Dolgrin wasn't used to having to purposefully move slowly, but with the acolyte with the broken leg behind him, he had to pay attention not to pull too far ahead.
They made pretty good progress along the wall before they were spotted. Dolgrin practtically ran right into an Ogre who was watching the chaos from the mouth of a cave in the mountain wall. The Ogre seemed surprised and fumbled for a weapon. He came up with what looked like an old metal armor stand draped with drying meat.
Bellowing in the rough tongue of giants, the ogre stepped out to block their path.
Taking a blow right to the chest, Dolgrin charged right through the wooden stand to knock the ogre off his feet. Splinters shot out in all directions as Dolgrin takes the strike right across the chest, and still charges past, only to come to a very troubling realization: Dwarves are the wrong height to simply bodyslam ogres. With that, Dolgrin has no option that to slam his forehead right into the ogre's... crotch, which fortunately had a loincloth separating them. The ogre howled in pain and doubled over onto the ground, which Dolgrin desperately tried to keep his stomach contents from becoming projectiles.
Moving quickly to engage and protect those behind her Ariela races toward the doubled over ogre, driving a knee into it's jaw, a spray of blood pouring from the creature's mouth as she winces.
Her knee would be bruised as hell come morning.
Thedra finiished the pain train started by Dolgren, landing her dagger in the ogre's throat as it reeled back and toppled over from the force of Ariela's knee.
It howled and gurgled, swinging the broken remains of it's armor stand in a clumsy attack. Thedra ducked free, holding her other hand out to the trailing group of acolytes who were shouldering the burden of the one with the broken leg.
The ogre made a fatal mistake. To right itself it decided to roll to the side away from the threatening trio.
In the sky above the flying elf gestured with a staff that looked like a long triangular prism. Terrible black tendrils sprang up in the courtyard, reaching and grasping for anything within reach. The group along the wall was safe. The ogre was not.
It was pulled kicking and screaming into the strands of webbing, wound in the thick strands and choked by the black tenticles. Stones from above continued to fall, pounding down on the ogre, reducing one leg to tenderized meat.
"Everyone, meet Spectrum." Thedra said with a slight chuckle in her voice. She flattened herself against the wall to let the other acolytes pass. "Keep moving."
The group of escapees continued their slow push down the wall. The ogres continued their savage assault against the giant rock beast, hampered but not quite halted by all the webbing and boulders and writhing black tendrils littering the ground. With a massive backhand the rock beast sent two ogres flying. In retaliation the ogre chieftain brought his flaming blade down into the stone ape right where it's head would have been if it had any kind of normal anatomy. The central boulder making up it's torso fissured and it began to lose cohesion. Clearly in it's death-throws, the massive thing slammed itself up and down like a self-resetting landslide.
The two ogres who's been knocked free of the fight careened through a stone wall that had once been some kind of bunker. Part of the old fort. Now, it held up one half of an ogre lean-to, which collapsed. One of the ogres struggled beneath the fallen tarp. The other picked itself up and shook its head to get it's bearings, noticing the escapees and trying to move toward them. The webs hampered it, so it simply picked up a chunk of debris and hurled it at the dwarf in the front of the line.
"Pleased to meet ya Mr. Spectr... Ah!!" jumped Dolgrin as the ogres flew into the old fort. As one of the ogres picks up the debris to chuck it, Dolgrin thought. Ah Shiet.
With incredible power, the chunk of stone is hurled directly at Dolgrin, who braces himself for impact. The stone shatters around him, but he's pushed back a good 5 feet in return. A series of new cuts form along his forearms and chest, and he curses "Damn it! I swear if'n I have to see another Ogre in my life, it'll be too soon!"
Ahead of them, Dolgrin notices an Ogre club on the ground where the lean-to used to be. The problem is that the hampered Ogre also sees it, and breaks free of the webbing. The two of the charge forward as fast as they can to pick up the large club.
Seeing Dolgrin and the ogre racing for the same weapon, Ariela calls upon her deepest focus, chanting and lifting her foot and driving it back down into the ground with a loud shout, the impact sending a shockwave of force rippling through the ground to trip the charging ogre, sending it sprawling face first.
"Stay to the wall, you lunatics!" Thedra barks. She pulled out a wand and added a pool of grease under the ogre. It tried to stand from it's fall but only managed to slide awkwardly on the ground covering itself in slippery goo.
The slower acolytes continued to push forward trying to stay out of the way.
The ogre chieften looked up and pointed his burning sword at Spectrum. A lance of fire pulsed out and washed over the elf, catching his clothing and burning him badly.
"...oh, f&&*, that's..." Thedra said
Spectrum was hurt. He was also mad. He drew a sword that looked like it was made of glass and pointed it at the ogre chieftain. A crackling bolt of anti-light that left a torn-looking after image thought he air erupted from the blade. The Chieftain writhed, his skin seeming to tighten and his muscle mass noticeably decreased. He looked old suddenly. Crooked and bent. He struggled to stand.
Then another bolt of crackling darkness followed the first. What was left behind of the ogre Chieftain was a desiccated corpse, wisps of black smoke gently rising from it's eyes and mouth.
...one stupid ogre." Thedra finished.
Heaving the Ogre club over his head, Dolgrin finishes off the creature with a solid *Thud* right into it's skull. "Thank ye, that's some good magic right there!" He yelled over his shoulder. "Alright, let's move!"
Never piss off a wizard." Thedra said with a slight grimace on her face. "Keep moving."
The ogres were beaten but too stupid and angry to give up. With their leader gone they scattered as well as they could, dragging themselves out of the clinging webbing and black tendrils to vanish into caves and ruined buildings. Suddenly Spectrum's tactics were much less viable. He looked to his parner as she ushered the acolytes past her. She called out "Stay up there, keep an eye out!"
Ogres loved tunnels, and despite their size could be quite good at staying out of sight. Thedra looked around paranoid. "They're still out there..."
"Then... let's keep marching away from them..." Dolgrin says.
-Arch Academy, Headmaster's office-
Darian put down the second crytal and nodded.
"That dwarf is as stubborn as his grandfather." He mused.
"Maybe more. He had his head cut clean off on our way here. Barely saved him. He got right back up and finished the fight." Thedra chuckled.
"So that's what that scar's from. I thought he might have been hung or something. Didn't see much of it on account of the beard." The headmaster tapped his fingers on the edge of the box. "The acolytes from that Embassy look like they've been trained pretty well so far. Didn't get to see much action from them, except for Ariela. That flying knee drop was impressive."
"She's certainly flamboyant. Not really my style, but it works." Thedra nodded.
"Oh, yeah. You're definitey subtle. Like a fireball." Darian rolled his eyes.
"A fireball no one ever seems to see coming." she shrugged.
"Well, your favorite wizard makes a hell of a distraction."
"That's why I keep him around."
The headmaster eyed the next crystal. "Who's next?"
"They all look the same to me. I'm not sure which ones are which." Thedra said with a shake of her head.
Darian chuckled and touched the next crystal.
A moment later he took his hand off. "What the hell. Teral? What's he doing here?"
Thedra shrugged again. "You told me to get you the initial Experiences of everyone in the current class so you could get my take on them. Teral's one of them."
"Isn't he like a Professional now? What's he doing back at the academy?" Darian was more curious than concerned. He leaned forward.
"Mnemonic Hazard or some kind." Thedra said. "I don't know all the details. He started showing signs of some pretty severe mental fraying. The Experiences about it were purged, but I did a little digging. The purge order came straight from Lord Kale himself."
Darian's brows shot up. "Kale? He's usually the first one saying the council shouldn't jump straight to mind scrubbing and experience purging everytime someone runs into a Mnemonic threat. Must be serious."[b]
[b]"That's what I thought too. Anyway, they took him off-city, purged the Experience, and scrubbed the fraying. Then they did what they could to put him back together again. His personality is pretty much intact, but a lot of his training and insticts are gone. The Kale family asked that he be put back through the acaemy again just to make sure there weren't any experience gaps later. He might remember some of his first time through, but a lot of it will be new again."
Darian's brows furrowed. "Alright. As long as he doesn't try to play teacher while he's supposed to be a student, I'm fine with it. How come I didn't get notified of this sooner?"
Thedra pointedly eyed the mess of paperwork on Darian's desk. "You sure you didn't?"
Darian had the grace to look a little sheepish and moved on to the next crystal.
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PM:A 009-415 "Ceol". Cyrus. Midnight.
Spectrum ghosted along the high battlements, heading west. On the street below, a patrolling fist of legionaries rattled past without an upward glance. Within the barricaded city streetlamps and lighted windows glowed steadily. Laughing voices and faint music carried through the chill air.
Outside the walls the world was dark and still. To the south, the ruined skirts of Cyrus tumbled down into the bay; to the west, the broken houses and fallen walls merged gently with the scrub. On the southwest tower a torch flared, illuminating a uniformed figure. The figure took a moment to watch the flame catch before lobbing the burning torch over the parapet into the empty street outside. Immediately a rustling, scratching, wheezing clamor began in the darkness. The uniformed figure hefted a heavy crossbow and sighted down into the street.
Corpses emerged into the light, arms outstretched, their glassy eyes fixed on the smoking torch. The soldier fired into the shambling crowd, five times in quick succession. The noise died down. The soldier removed an empty magazine from her bow and reached over her shoulder for a fresh one.
"Kenna MacCreer," Spectrum called.
"Oi," the soldier replied, "I ken yer an-sin. De's th' name on ye?"
"Please address me as Spectrum. I am here with an offer of employment."
"Oh, aye?" the girl said. "Cannahaeweit, I've a dreuchd aready." She slotted a full magazine into her bow and snapped the clamps into place. One last zombie was crouched over the torch, gurgling, trying to grasp it between her amputated stumps. Kenna hauled on the arming lever and fired a bolt into the back of the dead woman's head.
"Very well," Spectrum said, turning to leave. "I will inform the Tower of your decision. Good morning to you."
"Th' Tower?" Kenna repeated. "Feith!" she cried, following after him, "I dinnae ken. De o th' dreuchd?"
Without breaking stride, Spectrum said, "You have been recommended for inclusion in the Academy by Thedra Shepard Locke."
"Mi, a bhith a sgolar? A prentice?" she asked, breathlessly. "Aye! Yae!"
"Indeed?" he replied. "Come this way. We leave at once."
"Feith, ya ponce," she said, slinging the bow across her back, "Dinnae wake Ned an' I'm needin my kit, ya saoil?"
Spectrum turned to regard her, one skeptical eyebrow held high. He retrieved a smooth, colorful stone from his sleeve and examined it gravely. "Our window for extraction will expire in four minutes."
"I'm greas," she said, grinning, and turned back to her post. "Ned!" she shouted, "Ned, ya scunner! I'm leavin a dol th' city, a-nis tha's yer post."
She shinned down the ladder to the street amid Ned's bewildered objections. As the girl dashed toward her barracks, Spectrum turned to inspect her work outside the wall.
The torch had burned low and guttered fitfully. Three more zombies had drifted out of the darkness toward it and were milling aimlessly together in the uncertain light. Spectrum waved a hand, extinguishing the torch; the wandering zombies dispersed and six corpses were left, sprawled across the flags. A heavy bolt protruded from the brain of each.
Spectrum considered that this, at least, was promising.
-Arch Academy, Headmaster's office-
"Don't need to see much more than that." Darian said approvingly. "Who's left?"
"There's three. One's a native of the Forest-"
"-The Forest? As in the Crucible Forest? "Of Dread" and all that?" Darian said in a rare moment of being impressed.
"Yes. That forest." Thedra said, looking annoyed. "I'm so glad we aren't sending people there anymore. That place is a nightmare."
"That was sort of the point." Darian shrugged.
"No, a logistical nightmare. Do you have any idea how many of our technicians are even able to work out the coordinates for Doors to that place? Like six. It's awful. One of the worst flux ratings anywhere. It's like... quicksand. It pulls energy in. Then we have to try to drag the energy to a location somewhere near our people. It takes way too much power to get where we need to go."
"Huh. Didn't know that. Not my side of things." Darian said a little apologetically.
"You would if you ever read these reports." Thedra said cattily.
Darian chuckled and was about to say something but Thedra cut him off.
"I get it. I'd probably do the same thing if they stuck me with this."
"You want the job?" Darian said hopefully.
"I'm not qualified." Thedra shook her head.
"Maybe someday." Darian grinned.
"Maybe. Until then, stop trying to get yourself fired. You aren't replaceable. Until then thumbing your nose at the Council is just making more work for me and the rest of the people having to pick up the slack. Right now we don't have the luxury of slacking off." Thedra gave the Headmaster a very pointed look. "Have you seen the Harbinger reports lately?"
Darian looked chagrined. His perpetual good nature was a little bruised. "No. I don't look at those much either."
"We're running a deficit. Have been for months. If we don't get new Experiences coming in soon we'll be in Return by the end of the year." Thedra looked positively grim.
Darian looked shocked. "That bad? Alright. Consider me chagrined. Time to break out my old Ring of Sustenance. Sleep's overrated anyway."
"Good. Let's get back on track. We have a Forest native. I didn't get to see him in action. There was too much smoke, but apparently he can see though it fine. Has a connection with fire. Weird fighting style. A long spear and a flail."
"That's different." Darian grinned. "Who are the others?"
"One's Experiences are sealed. Like Teral's. I don't even have a name yet." Thedra said looking down at her Slate "The other one is an Owl."
"You trying to see if I'm still paying attention?" Darian asked incredulously. "You can't shock me. Not since the winged goblin I got brought a few years ago."
"Well that's good. A human sized owl shouldn't phase you then." Thedra smiled with almost zero sweetness.
"Who..." Darian's eyes narrowed.
"Yeah. Owl." Thedra nodded, still grinning.
"...funny. What house Sponsored an Owl?" Darian shook his head.
"Voss." Thedra said simply.
Darain raised an eyebrow. "Voss? I expect this sort of weirdness from Creed or Drake."
"Or Kale." Thedra added.
"Or Kale." Darian agreed. "Voss are usually the sensible ones."
"Apparently the Owl-people are totalitarian racial elitists. They have a strong knack for organization, but are extremely judgmental and xenophobic. Voss wants to find out how much is nature and how much is nurture. This one is the first that they've raised away from his own kind." Thedra explained.
Darian sighed and nodded, putting his hand on the last crystal.
From above, the city looked an awful lot like a dart board. The Temple sat in the center. The Towers formed a ring around it. Around that was the Inner City, a collection of districts, each the seat of power of one of the Noble Houses.
Then was Door Street, a long, circular road that cut through the middle of the city.
The Outer City was far less organized. Instead of neat and tidy noble districts, the city on the outer side of Door Street was more like a continuous sprawl.
Like a scar through it was the Labyrinth, a planar anomaly that had spread through the outer city like a disease, rearranging the architecture into a continuously shifting maze. Nobody lived there anymore. The city had already been overcrowded, and now with the Labyrinth making some fifteen percent of the city unlivable, many Citizens had been forced to find a berth in the Flotilla, or even to move to a different Plane.
Thedra pointed each of the city's landmarks out on a map she had laid across the table.
"I'm supposed to take you on a tour to orient you to the city. I've also been assigned to your Academy rotation. You'll be seeing a lot more of me for the next few months."
"We're going to start from where we are in the center and spiral our way outward. Everyone ready?"
"As ready as I'll ever be." Ariela says taking it all in.
Eythil was clearly intrigued by the layout of the city from the map and he nodded.
"Yes." he said with only a little hesitance. "And the others?"
Talas studied the map with interest. He looked with knitted brows at the marks on the map Thedra indicated as 'the Labyrinth.'
"What's the nature of that? The lords of this city are so... powerful, yourself included. And there's a thing here in their own city that cannot be fixed?"
"It's... complicated." Thedra said. "To be honest, I don't know a whole lot about it. Most portals are concentrated on Door Street. Portals die out sometimes, and others appear. Sometimes they show up outside of Door Street and have to be either moved, contained or closed. Other times, portals will merge somehow. That makes a portal less of a doorway and more of a... junction."
"Planes bump up against each other all the time. If they do that in areas or times where the planar fabric is weak, the combination of planar energies can be pretty dramatic. Spells like Unhallow and Desecration are essentially short-lived versions of that idea. The lizard we fought that released all that Abyssal energy did the same thing."
"The Labyrinth was a merged portal that appeared just outside Door Street in the Outer City. The two planes connected to the portal were Mechanus and Carceri."
Thedra sighed at the blank stares she was getting. "A lot of this will be covered in your Academy lessons. Planar theory is a big part of your training."
"The short version is, the Labyrinth portal did weird things to the area around it. Those two planes are both very, um, rigid. They resist being manipulated, so we couldn't effectively close it or move it. They are also both strongly adaptive. That's a combination you don't run into much. Usually planes are one or the other."
"Anyway, the Labyrinth portal makes nearby architecture rearrange itself."
"It was fine when the effected area wasn't much bigger than large warehouse, but a while back there was an attack on the city and the our enemies used the Labyrinth against us. The portal was fed a great deal of energy and our ways of containing it were sabotaged. The Labyrinth started spreading through the city like an infection, turning the buildings and streets themselves into giant deathtraps. The area marked on the map is still prone to spontaneous restructuring. It's less constant now, and we are syphoning off the energies as safely as we can to make the effected area smaller, but right now that part of the city is too dangerous to live in."
"I'll show it to you when we get there."
Talas absorbed it all with slowly climbing brows, a little headshake of resigned I'm-in-over-my-head.
"...who does the City count among its enemies, then? Since we are now of the City-- and those enemies are our own?"
"Everyone...and no one. Again, that will be covered at the Academy."
"In this case, though, it was a coalition. An unlikely alliance between a group of interplanar mercenaries called the Foundation, a group of privateers called the Maelstrom Armada, and the followers of a lizardfolk demigod."
"That's.....mind boggling doesn't even begin to describe it." Ariela says shaking her head.
Thedra shrugged. "They were all pretty upset with us. In our line of work, anywhere we go we're likely to be thrown up against the worst groups around. If anyone else could handle it, we wouldn't get hired. We don't come cheap."
"Usually our tactic is to cut off the heads of any organization capable of taking the fight to the city itself. Usually it works. Unfortunately, these three groups had power structures that let them recover pretty handily after we took out their big wigs. They also had enough magical clout to be able to do their homework and contact each other."
"A concentrated attack against the city itself like that had never happened before, so we were caught off guard. We have better safeguards in place now."
"Anyway, let's get moving."
Thedra led them down through the Harbinger tower, waved at Cass on her way out and walked through the Temple Gates. The city loomed before them. The Temple grounds were in the center of a circle of a small park. There were no trees, but the ground was covered in come kind of clover and occasional shrubs dotted the lush greenery. The main road out of the temple cut through the park and functioned with a circular road that ran around the temple grounds. On the other side of that circular road were the Noble Districts.
The group could see the outer edge of three of three of the districts from from where they stood. Each one was distinctly different in architecture and style.
She walked straight ahead toward the nearest district. The roads were paved with white stones and very clean. Buildings were stone, made up of post-and-lintel architecture, decorated with corinthian columns and temple-like buttresses and windows. The buildings were quite tall, which was rare for that style of construction. The buttresses were used to add support to the stability of the columns supporting the upper floors.
Marble carvings of angelic figures decorated the eves. Open flames on high poles lit the streets. A pair of statues flanked the main street, each holding a spear with a white pennant bearing a red and gold sigil of wings made of fire.
People here seemed kind, warm and lively, but a bit judgy or haughty as well. There were quite a few people on the streets with clearly otherworldly ancestry. Gold or silver tinted skin or eyes, fur, feathers, and other celestial features stood out. A few even had wings. All of them were armed. Some were armored.
"Solar district, seat of House Solar. There's a whole lot of angelic blood in that family. Sabriel is one of them. They're big on tradition, heritage, altruism and righteousness."
Thedra frowned. "Look, I'm not supposed to say anything bad about any of the houses or guilds. I'm supposed to give you the official spiel about each house's values and specialties and then let you make your own judgements. I'm not going to do that though. Every house has stuff it's known for, and stuff it's good at, but the all have their own issues too. I'd feel like I wasn't doing my job if I didn't give you the warnings along with the praises."
"So, Solar. They're the first to offer help if anyone needs it. They pride themselves on being the good guys. They're also kinda judgey, and can be pretty inflexible in their thinking. I'm generalizing, of course. Don't assume that anything I say is true of every member of a house."
"The current house head is Archangel Azora. Uh, Archangel is a title. Lady Azora isn't actually an archangel. She's actually kind of anti-theistic. Sabriel is her adopted daughter."
Garridan listened intently to Thedra as she described the city and began her tour. He took mental notes on the topics he felt most important to his understanding and survival. When the topic of the families came up, he looked around and nodded. "So, is the City run entirely by the families, like a council? Do the Houses get along? Have their even been wars between the Houses?"
"No wars. The reason the houses exist at all is to prevent wars. That doesn't mean they get along though. Some of them hardly see eye to eye on anything. House Solar and House Stark practically hate each other. They're willing to negotiate and cooperate though. They kind of have to. The stakes are too high to get mired by rivalries or ideological differences."
"So, yes. There's a council. Each house has two seats. How they nominate or elect councilors varies by house. Solar, for example, has previous councilors nominate new ones, and then the nominees are put through a series of tests until the best candidate is clear. To House Solar, a council seat is a high honor that no one seeks out purposefully. It is a duty bestowed on someone best suited for it. To them, it is considered disrespectful and inappropriately ambitious to deliberately seek a council seat. I'm sure there are still those that want it, but they would never say so out loud."
They wound through the side streets. The neighborhoods felt antiquated and proud. They were clean and bright and well lit, but the sculptures and buildings felt old. Chips and cracks weren't repaired with mortar. Instead, imperfections were either left, or, if the damage threatened structural integrity, it was filled in with what looked like gold. Ivy had been allowed to grow freely on many buildings and statues. Fountains threw sprays of water into the air or poured from the vessels held by statues. The whole district had the feel of an ancient temple or hanging garden.
They took a turn and were suddenly before a great manor, fenced with low marble walls. Cherubic statues topped the fence supports. The statues here moved. They watched passers by, smiled, waved, silently laughed, but all were armed with tiny bows.
The manor itself was palatial and opulent, but also somewhat overgrown with greenery. It was built wide rather than tall, with a great balcony. From above a streak of golden light poured down from Skyhome to light the central walkway with the sigil of house solar. The burning wings. They glowed on the marble tiled ground. Two great statues of nude women gracefully holding aloft golden swords acted as a gateway. Their tower sheilds were held wide. They did not move, but if the cherubs were any indication, it was likely that they could. It was easy to see how the two ten foot tall curved sheilds could swing together to form a closed gate.
"It's a little much, if you ask me." Thedra said, smiling nonetheless.
"It's impressive if a little.....dammit! The' word is right there and I can't....." Ariela trails of in frustration.
Talas stared around, eyes darting to cherubs and statues and the beautiful architecture. Even Magnimar with its crumbling Irespan seemed like a collection of big-but-shabby old rocks compared to this well-maintained artistry.
"Very, uhm..." Talas craned his head back trying to follow the beam of light to its source, then gave up.
"Like living in a grand cathedral, I'd think. Pretty, but..." ...but give him a comfortable ratty chair any day of the week.
He shot a sympathetic look at Ariela, briefly, but offered no particular words.
Thedra smiled. "Yeah, same here."
She kept walking, passing the impressive seat of House Solar. Soon they reached the other side of the district. A massive wall loomed, curving along the outer edge of the Inner City.
"That's the Door Street wall. It runs all the way around the Inner City, separating the Noble Districts from the market."
As they walked a great gateway revealed itself in the wall.
The gate was open. An archway of gold fashioned in city's emblem. It formed the center of a sunburst that spread across the wall in hammered brass and gold. The stones of the wall itself were etched with clouds and painted in the gradient of a rich sunrise.
"This is the Golden Gate. It's one of the four gates to Door Street. Through there is the Radient Faire. We'll be heading through here later. For now, we're going to stop here a bit. Our ride should be here any moment."
Garridan nodded his agreement. "I never thought I would see such... Opulence? Is that the right word?" he glanced to Talas. While Garridan was of average intelligence, he grew up in the wilderness of Varisia and survival was more important than an expansive vocabulary... Though he had heard that word used a few times in his travels.
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"Yeah, that's a good word. The noble houses are pretty filthy rich, at least by the standards of most prime material planes. This city runs on a different kind of economy than you're used to. Most places have money systems where things that are rarer are worth more. Value is determined by scarcity. Planar travel changes the game. There are planes out there where gold is as common as dirt, but water is almost unheard of."
"That's why the city is such a powerful place. The portals mean we can fairly easily go almost anywhere. When it comes to trade or military action, that's a pretty big deal."
A rumble sounded through the Golden Gate.
The gate was more of a tunnel, really. The wall was very thick. Something big was silhouetted in the gate for a moment. It was humanoid, nearly twice as tall as a man, and strangely angular.
It stepped into the light. A man made of metal and stone. Some kind of golem. It bore the arch sigil on it's chest and pauldrons. It's whole body was made of intricate machinery covered in heavy armor, styled in the fashion of a knight.
"Oh good." Thedra said. "Recruits, this is Prime. He'll be saving our feet today."
"Greetings." the machine knight said in a surprisingly human voice.
"... ... ... What are you?" Eythil asked slowly after staring for a good 10 seconds.
Teral nodded amiably to the giant metal man. "Hey, big guy. How goes keeping the terrible two out of trouble? Noticed them running around in the Temple earlier."
"I'm off duty this week. Needed to have some repairs done." the machine man said, sounding relieved. "Secondus and Tertius are watching them."
He raised a metal eyebrow at Eythil. "I am a Maug."
Then his brows furrowed. "Wait. What were Ash and Cole doing 'running around' at the temple?"
"You might want to have words with Secondus and Tertius." Thedra said wryly. "The twins slipped the leash."
The golem looked pained. "They promised they'd behave while I was...Tertius is a surveillance drone... they shouldn't have been able to... I thought..."
"I sent them home." Thedra said.
Something in Prime's jaw was making a sound like a rock tumbler. "I'm going to take those two to Athas and make them count sand..."
Talas rubbed at his eyes, but the enormous metal man... was still there. "Nice to meet you," he said blankly, his mind slipping into a fugue state of rolling with the shocks.
Teral nodded grimly in agreement with Prime. Apparently, this might not be as funny as it seemed. "Absolutely. Sooner or later, Ash and Cole have got to understand they can't just do what they like whenever they get an idea rolling. I'm all for innovation, but on city there have to be limits."
He chucked his chin towards the Harbinger meaningfully. "The consequences can be...unfortunate."
"Let's get moving. We have a lot of ground to cover." Thedra said.
Prime nodded and knelt down. Sort of. His body rearranged itself so that it was something like a centaur, but with the lower half of a flat-bed wagon instead of a horse. The bed of the wagon was lined on the sides with shield-like coverings. Rather than his waist being the junction point, the wagon attached just below his ribs, making his wedge-like chest into the front of the vehicle. He looked a great deal like an animated battering ram, or a wheeled boat. "All aboard."
Garridan wasn't sure he could have been more surprised by the things he had seen in this city, but it just kept coming! When they met the golem, Prime, he could do no more than simply smile and listen into the conversation. He then jumped into the wagon quietly and prepared to absorb more of this strange and awe-inspiring place.
Ariela simply takes it all in in utter fascination, trying not to be overwhelmed.
Eythil did not quite understand what had just occurred with Prime but he followed suit like the rest of the group.
The ride was surprisingly smooth as Prime began moving. It was like being in a carriage, but without horses. They moved down the middle of the streets at a leisurely pace, Prime or Thedra occasionally returning a wave from people who recognized them.
They soon found themselves crossing a street that was roughly three times as wide as the narrower residential streets they'd been in. The architecture on the other side of the street was distinctly different than the marble and gold favored by House Solar.
The new district they were entering was grey blue and somewhat somber. The architecture was also reminiscent of temples, but of a different sort than the resplendence of the Solar district. This was more like the temple Ariela and Vance had come from. The stone and wood were sturdy and simple, arranged without opulence in mind. Instead a peaceful simplicity was the order of things here. Vance and Garridan were put in mind of the few Tien-styled buildings they'd seen in their travels.
Instead of burning torches, the streets were lit with glass orbs containing lights that moved like fireflies. The local style seemed to be long coats, cloaks, hooded frocks, and other similar flowing garments.
Pennants hung from the lamp posts bearing flags with a pair of crossed herder's crooks.
"Shepherd's District." Thedra said simply. There was something in her voice that made it clear this place had personal significance to her, and not all of it was good.
Talas stood awkwardly inside the living... chariot, or whatever it was this 'Prime' was, trying to keep his feet to himself. He gazed around the new neighborhood.
"Bit more quiet," he said, his tone subdued to fit his words. "Not exactly a lively bunch."
"House Shepherd prides themselves on listening." Thedra said. "Many of them are diviners, psychics, mediums, detectives, sages or other things of that nature. As a house, they don't believe much in the idea of secrets, and they can be right jerks when on the trail of a question they want answered. They're patient, and value open discourse. They're ethicists, and most of them are very trustworthy. Just don't get into debates with them."
"Their house structure is a senate. There's no central leader. Instead they hold house-wide elections. The senate is responsible for choosing their Council members."
"Sounds tiring." Eythil said distractedly as he watched the glass lights fly about the area with wonder.
"But very fair." Ariela replies
"It's not all sunshine and roses with the Shepherds. Ask House Locke or House Stark there's some very old arguments there. The Shepherd family has some pretty dismissive ideas about things like rights to privacy, withholding information for security purposes, and mind control." Thedra said.
Prime rotated his head all the way around to face the back of the wagon for a few moments, so he could join the conversation. "They tend not to trust people like me, either. As a construct, I don't have the kind of mind that can be read, or subjected to other kinds of truthtelling. They have a hard time with anyone who's motives they can't open up and read like a book."
Eythil stopped paying attention to the lights to pay better attention to what was being said. "Does everyone have to have... ideas like that to be in the house? What if they learn something that is very bad, do they always share it?"
"Oh, no. Of course not." Thedra said. "The stuff I'm telling you is a combination of their official stances on things and reputation. Individuals can vary quite a bit. That said, a lot of Shepherds can read minds, or tell when someone is hiding things, so keeping secrets might be difficult."
"I know how that sounds, but they do have their reasons. One of the big things that we have to be on guard against are things called Mnemonic Hazards, which are kind of like diseases that travel through learning about them. For example, imagine if I were to tell you some kind of word you'd never heard before, and by knowing it, it would make you sick or drive you crazy. As I understand them, they're like infectious curses that spread by knowledge of their existence."
"One of House Shepherd's primary focuses is making sure that a Mnemonic Hazard never gets a foothold in the city. To them, that mission is more important than people wanting to keep their secrets."
Garridan frowned as he listened to the description of the Shepherds. "I do not think I would get along well with any of them. Everyone has a right to their own secrets. To think that the "greater good" justifies them entering someone's mind without their consent." He shakes his head. "No. If they try that with me, they may find they are holding a viper in one hand."
Teral, lounging with his hands laced behind his head, chimed in. "Never gotten along to well with the Sheps, myself, but don't discount them too quickly. They have some..." He frowned. "Questionable methods, sometimes, but Paladine's beard, when you need them, you need them. One of those Hazards Thedra mentioned? That's why my memory isn't all it's cracked up to be, or at least that's what Darian told me. They had to cut the thing out of my mind, along with any memory of it, or something real nasty was going to get moving that even we might not be able to stop."
He shivered, and Prick poked his head out of his belt pouch, the vicious little beast staring up at his master with a strange hunger. "Even after they purged it, I can still feel it sometimes, sort of...picking at the edges."
He sat up, rubbing at his temples. "Actually, now I think about it - I probably shouldn't be talking about this," he finished, looking profoundly uncomfortable. "There's playing with Fate, and then there's baiting her."