Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

"Have you raided the entire library?" Faith asked with a grin as Padraig put down another pile of books; she felt a swell of emotion as he did that, because she knew that he was uneasy about this but equally, anyone other than her would never know it by the willing and supportive way that he was acting. Of course, his natural curiosity, fascination with all things scientific and downright stubbornness when it came to finding things out and pushing the boundaries helped a lot, but Faith knew her husband well enough to know that he wouldn't be here, doing this, unless she was. So, she raised her eyebrow slightly, gave him a slightly lopsided grin and said no more than that.

Lowering her head back to the book which she was currently reading, a few more moments passed as he began to read the tome he was currently looking at. Re-reading the words on the parchment in her hands, Faith frowned slightly. "Padraig?" she said, lifting her head; there was the slight frown creasing her forehead as she did so, her mind ticking over. "This is the diary of someone called Professor Belloq. He keeps talking about the 'Lost Arc', which as far as I can tell..." She flicked back through the pages of the book. She didn't need to, she remembered it but it was a habit and not one that she was truly interested in getting rid of. It was good to double check and that kind of efficiency was a positive thing as far as the earnest young woman was concerned. "Was Arc 705. He says that he lost the whole arc 'Finding Fei'. Which might be nothing," After all, it could be that he was talking about the cave paintings or some book. It certainly wouldn't be the first dead end they'd encountered.

"Do you have his 706 diary?" Faith asked, not lifting her gaze from what she was reading, the frown of concentration on her face deepening. "He says here that he has none for the Lost Arc, but maybe the arc before and the one after will have clues?" Continuing to read, her focus was mostly on the diary.

It was a few moments later when she let out what could only be described as a squeak. "Padraig!" Faith looked up and beamed. "He says that he saw a 'piece of Fei' in that lost arc. Look!" Passing over the journal, there was a lot of very tiny writing, almost indecipherable, but there was also a drawing. Just a sketch, and not by someone who was a talented artist, not at all. However, there was something very obvious about that sketch.

"Does that look like the shard of Treid to you?" Faith asked, excitement lighting her eyes. "Do you know him?" She asked, because he was a Professor at the University, apparently. She didn't know him, but then her tenure at the University was much shorter than his. Even if neither of them did, that meant that they had a contact for him. "Have you got that journal?" Faith asked and glanced down at the one she was showing him. "His penmanship is lousy. We could just ask him?" That, in fact, seemed like an incredibly sensible idea to her, but she was well aware of her own tendency to rush ahead when chasing down information. So, she looked at her husband and grinned slightly.

"Want to?" There were a hundred possibilities opening up and the thought of finding a piece of an Original Being was enough to engage both of their scientific curiosity fit to burst. Faith had to resist the urge to jump up and start tugging him. She did resist, but only just.

Padraig wore a lopsided grin as he put down the last of the books he'd brought home from the library. A few had toppled off the top of the stack when he'd come through the door and for not exactly seeing where he was going, he'd nearly tripped and fallen over the dog and cat both. The cold weather had made them restless and left them with energy to spare, and games of chase through the house weren't uncommon.

"Well we've got theology books, history, archaeology, ancient artifacts," he said, ticking through one realm of study after another. "Engineering, and of course medicine, biology, alchemy and physics. I got a few funny looks while I was out. Someone at the library asked me, weren't we satisfied with a few fields of study and were we looking to monopolize them all." All in good humor of course, but no one else realized what they were about at the moment.

And Faith was right. He wasn't particularly comfortable with this idea of bringing Immortals, or anyone for that matter, back from the dead. But for her? Anything. And besides, he'd told her. Once he'd thought on it, he'd only been able to imagine all of the possibilities, were they actually able to pull it off. "Think of it," he'd said. If they could create something, or figure out some way to do it, the usefulness of that mechanism..."Well the possibilities are endless." Bending time and space, passing from one dimension to another and back again. It boggled the mind, really. So there were no complaints from him as they sat down and began searching through the books he'd brought home.

"Hmm?" he said, distractedly, not looking up from the engineering book he was looking through, when Faith made a bid for his attention. What got it, was a vaguely familiar name and he frowned curiously. Belloq? Where had he heard that before? "Well if it's a bid at finding Fei, then it's probably something," he considered, before it hit him. "I know that name," he said as he searched the other books. "There's a hall in the basement level at Scalvoris university and I remember asking a custodian what was down that hall...It's unkempt, like no one ever cleans there. Like they avoid it, all dusty and hung with cobwebs. He got a funny look on his face when I asked," Padraig went on to explain.

"It was arcs ago, but he said that a professor that doesn't teach any more keeps his study down there and that he doesn't want anyone coming down the hall or even cleaning there. Suspicious of everyone, paranoid. Said he was a bit, well," he paused and grinned then made a looping motion round his temple. "Guy did that. I got the message and didn't ask again." But then she found what they'd been looking for, and even showed him the passage, a barely legible one and he frowned again, nodding. It did look like a shard. "I never really thought about it, you know. Theology hasn't been my thing...Immortals bursting into shards? It seems appropriate somehow." But it did seem that the only way to find out more, was to ask.

He couldn't imagine that this professor Belloq would be very welcoming of them, considering what the custodian back then had told him about the man. "But when has that ever stopped us?" he said, grinning as he put his book aside, stood up and prepared to grab his coat, so long as Faith was game. No time like the present after all. "Shall we?"

"Original beings, not Immortals," Faith corrected, as he spoke about Immortals breaking into pieces. "We learned about it when I did the Letter in Immortal History with Arlo. Fei is here, or was. I mean, it's all legend, but the Original beings, so they say, made the Immortals. So the gods' gods." Of all things, she shrugged. "There's a point beyond which 'big' becomes just... well, they could all squash us like bugs." She frowned slightly, looking down at the book and then frowned. "But you know, Kura's injury is fracturing. Lots of words, meaning the same thing. And it was definitely a bit of Treid. So, yes. Immortals too, you're right. But Fei was an Original. The Scientist." She gave a slight grin as she said that. "Eternally curious apparently." Sounded like someone she knew, in truth.

But, as they talked about the professor, and Padraig recalled him, Faith looked at her husband and her lips lifted in a slight quirk of amusement. Of course, she thought, it wouldn't be anything but someone odd. Still, there was indeed no time like the present and so she took her husband's arm and they made their way to the university building where they had both worked once, and where theoretically he still did. They were here, after all, to share the invention of the magnifier they had made. It would revolutionise science, she was sure and the university thought so, too. As much as it was their invention, Faith was under no illusions who the main person behind it was and that was him. With a glance at him, Faith considered just how much he had changed since that time he had opened the door to her in Andaris. So much had happened to them both, they had experienced so many things together and yet, he was still very much that man. Curious, questioning, stern-seeming; yet with a deep reservoir of passion and a wicked sense of humour. That was her Padraig. As they walked together, her arm in his and sharing a companionable silence, Faith glanced at him and spoke quietly. "One of these trials, you know, I'm going to find the words." Her arm in his tightened, just briefly, "and while I am undoubtedly better at expressing my feelings, I must admit to finding it very convenient that I have no need to." Her misty silver eyes held a tinge of mischief to them. "What with you knowing without a doubt, and all that. Useful. Efficient too, and I appreciate that." She did, indeed, like efficiency, but Faith was teasing him in the way she always had; it was a side of Faith that only Padraig ever really saw.

Still, they got where they were going and as the dust started to increase, Faith glanced at Padraig and gave him a slight and somewhat rueful grin. "I have such an urge to whip out a rag and start cleaning, you know," she whispered. Faith normally had a very low voice, she was soft spoken to the point of almost whispering most of the time but, right in this trill, she was speaking as quietly as she could. "I suppose there will always be that part of me," she frowned slightly at that thought, but said no more on it. The dust was soon thick and the cobwebs hanging low. Yet, there were signs that someone walked here, regularly. Footprints in the dust, movement. "He doesn't go far, does he?" Faith said, glancing down at the very regular patterns in some places, and very irregular in others.

As they made their way, there was a low, deep growling sound. "Padraig?" Faith whispered, dropping her hand to his. "That sounds like a dog." It did sound exactly like that, because it was. A large, angry sounding dog.

"No visitors! None!"

The voice calling from the closed door at the end of the corridor sounded more than sure. "He's a nasty beast, and I'll not be responsible for what he does. Go now! Go and let me work! Go!"

There was a small opening, barely visible to the human eye at this distance, fitted with lenses which allowed him to see who was approaching. The door opened a crack. "Augustin?! Padraig Augustin?" The man called. Padraig could be forgiven, of course, for thinking that the tiny out breath she expelled was a huff, Faith thought. Of course, it wasn't. Not really. Or... maybe a little. Especially when the next call came.

"Did you bring a magnifier?!"

"Do we really know that they're...Original?" Padraig had asked before they decided to set out for the university. "How do we really know? Did they send down word to the effect? Did the Immortals?" It was a rhetorical question of course, and Faith knew it. Debate for debate's sake. But was it really such an unreasonable question?

What if, he posed, there was something or someone sentient before the Originals? Eternity in a future sense was easy to imagine. Eternity in the past, not so much. Did the Originals just pop out of thin air? Or out of stars that had exploded into more points of light and gas? Or were they born of another intelligent being? If that was the case, where had they come from? "Maybe," he suggested, "all of us are made from little bits of one thing and all of them, Originals, Immortals and the mortal races, along with the animals, rocks and trees, were made of of that one thing." Food for thought, Padraig figured. But they had more immediate things to pursue, and so they were off.

"We don't need words. Never did," he'd said as they went, smiling as he squeezed the hand that was wrapped round his arm. Nice to say them now and again, best that they could the two of them. But it remained, they both knew. But she wanted to clean away the dust? Padraig grinned a little and shrugged. Or maybe lay down spread eagle on the floor and make dust angels, as if they were out in the snow. Hardly. Neither of them was the type. He pulled a strand of cobweb from her hair that had latched on and was following her down the hallway. It did look as if no one but perhaps one man, had been down this corridor in a half decade or more.

"Sounds like a very big one too," he answered while the deep chested growling continued. "Probably, bark's worse than the bite." One would hope anyway. The shout from the other side of the door startled him, though he couldn't say why it should. Forewarned, and all. "Professor Belloq?" he said, after glancing Faith's way. Who else could it be, after all? "We don't mean to interfere with your work. Just a few bits, if we might?" he said hopefully when the door cracked open, and a single eye peered through, looking the two of them up and down.

He couldn't help it though. When he heard Faith's huff, one that sounded to his ears like exasperation, he grinned just a little and judged her in the ribs. All in good fun. "Yes, professor Belloq. Faith and Padraig Augustin..." As for the magnifier, well no, they hadn't brought one. But perhaps, Padraig suggested, the professor might in the near future have one at his disposal to explore and toy around with? Failing all else, bribery sometimes worked wonders. And it was apparently enough so far as enticement, to prompt the man to open the door.

And older man...maybe in his fifties or even sixties. Padraig had imagined him older. But tall, a lined face, and a riot of unkempt brown hair, more thinning somewhat than possessing a hairline that was actually receding. He smelled of pipe smoke and something just a little sickly sweet. "Well?" the man asked impatiently while the in fact very large dog stood beside him? "Actually, we were hoping to speak with you about the piece of Fei that you saw some arcs ago?" How did they know about that, the man snapped, looking around as if there must be a half dozen more eyes peering in on them. "Your diaries?" Padraig explained and Belloq seemed to grow more agitated. "What diaries? And if I had them, and if I'd seen anything, they're private."

"But you published them, did you not?" Padraig asked, confused. He didn't, the man insisted until the alchemist held out the very diary in question. The one referencing the lost arc. "Oh, well that," Belloq said, as if one wasn't the same as the other. Except that it was. Clearly, the custodian who'd once questioned the professor's state of mind wasn't exaggerating, and at a loss himself, Padraig looked to Faith to step in.

She'd kept quiet on it, at the time but as Padraig pulled the cobweb from her hair, Faith smiled up at him. "It's not very good planning, really," she said and, anyone who didn't know her might be forgiven for believing that Faith was entirely serious as she spoke. He, of course, knew her better. "I mean, if we find out that there were some beings before the Originals, whatever will we call them?" She smiled at him and shook her head, just slightly. He thought, all the time and such a lot. As for them all being made from the same, Original, Immortal, Mortals, Rocks and Trees? Faith considered it and then touched her hand to her chest where the tattoo of a willow tree grew in a slow and consistent manner. The mark of Moseke. As she spoke, she gestured vaguely to her head, then held out her hand, showing her nails and wrist. "Moseke is the Immortal of stone, after all. Ymiden, the season itself. What is more natural than death and blood?" With a slight quirk of an eyebrow, Faith looked at him and could no longer continue her serious expression "Just a few of your favourite things...." His squeamish nature was a source of constant teasing from her.

It was the dog Faith focused on. As Belloq spoke to Padraig and he then nudged her in the ribs, she was looking at the dog. "What?" She whispered, although in fairness she knew exactly what he was nudging her for and it was a very fair nudge, but still there was a lot to be said for the phrase 'all is fair in love and war' and Faith nudged him right back with her small and bony elbow. Still, she forgave him a little when he introduced them both. "Well! I didn't there were two of you. Which one is which?" Belloq answered, then laughed uproariously at what he saw as his own joke. His laughter stopped, as suddenly as it had begun and Faith felt a pang of emotion, compassion for him. He was alone down here, isolated and distrustful of others. He focused on those things he could control, she thought, because he could not consider those which he could not.

The dog, large and apparently as daft as a brush, watched as they made their way slowly forward and Padraig had one of the most bizarre conversations she had ever heard him have regarding the man's diary. Belloq seemed confused and unsure and that brought about a state of annoyed from him and so, as Padraig glanced to her, Faith stepped forward. "Excuse me, Professor Belloq," she said, softly. "I read this, and it was fascinating." He turned to look at her and he frowned, but not in an angry way, not at all. "You're a little thing, aren't you?" He asked, looking her up and down and Faith looked back at him and smiled. "Yes, Professor," she replied, though Padraig could undoubtedly feel her bristling.

However, it seemed to be working so Faith breathed in and swallowed her pride as he spoke again, "Pretty little thing, mind. You can read, girl?" Faith nodded. "Yes, just." He nodded and beamed at Padraig, then poked him in the chest with a single, rather sharp, finger. "One of those forward thinking types, are you? I approve! Fei you say? Yes!"

There followed a solid twenty-bit monologue from the man. Evidently, once he got an audience he quite enjoyed talking. The problem was, he made little to no sense; he spoke of a large monkey statue where he'd rested, then he said that "They kidnapped me!! This tribe, they call themselves the Broken Arm tribe, they do and they worship death! They took me and kept me for a whole arc. Oh, the things I saw. Ghosts! Ghosts, they're real you know!" Faith looked at him and nodded her head, but said nothing. She deliberately didn't look at Padraig, either, because he knew that she could see them all the time. "They tortured me, they did. There's a glowing stone in their lands, in the shape of a skull. That's where their power lies, you know. It is! And when I took it to examine it, they tortured me! Poked me with sticks, said I shouldn't have gone into the sacred ruins. Ruins of Fei, they are, deep in the jungle."

He had been wronged, it seemed, by any number of people, but whatever had happened to him in the jungle had, quite obviously, pushed him over the edge. By the end of the twenty bits, Faith was holding his hand (he'd sobbed twice, laughed hysterically once more) and they had been told a number of tales which were hard to separate out. But, as he spoke and Faith quietly directed his speaking with her softly-spoken questions, he grew calmer. Until, by the time he sighed and stopped, with a, "oh, dear. I've talked a lot. You're very good listeners," Faith was fairly sure he was as calm as they were going to get.

"Perhaps we could work with you a little, Professor?" she said, softly. "I am a medic, Padraig a physicist. I'm sure that, when we come back and bring you a magnifier," she'd hear of nothing less. They would bring him one because they'd said they would. "Maybe it's time to do a little collaboration?" Here, where it was safe, she meant. He turned, incredulously, to Padraig and chuckled. "She's a little bundle of energy. Medic, too?" Then, he sighed. "It's in the jungles. The ruins, with the stone. I know how it sounds, but it's there."

Faith nodded and glanced at Padraig. The man seemed sure and, she had to say, she didn't doubt him. With a quirk of her eyebrow she waited for her husband to respond to the batty Professor who was talking to him.

Death and blood? The least of his favorite things, if Padraig was being honest. Or at least very far down near the bottom of the list. "Can't live without them, I guess," he'd conceded. Though in the strictest sense, one could live very well without the aspect of death. Blood, not so much.

If they hadn't arrived at the university when they did, however, he'd have been tempted to carry on with their discussion regarding the Originals. What if, for example, their status as Original had much more to do with ego than reality? Or perhaps they didn't know where they'd come from. What if those creatures he'd seen beyond the barrier, the ones that had studied him as if he was alike to the smallest and most insignificant organisms on Idalos...Dragons, maybe, had been there long before the Originals themselves?

As a physicist and someone who studied the nature of the universe and its origins, Padraig could design an entire course of study around just that question. But there were other things afoot at the moment. Like one crazy professor off in a dusty corridor in the university basement. And the man, he'd concluded; this Belloq, was certifiably nuts. And yet Faith had a real knack and when she stepped in, she worked wonders. She even managed not to be baited or provoked by the man's own assessment of her. For his part, Padraig did his best to conceal an amused grin. Even when she poked him with that pointy elbow of hers.

I'm the tall one, she's the short one, he was tempted to say, as to how to tell the two of them apart. Wisely, he did not. Not even when Belloq himself tried to draw him into the game. "Yes, Fei," he said, and left it at that since Faith was enjoying a great deal of success, getting the man to talk. And talk. It didn't sound like a cheery bunch, that tribe. That they worshiped death didn't surprise him. But the Broken Arm Tribe? It seemed apparent that the man had suffered quite a lot during that missing arc. That the tribe had been ruthless in their treatment of him. However, hadn't he knowingly encroached on their territory, and meddled with things that must have been sacred to them?

Maybe he shouldn't have gone to the sacred ruins. But then they, he and Faith, were considering the idea of doing exactly the same as the professor had done. "I think a bit of collaborating is a fine idea," he said when Faith suggested it. "And a magnifier for your own personal use. I'd be interested to learn how you'd apply it to your own studies," he added in all seriousness. After all, if the thing really had all sorts of uses, then different scholars would use it in different ways. He grinned and nodded, when the professor remarked on Faith's boundless energy. "I can hardly keep up with her, professor."

"I wonder then, do you have a map?" he asked. The answer was no, at least not one directly at hand. But somehow they'd managed to motivate the man to think outside his own head a bit. If only temporarily, and he was quick to grab pencil and paper, and draw them a map on the spot. Turned out, Belloq's penmanship and artistic skills were very, very like Padraig's own. Lousy. Perspective, scale and distance for instance, was certainly relative. Padraig said nothing of it, thanked the professor and smiled when he handed Faith the map. "Care for a walk in the woods then?" he asked, as they bid the professor farewell and promised to return very soon with his magnifier.