Quest A Calling (Ximal)

[Balderdash]

"Nope!" the figure replied. Evidently, Ximal was on his own in ascertaining her identity. Her response to his flurry of questions was not much better. "Just take them in your hands and squeeze," was her answer to how to use Gregor's arms, but as to the rest, she just said "Hush!", snatched the stones out of Gregor's hands, and shoved them in Ximal's pockets. The guard started to feel a curious tightening around his abdomen as his vision began to be clouded by white. Ximal awoke in a rough straw bed in the Great Infirmary. A triad of healers were running over the numerous scrapes on his skin with gnosis marks, while a monk tightened a large bandage around his midsection. He was lucky, they told him, that an initiate had found him. He had bounced off of an outcropping jutting from the Aperture, and rolled the rest of the way. He'd only lost consciousness and rubbed himself raw. Had he fallen straight, there would have been nothing for them to bring back to the surface. And that would have been the end of the story, if it weren't for two round, perfectly smooth stones the size of eggs in Ximal's pocket.