Peril of Wisdom

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Peter_Abelard
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Re: Peril of Wisdom

Post by Peter_Abelard »

So much more to know indeed! Thanks for putting this together, Wynna!
Character arcs are sharp, pointy little things. A little blood may spill!

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Wynna
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Re: Peril of Wisdom

Post by Wynna »

Sobered up and moving fast, she followed Adam and the bag of charnel horror that he carried. Dusk crawled towards them across the City of the Dead. Long red light on peaceful green lawns, exhaling a cool breath that would be a ground fog soon.

A first horrific juxtaposition on entering the gates had moved her to exclaim at how lovely it was.

The impact of what the Witness had shown her in the components cabinet refused to settle, even now that they had carried the sealed black bag across the city. Or Oghma had denied her request to flush all of the alcohol from her veins. Unreal. This was not real.

She recognized the chill fingers of Tymora’s evil handmaiden on her neck. Shock. Punishment? For contemplating drunken debauchery and the abnegation of choosing her own path? Who among the Guild members to which she had been elevated but that day could do this? She shuddered, following. If what he said was true about the darkening beauty within these walls, Adam would be in danger if they took too long about this. He hadn’t taken time to find his armor and weapon, still in the finery of their assignation. Which this had ended. Some first date. She sensed a pattern in their burgeoning relationship, considering that his first gift to her had been a ring to protect her from vampires. Absurdly vain woman. This is not about you.

The smell had alerted Nipsy Peanut. Whatever he had been doing poking around the training basement, she could believe that.

Dead innocents, their mortal remains recovered from goblins. Why not already given over to the keeping of this monk that Adam carried them towards, in this graveyard?

Why kept on a shelf like...like a commodity?

If she had not called on the divine to purge the sickness from both the Witness and herself, she would be vomiting up the wine she had drunk this evening.

The shadows of the trees lay long on the roof of the crypt ahead of them.

You have told me of the babies rescued. You have never mentioned those not.

He had tried to take the bag from her. I will see to this.

Do not brook me a ‘no’ on this, Adam. I am coming.

No! He hadn’t even seemed repentant at the contradiction. I will see to it, I said. Don't you trust me?

Do not try that on me! I trust you. Nipsy asked me to do this, as a woman of faith.

He had taken her shoulders. Listen to me. The vampires. In the sewers. Vansa. They come from the City of the Dead.

As if he did not remember the ring he had given her. As if he merely humored her before this. I told Nipsy that.

Do you understand?

She had gone on, speaking over him. And then he showed me what was in the bag. We are keeping Steven waiting. If you are coming, get in the coach.

For the love of the gods!

His frustration with her echoed in the stiffness of his back even now. He was not happy to have her company. The gate of the crypt rattled open to his hand. First, this sorrowful duty, then a return through the graveyard. Perhaps a night in the graveyard, if the gates did lock them in with what he said would rise at night.

Her fingers closed around the white quill at her neck. A return to the Guild. For answers.
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Wynna
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Re: Peril of Wisdom

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Arguing was not in her nature. “One. Dead babes are not ingredients.” Natural or not, she seemed to be doing it. “Two. If this is part of the education of wizards, then all my old distrust of them is proven True.” Arguing, with the Guildmaster to whom all members owed respect. “Three. You can forgive Aglorus this, because he fought Kringus, but cannot forgive Sarenna her passions? Four.” She was aware of her voice rising and could do nothing about it.

Laird spoke up. That he would stand with Vale on this was an added blow. But he did, arms folded over his dark green armor. “Have you spoken about this with others outside this circle here?” He sounded curious, as if about the weather, or whether the shelves had been dusted that day. Two officers of the Guild, defending another.

She advanced a step, to confirm her own courage. “Four....he did not conceal the smell of an ingredient we do not like. He covered. Up. Dead. Children.”

How was it even possible to need to argue this? This was not up for debate.

“Five. If you think I do not know how badly it could go for you, then you are wrong.” If she carried through on her threat to notify the Watch, twisted hemp around his neck and the trap dropping from beneath his feet could be the end result.

Vale was not so much taller than her. Tel’Quessir slender, like the blade no longer on his back. He showed as much expression as that confiscated steel, as well. The light from the fire warmed the paleness of his hair but not the composure in his eyes.

“Six. If you think this will weigh in my decision. You are wrong.” A lie. Binder forgive her.

“Mistress Gardner......You do not sound to me like a person interested in having a conversation.....you sound as if you are determined to win an argument.”

He infuriated her. Rash woman. Since when? He had done nothing in this except defend the Guild for which he bore responsibility. “You sound as if you are determined to prove my respect for you misplaced.” She returned overwrought passion for lack of compassion. Why could she not control herself in this?

Laird spoke up, once again. “Can I restate my question?” She recognized that mild tone. That was her voice, in days of normalcy; her role, as peacemaker.

The babies…. Cradling their remains as she had handed them to Brother John. One. For Asher, first to fall. Two for Kalo, moments later in a storm of ice. Three. She stole a look at Adam, beside her, as righteously resolute as she. Four. The man she railed against, betrayer of trust. Five and six. Those Vale could not forgive. Six dead innocence. Innocents. She corrected herself quickly. Six dead innocents.

Calmly, Vale said, “I am going to step away for a few minutes. If you are still here when I return, we may continue this discussion.” He inclined his head respectfully to all of them.

Adam laid a hand on her arm. “I have spoken to only Clary, Aglorus and Master Peanut, who discovered the bag, of these matters.” He had said his part before her, no less censorious, but more controlled.

All of them, counselling peace to her. The world had turned upside down.

Six dead innocents to redeem seven Guild and Company members laid out at Kringus’s roots. The inequity brushed her thoughts like nettles up her spine. The proximity of numbers was coincidence. Watching Vale walk away, though, she felt stained. Six dead innocents, given over to Brother John’s blessings of their mortal remains. Of those without the purity of the lost babes, of those who had refused their gods’ welcomes, one must be yet leftover, in excess of that calculus of redemption.
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Wynna
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Re: Peril of Wisdom

Post by Wynna »

So, goblins. And lost babes.

That was how she had pictured her first foray into actively seeking danger. She had come around to the recognition that it was going to happen. She would have to venture into his world, into the sewers, to protect him. The babes, stolen by goblins, had recommended themselves as a defensible place to begin. She'd tried to ask him tonight, earlier. Clearly, she had phrased it poorly.

What she'd gotten were trolls.

*****

“The Binder bless you and keep you; Oghma make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord of Knowledge turn his face toward you and give you peace!” Terror strangled her cry. The misbegotten creature loomed over her. It had broken past the men in the doorway and lunged into the hall at the two women.

At her, Clarianna Gardner, in a ruin, fighting for her life. There were goblins, yes, but only as slimy attendants on the larger enemies herein.

The troll’s face visibly reformed, skin sealing around wounds that had at first left its jaw dragging. Black blood no longer gushed from the sword strike at its neck. The thing’s mouth stretched wide, chewing vile words. It could speak. It was sentient. If devotions were ever to be a problem she faced again, that could be the second new bit of knowledge she would present to the Binder.

First would be that she had discovered that contrary to what Adam and Kal and Sarenna had told her, the bolts from her crossbow caused it no harm. The rubber of its body pushed out those few of her missiles that had managed to find it. She doubted that its fetid claws, blackened and rotting with strips of carrion, would find the same imperviousness in her flesh.

Oghma’s blessing flowed through her, outward from hands upraised to push the thing off. She felt the expansion of a Truth. Should she fall here, should any fall, they did so in the defense of all that was good and right. She experienced a direct connection with the other three, and a momentary clarity of distance from the chaos around her. Although her contribution was small enough in the protections they had laid upon each other and themselves, she knew it for the best she had to offer them.

It did not affect the oncoming troll, though, breath mumbling between jagged teeth. Their flesh would be as meat to this abomination. She would sustain its depredations. Adam would feed it.

The blessing had been the best she had to offer her friends. What did Oghma offer in castigation of foes?

All she had to do was seek. Truth welled up. Knowledge could be used to see the weakness in an enemy, the shambling, feral bestialness that was not sentience, not Truly, but base impulse to sate its hunger. Knowledge could target instinctual fear, as well.

What Oghma offered against a foe was the opposite of a blessing. It was the terror of an enemy recognizing itself Known.

The thought tore open the distance within her. “As for you, you meant evil against me, but the Binder meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today!”

Simultaneously with her shriek, Sarenna and Kal struck the creature with fire. Flames erupted along its form as Clarianna scrambled back, with her upraised arms no longer fending off fear but calling down vengeance. The blinding fire of the lovers surrounded the falling blackness of the troll.

*****

From her frozen position of thankfulness to the Binder who had protected both her and hers with blessings and bane, Clarianna saw Adam’s face soften as he knelt.

In the remains of the fallen goblins, a tiny swaddled lump stirred and gurgled.

Adam picked up a baby, and turned to look at her.

She found herself moving. “Give him here,” she demanded, pushing Kal out of her way where he blocked the doorway. “Give him to me.” Her voice broke.

Between one breath and the next, she held a living, warm bundle. Binder bless and keep him, as she had been blessed and kept.

The seventh innocent, this one alive.
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