Clandestine Meetings
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 11025
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Minestus reposed in his sanctum, the illusions he maintained to pose as
the dragon abandoned in these more private quarters in the name of
comfort. He gesticulated at the crystal before him, and it began to glow, a mist gathering to enshroud it. Slowly the wisps of fog and smoke gathered together to form a scrying surface, and he watched the scene that unfolded before him. Huddled around a fire were a fat man dressed in finery, as well as a man who appeared to be his advisor. They were parlaying with a man who wore an armband with the design of Minestus' personal sigil. As their discussion neared an end, the fat man clasped hands with the man bearing the armband. The wizard smiled to himself, looking back at the massive slumbering form of Deltumnimos behind him. His spells still kept the great wyrm in a deep sleep, and now Count Phinneus Fog, the magnate of the fiefdom of Fenring, had accepted his generous offer. That made three of the seven fiefdoms east of Allaria that had allied with him. The warrior woman had managed to cure herself of the contagion he had produced within her, but not before serving her purpose and infecting another. The pawns were moving into place. Minestus, the Great Pretender, the Lord of Smoke, was very pleased indeed... Astra of Aquilaria finished out the last watch just as the sun began to rise. Her thoughts that night had been dominated by the strange man the Count had with him. What was it the count had called him? Perris? It was a foreign name to be sure. For some reason, the warrior woman could have sworn she'd seen skills like that before, if only she could remember where. Finishing the watch, Astra snuffed out the lantern and stretched, her joints crackling and popping as she did. Suddenly, she remembered exactly where she had seen those skills before. In Aquilaria, on the borders of the great jungles, there is a province known as Atropos. In the travels of the royal family while she was young, Astra had seen it a few times. However, it was during her training in the Sisterhood of the Jovian Blade that she actually learned the most about Atropos. In Atropos, a secretive guild of bounty hunters, trackers and scouts exists, called the Fist of the Eryines. They are the finest mercenaries one can hire, and are without peer as bodyguards. Astra mulled over this, and realized that Perris was a name in the Atropan dialect of Aquilaria. Why then, would the Count be hiring the Fist? Though they took contracts throughout the land, one did not procure their services lightly, and certainly did not contact them unless they were anticipating extreme danger... Days earlier, far to the north, Jarlath the Finder stooped over the just waking form of Lady Andrea Croix, explaining to her their dire situation. "You met one of the two inhabitants of the ruins, the last of the tribes of the Anakim and the Rephaim, respectively. It is there tireless game of cat and mouse which is the final legacy of a centuries old war, and if we're to make it through the ruins, we'll have to deal with them. I can't afford another pulse like the one I used to save you, though, for that cost me much...The moon will rise in a few hours' time, and it will be full. We cannot reach the Lost Grove before it rises and you change... So what we will do, for I know we must do it, for we have done it already, is this..." "I've warned you about speaking in riddles, madman," Andrea said, putting on the rudely stitched and repaired clothes the blind lunatic gave her. "You know, sometimes always knowing what you're going to say is quite tedious...Nevertheless, this is what we will do. On the easternmost edge of the ruined city lies Joab of the Rephaim. He posesses a wrought iron cage, the last legacy of his mother. It is there you will spend your time under the throes of the moon, for he will allow us that, for a price..." "I refuse to be caged, and I fail to see why you seem hell-bent on restraining me. I've come to enjoy what I am, and I won't have you bind me" "I dont' recall giving you a choice, milady..."
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The Traveler
7/19/2000 9:39:47 AM
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