I awoke in my cell to the sound of a woman talking to one of the other prisoners who I had to assume had been arrested along with me the night before. It was a new day of that much I was sure which made it Aulora 2 of Selene’s 9001st Ascendance (12/2/9001). The woman I recognized as Constable Mara Blade the Warden and of the Sherriff’s of the City-State of the Four Winds but sadly my hearing was not sufficient to allow me to hear their entire conversation. What I was able to make out was that the occupant a rather handsome adult human male was stating his innocence and asking to be released. She seemed to listen to him and then I heard her say. “Well Mister Marlow I am sure your appointed representative will look into you claims of innocence.” I had thought at the time of all the other cell occupants he seemed to be the most noble and kind and it fascinated me. I had also realized that a form had been left for me along with a pen in order for me to request my breakfast preference. I had of course realized when I awoke that the interior of the cells were laced with an anti-magic field which prevented me from accessing any of my supernatural abilities. So it seemed for better or worse I would be a guest of the Four Winds until our court date on Aulora 12 of Selene’s 9001st Ascendance (12/12/9001).
The next nine days passes fairly uneventfully with the one major exception I came to know my fellow cellmate Ralph Marlow quite well. I had noticed that when he had been speaking to the Constable Mara Blade he had been speaking of his deity Bahamut who I knew in addition to being the Supreme Deity of the Good Dragons but also a Deity of Goodness, Luck and Protection which were at the moment things that I actually needed. The fact that he at the time seemed to be human had not concerned for I remembered there was a mighty Dragon Empire to the far west and the war had just ended. I had at the time believed he must have hailed from there. He had noticed me staring at him even though I had tried to not be that obvious. Actually that was not quite true I had just forgotten to conceal my true intentions and for some reason upon seeing and hearing him I believed that he was truly good and strangely I trusted him. So I learned a bit more of Bahamut for the perspective of one of his followers and it helped bring peace and harmony to my detainment.
It was on the morning of our appointed court date the Day of Justice Aulora 12 of Selene’s 9001st Ascendance that I had a strange visitor. He had appeared in shadows even thought the entire chamber was filled with light. Believe it or not I was scared for not only myself but for the other prisoners with me as well. He spoke to me in a soft voice and told me the Storm is coming and to prepare myself for what was to come. I was scared and furious at the same time for the figure was to obscure for me to make out and even with my vast intellect I could see no way out of the lawful madness that possessed the City-State of the Four Winds.
I had heard a voice talking to me and it was Ralph the only prisoner in the facility who had spoken to me. I spoke to me and let me know it he was to get out he would work to help me as well. I had thought sadly that it was unlikely the he would have enough pull to remove me from this situation. Also I liked him and I did not want the danger I felt might come for me to have a chance to claim him as well. I know he was had spoken of honor and the fallen Deity Bahamut King of Good Dragons who along with his sister and fellow Deity Tiamat Queen of Evil Dragons had fallen from the grace of their Father Io the Dragon Creator. I knew the stories of all of the Deities and I actually had a soft spot for Bahamut I knew it had to do with my heritage but I will cover that story perhaps another time. So for the next ten days while the other prisoners seemed to brood in their cells Ralph opened my mind and stirred fond memories of my former Master Shal while he created new ones for me to cherish.
It therefore came to pass that then on the day in question Ralph was visited by a motley crew of individuals the likes of which I had never seen before. There were all around six feet tall or so and each had an air of mystery about them except of course for the pretty one foot tall Petal Fey who I would come to know as Ambrose the Great Storm. They had been escorted in by no less than four Judge Paladins of the City-State of the Four Winds. They seemed to be led by a Half-Celestial woman who went by the name Wren. It looked like they had been in fight and while one of the figures was dressed all in brown and seemed to be trying to be blend in as I would come to learn was the way of Giles Habitual. The others of Wren’s party would have had great difficulty following his example. Lastly there was the profoundly odd and obscure Unseelie Human Seriux Ulximarel whose glowing eyes reminded me a Guardian Minotaur that had been guarding an EarthMaster site I had found once. At the time I could only guess that when Unseelie will mate with anything they were not exaggerating.
Wren and her Judges were speaking in the Celestial language and then they began to speak to Ralph about some scroll they seemed to have brought with them. From their conversation I was able to deduce that they had been attacked on their way here and somehow managed to gain the aid of the Judges. It had also seemed that they had been attacked potentially by agents of the Shadow Empire due to arrows they held which had been shot at all of them. I further deduced that due to the fact that Wren was while travelling with Unseelie and was a Half-Celestial it had not been hard for her to gain assistance of the Judges in the form of an escort. Meanwhile the cute Petal Fey Ambrose had flown to the edge of my cage and said hello. While I did not yet realize she was female she was still the most beautiful Fey I had ever seen. She spoke to me and I had risen from the far back of my cell where I had been brooding to get a closer look at her. We had discussed my situation and she had then informed me that she was a member of a group called Zaphfire and they were an investigative group who worked to right injustice. It was odd at the time but it seemed that I had not only my new found friend Ralph willing to help me but it had seemed that Ambrose was offering their aid as well.
I will be honest I did not have much faith in them and from looking at them I felt that I might end up sacrificing them to save myself if it came to it. I mean really they only seemed to be giving the time of day due to the Half-Celestial Wren who belonged to one of the privileged races of the City-State of the Four Winds. Little did I realize at the time that a group I had thought to be only buffoons or at best messengers would soon prove to be great negotiators but also combatants who might not end up as shields to cover my escape but perhaps even swords that might aid me one day in the quests I knew from Master Shal would one day need to be completed.
All of the other prisoners and I along with Ambrose the Great Storm as she had introduced himself along with her group which she called Zaphfire came with us. I should note we had been escorted by Sheriff’s of the Four Winds while the four Judges who had escorted in Zaphfire had led them behind us to the sealed courtroom of High Judge Bako Demal who like most of the Judges also happened to be a Half-Celestial. The fact that Zaphfire had it seemed a quite deceptive Half-Celestial named Wren among them who had seemed to directing the four Judges in their company I will admit seemed odd to me. I also was thinking about what it was they had passed to Ralph that had caused him to have such a harsh reaction inside his cell. Only later would I find out they had given him a scroll with a sacred rune Edar which was a symbol of the Gold Dragon Empress. The scroll it seemed had broken some kind of mind lock that had been placed upon him which had revealed his true identity that of Prince Tundar Edar.
It was not until we entered the courtroom that I learned the names of the other prisoners who had shared the other cells with Ralph and I. For after we had entered and been lead to seats the charges laid against us had been read along with our names. I know one might be wondering why perhaps not one had tried anything well to be honest I am sure the Anti-Magic shackles we had all been bound to each of our hand might have had something to do with it. I therefore learned that Jada a male Half-Celestial Elan Monk of the Mondian Empire, Legate Marcus Bane the Human Half-Fiend Wizard-Mindbender of the Shadow Empire, Namara Washa the Aventi Half-Water Elemental of Aquaticus and Baron Kelic Blackmore the Human Half-Vampire/Draconic of Kingdom of Kern, Ralph Marlow the Human Draconic/Amphibious Favored Soul of the Dragon Empire and I faced serious charges indeed. We had been charged with Piracy which in the City-State of the Four Winds if found guilty the penalties could be quite severe. The worst case scenario would be eight years imprisonment as well as a magical branding visible to all showing that you were a convicted pirate. I will admit I was worried but I did not show I only maintained my firm and determined demeanor and stance.
In the end Jada refused to accept the City-State of the Four Winds authority to charge and requested that they contact his Embassy reschedule a new court date for the next day of Justice and to be placed on probation under guard until that time. His request was honored by Judge Bako and he was taken away under the guard of two of Judges who had accompanied Zaphfire to the courtroom. Ralph’s case came up next and he tried to speak for himself and pronounce his innocence speaking the Celestial tongue as was the language of the court. He was of course rebuked by the Judge and the attending Bailiff’s and perhaps would have been pronounced guilty for speaking out of turn. Wren had chosen that time to speak up and as it seemed she Half-Celestial of renown she spoke for his character and the charges were dropped and he was released into her custody. My case came up next and Ralph using a the seal he had been given spoke for me and as his character now seemed to be for some reason worthy of respect I was also released but into his custody and on the honor of his word that I was of good character. We had then departed while Wren and Giles stayed behind.
I would later find out that Marcus Bane had literally thrown a scene and informed the court he was outraged that they would even consider charging a Legate of Kern with a crime and that he not submit to their justice and they would be wise to contact the Shadow Empire Embassy on his behalf or be prepared to face reprisals. He would therefore be placed under house arrest under guard until a representative of his government had been informed of his situation brought back to Judge Bako on his next scheduled court date. Meanwhile Wren would speak up for Namara and Kelic and ask that they be placed under a period of probation and house guard for a ten-day or week as she was not quite willing to speak for their character but felt they deserved an opportunity for their character to be observed and evaluated before the charges of piracy were officially laid on them. Judge Bako for reasons unknown to me it seems agreed to her offer and they were placed under house probation under guard.
Meanwhile Ralph and I had been escorted by Ambrose and Seriux to processing so we could retrieve all of our temporally confiscated equipment. Many of my items they had been unable to detect or remove due to my Cloak of Mystery that I knew had been place upon me and the fact that certain of my items were merged within me. The Cloak prevented me from being detected my magical means and anything other than what I currently appeared to be. Yes it is true that like Ralph or Tundar Edar as was his Gold Dragon name I was also a shape-changer. I did not advertise it but it was true and as a matter of fact I had come to prefer my human form as while I had been trained in the arts of deception for my cover among the Witches of Lar’Tya I actually came to love my cover life more than my real life so I planned to stick with it.
Seriux as we walked and were soon rejoined by Wren and Giles had begun to ask me questions about myself. Ambrose had flown off to inform the Dragon Empire that they had achieved their mission and liberated Tundar. They had made a case for Tundar not going and that he would be safer with them until the Dragon Empire Embassy was able to clear up a few concerns they needed to deal with. Tundar it seemed had taken his adoption of me as his charge and to be protected quite seriously. I am sure that was the only reason he had not continued with his decision to immediately head to the Dragon Empire Embassy. I will admit it was odd but I felt pleasure that someone would be willing to look out for me and to be honest I did not really know any of Zaphfire that well. Which was why I had remained quite vague regarding my background but revealed that I was a Lar’Tya trained Warlock and I feared that there might be danger involved if they chose to offer me shelter.
Ambrose had returned as I had been explaining as Seriux had asked it I could place a scale of mild to outrageous the level of danger I felt I might place them in. In truth I was far more concerned about things to come in the future. I had memories that were in the back of my mind that I could not quite reconcile so I could only say for the moment moderate. Seriux had then gone on to explain a little more about their group. He had informed both Tundar and I that he was part of an investigative mercenary unit that called themselves Zaphfire and that their goal was to seek truth and justice while aiding those who are misjudged or falsely prosecuted in the world. It sounded surprisingly noble to me but the fact that Seriux was an Unseelie know for their evil ways and dark tricks with his glowing aberrant glowing eyes like a snake did not really do much to ease my concerns.
Now while it is true we had gone to the stable to pick up Tundar’s war horse which I had to charm due to the fact that being descended from a ghost and a vampire among other things does have its drawbacks. That of course sadly meant that animals who were not charmed were afraid to approach me or come within fifteen feet of me without going into a panic. I had explained to them that it was due to my ghostly nature and that I could calm the horse. Seriux had made an interesting comment at the time regarding a charge of his own named Rebecca who it seemed was also part well let us be polite unliving. He has used that moment to also begin to describe what served as their home and base an Unliving Monstrous Roc another name for a giant sixed flying bird the size of an entire herd of elephants. I had looked to the pretty Ambrose whose cheerful smile and demeanor calmly and chose patience as my course. A moment later he took out a horn as we had reached the beach and blew a horn which must have been a signal. It was a signal alright but no only for their giant undead bird but for those who sought both Tundar and I.
No comments:
Post a Comment