Dean has come to a decision. They need to act while the subjects of their attention are divided.
DT: Now or never.
RP: Very well. But what?
Dean hesitates.
DT: We cannot attack without evidence or provocation.
OL: I don’t like it, but I agree. So what do we do?
DT: We send an envoy.
Dean hesitates again.
OL: I’ll go. No need to elaborate.
RP: You volunteer?
OL: Sure. We cannot send our misseleer. We cannot send our commander. Therefore …
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Pavol is waking up. His wife is checking his vitals. They are quietly talking. Zora and Lidija are standing watch.
Z: Do you believe we are no longer on Earth?
L: Two moons. What is there to doubt?
Z: We are seeing lights in the sky. That need not mean that they are really there.
L: But what reason would Karolina have to cooperate with him?
Z: Does she?
L: My aura sense are better than yours. She believes what she is saying.
Z: No, I meant, they have a tendency to be too trusting. They do not consider trickery.
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L: Fair enough. I’ll keep my eyes open. Though, who would profit from tricking us?
Z: That would be the big question.
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Dean is drawing a silver circle in the air with a finger of his right hand.
DT: I am sending you in alone, but I am not sending you unaided.
OL: I appreciate that.
A bear-like creature with a lot of metal spikes is stepping out of the circle. Dean points at Olutha.
DT: Guard her. If she flees, stay back and stop pursuers. If she tells you to cease fighting, heed her command until she takes it back.
DT: Rupert, stay vigilant. I am going to watch her and I mean myself exclusively. This may be a trap.
RP: Understood
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Roderick Geller is hiding in the crown of a sagewood tree. He is utterly exhausted. He had been running for hours until he found a tree with a dense crown and strong smell. He has been using a camouflage ability, which turns out to be even more useful to prey than to a hunter.
He figures that pursuers would expect him to hide in a cave or a thicket. The aura he sensed at the ambush site was bronze rank. If his efforts to obfuscate his traces have failed, he will die. He does not allow himself to think back to his cousin’s last stand, whose slow death bought him the time to get away.
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Russell Clouns is letting the skimmer run with wild abandon. With a priestess of Knowledge in your vehicle you need not worry about hitting an unseen obstacle in the river. He has even rerouted the mana flow from the stabilizers to propulsion leading to a slowly undulating ride with not infrequent sprays of river water when an especially high wave triggered by an exceptional stormy day in the delta and an especially deep dip of the bow coincide.
Besides, causing a priestess to barf would be fun. She has requested the best possible speed. Hers is to suffer the consequences.
RC: I am afraid I cannot tell you how fast we are. Taking the regulators offline and putting all power into the drive has disabled the speedometer.
GP: It is fast enough. Believe me.
Her facial expression would have made him laugh out loud, which was why he dilligently observed their trajectory.
RC: Priestess, I am no theologian, yet a question is on my mind.
GP: Curiosity is a virtue.
RC: How come a member of the clergy of Knowledge is in a hurry on an official mission?
GP: In general Knowledge does not see the future, hence if a low probability event happens, Knowledge needs to react like everybody else.
RC: I see. I could reroute power from the lateral stabilizers.
GP: NO! That will not be necessary.
She gulps audibly.
GP: In this case, however, we are affected by another theological limitation. Gods see only what is happening on their world. We are going to meet an outworlder.
RC: Fascinating!
GP: Indeed.
RC: The second in a few years in this region.
GP: Outworlders are not randomly distributed. They predominantly go to places the barrier to the astral is weakened. In this case they arrived at Sky Scar Lake.
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Olutha is trying to appear confident and relaxed approaching the suspicious camp. An awful dinging noise greets her.