The Soldier, Once Judged By His Courage And Discipline, Is Today An Actor By Another Name Who Finds An Encore Difficult To Put On For His Wounds
The farmers in that region reserved their wagons and their mules for transportation away from the city. When it came to Wessolp-ward deliveries, they employed long, wooden boxes fitted with detachable wheels. A pair of workers rolled the contraption to the recipient and took the wheels back, leaving the box that was included in the price. Dirant and Kelnsolt conformed to the local practices and shoved the load to the mercenary checkpoint. The soldiers there made sure to give them as thorough an investigation as everything else that passed through, and they did so without making any sound that could be taken as indicating recognition, though Kelnsolt got some winks and nudges he told Dirant he would punish later. At the gates they encountered a tougher challenge. It was Dirant's 44 Panache.
“I see you have come again. The tribute to our city is appreciated, that you cannot stay away.” One of the guards who had refused him upon his arrival happened to be manning the post.
Dirant pushed aside his gratification at being more memorable than he believed. He had to exert all his wit and charisma. “How can I? Its charms have remained the same even as I grow older. My funds diminish at a like rate as the years left to me, and so I took this side job. Please do not inform my employer.”
“That sounds somehow still suspicious to me,” the guard insisted, but others at the gate disagreed.
“You say that when I have seen you putting up posters advertising a lecture by a visiting historian. Even this job is full-time since the mercenaries came only, and I for one will miss them and my augmented pay.”
“That convinced me,” the first guard said. “That I am being stalked. Am I so interesting? Now you, traveler, must show me your class, and I will say nothing more if it is inoffensive.”
Everybody loved Ritualists, probably, and so it was the guard who had to bear the shame of forcing an honest Adaban to display his status in public like a bankrupted man who must expose his furniture for auction. Dirant and the much less conspicuous Kelnsolt passed into the city while behind them went on a great deal of mockery of the city's lone cautious guard, if not quite cautious enough.
As for Wessolp, it looked to Dirant like Fennizen but less so. The condottiero for his part saw it as nothing but a map he had memorized. The citizens seemed citizeny enough, but nothing more than that. So much for Wessolp's charm. They delivered the box without difficulty. Dirant took the wheels and stuffed them in his rucksack of considerable size, since his partner was likely to be too involved in other matters to return them to their employer.
Speaking of other matters, if he gained nothing else from the alleged mind-broadening benefits of travel, Dirant hoped to surprise people back home by equipping himself with borrowed expertise in the methods of the condottieri. He looked to see if any locals were in range before he spoke. “Our productive partnership ends here amicably, and I suppose you will now contrive some way to allow your army entrance.”
“But I judge there is no need for them.” Kelnsolt was looking around, holding his thumb upraised. “I will invite a few guests in. Together we should suffice. All that is wanted is to find a place where Symbolic Sense tells me the semiotic conditions are not too muddled for me to write my own symbols. By the way, the temples are in the northeast quarter of the city, but there are shrines all about. I don't know which you want for your obligation.”
“Thank you.” Dirant took a step in the indicated direction, hesitated, and felt his 42 Tit-for-Tat urge him to return good for good and his Mercantile Fundamentals suggest the better a partnership ended, the easier and more profitable it might be to resume. “The basis I have to suspect this is not likely something you would credit, and so take it in an appropriately skeptical spirit when I propose that a good place for you to go would be the temple of Aoda you mentioned.”
Kelnsolt dropped his thumb. “Sacred sites have a chancy aspect. The symbolism there is often straightforward, but sometimes complex. I'll try it. Let's have a sociable, unexceptional journey together among the temples.”
Indeed, to see a pair of young gentlemen strolling down the street while they spoke of philosophical matters, the politics of the day, or their failures in the arena of romance could be accounted the second-most normal thing in the world, right after the sun's morning emergence. No native Wessolper stopped them or even looked askance at the two before they reached the first of their destinations, the temple of Aoda.
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The edifice's notable feature which unquestionably bore some religious significance was its windows, which eschewed the usual rectangular shape and even the rarer circular form for a set of curves more similar to an hourglass, or a double hourglass if such existed. Perhaps in Drastlif. Apart from that, it fit unobtrusively among all the other modest, two-story buildings on either side. Inside it looked like a comfortable club meeting location, with tables and sofas spread around a desk which was adorned with a rude wooden statue, presumably a depiction of Aoda.
Kelnsolt wandered around with his thumb up. “Perfect. Will a temple of Aoda always work? I understand if there are limitations to your confidence.”
Dirant, for his part, examined the statue without touching it on account of fearing that to be a sacrilegious act. “I imagine so. Those limitations are tight indeed, however.”
“I'll remember that. Good luck with your doings. Though you're free to observe Symbol Knight methods if you wish to do so.”
“Curiosity keeps me here a moment longer then, even as it drives me to wonder which of these is the temple I want.” Dirant opened the door they had closed behind them to peek, but not more than the width of a hand before something he heard through the gap made him hesitate.
“Our sweeps through this quarter are to be especially thorough,” a man was saying who was neither Dirant nor Kelnsolt. Or rather he may have been a second of either, those names being neither so common as Onsalkant or Hadolt nor as rare as Silapobezor. The speaker appeared by the quality of his armor and the feather in his helmet to be an officer placed above the soldiers with him, a dozen or so. Dirant looked back inside to the condottiero, who held up a hand, dropped to his knees, and began tracing with his thumb a design on the floor. The imaginary lines glowed with golden light as his digit described them.
“Ganarant Pneklig, yes, that Ganarant, managed to get a message through. He avers he is coming soon, we should not give up, and above anything, we must watch over the temples and gardens. That the slippery Kelnsolt who vexes our proud city is a Symbol Knight he has sure knowledge, and a common maneuver for them is to slip inside while the siege is light and the defenders negligent to summon symbol monsters before we are aware of it. Some think holy sites the best place for that, though others prefer a nice flower bed. Understood?”
The soldiers grunted that they did. Dirant understood the situation pretty well also, particularly the part where being seen with the slippery Kelnsolt could get him killed. He closed the front door as quietly as he could and dashed, but in a silent sort of way, toward the back to look for an exit before the guards came in.
He failed to find one, which was no reflection on his Discernment. Simply stated, the temple had no rear door. There was no escape from the will of the gods, after all. The Wessolp officer swung open the door, saw the enemy condottiero in the middle of some activity unlikely to redound to the good of the city, and ordered an immediate charge by all his roaring troops, who would have been just in time to save their city had they been a tiny bit earlier.
“Owl Sage Niddle, I greet you!” Kelnsolt shouted, and the golden lights streaming from a symbol created by incomprehensible forces, though academics were working on it, intertwined themselves and resolved into a brown bird half the size of a man that sat in the air, its wings unmoving, as if the ground were a few feet higher for its convenience alone. The owl sage slid through the sky, its talons also unmoving, and transfixed the officer with its paralyzing stare.
For the heavy work, the Symbol Knight materialized a symbolic weapon in his hands that could be formed only when a guest was present. Members of that class called their summoned monsters “guests” according to a book Dirant read later. Further, “Nothing but the actions of Summoners may properly be called summoning,” he was told by a Summoner. Symbol Knights agreed with that; they preferred the terms “inviting” and “invitation.” Regardless of the nomenclature involved, the nature of the weapon depended on the monster summoned, and in this case Kelnsolt took hold of a staff split into two sections joined by a chain. More chains attached metal balls to the outer tips of the two staff parts.
A Coordination of 46 had trouble with so unwieldy a weapon as that in true combat, but Kelnsolt bonked enemies frozen by his owl sage easily enough. Seeing that, some of the guards in the back averted their eyes from the guest and saw Dirant, who to their way of thinking may as well have been a sign reading, “Easier Target! Get Promotion Here.”
When one came at him sword-first, though perhaps he ought to have succumbed to terror or regretted his impetuous deeds, what Dirant really thought was, “Ah, I'm glad I bothered with Ritual Delay.” With a word he released the Lightning Ritual he had prepared months beforehand and saved for later use. A little cloud formed inside the temple and sent a single bolt straight down which struck the threatening soldier for double Dirant's Receptivity in HP, or 172 total.
+1 bonus to Receptivity gained.
Or 174. Had the bonus come before or after the lightning? Probably after. Dirant reflected that he never expected the furor of battle to make him so contemplative and wondered if that should worry him; it was beyond any known Ritualist ability to realize the man attacking him experienced a like dispassion. Said soldier backed off to reconsider the evidence that led him to his conclusion about easier targets, which he ought not to have done considering a Ritualist was able to delay only one ritual at a time, and succumbed to Kelnsolt's owl-granted bonk stick.