gm: It feels much later when Muirne awakens suddenly. She thought a sound awakened her, like a faint cry. Verhain breathes evenly beside her, his bare chest cool to her touch.

Jess: She watches him for a moment, listening intently to him.

gm: The cry comes again, more sharply this time, a distinct, "Help!"

Verhain sits up suddenly, shaking his head, trying to orient to the sound also. Muirne notices his left hand had been reaching to a spot on the wall above the bed... but this is not his bed, and his bow is not there.

Exchanging a quick glance with Muirne, he stands and starts pulling on his trousers.

Jess: "What is it?" She exclaims, startled.

gm: He shakes his head, shuffling his feet into his shoes. "I don't know."

Jess: She climbs out of the bed, furrowed brow, but slipping her dress over her head.

gm: "Shoes," he prompts, perhaps recalling her habit of doing without them.

Jess: Her eyes blank, then registering the command, and slips her feet into her slippers by the bed.

gm: The cry comes a third time. This time it registers not on Muirne's ears, but on that inner sense. It is a woman's cry. "Help me."

Jess: She closes distance with the door, throwing it open and rushing outside, trying to get a sense of where it comes from.

gm: It seems hopeless at first, directionless, but when in her turning Muirne faces the Tower, it seems exactly correct that it is the source of the call.

Jess: She stares into the sky, opening herself to the realities available. She strides toward the tower with conviction.

gm: A few other students are stumbling out of cabins in various states of readiness. No others, though.
The moonlit wood is devoid of color. Silver and black, wet with early dew just gone to frost.

Jess: She pays little heed to her surroundings, refusing to be captivated by the scene.

gm: Verhain has slipped across the courtyard to his cabin, no doubt for his weapon. Muirne is the furthest ahead.

Jess: Her pace quickens as the Tower becomes more visible through the courtyard. Her hand unconsciously begins fumbling with the ring her parents gave her, the one she depends on when her world becomes unhinged.

gm: Neassa is nearest behind her. They exchange glances.
There is a moment as the students gather near the wall that separates the school from the Tower's part of the estate.

Jess: Muirne glances around, scanning the crowd for teachers and Keepers

gm: No others are there, just the students, and only ten of them including herself. The two next most inexperienced students are not there.

Verhain catches up last, bow in hand.

Jess: Muirne measures the wall, knowing it's warded.

gm: A cry of pain comes, so heartrending that one of the other students gasps and staggers a moment, holding his stomach.

"Open yourselves," Dubhdain suddenly says. "We can reach her that way."

Jess: Muirne nods, agreeing with the command.

gm: All of them come forward, closer together. It is not necessary to touch, but it is easier. The urgency makes the connection juddery, less ruled by calm, but it is made correctly, and they turn their inner ears as one to hear the words of the Tower. "A thread will come, if she lives to call again."

Jess: (a threat/warning/sense of foreboding?)

gm: (heavy foreboding, but no warning yet.)

The afterthought of the cries is a deep, unabidable anguish.

Jess: Muirne sets her jaw... reaching for the wall.

gm: "Help..." It comes again. Dubhdain's cry of "There!" is hardly necessary, as a rough silver line, more a ragged spear than a thread or line, stabs down in the center of the circle. He reaches towards it and disappears, followed closely by several others.

Verhain is waiting on Muirne, a dark and questioning look in his eyes.

Jess: She takes his hand, "Come. There's no time to worry of consequences," there is an odd calm in her voice

gm: Holding her he steps forward to the line even as it fades with the last echoes of the call, and they, too, are transported.

Muirne comes aware of herself again in a large, dark room. Torches, perhaps a third of which are lit, line the outer edges; the room is round and perhaps 60 feet across. Between the torches elaborate archways lead off, but no light penetrates, as though they were curtained in black. The other students look around in the same daze she feels herself. Verhain is next to her, getting up onto his knees.

As her eyes adjust to the dim, flickering light, she sees that the room is mostly bare, except for a large raised dias in the center, and an ornate throne...

Jess: No longer worried of impressions, she helps Verhain up to his feet. Curious, she walks cautiously toward the throne.

gm: He allows it, as though more affected by whatever transition they had passed than Muirne had been.

There are shapes on and around the dias. A faint silver glow is barely visible near the center.

The center of the room is very dark. As she proceeds she can see only outlines, until Verhain comes up, a broken off torch in his hand.

Jess: She takes the torch, "I'm a better light, than you. Keep your hands free for your bow,"

gm: He nods immediately and readies himself, standing just back from her. She notes that the guttering firelight from the torch is also colorless, like the night wood... in fact, like everything she's seen since she first heard the call.

Dubhdain is also approaching with a torch from a similar angle. He holds the torch low and half behind him to guard Muirne's eyes from being dazzled, and motions her to do the same.

Jess: She nods, mirroring his actions.

She cocks her head, speaking to no one in particular, "Does anyone see color?"

gm: A few of the others say No, verbally, and some within the remnants of the link between them.

As Muirne and Dubhdain near the center, it becomes clear that there is something on the table, covered in a silk cloth with the standard of twelve towers.

Perhaps it is a body.

Jess: She glances at Dubhdain wearily.

gm: He glances at her, and she hears a slight *tunk* as of something falling over.

Jess: One last glance over her shoulder to see Verhain's is OK.

gm: "Mind your feet," Dubhdain says, cross with himself. He bends and rights whatever he had knocked down. At her own feet as she looks toward the sound she sees a circle of ceramic jars, each about fourteen inches high.

They are arrayed in a circle around the dias, eight in all.

Jess: (as in what ashes end up in when one is cremated?)

gm: (yes, similar)

Jess: With her free hand, she lifts her skirt to her knees, careful not to disturb the jars and continues toward the dias and the form under the silk cloth

gm: Whatever is under the cloth stirs slightly, and what must be the last breath of the cry comes, ringing in hearing and vision like a silver gong.

The other students are moving around, but in the dark it is hard to see, since Muirne is holding a torch and she is best lit. Dubhdain is also approaching from the other angle.

He reaches the dias as Muirne does and takes one edge of the cloth. He keeps his eyes on her; she can feel him draw strength as he counts, "One, two.."

Jess: She nods, waiting for his signal

gm: The creak of Verhain's bow straining in readiness is a comfort.

"Three." Dubhdain pulls aside the cloth. A man's body rests there, face up.

There is a smell of fresh blood and of entrails.

Jess: Muirne shivers with the revelation, but retains her composure and constitution

gm: The man is naked. He has no eyes. A dark, bloody line runs across his midsection, and another, vertical, alongside his sternum, where the ribs are bent back. His hands, too, are gone. His penis and testicles also are gone, but there is a ragged old scar there, unlike the bloody wounds you see elsewhere.

Jess: "Why have we been summoned here to bear witness to this?" She asks defiantly internally and aloud, perhaps even to the Tower itself.

gm: At her words, the body moves slightly. Organs twitch. Thick blood rises slightly and sinks again within the wounds.

Jess: She gasps slightly, reflexively stepping back

gm: The man's hair is dark.

His nose beneath the ruined eyes, noble and aquiline.

His jaw... Dubhdain, too, steps back, and another student voices his revelation. "It is the King."

There is a faint silver glow around the man's head.

Jess: "What is the purpose of this? Who cried out to us?" Her voice held a steel to it.

gm: Tinneus, the student of the Serpent, points (though his pointing can't be seen, it can be felt), "She is there. By his head."

Jess: Muirne's eyes go to the head, seeking out the form Tinneus referred to. She approaches the dias once more, casting light in the direction indicated.

gm: The silver glow is there, but fading, concentrated in a band following the circlet about the King's head.

"I don't dare open myself here," someone says or perhaps feels, and Dubhdain nods, but his distress at not knowing what to do is strong and echoes among everyone.

All draw a little nearer, though none so near as Muirne.

Jess: "I will." Muirne states simply. "I'll not have my night's tormented without knowing why I am here." She hands her torch to a nearby student

gm: Young Tinneus has stepped up, and he takes it from her.

Jess: With clenched fists around her ring, she begins concentrating on how her Seeing works... allowing her gifts to manifest openly and with abandon.

gm: You feel the others gathering to shield you, and the discordant note of Verhain's, crying to you to stop while at once trying to force himself to allow it.

Jess: She's comforted and strengthened by his concern, and allows him to feel that, again, without concern of the others' interpretations.

gm: There is more power here than in any place she has Seen.

The power is Wild, and of many flavors. It has more colors than the dead world around her.

Black power pulses from the black archways in strands through the air and thick runnels on the floor.

From the King's body, gold, the yellow of a sun, seems to balance it, contending but not falling back.

Jess: "I will know the truth," she declares simply to the female on at the kings head. Her voice detached.

gm: The power notices her Seeing and is drawn to her, slams into her. The scene is fragmented as through a broken mirror, or a hall of crooked doors.

In one of the fragments, the crown is in her hands, and the woman comes clear. This sight is in many fragments, done with many levels of care, but in all Muirne is on her knees, suffering a hurt that cannot be guessed from the angles of the vision.

Jess: Muirne stands resolute.

gm: In others, the blackness bursts into the room. It casts about; students are scattered and broken.

In others her eyes open on blackness and she is in the ruined body of the King.

In one, Muirne spins and shatters the jars, and all are safe in their beds, unknowing.

From the near future, looming ever nearer, the voice cracked from a woman's to a child's with terror, cries, "Free me!"

Jess: She selects a path that gives her understanding and knowledge but frees the students from their burden.

She will sacrifice herself if necessary

Not the icky blackness

Not the students scattered/broken

She doesn't want to be sent home without knowing

She looks more closely at the shard in which she gains the knowledge of the King.

gm: As she does so, she is aware of many more of the shards changing to that one. At first there would only be pain. Then an awareness of voices. Then a connection to the center of things as though the world tree rooted itself through her center. But all the while, pain. Madness and clarity and pain leading to madness again.

Very few shards remain that do not show this after she has looked so deeply. If she wants to choose another, she must do so quickly.

She has clear knowledge of what to do. Opening her empathy fully, she places her hands upon the crown. The touch of the crown burns Muirne, not just on her hands, but like an iron band around her head and heart and sex.

Jess: She whimpers slightly with the rush of pain, but holds the crown nonetheless.

gm: A silvery light runs up her arms as she hits the floor, retching. The crown is gripped tight in her fingers. She is barely aware of Verhain's cry to stop. He is rushing forward. The woman, outlined in silver like a ghost, floats up. A thin cord rushes from her body down the center of the Tower room as though seeking something.

"Cliodhna," Tinneus whispers.

Her outline is faint. An echo of wounds like to the King's plays over her form. Her pain emanates through everyone. Finally she says, into the inner sense they all share. "Go from this place. The King is dying, and you must not..." she pauses, gasping, then masters herself, "you must not speak of it."

Verhain slides across the floor, his bow forgotten. In Muirne's inner ear she hears the tinkling of ceramic shattering.

Jess: "No." She waves him off. "Don't break the jars."

gm: He reaches Muirne, about to knock the crown from her grasp when she says "no." He waits, pained to hold back, confused.
The body on the dias convulses. There is a wet sound of something thick falling from it to splash the floor.

Jess: Muirne looks to the apparation, "How do we go home? Must I break the jars?"

gm: "No!" she cries in alarm.

Jess: "Send us home, then, before it is too late. We came on your cry," she entreats.

gm: "I will. I must tell the Keepers what I have seen and learn what to do. The King is Alfar. If he dies..."

Jess: Muirne nods, holding her empty hand to Verhain. "Careful of the jars," she guides, weakened from the power.

gm: He wraps his arm around her shoulders and tries to help her stand. There is a flash of silver.

"Too late," she hears him mutter.

Jess: For the first time this evening, fear fills her eyes.

gm: Morning light streams through the drawn curtains of her cottage. Verhain is beside her, gripping her tightly and twitching slightly as though in the throes of a nightmare.

He is asleep, and indeed dreaming.

Jess: She looks at her hands, studying them

gm: It is hard for her to open them. They are stiff and sore. Thick burn scars run across the centers of her palms..

Jess: She winces, shivering uncontrollably from the memories of the evening.

gm: Her shiver and movement wakes Verhain with a start. His eyes are wide and she sees again that reach for the bow, echo of the night's dream walk... or whatever it was.

Jess: She says nothing, only hold her hands out for him to see...

gm: "What is it?" he asks, taking your hands in his. "Are you all right?"

Jess: She frowns, "don't you see the burns?" Her fingers open and close tightly with great difficulty.

gm: He looks confused. "Did I wake you? I dreamed... I think I was screaming," he finishes, almost ashamed.

Jess: She shook her head, a sad smile coming to her lips, "No, my heart, you didn't. Will you tell me your dream?" she asks slowly.

gm: He sits up in bed, dragging covers over his lap, and rubs his eyes. "The same as before, I think. The tower. Full of death."

Jess: She sighs, a pit forming in her stomach, "I think I know your dream..." she looks at him with childlike eyes. "I think I've lived it."

Jess: She pulls her knees to her chest, hugging them tightly against her naked form.

gm: He frowns, and pulls her head to him, kissing her forehead and hair.

"I'm sorry. I did not mean to give that to you."

Jess: She looked into his eyes, "You didn't. I sought it out."

gm: He frowns further, worry lines creasing his forehead. "Ah, Muirne, Muirne. I am so sorry."

Jess: She rubbed the line in his brow, "Don't be. I'm not."

gm: "It is only a nightmare, my own... fear of being called." He truly believes this statement.

Jess: "Why do you fear that?"

gm: "To be isolated, at the call of the King? Waiting his word? To bear the burden of the Realm? If I mishear, or impose my own will upon it... I do not know if I see in myself what the Seers did when they sent me here."

Jess: She strokes his brow, "You possess many gifts. You have nothing to fear." She pauses, "Do you trust my word? I will tell you what happened... How you gave me strength and what I saw," she works her burned fingers again, "...then I will seek out the Keepers and make them understand. Somehow."

gm: He looks confused, but he nods at Muirne's earnestness. "Tell me."

Jess: Muirne retells the night's events, leaving no detail unspoken... even disclosing all the different paths she saw and the choice she made. Her language is vivid and dynamic, yet, she confesses it all quietly with eyes cast away. When she is finished, she struggles to meet his gaze with her saddened blue eyes, "Do you believe me?"

gm: "Believe what?" he asks. There is a little fear in his voice, protective fear, as though he fears something is wrong with her.

It seems he did not hear her.

Jess: She chuckles with quiet bitterness to herself, "Don't be frightened, my heart. I was mistaken, it must have been a vivid dream. I am sorry I disturbed your rest. You are very peaceful and comely when you sleep beside me." She changes the subject with a smile.