With some teamwork, checking the other nearby buildings proved significantly easier, and in fact did not require the sacrifice of any further footwear. Our search however was not all as easy as creating the odd distraction; my initial muted gladness that our quarry had not been in the first house searched soon faded entirely as we made our way about the wide circle of the Inverted Mountain, failing to find new repairs as we went.
Hours had passed and we found ourselves on the opposite side of the pit by the time we found our first sign of a repaired roof; it spoke wonders for the builder’s skill, that so many buildings were so uniformly intact, though it was possible the lack of need was due to material strength, rather than skill.
Above the building in question, occasionally highlighted against the backdrop of the distant stars as the gaps in the clouds passed overhead, a jagged outcropping of rock told the tale of what had managed to damage the roof. We hoped.
The structure in question was one of the taller ones on our circle, its roof significantly steeper than most, and enough so that I was unable to stay stood on it. Checking the tiles had required Darina and her ability to shift her form and cling to them, but it had worked out in the end, which was what had led us to checking the various windows; unfortunately, they were all shuttered, and if the wood was anything like that used in our own intended dwelling, it was unlikely that we would be able to break through silently.
“What do we do, storm in through the door? What if it’s barred or locked?”
“We should go in through the roof; it is steep, but the Ever Flowing can simply remove the tiles.”
We were speaking even lower than we had the rest of the night, there within potential spitting distance of the person we sought. Toria’s suggestion was a good one, though it had its own risks, namely jumping directly into the roof-space – assuming it had one – which had a higher chance of causing noise. But it did not seem like we had many options.
“Right, that seems to be the option that will cause the least fuss. We should leave somebody outside to keep an eye on the door though, in case they make a run for it.”
“In grim agreement, you are right, Hunter. I will watch the door; as a Foundation stage cultivator, I am most capable of re-capturing a person that can escape you all.”
“Fine. I guess I’m going back up then.”
“Thanks, Darina. And good idea, Reff. We don’t want him getting away after all this...”
There were some more minor whispers of strategy, but we were all eager to strike after so much fruitless searching. Darina leapt back to the roof, landing gently and her hands flowing into new shapes to keep her there on the roof’s cusp. She began to remove the tiles, slowly and carefully in an effort not to make too much noise, and storing each away, as she had nowhere else to put them.
Soon, a yawning dark opening stood revealed amongst the tiles, and the apprentice healer slipped inside, silently. Toria, Riffa and I shared a glance and taking their nods as indication, I leapt up next, directly into the empty hole. Passing through the gap, I found myself caught by the diminutive girl who was braced between two cross-beams, and deposited to one side, on a parallel beam much like those in our building; it seems that where we had chosen to make our entrance was between them, hence the need to catch me.
Seconds later, we all stood crouched, but gathered, in the roof’s void, though it had taken two of us to catch Riffa; strong we may have been but mass is mass.
The flashlight was taken out again, once we were gathered, and we could see in that thin light that the wooden tiles separating the roof area from the living one had been replaced recently as well, the new ones apparent directly below where Darina had discovered the repaired roof.
The healer crouched and shifted her hand to grip the top of the nearest wooden square, but I gestured for her to pause as I closed my eyes and did my best to feel for my Instinctive Precognition warning me that I was about to do something dumb, but to my surprise – given the relative lack of a plan – it seemed we were good to go.
I nodded to Darina and she lifted the panel away gently, allowing me to drop through, already Focusing as I did; this was basically what we had come up with for a plan. Move fast, surprise them. Hopefully.
Landing as lightly as I could without spending anything on my Path, I glanced around in the very low light and spotted a figure laying on a tatami mat as far from the door as possible. The alchemical lamps were mostly covered, but enough light was escaping that I could tell the person was not not huge, for which I was grateful; I was strong, as a Path stage but there was not much I could do if I could not physically wrap my arms around somebody.
I moved over to the sleeping figure and with my perception still sped up, I got as close as I could without touching him and turned my head as the others dropped down into the room with me, Riffa coming in last. I waited for them to spread out at a glacial pace and then crouched and slapped my hand over the sleeper’s mouth.
The reaction was immediate, or would have been if I was experiencing the world at a normal rate. The – hopefully – Risen Throne member sat up, and despite the fact that I was superhumanly strong, only having my weight to provide leverage and him having the ground to press against meant that I was simply lifted up, pushed along with him as he rose. Mentally slapping myself, for forgetting such a simple thing, I quickly shifted behind him, and seeing his mouth open to shout, covered his mouth once again and proceeded to simply wrap my legs around his arms. These actions did stop him from yelling, and I could feel him straining against my legs, which was good, because if he had been at the Foundation stage, he would have simply shrugged me off. Once more, however, it did not prevent him from getting his feet under him and standing.
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He started to run towards the opposite wall, clearly intending to smash me against it, but luckily, Toria intercepted him with a low tackle, accelerated by blazing lines of fire. She cut them off before she could burn anybody – or anything – but we still ended up in a pile of limps on the floor, with myself still wrapped about his torso, and Toria’s arms wrapped around his legs.
He continued to heave and try to shake us off, muffled sounds coming from his mouth as I held on as tight as I could. Not having any need for my Focus, I dropped it as Riffa hurried over to help us control the – potential – cultist. Darina seeing that the three of us mostly had it handled moved to the front door and removed the wooden bar that was holding it closed before opening it and glancing around. A moment later we were joined by Reff who re-barred the door.
“With deliberate pointedness, this does not seem to have been a good plan.”
“Well, the alternative was just standing outside of people’s rooms and shouting, ‘Risen Throne!’ and hoping they responded.”
Miraculously, that did actually seem to work as the man I was wrapped around stopped struggling for a moment as he tried to turn his head to look at me.
“Huh, it seems like our friend here actually knows them. I guess the alternative would have actually worked...”
“And roused suspicions when they started looking for whoever was shouting outside of people’s lodging.”
“Not every plan is perfect, Dee.”
The healer growled and muttered under her breath at my use of the nickname, but at least she did not snap at me. I was not actually doing it to annoy her, I just did not want to say her real name in front of the abductee. Turning my attention back to the apparently confirmed cultist, I spoke again, doing my best to make my voice menacing, though it was not something I had a great deal of practice with.
“So, Risen Throne guy, I’m going to take my hand off your mouth so we can ask you some questions... if you try to shout, I’m going to re-cover your mouth again, and maybe electrocute you. And maybe my friends here will burn you. You can probably defend against that for a while, but you’ll run out of Praxis before all of us do, and then... it’ll suck for you. Alright?”
It was not something I really wanted to do, but he had no reason to know that, and being part of an organisation, which did seem to frequently torture people, I hoped he would assume the same of us.
To emphasize my point, I held my crystal arm up and Focused for a moment, letting the violet-white lightning crack out of a fingertip before cutting it off again. The man nodded against my hand and I glanced at my friends in the dim light.
“I’m going to take my hand off his mouth... let’s hope he doesn’t have weird screaming powers, huh?”
I lifted my hand away from the man’s face and he immediately tried to bite me, though he did not actually manage it. With a grunt I punched him in the face with my prosthetic, though not too hard, as I did not want to actually knock him out or anything.
“Hey! That’s not nice, asshole. Well, I guess we did wake you up and sort of restrain you, but... never mind. What’re you doing here? And in Ouhl?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t give me that, I felt you react when I mentioned the Risen Throne. Dee, can you check for a pendant? Or storage?”
Darina moved towards us, but the man growled and spoke again hurriedly.
“Fine! I’m a devoted, you caught me. But it won’t help you, it’s too late.”
“Devoted? That’s the first time I’ve heard you assholes call yourself that.”
“Have a lot of conversations with us, do you, mysterious night visitor?”
“More than I’d like. Killed even more of you though. But enough pleasantries, what’re we too late for?”
He did not say anything for a moment, but when I raised my hand again to hit him, he carried on.
“It doesn’t matter; Ouhl is done, just like everywhere else. We’re going to take it.”
“I wouldn’t count us out on being able to stop it, we’re pretty good at getting in your way. Give us specifics.”
“We’re going to detonate the aura; we’ve been stoking these fools up like a fire, and then we’re going to toss explosives at them.”
“With burgeoning anger, when is this ‘detonation’ supposed to take place?”
I had heard Reff angry before, and he was definitely angry then; I could not really blame him, since his own home had been targeted by the Risen Throne as well.
“Could be any day now. Could be now, could already have happened.”
“With disgusted suspicion, why are you telling us all this? What if we do stop it?”
“It doesn’t matter. You can’t stop it, it would take you weeks to find the array and it will go off before then, and enough of this ridiculous sect are in the city that they’ll be crippled, along with the Guard, and the other sects in this stupid place. Everywhere. The Risen Throne will take his seat and the devoted will rule at his feet. And there’s nothing you can do about it, whoever you are.”
The man began to laugh, but as he did Reff stepped forward and surprising me, dropped into a kneeling crouch and hammed one giant fist into the cultist’s jaw, and then again and again until he was unconscious.
“Damn, Reff. I guess we didn’t have any more questions, really, but that was brutal.”
“With grim disregard, we would have had to disable him regardless. The only question is, do we kill him before we leave?”
Killing him was not something I wanted to do, but he was technically an enemy combatant; if we left him, he could wake up and set the Earthen Sky after us, or warn the other Risen Throne members.
“We should kill him; he has conspired to potentially murder countless people; it would be just to send him to his next life.”
I looked at Toria and tried to see it her way; by the moral standards of Earth, killing him was evil, but I was not on Earth any more. But I also did not want to kill in cold blood.
“This guy is an asshole, obviously. And if he was attacking us, I’d be fine with ending him, but he’s not. He’s helpless right now. I say we tie him up and leave.”
“With what? We don’t have any rope that could hold him.”
And that was something that I had entirely neglected to take into account.