“I’m sorry I cannot provide a better view of the race my dear, but it is the best you will find”
Aylah really hated the sound of this guys voice. They way he spoke was best described as slimy. Saarsken was the very essence of “don’t trust this guy”. However, she smiled anyway. She only played along for Diago’s sake, as she was sure that this guy would likely turn on them the very second he caught wind of any treachery.
“Where does the race start?” She asked respectfully
Saarsken replied with a smile and a gesture of his hand as he said, “It begins down there beyond that bend and finishes just past the spire. This is the only place in the whole canyon where you can see almost the entire course. Those below must settle for only the latter half of the race”
She examined the canyon. Diago had explained about the animals that were going to be ridden in the race. Aylah thought that even with the jynx superior ability to climb, there wasn’t much “track” to this racetrack. She assumed it would make sense when the race started.
At the thought of Diago, her mind’s eye rolled itself when she thought of the predicament that they were currently in. She thought that this whole situation could have been avoided somehow…she didn’t know exactly how, but she was still sure of it. Now, her only companion to her quest was in some serious trouble. The kind of trouble that he may not be able to walk away from.
“This better not be a normal thing with him” Aylah thought to herself, “otherwise neither of us are gonna make it through all this”
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Thatch had only a little time to think of a plan. He knew the general idea from what the misty woman told him, but nothing terribly specific.
“Just wonderful” he thought to himself.
He couldn’t say anything out loud because he was being escorted by the very same guards that took him and Diago to the stalls.
He couldn’t believe that this kid was his way out. He seemed young, brash, and stubborn. He also seemed like a good kid too… Ah well, no turning back now. Thatch shook himself. Now was not the time to be ruminating on that, he needed a plan and he had an idea. He just hoped and prayed to the Great One that the girl that was with Diago knew how to throw a good punch.
They made their way to Saarsken’s platform. They opened the door and stepped in. Thatch got to work as soon as he could. He concentrated on Aylah, who merely glanced at him with an expression of curiosity before turning away. Makes sense. She would also know that Thatch lied to protect Diago, he would be curious too if the same thing happened to him.
However, that’s not what Thatch was concentrating on. He was concentrating so that he could see her threads of thought. It was not always easy. Everyone thinks differently. Some prefer images, others words. Some people over think, some don’t seem to think at all. Thus making every mind a different challenge.
Mind weaving was incredibly difficult. There have been very few mind weavers in history, but some say that once it is perfected, the weaver can weave a person’s perceptions and even make them see and do things.
This would take years of learning and practice, however. Right now, the skills that Thatch had, more than suited his purposes. Finally, he saw it, Aylah’s thread of thought. Or threads, as it were. He used to have to do all sorts of ridiculous motions and gestures to weave his and another’s mind together, but thankfully he had enough skill to do this without such ceremony.
The invisible thread of his mind reached out to Aylah’s and began to weave it’s way through hers. The difficulty here was that the mind’s threads are not stagnant, they flow and shift and change. So, if you mistakenly tried to latch onto a passing thought or an abstract idea or concept, you would lose the thread. Knowing which were the right threads to weave together without having the target’s mind go all screwy, was the most difficult element of mind weaving. Doing it wrong can have strange consequences, like breaking the threads and having the target lose their mind entirely.
Thankfully, Thatch had not had that happen in a very long time. He continued working for a few moments until he had found what he believed were the right threads and began to weave them with his own. This mental interaction lasted mere seconds, but it felt longer to Thatch because of the delicacy with which he had to work. Finally, he was about to establish contact when a loud horn rang throughout the canyon. It startled Aylah and shook her thoughts. Thatch slouched, frustrated, as he watched his work completely collapse. He had to start all over.
Oh the joys of mind weaving…hopefully this didn’t happen as the race went on, it was about to start and he really needed to work out a plan before it ended.
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The Jynx beneath Diago ran its way through a tunnel. It turned through a number of corridors until finally they reached an opening that was closed off by a wooden gate. Another horn sounded. Diago knew it to be the call for riders to get ready.
Diago was nervous and scared when he first heard he was going to race, but now that he was faced with it, he couldn’t help but feel a little giddy with this situation. His regular kick was testing himself anyway, why should his enjoyment stop, just because now it someone else testing him. He was grinning, ready to get going. It seems he and his mount were on the same page. The jynx was shaking all over, its fast twitch muscles seemed to be in overdrive. It was ready to run.
Diago leaned forward and pet the jynx on the neck. As he did the jynx turned back to him and made that same wheezing sound it was making before. They waited until the three blasts of the horn that marked the beginning of the race.
After but a moment, two short blasts sounded and one long one. As soon as the last blast finished, the gates flew open.
The race had begun.
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Out they flew, by the dozens. Jynx after jynx jumped through their respective tunnels and out into the canyon expanse. As Diago jumped from his tunnel the jynx He was riding unfurled it’s two longer sets of arms with the webbing that connected to it’s torso. They flew toward the side of the canyon. Mid air, Diago heard a loud scream coming from his left. He looked over to see one jynx grapple with another mid air, it’s rider having been thrown off into the canyon depths below. Just behind them, another rider fell, but he made no sounds as he was already lifeless with a very short javelin sticking out of him.
Diago knew this was what the race was like, but being in the race was definitely a different experience than watching. He tracked the fall of the man who had been struck with the javelin.
It was good that he looked back, because as he did he saw another javelin heading straight for him. In a flash of movement, Diago tilted to the side, causing the javelin to miss by inches. This tilting motion caused his jynx to divert her course and she got scraped up by one of the gnarly desert trees that grew out of the sides of the canyon walls.
“Sorry!” Diago shouted to the jynx
The jynx, while thrown off balance, was clearly quite agile and made her way to the cliff side. She folded her longer arms as she gripped the wall with her claws and began running along the side. She was almost horizontal, making it incredibly difficult for Diago to stay on. He was off balance.
Apparently, one of the other riders saw Diago’s predicament and tired to take advantage. A jynx swerved it’s glide to come nearer to Diago. Diago happened to look up at the right moment. Out of sheer instinct, he grabbed at the kurigan on his waist.
There are plenty of techniques one must learn if they are going to use a kurigan effectively. Some offensive moves require very specific whipping motions designed to propel the weapon at the end of the cord various distances and with varying degrees of power. The technique Diago was about to use was the ‘holy great one, I'm about to die, for the love of all that is good in Tunaan, I hope this works’ method.
He grabbed hold of the hook that he had recently attached to the end of the cord and threw in the general direction of the other rider’s saddle. He did this before his foe had the chance to reach for a javelin. The hook at the end of the kurigan, by sheer dumb luck, managed to catch on the rider’s shirt. Just as it did, Diago’s jynx ducked underneath a canyon tree. The cord of the kurigan snagged on one of the branches and pulled tight. As you can imagine, there was a lot of yelling after this. The rider was yanked off of his mount and furiously pulled toward the tree that was now behind Diago. The man met the tree with some force and as he did, the hook went slack. Diago pulled the hook back to himself and found a shirt connected to the end. He looked back to see a very disgruntled, shirtless, man hanging from the canyon tree. Diago couldn’t help but laugh a little as he threw the shirt into the canyon depths.
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Diago’s jynx ran up the side of the canyon, coming near the net that roofed the canyon, before thrusting herself forward and jumping into open air and spreading her webbed arms once more. Now that he was upright, Diago was far more comfortable and was able to take a view of the race.
This area they were in is called the kill zone. The rough one hundred, or more, yards right after the tunnels. The track takes a bend after this, leading to a bottle neck in the canyon, those who make it through are soon after thrust into the long straight. It’s not very well named, as the canyon still curves and shifts. The idea remains, however, that after the bottle neck, it’s a relatively direct shot to the finish line. Diago was currently about halfway through the kill zone. Though his circumstances at first seemed wildly dangerous and unfortunate, he now saw it as a blessing. He had been thrown off course, yes, but now he was able to fly above the mayhem down below.
Jynx tussled on the canyon wall. They grappled in the air, loosing altitude rapidly, until they parted for having gone so deep into the canyon. Riders threw javelins blindly into the masses. It looked more like a brawl than a race.
“As thrilling as that looks, let’s make a break for the long straight” Said Diago to his ride
The jynx wheezed below him and leaned back a little, gaining some altitude, before folding its limbs into a dive. They shot down, gaining speed. Diago loved the feeling. Something about the wind in his face made him feel absolutely alive. It always did. Without needing much warning or prompting, it seemed the jynx and Diago both agreed that the speed they had was enough. Almost simultaneously, Diago pulled up and the jynx spread its webbed arms and they shot straight for the bottle neck at a startling speed. They were now only a few feet above the brawling crowd.
A few riders saw them and disengaged from their respective tussles so that they could catch up to Diago, but they did not have the speed advantage in the least.
Some threw javelins, but it was a waste of ammo, as they ever came close. One javelin was thrown at them from a rider in front of Diago who saw him approaching and knew he was going to quickly shoot past him. The javelin came close, but it sailed just over Diago’s head as he ducked. Diago looked back as the javelin sailed past him. As he did he caught sight of another rider. It seemed only one other person had been able to pull of a similar stunt as Diago.
Trailing not far behind, at almost the same speed, was a familiar face. He remembered it from Hult’s place.
Diago rolled his eyes, “great”
It was Wrayden.
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Aylah could tell that the weaver was looking at her.
She wasn’t quite sure what to think about him. She was thankful that he had not divulged anything to Saarsken, but from what she could tell of the rest of this town, he was probably working an angle and now both she and Diago owed him. She supposed that it was probably better to be in debt to him than at war Saarsken, but she still didn’t love the idea.
Suddenly, a faint voice could be heard in her head.
“Finally”
Aylah shot into high alert, trying everything she could to rid her mind of this foreign presence.
“Nice to meet you too”, he sounded quite exasperated
Aylah was still trying to force him out…but she actually had no idea how to. She was about to try to do something physical, rather than mental, when the voice said the last thing she expected it would.
“Ariochmar”
Aylah froze. Her mind was racing. She didn’t understand. How was this possible? Her mind jumped to a million different things. She thought about the short series of circumstances connected to this man. It wasn’t much to go off of. Finally, she had no choice but to conclude…for some reason, this man was also called by a fade.
“Sorry to barge in unannounced, but this is vitally important”
Aylah still didn’t trust the man…but she trusted the fades, so she decided to stop any efforts to get this guy out of her head.
“Thank you, I almost lost the connection” came the voice in her head
Aylah wasn’t sure how to respond.. I mean that literally. She’d never had a mental conversation before, so the idea was quite foreign.
“First things first. My name is Thatch. And you are?”
Aylah gave an ever so subtle shrug of her shoulders. Thatch seemed to understand, as his next words were,
“If you think your response, I can hear you”
“Hello?” Aylah thought
“There she is”
“Hello,” Aylah repeated, “my name is Aylah”
She hazarded a look over her shoulder. She saw Thatch nod and give a subtle smile.
“Nice to meet you” he said, “these connections can be very difficult to manage so I will try to be quick. If you can, try to keep your thoughts steady, it makes things much easier”
Aylah nodded
“Right, we need to get you and your boyfriend out of here”
Aylah shot a thought back at him, “not my boyfriend”
Thatch paused, taking in the information, then said,
“Noted. Either way we need to get you out of here and quickly. You seem to have a pretty clear grasp on your circumstances based on some of your threads of thought, but to clarify. Saarsken believes that Diago will die in this race. After that, he plans to try wring any information out of you. If Diago wins, he might be a little more lenient, but honestly, I don’t think it’s a good idea to trust that”
Aylah guessed that whatever deal Saarsken was making was empty, having it confirmed was good. She could plan better what to do with this information. She gave the shady man a side eye. Saarsken was pleasantly looking down the canyon awaiting the arrival of the racers. His eyes were keen on something he called the bottle neck.
“Alright then” Aylah began “what are you thinking?”
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Diago ducked quickly and just in time too as right at that moment, Wrayden had thrown a small spear, instead of the usual javelins, with impressive precision. Diago managed to avoid it by laying flat down on his jynx, but it still managed to graze him. Diago could feel a slash from his mid back up to his right shoulder. It hurt, but the intensity of the moment made it possible for him to push the pain to the side.
Wrayden was much closer than before. His jynx had been able to used various trees and cliffs to gain on Diago. It would land for a moment and propel itself forward by running along said cliffs, or jumping from said trees.
Diago on the other hand had simply stayed his course. He still had speed, but he was slowing down little by little. Finally, he saw his target. At the end of his vision the canyon came to a narrow point where the two sides of the canyon met. The sides came together almost completely, with one exception. At the end of this narrow point was a sliver of empty space where it looked like just enough of an opening for a single jynx and rider to pass through.
The bottle neck…this one was appropriately named.
Diago continued on, and was getting ever closer. That is, until he felt a heavy object below his mount slam underneath them and rocked them off course.
The world spun as Diago and his ride tried to correct themselves. When they finally did, they saw Wrayden and his mount also correcting themselves. Apparently he had managed to catch up. He had used his jynx to slam into Diago’s. Thankfully, doing so also threw Wrayden off as well. Each respective rider and jynx hit into the wall of the canyon, righted themselves and latched onto the canyon walls. Now, both Diago and Wrayden and their mounts were running along the cliff side as it continually narrowed. They were both neck and neck and heading for the incredibly narrow pass at a rapid pace. Wrayden from below and Diago from above. The two eyed each other disdainfully as they approached the opening, neither willing to let the other through first.
They were getting closer and closer. The narrow pass was now only a few yards away. Diago let out a yell as his mount jumped for the opening. Wrayden did the same at the same moment.
In a flash of Movement, untraceable by either party, they colided in the air. Diago had the strong inclination to keep his stomach pressed against his saddle. The world was spinning yet again. Trying not to lift his head too much, he looked up and everything seemed to slow down.
The entangled racers came to the bottle neck much faster than would be advisable. They narrowly passed through. They were so entangled and were compact enough to make it through the bottle neck, but only just and not without a cost. Diago earned himself yet another gash on his back from the jagged rock as he passed through. This injury was a lot harder to ignore than the wound from the spear. Thankfully, his jynx was unharmed.
Wrayden didn’t get harmed, but his jynx smacked its webbed arm against the narrow pass. The limb was still usable, but this was going to seriously slow it down.
Naturally the two disengaged after they made it through. Once they were stable enough to do so, Diago urged his ride forward. Wrayden and Diago had a solid lead on just about everyone for the most part, but it was only a matter of time before others started pouring through that pass.
Thankfully, with Wrayden’s jynx so injured, this win was in the bag. Diago allowed a smile to creep onto his face.
That’s when things took a turn for the worst.
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The plan Aylah and Thatch had come up with was simple. Once Thatch discovered that Aylah was a very capable fighter, or at least believed her when she said she was, he began to explain what he needed from her.
A mind fully conscious can be a hassle to mess with and if one knows how, one could keep a mind weaver out entirely. Saarsken had a knack for knowing when his mind was being meddled with and figured out that if, at the moment you feel someone messing around in your head, you shift your thoughts to something else entirely, the connection is almost assuredly bound to fall apart. Thus Thatch never had the chance much to get any information from him.
An active mind is difficult, but an unconscious one was quite simple. Once unconscious the mind’s threads slow down considerably and become much easier to weave.
Thus the plan: Aylah would pick the right moment and would take a shot at Saarsken with the aim of knocking him out. At that moment she would have to spring at the other guards in the room while Thatch went to work on the unconscious head honcho. The goal would be to learn whatever information they could to find Trig. Though, Thatch had more that he was going to be looking for.
They were in the middle of finalizing the plan when Diago made it through the bottle neck.
The connection between Aylah and Thatch wavered considerably when that happened. At that moment, Aylah was entirely engaged in the race. Thatch was shocked as well. No doubt, he thought Diago would be near the back of the racers. Saarsken only leaned forward saying under his breath,
“A stand in indeed” he sounded impressed
He then leaned toward Aylah and smirked. Aylah was about to make that the moment she went for the knock out blow, but that’s when she saw an event that she would remember for the rest of her life.
Diago had recovered faster than the other rider he came through the pass with and was making some good headway. That’s when the other rider took out a small javelin and threw it at Diago.
It hit it’s target.
Diago fell off of his jynx and down into the canyon below. That’s when Aylah lost sight of him.