Kiyoka, part 2

[Graybeard]

"Few from outside our mission have met Brother Lemuel," Father Egbert said. "He primarily functions as part of the ... defenses of the church. However, he is also our resident expert on golems, for obvious reasons." But where did he get enough free will to say that he "liked" the Clay name better, Egbert wondered, and from the looks of it, the other Veracians were wondering the same thing. He thought he'd better come back to that one later, but for now, he plowed ahead, choosing his words carefully and directly; you had to take care when talking to a golem to make sure it had enough information and freedom of action to answer -- or at least you did with most golems. "Brother Lemuel, have you ever met any other golems that are of female configuration, have pale blue skin, and are strong enough to crash through a thick stone wall?"

"No, I have not," Lemuel rumbled. "That type of golem is not familiar to me."

"Nor to me," Egbert agreed. "Have you seen other golems here in Kiyoka?" He was expecting a negative answer, but wasn't too surprised by Lemuel's simple "Yes;" after all, the Tsuirakuan military probably had some at their military base north of town, and maybe they'd gone out on an exercise some time when Lemuel was doing sentry duty and could see them through a window. Expecting an answer in that vein, and thinking that something interesting regarding the Tsuirakuan military strength might be learned by continuing, he asked the obvious question: "How many, and where did you see them?"

But he definitely didn't get the obvious answer. "There are many in the tunnel under the mission."

The four Veracians turned as one to look at Lemuel, and said exactly the same thing:

"Huh??"

[Drannin]

Argus stared. He had never really paid much attention to golems. They were, well, just THERE. They did chores, and that was it. Occasionally you found one smart enough to carry on a conversation (especially some of the uncovered ancient ones that were apparently some attempt to make an extremely solid facsimile of life), but they were, in the end, ambulatory furniture. That could talk. At least familiars had some personality and free will of their own.

On the other hand, this Lemuel was turning out to be full of surprises. The conversation was NOT going as expected. It was going better. Argus felt a sense of excitement, of a secret about to be revealed, that he hadn't felt since that time Cirella-

Scratch that.

"How did they get there and who do they belong to?" he asked, feeling a sense of excitement.

[Graybeard]

"How did they get there and who do they belong to?"

"I do not know. I do not know," Lemuel replied calmly, and not as redundantly as one might think; he'd been asked two questions, after all. Sister Margaret looked like she was about to succumb to apoplexy, but Sister Rose and Brother Farley kept a stiff upper lip as Father Egbert asked, "How did you find out about these other golems?"

"I learned of them just the other day, when you sent me to check on the noises in the wine cellar," Lemuel said. "A door was ajar, so I looked through it to see the tunnel. I followed the tunnel a short distance to another, well hidden door, and behind it was a set of steps, and after the steps there were the golems. Aren't you proud of me?" Was that just a hint of pride in the rock-hard face?

"Well ... yes ..." Egbert sputtered; that was an unusually self-motivated act for a golem, to be sure. "But why didn't you tell me about them?"

"They weren't making any noise," Lemuel explained, as one might patiently explain something to a small child.

"Mmmmm ... okay ..." Egbert was having a hard time staying under control now, but he did vaguely remember telling Lemuel to go see what was making the noise -- and golems took such commands very literally. One more try, then ... "But I'm always very interested to hear about things that might affect the security of our mission. Even if they weren't making any noise, why didn't you tell me they were there?" But he saw the answer coming, even before Lemuel said it ...

"You didn't ask."

[OOC: Check this moment in the original Kiyoka thread and its followups to see what Lemuel is talking about.]

[Drannin]

Argus looked thoughtful. "Just a notion I had. Perhaps we should go investigate this personally. Right now. With haste."

He was already on his feet.

If Argus didn't get some answers soon, he swore to all the powers that were that he was going to rupture something.

[Graybeard]

A few minutes later, Argus, Father Egbert, Brother Lemuel, and Sister Margaret found themselves standing at the top of a set of stairs beneath the mission.

"I'm chagrined," Egbert confessed as he distributed pocket-sized light globes. "I've probably walked by that door five hundred times, but it never occurred to me that it might be anything but a broom closet on the other side. I should know this place better than that. Sister Margaret, would you say a few appropriate words before we proceed?"

Argus started to groan inwardly at the prospect of a prayer to Luminosita, but the "appropriate words" turned out to be a Barrier spell. A shimmering curtain of light formed across the passageway between Margaret and Argus, on the mission side, and Egbert and Lemuel, on the ... outside. "Do you want to go through?" Margaret asked Argus. "I wouldn't miss this for the world, of course," he replied, and the woman shaped an opening in the curtain with her hands.

"It just seemed prudent to have somewhere safe to retreat to, in case there's something down here that we want to avoid," Egbert said. "Sorry, Brother Lemuel, but you'll probably have to stay on the outside if that happens; you're likely too big to fit through the curtain."

"It comes with the job," Lemuel said, with a shrug of his massive shoulders, and no sign of distress. The three advanced down the stairs, which groaned slightly under Lemuel's weight -- and then they stopped at the bottom, shocked at what they saw.

Here, in a musty but stable passageway, were at least a dozen golems, ranging from child-sized to one nearly as large as Lemuel. All were motionless and silent except for one rather scrawny specimen mumbling quietly under its "breath." They were close-packed, except that between two of the larger golems, there was a human-sized space with a small label on the floor reading "Ayiee."

"Well, I'm not sure yet, but I think we've found where our mysterious blue golem came from," Egbert observed. "Now what?"

[Drannin]

Argus raised his light-globe, surveying his surroundings. "Where there is golem-storage, there is by necessity and logic a golem-storer. And since it seems unlikely that anyone at your mission collects golems as a hobby..." The light globe illuminated a small passage leading off into the distance. "...I believe we will have found the individual who so rudely interrupted you the other day. Over here." Argus lead the way down the passage, his staff tapping out a rhythm on the ground.

A minute later they came upon what appeared to be a solid brick wall. "Hah. Typical secret passageway." Argus was a little contemptuous. He'd seen a lot of secret passages in his day, and built more than a few of them. "Now to see what's on the other side. Hang on..." He started to reach out towards the 'wall' so that he could override whatever mechanism kept it sealed, when Brother Lemuel reached out. With an almost casual push, the golem knocked the wall out, over, and into roughly a thousand pieces.

There was one of those shocked silences that seemed to accompany Lemuel.

"There you are, Dr. Cleiviein," said Brother Lemuel, hesitating slightly on the 'Clay' part of the pronunciation.

"Thank you, Brother Lemuel. That was very effective indeed," was Argus' response.

"You are most welcome." Brother Lemuel was very polite, as well as horrifically strong.

[LordofNightmares]

(OOC where is Kueji at now cause I am waiting >.<)

[Graybeard]

When the dust settled, it was clear that Brother Lemuel hadn't just flattened a wall; he'd also demolished the bookcase that it was attached to. Argus and Father Egbert looked carefully at what lay beyond the smashed furniture.

"Looks harmless enough," Egbert said. They were seeing some manner of office, sparsely furnished, with images of exotic foreign scenes on the walls. Nobody appeared to be in the room. "Might this be a travel agency, or some such? I have no experience of the business; the church makes our own travel arrangements."

He took a tentative step into the room; yep, a travel agency, all right. The wall next to where they'd come in had a map of the known world, adorned with push pins that connected to more images of exotic foreign scenes. Papers on the cluttered desk appeared to identify the business as "HEER THAR BE DRAAGONS," misspellings at all. There was enough dust on some of the furnishings to suggest either that the place hadn't been used in a while, or that its owner wasn't overly obsessed with tidiness.

"I'm not really inclined to poke around here," Father Egbert said. "This business may have nothing to do with the golems, and we don't want to act like we're breaking into the place. Looks like they haven't opened for the day yet, so let's just -- hello, what's this?"

The rump of a small child, probably a boy about 8 or 10 years old, was protruding from under the desk -- trembling. Egbert bent for a closer look, and the boy said, in a terrified voice, "Please don't hurt me!"

[Viking-Sensei]

Suddenly, the lights in the office switched on, and a small army of men in the back corner who were apparently hidden behind an invisibility spell stepped forward. Several of them were holding various Tsuirakan recording devices, crystal cameras and micro-record-wands. One of the men, fairly well dressed, stepped forward and cleared his throat.

"Hello... I'm Kriz Henshin with Reportline Tsuiraku and we are doing a story about priests who try to meet teens over the Crystal Net for... things Luminosita would not approve of. Father, why don't you step back from that small boy and have a seat over here?"

[Graybeard]

As Father Egbert recoiled from the startling apparition, the boy, without ever leaving his not-so-effective hiding place, found his voice again, at Mach 5.

"Ohmygoddon'thurtmeIweren'tdoin'nuthin'wrongIjustcometocheckthestorelikeUncleLukeysaidtoI'lljustrun-awayifyou'rerobbin'theplacejustdon'tkillme ... Huh?"