As the echo of the bell faded away, and silence filled the air again, I managed to pull myself from the visions of what was to be and instead see what was in front of me.
The clocktower’s base was circular with five evenly spaced archways cut into the walls to allow traffic through the center. In the center a stylized symbol featuring a lighthouse and a town with a banner stretched across it declaring ‘Freeport’ in Runna. Around the symbol stretched a compass rose, with me next to the north arrow. My eyes traced the details, exquisitely carved and deftly contoured, but I wasn’t able to let my eyes linger for long as I noticed that I was not alone.
In each of the five archways stood one person, presumably guided here as I was.
To my left stood a Porforokin in reinforced leathers and numerous pouches strapped across their body. A large and fluffy tail stretched up his back curling just short of his pointed ears. His black fur was cleaned and slicked back and his paws sat close to a pair of daggers on his hip. “Squirrelfolk,” I decided after digging through my memories of Thuuvik’s lectures.
Next to him and almost across from me, stood a dusty skinned Elf in black plate mail with a massive sword slung across their back. The helm was held loosely at their side, revealing a squarer face than most elves I had met and showing their dusty brown hair and eyes so blue and bright that they almost seemed to glow. Their eyes were wary and one hand rested at the bottom of her sword’s sheath, holding it in place.
On her other side stood a dragonkin with copper scales and heavy furs. Or at least, what I assumed was a dragonkin. I had never met one before, but the histories referred to them as distant cousins of the Yuxa, progeny of the great creatures of old. Their snout like mouth reminded certainly reminded me of the yuxa at least. He didn’t seem to be armed, but he stood with easy confidence.
The last of the five, standing between me and the dragonkin, looked like the humans I had passed on my way here except its hair was shiny and metallic. Its hands, which I assumed originally were gauntlets, were instead made of metal with hollow sections where they bent that let the light through. Their face was tilted into a slight smile as they caught my eye.
I would’ve felt bad for staring, but I realized we all were. It seemed that each of us had been drawn here in a trance and was looking at those assembled with a mixture of confusion and wariness. No one said anything, perhaps for fear of breaking the divine silence or, like me, afraid of speaking out of turn and breaking social expectations.
The matter was solved for us by a voice from above.
“Welcome,” she said in Runna,. “You’ve been expected.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the elf’s hand reach towards their sword and the squirrelfolk go oddly still, as all of us looked upward to see a human woman. She was the first person I had seen with something resembling red hair, though hers was slightly browner than mine. She wore an oddly thick coat given the heat but seemed unaffected leaning against the railing of a walkway that crossed the upper level of the clocktower. Behind her I could see the bells that had been ringing shortly before slowing to a stop and the massive gears that moved them slowly grinding away. Now that I could see the gears, their noise reached my ears, quiet enough to be ignored but certainly notable. I idly wondered if it had actually been silent as I thought it had been when we first arrived.
My thoughts were cut off by the woman as she smiled and then with a very deliberate and slow motion, pulled the sleeve of her jacket up. Across the outer bony part of her forearm, there were three stars in a row, black against her light skin. It was shocking how bright it was. Her skin that was. Until today, I had been the palest person I had met, or had been before the tanning I had undergone at sea. But her skin was paler than mine, closer to true white than the parchment white of my skin.
Surprise at skin tone aside, I could feel the tension leave my shoulders as several of us sighed in relief. Slowly, we pulled pieces of clothing out of the way to reveal our marks.
The squirrelfolk went first pulling his left glove off to reveal a row of stars across the back of his hand. I followed by shifting my shirt aside just long enough to show the marks before quickly covering up. The metal human lifted their metal hair to reveal the marks along the base of their skull. The dragonborn lifted their furs just enough to reveal a star just above the edge of their pants. There was a grunt as they went to lower the pants, and reveal the rest of the stars, I quickly turned away.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” the woman above said with a slightly sarcastic undertone. To my right, the metal human turned a chuckle into a cough, but not nearly well enough to hide anything.
“Fair ‘nough,” the dragonkin responded in a gravely voice. He also spoke in Runna, but I wasn’t certain if the dropped syllables were deliberate or due to his accent. I know I had some trouble with differentiating between the ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds when I spoke, but had overcome that with enough practice. I wondered if any of them had to be tutored as I was, but pushed that thought aside as all eyes turned to the elf, waiting for her to reveal their marks.
“Well,” they spoke, revealing themselves to be female, “I’d love to show you all mine, but I can’t do that without getting out of my armor and that’s more hassle than I really want to deal with right now.” Her voice was harsher than I expected it to be, lacking the lyrical nature of the Dusk Elves or the imperious tones of the Golden Elves, but her words seem honest enough.
The lady above made a small noise, that might’ve been a laugh or something more dismissive, “Well, now that we've established that we’re here for the same reason, my name is Revayne and my job is to point you in the direction of the problem.”
I could feel my eyebrow raising and fought to keep it contained. To my left, the squirrelfolk asked the obvious question, “You aren’t going to join us?”
Revayne smiled with obvious pleasure. “No,” she agreed, walking towards the end of the platform, “For two reasons. One, I have tasks and duties in Freeport that are more helpful to the cause than assisting you would be. And two.” She trailed off as she left our view, continuing only when she exited a door between the dragonkin and the metal human on our level, “Six is a bad number for a group. Five will just do better.”
“Five again,” Rin commented, “Perhaps there is some credence after all to the talk of mystically significant numbers.”
I mentally shushed her and turned my focus back to Revayne. The squirrelfolk didn’t seem pleased with her answer, but didn’t press the point. Revayne smiled and turned to face each of us in turn. “With that said, since I won’t be coming with you, I suppose it would be good to make sure you know who you’ll be working with,” she said commandingly. “Introductions. Who you are, what you do, all of that.” Her smile was still warm, but the tone conveyed an impatience and an expectation that orders would be obeyed. There was a moment of silence where we waited and the gears grinded above us.
“Well then,” Revayne said, her smiling giving away to hard faced determination. She turned to the dragonkin, her tone imperious, “You, speak up.”
There was a momentary flinch where the dragonkin looked ready to fight with Revayne, but whatever he saw in her face caused him to back down first. His shoulders rounded and he became notably smaller in posture.
“I,” he graveled from the defeated stance, “am Ignas.” There was a pause where he forced himself to straighten, his voice taking on a proclamatory tone. “I am honored to say that I am the eldest son of Warlord Merbren Mountain Breaker, conqueror of the sulfured peaks and councilor of the great Wyrm Rus’tal’bash who is King of the Stone Teeth. I have been called by the Gods to hunt in their name.”
When he finished his proclamation, he looked to Revayne and, once she nodded, stepped back. As introductions went, it was fairly straightforward, though I was idly interested in such a heavy focus on lineage and connections to the King. It was so different from the nobles of home, who had a family name to both proclaim their higher birth and their lineage.
“Well,” she stated impatiently, “Who’s next?” I could feel, more than see, the twitches of those around the circle bristling at the command she had wrested and being ordered around.
The armored elf stepped forward, face solid and staring Revayne down. Without breaking eye contact, she rattled off, “Sergeant of Cecilia Duskborne of the Shadow Knights.” If the looks of confusion on my and the other’s faces phased her, she didn’t let it show. Instead, she just stepped back, ceding the floor to the next person.
The metal human on my right stepped forward and, in a tone that sounded more like moving chains than a voice, said, “I’m a fifteenth generation android, model fifty-seven, number three-five-five.” There was a pause where they smiled, and then continued in a more normal register. “But you can call me Faith.”
For all the reverence and intimidation in the situation, I couldn’t contain myself any more. “Okay, what is an android? And what do the numbers mean?”
There was a blink of confusion from Faith and then a painful silence where I could almost feel people staring at me in disbelief. The moment stretched on as it seemed that their face contorted through trying to understand what I had done. I could feel a blush starting to form as the silence stretched on.
Thankfully, Revayne broke it with laughter, “Oh, thank you. I was beginning to wonder if any of you were honest enough to admit you didn’t know something.” She looked around the circle again, playful smile in direct contest with her lecturing tone. “Lesson one. While it is occasionally useful to appear like you know more than you really do, information is almost universally more helpful.” She turned to me, her smile softening for a second, “So, thank you….”
“Kara,” I said, thankful that someone understood the social convention I had been trying to use for so long. I realized that this could qualify as my introduction. “I’m…” I hesitated for a second, uncertain of exactly how open I could or should be. We were still in the Runna Empire and I wasn’t sure that there weren’t people looking in from outside the clocktower. Death had lead me here, so these people could probably be trusted, but I had no guarantee that these were the only people who were here.
“Discretion is a virtue,” Rin advised.
I mentally sighed. She had a point.“A mage,” I said, as if that was what had me hesitating. Faith and the squirrelfolk seemed skeptical given the pause I had injected but didn’t press.
“How good of a mage?” Ignas plainly asked.
That was a question I had no idea how to answer. Given what I knew of the Academy, I was likely the most powerful mage at the Academy, though I doubted I had the skills to compare to a more learned one. But that was only the Academy. Compared to the nobles I had once been destined to serve I was sure I still was well short of their ability. But then again the People were the best mages in the world, which maybe put me…
“You haven’t answered yet.”
The group was watching at me, Ignas looked annoyed but the squirrelfolk looked amused. I started speaking before I could blush.
“Uh, I was still learning when I… got chosen? If I hadn’t left, I’d be entering my apprenticeship right around now.”
“Apprenticeship?” Cecilia asked, her voice tinged with surprise. “There are enough mages in your home for there to be learning before an apprenticeship?”
“You said too much” Rin commented
Spiders. “There’s a school?” I said with a shrug, hoping to end the conversation there, silently cursing my lack of knowledge about the world outside the Wood.
“A school? Of mages?” Faith skeptically asked. Well so much for ending the conversation. And my gut response of ‘One of several’ would clearly not be helpful to my desires. It would be impolite to leave the question unanswered, but I couldn’t find a way to end the conversation while answering. I just didn’t trust myself not to say something that provoked their curiosity more. Ah!
I clamped my mouth shut and nodded while shrugging my shoulders. An answer, but there were no words required.
It didn’t stop anything, and they all were still looking at me, but no one continued asking questions. Silence fell over the group once more, and once again Revayne broke it.
“Well, I believe she asked you a question, Faith.”
The eyes slowly shifted and Faith took a moment to respond, probably working to remember what the question had been in the first place.
“Yes….” they slowly said, acknowledging the question, but taking the time to collect their thoughts. “Androids are the children of the Steel Father. We have metal to help overcome the frailties and weaknesses of flesh.”
“But you’re still partially flesh?”
Discomfort crossed Faith’s face, “An unfortunate reality we have to deal with. Metal is stronger, but the amount of metal that can be animated by a living creature is finite. Some day we will be entirely metal, but for now, we make do replacing what we can.”
I nodded, not really certain how I felt about… well, everything they just said. Disgust warred with cold logic of the situation. Artificial materials, particularly treated ones, lasted far longer than any singular lifespan. The academy’s foundation stones were at least a thousand years old. But the costs to get there… Well, suffice to say I was relieved that I didn’t have any decrees I felt the need to abide by that were even a quarter as invasive into my body.
“And the numbers?” I eventually asked.
“The pursuit of transcendence is an ongoing process. We, or at least this body, represents fifteen major advancements in the pursuit of making increasingly metallic forms. Model fifty-seven means that I was part of the fifty-seventh production. The 355th to be exact.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I nodded, more questions spinning outward from that. However, I knew exactly how tiring being the focus could be and while Faith seemed more amenable to it than I had been, I didn’t want to presume.
“And what do you do?” Cecilia asked. “Ignas is a hunter, I’m a knight, Kara’s a mage. What do you bring to our group?”
Faith hummed taking a moment. “Pilgrim is likely the closest word I can find, but it would be more practical to say I’m a lay cleric of the church.”
“Lay?” I asked confused.
“Cleric?” Cecilia asked, clearly curious. “Magical healer?”
Faith smiled, “To answer both questions, yes, I can heal but not as well as a full priest would. Mostly minor patchwork. I spent more time with the mace and shield than with scriptures. ”
Questions began to abound. Did they talk to their Gods like the Dusk Elves did? How did they have the time to practice both magic and combat? But the most frustrating thing was that I had no idea how to refer to them. If I thought the Dusk Elves were hard to distinguish between the gender of their speaker, Faith was impossible. The metallic undertone removed any timbre that would identify them as male or female. I was trying to craft a delicate way to ask the questions when Revayne gentle cough.
“Our last member,” she said, directing everyone’s gaze to the squirrelfolk. “The short version if you’d please. It was providence that we’ve had this long to talk quietly, but providence can only last so long.”
How did she know? What did she mean? I put them aside as the squirrelfolk nodded, “Quite. I am Dorekilik of the Northern Wrananalts, sixty-three generations removed from Shivvik himself. My dray and I are typically responsible for scouting, though we also have a tendency to brew potions and other concoctions.”
Again with discussion of lineage. I started to wonder how it looked that I didn’t have such a distinguished lineage to recite. It was probably okay, given that Cecilia hadn’t given a lineage either and no one seemed particularly bothe…
“And with that,” Revayne said, interrupting the thoughts before they could start to fly, “We move onto your first task. This way.” And then she turned and walked out of the clocktower, pushing into the crowd that was slowly milling back into the square. There was a slight struggle as we were moving against the flow of people, but then Cecilia moved to the front and suddenly people were giving us a much wider/
/berth.
I stumbled as someone bumped into me. My attention must’ve lapsed for a moment because the group I thought I had been closely following wasn’t in front of me. There was a brief panic and then I noticed Ignas and his furs ahead of me and scrambled as best as I could against the press of the crowd. It wasn’t easy, but I persisted and eventually broke out of the crowd and back to the group who were rather impatiently waiting for me.
“You okay?” Cecilia asked.
“Feh,” Ignas said. “If she can’t keep up, we should just leave her behind.”
Faith and Kilik didn’t notably respond, they probably agreed at least in part, but Cecilia’s glare made Ignas wither back.
“I’m okay,” I said after a moment, “Just got caught by the crowd.”
Cecilia nodded unconvinced, but didn’t press.
“Thankfully,” Revayne said taking the front, “The rest of our journey should be rather crowd free.”
She took off, moving with confidence in a direction only she knew, the rest of us hurrying to follow. Ignas and Dorekilik with practiced ease, Cecilia by the grace of being in plate that no one want to be in the way of, and Faith and myself hurrying along in her wake. Eventually we fell into a rhythm and comfort followed. I wasn’t sure what to do, the silence wasn’t quite comfortable but I didn’t know how to broach conversation. Oddin’s endless…
Oh Spiders, I had forgotten about Oddin and the Quartermaster. Not that I really was supposed to be with them any more, but it still was rude to leave them behind as I did. Instinct to find them and apologize for my rudeness swelled, but I quickly pushed it aside reasoning that I had almost gotten separated once. All I could realistically do was keep my eyes open for them.
Thankfully, while I was distracted and uncertain how to start conversation, Cecilia had no such concerns.
“How old are you?” There was a pause where she looked around the group. “All of you?”
I blinked, having not expected the question. To my right, Faith spoke up first. “I’ve been alive for a total of thirty-five years.”
I spared them another look, paying particular attention to their metal. The fleshy sections didn’t have any notable signs of aging and the metal was missing the typical signs of weathering one might expect from something that had been exposed to the rigors of daily life for so long. Their face was also, built? Constructed? Designed? I shook my head, pushing the pedantry aside to focus on the point. Their face looked close to my age, at least assuming they aged akin to a Morphkin. Though that might’ve been an intentional creative, forging? No...
“Twenty winters,” Ignas provided, pulling me out of my ruminations on terminology and appropriate nomenclature.
“Sixteen for me,” I responded. That got a response out of Cecilia, and a few others.
I smiled uncertain, blushing slightly, “Is, is that a problem?”
“No,” Cecilia coughed, “it’s just, young.”
Dorekilik laughed, “Maybe to elf, but not to porofokin. Back home she’d be expected to be settled down and pregnant.” I could feel the blush spreading, “Ah, but not so where you’re from. So, what is adult where you are from? If it helps, I’m fifteen. Been adult for three years.”
I nodded in thanks at Dorekilik before turning to the group. The story that Thuvvik and I had spent so many nights springing to my lips without a second thought. “I’m not sure what the appropriate age of adulthood is for a human since I spent most of my life…” I paused to inject uncertainty as Thuvvik had told me to, “south.” The nods of understanding told me most of the party understood my allusion, except Faith who seemed confused and Revayne whose face was blank. “But, there sixteen is an adult, though admittedly a young one. Had I not left, I would probably be in the process of completing my apprenticeship and…courting.” I blushed deeper this time. That wasn’t strictly part of the story, but given Dorekilik’s information and Thuvvik’s insistence on context, it seemed right.
“Right,” Cecilia added, clearly uncomfortable herself, “Well, I’ve survived forty-one summers.” She must’ve seen something in my face, because she then expanded, “Where I’m from summer is the dangerous season, not winter.”
I worked to bring my face back to an appropriate neutrality before speaking up, “Forgive me, that’s not the confusing part. I’m not sure where forty-one summers puts you age wise. Comparatively, I mean. I know elves tend to live longer, so does that make you a new adult, middle aged, or?”
To my right, I could hear Faith stifling another laugh as Cecilia started to blush, “Ah, not quite. Adulthood is about 25 for most elves.” She paused and squinted, much like Mother did when she was doing mental calculations, “In human terms, I’d be in my mid to late twenties?”
I nodded politely at that almost entirely useless information, but figured I could get the context later.
Eninald was about our age and his interest in us wasn’t seen as unseemly, which implies humans at least mature at the same rate as Kitsune do. Kitsune likely live longer however given our predisposition for magic and the natural extension of life that comes with that.
Thank you Rin. Glad you could join the conversation.
“Welcome,” she said.
Welcome? That wasn’t… I blinked in confusion. There was something odd there that I’d have to inves… i shook my head. Later. For now I had to focus on not getting separated again.
And conversing.
I summarized to make sure I understood what had been said. “Regardless, it seems like we’re all adults. Relatively young adults at that?” I directed that question mostly at Faith and Ignas who hadn’t actually provided age context to me. They nodded and shrugged respectively and I continued on, “That seems to fit with what the Pale Lady told me about adaptability.”
“Pale Lady?” Faith asked curiously.
“If I had to guess, she means Lady Death,” Revayne clarified. “Not an appellation I’ve heard before though.” She gave me a considering look. “Do the other Gods epithets in Myrnos?”
There was a question there that I by rights should have been answering, but anger was building and pushing decorum aside.
“I’m sorry, did you call it Myrnos? As in Myrna the Alfos? As in Myrna the Deft? As in “The Butcher of Runna and Demon of the Bloody Falls?” I asked with my voice raising into a furor by the end and failing the challenge of self-mastery immediately.
Most of the Starborn were polite enough not to stare directly at me but I caught a few odd looks from those we passed. Thankfully, we hadn’t stopped walking, so we quickly left the area of those who had seen my public and disgraceful outburst. I probably should’ve felt ashamed, but I was too busy being angry.
“Yes,” Revayne eventually responded, “And while you are in Elven lands, I suggest you say the same, no matter how distasteful it might be.” She paused and tilted her head apologetically towards Cecilia. “Sorry, while you’re in the Runnan Empire.”
Cecilia shrugged, “The Goldies can say that they’re the masters of all Elvendom until the sun falls from the sky, doesn’t make it true.”
Dorekilik cut in, “Pale Lady good title. I like it. Good description and more importantly not one commonly known. No way for Elves to get angry.”
“Angry?” I asked.
“Faceless One and Death known rivals. Worship of her, and many other old Gods, forbidden in Empire. Worse comes to worse, we can say it term for patron. Mortal patron.”
“There’s a lot of concern about the what the Elves might do. I thought Freeport was only a vassal state and was otherwise, well, free.”
Revayne shrugged and continued to walk as she talked. “Freeport might be freer than the rest of the Empire, but it is still under the rule of the Wellspring Citadel.”
There was a heavy pause that I’m sure meant something significant but I couldn’t quite make the leap. Going by the looks of those around me they didn’t either. Still, no one seemed willing to speak their confusion to Revayne. Grumbling internally, I spoke up. “Which means?”
There was a long pause. I was worried that she hadn’t heard me, but the sag in her shoulders indicated otherwise. So, instead we walked in silence. Eventually, Revayne sighed, “It means that we have to pay at least lip service to their rules.”
“I will not bow to their false Gods or hide my belief,” Faith firmly stated.
Revayne laughed hollowly, “No one’s asking you to. What I’m asking you to do is not go around proclaiming it at every street corner or using terms that will get attention drawn to you. That behavior stands out, which is the ultimate problem. We don’t know who is working against us. Who’s responsible for our patrons’ predicament, or who they’re allied with.”
“Sounds cowardly,” Ignas declared, “I was a better fighter than any Elf before I became a Starborn. Now no one of them could take me. The Gods have made us stronger.”
I looked over at Cecilia, worried she might be offended and found only a look of wry amusement. I wasn’t sure if it was confidence or a lack of pride that made her brush past Ignas’ declaration so easily, but I appreciated it.
Dorekilik turned so that he was walking backwards, allowing him to talk to our faces while still moving forward. I was a little nervous about him running into someone, but he clearly wasn’t. “Probably true. But could you take twenty? At the same time? I agree that we’re quality, but I don’t think we’re quality enough to match their quantity. If I recall the Empire’s treatise on tactics properly, the standard deployment of Runnan soldiers is one hundred twenty astusi in rogtush.”
Revayne cut in, “And with twenty-five military outposts in the city with a full fist of rogtush in each your odds are slightly worse than initially suggested. Hence, discretion.”
I tuned out Ignas’ rather repetitive protests about honor and single combat with some quick calculations. Context indicated that an astusi was a single person, so there was a hundred and twenty people, or elves in this case, to a rogtush. Those were grouped into fists, which if I had to guess was five, given both the number of fingers in a fist and the importance of that number elsewhere. Which made six hundred armed elves to a fist. At twenty-five bases with six hundred elves in them each, that made a total of… fifteen thousand soldiers. Which, while impressive, was at least close to the ten-thousand that had until today meant endless. Unlike a million. Still, that was only one astusi for every sixty-six point six repeating, call it sixty seven, citizens provided Oddin’s population count.
“Bah, these Elves have no honor,” Ignas was loudly declaring when I finally brought my attention back to the conversation at hand.
“Honor only matters if you’re alive,” Dorekilik countered.
‘Honor is but a salve for the weak,’ Rin quoted. “Used by the impotent to delude themselves into accepting less than they deserve.”
Ignas, meanwhile, waved at Kilik dismissively and turned to look away from the group.
I let the conversation fall away as I searched the annals of my memory for the source. “Ousanos Scorchbeak the Corvian Elder?” I mentally asked her, concerned.
“Remembered for his inventive method of securing his position as the only elder of his generation and unifying the corvian tribes under his rule,” she coldly noted.
That was a massive understatement. Scorchbeak was known for uniting the Corvian clans under his rule by poisoning all of his contemporaries at a peace summit. By the time that any of the other Great clans got their houses in order, he had already consolidated power over the lesser clans to the point where none could contest him. There was a reason the Corvians had a black reputation among the People.
My personal musings had distracted me that I had missed what had apparently become a rather contentious conversation. I hurriedly set Rin’s dark quotes aside.
Kilik was, rather animatedly, not quite yelling at Ignas. “Larger conflicts need limits, agreed. Even agree with some parts of ‘honorable warfare’. Treat prisoners well, good. Don’t murder surrendering soldiers. Also good. Settling entire wars through one on one duels? Stupid. Unarmed. Idiotic!”
“It would needlessly emphasize hand to hand combat for one, which would give the Yuxa a notable advantage.”
Ignas laughed and I pushed Rin back into her mental corner. “Unarmed is so that you are less likely to kill your opponent,” he said patronizingly. “The purpose isn’t to kill, but to determine who’s the strongest. Once the stronger is established the loser will follow.”
Dorekilik went wide-eyed at that before shaking his head and muttering to himself in porforkin. I caught something about ‘muscles’ and ‘funding’ before he straightened himself.
“So you claim that hand to hand combat between me and you would be fair?” Though his tone was polite, I could tell by the way his ears were tucked that he was being insulting. Belittling if I remembered the ear tilt correctly.
Ignas laughed, “Fair is the wrong word. It wouldn’t be fair, but it would show, in no uncertain terms, that I was stronger and thus worthy of leading.”
“Only idiots and bullies rule through the strength arms. True rulers are intelligent and wise.”
That got under Ignas’s skin. Under his scales? Regardless, given how his eyes were narrowed and his fists were clenching, I suspected I was about to be treated to a first hand dueling demonstration. And while I wasn’t attached to either of them particularly, I sincerely having two Starborn fight was part of anyone’s plan.
Pointedly I stepped between them and made a point of speaking directly to Revayne. “How much longer will it be? I asked before looking around the area considering. The buildings here were larger and the roads were wider, but what that meant I had no idea. “And where exactly are we going?”
She turned a bit, for the first time since we started walking, and smiled, “There is a small warehouse nearby that a Lord Winthrop owns. In it he’s having a new device developed. And, from what I understand, those behind our Patron’s troubles don’t want made.
“So, what. We’re going to ask him who’s been threatening him and work from there?”
At that point a boom flooded the air, nearly rendering me deaf and causing untold amounts of birds to fly from their nests atop the buildings. More concerningly, it seemed to have come from in front of us. There was the barest pause once the echo passed where the six of us exchanged looks before a crowd of panicked people came from the cross street in front of us.
“Ah,” Revayne said blandly, “It would seem that we’re just in time.”
Without further commentary she walked forward, through the fleeing people and turned in the direction they were fleeing from.
“It would seem Lord Winthrop’s warehouse is being beset by vandals and is in need of some heroes to save him.” She turned and offered us a sharp smile, “Know any?”
