At midnight, the half-moon lazily watched over Radasanth’s richest street. The Lieselotte Manor dominated at the end of the street, the king’s seat at their table. It slept fitfully. Torches still bobbed in the courtyard, lending just enough light to make the assembly of carriages look like a forest of mares and monoliths. The auction’s guards, now in their brown and green traveling attire, lugged the last few chests from the manor. It had been a good haul, as to be expected of the most prosperous city in Corone. What few trinkets remained were neatly stowed in three large chests. The rest overflowed with payment; coins of absurd denomination, signed and sealed records of debt, even family heirlooms that, with a little polish and dramatization, would fetch a fine price at the next event. No louder than the squeals of the gates grinding open, the carriages and their small army of guards slipped down the main street, passing every manor that they had just conned.
Customer satisfaction spoke to the contrary, though. Many had urged their servants home quickly with their treasures. Urns were pulled from mantles and family jewel were shifted to smaller boxes to make room for their new toys. Their significance seemed to radiate off every polished facet, brightening the homes with pride as refreshing and fleeting as a summer breeze. Those that didn’t spend their evening admiring the pieces were in their studies, calculating the accrued value years into the future. Only a few, who coincidentally had the most brilliant manors, returned with nothing but ideas. They knew the scheme for that it was, and they relished it as a learning experience. Already, they had plans for their own dungeon-robbed treasures… that would be quietly crafted by unnamed artisans.
Only the servants of the Macgowan residence seemed to be awake at this hour. They watched the caravan, heavy in gold, light in guilt, trundle out of town, and they whispered. Only one class of people is worse gossips than the rich; their servants. Every single one of them, as they tidied the ungathered mail, trimmed the garden to perfection, and polished every surface to mirrored brilliance, knew that the Lord and Lady’s return in the morning would be very trying. They had no way to soften the impact of the stories, those wild tales of uncouth behaviour while they were clearly visiting their son’s estate an entire day’s travel away, but at least the couple would returned to a polished and preened haven from which to weather the storm.
The caravan circled around the church at the opposite end of the street, a building nearly as tall as the Lieselotte Manor, and disappeared into the darker streets beyond. “Good riddance,” muttered Shadar from the wide, arched windows at the top of the bell tower. He and Brigitte, back against back, sat upon the workman’s platform running the interior of the tower, the massive bell inches above their heads and deathly silent.
As his glazed eyes wandered the faintly moonlit street, he flipped the bladeless Eudaemonian hilt from hand to hand. After their search for the off-worlder had reached a disappointing end, he had tried to salvage what little he could from the venture, but even the small device rebuked him. He had tried flicking it every which way and twisting every moveable piece he could find, of which there seemed to be more than when Wilhelm had handled it. Sighing, he swallowed the piece of off-world garbage into his palms.
Sonic! Or maybe Syonic… something, Jackal suddenly belted out so powerfully that Shadar expected the bell to ring.
What? he demanded bitterly as he lay his head back against the ruby waterfall of Brigitte’s hair and rested on her shoulder. She did the same, pressing her ear to his own.
That invisible whatever that the mind puppet slapped you with. It was called something like that.
Shadar scowled. Somehow, the demon’s pointless ramblings annoyed him more than the outright hostility. Jackal probably knew that, though, as he chuckled a little in the background. Any information he could give would be meaningless, anyway. Shadar had no way to track Wilhelm, if the bastard was even still on Althanas, and no leads to investigate the bizarre magic. It was simply one of an uncountable number of dangers, all the more frightening now after being proven as Brigitte’s antithesis.
“Do you think immortals fear death more than mortals?” he asked aloud, not expecting an answer, but not wanting to shield her from the hard truth either.
Brigitte tilted her head in thought, stared at the rafters a moment, then answered in a tone as relaxed as could be, “I was never mortal. I don’t know.” Either she didn’t realized the gravity of the statement, or she truly felt no fear at its prospect. Whether it was a sign of childishness or not, Shadar couldn’t tell.
“I suppose,” he mumbled, “I was… and I don’t remember being as worried about it. Maybe, when you have an expiration date, you don’t see the need in delaying the inevitable.” Brigitte nodded against his shoulder, but she had no response to offer. “Ready to go?” Shadar finally asked when the silence and the silver-edged shadows of moonlit stone began to grate on him.
“Pull the rope,” Jackal interjected in an audible illusion.
Shadar jerked his head up. “What do you-”
“Yeah, pull it,” Brigitte chirped, turning and smiling broadly on this oh-so-rare occasion that she agreed with her creator.
Shadar glanced around for a moment before he realized their game, then a mischievous smile washed away his introspective scowl. “Heh, okay.”
All down the street, noble and servant alike awoke to a horrendous clang that reverberated through the walls and straight down to the foundations. It was a sound they had never heard from the church before, as if the bell had been hoisted to its peak and let fly with wild abandon. The sound stretched on, the metal protesting loudly, and not a single ear heard the ageless laughter as two shadows darted away into the half-lit night.
Out of Character:
-One bound sword and sheath. The magic will fade if it is removed from the void for a short length of time.
-One broken energy sword. An internal connection was jarred loose, given the impact and the age of the device. The focusing matrix is intact, though, and the power core has enough juice to see some small amount of use down the road.
Neither item will be usable in any way until researched in a later thread.
Weakness gained/discovered:
-Shadar cannot resist Psionic forces as easily as he could physical forces.
-Brigitte is actually damaged by Psionic force, and will be very susceptible to Psionic attacks designed to do damage.
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