering if someone was hidden by the exotic fronds and leaf filled pots.

[Graybeard]

The woman whom Lillith had seen before came out of the back of the greenhouse. "Leofric is back in his office," she said. "He's getting the books and things tidied up for us who will remain." She stroked her very ordinary, human-looking ears. "Do you want to talk to him?"

---------

That's Father Egbert, all right, Sister Rose thought as the three men paused at the top of the cliff. I wasn't convinced we were ever going to get this close to him -- but we still can't get closer. Yet. She decided to risk the Clairaudience spell again; whatever they were saying was very likely to interest her and Brother Miguel, to put it mildly. The world got noisy as she tried to concentrate.

" -- eight bells," one of the other, rough looking men was telling Egbert. "That's four o'clock dry land time. You'll want to be down there when they make landfall, but not much before. Even with the temple here, we don't like having people wandering around calling attention to our operation. Got that?"

"I -- I think so," Egbert said. (He sounds nervous, Rose thought. Of course, who wouldn't be under the circumstances?) "But what do I do until then? Can I go into the temple to wait?" Rose held her breath, hoping against hope for a positive answer; things would get so much easier...

No such luck. "Hell, no," the rough man said. "We keep the temple squeaky clean, that's the whole point of allowing 'em to be here. I can't even go in there myself, not from here, anyway. I have to go in the front way like any normal priest. No, stay entirely out of sight. Three hours of boredom shouldn't be much of a price for a new life, should it?"

Egbert considered. "I guess not. Well, thanks for your help." Hands were shaken, payments were made, and the two hard men returned to the underground passage whence they came.

"Luminosita be praised," Rose whispered to Miguel as she dropped the spell. "Let's give those other two a few minutes to get out of earshot, and then --"

Then what?

[Sareth]

"Y..yes please," Lillith replied, nervousness made plain. The woman nodded, and led her back to a small office in the building. Lillith looked inside, then swallowed and shifted in through the door in the way one would expect of a truant being made to face the rector.

"Leofric?" she called quietly, causing the man's head to rise. "I, um... I found us a way out," she said. "But it's not quite what you really wanted. I'm sorry. But I ran into the elf, and..." she shuddered. "But I do have a way for us to escape."

[Graybeard]

Leofric looked at his visitor over thick reading glasses. "Sorry I didn't notice you at first," he said. "My distance vision is fine, but up close ... well, you know how it is. You work quickly, I am impressed. Half a dozen lives are in your debt. So ... what do we need to do?"

---------

The minutes passed slowly as Father Egbert surveyed the view from the cliff (and Sister Rose and Brother Miguel watched Egbert). No more noises were coming from the underground passageway, anyway. "Ready?" Rose whispered as soon as Egbert moved a short distance away from the hedge.

"I don't know. What are we going to do?" Miguel whispered back.

Rose looked uncomfortable. "The direct approach, I think. I think I can reason with him ... wait a minute, what's he doing? Oh, no, he's casting a spell!" she gasped.

Egbert wasn't nearly as skilled a shapeshifter as Rose, but his capabilities, it would be fair to say, were more versatile than her own; she was limited to assuming other human forms (perfectly and imaginatively turned out as they might be), but his polymorph magic extended to the animal kingdom. The Veracians had seen him take the form of a bat on several occasions; that was actually useful for checking out some of the nooks and crannies of the mission. He'd also been known to change into a dog, a cat, even a mule on one memorable occasion that Brother Jerald would never live down. (Neither would the soprano whose braying the Egbert-mule imitated with perfect fidelity.) But they'd never seen him do what he was doing now.

Reality blurred, and a sleek, lithe panther sat where Egbert had stood. The big cat sniffed the air and slipped into the woods ...

... Right in the direction of where Argus and Harker were hard at work, a few hundred yards away, creating their decoy.

[Sareth]

Lillith winced at the question. This was the hard part.

"We need everyone who is going to gather all their things. Then we have to..." Her voice lowered like she couldn't believe she was saying this. "We have to the Veracian Church." And then she said the really hard part. "Tonight we're going to board a ship that's going to be destroyed."

She had to admit, Sister Rose' plan was ingenious, if it worked. Make it look like the half-elves fleeing the elf boarded a ship that then got destroyed so the elf had no reason to keep looking? Excellent notion. But there were so many risks... And so much trust, particularly on the part of people that didn't know the nun at all.

[Graybeard]

Leofric looked dubious for a minute, then light dawned in his eyes. "Aha. A deception. That kind of thing is probably wise when dealing with smugglers and elves. Come, let me introduce you to the people you are helping to save."

He led Lillith out the back door of the greenhouse, to an inconspicuous cottage surrounded by gardens, and gently opened its door. The scene inside looked domestic enough. A red-haired woman sat with a baby on her lap, as a girl played with a doll nearby. A young(?) man whose features looked unlike Leofric's or the children's was potting some plants at the kitchen table. All had the distinctive ears of their race.

But where was the sixth half elf? Lillith was about to inquire when Leofric stooped to kiss what appeared to be his wife. When he straightened, it was with an uncomfortable look on his face. "Where's Antoni?" he asked.

The woman looked up at him, more discomfort on her own face than on her husband's. "He ... he did the bad thing again," she said, shame in her voice.

There was no time for further conversation before a very tall, very thin man stumbled into the room. "W-w-w-what do you w-w-want?" he asked, tics twitching across his face ... and his eyes emitting an unmistakable green glow.

[Viking-Sensei]

[OOC- I hope you didn't have anything else too serious planned for your Elf for right now... if you do, this could always hypothetically be a second one.]

"This has all gotten so complicated." Sasha said, leaning back against a tree and taking in the sun, as well as giving her ears a little air. She'd never liked things on her ears, and this whole 'suddenly a half-elf' thing was really cramping her style. "I just wanted to steal some magical gemstones, not get involved in a smuggling operation that wants me to steal some boat at 8 bells...whenever in the hell that is. It's a good thing I was only sort of paying attention when the guy was trying to tell me what to do, otherwise I might feel compelled to participate. Is it just me? Am I cursed or something?"

From the tree she was sitting under, a small but clear voice replied "No, probably not." A tiny figure, like a human... or maybe an elf... but much much smaller, flew down from the tree and landed on Sasha's shoulders. "You're one of the Chosen Ones, after all. Your life was destined to be full of interesting things. Challenges to face, and obstacles to overcome. That is how the Chosen Ones will rise to fulfill their destiny."

"What are you talking about, small figment of my imagination?" Sasha replied, looking up casually at the girl-fairy. "The 'cursed' thing was rhetorical, by the way. And 'chosen' to do what, exactly? And what destiny is this?"

The fairy sat, then kicked Sasha in the shoulder a couple of times. "I'm real. As real as you, anyway. Name's Compassion. I'm an emmisary from... let's just say a higher power, and I've been sent to guide you to your destiny. We're going to save the world."

Sasha rolled her eyes. "No."

"Please?"

"Give me one good reason." Sasha said, closing her eyes and crossing her arms, turning her head away from the tiny Compassion.

"Don't you care about the world?"

In one deft movement, Sasha snatched Compassion from her shoulder and started shaking her. "Look, I've had a really bad day, so I expect some actual answers or I'm going to take you back to my friends and feed you to a polecat named Harker. Now, who are you and what are you really doing here?"

"Ohmygodtheresanelfcomingrightatyouandshe'sgotasworddrawn!" Compassion blurted out in one long ramble.

"Wha-" Sasha said, opening her eyes and turning. "-oh hell."

An elf, slightly battered and dirty, in full armor, was standing uncomfortably close, waving one of those burning magical sword things around. "You! Errant! Release the Paedagogusi and take me to the rest of your half-elf friends... or else."



______________________________________________________


A tall man in a dusty maroon jacket and dark glasses eased himself into the inn, taking only a moment to note the chaos and destruction before pulling up one of the empty stools and starting in on a plate of food abandoned by it's owner when all hell broke lose earlier.

The barman, still recovering from being stunned, raised up at the sound of the noise and looked blearily back and forth from the interior of his bar to the man. "Wha... who... did you...?"

The man shrugged. "Sorry, mate, just got here myself. Name's Van Ralein, I'm just passing through. I'll tell you what, though... I may be able to help. If you can hit me with three square meals and a place to sleep tonight, I can make all of this..." Van waved one of his arms behind his back, never even turning around or dropping his fork, and the room started to rewind. Wine seperated itself from the mud, flowing back into quickly mending barrels, tables righted themselves and chairs unsmashed themselves, and lighting fixtures lept back up onto the walls. "...a bad memory. What do you say? Just one night... I'm waiting to meet some friends."

[Drannin]

It was going well, Argus had to admit. Based on a simple model, he and Harker had quickly drawn plans for a full-scale duplicate of the ship and gottn to work quickly. Certain wards set up discouraged people from wandering in that area, and also dampened all sound to just about nil. He also had a plan for sneaking the thing into the water, although that would seriously exhaust him. The ship itself was shaping up to be exactly the same on the inside. They had also put together some deckwork on the inside, more or less at random, just to make the wreckage more convincing.

Argus had to admit, wood was actually pretty easy to work with. A lot more pliable than stone. Although, he could work with just about anything outside of ice...

There was a rustling. Argus spun around to see a large black... panther?!... standing there in mid-stride. Its eyes were wide. Damn him, but the big cat looked shocked. Then it saw Harker, obliviously at work at the deck, and its entire body twitched, the eyes growing even bigger. Then the panther saw him... Distantly Argus reflected that it was a good thing eyes were anchored in the skull by nerves, or this panther's eyes might be rolling on the ground right now.

Argus waited patiently for a moment, not moving. The panther didn't move either. They just stared at each other. Finally, Argus got fed up and gestured with his hand. In response, a long wooden spike was now leveled at said panther.

"Alright," Argus said calmly. "I don't know who you are. But you're obviously someone using polymorph magic. I know it. You know it..."

"Holy crud, a panther!"

"He doesn't count," Argus continued, pointing a thumb back at a suddenly aware Harker. "But I am having a VERY bad day, so would you please talk to me in a humanoid form, before I go on a psychotic rampage?" Argus' eye twitched. He needed booze, badly.

The panther, to its credit, looked a little apologetic.

[Graybeard]

"But I am having a VERY bad day, so would you please talk to me in a humanoid form, before I go on a psychotic rampage?"

Oh, god, Father Egbert thought, it's Argus Cleiviein. What is he doing here, and what do I do now? I could kill him on the spot ... but then I wouldn't know what brought him here or made him build this strange boat model, and I just have this certainty, I don't know how, that that would come back to get me. Running is risky, he's clearly as good with the inorganic manipulation as we'd heard and he might be able to spear me with that thing even at a dead run. And I can't stay and talk to him. What now?

And then he got an idea. Risky, but the best I can think of -- and I can always kill him if it doesn't work. Now if I just have the mana to pull it off...

He'd never tried a re-polymorph before. When he dismissed a Polymorph spell, it normally led to reversion to his normal, stout human form. But what if he tried to change shape directly to another animal? Like a ...

A low rumble rose in his throat, as he tried to vocalize the reversion -- and a Polymorph at the same time. This had better work, he thought ... and suddenly the big cat was no more.

---------

"Oh, goddess," Leofric face-palmed. "What was it this time? Antoni, what do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm s-s-sorry, s-s-sir," the tall man stammered, his face a mass of twisting, fighting muscle movements. "I d-d-didn't m-m-mean to. It just c-c-came along, I thought it was f-f-friendly, I stopped to p-p-pet it..."

"Pet what, man?" Leofric growled with an edge on his voice that Lillith hadn't heard from him before. "Come on, out with it! We're going to have to take care of the thing and ... good goddess, what is that?"

Leofric wasn't the only person, or more accurately creature, growling, as he suddenly realized. A large dog was staggering toward the cottage, its gait stiff-legged, its teeth bared, mouth drawn back in a snarl that it couldn't control ...

... And foam dripping from its fangs.

"N-n-nice d-d-doggy," Antoni said, as everyone backed away from the door.

[Sareth]

"Oh no..." Lillith whispered. Please Goddess, don't let him have been bitten. "Leofric," she spoke, trying to sound calm even though what she wanted to do was run. "Please come in and close the door. Can you do that for me?"