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Aubrey: Grea stares at the scene before her. Food, water, iron, soft clothes. Her eyes narrow on the little man, despoiler. How long does she have? She lives in seasons and spans of sun movement. The children that Jareen, Arakan, and Cahel want are here. She will wait one more exchange of the conversation.
Aubrey: And up the stairs ....
Aubrey: Grea looks at the meat. Her hand steals toward her knife. She shakes her head and creeps carefully toward the stairs.
Aubrey: Great shakes her head. She moves first toward the cage, where she briefly examines the lock.
Then she trots across to the tower where she tries to slip into the door if it's not well guarded.
Aubrey: Grea moves easily toward the center of the square. She tries to anticipate traffic and steer well clear of people.
"Wait for me at the city gate. Stay low on your way back." The invisible Grea begins moving swiftly toward the bandit camp. Small puffs of dusty sand rise from her footfalls as she trots away. Aubrey: About 50 yards from the bandit camp Grea slows and walks more carefully toward the wall.
As the sky darkens, Grea leads Jareen toward the camp, keeping to low hollows between the dunes. She walks in a low crouch most of the way and urges him to follow suit. Sometimes she crawls. Finally she worms her way on her belly to the top of a dune and peers over the sand. "If darkness falls before I come back, show a little light every few minutes from the city wall. When seven stars shine, then stop. I will not make it back tonight. If I don't I will meet you tomorrow at the gate where we entered the city."
Grea looks steadily at Arakan throughout his speech. Jaryx:
I will be fine. It will be just like hunting.
"The prisoners I can see. The kids I can see. But I can not see a name and I can not ask. How shall I discover this man's name?"
Arakan mulls for a bit, "Hey Jareen, if Grea is willing to scout, you said you could make at least one person unseen tonight, right? How long does it last? What do you say lady, you want to walk around inside for a bit?" "I would do this." *****
Great slides back down to the others. "Their hunters are lazy. I can get into the camp. But I have come down because they have visitors. One is a richly dressed in blue."
If the others are willing, Great will watch. It's a hunter thing.
Jaryx:
Via missive.
Good idea, Jaryx. That will help. "I can move quietly and largely unseen, but not in a camp of so many. Someone would see me. "
Grea scrambles back down. "Nothing new to see up there. Now what?"
Grea clambers up the wall. Her hands and feet easily find purchase in the old sockets for the wooden stairs. The trickiest part is the transition to the skylight where the sockets stop above the roof. She slows while she carefully searches for handholds in the rough stone. Then she's on the roof.
Grea pads over to a window slit overlooking the bandit camp. She looks at the field of fire through the slit, but doesn't expect to see anything new at the camp yet. Then she looks for the way up.
Grea eases the door open just the bare minimum and, after looking around, squeezes inside.
Grea continues along the wall in her low crouch until she reaches the door.
"The tower." Grea begins moving in a surprisingly supple crouch below the lower edge of the battlements toward the tower.
Grea swarms up the wall and carefully pulls herself over the top edge. She's pleased to witness the battlements and crenellations. After glancing around, she lowers a rope for the others.
"Let's find a side street that reaches the wall. We can climb up and try to get into the gate towers."
Grea squats on her heels and looks through the gateway at the bandit camp. "We could watch and hunt from here, but it will take many days to weaken the slavers so."
Grea looks around.
Grea nods and follows Arakan.
"We wait and watch."
Grea relaxes. "I misunderstood you, Jareen." She turns to look at Danet. "This is not the desert. The desert is hard, but it is clean. This is unspeakable."
Grea's head snaps up and her quarterstaff follows sharply. She's holding it in both hands, a standard guard position. She stares at Jareen. "What do you mean, entranced?"
Grea climbs carefully down the wall, before kicking away to drop the last 10 feet. She rolls on touchdown and reaches for Jaryx' hand to rise smoothly.
Grea relays the details of her view. She ends with, "The guards are probably inside the tower, out of the sun. Anything else?" She waits to see if there are specific questions before returning to the floor.
"I will look. Jaryx, lift me up." Grea slides out of her pack and moves under a window where she waits for her friend. After the half-giant elevates her she tries to scramble up until she can just chin herself on the window's sill. She peers out over the edge.
Grea smiles and offers soothingly, "Shu, Jaryx. If Arakan wants to climb higher let him find the dreams."
A few minutes ago, Grea would have scoffed at the weak-willed who imagined injuries upon themselves, but being drawn and quartered in another time and threatened by phantom swords has altered her perspective. She nods recognition that the others' experience has been different from hers. "The swordsmen were phantoms, Jaryx." She moves to Danet and pulls him to his feet. "The hate left here bites at us. Let's try another tower."
...
Unseeing, Grea sidesteps to the right; her body, an arc around the phantom blade. She returns to the world somewhat awestruck. Her voice is tinged with wonder. "The water--the comfort"
Grea tilts her head. "What? I hear nothing."
Grea doesn't see how going through this creepy sh!thole is helping either, but she wants the best view possible. "Maybe that was the last vision. Let's climb. If there's another maybe we quit."
"We could waste months searching." "Let us go to the top. We will have the best view there."
"Arakan, Jareen? Where will we find an advantage against the bandits?"
Grea nods, accepting his decision. She is not in the least sad about it. "The half-elf is right. Alive is better." She stays close to Jareen gently shouldering him into Djal and Morthak's wake. Jaryx: I think we are seeing an echo of the man. How evil and strong must he have been that this place still remembers him.
"The dwarf is right. Stop fighting. " Her attention returns to Arakan. "I can heal myself a little. Would that work?"
It's not hard for Grea to see where the vision was going. Her joints could still feel the quartering. "Dead is good for these kings. Arakan, if you stopped the vision, thank you." She looks back to Jareen. "If you would seek this knowledge, let us leave the room first."
Grea keeps to the center of the group.
Grea rolls on the floor, groaning and holding herself with arms wrapped around her waist. "Up on the balcony. They're up on the balcony."
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