STORY: Building Bridges - Part Five
Morwen is as yet unwilling to speak openly about her goals, or to let anyone look at the book - and certainly not the Dark Elf, whom she trusts as far as she can throw him with both her hands behind her back (not counting the use of magic, obviously), since she fears that to do so might alert the gnome to her plans before she is ready. She also considers that he might be reading their minds, or at least the minds of some of the group; she is fairly certain that he probably can't read her or Jared beyond surface thoughts, based on their earlier encounter; she suspects that's also the case for the Rog and the Dark Elf, but she does not trust the latter at all, and to include the Rog in any plan that requires subtlety is probably like curing a hangover with decapitation; yet it's also important to have him on her side.
"Very well then; I agree with Jared that the gnome is the real issue
here. I can't see how we're going to resolve this without confronting
him at some point, and it would probably help if we could agree on
some sort of plan. I don't see how running around sorting out
Queenie's messes is going to help us in any way, except possibly
short-term considerations such as monetary gain. Now, we can all just
sit around here, we can go back the way we came, and complete
Queenie's errand."
She ignores Paganini's outraged attempt to interrupt her.
"... or we
can explore this interesting system of caves a bit more, and hope that
we find something that will shed more light on everything."
She smiles
sweetly and continues,
"I would suggest that we do the unwise thing,
and go looking for more trouble... or at least do something
unpredictable."
Morwen then holds her stylus in the air, pointing it in a number of directions. Suddenly she rushes into a dark corner, and the light of her stylus reveals a staircase leading down. She leans forward as far as she can without stepping inside the arch of the entrance, and extinguishes the light.
"Interesting," she says, and it seems to Jared, who had followed her halfway across the cave that he can see an all too familiar blue light shining faintly from somewhere below.
Morwen steps back and addresses the vampire. "Want to bet that stair leads us straight down into the other library? Shall we NOT go there? It seems a bit suspicious to me that we are suddenly offered a path that leads directly to where we last encountered the gnome. Besides, I much prefer to do something unexpected right now. I wonder what's down that abyss?"
The Count's only interest in the abyss is in staying as far away from
it as possible. (One might almost say he ... respects the
abyss ...)
"I afgreen aboutn the straiwaz," he begins, "but sa fra as teh abssy,
er, mu, hu, REM ... hvae oyu gnoe ount fo OYR MIND??!/1 THER'S NO WAZ
WE'RE JMUIPOING DWON THERE!!1 For one thnig, tis magci si topo
snrtog veen for me. For naother, we jsut raen't."
Morgil nods furiously in agreement: "I already told my companions that I am NOT jumping down any abyss like some expendable racially- inferior proletarian who stupidly lets himself get killed for the benefit of the System and those in power who benefit from it!"
(Meanwhile, all this talking and thinking has made Rakeis' eyes glaze over. Accepting that he'll have to wait a bit to hit on Morwen, he sits down on the floor and takes a magazine out of his pocket. As he slowly looks through the pages, he munches on mushrooms from his pocket.)
Sir Confy snaps out of his daze. "Well, I say chaps, this is going
awfully well, isn't it? Nice to see you all getting along so
splendidly. Not like that lot I was with earlier, all shouting orders
and storming throne rooms and whatnot." He grins benignly at the
group. "I must say, though, all this standing around is making me
hungry. We ought rather to be getting a move on, don't you think?
"Now, I'm not too keen on this whole library idea, I've heard bad things about that before... poor Adam, really, it's terrible..." He peters out for a moment, but before anyone else can get a word in, he claps his hands and flashes another broad grin. "Still, all for the best, I suppose, eh?
"Now, the idea this charming lady had about jumping down the chasm -
that sounds like a plan to me. I mean I've had quite a bit of
experience when it comes to falling down things, and there's allways
something at the bottom to break my fall. Odd, that, when you think
about it..."
He trails off, feelng vaguely puzzled about something
that he can't quite put his finger on.
The Rog yawns and stretches, and mutters, "Thjere rae topo mnaz trasking lfie froms aounrd hjere. BTW, deso nazomen else hv a wreid fleeign f ssupended naimation?"
"Well, if that is your worry, I suggest we all jump down that chasm
and see who makes it to the bottom... It certainly beats hanging
around here."
Morwen picks up her luggage, stalks off and quite deliberately steps
into the chasm.
(Rakeis looks up from his magazine just in time to see Morwen disappear into the chasm. He folds the magazine in half and puts it back into his pocket as...)
The Count's eyes bug out of his head like flaming coals. "I walasz thgout the Ngloodo ro wahtever oyu clla hre pseices wsa a bint slwo," he says, "but nwo I knwo seh's vompletely nisane!" He looks at the chasm, nervously chewing his pipe, his hat, and his firewhip. He quickly comes to a conclusion that makes his lateral appendages turn into jelly. "I sppuose D'i btteer ptorect hre, teh dceeiving Edla," he decides. He shuts his eyes and follows her. (All he would ever say about the experience afterwards was: "I flle nito drakness nad uot fo tmie nad thgout, nad wnadreed on ptahs i wlil knot tlle.")
Rakeis walks over to the edge of the chasm and looks down where the count jumped off. He quickly assesses the situation... the babe went that way. He takes out a flask and has a long swig, before turning to the others. "Party on, dudes!" he says cheerfully, then dives head first into the chasm, his cry of "woaah, radicaaaal" fading into the distance.
Jared looks at this amazing lemming behaviour and mutters something in
some language or other. Or maybe just an annoyed grunt. Peeking over
the edge he verifies its depth with the words "pretty dark down
there". Not hesitating for another moment he takes one step forward
and rather clumsily falls into the chasm. After a few seconds he
grins, slams his fists together and turns into a bat.
"Now, where did those idiots go?", he quietly wonders.
Sir Confused-a-lot, Morgil, and Paganini are the only holdouts -- though Sir Confy's "holding out" is purely accidental. The Dark Elf and the Queen's Champion have been staring incredulously at this spectacle of mass psychology; Sir Confy, on the other hand, has been quietly munching choklit leftovers, and only now notices that everyone is gone.
"Now that's odd," he says, and then turns to Morgil and inquires, "Excuse me, my dear chap, you would't happen to be made of choklit, now would you?"
Morgil draws himself up with great dignity and retorts, "No, you decadent aristocrat. I am not. I fear you will only be able to devour the lower classes metaphorically."
Sir Confy gives Morgil a rather vacant look before replying, "Oh, I'm frightfully sorry. Now, if you don't mind, I'm off. Maybe they have some better choklit down there; this stuff is getting a bit stale."
With that, he rather rolls than jumps into the chasm. Unfortunately, he slips on the remains of a choklit mushroom in mid-roll, and knocks Morgil off-balance, so that the Elf too falls into the abyss.
Paganini heroically resolves that he must jump down after the others, that he might arrest them as enemies of the Queen, or die in the attempt. He takes the plunge. Just before blacking out, he thinks he hears a gnome quietly laughing ... no, it must have been his imagi...