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Thread: The Reborn - Finishing What Was Started IC [M]

  1. #121
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    "Dihydromyricetin is an extract of Hovenia Dulci, very hard to obtain," Jeon replied, raising an eyebrow. "Marvelous tree, the sap and young leaves can be used like honey and is sometimes made into wine."

    "The preparations of medicines is my trade," Jeon added, turning to O’doln, "not spells. Am I not an apothecary?"

    "When one becomes angry, certain toxins enters the blood, and can become inflamed by alcohol, attacking both the mind and the liver," he explained, holding up the pill. "This helps the liver to remove those toxins, keeping the mind clear and to ease the suffering of the liver."

    Because it helped to break down alcohol in the body before it reaches the bloodstream and then the brain, it couldn't help but keep the mind clearer, Jeon noted silently to himself.

    "Kevin, you know I would never risk harm to you?" Jeon smiled, turning towards him, feeling that strange bond he'd felt with this man since he'd awoke in this crazy place. "Show your trust in me and swallow this, you'll find it very healthy for your body."
    The Councilman was very flattered and took the pill without further delay. The king scoffed and turned away.

    "What is the point to enjoy drink if one is not to feel its sweet tingles?" King Kinglos challenged and dismissed the apothecary. Charlie turned over to Jeon and shook his head no, suggesting perhaps to not further peruse this.

    "He's a stupid alcoholic my dear, remember?" His thrown upon him partner whispered in his ear and brushed a hand across his shoulder. O'doln yet stopped following his king to return and reach out a hand. This close Jeon could see the man had some very refined features to his face to a point of appear human but modified with something else more fantastical, drawing attention to his sharper shaped ears showing from red hair.

    Curious, was this an elf in the king's court?


    "I will try your means"

    "It's purely a herbal supplement," Jeon says, handing him the pill, "but do let me know if you think of some magical application."

    The Probe glanced up at him, but said nothing.

    Jeon sighed, glancing at the King's back. A minor thing, but it would have helped him gain some trust. Still, he had Melvin the Medbot - assuming it still had those dart launchers. However, standing in the hallway with two people with the King's ear, this was not a question to ask just yet.

    "Well, shall we see to the King?" Jeon asked. "We should enjoy some comforts while we wait."
    O'doln took the pill in his palm and studied it studiously, glancing at it from many angles before permitting it into his mouth.

    A slight approving smile was on his face before turning to leave. At a distance the Councilman against Jeon's body sighed.

    "He's dangerous..." a cautionary whisper came and together the group walked. King Kinglos snapped at a servant to grab drink for everyone in the dining hall and returned back to the skeptical crowd who were sitting in the chairs. The white noise of their whispering and slight movements was noticeably loud from how many handfuls of people had been teleported here.

    "We await for Calamity Sauver to return home. She deserted her own castle!" He scandalously shouted, getting the gossip flowing freely. Attending Guards looked to each other with defiant glares, sharply offended by their king's statement. Taking a personal approach, the royal man sat in row next to the other gentleman, the women sat across and watched very curiously. Adviser Charlie briskly walked to sit himself next to the king, faster than O'doln's careful steps, getting the magician to twitch a brow in annoyance before choosing to stand behind his king.

    "Always in the way" Kevin said of Charlie under his breath.

    "Why did she flee? To where?" A wondering young woman asked, blushing and gazing down "M'lord"

    "Fear of her duties I suppose, there are scary things women should not see after all" He adjusted his velvet clothes and in the time bottles of wine and glasses were being laid down for everyone. Kevin nudged Jeon in the side and gestured with his head to the empty seat next to Charlie, the closest available seat to the king.

    "He's upset and I'm a stranger, do you think he'll welcome me sitting next to him? I'd be lucky to keep my head," Jeon whispered back, but he stood up, making sure to keep his hands in plain view.

    "My king, such cruel accusations are beneath us. How many times has Calamity Sauver defended this boarder?" he asked. "Let us not forget where we are, on the boarder with the Dragonians. Perhaps they have launched an attack? Or send a few spies among us? Posing perhaps as trusted friends and advisors?"

    "One cannot be too careful."
    Such innuendo provoked Councilman Kevin to look his way. At such conversation topics brought up by Jeon, the women began to converse with each other in worry.

    "I support the young marchioness" a male citizen said several seats down and the King studied everyone around him. He took a lengthy sip of his alcohol. Adviser Charlie toyed with his bottom lip.

    "Mayhaps it be best to tame the drink before she returns?"

    "Do not worry, I have learned. This time I will have her as drunk as I am!" The room of men laughed with the king's joke, one moment scrutinizing him, the next applauding him. A buxom black woman approached the Zayan doctor.

    "Sir, forgive the rashness. Are you the great apothecary? Your help could be used now"

    The probe scowled, moving to stand by Jeon's side.

    "'The great'?" Jeon repeated, surprised. "I don't know if I'd go that far. I'm certainly hard working..."

    He smiled, then let it fall off his face.

    "Ah-hem, yes, how can I help you, my dear?"
    The humble dressed servant looked past Jeon to see the king and his council.

    "This way, please" A waving hand gestured to create some distance between them and the king's ear. "A prisoner has escaped, our torture master has been poisoned..." her whispered words were frightful, upset.

    "Melvin, attend me please," Jeon said. The probe raised one eyebrow as if to say, 'was there any doubt?' and followed wordlessly as always.

    "What are the symptoms?"


    "Sir Lambert suffers from vomiting and terrible tingles he says. Please come" Councilman Kevin turned his view over Jeon and tugged on his sleeve.

    "What are you doing? We have a king to entertain" he stressed with a smile at the doctor and the ebony skinned woman, if only briefly in her direction.

    "Someone is gravely ill," Jeon replied, then leaned close.

    "We can't afford to pass up on this opportunity," he stressed softly, then smiled, "to pay back this wonderful staff who cared for me, and to impress our king. Besides, whatever has caused this illness should be looked at before it may strike again, and I can't afford for that to be you."

    He pointedly glanced back at the king, hoping Kevin would pick up what he was trying to say. Can't blame a doctor for poison if he's not in the room. "Be careful what you drink or eat, there may be other forces at work here."

    Of course there were other forces at work here - why else would he be there?

    "Melvin, please attend me."
    Kevin crossed his arms even as the leading servant was beginning to walk to the doors.

    "Kiss me before you leave me. You cannot taunt me with your smile anymore."

    Jeon's right eyebrow lifted curiously. Apparently this culture had no unhealthy issues with homosexuality, if he would dare to request such openly, and in front of his king, no less!

    His hands rose and cupped Kevin's head, and he drew him in, tenderly caressing his lips with Kevin's, smelling the man's muskiness as his heart raced, enjoying the sweet embrace. They stood like that for a long moment or two, until reluctantly, he pulled away. Jeon whispered as he looked sincerely into Kevin's eyes, "I'm sorry, my love, but I must go, time is of the essence. Remember, watch what you eat and drink, where one is ill, others may follow. I would have you safe."

    Glancing over Kevin's shoulder at Archer, he said in a voice just loud enough to carry, "Keep a good eye on him, Sir Archer."

    Releasing him, he turned to where the servant waited. "Sorry about that, let us go!"

    The probe stood there for a moment, eyeing Kevin with both eyebrows raised, then followed after Jeon. It had no idea how to communicate this back to his people - assuming that even was possible. Somehow, it felt the ones who sent the probe would not be pleased about this development.


    The doctor left behind a heart racing councilman staring at him fondly and chattering of many high peoples with their drinking king.
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  2. #122
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    Gina entered and saw very quickly a bed, no larger than a twin size, held at the center back wall with a dresser and shelf to try and fill the room. The wood was attractive, but everything wasn't large enough to give the room a cosy feeling. Though from what Gina had seen, this fortress wasn't designed too much for luxury. Sitting on the bed, and now staring at her, was a furious woman in her 30s with frizzy black hair, and a pointy nose which accentuated her grey-colored glare in Gina's direction.

    The Advisor straightened her back and studied Gina up and down thoroughly. Something clicked in her mind and her gaze gave way some of its cruelty.

    "Who sent you young lady? If you're here for company then you can leave." she added with a snide tone.

    ”Theodore Dutt.” Gina responded quietly, naming Caroline’s bullish father. It was time to test her theory. “He had a pretty interesting meeting with sir Hedspeth and the council this morning.”

    Meticulously the woman brushed her index finger across her lower lip. There was a pause, uncertainty in the dynamic between them.

    "Ah, yes. What is the password?" she asked with a cruel smile.

    An uncomfortable heat fizzled down from Gina’s stomach and settled in her abdomen. She had to think on her feet.

    “Is that supposed to be a bluff?” she answered firmly. “Mr Dutt didn’t mention any password.”

    She took the Advisor’s silence to mean that it had indeed been a bluff, and she breathed a little easier.

    “But he did tell me to get certain reassurances from you.”

    She stepped a little closer to the bed and folded her arms. “Like how things went with the marchioness...and from the fact you’re in here I’m guessing not well.” She pursed her lips and looked around the underfurnished room. “So let’s try, what happens after the king dies?”


    The woman stood gradually and met where Gina had brought herself closer. There was a leering eye cast on the teenager, until aloud snap filled the room. It was only then that Gina realised she was looking at the door behind her.

    "You are talking about conspiracy..." the Advisor hissed, just in time for the door to open and the blue knight whom was standing beyond to bring his eyes on them.

    "What is that I am hearing in here?" The knight’s tone of voice was aggressive, violent airs aiming at Gina. The Advisor kept herself poised and in faux shock, avoiding the scandal.

    He must have had his ear against the door, Gina realised. Her brain felt oddly calm and clear, as if her emotions were still trying to catch up with the crisis event. She drew back a step and turned on her heel to face the glowering knight, with her back to the Advisor.

    "I was asking the Advisor about the Draconians, sir." she said meekly. Meeting his gaze, she raised her eyebrows and mouthed, slowly and obviously, interrogation.

    "What did you think you heard?" she cradled her hands and put confusion into her voice, but her eyebrows remained raised.
    An obvious debate on the guard’s face showed, and he gritted his teeth.

    "Women talk, that is what I heard. Keep quiet." he growled and walked out, slamming the door shut behind him. The female Advisor put a hand to her stomach and breathed nervously.

    "You stupid little creature." the harsh whisper lashed at Gina.

    “Says the one stuck in this room.” Gina hissed back sourly, swallowing down her own nerves as they belatedly caught up with her. “Maybe think about that next time you try to drop me in it? Anyway, you were about to say...?”

    "You think you are clever, but your tongue will twist if that little witch puts trickery on you."

    The Advisor stood up and neared Gina. The full force of her stare in close distance was pointed. The words she spoke next were very intentional and very quiet. "Warn our king of the dangerous magic I have suffered from. The marchioness had bewitched me, using magic she ought not to have."

    "She has magic?" Gina whispered, feigning worry. Magic she ought not to have - that could only be Cal's powers in action. She must have used them on the Advisor, which meant she must know something about the Council's plan. Atta girl, Cal! At least she and Panos were forewarned now. Maybe that was even why they had left the castle in such a hurry.

    But even as she suppressed a smile, Gina realised that something else in the Advisor's words didn't add up.

    "Why warn the king?" she asked, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Not, say, the council? Or Mr Dutt?"


    The Adviser drew her hand up and caressed Gina's face, wavering fingers made her nimble touch tingle and she drew them back with scorn in her eyes.

    "Briefly I thought you were intelligent. Telling our grand king will ensure he maims her, or better yet, dethrones her. In turn such politics would have these mountainside fools revolt, pushing him to his demise without a single finger needed to be lifted on our part. Be a good messenger and see it done."

    Gina pictured an army sweeping down into Greywall and hundreds of people stabbing each other to death in the streets. No way was that the kind of societal change she wanted to be a part of. She balled her fists.

    "And for a minute I thought you were smart. Kick off a civil war and just hope the side you want wins, and that they'll let you take over after? Are you fucking stupid?" She shook her head. "Now listen, 'cos I bet the rest of the council are already thinking about pinning this whole thing on you, since you've already been caught."

    She took a breath before going all in.

    "I'm not worried about any magic, 'cos me and Mr Dutt haven't done anything wrong yet. Maybe I'll talk to the marchioness and convince her to let you go. Or maybe I'll go back to Mr Dutt and advise him to tell the king that you and Hedspeth want him dead, and half the country with him." She glared at the Advisor. "So if you'd rather me tell Mr Dutt to pick your side, you'd better convince me how much better things'll be with you in charge. Like, what's the council's plan for the kingdom? And what are you going to do about the elves and the Draconians? Please tell me you’ve thought that far ahead."


    The woman curled her fist, surely holding back the physical violence she wanted to inflict on Gina.

    "The power in the Council's hands would pacify the Elves' disgruntled emotions. The Draconians? What of them? War is always inevitable with them...but you," The woman's pointed nose drew closer as her eyes narrowed. "Speak with an accent. Why is a foreigner handling our business? If you must ask basic questions of our nation and refuse to be my messenger, what good are you to me?"

    ”Maybe a foreigner with no vested interests is more trustworthy?” Gina raised her eyebrows, happy to roll with the accusation. After all, if the Advisor thought she was from somewhere else then she was less likely to draw a connection to Caroline or the Remoni family, and put them in harm’s way. “And unfortunately I was sent here to do what was best for the kingdom, not what you tell me.”

    She pursed her lips and shrugged, giving the Advisor a moment to stew before crossing her arms.

    “The elves need to be kept on side, everyone agrees that much. And I’ve just heard the king thinks he can do that by getting the marchioness to kill all the Draconians. What d’you say to that?”


    The woman turned away smoothly and matched Gina with crossing arms, standing with her back in Gina's direction quietly.

    "Genocide of their entire race? A wish that would never be granted. A campaign of that size would make my country the first to disappear in the wave if the spike-faces charged Greywall. Violence is a game to them. It has been my life's work to know the foreign cultures. If the Draconians believed their race to be in danger, it would be much more than the their simpleton brutes meeting us in the mountains here. The girl does an adept job culling the aggressive war packs, but the marchioness has never seen war.”

    "Then we probably shouldn't start one." Gina agreed, but also thinking back to the Advisor's previous idea to goad Cal's people into rebellion. She exhaled. At least the knowledge that the Advisor didn't want her own people wiped out was something of a safeguard. "Alright. I'll report back to Mr Dutt...and I'll try to talk the marchioness out of having you killed."

    That wouldn't be so hard, Gina reflected as she turned back towards the door - but spinning a good enough story for the king might be another matter.

    "One last thing." she said, pausing halfway to the exit. "If foreign cultures are your thing...who would you say's our best bet to go talk to the elf queen and calm her down?"


    "Hmph." the woman scoffed, "Me."

    Gina hmm’d. “And if it takes us a bit longer to get you out of here, who then?”

    Stony silence was her only response. Gina huffed, and supposed that the Advisor was hardly going to give her an excuse to think she was replaceable.

    “I expect you’ll hear from someone soon. Try not to make any trouble until then, hm?” She paused. “And let us handle the marchioness’ magic. If you dare tell anyone else about it, everyone in this castle is going to get massacred, and I’ll make sure you’re first in line.”

    She slipped through the door and closed it, and was immediately met with the searching gaze of the blue knight. Gina bobbed another curtsey.

    “You just did your job sir, I won’t fault you for that.” she murmured, keeping her voice low just in case the Advisor was repeating the knight’s own trick of listening at the keyhole. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to report back to the king.”

    She waited until she was far round the corner of the hallway before letting her shoulders slump against the wall and sighing out her tension. She paused for a moment with her back against the cool stone, watching the torches in their wall-brackets flicker, and waiting for her stomach to unknot. Now she had two tasks: get Cal off the hook for arresting the Advisor, and give the king something better to announce than war with the Draconians. She had a plan, but she needed Cal and Jeon to help her pull it off.

    Cradling her stomach, she took a deep breath, then pushed off the wall and trotted as fast as she could back to the castle’s dining hall.
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 04-05-2018 at 10:02 AM.
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  3. #123
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    As the doctor and his assistant followed diligently behind, their travels were cold as they entered the spiraling tower taking them down. Jeon could see his breath, the smell of blood was filling the air - and it was very rank. Old blood mangled into something foul with new, clearly not a medical environment where they were to enter. When the narrow curving hallway down led to a single arched wood door, it was opened to a body horror of reptilian men hung from walls. Their innards from their half remaining bodies decorated the stone like draping silks, at least eight of these unusual, inhuman bodies hung by chained wrists to the sides of this dungeon.


    Blood was being cleaned by rags in the hands of servants who were keeping their heads low and their noses covered by tied cloth. Upon entry to add to the kerfuffle between disgust and repulsion was the scent of vomit, being tended by another serving hand. The room was warm by fire light, making the poisoned man noticeable in the middle of the floor.


    Half naked, the victim was a short stature man of roughly 5'6" (as Jeon could intelligently guess), a lean body with a cut running down from the end of his sternum to his right hip superficially. He was sweaty, his curly black hair soaked, shaking in pain and muffling his own groans. Beside him a woman in fur covered robes was kneeling over him. Jeon had not seen such a thing before but her hands were glowing, radiating an energy which Melvin could input. The energy was an unusual source of high radiation but distorted any scientific laws of the elements as this radiation could be observed targeting specific cells to react with them.


    This blond woman in her thirties had her eyes shut and focused intently. Sweating her hands trembling whatever she was doing was dealing directly with the wound of Sir Jerome Lambert.


    "Our healer is nearly exhausted and cannot finish closing the wound, please help apothecary" the ebony escort pleaded to Jeon.


    The Probe made a full record of the room and its victims - from what it knew of its true masters, images of this room would be shared wide and far should they get back to their universe as justification of their policies. It then scanned the wounded man.

    Something throbbed in Jeon's pocket. Reaching in, he pulled out one of the Probe's Tarot cards - but the picture had been replaced by a more familiar medical diagnosis.


    "Monkshood," he said, eyeing the dying man. "I am going to need Epsom Salts and boiled water, cooled slightly.We need to wash the wound to remove the poison. I don't suppose you have silk thread and a needle...?"


    The Probe pulled a small rolled up pouch from one of his voluminous pockets and handed it to Jeon. "What's this, Melvin...?" he asked, as he opened it to find a crude suturing kit but with the addition of a hypospray, with local anesthesia and lidocane. Weirdly, it had made odd tubes that looked to be like the shafts of feathers... oh, surgical drains. Crude but effective.


    "Get Epsom salts and water, quickly!" he said to the escort as he loaded the lidocane capsule into the hypospray.


    "You couldn't have gotten me something a little less obvious, like a syringe?" he muttered to the Probe. It pointed to the healer's glowing hands. "Point taken."


    Adjusted, he pressed the hypospray against the man's jugular vein and released a light dose of medicine into the man's bloodstream.


    "This should help," he told the torturer. "How are you feeling?"


    Sir Lambert coughed, glancing down to the doctor. During this time Jeon could feel Gina moving around the castle, Calamity and Panos getting much closer, perhaps on the fortress property. The torturer's first words were mumbles but he managed his words out.


    "The bastard has Arcanium somewhere...on his body. He is..." a cough interrupted him, "dangerous until it runs out" The exclamation on his face stamped his words with importance, his voice weak but trying.


    "Arcanium?" Jeon asked, frowning. Sounded like some sort of metal, but arcana... Magic metal? Running out?


    The card updated, showing some improvement. Blast, where was those Epsom salts?!?


    "Who did this to you? Someone you know?" Jeon pressed. He eyed the grisly captives hanging from the wall. "Was it just you they were after, or someone else as well?" The torturer collapsed and the woman healing him sighed, shaking and clenching her jaw.


    "Quick, what is his condition?" Jeon asked, leaning forward to check the man's pulse. It was fading, but steadily stabilizing at a slow pace.


    "It was the Draconian" a helping woman said to the apothecary as she kept wiping blood away into a bucket.


    "He is free now, in the castle..." The blond woman pulled back her straight textured hair and focused blue eyes on Jeon. The woman had kind, soft colored lips and a gaze of exhaustion giving hint to how much she had seen in her life. "Alerting everyone may make him react dangerously..." she hesitated.


    "Free," Jeon repeated, turning to face the woman and then waved his hand at the other Draconians lining the walls. "One of these gentlemen? Had he received the same treatment as his brothers?" The healer nodded, standing gradually with shaky feet.


    "Melvin, can you find him?" Jeon asked, glancing down at the Probe. "I'm worried if he should reach Gina, or Kevin." Or the king, although that put him into a tricky spot.


    The probe frowned as it re-scanned the room, then the castle. It could find nothing...!


    "After he cut Jerome down, he shimmered away into an invisibility spell. He may still be in this room." The magical woman shook her head and glanced to the four corners of the torture chamber.


    "Cut Jerome down?" Jeon demanded, then looked at the torturer. "Where did he get his weapon?"


    "It must have been a spell, I could not see the specifics in the light"


    No, that was a distraction - but the women wiping down the room gave him an idea. "Check for wet footprints outside this room, Melvin," he ordered. "If you find ones matching these fellows on the wall, we can assume he's left. If you don't...." As Melvin opened the door a helping woman came with a cloth bag full of Epsom salts. Jeon's gut was telling him of the arrival of a female named 'Calamity' and a male named 'Panos', along with the movement of Gina around the castle, moving in their direction.


    The probe nodded, checking outside the room. It found non-human footprints leaving the room but fading. It would expect some residue heat, but there was none to be found. This world worked... differently.


    "Ah, the Epsom salts," Jeon nodded, leaning over to check Jerome's pulse. A glance at the card gave him a fresh set of stats, reminding him the probe didn't necessarily need to be in the same room with the patient.


    Others were arriving, he could feel it, like he could feel Gina moving about the castle. He was sure she could feel him moving as well.


    "Bloody world," he muttered to himself. "Can't leave anyone alone!"
    Spoiler: ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ √Ăłł Єѵïł ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ 

  4. #124
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    Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility & Panos Lambros

    Coming back to her fortified city through the snow, the carriage passing the second walls of Whitebar meant Calamity was home. Through the city where she personal reigned, she and Panos were confirmed in their feelings that Gina and the unknown man named Jeon were nearby. The Lambros prince rolled some of his fine hair between his index finger and thumb as the time to get out drew soon.

    "I became ill. That is what happened, and why we returned." the royal male suggested to his female counterpart. He glanced at his heterosexual suggesting wedding ring. "If you rule with such authority, you would never permit me to be sickly as a face of your diplomacy." Beautiful eyes and soft features met hers as he looked directly at her.

    Cal, staring nervously toward the window, looked up at Panos. "Okay... yes. That makes sense," she replied, grateful that her faux-husband had thought up an excuse for their unexpected return. She had been so consumed; half with nerves at returning to where their would-be assassin was detained, half with excitement at being reunited with Gina, that little room was left in her mind for anything else.

    "Yes... they accepted me bringing you to the meeting, they will accept this reason too. And Gina's here! Can you feel it?" She smiled. "She'll know what to do, to get us out of here."


    "I DON'T CARE WHAT SHE DOES!" Panos shouted across the small space, his voice shaking. Panos stared at Calamity with terrible anger "You made promises to me! Why is it always about her?"

    Getting up, the prince opened the carriage door to see they were in the magical warmth of the stable. The young stable-hand from before was helping their snow-covered driver get off his horse, shaking his robes. Calamity saw that if she didn't appease Panos in some way, he may go marching off. The Princess stared after him, her mouth open in shock; though perhaps she should be used to the other royals' sudden changes in mood by now.

    "Panos, wait!" she called after him, hastily following her friend out of the carriage, and reaching out to take hold of his arm. "I'm not favouring her! I'm not going to disappear again, alright? I just think our best chance of getting out of this mess is if we're all together! Every time something terrible has happened, it's when we've been separated. And we're not..." she slowed down, fixing him with a serious look. "You're not going to go through anything like that again. Alright?"


    Panos was caught in a two-fold stare: one forward and one inward. He was watching himself, experiencing something nearly out of body.

    "I'm deranged. Mentally sick..." he harshly criticized his own emotions. He shouldn't need Calamity's words to calm down. He shouldn't fly into bursts of wild emotions. Gradually he was becoming like his ex-husband, wasn't he? "Let go of me."

    Panos' eyes turned to the ground, hiding behind purple hued, blanched hair to secure himself from vision. Gradually they could feel Gina coming closer to them.

    "No, you're not," Calamity said firmly, but she acquiesced to his request and let go of his arm; though her hand remained resting against it, a comforting touch rather than a grip. "There's nothing wrong with you, Panos."

    She dropped her arm as she felt Gina's approach - Panos wouldn't want to be comforted in public - he wouldn't want to appear weak. She would have felt the same way, if it were her.

    "I need you to focus, now," she told him. "You're sick, remember; that's why we returned. I need your help to get through this, okay?"


    "Is something the matter?" the carriage driver, an aged man, asked from near the horses.

    "My husband is unwell," Cal responded, starting at the question and inwardly kicking herself for not realising there were witnesses to their conversation. The stable-hand watched the scene quietly. Panos held himself across the chest, shivering. If it was his acting to be physically sick or a reaction of his mental health, Calamity couldn't tell - but it was convincing either way.

    "I need to go inside." Panos told them, holding to the folds of his bland outerwear. Cal let him pull away from her hand, and followed him into the castle.

    Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility, Gina Wright & Panos Lambros

    Gina’s travels through Calamity’s property steadily took her to the front entrance, where stood the great square doors of the castle. Tall and constructed of thick wood, Gina could only guess that they were half the thickness of her own body. The doors began to swing open, and she could already tell with intuitive accuracy who was on the other side. Armoured men standing outside were hauling on the doors, the snow falling onto stone floors, and the two beautiful royals of her group were in her sight. Panos looked depressed and upon meeting Gina’s appearance he sighed, rolling his eyes. The young royal was exhausted of any care for the girl’s existence.

    Cal stopped, her eyes wide with relief as she caught sight of who was approaching, and a smile spread across her face. For a moment, she teetered on the edge of throwing herself forward to embrace the other girl; an ordinary reaction from an ordinary teenage girl, perhaps, but not from Cal. With a glance at the guards, she stopped herself; it was certainly not appropriate behaviour from the war-hungry Marchioness.

    "H...hello." she said, forcing the smile from her face in favour of a calm, dignified expression. A million questions flooded her mind; did she know Gina, here? What had the redhead been caught up in, what did she know of what they'd been through - her thoughts turned to the adviser, confined to her rooms upstairs, and she frowned. Had they released her? Did Gina know of her plans?

    "What, may I ask, brings you to my fortress?"


    “Marchioness!” Gina exclaimed, clapping both hands to her mouth. Cal suspected it was to suppress a manic grin of her own. “Please, you have to come quick.”

    She dropped her hands and beckoned urgently.

    “The king’s here and he’s expecting you!”

    Gina rubbed at the velvety sleeves of her gown as they all hurried inside, and the guards hauled the doors closed to shut out the icy wind. Up close, Cal and Panos could see the nervous energy in her jaw and the stressed flecks of red running through the whites of her eyes.

    “Thank god.” the older girl breathed quietly as they were left alone in the hall. “Are you guys alright?”


    Cal's mind raced to keep up with the information the other girl was slipping them as she took pause, one hand rising to rest gently, briefly on Panos' back; a reassuring touch. We're in this together, she intended it to say. The king was expecting them - right. So Gina had brought the ruler with her, somehow. But did they know, yet, about the plot to de-throne him?

    "For the most part," she replied to Gina's question, her voice low. "But we've landed in the middle of it, again."


    “Not half.” Gina said ruefully. “Do you know about the Council?”

    Cal thought back - yes, the Adviser had mentioned them, in tandem with her plot. She nodded.

    “Well,” Gina continued, lowering her voice and looking around for potential eavesdroppers as they started back up the hallway, “The bitchy lady you arrested is working with them to kill the king. They had a meeting in town just this morning. Apparently our king’s pissed off this elf queen and a bunch of other people, and they’re worried there’s gonna be a war.”

    Cal nodded again. "I got that out of her - she'd come to find out if she could sway me to join in on their plot. I thought I was playing it safe, staying loyal to the king when she questioned me, but it only convinced her that she'd have to have us killed, to get us out of the way. That's why we took off, and why I had her locked up!”

    “She’s still there.” Gina reassured her. “The king told me to check up on her, but now he wants an answer. He was raging when they told him you weren’t here.”

    “We were on our way to find you - but then you shifted, back here. Who else came with you?"

    “There’s another Jumper here.” Gina said quietly. “Jeon. I dunno where he came from but you’ll know him when you see him, he’s the spit of...”

    She pulled up short as she realised that probably neither Cal nor Panos had any idea of who David Tennant was.

    “Um, never mind...he’s got a little robot boy with him, and the council’s expecting him to poison the king.”


    "Another... To poison the...." Cal breathed a heavy sigh. This was all so much more complicated than she could have imagined. “Did you say the king is here now?

    “Yeah. He came here with a wizard called O’doln, and some of the council too. O’doln’s the one who teleported us all here. The king came to tell you to invade these…‘Draconian’ guys, so he can look strong. But Adviser Lady reckons if we do that it’ll kick off a huge war, and then everybody’s fucked. I think that might be what we’re here to change.”

    Cal frowned. "Do you think it's wise, to listen to her?" The princess had to admit, she might be biased due to Adviser Avery’s recent desire to murder her.

    Gina pursed her lips. “She said she doesn’t want to see her own people get killed in a war, so there’s some insurance there...but we’ll need to make sure she doesn’t try and screw over the king as soon as she’s out and free.”

    "Well, she knows I know about her plot - if she looks like she's going to betray us, I can tell the king what I discovered."

    Blurred voices were audible ahead of them as they drew closer to the dining hall. Gina slowed to a stop in the middle of the corridor, and worried at a fingernail with her teeth.

    “Hopefully it won’t come to that. If she rats out the others then every councillor in the room’ll be for the chop, and god knows what kind of chaos that’ll cause…but if she’s right about the Dracs then we need some other way to make the elf queen happy.”

    She released the nail and dropped her hands to the belt of her gown, twisting her fingers together.

    “Have you met any of these Dracs? Do we know anything about them?”


    Cal thought of the tortured prisoner - she didn't want to be responsible for more of that.

    "We have one of them, downstairs. What I've... what this Marchioness has done to him... it's horrible, Gina." She swallowed. "You're right... we can't invade them. I can't order anything like that... but how can we stop it?"


    Gina gathered her hair over one shoulder and tugged at a lock, coiling it around her forefinger. She looked from Cal to Panos and back again.

    “I have got one idea. The king isn’t happy you arrested Adviser Snooty Bitch, so like I said he told me to talk to her and report back. I was going to tell him that the adviser was planning to go over his head to patch things up with the elf queen, and you only locked her up to save face for him. If we can get him to announce it like it was his idea then she can go anyway, and maybe stop the war that way instead of attacking these Drac people. But whatever we do we can’t make the king feel like he’s fucked up again cos he’ll go mental.”


    "I can make him listen.” Cal suggested. “I'm getting better at it - that's how I made that woman tell me the truth."

    Gina pulled at her hair, eyes downcast in thought. She looked up. “Maybe...but it might not be safe unless you’re alone. The adviser said the king might try and arrest you if he found out you had magic.”

    Cal chewed her lip again; it was amazing that the thing wasn't in pieces at this point. "What good is my power if I can't use it! Still, the councils' already going to be after my head, if the adviser tells them I wasn't compliant in her scheme. I'd rather both sides not be after me."

    Gina pulled the other girl into a hug and squeezed tightly.

    “Then we don’t give her the chance.” she said as she drew back. “Your guard’s still got her locked up in the guest room. We send her off without letting any of the council see her first. The rest of ’em can’t corner you with the king still here, and your guards all around. And we’ll stick together.”

    She looked from Cal to Panos. The young prince still had his mental armour on, looking through her more than at her. But he still stuck close to Cal. Cal had kept him safe.

    They stepped up to the double doors that led into the dining hall, the sounds of talk and clattering goblets already loud on the other side.


    Cal sighed. "Well, we're about to drop a bombshell on them, aren't we, with this queen and everything. Hopefully that's enough of a distraction that this new traveller can stall a bit. Oh Gina, I hope this is the right decision. A lot of lives are in the balance, here."

    “No kidding.” Gina agreed quietly. Even when the whole class had been looking to her back in West Hills, trusting her with their safety out of little more than shreds of hope, she had seldom felt so unqualified. She rallied a little, straightening.

    “You’ve done great so far, Cal. You too Panos. And look.” She tugged up her sleeve to expose her forearm, and the tattoos that now ran from the inside of her wrist all the way up to her elbow. Only the space for the Uranus symbol remained. “Just one more symbol, and we’ll have done what the Note Writer asked. And when we see them, you can hit them with every bit of power you’ve got.”

    Gina gritted her teeth, tugged her sleeve back into place, and exhaled.

    “Let’s do this.”

    She put a hand on the huge metal ring at the inside edge of the door, twisted, and pushed.

    Inside the dining hall, the mood of the guests seemed to have mellowed - possibly because pre-drinks were apparently in full swing. The king was easy to spot, sitting at the centre of the top table with adviser Charlie talking animatedly next to him and O’doln standing sternly at his back. Gina glanced at Cal and nodded in the king’s direction.

    “Call him my lord,” Gina advised in a whisper. It wasn’t hard to stay discreet with all the hubbub around the dining tables. “That’s what everybody else seems to do. The guy with the red hair is O’doln.”

    Looking from the vibrantly-coloured wizard to the other figures surrounding the king,
    Calamity and Panos newly felt a key draw to a man with groomed brown hair with framed the left side of his face, with some weight on him but a great jawline - a man in his forties. This man seemed important to their task somehow, though they could not see the tattoo on his body. There also seemed to be a guard in a maroon tabard with yellow symbols of seven eyes in a oval arrangement on his chest. He stood close to the man drawing this crucial feeling.

    “The big guy with the bodyguard is councilman Hedspeth,” Gina identified him. “And he’s dangerous. The other guy next to the king is adviser Charlie - I don’t think he’s in on the council’s plan.”

    Adviser Charlie
    was also a new sight to Calamity, a young man of his late twenties with a silver threaded brown vest. His right eye was hazel and his left teal.

    Cal's eyes swept over each of them in turn, committing the names to memory.

    As they stepped away from the door and trotted closer to the top table, Gina felt a degree of foreboding as she spotted the king’s flushed face and the expensive-looking goblet in his hand. Oh Jesus, he’s already out his face.

    Looking around, she noted something else that was worryingly different.

    Where’s Jeon?

    But by now the king and his entourage had registered their entrance, and were looking in their direction. They had to speak.

    “M’lord!” Gina began, after coughing into her hand to clear her throat. She bobbed what she hoped was a passable curtsey. “I came back as fast as I could. Your adviser’s fine...and look who else I ran into on the way here!”


    Alfred stood from his seat. He began briskly walking around the table as events continued.

    King Kinglos chuckled darkly, swishing wine in his mouth before swallowing. "Thank you young lady, you have reined in the flighty Marchioness."

    If this was an insult, the delivery was weak. The way the heterochromatic Adviser Charlie scratched at his neck and the way Hedspeth rolled his eyes were symbolic to the drunk king's ineptitude in diplomacy.

    Panos kept up his act, holding to himself tightly and faking a sneeze. His gaze was caught off by the redhead and his lengthy hair. Panos dropped his head, shutting his eyes. The handsome visual cues brought back the experience he had had only hours ago. 'Out of my head! Out!' The teenage prince yelled at himself in mind. To the outside world he looked to be shivering and cold, leaning onto Calamity.

    At this time Alfred had managed to get to the 'female' side of the long dining table and pulled out a seat, smiling at Gina for her to take it.

    “Marchioness.” Gina said, turning to give her companions a brief nod. “I’ll be just over here if you need me.”

    She crossed the few paces to where Alfred was holding out the chair for her, and smiled a quick “Thanks!” as she smoothed her gown under her legs and sat down. All eyes were on Cal and the king, and Gina was happy to follow suit.

    The man Gina had called Charlie caught Cal’s eye.


    "I heard you two do things differently here, is something the matter?" The smaller man spoke with kind observation, though it did seem Calamity's atypical marriage roles were getting the attention of all the foreigners under her roof.

    Councilman Hedspeth clapped his hands, making everyone look to him.

    "The drinks! What would help them is alcohol. Is that right my lord?" Gina and Calamity could spot the slightest smirk on the Councilman's face.

    Oh is that right? Gina thought, hiding her anger behind a bland expression. Get everyone pissed so he makes an arse of himself again, or so he doesn’t notice when you slip something in his cup?

    She glanced towards the door, but Jeon was still nowhere to be seen. She looked at Cal instead, and willed encouraging thoughts in the younger girl’s direction as she crossed her fingers under the table.


    Cal swallowed, and despite Panos' weight on her side, her own curtsey was smooth and effortless; clearly a well-practised motion.

    "My Lord," she began, ignoring the Councilman completely and addressing the king, "What a fortunate turn of events - my husband becoming ill as we were racing to seek your council, and forcing us to turn back; and here you are! I have urgent need of an audience with you." She glanced around the rather crowded room, unsure if she should go on with so many listening ears.

    “It is..." she paused, but didn't see another option, so pressed on - she had no idea if she had the right to demand a private audience, and besides; if this council wanted the meeting with the elven queen to go ahead, perhaps it was better she tell him in front of them, where they could help persuade him to agree.

    "It is your adviser, my Lord," she continued. "I am sure you have learned of her imprisonment by now - I assure you, the woman left me no choice. When we spoke, I learned she had intentions she had not warned you of - so I felt you must be informed, before she was allowed to go ahead. If you would prefer, we can discuss this is private..."

    She trailed off, looking again at the throng of people present, her eyes lingering especially on he who she had felt the pull toward. He was important. But how?
    The king's gray eyes kept on Calamity for a time. He raised his cup and one of Cal’s retainers served him.

    Citizens were gossiping with those next to them. On Gina's side, where the females were sitting, there was mocking giggles. At their sounds King Kinglos narrowed his eyes, tipping his drink high and drinking passionately. Kevin shot daggers at the servant with the wine. The light-skinned, middle-aged lady was flighty on her feet to do as commanded. Another servant in muted dress handed her a metal goblet. Calamity was now being served wine by a woman who kept her head low fearfully, the cup raised above her kneeling body.

    Alfred left Gina's presence to sit on the men's side of the table, across from her. He gave her a handsome, encouraging smile. As odd as things were, the boy was clearly still enamored with her. Gina smiled back cheerfully and picked up the clay cup that had been set at her place. Someone - probably Alfred - had evidently arranged for it to be filled while she was away talking to the Foreign Adviser. The wine inside was thick, syrupy and strong-smelling, no doubt designed for bracing the castle-dwellers against their chilly local climate. As tempting as some Dutch Courage was right now, Gina needed to keep her senses sharp. Still watching Cal, she tipped the cup to her mouth, clamped her lips shut and swallowed spit.

    King Kinglos was furrowing his brows in response to Cal’s statements.

    "I know what my adviser intends." he admitted, sighing as his cup was empty.

    Kevin looked down at the king with a raised brow. On the opposite side of the table, Gina fought the urge to smirk. Don’t want your little conspiracy getting out, do you?

    "My people were brought here to be messengers of our strengthened partnership."

    Adviser Charlie Allen fidgeted where he sat as he kept looking at the reactionary, shut down Panos. Finally he stood up, his wooden chair sliding across the dark stone with a punishing loudness for the room.

    "Maybe now is not the best time to talk of politics when someone of high status is ill." He gestured to Calamity's 'husband'.

    "Your husband should have the attention he deserves." Kevin agreed with the Adviser, stepping closer to the king and whispering words none of them could hear. Grunting, Kinglos glanced up at his magician.

    "Can you do anything with the boy's condition?"

    The caster kept himself dressed in regal silence until addressed. "I would need to study his sickness first..." There was a trail, "Lydia would be best for this." The length of red hair followed after him attractively, as he stepped around the table and started to head straight to the royal couple. Cal's arm tightened around Panos, her eyes on the magician.

    "Oh, there's no need, really. My husband has a delicate composition, but he will be fine. He merely needs some rest - I will see that he's attended to as soon as we've dealt with the more pressing matter at hand." She gave the king a flattering smile. "He understands that you are the priority here, my lord."


    To the relief of all, the king agreed with a nod and O'doln stopped in his tracks.

    King Kinglos smiled at Gina. "You said my adviser was 'fine', how is that?" His cheeks were starting to get flushed.

    Gina put down the cup she was toying with. “Oh she’s not been hurt at all, m’lord.” she answered cheerily, “Though as you’d expect she’s maybe a bit annoyed about being shut up in the guest room…”

    She paused to feign another sip.

    “If I may, m’lord - it sounds like the Marchioness has some pretty big news for you. I’m sure you won’t come to any harm being alone in the corner for five minutes with one of us women.” She smiled around the table. “And the rest of us won’t come to any harm waiting another five minutes for the big announcement. We’ll just get another round of drinks in, am I right?”


    The king furrowed his brows, and the gossiping ladies both sides of Gina spoke up in support. Kinglos shifting eyes between the waiting men and chattering women didn't conceal his deep thinking process. The social pressure he had so boldly thrown on himself now was weighing on him.

    Councilman Kevin gave the king his escape before the weight became too much. First it was a smile, then a pressing of his hand on the king's shoulder. This touch made the magician watch Kevin closely.

    "Drinks, first." his voice smoothed a reminder. Adviser Charlie swished his lips side to side, scattering his vision between Calamity, Panos, and King Kinglos. His gestures of worry were hard to ignore, his body language loud with strong turns of his upper body unintentionally dramatizing his feelings. Gina guessed that he was worried about the king making another faux pas in front of their powerful ally.

    Charlie’s fidgeting caught the king's attention, after another sip of course.

    "The royal couple knows my visit is important, Cultural Adviser." The man's gray eyes glinted with recovering pride. "The young woman is hearty, it is why she protects our fierce border!"

    He raised his class and everyone sitting at the table politely clapped. Alfred was sweating bullets, eyeing Gina and her boldness with sexist concern. Evidently he was trying to warn Gina from speaking with the king so directly with a shaking head. Gina glanced around, but none of the other guests or advisers seemed to have found her suggestion out of place. However, as Charlie nodded and slumped back in his seat, king Kinglos stared at Gina again. Something about how his body shifted in his seat made him look antsy. Her reminding him of the big announcement he was supposed to be making couldn’t have helped his nerves. They would have to head him off.

    "Drink." Kevin said a second time. Charlie sighed, King Kinglos noticed - doubt coming and going on his face.

    "Yes, yes." King Kinglos agreed, while the many guards lining the walls and the standing servants loyally kept their attention on Calamity. "Why have you not got us all drink yet?" the king expectantly asked Calamity. O'doln walked calmly back to the king's side, at which point Kevin retracted his hand and stepped back with an appeasing smile.

    "Of course, my lord," Calamity's smile was only a millisecond late, her frustration at the councilman’s deflection gone a moment after it appeared on her face. She gestured to the closest of the waiting servants. "Refreshments, for our guests.”

    Immediately from Calamity's word the servants were leaving quickly out of the dining room - presumably to get more drink for the guests.

    The girl is right, though," she continued, pressing. "We really should not delay this conversation."

    Her word in attempt to navigate the social situation disgruntled Kevin, who was 'brushing off' something from his shoulder. Panos swallowed and stood up straight, detaching himself from the Fey-blooded princess turned Marchioness. His panic was fading, and nervously he kept his eyes away from the king, as the man was in proximity to the red-headed nightmare. Noticing Kevin attempting a subtle jab at them while behind everyone's back, Panos played up his cough, putting a pale hand to his chest.

    "Love...may we skip the drinking? It would not do me well."

    Nice one, Panos. Gina thought silently, and brought her cup to her lips again to conceal a smile.

    King Kinglos pressed a thumb under his chin and rested his head lazily. The motions he took were starting to become sloppy.

    "Everyone be gone." He pointed at Gina and Calamity, silently selecting them as the exceptions. Alfred raised a brow - staring from the pointing finger to Gina. Gina, just as surprised to see the king play perfectly into their hands, did not have to totally feign her own reaction as she glanced at Alfred and then back to Kinglos.

    “Umm...of course, m’lord.”


    Gina being selected did make the others at the table quite curious, and a woman next to her scoffed out of jealousy. Gina didn’t mind. Are we finally having a little luck? Not quite, she realised a moment later, looking at Panos and realising the king was trying to get rid of him too.

    Panos grasped Calamity's hand, a bead of sweat on his forehead. He wouldn't step out in this castle alone...it wasn't acceptable!

    "You made a promise..." Panos whispered, a hiss nestling vulnerable fright. Councilman Hedspeth was glaring daggers at the blanched haired royal.

    Gina looked over at Cal as the guests began to stand up and leave, and bobbed her hand very slightly to signal for her to wait a moment. They could wait until most of the hall had cleared to vouch for Panos’ integrity as Cal’s counterpart, and the fewer witnesses around when they did, the less likely the king would be to feel that he was losing face by having his orders questioned.

    Calamity smiled ingratiatingly at the king. "You are wise not to delay, my lord. If he may, my husband will remain with us. He is learning of what I do, so he can be better equipped to assist me in serving your interests." She pulled out a chair for Panos, taking the one beside it.

    The room had emptied spare Calamity's guards against the walls, and Panos sat down. King Kinglos' transparent face stifled a quiver that threatened to become a smirk. "That is a decision I never heard you say before." His judgments belittled Panos with a second shake of his lips.

    The young Lambros was used to this ridicule, it reminded him of his father. Not man enough, pathetic and without his own agency. Truth be told, being the victim of rape and a terrible week-long marriage where he was molested for the first time was leading the teenager to find some truth about it.

    Quiet, Panos stared at the table, fingers curling slightly. He was the descendant of a god, and yet felt so little divine about himself. He wanted his pride back, he wanted to destroy men like this fat, unfashionable, fool. Not kill them, but shatter their reputations and cut them sharply with smart words made to draw heartfelt tears. Panos felt power hungry and yet he was shadowed by this universe's placement - the object of his wife. Such a stupid position for him to be in. He felt miserable, and was becoming chronically acquainted with it.

    Lifting his head he leered at Gina. Both of his interdenominational travel companions couldn't dress themselves; broken females who were playing all the games. How was this fair?

    Comfortable in his velvet and wool, the leader of their kingdom sat leisurely in his seat. It was an act, his brow still had a single line of frustration.

    "Why is she here?" Panos asked those in the room, signaling out Gina and gripping his 'wife's' forearm with sly manipulation. He could guess from Gina's dressing she wasn't nearly as powerful as they were at the table, if Panos had any awareness it was social politics. His thumb brushed across Calamity's sleeve and looked at her with a submissive gaze of round eyes, exaggerating his vulnerability. "I don't know who this little girl is, and she threatens my ability to focus when I feel so sickly." Now he was in control of the conversation.

    Gina put down her cup, wrong-footed. She looked from Panos to Cal, but neither of them gave her any subtle signal that they had a plan at work.

    “Georgina Remoni.” she identified herself, still looking at Cal for some sign she knew what Panos was playing at. “I won’t get in the way.” she added, opting to placate rather than to point out that the king had asked her to stay. Doing that would only kick off a power struggle between them.


    "I'm sure she won't. And since it pleases the king that she stay, we can surely abide it, can't we?" Calamity said firmly, her smile a little tight as she took a seat beside Panos, looking at him. "I'm sure you're wondering exactly why I saw fit to detain your advisor, my lord. Well, when she visited my halls I discovered her intention - to go without your knowledge to the Elf Queen. I'm sure you understand why I couldn't allow it - not without your prior knowledge, and approval."

    Cal swallowed, glancing at Gina. It made sense, for her to be the one to speak to the king, but she feared she'd stumble. It had been the redhead taking the lead in their adventure, for the most part. And now Panos seemed to see fit to try to trip Gina up, for whatever reason. Perhaps he feared losing Cal's support now she'd returned, thought he would be sidelined - well, she didn't see how to reassure him further, not right now at any rate. She swallowed, turning her eyes to the king again.

    "Of course, if you think there is some merit to sending the Advisor to the elves, I will release her at once, my lord..." she trailed off, allowing him some input; fighting the nervous urge to gnaw on her lip. They were alone - for the most part. If it seemed he wouldn't take the bait, she would use her gift.


    The high and mighty man closed his eyes, he was now intoxicated.

    Panos crossed his arms spitefully.

    "The cunt cannot even dress herself and you find something worthwhile in her?!" Panos' pale finger jutted out directly to Gina as the king collected himself through his struggling digestion.

    Gina blinked, still more baffled than angry, although the latter was definitely starting to creep in now. “Excuse me?” She stared at Panos with her mouth half open, trying to work out what the hell was going through his head.

    Kinglos was enjoying himself, a slight smile on his face and his body language calmed. At this point the man opened his eyes and waved off Panos, dismissing him. The artistic youth gasped and put his hands to cup his mouth. All his hurt sensibilities were offended. Why was he being ignored?! He wasn't ornamental! The tragedy-stricken aristocrat was humbled by a regal drunk.

    "He is loud. I thought you kept everything in line here, or are you getting soft my marchioness?" His speech had become cool and cunning, as if the drink gave him more command over leadership - even if they all could see him squinting from time to time. "I already have said I know why she came. You will let her go."

    ”How clever, m’lord.” Gina rallied, seizing on an opportunity to drag their conversation back onto the rails. She hitched up a look of delight, as if she had only just realised the implications of the plan. “If the adviser goes to the elf queen then there’s no need for war, no need for any of our people to die proving themselves...just peace with the elves and the kingdom looking strong.”

    She toyed with her cup, pretending to think.

    “Only...it seems a shame not to take due credit, doesn’t it? If you announce to everyone that you’re sending the adviser, then no-one can say it wasn’t your good sense that kept the kingdom safe and strong.”


    The princess jumped on Gina's thread, nodding her agreement. "I see why you asked her to remain, my Lord," she said. "Indeed, it would be a perfect opportunity to announce your masterful plan whilst the council is assembled here. I'll have my servants gather what the Advisor requires to travel," she said, "whilst we call the assembly back in, so you can inform them of your masterful plan, if it pleases you." It provoked a turn of his eyes away from the amethyst stare. Somewhere he disagreed.

    However there was no chance to expand on it, as there was a loud knocking on the doors. The guards inside attentive laid eyes on Calamity.

    "There is an urgent emergency!"
    Last edited by Minkasha; 06-07-2018 at 06:49 AM.
    Thank you MayhemsCurse <3


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    Jeon walked out of the dungeon. His desires to speak in quiet with Melvin were slashed by the blonde healer woman following tight behind. In tandem the winding stairs in the tower were narrow with guards not too far, making sure if he said anything it would not be privately.

    In the cold, the healer bundled herself. The notorious lack of insulation in the towers of the castle was quick to make Jeon's move through uncomfortable and nip his face. On his way up heavy steps thudded down. The chainmail clad body guard connected to Jeon's super imposed identity stood in the way.

    "Is he there?!" Kevin's voice shouted down, Archer's nose shot out air - visible from the cold. He took a careful breath, preparing himself.

    "Yes" a reliving sigh slipped from his lips and he pointed upward, looking to not want and test his luck for more spoken word.

    "Well met, Sir Archer," Jeon said wearily. "Be on your guard, one of the prisoners escaped and is apparently invisible."

    "For all I know, he could have gone ahead of us, or is following us now. I suggest we rejoin the main party quickly.
    Guardsman Archer gripped a hand shut. Briefly his eyes fell to the woman behind Jeon, scanning her with interest until he turned to quickly get up the stairs. A wave of his hand suggested he wanted Jeon and 'Melvin' to follow quickly.

    Following, heat came back refreshingly when the doctor entered the heavily watched hallways of the castle. Jeon's gut feeling of importance again honed on Kevin once he returned into visual range.

    "I am going to speak with the Marchioness to warn her" The healer said as her bow out of the grouping of men, and quickly walked off. Councilman Kevin approached Jeon, a touch of the Zayan's shoulder unfolded into a stroke with Kevins' fingers going down to the elbow. The standing guards along the wall were watching, perhaps in boredom or curiosity. There was no judgment in their eyes, but they were attentive.

    "Our hostess is busy in discrete conversation with our lord King. In the meantime you and I should speak privately"

    "If you believe anything said in this castle can be private...?" Jeon retorted, but letting himself be guided by Kevin while Melvin/the Probe trailed suspiciously behind.

    "I should warn you, one of the prisoners escaped and is currently invisible in the castle," Jeon stated.
    Kevin's leading steps slowed, a careful swallow slid down his throat. He glanced at Archer who nodded to Jeon's words.

    "The teenager finally slipped..." he had to whisper his words as he avoided the ears of the distributed guards. Pointed to a random closed door, Kevin looked at a young man donned the commonplace heavy plate armor. "Is this an empty bedchamber?" Getting a nod, the Councilman waved off Archer with annoyance, Archer accustom to it simply leaned against the wall across the door.

    Pulling Jeon inside, Kevin held against him. The Marchioness' guest arrangements were culturally dry. The one item of decoration, of color, was her bloody sigil banner hanging from the wall over the bed. Her authority spread everywhere in the fortress.

    "Listen to me lover. The Marchioness might know something" Worried whispers from their small distance of lips, pressed air onto Jeon's face. The way in which he spoke with concerned drama had a social flair that was drawing. "Editha would not have spoken of the conspiracy. You must act quickly. If we use the released prisoner as distraction, you would have your chance"

    "And what defenses does he have?" Jeon asked. "What will get past them? If I try and fail, it's your neck on the block. For all we know, someone's listening to us right now."

    "Still, if there's an opportunity..." Jeon mused, turning to look down at the Probe. He knelt down and whispered into its ear.

    "Zombie formula #9, wizard and king."

    The Probe frowned, but nodded as it started the unseen but laborious process of moving darts to its fingertips.

    "Oh, and Melvin - we may need a distraction, as if something invisible was in the room with us. Can you manage?"

    The Probe glared but nodded.

    "Good lad. Make sure none of us get killed."
    Kevin peered down at 'Melvin' and crossed his arms. Any cooperation to answering Jeon's questions was cut off by suspicion and jealousy.

    "I asked you to help me, not some boy" The Councilman stated sharply.

    "Would you deny a craftsman his tools?" Jeon asked, frowning at Kevin. "Should the king be struck down by poison, do you think a man of us will go unsearched? Melvin is too small to be considered a threat."

    Nor, if it came to it, would they find a weapon on his so-called apprentice.

    "You gave me this task, let me use the tools I choose to use."


    Kevin swallowed the request, crossing his arms.

    "What happens would all fall on the little Marchioness. We are in her domain after all" The Councilman glanced at 'Melvin'. "Boy do you ever talk?"

    The probe looked up at Kevin, raising its right eyebrow before glancing at Jeon, then shook its puppet head.

    "That would be a mistake," Jeon sighed, burying his face in his hand. "I'm trying to keep you alive, remember? With a dead king, there are bound to be probing attacks, and right now the Marchioness is the one who's been keeping this boarder safe."

    Looking up, he stared directly at Kevin. "If she left, I don't give this kingdom a week."


    Kevin weighed Jeon's bold warning. What thoughts of protest he had the Councilman must have concluded they were not strong enough to rebuke Jeon's statement. Oddly Kevin looked away and kept quiet about the regard in his defeat.

    "If we do not go quickly, we could be exposed."

    Jeon quirked an eyebrow. He was wondering why they hadn't, yet.

    "Melvin," he paused, looking down at the probe, which looked up at him expectantly. "Take the wizard out first. Wait a good thirty seconds or so before your next target."

    The probe nodded, grinning slightly, which made Jeon frown and step back half a step.

    "When we get a moment, we really must have a talk."
    Spoiler: ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ √Ăłł Єѵïł ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ 

  6. #126
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    Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility, Georgina Wright & Panos Lambros

    "There is an urgent emergency!"

    Behind the door was a woman’s voice. The sloshing king glanced away from the teenagers, creating an opening for Panos to glare at Gina. She stared back at him with obvious frustration, her lips moving to silently mouth What the fuck? before her eyes darted back to the king. Panos' fingers held tighter to Calamity’s arm. The breath coming out of him shook and he rubbed his forehead, tense. The young artist could feel his thoughts becoming scared and paranoid. If I could crush her, the little thing would be quiet. Panos’ spiteful thoughts were aimed at Gina, who once again had managed to somehow overcome the social odds of his ostracising tactics. Across space or at a table in a castle, this plain flower couldn’t be rid of. Much like a weed she persisted, spreading and converting everything around her to her will. I have power in this room!

    What are you waiting for?!” the young teenager snapped sharply at a standing guard by the door. “Open it!” Strained, his voice cracked but he accepted it by clearing his throat.

    King Kinglos narrowed his eyes. Suspicion fell on Calamity, briefly to Panos and then back her way.

    Cal turned to look at the guard, confirming Panos' order with a curt nod. The other royal's fingers were gripping tightly to her, betraying his frustration at the situation - he was panicking, feeling helpless - and it seemed he was throwing all that angst at Gina - Calamity's heart was thudding nervously; his emotion-ruled actions could be their undoing, in this delicate situation.

    The chattering and shuffle of feet belonging to Greywall gentry rolled in as the knob was pulled. Welcomed in was a fair looking pale skinned woman covered in furs. Blonde hair to her shoulders, blue soft eyes and pouty lips defined this strained-looking thirty something. Her demeanor was exhausted, sweat on her face as she lowered herself with a bow at the hips and an opening of her arms. The door was closed behind her, shutting away the outside noises.

    When she raised herself, the woman was caught off guard by the presence of the King and the Marquess.

    “My marchioness, I healed the Draconian prisoner. On his person, perhaps in the beds of his nails he had stored away arcanium and used it to magically free himself. Your loyal torture master has been injured. I and an apothecary healed him to stable health.”

    Cal gulped, her eyes flashing between the woman and the King, horrorstruck. The last thing they needed was her usefulness to the King undermined right now! King Kinglos’s body was shaking, moments away from an explosive reaction.

    Oh shit. Gina thought, her heart sinking. "Now's your chance, m'lord." she hissed quietly, half rising from her seat to lean across the table towards the king. "One prisoner won't get far in all this snow, if he even gets out of the castle. If the people are stupid enough to worry, let them know how their king is gonna keep them safe. Tell them you're sending the foreign adviser to make peace with the elf queen. With her on our side and the marchioness here on our border, we'll be safe. They'll never have to fear the Draconians again!"

    Cal gratefully nodded her agreement, inhaling deeply to steel herself.

    "This young woman is correct - the prisoner will not get far." Her eyes moved again to the guard at the door. "Alert the rest of the guards immediately! Nobody leaves the grounds without express permission from myself or the King. Find the Draconian and bring him to me at once!"


    The sure sounds of Calamity's men voiced, and pulled things into action. King Kinglos was locked in promising rage, sweating with emotion and his alcoholic lifestyle. He was humiliated a time too many.

    Panos gritted his teeth, perfect and small behind foul expressing lips. He stood up to meet Gina. The women blundered this situation because neither were able diplomats. Girls who couldn't put on their own clothes. He would have to do it all.

    Armed men ran to the doors with urgency, having enough training to keep some basic line of formation. Their militarized deployment out of the dining room was loud but the prince managed to embolden his words. Slamming a hand on the table, Panos flipped his blanched hair out of his face.

    "My wife is highly capable. There are traitors in this castle, who pilfered and placed arcanium on him." Panos raised his union held hand with his partner. His fear-mongering paranoia was working, getting the royal leader's eye.

    Gina could have slapped the young prince. Whatever was up with him this morning, a witch hunt led by a drunk and paranoid king would only end badly, and she couldn’t keep the venom out of her voice.

    “Don’t jump to stupid-” she began, but
    then the doors were opened and screams erupted.

    Doctor Jeon Smythe


    The apothecary, his guised assistant, and the Councilman guard kept in tow to follow Kevin. Hedspeth was clearly worried, walking fast. The steps of his comfortable footwear was louder than Jeon had heard the man walk prior. The flirty and biting politician was not catering to any humor while taking them back to the center of this conflict.

    They caught up with the blonde woman from the dungeon as she was half way through the crowd. Jeon now saw the mass of well-dressed sorts standing around the dining room door. Among them was the pointed-eared man who was attentively staring at the blonde woman, and now she was at the door knocking.

    "There is an urgent emergency!" she shouted at the door, getting the comfortable men and women of various adult age groups to all stare at her in unison. The magician was poised in the back of the group against the hallway wall opposite the door. Guards were passing along the news of the escaped prisoner, and were fleeing down halls to presumably begin a search.

    The few remaining guards were far apart: one near the T intersection that stood to their right. His back was poised against the right hallway wall, his line of vision directly left and right, but not behind to the crowd. On the other side of the middle hallway was a man standing directly in the center, looking down at the hallway. Occasionally the body language of the armored knight showed while he shifted his head left and right – perhaps trying to keep awareness for the prisoner.

    "Melvin," Jeon said loudly, as if trying to be heard over the muttering of the crowd as he pointed in the general direction of the magician. "Perhaps it's best if you join the others, out of harm's way."

    The Probe glanced up at him and nodded slowly, then began moving across the floor towards the magician, readying its dart launchers hidden within its fingers. It seemed undaunted by the forest of skirts and legs it was approaching.

    "The prisoner's invisible," Jeon warned as they got close. "I don't suppose anyone sees an invisible attacker? He could have followed us up."


    The muttering picked up, the pointed eared magician was caught staring at the closed doors. A locked look of forlorn stared at them. (assuming Melvin goes up and gets the job done) The Councilman and his guard kept at some distance, 'Melvin' pressed ahead of the party.

    The gathered citizens were chattering, noticing that the guards themselves had also changed in attitude. The airs of the situation were getting more dramatic. The boy, though artificial, had the advantage of his guise's stature keeping him out of anyone's interest. When he raised his hand, administering a small pebble from his fingertips, no-one noticed.

    Jeon saw 'Melvin' take the shot, the magician's temple hit with the little dark pellet. Pressing to his skull, the redhead felt the point of contact with irritation. Then, he collapsed.

    The probe felt some small shade of satisfaction, although the face of its real-world shell remained impassive as the wizard collapsed. Vitals were depressed, in appearance he appeared to be struck dead, but in truth was just barely alive.

    A young man with a good lean back, nice clothing and worry-struck, deep green eyes turned at the thud and saw the magician.

    "Sir!?" He knelt down, perhaps the intensity in his question pulled some to look back. With the mage knocked down, ladies began screaming.

    Melvin the Probe used this to its advantage to move through the screaming throng to the edge of the crowd where it could get a shot at the King. Assuming whatever magical defense he might have was rendered null by the collapse of the wizard.

    Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility, Georgina Wright, Jeon Smythe, & Panos Lambros


    The doors opened. The screaming panic of the gentry ladies charged into the dining room. Guards were having difficulty getting out, and they were shouting for people to step back. Men moved their ladies, in passing everyone could hear people demanding answers.

    The tired blonde standing in Calamity, Georgina, Panos and the King's way moved and huddled around where the people over the fallen mage. Panos gasped, weakness taking his knees and he fell gracelessly back into his chair. The escaped prisoner was here?

    "O'doln!" Calamity's healer said with a personally afflicted startle, rushing to kneel next to the man. Guards were running around, but that was getting hard to hear over yelling men - the guests to the castle speaking loudly at Cal and the King.

    As panic filled the room and the king’s face contorted for an imminent explosion, Gina realised that they were out of time. The distracting chaos around them might be their best and only chace.

    “Cal!” she hissed, darting her eyes towards the king in a sharp signal. “Voice!


    "Melvin!" Jeon called out in concern, trying to make his voice heard over the screams. "Apprentice, come here!"

    The Probe made it to the edge of the crowd and started towards Jeon, its hands flat as they swung to keep balance but in truth, its right hand was pointed more towards the king, looking for a clear shot.


    Cal's eyes flew from Gina to the King, wide and panic-stricken. The situation was escalating fast - last time they had been in a panicked crowd like this, they had ended up watching the life drain from Baka's eyes... "My Lord!" she yelled, dragging his attention to her as she moved toward him, pushing all of the command she could muster into her voice. The room was loud - too loud. Her head swivelled back and forth, her heart pounding with the fear that the King would not even hear her in this chaos. Baka's face flashed again through her mind, then Manisha's, then Vahsi's... and then Panos, and Gina's. Who would die next, if they didn't stop this madness?

    "STOP!*" the Princess screamed to the room at large, her voice ringing with power, the word echoing over the heads of the milling, yelling crowd.


    Her word was obeyed. Calamity's soldiers, her healer, her guests, her friends and her king bent. Collectively there was a heave in their breaths, their vision went black and dozens of bodies fell to the floor. Clanking metal, folding cloths, hard cracks of bodies against the stone, the thud of Gina's body slamming off the wood table and laying onto the ground. Panos' vision held the longest, fluttering eyes and the Lambros followed suit. King Kinglos passed out in his chair.

    Anyone who could hear the faintest whisper of her enchanted scream submitted. Men down the hallways who Calamity could hear their echoing downfall come into the dining room. The doctor couldn't resist: Kevin, Archer, Gina's love interest all in heaps.

    In the immediate area, it was the probe in disguise and Calamity which stood.

    The Probe came to an abrupt stop, then turned until it had a fix on Cal as it ran a scan of the lifeforms within scanning range. Except for Cal, all were unconscious. It could only hope that the escaped prisoner was also affected by... whatever she had done.

    Watching Cal carefully, the Probe walked backward until it had reached Jeon. The Zayan was slack-jawed and drooling on the stone floor. In a sudden fit of malicious spite, it smiled as it silently took a picture to separate away from its records. The Probe knelt down and lifted the doctor, shaking with moderate force, but Jeon remained insensible.

    Impressive. Whatever this was, it wasn't a Bass Stunner, it had none of the acoustic wave-front characteristics. Nor was it anything these people with their 'magic' had a defense against.

    Lowering its Zayan charge to the floor, the Probe known as 'Melvin' turned to scowl curiously at Cal. The princess had staggered at the exertion of power, so much greater than anything she had attempted before. She gazed around in shock at the unconscious forms surrounding her, their forms coming in and out of focus as her vision blurred.

    "No... I didn't mean..." What had she done?! She's only intended to make them quiet, calmer... not this! Were they... had she... killed them?!

    "Panos!" the girl cried, turning to the closest of her companions, a hand reaching to shake his shoulder frantically. "Panos, are you alright? Wake up! Wake up*!" Again, she drew on that commanding power that slept within her, and as she did so, her head throbbed with pain. The girl winced, swallowed, focused. Gritting her teeth against the painful daggers, she spoke again.

    "Panos! Gina! Wake up NOW!*"
    Alcohol spilled from the dropped cups of her king and the guests laying outside. The environment was near silent. The distant sounds of running and shouting were clear indications of her fighters following her directions, searching for an invisible foe. From the sounds of it, none were running this way - getting more distance in their urgent scramble.

    Panos nor Gina woke up, the reassurance of their lives still intact coming from the sensing bond Calamity shared with her multiverse travelers.

    She commanded them to wake, and they were waking up, the Probe noted. Would they have revived naturally after a time? Indeterminate data.

    She was Jeon's best chance for revival - but by whatever means she used to knock out everyone within range of her voice, it clearly exacted a heavy toll on her body.

    Opening the N-Gate portal of the shell's right pocket, the probe deposited one of Jeon's favorite pick-me-ups there as it walked over to Calamity. Reaching into its pocket, it pulled out a small white sweets bag containing Jelly Babies and offered it to her. Proteins in the gelatin and the shear amount of sugar in those would help her recover quickly. How she would react to the flavor of the purple ones, Black Currant, it could not determine.
    Cal started as her eyes fell on the boy, too concerned with her friends to have noticed him until now. Her head continued to pound, and her companions did not stir, but they were alive. Through eyes watery with pain, she gave the child a dubious look.

    "Why didn't my voice work on you? Are you a fae?" He must have some power of his own. She glanced down at the offered sweets, hesitated.. and shook her head, giving him another suspicious look. After all they'd been through, it didn't seem wise to accept unknown food from a potentially magical stranger. "Tell me who you are. Who are you here with?" she asked.

    The Probe blinked, then pointed first to Jeon lying insensible on the ground next to Kevin, then at Gina.

    Then, looking back at Calamity, it pulled a blackcurrant jelly baby out of the paper sack in its hand and popped it in its mouth. The shell chewed, sensors in the mouth detecting the flavors and chemical breakdown of the confection, but it was incapable of enjoying the sweet. It 'swallowed', the pulped sweet slipping back through another N gate for disposal.

    Whatever she did, apparently it did not effect machines such as itself, but Fae, being magical, would also have been safe.

    Magic again. It could only imagine what the Zayans who sent it out to watch over Jeon would say if they ever watched this. Come up with new, imaginative ways to seal their already impregnable boarders?


    Cal hesitated, then accepted the sweet. The child was obviously trying to demonstrare that they were safe by eating one himself, and if he was here with Gina... she looked down at the other man he'd indicated, recognising him as the source of the draw she felt, similar to that she felt toward Panos and Gina. He, too, was connected to their quest, then.

    Dubiously, she popped the candy into her mouth and chewed slowly, her eyes widening at the flavour. Royal in the midst of a life altering adventure or not, she was also a teenager - and one who had never tried candy before. Though it was no cure-all, the sugar was a pick me up, and it tasted delicious.

    "Right... what to do. What would you do?" The princess said, her eyes on Gina's prone form across the table. She could simply go and tell the advisor to leave, but she didn't trust that she'd have the strength to command her, if the woman didn't believe the orders had come from the king. She needed to wake Gina and Panos - and this new companion, too, first.

    "Have you got any more of those things?" She asked the child.

    The Probe nodded, handing over the small white paper bag with a dozen more inside.

    She ate the sweets with relish, and moved back to stand beside Gina, a hand on the other girls shoulder.

    "Gina," the teen said firmly, "I need you to wake up. Now!

    The Probe leaned close, monitoring Cal's and Gina's lifesigns.

    The princess watched just as closely, holding her breath, her bottom lip held firmly between her teeth. Long seconds ticked by... but her friend did not stir. "Fuck. FUCK. What do I do?" she lamented aloud, looking around as though hoping someone would appear to offer guidance. She drew in a breath. Standing uselessly in this room was not going to help her, or her friends. She had to do something, and quickly - if there was some invisible assailant loose amongst them, she had left all of them horribly vulnerable to attack.

    "Right. Right. Well, everyone being asleep doesn't change our end goal, does it? I haven't knocked everyone out," she noted. The sounds of the guards moving in the distance were still carrying through the open door to where they stood.

    "So the advisor should be awake as well. Right." She crossed to the doorway, inhaling deeply as she stepped over the prone forms that scattered the floor, trying to steel herself. She still felt weak - it wouldn't do to show it. Turning back, she addressed the boy.

    "You'd better stay here. Keep an eye on them," she indicated her companions, and the newcomer she felt the link to. "If they wake, tell them I've gone to set things in motion. If the rest wake before I return, Gina will still need to try and make sure the King announces it as his decision. Alright?"

    She hesitated for a moment, wondering if the child understood, or was even capable of carrying out her instructions. She hadn't heard him speak... could he even speak? The girl shook her head, glad of the small burst of energy the sugary sweets had granted her. It couldn't be helped. She had to try and do something. Bending over, she gripped the arm of a man slumped half in, half out of the doorway, and tugged. Gracelessly, she managed to get him clear of the frame, freeing the door; then her eyes fell on the bodies in the hall. She couldn't move them all - it would drain her of the little strength she'd recovered.

    Melvin appeared by her side, taking in the bodies lying in the hall, then went to the nearest one. wrapping its arms under theirs, Melvin effortless dragged them back into the room, laying them down next to the poor fellow she had moved by the door. Looking up at her, the Probe gave her a brisk nod.

    Cal stared in shock at the child's seemingly effortless maneuvering of the unconscious man, blinking several times as she processed what he'd done.

    "You're... you're very strong, for someone so small. Can you move the rest of them inside, and close the door?" she asked, indicating the remaining members of the Kings entourage that littered the hallway.

    Melvin nodded, but held up its left hand as it reached into its right pocket to produce another Tarot card which it offered to her. On the face, it was 'The Magician'.

    Stepping around the sleeping citizens, she made her way toward the room in which the advisor was still closed, steeling herself. She would convince the woman the King had ordered her to go to the Elven Queen - if she couldn't use her gift, she would tell her that she had not yet informed the king of her Editha's betrayal - and that she could avoid the truth being revealed, if she did as Cal commanded... or be executed as a traitor to the crown.

    Melvin watched her go, her unique bio-signature being tracked by dedicated subsystems as it effortlessly dragged the next sleeping victim inside. It could have used the tractors, but it didn't want someone looking in to see that.
    Thank you MayhemsCurse <3


    Spoiler: Memorable Quotes 

  7. #127
    My Son; My Sun.
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    Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility


    The teenager noticed the stretch of her power as she walked around the corner and saw a guard who must have been standing post fallen on the ground. He was the last of any trouble from her magic she saw but as she recalled and returned her way to where Editha was held there stood a young suited man. Apparently he had replaced Warner's place - about the same height of 5'10" but thinner as the tight metal suit showed. His visor was up and the young man looked upon Calamity with only the time to recognize her.

    Kneeling he kept in front of the door.

    "Everyone is searching the castle and the outside Marchioness. It is a fury of movement" he assured.

    "Good," Cal responded crisply, and to her credit, she managed to almost completely keep the exhaustion from her voice. "Don't rest until the assassin is found. When he is, take him directly to a cell - do not go back to the dining hall. The King and his audience do not wish to be disturbed. Go and pass on my orders to the rest, now. I will ensure the Advisor remains secure until you return." She turned away in dismissal, entering the room where Editha was held.

    "We need to talk."


    The frizzy haired woman pointed her sharp nose at Calamity when she turned to look. She stroked a hand across her collarbones, thinking before she spoke.

    “There is trouble in the castle? You look…” She took steps closer to the leader, nimble and limber with each one. “Tired, young marchioness” The guard's footsteps were quiet now. They were alone.

    "I'm not here to discuss appearances," Cal frowned, her face set, "But the future of our kingdom. The king does not yet know of your betrayal - and it can stay that way, if you heed me." She paused, pondering how best to proceed; wishing she'd had longer to discuss their plan. It all rested on her shoulders, now. If she messed this up...

    "Your actions were treacherous, but in the end, our goals aren't so different. We're on the brink of war. A war neither of us wants. If we move in force a gainst the Draconians, it is my people who will be on the front lines." She met Editha's gaze, looking for an indication of how her words were being recieved. She didn't think she had the strength, yet, to command the woman to obey, so she would need to convince her.

    "I have kept that threat at bay until now, without allowing all out war to break out. I can take care of things here. You will go to the elves, and ensure the peace is kept there. You have a silver tongue. I'm sure you are up to the task. As for the king..." she paused again, wondering how to reassure the advisor that she would keep the ruler under control without giving her ammunition against her, if things went wrong. "I will help him see the wisdom in keeping the peace. And by then, you will already be gone."


    Calamity went on to explain her plan, Editha only drew closer before the teenager and listened. With the pauses Calamity took to think through her suggestions and try to maintain a presence of control the nimble woman only smiled.

    Just as Calamity stopped speaking her head was slammed against the wood door, her throat being squeezed in a menacing grip by the adviser's hands. The pain was making the teenager's head thump loudly, losing air.

    Spots flared in Cal's vision, her mouth open as she struggled to draw breath past the woman's choking grip. Her hands flailed through empty air, finding nothing to aid her, and she directed them instead at the advisors face, scrabbling to connect with her eyes, to inflict enough pain to make Editha release her grip. Mustering what she could of her failing strength, she aimed a kick at her attackers' legs.

    Editha screamed a horrid, fried sound and Calamaity's fingers sank into the woman's sockets. The adviser, held a moment long to pull the fay-blooded girl closer and slam her back against the door, throwing Calamity's skull with crashing pain. At which point both had to let go and Editha hobbled away on one leg, covering her face.

    Calamity had seconds to react, the other woman trying to lower herself for a charge. The princess sucked down air, her lungs screaming. In place of the desperate panic that had flooded her a moment before, she found herself filled with fury. They had been pushed, kicked and thrown from one world to another; dropped into impossible situations with too much responsibility and no information, save what they could grasp on their own, praying they didn't bring yet more bloodshed down on themselves and those around them in the process. With a yell of outrage, she leapt at the advisor, her own hands now grasping at Editha's shoulders, the weight of her body crashing against the other woman, bringing them both toppling to the floor.

    "I'm TRYING!" she shrieked, shaking her roughly with each word, "to HELP! What do you WANT FROM ME?!"

    The last was as much a question to whoever had done this to them as to Editha. Her chest heaved, and her shoulders slumped. The little energy the candies had offered was depleted; only adrenalin kept her from collapsing where she sat.


    Editha’s tear smeared and bloodied face was grimaced, eyelids trying to protect what had already been damaged. The woman under the teenager’s weight didn’t reply, whimpering in pain and in shock from the loss of her vision. The princess's chest heaved, her ragged breaths slowing, and her grip loosened. She sat back, releasing the other woman, lifting a hand to rest briefly against her furrowed brow. For a moment, she just breathed. Then her hand went to the floor, steadying herself as she stood and looked down at the Advisor.

    "I will have a carriage made ready for you. You will clean yourself up, and go to the Queen."
    Calamity had conquered Editha, the broken and frightened woman nodding through trembles. She continued to wipe the teary red liquid from her eyes.

    Cal sighed, some of the tension releasing from her shoulders, and she got to her feet. She had convinced the woman - though not in the way she had intended; rather, by descending to a raving lunatic. But she had agreed, and that was the important thing. Now she could return to the others and... Damn it! the teen thought, inwardly kicking herself as she realised her folly. She had sent the guard away, to hunt for the missing Draconian! She couldn't leave the advisor unguarded - there was no telling what she might try, if she were left to her own devices. She would have to take Editha with her, get her on her way, and then return to Gina and Panos. I'll just have to hope that strange child can hold down the fort a little longer, she thought, though nervous doubt clawed at her. The longer she took, the more likely someone would discover the room full of unconscious people - but there was nothing she could do.

    She crossed to the dresser, opening the wooden doors and extracting a long, dark blue travelling cloak from within and tossed it at Editha.

    "Put this on. And wipe your face, you look a mess." Purpose had put some of her old commanding tone into her voice, though exhaustion still threatened her. Her hands smoothed over her hair, and lingered at her neck; tender and sore from the other womans' assault. Perhaps her beating of the Advisor wouldn't be looked on too strangely, given what a bloodthirsty commander her doppelganger seemed to be.

    "Let's go," she instructed, crossing the room again and opening the door. The corridor was clear. As the woman made to pass her, she reached out to grip her wrist, tight.

    "Don't try anything," she said warningly, "or you will be a guest in my dungeons, instead of these quarters."


    Melvin & The Unconscious Lot

    The boy robot was standing around after he had completed the task of getting everyone inside and hidden behind a closed door. Sensors picked up a full figured woman coming. Her pace was quick for her tired body, sensitive sensors hearing the difficulty of breath.

    Then there were knocks on the door, by her hand.

    "Young Marchioness? Are you in there? Safe?" the older woman sounded very personally worried. Her hand was about to go to the door handle.

    The Probe frowned. Letting the woman in would be a problem. She might scream before it could sedate her. So, there was only one thing to do.

    "Matron?" rang out the familiar tones of the currently unconscious Jeon. "You've just missed the Marchioness, she was going to fetch me some supplies. Don't come in, I'm in the middle of a rather delicate examination. Sir, don't move, I can't remove that quill if you keep wiggling like that. And how exactly did you manage to sit down on one in the first place?"

    The Probe watched the infrared image of the woman on the other side of the door carefully, while reloading its dart launchers. It was a good thing that Jeon was unconscious, it was a sure thing that the Zayan would be demanding answers from it that it wasn't allowed to give him.


    The woman, so the probe could see, stepped away from the door instinctually.

    “I will come back with protection for you apothecary. Hold on sir!” In this climatic time within the castle her voice was shaken and emotional. Running off, the probe observed through the wall her quick steps.

    This situation was quickly becoming intolerable. Fortunately, its cover was that of a medbot, so it was well-equipped. The right-hand pocket bulged slightly as a packet of ammonia inhalants was deposited there.

    It also deposited three porcupine quills, just in case.

    The Probe pulled out the packet and examined it carefully. The cardboard box would certainly attract attention in this society, as would the foil-covered plastic trays that held the smelling salt capsules. Still, it couldn't be helped. The capsules... it couldn't say.

    Walking over to Jeon, it pulled one of the trays out and extracted a single smelling-salt capsule. Breaking the glass tube under the cotton netting, it held the tube under Jeon's nose and let him breathe in the noxious vapors.

    ------

    The pungent smell made Jeon stiffen and jerk his head away, coughing.

    "What the..." he demanded looking around curious as MedBot Melvin looked at him dispassionately down at him. "What happened?"

    He pulled himself to his feet and rose unsteadily, braced by an unexpectedly helpful hand from the Probe. Looking around, he could see everyone lying on the ground, most appeared to be breathing normally.

    "Did... did you do this?" Jeon demanded, alarmed. His eyes narrowed as he stared down at MedBot. "How did you do that?"

    The Probe rolled its human eyes at Jeon and shook its head. Leaning forward, it projected a hologram of Cal, looking down and asking, "Why didn't it work on you?"

    The hologram flickered off.

    "So," Jeon frowned, seeking out a chair as his head began to pound, "This young woman knocked all these people out? Was she armed with something? All I remember is hearing someone yelling 'stop'..."

    He paused, then glanced ruefully at the MedBot. "That was her, wasn't it?"

    MedBot nodded. It checked its scanners for more movement towards the room.
    Unfortunately the MedBot could observe several coming up one of the turrets of the castle and down the hallway to this room. The woman from before tagging along showed she was fulfilling her promise to 'bring protection' for Jeon.

    MedBot fumed as it turned its head towards the door. The woman it talked to said she was going to get protection - clearly this wasn't a pair of exam gloves.

    "So how long.... what is it? Is someone coming?" Jeon demanded, seeing the probe watching the door. He waved his hand around the room. "Is it the woman who..?"

    MedBot shook its head and pointed to the door that the people were coming towards.

    "You want me to stop them?" Jeon demanded, glancing frantically at the Probe as he took a step towards the door. "I don't know what you want me to say..."

    As soon as Jeon's back was turn, it pulled out the synthetic quills it had in its pocket and jabbed them into the buttocks of Kevin. Pity he was unconscious.

    Kevin shuddered where he lay in an undignified mess. With his butt prodded the Adviser groaned and weakly got into a seated position, yelped and fell back on the ground face fist. One of other on the floor was able to get up however. Panos gripped his head, his veins were throbbing and his mind was hot. Vision was gradual for his eyelids were unnaturally heavy.

    The side of his skull where he had hit against the table hurt terribly. The beautiful prince held to the wound and desperately used the chair next to him to stand.

    The security stood outside the doors and the woman left off into the castle by herself.

    Tiredly sobbing and letting his lifted butt hold in the air, Kevin was too weak and drowsy to do anything about his backside barbarism.

    "Hold on!" Jeon called out, spying Panos. Whoever it was outside, they were going to have to wait.

    He went to offer him a hand up. "Scalp wounds bleed a bit," Jeon said reassuringly. "Let's have a look."

    "Melvin, I'm going to need..." he started, looking up at the Probe's human shell, and frown as he spied Kevin. "What the... Where did you find porcupine quills in here? Just lie there quietly Kevin. Melvin, I needs a saline rinse and some sponges."

    Leaning over slightly to pat Kevin's head, Melvin turned and crossed the room towards Jeon, noting the woman's departure and the new guards standing at the entrances outside the room. This was going to be a problem. Its right pocket bulged with the sterile bottle of saline wound cleanser and gauze pads packed in a plastic-lined paper package, fresh delivered from it's N-dimension stores.


    The Lambros prince finally met eyes with the new multidimensional traveler he knew to be Jeon. Their bond as travelers felt with tight proximity to the other, Gina close for she still lay on the ground - not that he minded. Seeing an older man, was to see the first pillars of a home be built. Stability, ability. The sapphire cut pure blue eyes stared up to the worried doctor with emotional and dazed eyes. Laying into the man Panos grasped onto him desperately.

    "Help us please, we're nothing but stupid teenagers-" When the blanched hair young man continued to beg he squeezed his eyes tightly, exhausted in the peak moment of the events leading to now and the disoriented distortion that reality was. Hands needy grabbed and grabbed again onto Jeon's robes, pressing to feel the safety of the doctor's frame. Kevin's sobbing in the background did not help relax the situation. "I'm need you...I need you" The prince was boldly shameless in his yearning for a male leader in his life.

    What was it about this dimension that strange men kept coming on to him? But there was that odd sort of recognition, a bonding like with Gina, who was lying nearby, yet subtly different than the one he felt with Kevin and the council.

    "My name is Jeon," he told Panos, giving him a reassuring hug. "We'll get this sorted out."

    Gently, he separated the young man from him and peered speculatively into his eyes. "Now, how do you feel? Got a really bad headache? Ringing in the ears? Feel sick to your stomach? Light hurting your eyes?"

    When they lost consciousness, their muscles relaxed, lending more to bumps and bruises than Panos' head wound, the one saving grace for people under the influence in a short fall. Still, the young man was going to need a few stitches.

    "I'm going to need a suture kit, a drug tolerance screening and a bandage," he told Melvin as the Probe handed over the gauze and saline wash. "Do you have more of those smelling salts? Try to wake Gina over there, I'm going to need the help. Hopefully, she can help identify any other friendlies in here and we can start helping the other injured."

    "Also," he said, gritting his teeth as he poured the room temperature saline on Panos' wound as another bulge appeared in the Probe's pocket, which proved to be a canvas field surgical kit with sterile sutures in paper packets, not unlike the military surplus they had aboard the transport shuttle only yesterday, but felt like days. "See if you can find the porcupine that got Kevin? I don't need any more surprises."

    A thought crossed his mind as he patted the wound gently with gauze to clear away the blood. "Melvin, could you make a weapon for me, a gun or..."

    The Probe paused as it leaned over Gina, raising one eyebrow in silent censure.

    "Sorry to ask," Jeon scowled back. "I'll just take on the world with these forceps and bandage shears."

    Melvin sighed and crushed the ammonia capsule under Gina's nose.
    Much like Jeon, the girl first began to sniffle, then cough, her head wriggling against the probe’s supporting hand in an attempt to get away from the acrid gas. She mumbled some kind of incoherent protest and tried to bat the salts away with a flapping hand.

    “...only suppos’ to blow the bloody doors off…” Gina slurred groggily, scrunching her eyes a few times until she was able to focus on the probe holding her up. “Melvin?” she said, a little clearer.

    She sat up on one elbow, cuffing the stream of mucus from her nose and taking stock of the fact that she was now on the floor beneath the table. Her gaze travelled around the dining hall to take in Panos clinging to Jeon, councillor Hedspeth moaning on the ground with his arse in the air, and all the people still lying unconscious.

    “Oh fuck.” Gina cursed in broader-than-usual Leicester brogue, and groped for the nearest chair to pull herself up. “Where did Cal go?”

    On indefinite hiatus. I remain purple only for technical support, please direct queries to Scottie or another staffer. Thank you RPA for being my second home for so many years, and every member who makes this the wonderful place it is.



    Click here daily to vote for RPA!

  8. #128
    The Replicant
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    Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility

    Sending Editha off within a carriage out of Whitebar to the Elven Queendoms wasn't difficult, but she could see her guards were in frenzy to find the invisible attacker. She could hear whispers, men asking for 'the mage', looking for this person. Whomever they were talking about, the men all seemed to agree that this person was needed for the search. Her passing through the snow from the stables to the castle was brief, but not forgettable when it went for her skin.

    Though she returned back to her fortress, several minutes passed before she was warm again. Following her feelings back to the Multiverse Travelers, Calamity was led back to the door of the dining room. Yet to complicate things, now the door was barred with seven guards standing around with fierce dedication.

    Cal faltered for no more than a second when she saw the guards, then straightened her back and strode confidently toward them.

    "Stand aside," she commanded, "I need to enter." From within, she thought she could hear something - a muffled groan? Could they have awoken, inside? Cal certainly hoped so; though the chill in the air outside had sharpened her senses a bit, she was nowhere close to recovered. She didn't know if she'd have the strength to use her power yet.


    Georgina Wright, Jeon Smythe, & Panos Lambros

    The Lambros prince winced as Jeon worked on the small injury he had suffered from the fall. Gina herself felt one nestled in her tresses, having landed with equally painful gracelessness when ripped out of consciousness. Gina prodded gingerly at the bump, still leaning heavily on the chair as she watched Melvin glide silently back over to Jeon and Panos. As her eyes fell on the beautiful prince, Panos eyed her with discontent.

    Come on Panos, give me a fucking break here. Gina didn't have the energy for another argument, and by the looks of it they couldn't afford the time anyway. Across the table from her, the king and advisor Charlie were out cold, slumped over their goblets.

    Better they stay that way until Cal comes back, Gina thought. The king had clearly been too far gone to take Gina's hints anymore, and god knew how he would react when they woke him up. Using Cal's power on him was their only shot, unless they planned to drag him off somewhere until things were back under control. And even then...

    The thoughts racing through Gina's painfully-thumping head were interrupted by
    Kevin groaning. It was starting to get louder; perhaps loud enough to hear through the door.

    "My ass!" the man of social power and commanding of fear wailed, now holding no sort of lordship of anyone.

    "Ah, jeez." Gina muttered, looking at Jeon and the others. "I guess we'd better blame all this on the escaped Drac..." She jerked her head down towards councilman Hedspeth. "What are we gonna do with him, then?"

    "He's important," Jeon said, bandaging Penos' head wound. "The 'Drac' has a very powerful... gift." Panos released no sound, shutting his eyes as the sutures were woven in.

    Jeon gave Gina a meaningful look, then glanced around the room. Who knew who might be listening. Nodding, Gina pursed her lips and regarded Hedspeth. Her eye fell upon the Uranus tattoo on the man's forearm, showing dark against his skin beneath his ripped sleeve. Altered consciousness, unexpected change.

    Another candidate for Cal's powers, then. But if he was the key, were they supposed to elevate him or eliminate him? Gina had to admit she wasn't too keen on the former. Even after meeting him only twice, she had gathered that councilman Hedspeth was a nasty bastard.

    They needed Cal.

    Climbing up onto the table and trotting through the clay cups to jump down on the other side, Gina began to scan over the unconscious king. If he too held the symbol, then it would be a badly-needed clue for them.

    The inside of her arm needled as she patted down the velvet jacket straining to contain the king's belly. Tugging his collar aside revealed a streak of black. Gina traced it with a finger, and discovered a tattoo to match the Uranus symbol on councilman Hedspeth's arm. Unexpected change... Were they supposed to change both of them?


    Gina, Jeon, and Panos felt Calamity making her way through the fortress but now heading straight to them.

    "That," Jeon muttered as he felt her approach, "Is the weirdest sensation."

    The Probe frowned, noting the new arrival outside as its keener hearing picked up Cal's words. Walking over to Kevin, the probe easily picked up the councilman and carried him over to the table.

    "Melvin, what are you...?" Jeon frowned as the Probe laid Keith face down, with his butt facing the door. Raising its left arm, it projected a holographic image of an otherwise empty room past its impaled victim.

    Gina caught Jeon's eye from the other side of the table, eyebrows raised in silent question at the demonstration. Jeon could only shrug.

    Opening the door just a crack, the Probe waved at Cal to come inside with its right hand. Hopefully, the guards would not notice anything past the narrow arc it provided.
    Panos stared up at Jeon, searching for something from the man through needy eyes. Yet with Calamity now close enough to be outside the door, the prince gritted his teeth.

    She made a promise, the prince told himself mentally, and went to grab a plate off the table. Not caring for the wet contents that fell over the table, he used the plate to whack the quills deeper into Kevin’s backside - the man screamed a deep sharp cry. The plate was tossed, metal thudding and ringing secondary to the Adviser's sounds of pain. Both Jeon and Gina flinched.

    "What the bloody...!" Jeon demanded, rushing over to Kevin's side. "Medbot, I mean Melvin, I need my kit!"

    The Probe however was watching Panos, with something approaching a slight smile on its artificial lips. Until the door closed, it couldn't risk moving without making the hologram hiding the rest of the room revealing itself.

    "I'd give you a drink, but that pill you took earlier with me does actually work," Jeon told Kevin, rubbing his shoulder while staring at the three quills sticking out of the man's posterior.


    Panos ran to the door and opened it, the guards peering down at him immediately. "It is a terrible operation which is being done." the prince explained. Panos had hidden his wound by rearranging his hair, leaving Calamity ignorant of the damage she had inadvertently caused.

    Rushing at her, Panos hugged her desperately.

    The guards at the door lowered their heads in respect, stern faced. Cal could see however the worry on their faces for the odd situation at hand. On the other hand, she could guess that they would be pliable for many commands now, in their currently frazzled state and her own as their strong, stated ruler.

    Cal returned the embrace, knowing Panos would likely be furious about her leaving him, again. It wasn't as though she'd really had a choice, but she doubted that would matter to the emotional royal.

    "Come on," she said to him in a gentle voice, and kept an arm around his shoulder, guiding him back into the room.

    "Ensure that we are not bothered," she told the guards as she passed. They must be confused, maybe even suspicious about what was going on - she hoped they would be gone from this place, before things had the opportunity to get any worse.
    At the beginning of her words, Calamity saw their posture sharpen. They needed not speak for her to know that their duty was going to be upheld. Passing the men in armour, the royals entered the dining hall and beheld the bewildering consequences of Calamity's magic.

    Gina cat-footed back across the top of the table, holding up her gown to avoid bowling over any more cups, and dropped down to run across the hall on her clopping platforms. Once Cal and Panos were both inside, she pushed the great doors shut so that Melvin could switch off his highly conspicuous light projection.

    "Thank fuck." Gina whispered once they had privacy once again. "Don't worry about the mess; we'll blame it on the Drac if we have to...where'd you go?"


    "You were all...I couldn't wake you!" Cal responded, the relief on her face evident that Panos, Jeon and Gina had returned to consciousness. "So I had to go without you. Editha wasn't keen on our plan at first - she attacked me! But I bested her, and sent her off to the queen. She'll do as we...as I instructed." Hearing the words from her open mouth, even she looked a little surprised. She had done it, all by herself!

    Gina clenched both fists and gave a little bob of elation. "Good one!" She sobered. "But we've kinda got another problem..."

    She pointed towards the whimpering Kevin, lying in an undignified sprawl across the table, before turning back to Cal and Panos.

    "I dunno about you but I've had enough of this Game of Thrones shit. So what do you reckon, Voice him and the king?" She looked round at Jeon to include him in the discussion, and hesitated. “I know it’s not exactly a...good thing to do to someone, but if they’re going to get everyone killed otherwise…”


    "I...I can try..." Cal said. "I've never done anything so big as that, before. I felt it..."

    For the first time, the princess wondered what would happen, if she tried something too far beyond her energy. Could it kill her, this power? Pushing the thought from her mind, she looked determinedly at Kevin.

    "So we need him to forget?”


    “Forget about murdering his way through the government, maybe.” Gina frowned, crossing her arms. “And we need a king who’ll stop getting pissed and just focus on looking after his own people, instead of just fucking off everybody else.”

    She rolled up her sleeve and traced the line of tattoos on her arm.

    Unexpected, societal change - like the book said, right? Unless anyone’s got a better idea.”

    Cal looked at Kevin again.
    “Okay...but what...what's happened to him?" The strangeness of the scene before her still struck a baffling chord.

    "Well," Jeon sighed, filling a syringe with a local anesthesia. "It would appear that after he blacked out, Kevin managed to land on top of a porcupine. Given our present location, I wouldn't expect them to be native to this area. Possibly someone's pet?"

    He shot a glare at the Probe, but Melvin was unaffected. With a sigh, he gave the syringe a little pump to remove air, then aimed to jab it through Kevin's trousers, near the quills.

    "Sorry, that may sting a bit," he said. "We'll give you a few moments, then we'll pull out these nasty quills."
    The slender spines were lodged firmly into Kevin’s backside, a small pool of blood coming from Panos' blunt trauma upon them. His right buttock muscle was spasming, body squirming. The Zyan doctor was in a contest to get Kevin to hold still as the Councilman kept waving his gory posterior side to side.

    "Why do people always have to make things difficult?" Jeon muttered, thrusting his hip against Kevin's. "Melvin, press on his other side to keep him still!"

    Meanwhile, Panos kept to himself, never letting Calamity release her arm around his shoulder. He kept close, to make them inseparable. As he was observant of things, he laid his eyes on Gina and stared with bitter tolerance.

    She never stops speaking. Her accent is horrible and obnoxious. He could hardly stand it. Her drawn words made her sound something akin to a vagrant.

    "Let them murder the king, why would we care? The life of a royal is to be assassinated." The bullet wound phantom hole in his back throbbed, his lonely vision falling back to his now distant lover universes apart. Panos brought his insight through a tense jaw. "There's nothing redeemable about that man's life."

    Among the bodies on the ground, the red-haired man with pointed ears was the focus of Panos' attention. He pointed. "And him, he needs to end! He'll find us out!" To this the prince picked up an unnatural degree of personal slight, finding the red-haired magician to be some enemy. His memory was an array of terrible things which had happened to him, finding the length of red locks all too familiar to his assault only hours past.

    Panos looked at Calamity. He grabbed onto her dressed and looked deep into her gaze.

    "Do something!" He urged her, in the same desperate tone as when Editha admitted her conspiracy.

    "Okay! Okay..." Cal swallowed, looking between Kevin and the king. If she only had the strength to use her voice on one, it should be the king. If the wounded man was a murderer, then...

    "Let’s start with the king."

    Gina hurried back round to the king’s side and held out her hand towards Jeon’s probe. “Melvin, can you chuck us some more of those smelling salts?”

    The probe raised one eyebrow at Gina, then reached into its pocket to hand a vial to the young woman. It then resumed pressing against Kevin's hips, while Jeon prepared to jab the syringe.

    Gina cracked the top of the vial and started waving it back and forth under the slumped king’s nose.

    "When you wake, your need for alcohol will be gone," Cal directed her words to the stirring ruler, her brows furrowed in concentration. She clutched a little tighter to Panos at the exertion of her power, not knowing if her knees would buckle beneath her again.

    "All that matters is your duty... your people. You will leave your debauchery behind... it's time to be better. Yo-"
    The willpower exerted to create a new string of suggestive magic was the tipping point. The royal teenagers without warning fell, as Panos landed on his knees to keep Calamity from the stone ground. The princess of Serroc's pain tolerance was tested in a passing second. Her mind and eyes felt as if they had both been slashed by a poisoned dagger, and cooked by the intense rays of the sun. The pain was traumatic and brief, leaving behind the echo of pain she would have never been able to surmount.

    In a second Calamity's health changed. The ache was a ghostly pain, dull and sharp, throbbing down her spine, and her knees gave way before her. What impact her knees had on the ground did not affect her, as now there was no sensation and no control of her body below the pelvis. Panos meanwhile hissed, for his knees felt the impact and fashionable leggings were not the cushion needed to prevent the skin from being bruised.

    “Cal!” Gina blurted, her eyes and mouth opening wide in shock. “Are you alright?”

    Each second was another throb, but the pain was going away, inching away up her spine and at last left her eyes. Calamity had become lame. It took a moment for her mind, ragged with the pain that had coursed through it, to register that her legs were not responding when she commanded them to move.

    "I can't get up..." she said, her voice a whisper of despair and disbelief.


    King Kinglos was groggy and put a hand to his eyes. His experience of intoxication and magical suggestion was not leaving him at his most alert and glorious.

    "Everyone please remain calm," Jeon ordered. "I am the doctor, after all. There may be an invisible prisoner in here still, and if we all start screaming and yelling, someone outside may try to open a door that it can use to escape."

    "Most importantly," he added, "Do not draw attention to the king or wake any other servants, as we don't want to draw its attention to him. Do you understand me, sir? Your master must abide for now until we can determine it is safe."

    Undoubtedly the others were looking at him as if he was mad, but the last thing he needed was an angry king bellowing and bringing the guards down on them all.


    Jeon and Melvin in this critical time managed to numb the Councilman's backside. Upon the dining table, the high status gentleman whimpered as something new was inserted into his gluteus. Then as the contents came Kevin laid himself out with a deep sigh, shoving aside food and cups carelessly. His spreading limbs let fall many loud metal pieces, pouring contents and splattered food.

    In that same loud moment Panos was clinging Calamity to his chest, struggling to keep her in a weak stance, with her not contributing in the slightest. His legs were shaking while hers lay upon the ground.

    Not my only friend! Panos' thoughts were wracked with fear. He didn't want to lose someone he was getting close to. Even if she was female, Panos was now beginning to find her useful and understandable. She was a tragic cripple now? His eyes shut tight, straining physically and emotionally. She knew his secrets, she was supposed to be able and help him through this hell. Tears rimmed his eyes and the fair prince tried to move the fair princess to a chair to sit on. Grunting and threatening to buckle his and her weight at any moment the Lambros descendant wasn't aware he was about to set his foot in a fallen slab of meat that Kevin's shin had shoved away.

    “Panos, wait!” Gina snapped at the struggling prince, her voice sharp with worry, “Just lay her down or you might hurt her more! Hang on, I’m coming...”

    She scrambled up onto the table again, this time unconcerned about knocking over what was left of the tableware.
    The second she shouted and darted to save her two fellow travelers the door to the dining room jostled. As swift as it opened ajar it was slammed back shut, the handle shaking from the force. From the other side of the wood men were arguing back and forth, the words not discernible.

    Panos took Gina's help to lower Calamity only because he was too weak to do much with Calamity other than drop her if he had continued. The lame princess was set upon her back, head on Panos' lap. The commotion at the door drew deep ire from the prince, and the blanched haired youth stared down at Gina.

    "This is your fault!" he hissed under his breath. They were trapped in a room, none of which could be properly explained if it were seen. And now Gina and her obnoxious need to always know what to do, opened her loud lips and drew too much attention to them. From his frustrated eyes a tear slipped and splashed on Calamity's forehead. Panos kept her close, clutching to her shoulders.

    “Oh fuck off, Panos!” Gina whispered back harshly, finally stressed past her breaking point. Her mind was churning with a dozen different fears, and not least among them was the fear that Panos was right. I told her she should use her magic on the king, it was my idea…

    She felt her throat close up, and her vision starting to blur. Her heart was racing and dragging her breathing along with it.

    You can’t help anybody - you just make it worse. Shane and Leanna, Baka and Vahsi, now even Cal. Just like Nisha!


    Behind them the shaken king of Greywall pulled himself to his hands and knees. Slowly he was crawling his way to the table and feebly trying to reach up to the table as a sturdy balance to stand with. Cal gave no protest at being laid down, her shock at the lost connection with her legs casting a fog around her mind, drowning out what was going on around her. When the tear hit her face, she looked up, the rest of the room coming back into focus... she watched the king stir, and muttered in a low, detached voice to the others.

    "We cannot tell him it was my gift that crippled me. We'll have to say it was the assassin - that he attacked me, then fled off somewhere."


    Gina scrubbed furiously at her reddening eyes. She reached down to squeeze Cal’s hand as Panos continued to support her shoulders.

    “Don’t worry about that.” she said, in a soft but horribly strained voice. “Just lie still for a moment, where does it hurt?”


    "It doesn't." Cal responded in the same flat voice, not looking at Gina. "My legs... I don't feel anything."

    "I'm going to need some alcohol and a suture kit," Jeon scowled, then stared down in surprise as the Probe pulled them out of its pocket.

    "How do you do that?" he asked, taking the bottle and suture packs. "I don't suppose you could get me a gun? We might need to shoot our way out of here..."

    The Probe scowled up at him and solemnly shook its head.

    "Well, it was only a thought...." Jeon shrugged.
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 03-08-2019 at 11:06 AM.
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  9. #129
    PREACH FORGIVE ME PLEASE I BEG OF YOU!
    Minkasha's Avatar
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    “Jeon…” Gina broke in from down on the floor. “Cal can’t feel her legs, I think there might be something seriously wrong.” The girl was pale and trembling. “I’m just a first aider, I need your help.”

    Jeon glanced over at Cal, concerned. "Please check on her, Melvin. I don't know what happened but at the moment this is the more pressing matter."

    Laying the suture packs on the table next to the cotton pads he got earlier, Jeon opened the bottle of alcohol and poured it on Kevin's much mangled posterior.

    "Just cleaning the area," he said, capping the bottle and picking up a pair of Kelly forceps."You may feel a slight pinch."


    Kevin whimpered, having impromptu medical work over a high society dining table with his bare, prodded arse exposed might have finally reached the shameless politician.

    "Jeon! I don't want to be here anymore!" The adviser slammed his hand on the hard wood table, and suddenly regretted it. "Owwww!"

    "Now now," Jeon said reassuringly, plucking the first quill out and pressing a gauze pad in place. "We can't have you leaving like this! As it is, you'll be spending the next week or two sitting in a sling."

    Panos kept Calamity's head on his thighs, kneeling on bent legs and glaring at Gina as she shuffled back to give Melvin access. This is your fault.

    Gina found herself actually empathising with councillor Hedspeth’s words. I don’t want to be here any more.

    Ith thith a dream? I really want thith to be a big, big dream.


    Gina bit silently at her nails as Jeon’s robot checked Cal over with unemotional precision.

    Shriek. Bang. This is your fault.

    The Probe waved it's hand over Cal’s body gravely, then gave the girls a brusque nod before trotting back to Jeon, plucking another card from its pocket, filled with her stats and primary diagnosis.

    Rising behind them was the reborn king, coming to his feet with his body heavily leaning against the table. With noble gesture the man pushed aside his wavy black hair and pushed his nose to the air. His vision was a glazed and squinting one, now setting on Gina - making him the second royal to currently be staring intently at her.

    "You had strong ideas, tell me them again." The magic Calamity cast did nothing to remove the fact that king Kinglos had drank himself drunk. In his drunkard state the high royal among them did not notice the many bodies laid undignified in every direction of the dining room.

    The dining room door became quiet and the commotion of the soldiers to open it or close it luckily ceased for the multiverse travelers. Gina twisted round, her heart still fluttering as she belatedly remembered Kinglos. The king looked calmer now, suggesting that Cal’s magic had had at least some effect on him. And he was speaking to her.

    Gina felt dry-mouthed and sick with adrenaline. Jeon was busy with Hedspeth, and Panos and the robot were tending Cal. They needed her to handle the king for them...and for a horrible moment, she couldn’t do it. All she could think about was her own racing pulse, and the arguments she had been making to the king only five minutes ago seemed to have flown her mind. Her brain was blank.

    “M-m’lord…” she stalled, rising to her feet. The king stood on the other side of the table, unsteady but proud, with the pierced Drac hand of the Sauver banners hanging behind him.

    Dracs. She snatched at the thought in desperate relief. The adviser. The elves. For fuck’s sake Gina, Cal and the others need you! Breathe. Think.

    With an effort she arrested her shallow breathing and took a deeper one, squeezing her hands together in front of her.

    “I...I was just suggesting, m’lord…” She stumbled over the first few words, but felt her heart slowing down from its panicked state as she focused on what she needed to do. “If you tell the people that your foreign adviser is being sent to take care of the elves, they’ll know that you’re keeping the alliance strong. That you’re keeping them safe.”

    She coughed to clear her throat, stifling it with her hand.

    “The marchioness stands behind you, she’ll keep the Draconians away from the border. It’s probably the best option, ’cause if we attacked them back it’d only unite them all against us and...well, that might not be a war we can win.”


    The Probe watched Gina gravely as Jeon sutured the punctured poppinjay's posterior. Propping up the king wouldn't go well with the Council, and there was a chance they would go after Jeon for failing as their assassin. Perhaps he should shoot the king with the drugged pellets, put him into the same state as his magician?

    The lulled king pushed himself off the table, using the tall back of wooden chair to keep himself straight and glanced around, gazing over everyone.

    "Yes, hmph...my people! Get up now!" He clapped his hands once, wobbling in his platform shoes where he stood. Lunging for the chair to prevent himself crashing onto the ground he maintained some dignity. His regal cloak shivered behind him. "None of my subjects listen to me!" He sounded equal parts frustrated and inebriated.

    Gina swallowed. “Umm..they’re asleep m’lord, there was an incident…”

    Even though they had already agreed to blame it on the escaped prisoner, how were they supposed to go about explaining a room full of unconscious bodies?

    “A prisoner escaped from the dungeon. He had some kind of…” She had to grasp for a split second to remember the word that the serving woman had used. “Arcanium on him. It knocked everyone out. Doctor Bonadio has been helping to wake us all up again, but…” She looked at Cal, but Panos’ accusing glare soon forced her to turn back to the king. “Somehow, the marchioness got hurt…”

    It was evidently a lot for the drunk king to process.
    Gradually walking around the table, going from chair to chair to keep himself standing, his steps were slowed with grunts, sighs and head rubbing.

    Gina hovered, torn between thinking it was a good idea to guide the king back to a seat and not wanting to leave Cal’s side, even though there was precious little she could do. She felt a shiver frizzon down her back and drag through her stomach. Come on, Melvin. she silently pleaded with Jeon’s equally silent robot companion. Please help her, please…

    Rounding the end of the table opposite Jeon and Kevin, the king was trying to near Calamity and Panos. "Get up, I have something we...should talk about on our feet! Stand with me, marchioness."

    Panos shot daggers at Gina.

    "Do you have any social intelligence or decorum? 'The marchioness stands behind you'?" He mocked with such bitter vitriol, he clasped onto Calamity and drew her head closer to his stomach. Bubbling with so many feelings, it was too much to keep himself together. His pale face flushed with an anger he'd not shown before, replacing his cold with burning hot. "Really, you should kill yourself!"

    "Panos!" Cal exclaimed, shocked at the outburst - the animosity from him to Gina had not entirely escaped her notice, but she hadn't quite realised the level of his vitriol. "I know you speak in my defense, but choose your words more carefully - remember we are in the presence of the king!" As she spoke his title, she turned toward the ruler, her face resuming its mask of calm, the shock of losing her legs not yet giving way to panic. "I apologise - I'm sure you understand my husband being emotional at my attack. As the lady said, I am afraid the assassin has caused me injury, highness," she said apologetically. "But rest assured my loyalty and spirit are as strong as ever - and I have every faith the good doctor will be able to restore me to my full capacity."

    In truth, she felt no such thing - but she could hardly admit that to the king! Who could say how he'd react to his frontline commander rendered lame? She must present a strong face, if they were to convince him along their chosen path.

    The final quill removed, Jeon was putting in a couple of sutures to hold the wound channel closed as Melvin approached him with the card.

    "Hmmm?" he said, giving it a glance - and frowned. "Cal, have you had a back injury recently?"

    Although she tried to hide it, he caught Gina’s horrified expression. The young first aider clearly knew what spinal injuries could mean. Jeon took up the scissors to trim the last suture. Of course, how would he know if any of them were in their original bodies? He didn't show up in this world wearing his spacesuit, after all.

    And there was energy, now fading.... had it been acting as a sort of shunt? Bridging the gap?

    From the look of the injury, she needed to have the nerves repaired, a very delicate surgery in the best of places. And this was not the best of places. Back home, it would take a full robotic surgical suite with micro-tractors to make this sort of neural repair! Where was he going to find...?

    Jeon turned, looking speculatively at the Probe, which made it frown with concern and take a step back.
    Kevin continued laying on the table, without any sense of shame at his backside being out, as he revelled in the faded pain. He groaned occasionally but was looking around; he might get back to his full senses soon.

    Panos shut his mouth, the bold emotion in his eyes locking down Gina into an unforgiving contest of wills. The crystalline blue was sharp enough that she might feel it would cut her flesh. Flushed and furious, he wasn't giving reprieve even to blink.

    The king in his stupor stared down at Calamity and Panos - it came to him slowly, the royal girl's condition. They could see it processing gradually until his eyes were wide.

    "O’doln! Where are you!?" the highest royal in the room shouted for the elfin man, circling where he stood to search. Unfortunately the king wasn't in his clearest state to look down and see the magician collapsed on the ground among the others.

    Cal's eyes followed the king as his attention left her, seeking out his physician. He would soon realise what was in front of him - regardless of his state, his wizard among the multiple prone bodies on the floor was something impossible to remain ignorant of forever. They would need to address it - without implicating her - before he saw, and arrived at his own conclusions on what were frankly very suspicious circumstances.

    "My lord, O'doln is ... indisposed." she told him, pushing down her shock and fear still further - there would be time to lose her composure later, when they had escaped this disaster... if they escaped it. "He fell before the others, the assassin, he might have slipped something into his drink... it is lucky I instructed the servers to give you only the best vintage, and not the same barrel as the rest, or you might have been struck down too!"


    Gina’s gaze followed the king’s own towards O’doln, lying just inside the doorway. It was just as well if the king believed that his wizard was incapacitated by something other than the sleep that had beset Alfred and the others. Gina had no idea how magic worked in this universe as opposed to Cal’s, but after seeing how suspicious and protective O’doln had been of the king around Hedspeth...she could guess how the wizard might react if he discovered that his king had been hexed.

    She looked at Kinglos. Was it right, what they were doing? Were they just nudging him towards the better leader he could be? Or were they fucking with his head in a way that made them no better than the ghosts of Austere and West Hills? The king was still unsteady on his feet, Cal’s words filtering slowly through the wine in his system.

    “Please sit down a moment, m’lord.” Gina backed Cal up, offering to guide the swaying king into the nearest chair. “The doctor’s doing everything he can.”


    Jeon frowned, turning away from the Probe to glance between Cal, his other patient, and the king, whom Cal was trying to manage like he and Gina had attempted to earlier. Of course, it was delaying her treatment, and he had yet to hear the cause!

    "Can't you do something?" Jeon muttered to the Probe/Melvin.

    The Probe raised an eyebrow - not out of any actual need, just to show the Zayan sarcasm. Reaching into its right-hand pocket, it produced an old-fashioned syringe, neatly capped in glass to protect the needle, filled with a grayish liquid, that it passed up to Jeon.

    "Is that for....?" the doctor asked, glancing at the king. The Probe shook its human puppet head, then pointed at Cal - more precisely, at her back.

    "What is this?"

    The Probe rolled its eyes, taking the syringe back. Walking over to Cal, it handed the syringe to Gina to hold while it knelt down beside the stricken young woman and began fumbling with her clothes to smooth the section over the spine.


    Gina knelt down beside them once more and cradled the syringe, gnawing on her lip the whole while. The murky grey liquid looked nothing like any injection she had seen before. Her friend’s life was out of her hands, and the helpless feeling was every bit as raw as back in West Hills. She glanced up at Panos, but the young prince was still glaring murder at her.

    Was he feeling the same, she wondered with sudden clarity. He had clung to the emperor Lycas in his home universe, dangerous though he was, and then had been ripped away. He had clung to the equally dangerous Vahsi through two planets of hell, and then been ripped away from him too. Now Cal, his last protector...and it was out of his hands to help, and he could deal with it even less than Gina could. It didn’t explain why he had randomly attacked her and nearly derailed their plan earlier, but that didn’t matter now.

    “She’ll be alright.” she whispered, and then dropped her hands to squeeze Cal’s between her own. “You’ll be alright.”

    I’m sorry. she wanted to say. I didn’t know your power would do this, I didn’t mean for you to get hurt… There were many things she hadn’t meant to happen in the past few weeks.

    In front of the king, she couldn’t voice the thoughts aloud. All she could offer Cal was a stricken expression.

    “You’ll be alright.” she whispered again to the other girl, “I’m sorry...” I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…


    Having smoothed the fabric of the thick woolen dress along Cal's spine, the Probe extended its index finger, holding it up across its lips while looking at Panos, as if to say be quiet. It then ran the fingertip down the back of the dress, letting the mono-filament diamond edge neatly cut the edge of the fabric without nicking the skin. Not that she could have felt it, at this stage.

    "How did you...?" Jeon demanded, leaning over to watch as the Probe spread the slash to expose the skin of the back with its left hand.

    Retracting the mono-filament edge of its fingernail, the probe held its right palm over the girl's back and gently bathed it in UV light. Now that the skin was doubly clean, it took the syringe from Gina, taking off the cap protecting the fine sterile needle with its teeth and with one swift calculated move, plunged it into her back, between the vertebra.

    "Now, hold on! What are you....?" Jeon demanded as 2 cc's of repair mix - surgical nanites and stem cells poured into the small gap. With machine-like smoothness, it pulled the needle out and recapped the syringe.

    Reaching into its pocket once again, it produced a white fusible patch. Tugging the slash straight and pushing the edges together, it laid the patch over the cut and ran its warmer left palm down the patch, which softened and melted into the fabric. In a few moments of rubbing, it had vanished.

    "So," Jeon drawled. "How long until she's better, Melvin?"

    The probe held up one finger and proscribed an arc, then held up five fingers.

    "Five days?"

    The Probe nodded.

    "What if we have to move before then?" Jeon snapped.

    The Probe held up one finger and proscribed a short distance of its original arc, and held up two fingers.

    "Two minutes?"

    The Probe shook its head.

    "Two... hours?"

    The Probe nodded. The stuff worked, but absent a Chrysalis machine, it couldn't heal any faster


    "What did that child just do!?" Panos asked with a heightened sense of ignorance turned into panic. The conversation between Jeon and this boy was vague and why did the others trust the mute easily?

    "It's not a child," Jeon said. "Med... Melvin's older than I am. He started teaching me medicine. Be assured, he wouldn't do anything to harm her."

    The Probe didn't bother correcting the Zayan.

    While everyone crowded around lame Calamity on the mend, the king was fumbling his way to the doors with a mildly sloppy sense of urgency. Calamity caught a glance of the unruly monarch and reached out to touch Gina's wrist.

    "The king!" She was in too much of a daze to figure out how she would cover this up further if the door was swung open now. Her whisper was an urgent one, amethyst eyes pleading for Gina to take intervening action.

    Gina blinked in momentary confusion, then felt her stomach drop as she saw the king had wandered away from his seat again and was tottering towards the door.

    Oh shit. Snap out of it, Gina!

    She scrambled up and hurried after Kinglos before he could open the door.

    “Please, m’lord,” she hailed him, taking the king’s arm with gentle insistence, “Wait until the prisoner has been caught. It might not be safe yet, especially if he has more arcanium.”

    She wondered if Cal’s soldiers, tasked with finding the invisible Drac, would think to scan the snow outside for non-human footprints. Surely they would. And if there was no trail to follow they would at least know that the Drac was still inside the castle somewhere. Gina glanced at Panos. If Cal couldn’t walk then perhaps he would have to...

    She tried a second time to guide the king back to the table, shuffling carefully around the sleeping bodies. O’doln was prominent among them with his crumpled robe and long red hair fanned in a tangle across the ground. As she looked, Gina realised that she couldn’t see the wizard’s chest rising and falling with breath. Was he...?

    Another whimper from the table drew her attention to Kevin, whom Jeon was still trying to keep pinned. And there lay - quite literally, Gina thought - their biggest problem. Unexpected change...the zodiac-marked king might fulfil that, thanks to Cal's magic, but they would need to put the fear of god into the equally-marked councilman to stop his conspiracy going ahead.

    Gina could smell wine on the king’s laboured breath, and her head was spinning with so many imperatives that she felt half drunk herself.

    The king, the prisoner, O’doln, Kevin. Oh Jesus.

    The rustle of movement caught Jeon's attention. "Sir, please stop. We can't let anyone into this room without risking the prisoner escaping."

    Medbot turned. From this angle, there wasn't enough exposed skin for the Probe to target with the drug darts. It could use its tractors, but if the king cried out, the guards would come in.

    Holographic projection? Put one of the dragoniods from the dungeon in front of the door? No, the King would definitely summon help. And in that summons, Jeon was likely to be hurt.


    The other girl was tugging on the king's sleeve, trying to draw him back. In the king's current state of suggestibility, perhaps it didn't have to do anything drastic, such as pulling its body back through the N-Gate and popping it out in front of the door.

    It could always tranq everyone conscious in the room and wipe out the memories of the last few minutes, like it had with an engineering student friend of Jeon's who discovered the Probe's N-Gate, but what damage would that do to the situation?


    Kevin had a great view of what was happening while on the table. He and Panos together glared while Gina was able to redirect the king away from the door.

    "Jeon, tell me what is happening." Kevin demanded, struggling to keep up with events. Panos brushed a hand through Calamity's hair and the princess shut her eyes if only to give herself a moment to breathe.

    "My lord, everything will be settled in time. Relax please." Calamity said aimlessly, able to be a suitable reply to Kevin and to the king. In Gina's hold she felt the king give up more tension, becoming more pliable to her will. He seemed to shut down into his thoughts, perhaps quieting while he was overwhelmed himself.

    "How do we get out?" Panos glanced at the scene and its chaos, thinking as he grew tired of this. In fact, he was exhausted of it, he avoided speaking out loud as Kevin and the King were both conscious. His eyes went back between Jeon and Gina, despite everything they had to work together to get Calamity and himself out of this. He waited for them to come closer as they could speak under their breath.

    Gina picked up a cup of water from among the abandoned detritus scattered across the long-table, and handed it to the pacified king. She bobbed a curtsy before hurrying to join the others.

    “Did you tell the guards to look for footprints in the snow?” she questioned in a whisper. “We’d at least be able to tell if that Drac’s still in the castle.”


    "I've not talked to any guards," Jeon said softly, leaning in. "Good idea though. I wasn't sure we weren't followed up from the dungeon."

    Leaning back, he said loudly, "They were torturing Dracs below, and one of them got loose and attacked its tormentor, then left. I'm afraid it might have followed us up - everyone here was knocked out, myself included. Melvin woke me, I found you with quills stuck in your rear. We're trying to stay quiet, I think the Drac may still be here, invisible by magic."


    That shut Kevin up quickly. There was not an honorable bone in his body to help the situation. Now the lengthy dining table was occupied by a half mentally competent king and a shrinking councilman. The king sipped his water haphazardly, some splashing on his person.

    Panos noticed how the councilman believed Jeon's story quite easily. The Lambros prince spoke up about the fact to the other travelers with a low voice, eyes on Jeon.

    "Keeping to those words is an easy solution. Who would challenge us in the castle? We will at least get out of here."

    Calamity opened her eyes gradually and sighed, enduring as gracefully she could her circumstances. She was torn, her persona being a strong and clearly very scary leader. What would happen if she was openly displayed a cripple?

    "If I'm seen...like this...the staff and soldiers might not respect my authority as they do now." A teenage girl who couldn't walk wasn't very scary.

    Gina tugged at her hair. Or they might go on a rampage after the one who hurt their marchioness. It was difficult to tell how much of the castle staff’s loyalty to Cal was from honour and respect and how much was from the more tenuous grip of fear.

    “You said two hours, yeah?” Gina whispered, looking at Jeon for confirmation. “We can run interference for you until then...”

    Glancing around the hall, Gina reflected that it might take almost that long just to wake everyone in the room back up and explain the situation to them.

    “Panos is your husband, and that blue knight’s seen me going about the king’s business. We could help them search so long as someone stays here with the king. Someone needs to take Hedspeth round the back though.”

    She saw Jeon’s querying look, and leaned closer to drop her voice still further.

    “If the king’s gonna have a chance, we need to deal with the council. Tell him people know, and he’s being watched. Tell him if he tries anything else...or anyone else turns up dead, then there’ll be hell to pay.”

    Gina’s tone was more certain than she herself felt, but she reasoned that aside from being the one with the mark, Hedspeth was clearly the lynchpin of the whole conspiracy. People feared him whereas advisor Charlie was innocent and Mr Dutt, if Caroline was to be believed, didn’t have many original thoughts of his own. The foreign advisor was already dealt with, courtesy of Cal’s quick thinking.

    Gina hoped it would be enough, but again she reasoned that if the council were forced to use Jeon as a poisoner, they didn’t have the power to rise up against the king by force.

    “I can do either.” she offered, conscious of Jeon’s seemingly close tie to Hedspeth and Panos’ desire to stay close to Cal.


    "I can warn him to be cautious," Jeon said softly. "I just wish I knew more of what's going on and how I got caught up in it. I'm older, I can talk to the guards about the search while you keep an eye on things here."

    Stepping back, he turned towards Kevin. "Simply shocking these injuries, it's amazing the things that can happen when we're not cautious. Rash moves can be so dangerous, don't you agree?"


    Gina let her gaze slide off Jeon back to Cal and Panos, not wanting to look like she was listening in. She wasn't sure if Jeon's warning was forceful enough to keep Hedspeth in line, but on the other hand perhaps it would help for the councilman to think of Jeon as his ally for a little longer.

    Jeon sighed, leaning close.

    "No rash moves, lover," he whispered into Kevin's ears. "When the wizard went down, so did everyone else in the room. Either your council didn't know or set us up. Don't do anything lest we attract the wrong attention." Kevin shivered as Jeon whispered, face turning between wanting and genuine worry.

    "No, we all agreed. That couldn't be right." he whispered back and reached out to touch the doctor, now apothecary's collar. "I don't want my arse hanging out here. If we leave, by chance the assassin will come back and finish it?" He implied the death of the king who was dazed across from them at the table.

    "For now, we need him," Jeon warned softly, troubled. Assassin? Was there another, or did he refer to the missing Drac prisoner? Just how many were there? He did however raise Kevin's pants. "You need a little time to mend before we can move you, I'm afraid sitting is something you will not be doing much of the next few days."

    "I was stupid," Calamity began in defeatist self-deprecation, "I commanded the Draconian's healing. What they did to him was awful."

    "Cal, don't think that." Gina said softly, squeezing the younger girl's hand. After so nearly sinking down into a despairing spiral herself, she couldn't bear to think of her brave friend doing the same. "You did the right thing for a victim, you couldn't have known what he was going to do..."

    Or how. Just how the fuck had the prisoner gotten hold of the "arcanium" that granted him invisibility? Surely if he had had it on him the whole time, he would have used it to escape before now?

    Between her and Panos, Cal shivered.
    "I know he will strike back."

    Panos glanced around the room at all the bodies.

    "We could have Calamity act as another of the unconscious. Ask the captain of the guard," the adolescent royal mentioned him with disdain, "His guessed whereabouts of the attacker. If he's not in the castle we act as if she's still asleep, and take her back to our chambers. It has to be believed this is the work of the Draconian, not Cal." While he thought that out Calamity reached up and he grabbed her hand.

    "Unconscious would be better than crippled." the royal lady agreed, drawing a deep breath to calm herself.

    Gina nodded her own agreement, tugging pensively at the hair that had fallen over her shoulder. Would the Draconian's spell wear off, like her own brief, bizarre stint of invisibility back in West Hills? Would he be similarly forced to abandon clothes and armour, and any weaponry he couldn't hide inside a curled fist? Gina twitched as a nervous chill ran through her, her hand subconsciously rubbing the healed skin on her neck. The sheen of blood glazed over Rozaria's invisible face as she tried to tear out her throat was an image that was still seared into her nightmares.

    "I've got an idea." Gina whispered, thinking of smears of blood and wet footprints pressed into stairways. "Tell them to bring up bags of flour or something similar, and dust it on the floor. If not the whole castle, then definitely the route between here and Cal's room."

    I know he'll strike back. She swallowed. The Draconian had already taken down his torture master - if he was still willing and able to seek revenge, the marchioness who had held him prisoner would surely be next.

    "Then the guards can watch for non-human footprints while they escort us back." she finished, and then glanced over her shoulder. "What about the king? He's probably safer with us than anyone else right now."


    Turning to the king, Jeon approached respectfully and bowed slightly, keeping a few steps away. "It is important we remain calm, lest we are not alone in this room," he said, pitching his voice so that Kevin could hear him. "Should others enter unaware, whoever is responsible may yet escape. I will check with the guards to see if there are signs in the snow that the prisoner has made its escape while we were unconscious."

    Calamity turned her head and took Gina into her resilient amethyst eyes: purple hues of shock and steadiness. Smiling, the princess turned marchioness, turned royal cripple showed evident trust in Gina's leadership and problem solving. Panos rolled his eyes at Gina, biting back his forked-tongued criticism of the idea - motioning his head to watch Jeon.

    Where the king sat, he looked to be shaking, partially sober eyes glancing from body to body on the table.

    "Apothecary, these are my people." Speaking unlike any way he had before, Calamity's power proved itself potent. For all the newly-constructed qualities of ideal ruling, he was still mentally weak and intoxicated. And thus, he didn't look ready to leave his chair, leaning his elbows heavily on the wood. Kevin was staring, eyes narrowed, lips sucked in. "Go..." King Kinglos sent out Jeon to do as suggested.

    Gina rose and tiptoed her way around the sleeping bodies until she had sourced two abandoned wine carafes from the table. She carried them to the heavy doors and upended them over the floor, spreading dark purple liquid across the flagstones.

    “Don’t want anything sneaking in when we open the door.” she explained to Jeon as she passed him on her way back for more. She touched the doctor’s arm to briefly halt him. “I was just saying to Cal, you should get them to bring up flour or something and dust the floor up to her room. That way we’ll see his footprints whether he’s inside or outside the castle.”

    After she had doused the stones by the door with another wash of thick, syrupy wine, she hurried back to the group.


    "Ah, excellent idea!" Jeon beamed. He tiptoed over the wet floor to the door and paused with his hand on the knob. "Melvin, watch over them."

    The Probe scowled, but it had already pinged the Tarot card it had given him earlier that day, still in his pocket. At least it could keep tabs on him, as it opened the channel between them.

    Jeon paused as he closed the chamber door, then turned to face the nearest guard. "Has the Drac prisoner been found yet? Has anyone checked the snow outside for any sign of him?"

    "By the order of the Marchioness, flour is to be dusted between this room and her chambers. Our invader can make himself invisible, so we need to see if we can find him through careful examination.?"
    Thank you MayhemsCurse <3


    Spoiler: Memorable Quotes 

  10. #130
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    Jeon Smythe

    The gathering of seven armed men turned to face the doctor, eyes fierce with stress and anticipation as they fell upon him. Their visors were raised, enabling him to see Calamity's men had some range to them. The older men, in their late forties, watched Jeon with more scrutiny.

    "The Drac's feet were caught in the snow sir. That is the last I heard." a young guard answered quickly to Jeon's question. "Don't think he'll come back in now, don't know." The young man hesitated.

    "There's a trick where someone will leave tracks, and then walk backward in their own footsteps to disguise where they went," Jeon warned. "Is someone following to make sure they haven't suddenly disappeared?"

    "What is the state of your operation, apothecary?" one of the older soldiers asked, meeting Jeon as an equal rather than subservient in attitude.

    "There were complications," Jeon sighed, sizing up the soldier. He then glanced at the others, then leaned forward. "Is there someplace we can talk privately, you and I? I would hate to be the source of gossip, especially about...?"

    The Probe scowled, turning towards the door. What was that fool Zayan doing? Despite its instructions, it was concerned about the idiot. Besides, if he died, what guarantee did it have that whatever force brought them here would be compelled to return it to its own dimension? Taking down people with exposed skin was easier than the ones who wore armor correctly.


    In the game of wits, the older soldier lost, visibly backing away, "Our Commander is searching. I'm sure he's tracking all of that." He clapped his hand on the young man who had spoken before, patting metal, "Tell the kitchen women we need flour."

    The young man nodded and rushed off in a clatter of noise. "The Marchioness has orders we are not to enter." the man went on to say to Jeon, tone stoic and clear he wouldn't deviate from those orders. "If you want something else, we listen to her, sir."

    "Very good," Jeon sighed, giving the man a respectful nod. "The Marchioness has asked that the flour to be dusted between that room and her private chambers. A precaution only."

    Jeon returned back to the door and knocked.


    Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility, Gina Wright, Jeon Smythe & Panos Lambros

    "It's just me," he said.

    A scuffling sound and a click indicated Gina pulling the door ajar for him.

    Opening it slightly, he slid through the narrow opening and closed the door shut firmly behind him, glancing down at his shoes.

    "After this, whoever's in this body will need a new pair of shoes," he said softly to himself.

    Gina managed a flicker of a smile before hurrying back to Cal and the king. As Jeon and Gina moved, their shoes had a new stick to them from passing over the trap Gina had poured earlier.

    "Your men are getting flour to put on the floor between here and your private chambers. Hopefully this will not take long.”

    Calamity gently cleared her throat, reining in her voice to gather the authority needed for her part - for the king and councilman's ears.

    "Well done." As she looked up at Panos, who was looking down in return, they shared a short exchange in quiet tones.

    "You need to 'faint' soon." the prince reminded the princess.

    "We don't know the time the flour will take. I have to wait." Her eyes gestured to the loopy king. "Panos, hold on a little longer." She could easily see that between Gina (though she didn't understand the vitriol in which he had for her) and the events taken place here - he'd want out. An immature part of her complained, hated being the cripple and yet having to be strong for the shining prince who still had his whole body. But the mature, grief-stricken part knew the deep wounding Panos suffered that the others still hadn't been made aware of.

    He was acting from that place and she couldn't imagine how the world looked through his eyes now. If she thought losing her legs felt like her dignity was ripped from her, the now-titled Marchioness couldn't fathom what was left of Panos' dignity.

    The blanch-haired youth sighed and scanned the other travelers. This was a debacle. Pandemonium. He saw it with every body strewn on the ground, the bastard Kevin with his fat figure on the table, and the drunken, magically stupefied king.

    'The stupidity of circumstances is too much.'

    Gina twisted her mouth in tacit agreement with the prince’s sentiment, but he only glared at her, waiting for her to come closer. He looked at Jeon with more mercy in his eyes, waiting for the same.

    “So what’s the story?” Gina whispered to Jeon once they were all huddled together. “Any sign of the Drac?”

    "They found tracks in the snow leading away from the castle - but I've asked them to check them out to make sure the Drac hasn't doubled back or laid a false trail."

    “Then we just wait for the guards to come back with the answer, right?” Gina ventured.

    Jeon sighed softly. "Either way, we should expect trouble. If the prisoner has actually made his escape, they will undoubtedly tell someone what they've seen - and that includes the possibility that the king is here. Some sort of retaliation is likely - and this time they may all be invisible."

    “They can’t all do that, can they?” Gina whispered. All they knew was that the Drac had somehow smuggled ‘arcanium’ into the castle. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder how common the stuff was, or who might have given it to him.

    "If they haven't escaped, then they're hoping we'll relax our guard before they strike again. Either way, I see no choice in our next move - namely, wake everyone up and get them out of here."


    "No!" Panos stifled his gasp to the low volume of their clandestine conversation, "These people waking up will lead them to asking questions. Those who matter are already awake, it would be our best strategy to take them and secure ourselves." And this was being said all-the-while he despised the councilman, and also wanted Jeon's approval. But the fear of the red-haired magician on the ground was a defining feeling among his many while stuck in this room. If the magician began asking questions, what could he do to get the true answers?

    They could see the young noble give away his thinking with a tepid glance to the unconscious elfin man among the citizens and servants.

    Calamity drew her brows together. "Panos, it is my responsibility to take care of these people. It's not right, and politically that is what I have to do or I could be challenged later for not protecting them. I would be a bad leader the king couldn't trust."

    “I think we should at least wait til we find him before we start waking everyone up.” Gina suggested. “It’s gonna be hard enough to explain as it is…”

    She paused to look around.

    “With the floor dusted and the door locked it’ll be as safe as we can make it, and we might as well wait til the king’s a bit less pissed and you’re fit to walk again...you said two hours right?” she added, glancing with trepidation at Jeon and Melvin.


    Jeon glanced at the Probe, then nodded. "That seems to be the consensus."

    Gina slumped down onto the floor, her chin in her hands. “Would he really stay lurking around here?” she wondered aloud, as she pensively watched Kevin and the king over by the table. The foreign advisor had painted a brutal picture of the Draconians, but the escaped prisoner was alone in hostile territory - and horribly wounded too, according to Cal. “Wouldn’t he want to hide, or get back across the border to...to his own country, or wherever the rest of the Dracs are?”

    "He was down in that dungeon," Jeon sighed, shaking his head. "Escape seems reasonable, but if he's badly hurt, he may simply hole up somewhere while he recovers. Or he might lash out instead, figuring to take a few of us with him. I'm afraid I'm no expert on these creatures or their habits."

    Calamity sighed. “I had his wounds healed.” she reminded them, and Panos ran a hand through his bright hair.

    We should hide in our chambers. Less people...” the royal spoke sharply, impatient and no longer wanting to be in the room. “We should go.” he urged while holding tighter to Calamity’s clothes.

    “It shouldn’t be long now.” Gina tried to soothe him, propping herself with one palm against the floor as she craned back to glance at the door. “We just need them to finish dusting the floor...” She turned back to the others. “Someone should stay with the king - maybe me and Melvin?”

    "Panos could use a quiet place to rest, and we can then bring the staff in to take care of these people," Jeon said. "I wouldn't mind having a nice long talk about... all of this, but I think we need to bring Kevin and the King with us."

    There was a tug on Jeon's sleeve, and the Probe handed the doctor a card.

    "What's this.... oh!" he paused, reading the short note. "Cal, you may feel some sensation returning soon, but you need two hours to rest properly before doing any activity."


    The teenage girl nodded to the doctor's recommendation, staring at the ceiling and trying to think critically through her throbbing mind. Holding onto Panos' hand, focusing on him, helped her keep more sane somehow. Distracted her from the depths of where her thoughts could take her now.

    They needed space to talk as a group of four without the Councilman or the King near, but to leave the Councilman with the King was foolish - even with the wound in the former man's backside. She glanced to the strange child next to Jeon, not quite understanding his role in all of this.

    "Thank you for what you've done, we haven't had the time to introduce ourselves." Calamity began to Jeon, "Could you stay with the Councilman and the King? I need to...rest. Panos as well. I will speak to Gina who could return and let you know what we've shared?" the Marchioness asked the two of them desperately.

    Gina tugged at her hair, curling and recurling it around her fingers. With everyone asleep, she reminded herself, with a single guarded door, and with wine and flour on the floor to catch any invisible footsteps, the king and the others were safer here than anywhere else. Jeon just needed to watch Kevin - and, preferably, scare the shit out of him so he didn’t get any more ideas of regicide in the future.

    “Keep the king safe.” she whispered to Jeon and Melvin. “Otherwise we’ll maybe never get home.”


    There was a knock on the door.

    "The floor's ready!" A man said through the thick wood.

    "Keep the King safe?" Jeon scoffed, raising his eyebrow. "Who's going to keep me safe? Ow! Melvin!"

    The Probe lifted its boot heel from Jeon's toes. Without the Zayan, there was no telling what might happen to it. So keeping the doctor safe was its best bet to getting home.

    "Okay, I can keep a watch on these two, but at some point we all need to sit down in some safe place to discuss what's going on here, this wasn't the job I volunteered for."


    Taking one last fortifying breath, Gina pushed herself to her feet and hurried over to the passive Kinglos. “M’lord…” she began to explain once the king had registered her approach. “The marchioness has a plan to catch the Draconian. Once it’s safe for them we can start reviving your people and explain what happened.”

    She excused herself and returned to her small huddle of friends.

    “Okay, here goes nothing…” she murmured. “Panos, can you give me a hand carrying Cal?”
    Panos busied himself nervously braiding some of Calamity’s black hair in an act of solidarity unknown to his character. When Gina spoke to him the prince turned marquess looked offended but a heavy sigh as punishment from Calamity stilled his irate ways.

    In the moment the royal male closed his eyes to breathe, Calamity gave Gina a meaningful look about him. ‘Later’ she mouthed, promising to explain.

    Gina nodded quietly, before scampering away across the hall to look for something to build a makeshift stretcher with. The guards slumped against the wall still had their halberds scattered across and around their sleeping bodies, all iron spikes and wicked-looking axe blades. Gina tugged one free in a clatter of iron. She remembered seeing polearms like these when her dad had taken her round the Leeds Armoury, the year before her move to America, but she hadn’t expected the wooden shaft to be quite so heavy. Still, she managed to carry two of them across the hall, and then after a few minutes of tugging and pulling, she succeeded in relieving several of the comatose guests of their fine coats. She carried them back and dumped them in a pile next to the halberds. On the way over Calamity bit her lower lip before deciding to act unconscious.

    With Panos’ help, Gina threaded the coat sleeves over the halberd shafts, and knotted the trailing ends as tightly as she could to make something resembling a hammock. Then, with the stretcher laid next to Cal, she hesitated. Everything she had been told as a first aider had warned her not to move the casualty at all, and to simply leave it to the professionals when they arrived. There wasn’t much chance of finding a paramedic in Greywall.

    “Um...okay.” she said at last. “Very gently, on three.”


    Yes.” Panos finally said and went to grab the amethyst eyed young woman’s shoulders.

    "What the hell are you doing?" Jeon roared, pissed. "That's a back injury! You don't just pick her up like a sack of flour and sling her about like that! She needs to stay still as possible!"

    (Jeon might not be so angry, but he would know that if you have to move a casualty without medical braces that you should drag them in a straight line, rather than risk anything like a sideways lift that could twist the spine)


    Gina flushed. “Right. Sorry.” Stupid. She dragged the stretcher over to above Cal’s head, and made ready to try again.

    "Melvin, best check her out, let me know if anything's shifted and damaged the spinal cord," Jeon growled once they had finished. The probe nodded, running over to trace its puppet hands over the injured area while it scanned.

    Gina watched nervously until the probe gave Jeon a silent nod. “Okay, Panos. The guards outside will probably want to hear an explanation from their marquis rather than a random like me. Let them know that the Drac’s arcanium caused all this, but Cal’s only asleep, and that they need to keep on guarding the door until we can wake her up.”

    She slid her fingers under the bladed ends of the halberds by Cal’s feet, feeling less than comfortable around the metal spikes, compared to the relatively safe wooden butts that Panos would be holding. The metal sockets that ran down from the axeheads were nearly a foot long, and cold against her palms.

    “On three.” Gina said for the second time. “Jeon, can you get the door for us? One, two, three.”

    "Melvin?" Jeon called, walking over to the door to open it for the stretcher bearers to get Cal out of the room.

    Together, she and Panos slowly lifted the play-acting Cal off the floor, to the accompaniment of a rustle of fabric from the coat hammock. With Panos leading, they shuffled across the hall, across the sticky patch of wine-stained stones, and out through the door.

    Jeon shut the door firmly after them. "Well, won't this be fun?" he asked. "How are you feeling now, my lord?"

    Glancing down at the Probe, he nodded towards the people on the ground. "Best to check them all out, I don't want any avoidable accidents."


    Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility, Gina Wright & Panos Lambros

    As a ragtag collective, the sad urgency of their improvisation panicked the guards who saw Calamity downed and still. Panos was struggling, his shoes getting soiled by the wine which only attracted more flour with each step. The difficulty of the physical task was keeping some flame of life in his eyes, unable to focus on the inner pains and thoughts driving his vitriolic behavior.

    Men and metal rushed to the scene and one tried to take the handles of the hammock from Panos but he held tighter. "STOP!" By yelling he was able to gain some degree of respect; as the man stepped back.

    "Sir marquis, what has happened to your wife, our leader?" Panos shut his eyes, imagining the lie and taking his pain to create a convincing act as his face warped in pain.

    "The Draconian bastard, did some magic with the arcanium." He spilled tears and like a snap of fingers the guards observing were taken by pity and loyalty. Watching him intently for every detail he had to say, Panos continued "She needs to rest. Without doctor Bonadio’s help we wouldn't have awakened from the spell." His eyes aimed to Gina, but she saw him quickly look away from her with a flicker of frustration on his face.

    "Marquis we will find the snake." the older of the entourage promised with a deep seriousness.

    "Guard the door." Panos, with tears rolling down his cheeks, looked away with a dramatic flair of defeat and heartache before tugging the hammock and leading them to the quarters he had woken up in.

    The hallway leading to the left direction was littered with white powder, the only footsteps on the edge and human in shape. Gina and Panos’ added to it as they shuffled along, their feet kicking up small puffs of white. Gina was on edge for claw-shaped prints to suddenly appear and come bounding towards them, but she saw nothing as they made their way along the winding passageways. She could hear the echoes of armoured men clattering distantly, still hunting down the prisoner, but not a soul crossed their path as they followed the line of flour past faded tapestries and flickering, bracketed torches.
    Thank you MayhemsCurse <3


    Spoiler: Memorable Quotes 

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