Dragon (s)layers

4

A Whisper Among Gods

"There will be no words that I can offer in solace, I will not lie to you or hide the truth, however your questions will have to wait. There is movement that will be building within a city known as Pamor and I need my friend there to see it is kept polite. Along the way you should look for a blonde half-elven woman with a brownish stripe in her hair, she will be a close ally in our work.

Of course, you are free to do as you see fit.

I hope to see you there!"

-Unknown (Attributed to Isira)

"Letters From the Gods, Volume 984"

~Leslie~

There was a time that Leslie had thought of isolation as a spectator's sport; something she could participate in while still being within reach of the Little Kettle Inn. It was a time when she could sit by the window and listen to people walking by while she stewed in her own quiet oblivion. In her blind oblivion she could feel the thrum of the village's life passing her by one day at a time. She was cut off from the sighted world, isolated by anger and darkness, yet she could still feel like part of the human race.

In the mountains several hundred leagues from her village, however, there were no voices, no footsteps, no secret rendezvous beside her house. Only wind. Gusts whistled and lapped at the rocks like a candle's flame-- Leslie could

feel

the natural magic moving the unforgiving stone, welling up in the valleys and gliding around the peaks effortlessly. It was a song meant for those who left the comfort of their homes. Even if Isira hadn't given her new eyes to see with, just

being

was an act of rebellion against her life.

However, like the vibrant green and purple flowers that she had come to call 'piss weed' for their particular smell and tendency to spread into every cracked rockface she came across, her mind often drifted into those quiet moments in the dark, back to the uncertainty, the fear, the boredom. Fortunately for her, the thought of her hands getting torn up by the clingy little flower had made her dress morph a set of gloves to match the boots it clad her in. She wasn't an especially strong person, a little on the short side and far enough into her forties that coming out here would have been suicide without some kind of divine help. Paladin or no, coming out here had been a calculated risk.

Some would say she was terrible with math. She'd have agreed with them.

The relic she wore protected her from every jagged edge, every scrape and every near accident she'd had since leaving Hector's two weeks ago. It also helped that- either by her connection with the divine or the dress itself that sleep, hunger and thirst weren't things she needed to worry about. She'd plowed through the rations Hector had given her in the first couple days just

trying

to feel something.

But it never came. No hunger pangs, no exhaustion, no thirst. Just a warm contentment in the pit of her stomach that always followed her. Even when she tried to force the issue, her body refused to cooperate. It was a divine joke, but it was something Hector had insisted was unique. To him, her very existence defied the typical rules of paladinhood-- it was part of how she'd convinced him to tell her where Isira's nearest temple had been.

"Convinced" was a bit of a strong word. A solid week of begging and prodding was coercion of a sort, but it had gotten her there in the end. She'd take it where she could get it; it didn't fit to be a weak paladin if this was truly what she was meant for.

Leslie dug her fingers into the crack of the mountain, feeling around inside it until she got the grip she was looking for whereupon she loosened the tight bonds of the rock's structure to make a better hand and foot hold. The work was as tedious as it had been the first time, but with practice she'd become faster at it and the slate gave like clay. Once she was suitably anchored she moved herself up a few feet, kicked her foot into the old slot and repeated the process. Again and again, one foot in front of the other up the sheer face of what would have been her doom in any other situation.

It wasn't the tallest peak in the land, perhaps twice as high as the last one she'd climbed over, but upon reaching the top she was immediately struck by two realizations: the first being what utter beauty could be rendered in desolation and the second that she might, in fact, have been dropped on her head as a child.

The ruins of a cathedral sat proudly against the reds of the early afternoon sun, carved out of stone, molded around a central hall who's skeletal fingers now reached for an indifferent sky, offering prayers to a god or goddess who no longer watched over it. Wild flowers grew in the shattered remains of the once proud structure while swaths of sunlight poured in through the broken ceiling and missing windows. Down just off to the left side was a well worn dirt path that lead directly down the side of the mountain to the valley below. She could've walked the entire gods damned way up here if she wanted.

Leslie stared at the trail, her bright silver gaze roaming the land while volumes of curse words strung themselves together in her mind. She almost uttered them all, just to hear a voice, but she had other things to do here.

She turned back to the cathedral and perched herself in the shadow of its skeleton, slipping out of her knapsack and digging out the map. This was where it was supposed to be, almost exactly two leagues from Hector's hamlet. This was it.

This

was the temple of Isira?

Leslie eased herself back from the building and paced a circuit around it, frowning. There were mountains directly connected to the plateau sweeping out in a wide and remarkably smooth Y through which light was allowed to pour into the circular hole where a window had once punctuated the temple's rear wall.

Leslie put conscious effort into reshaping her dress into something more practical, freeing up her fingers so she could trace the stone. There was something there- a kiss of long forgotten divine energy mixed in with the rock's structure. Maybe not all that surprising, the cathedral looked as though it'd been shaped out of rock rather than built. . .

"Shit," she said quietly as she braced her hands on the lip of the missing window. She hung her head between her shoulders, undid the thong holding her chestnut mane in check and ruffled it out. Gods she was grimy with sweat and dirt, she needed a bath-- and maybe a hug.

All this way for nothing.

No answers, no revelations. Not even someone to tell her how stupid she'd been. Leslie jerked back and looked to the sky. She was going to be days behind getting to Pamor, too. Isira was tolerant and forgiving, but She hadn't seen Leslie deliberately defy what she was told to do yet. Leslie had made a mistake. A big gods damned gamble and it hadn't paid off. "I'm sorry!" She shouted to the heavens for all the good it would do. "I had to know I wasn't the only one and you've been pretty tight lipped about the whole thing!"

No response came, the air roiled around her and the older paladin stood in the wake of that silence, keenly aware that she was probably only going to make things worse for herself if she kept spouting off nonsense.

At least she could walk down; small mercies and all.

She fished the last cookie out of her bag, rolling it over in her fingers. It was supposed to be the victory meal, the thing she was saving for when she got to the temple. There really wasn't much point now, though. "I climbed mount stupid and all I got was this lousy cookie." She muttered and bit into it.

A pain lanced through her jaw as her teeth tried to crunch into the rock hard treat. "Ow you sonofabitch!" In a fit she threw it into the temple where it rolled through the daisies to sit under a pinpoint of light. It promptly vanished in a burst of fire leaving a little disk shaped splotch of burnt plant matter in its wake. "Oh!"

But it wasn't just fire and destruction: the entire

bed

of the cathedral's central chamber sparked to divine life. It was tight, hot and with her extra senses Leslie could feel the intricate patterns of of energy coursing through the building as sure as her own blood through her rapidly beating heart. It wasn't like the magic sealing ward that she'd seen at the sphinx's casino, this was an active defense mechanism of some kind.

And it was tuned- designed from the ground up- for her. Isira's particular brand of vanilla and lilac flavored magic sang through the entire affair. It was the first time she'd seen such a ward, but it was obvious there was no danger to her if she was to do something foolish like touch it.

Of course, she wasn't stupid enough to just throw herself into a metaphorical bear trap. Hector had warned her about assumptions where the gods were concerned, she'd even spent a good week building up her plan to test them. Leslie dumped her knapsack out, spilling what few worldly possessions she had into a pile at her feet.

Not that she had had much when she was back in Laleah, but seeing the book she'd been given piled up next to the map, a bundle of rope and empty water skin really drove the nail home. She should have felt vaguely sad about that, she imagined, but she didn't. For some reason that sense of loss and forlorn hope didn't creep up as she knew it should have. She could- and probably should- have taken some of David's ashes, just to be close to him, but. . .

But why? He was the

reason

she had been blinded in the first place- husband or not, what was the point of feeling morose about such a loss when there was a very real possibility that Isira had put her to task fighting in some divine war?

Leslie ran her thumb over the rough texture of the rope, feeling every strand with her physical and extra senses. The tight binding gave each strand more strength than they could have held individually. It was kind of analogous to life in a way: experiences had made her who she was, the good and the bad, the best and the worst moments. They were bound to and around one another and- if she was really lucky- they were strong enough to carry her weight.

For the moment, she just needed the rope to hold the bag. After tying it off she unceremoniously chucked the bag into the cathedral, averting her eyes and waiting for the ward to flash fry it.

But it didn't.

After a moment she looked around the wall and gingerly pulled the rope as if she was teasing an animal to chase her pack. Still nothing happened.

"Well, okay then." Leslie dropped the rope to get her map to double check if she'd come to the right place. Ward or not-

POP.

The older paladin scampered away like a true hero and threw herself down imagining her dress into its full combat readiness. It enveloped her in silk harder than sunless steel from head to toe and for just a moment not even the wind could penetrate her defenses. For all the good it did; nothing followed, the ward merely cooked her backpack and- to her chagrin- the rope right up to the entry of the building itself.

Eventually Leslie rolled over and braced her feet a ways apart, leaning forward to study the outcome. That same lilac and vanilla scent clung to the air. On the bright side, it had confirmed her theory to some extent. Unless, of course, the ward was time delayed.

"Stop that," she muttered to herself as she got up. "You tried it, it kind of worked out. Don't over think this. . ."

Isira had taught her that first hand. She'd never asked more than Leslie could give, even if she herself didn't believe it. Now it was time she showed her goddess that the time had been well spent. In order to do that, though, she needed to take that first step. Leslie drew a deep breath and closed her eyes.

She stepped into the cathedral's ward.

A gentle wind stirred around her, through her, bristling her extra senses and ruffling her sensitive magical awareness as if it was playing with her hair. The ward enveloped her protectively as surely as if she was part of the cathedral herself, wrapping her up in warmth and contentment. Gentle, soothing, inviting even. From within the ward's field, Leslie reached her extra senses through it, feeling around for where its power started and stopped and most importantly, what it protected.

In Aee's casino the ward guarding his bedroom had been hard and impenetrable with no clear distinction between its power and the anchors that held it to the door, but here there were tenuous gossamer threads anchoring the power into the stone flooring. It was a neat grid pattern that started at either wall and butted up against a neat path right through the center which emptied out into a throat of a hole she hadn't been able to see outside of the ward. Where outside the floor of the cathedral had looked like a grass field, inside the ward there was a circle near the back window large enough to fit a small carriage into.

Leslie approached carefully, wary and vaguely uncertain the whole thing wouldn't just fall in on her for sheer spite. She was in good shape, she'd lost weight in her months of walking all over the place, but that stupid danger sense in the back of her head was constantly reminding her of all the ways things could go spectacularly wrong.

But as she neared the lip of the hole, an all new realization and horror struck her: If someone had gone through the trouble to put up a ward, did that mean this was a tomb instead of a temple? Was this where the Isirans went to die?

"Stop." She grit her teeth and squinted against the gloom under the cathedral.

From her vantage she could see a platform almost exactly like the one in Aee's lair proper: a large platform made of well laid stone. There were shapes off in the distance at varying heights above and below the platform along with what appeared to be paths to get to them and a deliberately manicured slope from within the mountain to give the impression of a small city built into a group of hills.

The 'buildings' were spread out enough to encompass a large village but they were small enough that they looked more like a city in miniature than anything livable. . . .Leslie added a mark for her tomb theory. She'd come too far to turn back, though, and went about tying off her rope to a portion of the cathedral's wall and fused the rope together- just in case.

Carefully she swung her feet over the edge of the hole and wrapped a length around her leg as Hector had taught her to, easing her weight down. "Lock your feet, move your hips. Hold tight." Leslie muttered the mantra as she inched her way down. One body length. Two body lengths. . .

"Woah. . ."

This place bristled with magic. Clear of the 'pollution' of the ward's power, the true scope swept through her like air through a sheet. It was distant, earthy and powerful. Ancient. Older than even the gods. There had been a crystal in Aee's lair with a similar feeling-- fuzzy and sharp at once, it had nearly destroyed her ability to function on any level, and that magic was on offer here in spades. Thankfully it was also muddled by hundreds of feet of natural earth and mountain. It must have been incredibly powerful, though, if she could feel it this far up.

A few dozen feet from the platform Leslie opened her senses a bit more to find that at some distant part of the 'city' there was music playing- loud, raucous drums slamming against one another in the dark. Whispers waiting for a melody. "Mmm."

Someone was here. That should have been a relief, but it set Leslie's senses on high alert as she inched her way down to the platform itself. Still clutching the rope she poked the ground with the toe of her boot. Again. One more time.

Just to be sure.

Then carefully she dismounted, still holding the lifeline to the surface, and gave another look around. She hadn't seen them at first, but when her eyes adjusted to the light several massive statues became clearly visible, arrayed around the city like silent stone guardians with featureless eyes judging the transgressions of the miniature inhabitants of the stone city.

There were seven in total and each of them had their own distinctive take on what constituted an ideal humanoid physique. One was emaciated, barely held together by weathered skin and a sack cloth around his thin hips. Another, proud and young, held a massive sword in one hand with the tip pointed between his bare feet and a gear in his other.

Eventually her gaze fell to another statue. One who's physique she was very familiar with: Isira. The proud, voluptuous goddess of pleasure stood directly in the middle of the gathering of statues with her arms spread out and back, her flowing stone hair spirited back by some unseen wind and a beautiful smile warming her features. "What the hell?" Leslie breathed.

Did this mean the other statues were gods? Saints of the temple? Leslie walked a loop around the platform trying to get a better view of the miniature city, following the rough direction of the goddess's gaze. She quickly figured out that the music was coming from that direction.

Probably a good a start as any. She tugged on the rope. There was no going back now.

When Leslie let go, she didn't even wait around for the pop of the ward. She started forward at a careful but brisk stride, keeping her senses open for any changes in the magical or natural composition of the place while she prowled the diminutive walkways around the single story buildings. Some had domed ceilings, other ended in sharp points and every few dozens steps or so the style changed such that the shapes involved began to take on a hexagonal quality the closer she got to the main structure that looked like some kind of nest of pillars arranged into a tight bundle and ringed with walls. Engraved into those walls- and no others- was a radiant lotus flower in full bloom.

Knowing better than to poke a sleeping bear, she tiptoed past the structure. Behind it was a gently sloping corridor carved into the rock face that wound down into another, wider hall which had been cut to a triangular point with pillars dotting either side at regular spacing. It was all so purposeful, someone had made this place up to be this way. Human sized for human occupants. The music filtered through even here growing louder as she pattered down the hall, trying to pinpoint its source.

Something else, though. A scuffling. Padding. Footsteps.

Leslie ducked behind one of the pillars, holding her breath. Two sets of foot steps. Crap, had someone thought she was attacking the ward? Her extra senses didn't reveal anything about them, no magic or anything that she could sense. That didn't make them any less potentially dangerous, though.

They drew nearer scuffling about. Something click-clacked against the wall. It sounded wooden, banging left and right across the ground like her old 'feeling stick' had but with two people and two sticks, something told her it wasn't serving the same purpose. Closer still the scuffling feet came, the two of them snaked their way up the opposite side of the hall clicking their sticks about.

It wouldn't be long before they were on her. She should have been paying attention. She

should

have been following the instructions she was given! But here she was--

"Oh piss on it. I'm a paladin, right? Time to act like it."

Leslie stepped out in to the hall and had her dress sweep back into something less overtly protective, looking more like an expensive peasant's dress than armor. She clasped her hands behind her back, raised her chin.

"Paladin. Think paladin."

A rat scurried across the further part of the hall followed by two young men dressed in vibrant shades of yellow and red. They raced after their prey toting those sticks like spears, each with a net bag on their hip full of squirming rats and mice. Leslie blanched inwardly.