Witch Hunt
-
The group gathered in the Eighth Degree Hall exited and made their way down toward the cellar where the strange wall was located. Everyone was alert, aware that they could be walking into some sort of ambush.
Far below them in the deepest parts of the catacombs, several mages were engaged in magic work that their superiors would undoubtedly find questionable. For the past few weeks, they and others had been engaged on a great experiment. Despite their many failures thus far, they continued undaunted, certain that they would soon succeed in their task...
-
(A while ago)
"Really, Shi, I think you are exaggerating." Moonshadow said for what felt like the hundredth time since the Phaerie girl had burst into her refuge almost an hour ago. "If Lindus were truly dead, don't you think I'd have heard before?" And from someone less exitable and less likely to believe every rumor, at that. She added mentally. Not that she disliked the tiny creature, as a matter of fact she enjoyed her occasional visits and happy chatter, but really, sometimes the girl just needed a dose of reality.
Just like the times before, Shi was not deterred. She looked around the hut slowly, quizzically, then met Moonshadow's amber eyes again. "As a matter of fact, I don't." She said, putting her hands on her hips, a bit of irritation beginning to show in her normally happy voice. "You live in the middle of nowhere , you avoid anyone who might be coming near, and you haven't actually left this are since... since.. for quite a while , anyway!"
"I hear enough," Moonshadow replied, a little piqued.
"You didn't hear Lindus is -" Shi started, but was cut off by an impatient gesture. "I do not believe he is dead." Moonshadow repeated -- once again -- putting as much finality into her voice as she could. "Now, do you want some tea?" She asked, gesturing at the pot sitting on the small oven in one corner of the room. Heat wasn't really a necessity, but she found tea to be quite pleasing.
"What I want is for you to come with me!" The Phaerie exclaimed in exasperation. "Really, you've been sitting in here and pondering over what happened at that mountain or whatever it was long enough! It's not your fault you can't remember, and how are you ever going to find out if the others are fine if you don't go out there and check for yourself?!" Shi's voice rose with every word she said, until at the end she was practically yelling, making Moonshadow wince and cover her ears.
The girl had a point, of course. But then, what if the others weren't fine? Then I'll still sit here and pretend they are in a year...
"Erm, look, I... I didn't mean to yell at you." Shi mumbled suddenly, apologetically. "But you didn't use to be so.. so... reclusive, and it's not good."
"So you want me to go chase after rumors?" Moonshadow queried, getting up to fetch two cups from a cupboard near the oven, one of them almost small enough for the Phaerie.
"Well, um...yes." Shi admitted, raising a hand to forestall protests. "By all accounts he didn't die peacefully -" Moonshadow coughed, and Shi ignored it. "- and if he didn't, why then.. I'm sure some of the others will be there finding out what's happened!" The Phaerie girl finished, looking at the elven woman expectantly.
Moonshadow affected not to notice, pouring tea into both cups, then returning the pot and fetching some honey.
"Well?" Shi asked after a while, impatiently.
Moonshadow sighed. "Fine."
-------------
In retrospect, she wasn't really sure it was such a good idea. The journey to Pnyx had been uneventful, but seeing the pyramid outlined in the distance, the thought of just turning back suddenly gained immense appeal.
As if sensing her mood, Shi tugged her sleeve. "Come on," she piped brightly, "we're almost there now." Turning in mid flight, she peered up at the elf. "You're not changing your mind, are you?" She asked.
"No, of course not." Moonshadow replied. "It's just... been a while...."
-------------
Glancing once more back at the guards that had let them both into Pnyx, Moonshadow frowned. Strange, she didn't remember there being so many of them. In fact, there was a sense of tension, of something wrong, about the entire structure. For the first time since Shi had burst in on her several days ago, she seriously considered if there was something true about what the Phaerie had told her.
Shi shuddered, and floated closer to sit down on her shoulder. "I don't like how it feels here," she whispered. "Maybe we should..."
"No turning back," Moonshadow murmured back almost automatically. "Now that we're here, we're going to find out what's wrong, and I know just where to start."
Nodding politely to people who passed her, Moonshadow set out towards Lindus' quarters.(Now in all honesty, I've not finished reading all of this yet, so I truly have no clue what's going on, but I'm going to make an effort at posting here anyway.)
-
OoC
If anyone wants me to make any changes to the way their characters act in this post please let me know. I might come back and add more detail to it. It's kind of brief.
BiCAt last the party had made its way through the cellars to the strange wall that Wolmark and Timon had told them about.
On their way to this place, they had discussed the various possible reasons why someone might take the trouble to temporaly displace the wall. Wolmark had suggested (and Selax agreed) that the most likely reason was to hide something behind it. If there was something behind it, presumably there was a method to open some sort of way through it. Granted, the method might involve magic, but it was also possible that a simpler means of entry existed. Selax wished to check this first.
Within a few minutes, everyone had started to carefully examine the wall, looking for anything out of place. However, all of their collective efforts were if vain; after nearly half an hour of searching, they had found nothing. Wolmark and Timon tried to use magic to determine what lay behind the wall, but powerful wards around the wall rebuffed their efforts. Medoc leaned forward to tap the wall cautiously.
"Are you certain—"
He didn't finish the sentence because as his hand touch the wall there was a flash of magic. Only by quickly pulling his hand back did he avoid getting his hand burned. The group watched in silence as the wall split open down the middle to reveal a flight of stairs descending into the darkness--a flight of stairs blocked by a powerful forcefield.
After a brief consultation, they decided to wait on using the stairs until it was absolutely necessary and to advise that guards be posted at the entrance to the cellars. Having made one last examination of the room, they left and soon reentered the main hallway of Pnyx.
-
"When it comes to situations like these I am not really much help." Medoc explained, "I just don't know enough about magic and stuff. On that note I am going to let you more intellectual people talk about this while I retire for the night. Good night all." Medoc walked back to his room.
When Medoc got to his room the door opened automatically and when he entered the room the door closed. I should have learned this rune years ago he murmured to himself taking off his cloak and putting his staff in the corner of the room. The temperature in the Pynx was always the same, for comfort it was slightly cool. Its always easier to warm up than cool down.
After about an hour Medoc decided that he couldn't sleep. The first idea that crept into his mind was to start practicing with illusions, takes a lot of his energy so it would wear him out. He got up and moved to the table in the corner of his room. Fire seemed to be one of the easier illusions to make so Medoc stretched out his hand with his palm facing upwards. He started to concentrate on his hand for a second and then a ball of fire started to form just above his hand. It would have been about 3 inches across, does it look real, how do I make it look real he thought to himself. There were two things that made it fairly obvious that it wasn't real. Firstly there wasn't any smoke and there wasn't any heat waves coming off of it, Medoc concentrated on his ball of fire and started making smoke and heat waves come out of it. The heat waves weren't hard but he wasn't really sure how much smoke fire really makes, that bit was going to have to wait until later.
The thing with illusions is that they are as real as people believe, if you know thats its not real then its useless but if someone doesn't know what they feel is what they think that they would feel. If you were to stab someone with an illusionary sword the amount of pain that they would feel would just be as much as they think it would hurt. Of course, when they look and see that the sword went straight through them without causing any damage to them or their clothing they will start getting suspicious. This is why illusions are so hard, they are only an effective tool if you can make people believe that its real, otherwise its just a total waste of time an energy.
Medoc walked over to the other corner of the room and picked up his staff, focused and imagined that it was that it was engulfed in flames, it looked quite deterring but potentially harmless. Medoc was starting to loose concentration on his illusions which means that he had done what he had planned to do, to wear himself out. He put his staff back in the corner and went to sleep. -
Long after night had fallen, something stirred in the one of the "empty" rooms that some of the recent arrivals from Cademia had occupied. After the incident with Gin, all the windows at Pnyx had been magically guarded, and anyone of the adventurers who had had a window in his room had moved to a new room.
Supposedly.
Selax too had "moved", but he had chosen his first room for two very specific reasons: first, there was a few small cracks in the window, and, second, for some odd reason, the door was tilted so that there was about and inch and a half of clearance between it and the floor. So it was that it instead of going to his new room, Selax had returned to his previous room to wait for nightfall.
Judging that the time was right, he adjusted his form and slipped under the door. Then, he moved to the ceiling and began to move down the hallway. The guards rarely made sweeps on this floor. He should be able to reach his initial objective easily.
The Scribe and Selax had decided that Selax would come to the Scribe's room, and then they would both move to a more secure location, perhaps picking up Wizard on the way.
-
Selax moved silently down the hall toward the Scribe's room. On the way, he would pass Wizard's room.
-
As Selax walked by Wizard's door, he was debating whether or not he would disturb Wizard. He was still considering it when. . .
Surely you didn't think you could pass me unnoticed? Wizard's comical voice echoed in Selax's head.
If Selax had ever shown any emotion, he would have smiled, but instead he gave a serious reply, "No, of course not." The door to Wizard's room silently swung open, and the old mage stepped out very softly.
The hall, illuminated only by the torches hanging on the walls, was vacant at the moment. Wizard was smiling and seemed in a cheerful mood. "I'm looking forward to this talk with that Scribe fellow. I always enjoy opportunities to learn," he said in a lighthearted tone. Then, in a more earnest pitch, "He's very wise, you know. And, in turn, I think that we would show wisdom by heeding his advice."
"Agreed," was Selax's only response. The two continued down the hall, unheard and unnoticed.
-
Avatara sat by the shore at the designated rendezvous point, keeping his silent vigil. Being gone for one day was reasonable, it would have taken some time to kill the wraith and escape the city with the increased security. But as their waiting had stretched into a second day with no sign of Saria, they had begun to worry.
She hadn't been caught by the guards, that much they knew from Sideline's brief excursion back into Pnyx to gather information. They also knew something was definitely wrong when the second night began to fall. In a unanimous vote, the three of them agreed she was probably lost, so they had split up to search for her. Desert Fox had taken the coastline to the south, Sideline went searching the shore to the north, and Avatara had remained behind just in case she returned here late.
A third day went by with no sign of any of them. Avatara began to get a bit nervous, with all sorts of nasty creatures around, not to mention Icel, the four of them were easy targets spread out as they were.
For the hundredth time that day, he pulled out the zetacomb to reassure himself it was still there. He didn't try to use it, he felt a strange reluctance to try ever since the mishap and subsequent magical explosion around the odd grave they had camped near the first night. Even DF of late had been getting discouraged about using it as an effective weapon, it was too unreliable.
Avatara replaced the zetacomb and sighed. Watching the moonlight shine off the tall pyramid just to the north of him, he wondered if Saria was okay.
Saria collapsed onto the cold ground. She didn't want to admit it, as a woodland guide in her old life it would be humiliating to confess, but after days of frantically searching around for the others, she decided she was hopelessly lost. The thick foliage of the trees had long since obscured any sight of the white pyramid, and the fall of night only added to her depression.
Exhausted and famished, she lay unmoving on the unforgiving earth. Saria realized she had changed, before she wouldn't have let anything stand in the way of her duties, but the countless weeks of being stalked by hostile creatures was wearing down her spirit. She closed her eyes, wondering again why she had left her old life.
Some time later, a gentle voice interrupted her thoughts. "Are you all right?" Saria lifted her head to see a smiling middle-aged man. "You look exhausted. Here, let me take you to my house, it isn't that far from here." She managed to nod a reply as he bent down to pick her up.
He carried her easily, she judged from his build that he was using magic to help him. As he had said, his house was only a short jaunt away; a small woodland shack that looked as if it had weathered only a few years. The interior of the house was a well-kept paradise, simple yet charming.
Saria smiled happily as she relaxed in a comfortable chair for the first time in days. From the aroma of the cabin she guessed he had recently brewed some kind of stew, reminding her of how long it had been since she had last eaten.
"Its not much, but I hope it'll fill you up," he scooped out a steaming bowl for her with a smile. One sip and her eyes watered with delight, it was the most delicious stew she had ever tasted. Her hunger overtook her senses and she slurped down the meal hungrily. The man grinned at her, "I knew it, you were famished!"
Saria blushed as she put down the bowl, trying to remember her manners. "Thank you for saving me back there, I guess I got a little lost. I'm Saria by the way. Saria Nefletter."
The man brushed a clump of his auburn hair out of his handsome face, "My name is Menelaus. As you probably have guessed, I'm a freemage." He chuckled, "Or rather, I'm training to be one, I haven't actually passed the official test yet."
"I'm sure you'll do fine," Saria responded shyly.
-
Dodging the occasional patrols of guards and any of the detection spells laid to find Gin, Selax and Wizard moved carefully down the hall toward the Scribe's room. As they went, each of them was lost in his thoughts.
Selax was pondering the situation in the void and with the elementals' efforts at shielding Cythera from the worst of the fight above it. For now, both seemed stable, but he was well aware that this might change at any moment. He decided to make at least one trip to the void as soon as possible.
Having decided this, he turned his thoughts to the other source of his discomfort. Selax trusted few people. The people that he had met upon returning to Cythera seemed good to him, and Wizard had not noticed any reason to distrust them. It was on the basis of these two things that Selax had done much of his recent work.
Now, however, he was becoming nervous about specific people.
He had noticed few reasons to distrust Avatara and Desert Fox when he had first met them, but their recent actions at Pnyx had begun to make him wonder. As he had thought further upon recent events, several possibilities had come to him. Namely, that perhaps Avatara and Desert Fox had faked Desert Fox's recent troubles to get the zetacomb. It had also occurred to him that the zetacomb was subtly influencing their thoughts and actions. This seemed to him most likely. He guessed that this might also have influenced Saria's actions as well.
One way or another, Selax decided that he had made a mistake in allowing them to take the zetacomb and in not having put surveillance on them. There was little that he could do about their possession of the zetacomb now. Perhaps, however, he could find some way to put some kind of surveillance on them—just in case.
Just as he was making his final decisions, Selax and Wizard reached the door to the Scribe's room.
-
Pnyx was mostly quiet tonight.
No strange noises emanated from the catacombs beneath the city, and no strange figures wandered its halls tonight.
It was merely the calm before the storm. The students had been informed that the election for interim headmaster would be held soon. They had spent the day frantically preparing. There had been discussion as to who was the most qualified, who would win, etc. Some of the debates had almost even become violent.
It was obvious that no matter who won there would be some kind of trouble...
-
Above Cythera, in the void, things continued to escalate.
Despite the size of the armies and the catastrophic number of deaths occurring every minute, the battle mattered surprising little compared to what was coming...
-
Chaos reigned in the main chamber of Pnyx.
It the day after Selax and Wizard had had their late night meeting with the Scribe and the morning of the election for interim headmaster. The various factions were making frantic efforts at gathering support for themselves and their causes. This was the primary reason for the chaos and confusion. There were fierce debates and, on at least one or two occasions, even actually fights. The guards soon broke up the latter, and, at length, Selinus climbed the podium to initiate the voting.
After some time was taken in calming the students, the voting began quietly—at first.
At various points around the crowd, the group that had set out from Cademia several days before watched for any sign of trouble.
Selax himself had left Pnyx soon after talking with the Scribe and had only returned about one hour ago. Upon his return, he had learned that Moonshadow was now in Pnyx as well. Uncertain what to do, Selax was left to wonder just who else might show up.
-
Wizard stood silently in a corner of the main chamber. He tried to concentrate on the here-and-now, but found his mind wandering back to the conference he and Selax had had with the Scribe the previous night. In his opinion, nothing noteworthy had really happened yet that morning. A few fights and such, but not anything serious.
Despite this, Wizard forced himself to pay attention. The pupils were currently voting. Nothing out of the ordinary was transpiring, but somehow, there seemed more going on than met the eye. Wizard actually felt some apprehension as a thought occurred to him:
No matter how the vote turns out, I'm afraid it will end in violence...This post has been edited by The Wizard : 26 March 2006 - 01:44 AM
-
At length the voting was done, and the votes were soon counted. Selinus mounted the podium to announce the results of the vote.
"It would seem," the old mage began, "that no candidate has received a majority of the votes. Therefore, under the rules of the Magisterium, the Council will continue to act as the city's provisional govern—"
"The Council did this on purpose!" a student yelled from the crowd. "They knew no one would be able to win if they held the vote now!"
"Then, it was well done!" roared another student from across the auditorium. "Better they stay in control than hotheads like you!"
"I suppose that you'd rather weaklings like you stay in control?" retorted another one of the students.
Before Selinus could say or do anything, the room burst into chaos, and everyone began to talk at once.
Arguments broke out all over the auditorium and between just about everyone. Almost immediately, scuffles began to break out between various students, and the guards again moved in to stop them. That is, the guards tried to stop them. Outnumbered, the guards were soon forced to retreat from the fray until the captain of the guard could summon more reinforcements.
Some of the ordinary citizens from the areas around Pnyx looked on with disgust and turned to leave. As they headed for the door, one of them turned and yelled, "This is why exiling the mages was a good idea! They never should have been allowed to stay here at all!"
This was definitely the wrong time and place to say such a thing. One student, enraged by the comment, pointed at the man and said something in one the various mage languages. Instantly, the man was vaporized. One of his companions had produced a dagger and had thrown it at the student, as he had lifted his hand. Hit in the heart, the student fell dead.
Then, the hall was completely silent and still.
From his vantage point, Selax could observe the reactions of the crowd. Most were horrified, some seemed pleased, some seemed irritated, and others seemed indifferent. The non-mages formed a tight group around the man who had thrown the knife and began to back toward the door, followed by a band of angry mages. However, the guards took the citizens into protective custody before anything further happened. For several minutes, no one moved or spoke.
Charax stood up and said, "I think it is obvious that the time has come for drastic measures! An Inquisition must be appointed to deal with rabble rousers like these!" Here, he pointed at the man who had thrown the dagger in attempt to save the first citizen from getting vaporized.
"He acted in defense of his friend! Do you fault him for that, Charax?" Troas responded.
"We are not discussing that...yet. Right now, we are discussing my motion for an Inquisition to root out the source of these recent disturbances!"
Hence, a new debate began. The students insisted that the Inquisition be put to general vote. Selinus, Troas, and their supporters opposed the Inquisition. Charax and his supporters supported it. A third group, composed entirely of students (who had in the recent vote for interim headmaster supported a student, rather than a master), reluctantly supported it, and the motion was carried. (Selax privately believed that the strange feeling of opposition felt by the masters was focused mainly in one of these three parties but probably had agents in all three.)
Then, no one could dream of what would follow...
-
Tension was high in the Pynx at the present time, there were things that were building up and have been for quite some time. It seems that something disasterous is about to happen. It was about an hour after the man had been vaporised, Medoc was sitting down in the mess hall eating some roast. The estabishment sounded quieter than usual, people were paraniod of the people that were around them and it didn't seem like anyone really trusted anyone else. Some outside force has been threatening the Pynx for some time now, if it was going to happen it would happen some time soon.
Medoc decided to go to the library to do some research on illusions while he waited for either some action to be taken by the rest of the group or for the build up of tension to becoem too strong and just wait for the explosion. -
In his darkened room, Selax sat motionless on the floor.
Pnyx was becoming. . .difficult. He now was beginning to doubt that he could achieve his desired ends without risking too much. The mages under Charax had already begun to organize their inquisition, and he suspected that they would cause trouble for him and, quite probably, the Scribe and his daughter.
Whatever happened, he knew that he had wasted enough time. He had been here several days and was hardly any closer to finding the source of the problems, although the recent election had given him the group that might be to blame—the third party running a student candidate. Selax calculated a high probability that others in the party from Cademia had leaped to the same guess. Still, Charax and the other masters had plenty of evidence pointing at them . . . Discreetly, he would have to investigate them and see what he could learn. He would have to see what he could learn, maybe even enter the catacombs. Perhaps, he could organize some sort of trap. . .but it could take weeks for him to find what he sought.
Then, there was the matter of Avatara and Desert Fox. Selax had hardly met Desert Fox and knew next to nothing about him. On the other hand, he guessed that Avatara both didn't trust him and disliked him. He had to get some information on their recent movements and what they were up to.
At last, he came to what was to him perhaps his largest concern. He had been to the void this very morning, and it was just as violent and bloody as the battles that he had participated in of old. So far, Alaric and the other elementals had managed to keep anything from entering Cythera; that was very good—better even then he had anticipated. It was not this that worried him. Soon, the Powers of old would return, and the outcome of their battle was crucial. If it went any other way than a stalemate (which is what he had calculated a high chance based on past experiences), there could be disaster.
For now, he had to watch as the bomb that was Pnyx readied to explode.
-
OoC
Aben Zin, if you want me to change the statements in asterisks below, please let me know, and I'll do so.
BiCSeemingly far from Cythera in distance, yet compared to the overall size of the ethereal void quite near, lay the Shattered Worlds.
The Shattered Worlds comprised the majority of the realities almost annihilated in the Death King's Eternal War with the Chimaera, as well as the worlds that he and his lieutenants had ravaged in the years since then.
Nothing lived in these worlds anymore, and one would be hard-pressed to find any stars that even still lived. After the Death King's first defeat of the Chimaera, he had had no need to take and hold ground; thus, it was long since even any of his minions had walked here.
On one of these long dead planets, a dark figure sat on the ground, legs crossed with a ruby red sword lying on his knees. He was thin, especially for his almost nine feet in height, and his face was quite pale, with his eyes an unnatural red color. He wore black obsidian armor, as well as a cape and a crown. His hands rested on the red blade on his knees, and he did not move. Indeed, he almost appeared to be asleep.
The Death King was patient. Very patient. The continuation of the war with the Chimaera didn't concern him; as a matter of fact, he even believed that it might be helpful to his cause. After all, even his rampage through the void when the war had lulled with his "victory" had not equaled the devastation that the war had brought. It upset him that his direct plans for Cythera would have to be altered to be carried out by his servants, but he could wait for these indirect plans to succeed. Neither he nor the Chimaera wished to directly interfere with Cythera . . . for the time being. Although he had left Cythera, traces of his dark presence still lingered and could be felt by those who had felt them before. As a matter of fact, it was this presence that Zekial had felt earlier.
Thirteen tall, shadowed beings stood around him. Twelve of them were taller than he; their menace for the moment concealed by the robes that they wore. The shortest of them shifted uneasily behind him, and he let off an inaudible sigh.
"Master, should we not start on our way?" Detharon—once the greatest servant of the Chimaera and now his—asked him. Truth be told, despite his usefulness in the past, Detharon had earned a name on his "to do away with" list. He had failed to stop the division of the Death King's forces between his petty lieutenants; had he given the proper orders to the other twelve, they would quickly have suppressed this event. Besides, he was not properly respectful and arrogant to point of being almost useless; in addition, to the Death King he seemed also to be stupid. True, there was the risk of losing Detharon's power, but the Death King already had a remedy in mind for that.
"Perhaps so, perhaps so," responded the sitting figure. After a few more moments, he shook himself out of his reverie and rose. Instantly, the twelve silent beings that were his personal guard closed in guard formation around him.
The Death King nodded, and then they were all gone, leaving nothing but the wind whistling forlornly behind them.
Far, far away, the Chimaera felt the rise of Death, and they too rose, preparing to do battle with dark one once again. . .
In Cythera proper, two very strange and quite opposite events happened at the same time. Everyone got a sense of darkness and death looming over them but, at the same time, felt as if a brighter light and happier dawn than any they could remember had also just been risen over them.
-
Drake Thern sat in his office, deep in contemplation over recent events. All in all, things had gone and were continuing to go almost exactly as he wanted them to.
One of the things most disappointing to him was that few of the Cytherans who had overthrown him all those years ago had actually come to Pnyx. This meant that he would not be able to complete his vengeance all at once.
Talryn was, in Thern's mind, another disappointment. He disliked being assigned to work with someone that he considered to be a "rookie." Thern would have much preferred to have an ally that he knew could trust; for Thern certainly didn't trust Talryn. Thern had no intention of failing in his task. First, it was a chance for vengeance and the return to power that he had long desired. Second, his master would take violent exception to any failure. He'd decided to play it safe and closely watch his "partner" in this venture.
However, these were only small disappointments compared to their recent successes. They had carefully stirred up the situation at Pnyx, had set the plan in motion, and all that remained was to guide it to its ultimate end.
This process would be much easier now that the fallen mages had finally succeeded in their task. In a matter of weeks, he would have an absolutely loyal and dedicated army in his task.
Indeed , he mused, all that remains is to guide it to the end...
Selax had left Pnyx nearly an hour before, returning to the void. He wanted to be present; today was the culmination of the work many, many ages. Besides, he had a slight feeling that he might be needed.
A small band of mages slipped through the tunnels underneath Pnyx. They were returning from one of their other tasks. Last night, they had finished with their most important task and had been assigned to their second task: starting a civil war.
-
In the morning, a disturbing rumor ran through Pnyx. It was said that a nearby village had been attacked in the night. . .attacked by mages. When the rumor was verified at around noon of that same day, both mages and citizens of other nearby villages quickly began to demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice. Charax and his followers immediately began to organize an investigation into the matter, while the citizens began to doubt if any of the mages could be trusted. They demanded that they be allowed to start their own investigation, but few mages really were eager to agree to allow them to investigate inside Pnyx itself.
Selinus did what he could to assure everyone that those guilty would be brought to justice, but his promises assured very few in the end. Drake Thern was pleased with the outcome of the night raid and continued to shift events toward the end he desired. Meanwhile, Wizard and Medoc uncovered their first real clue in their quest: they were able to identify one of Dolophonous's cohorts in his attempted assassination of Lindus. Rather than arrest this mage immediately, they decided to watch him and attempt to learn who else had been part of the plot.
Selax was not present for these developments. He had left in the night and had not yet returned.
-
This was the first of a series of events that of which were still to follow. Everyone knew that it was only time before a civil war broke out between the mages and the general populus. Trouble had been brewing between them for years, many many years. centuries to be more accurate. The average citizen is scared of the mages because of the power that they posess compared to that of the normal everyday person. The mages know this so they are cautious and watch everyone else very closly. Everyone else knowns that they are watching so they are getting suspicious, its a circle that has been building up for the past several centuries. The war hasn't started yet but its only a matter of time. Wizard and Medoc spent the next several days following people that they suspected to have been involved in trying to start the war or just general trouble makers. It was obvious that there some someone with experence behind all of the current events, they were too sound to have just been coincience or a small grop of mages that decided to take action. The current events were bigger than they seemed, there was something much bigger going on that Wizard was still failing to see, something that involved more than petty wars in the land of Cythera.
