End Game: the Crucible.

[Sela]

Eyes flickered slightly as Cian leaned towards her, but no words escaped her icy lips. Sela made to keep perfectly still, but her form was taunt like a bowstring tensed and ready to spring.

Siwa... Her eyebrows descended swiftly in a questioning manner, but whatever thought had pierced her mind Sela did not articulate. She seemed lost in thought, so much so that she almost missed the man questioning her.

He had stayed out of the argument until now, which is why she hadn't noticing him immediately. Sela hesitated, than smirked. The arrogance of the gesture concealed the shock that roiled underneath.

"I know a thing or two." Sela muttered, each word forceful and pronounced. It was almost like they were being pried out of her - like she didn't want to give them up. "You seem to be a smart man, but I doubt that my warnings have been heard. Up until now, they have not."

As the man continued to speak, Sela raised an incredulous eyebrow and pursed her lips. It was so easy to fall back into the rhythm of impudence and cynicism she knew so well then display the real breadth of complicated emotions she felt. "Speaking just to speak? And what would such an endeavor gain me?" Sela laughed, but there no amusement behind it. "Please, don't belittle me in such a way."

Eyes danced across the room between the speakers, pulled towards Cian now as he spoke some more. "Mad, other-life recollections?" Sela twisted her mouth wryly. "I may be mad, but my memories are most definitely not from another life." An eyebrow lifted in an enticing lure.

The healer continued to talk about the stone that dwelt so easily between his fingers, while Sela cast her mind elsewhere. Quick as she had disconnected, however, words spilled from Cian's lips brought her back; a hand raised to brush the hair out of her face paused at the nape of her neck. Her face slowly craned to Cian once more. "Moira...Solduvan." she murmured, the name stirred something within her. "Of course. How bloody typical."

"A lover's token, yes, but I didn't hear your kinsmen complaining back when they used it." Sela snapped in turn. "Don't-" she began once more, but then the light shone from within the amber, caught within the sparkling breeze; and images burst through her head. Forest. Men. Women. It was a traveling party, hunters maybe. Most of the faces were unknown to her, save the guardsman Talen Stirling; he was among their numbers, looking the same as he had the day she had met him in the Stranger's Welcome. And the rest of them all looked Denvali enough...

But the clip was gone as soon as it came, disappearing in a manner of seconds. A sharp breath escaped her lips and she turned to look at Cian and Delano. She combed over their faces, looking for clues. "What was that?" she asked, her voice unnaturally hushed.

[Seodai]

The conversation became a swirling mess for Seodai, who could only see the amber, far away faces, and a lifetime removed. Of course it wasn't cracked, he wanted to snap, though he'd never felt anything less than a fond respect for Noc. The next words that came from the healer's mouth stunned him, though. Moira Solduvan. A name that he was well acquainted with, since he was tasked with stealing that same lovers token for his Queen so long ago. The young Denvali farmer could only blink dumbly at Noc and, just when he turned away in a conflicted sort of disgust, his vision was stolen altogether. As the emotions of an Alahean mage had swelled to a suffocating head, threatening to drown him, the faces of those most important to the present day Seodai forced their way into his vision. It looked miserable. Glum faces, the cold discomfort. Syllke looked positively terrible. Seodai ached with worry, with resentment at being left behind, with regret. Things weren't supposed to turn out like this. This shouldn't be happening. When the vibrant images were gone, Seodai found himself staring at the floor of the clinic again, with the same familiar faces all around him. Had they seen it too? A quick survey of their faces indicated the same sort of surprise and disorientation across the assembled group, and he knew that they had. He found long fingers closed around the stone he wanted so badly to touch, and his jaw clenched. "I'm going for more bandages," he bit out gruffly, and brushed past Noc to leave the room that was suddenly far too small for the assembled group.

[Sitkanis]

The Ethaefal grinned lightly when Sela responded to him. "Well, it makes you seem pretty important if you know so much. Maybe that's why you are talking." Sitkanis shrugged turning to look at Cian. "I'm not going to try to figure it out though. I don't want to risk belittling you anymore. I'm just trying to make a point, your point actually." Sitkanis watched Cian silently as he spoke. He too had memories of the stone. Quite territorial ones in fact. His listening had been quite idle until Cian spoke of being a woman named Moira Solduvan. The same woman Sitkanis… well Kalemi had been charged to guard. It was as though the Myrian herself had jumped into his body, forcing him to sit up straight and speak. "I knew her. Well, who I was knew her. I was her guardian." He was hesitant to let his Myrian self be known to the rest of the people assembled but if there was someone who was connected to her, he wanted to know more. Cian didn't seem to know much about Moira so there was little use in asking in Sitkanis the healer remembered his Myrian self. He wanted to know more about her, well about the world according to her but it was hard when he could not ask the person who seemed to be closest to her. Sitkanis practically jumped from where he was sitting to try and catch the stone when it fell. "No!" Then, as if there was a burst of light, Sitkanis could see Lysander, the more human Lysander, walking. It was only for a moment before he felt himself come back to the clinic. He felt scared, or more so, worried for the boy who had become like his brother. Kalemi seemed a million miles away now. He reacted as any older brother would. He wanted to get his little brother back. "What was that? I saw Lysander! I need to make sure he is okay." It was only when the young Ethaefal was in danger that anyone would see so much compassion come from the Ethaefal. "I promised I would keep him safe…"

[Veldrys]

As he heard Sela’s exclamation, the Symenestra turned around, a little surprised by the intensity of the woman’s voice. She seemed to be shocked, shocked that the stone had resurfaced. Did she know more about it than the rest of them? He furrowed his brow a little as he studied her delicate face, almost as if he were trying to read her thoughts. What she said didn’t make any sense to him. Why did she think that a hammer couldn’t destroy the stone? Even if it contained magic, it was a stone, wasn’t it? Any stone could be destroyed!

Could magic make things unbreakable? Was magic capable of doing that? It gave him a bad feeling to even think of that. There was a reason as to why he had always been careful with the arcane. If it had the potential to do that …

He turned to face Xelhes. The hint of a smile was visible on his face for a moment. „I agree with you“, he said to him. „The prophecy that Viratas gave me seems to indicate that destroying the stone would be a bad idea, but we should wait for what Cian has to say. I have the feeling that it will be important.“ He cast another glance at Sela. His gaze lingered on her face for a few moments, and then he turned away.

In his opinion the human had overreacted …

„Siwa …“ he whispered and shook his head. He had never met her. Had she found the stone? Or had it been in her possession all along?

„I remember the stone as well“, he said as Cian asked about it. „Apparently I made a prophecy about it. If you made it, Cian, do you think …“ He broke off abruptly as he saw the hunting party in his mind.

„What did you just do?“ he wanted to know.

[Louie Wein]

The door was answered quite promptly as soon as the messenger came to deliver the summons. Louie was awake for almost the whole night reading and rereading some of his notes a lot of which made no sense but my by the time the day was out. Of course he would be tired for most of the day as he was in the gathering keeping him out of the discussions but on normal days it would not really matter. Louie would either be interviewing newcomers, teaching children or teaching adults. Nothing too important that would require his full attention because the last two groups at least would be used to their teacher getting them to so some self study for the rest of the day or have a forum amongst them on topics that Louie might want to know more about himself. Adopting that same attitude here Louie was indeed listening, storing the information away in his head somewhere but until that vision came he was not processing any of it. Nothing at all, like a copyist automatically following through in a machinelike manner.

But when he got his attention he started recalling the information. Cian Noc showed a stone, the soldiery stone which needs to be destroyed or fixed. Maybe the one called Ceil a' Kale might have known something about it but Louie was no longer that man. The only similarity they shared was sitting behind a desk and depending a lot on other people for their work. Maybe if Louie was given a chance to think more or if there was something which really struck out about the whole situation to remind him about things he might recall something but now all he could ask was "what does that thing actually do to cause such a heated debate? I really cannot allow myself to come to any opinion about its fate without properly knowing about it" the same way he cannot judge a person like a certain symenestra among them until he had a chance to talk to them preferably through one of his horrible interviews which people like Talen who he quickly recognized in the vision hated so much.

Louie was happy that his student was maintaining his proactive attitude when the ethaefal voiced his opinions on the stone. Getting into his habits as a teacher he provided the argument that "the Stone Leth wanted Denval to have is one that is whole, not a broken one. There is no telling what it does now Xelhes" or to his knowledge what it did before "but..." looking at the woman who was so keen on its destruction because he wanted to tell her that "we don't know how to repair it, or how to destroy it. We should wait until we actually know before wasting time making decisions that we cannot act on." And would they be wasting time on doing nothing during that time? Nope, "I could always go to the lyceum to see if there is any information there and I am sure there are other people here who could do the same" like Xelhes, his prized pupil that he was staring at.

Only when Veldrys reminded him about the prophecy Louie and realizing that the party which flashed before his eyes were looking for Mihai's murderer, another incident which as he was told is related to the prophecy as well Louis started to silently recite it in his head. Could this actually be the orb that it spoke about? A glowing stone of mystique? "Fuse could mean joining..." Louie muttered to himself thinking and if that is so, "we should not repair this orb Veldrys!" he quickly exclaimed to the symenestra before calming down and moving across the room towards Sela because from her actions "she knows the reason why. Don't you? And if you want to convince us you should tell us what is the mess you know you are going to have to clean."

[Legion]

OOCWe’re not going to wait on people. Not to worry, you have who have not posted yet. You can still catcn up. Cian dropped like the sun out of the sky, a knee cracking against the weathered boards of the ancient garrison as he reached for the fumbled stone. A surgeon’s hand slapped down atop it, a jolt shivering through him even as his head came up. Hazel eyes met the moonbeam regard of Sitkanis, owlish and wide. “It’s sick,” he told his former guardian. A maternal note, a creator’s fretting spiked in his outlander accent. While he bore no memory of his past life, it was yet his and it waited in the space between his shadow and his soul. “Do you hear me?” He raised his voice to address all of those gathered, hand fisting about the stone protectively before he rocked back to sit on his heels. “It’s sick and its trying to tell us that. Maybe even why. Isn’t it? It showed us those who have gone after Suwor and Suwor held it for the gods alone know how long. Louie --” He held out a hand and unravelled slowly back to his feet. “Have a care,” he murmured. Protective, too, he was then of Sela. The longer he held the stone, however, the duller and more wan grew Rak’keli’s most prominent mark upon his face. “Maybe Veldrys is on to something. If I made it, maybe I could fix it,” or know the way to break it. It was becoming increasingly clear that Sela was going to have to explain why fixing the stone was unwise. Delano spun on his heel, lifting his hand in a martial signal to Cian over the heads of the others. Cian’s eyes flickered and he waited, studying those summoned, wondering who would help and who would hinder, who might want the Solduvan Stone for themselves and who might die again to see it dead. “Seodai,” the Academy lieutenant spoke just without, a gust of cold air slapping at his words to muffle them in the dim colors of morning. When the farmer turned it would be to find his former teacher’s expression piercing and grim. “Melchior,” he concluded more softly. “I knew it. You have the chance to choose again, kinsman.” And wasn’t that just the damnedest thing?

[Sela]

"Sick...yes. That is the heart of the matter."

Sela's voice, once so angry and keen, was thoughtful and perhaps almost sorrowed. She had remained silent these last couple of minutes as voices had cried out for her explanation, keeping her eyes focused on the Stone and the Stone alone. But now - now epiphany was carved on her features, in the drop of her brow to the frown that lingered on her lips. "It's the only explanation." she murmured ever so slightly.

She raised her eyes to the rest of the room, looking at each and every one of them, from the ethaefal to the farmer to the healer who held her prize. Her chin trembled and she drew a shaky breath, but when she spoke her voice was strong.

"Do you really wish to know the history of this Stone?"

Sela knew the answer she would receive. In but a second, she was continuing on. "Then, let me tell you about a man who lived many years ago, a great and powerful mage of the post-Valterrian years."

"His name was Lanzara Zaital."

She paused, glanced around the room again. "There was a time, when the Stone was yet perfect, that tragedy conspired so that it would be lost by the regiment commander. It slipped from Denval's sight, lost in the wide and open world. By ways I do not know, it ended up in Lanzara's possession. What he did with it, I also do not know...but they were monumental. One day many years ago, he made his way to Denval, yet again for reasons I cannot explain. Something to do with Ivak - he was a follower of the chained god, you see."

"But Lanzara's mind was broken by years of tampering with the fabric of magic...and Denvalis are very good at routing out oddities among their people." Here her voice became bitter, if only for a second. "They noticed the danger in Lanzara and attempted to stop him. In response he worked magic - secret Azenth magic, the likes of which I had never seen. But something went wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong..." A sudden sob wracked her.

But Sela swallowed in down. "I thought the Solduvan Stone had been destroyed too by this strange magic. But, quite clearly it somehow survived..."

"...But not untainted. Oh, most certainly not. Neither the Stone nor Denval was left untouched..."

Sela took a leaden step forward, and then another, in total ending up a hairsbreadth away from Cian. She did not look at him, but the artifact he carried; her hand was raised and let to linger across the surface of the Stone. "You ask why I think the Stone should be destroyed." she murmured." And that is the reason. Denval has been poisoned, and the Stone is the cause." a sudden touch of an accent, similar to that of Denvali but not quite the same, touched her voice here. She took a sudden step back, her hand clenching close. "If not the cause, than a contributing factor. It has been poisoned, it is poison.

"For Denval to be cleansed, the magic that has poisoned her must be utterly and completely eradicated." There was a sudden indecision that flickered across her features, doubt that was clear in her eyes, visible only for a moment. What was she trying to convey?

[Seodai]

OOCFor the record, Katie wrote most of the Delano in this post and gave me permission to add a tiny bit at the end. So as much as I'd love to say I played with Delano Marx <_< ... it's all completely legal! Seodai was thinking. He was thinking hard about Caelum, which was a strange point of focus but it worked. Caelum had helped him pick through shards of the past and splintered pieces of the present to recall how to remember what was important, and who he was. Melchior was only a memory, albeit a burning one that coursed through him like fire sometimes. Melchior did not have people around him now to disappoint, to hurt. Melchior had his chance, and it was gone. It was increasingly difficult to remember that and faced with the Solduvan Stone, nearly impossible. The young farmer had callouses on his hands, evidence of years of labor on the land that belonged to his uncle, and his uncle before that. Seodai had been blissfully Denvali and entirely happy, if isolated, before all of this had fallen upon them. Now he was most often confused and conflicted, and seldom at peace. The only thing that made sense at present was protecting that stone, but it was complicated by the room full of people. People who couldn't seem to comprehend the magnitude of what they were looking at. As if it were a shiny piece of jewelry, a pretty rock. The thought made him feel furious, and that was the opposite of his goal in the crisp winter morning. He needed to calm down. He needed to find Seodai in his churning emotions, because Seodai was level headed where apparently Melchior could not be in this situation. His meditation was broken by the familiar call of a voice over his shoulder. Delano Marx. Every Denvali knew Delano, who was as much as a staple in the fabric of their lives as the Captain herself. He had always fixed him with a proper sort of respect and perhaps even distant admiration. He'd always obeyed. Spinning around to face the Lieutenant, Seodai inclined his head to nod. He froze in the midst of the gesture, though, when that other name came tumbling out of lips that should not have known it. Only a handful of people knew that name, and Delano certainly shouldn't have been one of them. Seo's brow furrowed in confusion, first. It wasn't until Delano reached out to clasp his shoulder, perhaps to encourage him back inside, that it all made sense. Seodai inhaled the memory of who they had once been in the next breath. Sticky and sweet with the icy taste of winter, he suddenly knew. He remembered every scraped knee, every tree they'd scaled, every jug of wine they'd stolen. He remembered the time they'd hidden in hay bales to watch the girls dance, to peek up their skirts as they did. He remembered the time he'd kissed his friends sister, and received a black eye for it. He remembered, in a blur of feeling and seeing, the way he'd grown into magic and Wyatt just... hadn't. He remembered the way time and distance made things difficult, but nothing had ever come between the longstanding friendship they possessed. Not until Elyse, anyway. "Wyatt?" Seo managed in a strangled breath, recoiling away from the hand instantly. A spectrum of emotions shaped his young face, before it settled into a tightly controlled visage. "You have a chance to choose again, kinsman." Were those words mocking? What, exactly, did Wyatt mean by uttering them? There was no Elyse this time, to sacrifice or to save. And if there was? The spirit of the Alahean mage that existed within him surged to answer that question, perhaps too sharply for the sweetly spoken Seodai. "And what makes you think I'd do anything differently?" An awkward conversation, separated by too many centuries, torn between present and past. "Our cause was just then," he demanded through gritted teeth. "We all made sacrifices for Alahea." For Kova. Melchior had watched beloved brothers die, had given his wife to whatever unscrupulous means she might use to exact the information they needed. The wife that Wyatt had loved. "Living here doesn't change what was true, then or now." “And it doesn’t justify what you did either, Melchior,” the typically level headed lieutenant vollied back at his former student. Temper smoldered, rising, as a huntsman’s grace drew him closer. “You have an opportunity here, now, to make better decisions. To make up for what you did. You’re going to waste it over a woman who’s been dead for half a millenia?” Seodai's temper was becoming a thing more volatile than the flames he was learning to create and control, the magic he was working hard to foster despite the fact that it was paltry in comparison to the mage he had once been. His eyes widened, almost surprised that Delano had taken that path, had used that as his retort. And then his eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring as he stepped closer too, so that they were nearly toe to toe. "I don't regret a single decision I made," Seo bit out, each word sharp daggers and broken glass. "Only that Suvan won despite our best efforts. How dare you so callously treat the very memory of Kova! If I was blinded by my own loyalties and emotions, so too were you, friend. Only I, at least, had the sense to waste my allegiances on a Queen and a Kingdom. You were willing to throw it all away over one whore." Maybe it wasn't nice to call his former wife a whore. Hell, he'd never really had anything against her. But she'd become that, hadn't she, all too willingly? Because she believed in the same cause that he had. Or to escape the two of them, Melchior and Wyatt. Either way, he was quite correct factually, whether Delano liked it or not. It became very clear what Delano/Wyatt thought of that when the Academy Lieutenant pulled back his fist and socked Seodai directly on the jaw. A blow from Delano Marx was not something one could take lightly, and it literally sent Seodai to his ass in the snowy ground. With one hand nursing the already swelling jawline, he stumbled to his feet again, positively seething. There were no words left between them, nothing to discuss. This was a fissure that had been torn open centuries before, and now the hurt and anger was only exacerbated by the fact that fate had forced them to revisit it under such difficult circumstances. Seodai launched himself at the Lieutenant, having long ago learned that his strength was in his slight stature and his speed, not the brute strength that had sent him to the ground. He tackled Delano around his middle, and the larger of the two stumbled back through the door he'd left slightly ajar. Whatever had been discussed in their absence, the tense focus was broken by the sound of a brawl that suddenly exploded inside the clinic. Seodai and Delano cursed one another to Hai and back as they battled it out on the clinic floor. There was blood, most likely from Seodai, though the young farmer managed to land a few good blows. They also managed to wreck at least a portion of the carefully prepared supplies as they faced off, careening through the small clinic as if they were the only two in the world. At that moment, they were. It might have seemed quite the spectacle, on the opposite side of the clinic, for the others to stare and wonder over, had not the next turn of events set the entire room into chaos. Delano's exceptionally well placed swing sent Seo down, again, but this time the young farmer responded as he fell. Grappling to hold onto his assailant, Seodai brought the Lieutenant of Denval down with him and they fell headlong into Cian Noc, sending him to the floor. And the stone from his hands, skittering across the bare wood floor.

[Legion]

OOC: I will not be around much until next week. Everyone is free to post more than once if so inclined. I will catch up when I return. Keep being awesome. – Legion.

[Veldrys]

… and of course Louie Wein whom Veldrys had nicknamed „concerned citizen“ (which was definitely not a compliment) had to show up and let everybody know what he thought of that matter. As he exclaimed that they should not repair the orb, the Symenestra glared at him. „The prophecy spoke about fusing the orb … or the orbs“, he reminded the human. „Fuse the orbs ere Denval falls“, he recited the passage from his memory. „If this stone is the orb that the prophecy spoke of, bad things will happen if we do not repair it!“

He wanted to say more, maybe even try to talk to Sela again, but as he heard Cian say that the stone was sick he abruptly fell silent and simply listened. He didn’t understand how a stone could be sick – he was a doctor that treated actual people, not stones – and his knowledge of magic was still lacking, but he nodded. He didn’t really understand what was going on, but it seemed as if Cian did. He looked at the man. Was he only imagining it or did the mark on his face grow duller? It had to be a trick of the light …

He turned to face Sela, watched her incredulously as she told the story of the stone. He didn’t sob nor did he exhibit any other kind of emotion, but the mention of the Azenth left a bitter taste in his mouth. Ivak had almost destroyed the world. None of those that prayed to him were to be trusted. He wondered if he should reconsider his opinion, but on the other hand, what else could the prophecy mean? What if Denval fell if they destroyed the stone?

Before he could make a decision, before he could speak, another one raised his voice. Seodai. There seemed to be some kind of argument going on between the lieutenant and him, but he could only understand about half of what they were talking about. The situation seemed to grow more and more confusing with each passing second.

And then it escalated into a fight, the stone fell from Cian’s hands, and they three man were on the floor. Veldrys simply stared at the scene in front of him for a moment. As a doctor it was his duty to help the wounded, and he had seen blood, but the stone, it couldn’t fall into the wrong hands! It needed to be protected until they had decided what they would do with it. None of the men seemed to be seriously wounded. They could wait a while longer.

A moment passed, and then the Symenestra moved forward, to quickly take the stone …