Nymuae's Return to Court (11 Jul 2002) Nymuae returns to the court of Mirari, somewhat the worse for wear.

Palace of All Seasons, Outside the Chapel
At the end of a wide hallway, double doors of glass on the left side lead into the royal chapel. The opposite wall fronts on a courtyard, with many windows hung with heavy, floor-length velvet drapes of blue. In between the curtained sections, the windows reveal a snow-covered expanse and more fat white flakes still sheeting down. Other doors, further down the corridor, lead to various other chambers, and a side corridor not far away has an exit into the courtyard. Fine tapestries depicting various scenes of Mirari legend hang on the walls, and statues of different heroes decorate the hall.

Immediately after Alice finishes her declaration, a brilliant flash of white light fills the corridor, and the Queen throws up an arm to shield her eyes. The amulet dissolves into powder in Alice's hand. As the afterimages of the flash start to fade, a tall, black-haired woman may be seen. She wears a green gown trimmed in white satin, girdled by a belt of heavy silver plates, and silver bracers on her forearms. A thick book dangles by a chain from her belt.

"Alice ... " Nymuae's voice is a hoarse croak. Her gown is torn and bloodstained, with a rent across the right thigh soaked in blood. Her pale skin is ashen, a cut on her brow streaking her face with red lines. She starts to take a step forward, falters, and crumples slowly instead.

Having just had a confrontation with the man who might very well be the Lord of Year's End himself Alice is more than a little on edge. She didn't quite expect the call to be heeded immediately, and certainly not with such effect. She gives a cry at the sudden light and like her mother shields her eyes until it fades. When she peers out over her hand and hears the ragged voice of her friend the sorceress she gives a cry of dismay at seeing her friend so badly hurt and hurries forward to try and support her.

A horrified Seraph likewise steps forward, and between the two of them, they manage to ease the sorceress on to the floor. "Lady Sorceress ... " The Queen seems at a loss for words, a growing trepidation behind her eyes.

Nymuae breathes shallowly, her eyelids fluttering. "Good ... timing," she whispers to Alice.

"Oh!" cries Alice as she stumbles for the words. Her hands tremble as she helps her friend rest against the wall and then begin to sort through the healing reagents she carries with her. "I'm, I-I'm glad it was good Rebecca, but I didn't know so ... I ... Oh. I would ask what happened but you should rest, Lady Sorceress!"

"Angel, get -- " Seraph pauses, seeing Alice fumble with an array of tiny vials filled with liquids and herbs. "Have you healer's training, child?" She sounds more surprised than doubtful.

"Yes, your majesty," answers the little blonde girl. She unfastens the ties to a crimson red bag and removes several strips of dark green leaves which she places upon a small sheet of brownish paper. Next to these she places two vials filled with a pale green water. The girl seems satisfied with what she has selected and after picking up one of the leaves in hand leans over to peer carefully at the sorceress's gash on her leg. "Your leg doesn't feel broken, does it your ladyship?"

"I don't know," Nymuae answers, her words choppy with pain. "What ... ngh ... " She tries to shift her position, legs stretched before her on the floor, her back against the wall. "... does a broken leg feel like?"

"Stay with her, then." Queen Seraph gathers her skirts and stands. "I shall find a page to fetch the court healer." The corridor is atypically silent -- the guards and servants who would otherwise have been about, now dispatched to the disturbance at the South Gate.

Alice frowns. After a moment more of regarding the leg searchingly she offers a hesitant, "It may hurt if I check. A lot. Here-" She reaches in to her pharmacopoeia and she pulls a heart-shaped leave from a small green bag. "This will help the pain. But only try to chew a little bit because I don't have a tea set and it's very strong." She offers the leaf to her friend and then looks back over her shoulder to her mother who she warns, saying, "Be careful your majesty! He's still here, somewhere, and the guards are all gone!"

A quick nod from Seraph, and then she disappears around a corner. Nymuae doesn't answer Alice, or take the offered leaf. Her eyelids flicker again, blinking away a drop of blood that drips into one from the cut on her forehead, then close completely.

Blinking the girl watches the sorceress fall in to a daze and then suddenly drops the leaf she was holding and reaches over to slap the woman lightly on the cheek. She's read people do that sort of thing to keep others from passing out. Such is her worry she isn't very concerned that hitting someone might get her in trouble. This is an important sort of hitting, after all. "Lady Nymuae!" She pats the woman several times more. "You mustn't fall asleep!" Her other hand fumbles for her pharmacopoeia and she just empties the whole contents in to her lap.

Nymuae makes a weak sound of protest, at the slap, but she opens her eyes again. "I'm so tired, Alice." She accepts the ginger without objection, chewing on it and grimacing at the taste.

"You can't go to sleep though! Not yet, it's not good for you if you do," insists the blonde. She snatches up another long green leaf in quite the manner of a girl determined. Unfortunately she happens to lack any real bandages. Her pharmacopoeia is just big enough to hold the healing items she does carry. So she offers a quiet "I'm really, really sorry!" before trying to tear a strip off the end of her court dress. This she intends to use as a make-shift bandages by which to apply the comfrey.

The ginger brings a little color back into Nymuae's face, and her eyes focus on Alice's efforts to rip the hem of her gown. The fine cloth proves surprisingly durable. "Use mine," the sorceress says. "It's got a head start." A glance makes the sorceress's meaning plain--the hem of her much-abused robe is already torn in several places.

"Oh! Thank you, your ladyship. I wasn't having the best of luck with mine," murmurs Alice as she shifts her attentions from her own garment to Nymuae's. With effort the little girl removes an already greatly torn strip and uses this instead to apply the comfrey to the head wound. "Ginger. Comfrey. If it hurts, m'lady, I can give you catnip too, but it would make you light headed I think."

"I don't need to be any more light-headed," Nymuae says. "But it hurts like ... it hurts a lot. The leg is worse." She puts a hand to her thigh, pressing her gown against the wound. The stain of blood is spreading across her front. "The protection spell held true for a while," she mutters, more to herself than Alice.

To this the young healer nods and she turns her focus now on Nymuae's wounded thigh. Again she offers that this "might hurt" and she carefully tests the leg to see if it's truly broken. After all using comfrey on a broken leg would cause the bones to heal at improper angle. She looks now and again to Nymuae to determine her reaction.

Close inspection of the wound requires peeling back the sorceress's robe, and a good deal of mopping at blood to let Alice see. It looks like a long gash from a sharp, and none-too-clean, weapon. It's deep, but not deep enough to strike the bone, and too far from the inside to have hit an artery ... though with all the blood, Alice cannot help fearing the latter anyway. Her tests suggest the leg isn't broken.

With all the blood in what Alice can only suspect is a particularly dirty wound the blonde is left to frown at the unpleasant choices she has in front of her. She can wait to clean the wound which would cause even more blood loss. She doesn't like that choice very much. On the other hand she can try to bind and close it and hope the wound heals properly. If it proves infected angelica roots might help cure a fever. She isn't too sure about the last part but she'd rather not let the wound continue to bleed. And her supply of clean binding material is limited. So she decides to go with the second choice. "I think I have to bind the wound," she explains. "But I don't know how far away the palace healer is and I can't clean the wound as I would like. But you're bleeding too much." As she explains she goes through the procedure. Removing first a comparatively clean stretch of material and then after cleaning the wound as best she can applying bandage with its accompanying herb.

Nymuae nods, gritting her teeth around what's left of the ginger in her mouth. While Alice is dressing the gash, the Queen reappears at the end of the corridor, her slippered feet padding on the flagstones. "I sent a page to the healers." She grimaces. "I hope that they haven't all gone to the South Gate, too."

The sorceress rests more easily against the wall, once the binding is complete. She still looks a far cry from her normal self, but her green eyes are alert and bright. "South Gate?" She glances to the Queen, offering her a nod in lieu of any more formal, and difficult to execute, recognition of her rank. "Tell me what has happened, my friend," Nymuae says to Alice. "I will hope that I am wrong in this, but my surmise would be that thou did not summon me here merely because thou guessed I might need some patching-up."

Alice glances over her shoulder as the Queen announces her return. She offers her mother a troubled smile though there is worry in the girl's eyes and a kind of tenseness about her face from all her concentration. It's a look that doesn't quite suit her and makes her look a little older than she really is. Her expression does ease as she finishes up her binding and relaxes enough to talk as she checks the rest of the sorceress's wound. "The man who claims to be Lord April is an imposter. He was so furious when I took his picture with the Optikon and, oh, well..." The girl blushes faintly even as she examines a small cut. "... I yelled at him. I was so mad. Verily I almost called him a very bad man."

"Did thou?" Despite her pain, Nymuae manages a slight smile. "Then he must be a very bad man, indeed. How long ago was this? Thou hast the Optikon still?"

"Only a short while ago, Lady Nymuae," answers Alice. She looks around for a moment and spots the Optikon which here until now had been forgotten as the princess busied herself with the lady's wounds. She leans over and scoops it up and places it beside the sorceress. "When the flash flashed I saw him! He was more mad than I've ever seen anyone."

"Whomever he is, we will have proof of it." Nymuae lays her hand over the device, sighing and closing her eyes. "What is this of the South Gate?"

This time, the Queen answers. "To test him, I tried to convince my bro -- the man posing as Lord April, to come to the Chapel with me." She gestures to it. "He was on the point of entering when we heard the alarm. There has been an attack on the South Gate. He left to ... defend the Palace. Angel suspects a ruse. I ... am not sure of anything, any longer."

To this Alice, or Angel as is her true name, nods. "I saw him touch an amulet he was wearing. I thought of the amulet you gave me your ladyship and I thought it might have been the same kind of magic. A just-in-case spell. Lord Thomas is coming to the grand meeting but I worry that may be too late if the imposter is the Lord of Year's End."

"He is an imposter, of some stripe," the queen says, slowly but with growing determination. "He cannot be my brother. This much I know."

A little nod from the sorceress answers these comments. "I wish I had my volume of images here. I do not think we have time for me to return to the Spire to retrieve it, even if I were up the journey." She grimaces again. "I may be able to rig a way to develop the image from the Optikon, using the supplies your thaumaturge and the court wizard have. But do we have time, even for that?" She looks to the other two. "Do you know what is happening at the South Gate, even now?"

"Nay, I do not know," confesses Alice. "And I say that worries me. As I told her majesty I am concerned that now that the imposter knows we, or at least I, know of him he may rush his plans. Whatever they may be. And without proof we cannot very well think to stop him. I fear the lords who support him may come to his aid and that would be a great disaster even if we could prevail over them."

"It is within my power to arrest a traitor, though he be Lord of a House," the Queen says. "But I fear Angel speaks truly. To arrest Lord April without solid evidence would invite civil war. Yet -- even that is preferable to the Destroyer's Rule -- if Destroyer he be." She twists her hands.

"Then we must develop the image, as quickly as we can." Nymuae braces her hands out to either side of her, and tries to stand.

Alice quickly scoots up her herbary supplies and puts them away before she gathers up the Optikon and then moves over to support Lady Nymuae as best she can. Being quite a bit shorter than the sorceress what she can offer is limited but for all that she offers it anyway. "Then we must do that, I believe. I do not think he can claim the crown without first making us aware. I believe we have a little time," the girl says.

Seraph glances southwards nervously. The sorceress manages to stand, leaning heavily against the wall, and bracing an arm on Alice's shoulders. "I can find my way on my own to the thaumaturge's chambers again," Nymuae says, though the way she's resting belies that claim. "If the two of you have other matters you should see to ... ?"

"I could go to the South Gate," offers the little blonde. "I'm a healer and could help. And I think I'm too little to help Lady Nymuae walk. But ..." She frowns. "I also don't have any authority, and I don't know how to fight."

The Queen glances between the two. "No, Angel. Stay with the sorceress." She speaks regally, with a note of command. "I will attend to matter at the South Gate. If we are wrong, and the situation there is not merely a diversion, but requires both your services -- then I shall know where to send for you. Now -- please. Hurry."

Alice dips in a careful curtsey to the Queen's command and responds with a accepting "Yes, your majesty." She adjusts herself to further support the lady sorceress for the long walk and keeps her left arm wrapped tightly around the Optikon. As they move to depart the little girl looks back to the Queen and calls to her in a quiet voice, saying, "Please go well, and be careful -- mother!"

As they make their way along the passageways, Alice is struck by the comparative lack of people in them. It seems that everyone has moved purposefully, either to defend the South Gate, or to watch for an attack at one of the other Gates. Those few left behind seem intent on guarding specific places. They receive a few challenges from guards, but a sharp look from Nymuae, and a few cool words introducing herself, seem enough to settle any objections. True to her word, Nymuae appears to know where she's going, though Alice very much doubts she could have made it without the blonde to lean on. "Just a few more turnings," Nymuae murmurs, as she picks her way down a corridor.

Behind them, Alice hears quiet footsteps. She looks over her shoulder, and sees another pair of the Queen's guards, moving cautiously.

Alice returns her gaze forward and leans a bit closer to Nymuae to whisper, "I don't wish to alarm you your ladyship but we are being followed. The Queen's own guards by the look of them," she tells the sorceress.

The sorceress spares them a glance of her own. "What now?" she grouses, continuing to advance. The two women move much slower than the guards, who quickly gain on Nymuae's limping pace.

"I don't know. They are the Queen's guards though, so maybe her majesty sent them to protect us? But even so I've been so worried lately I admit I find it difficult to be wholly trusting," murmurs the little blonde girl to the sorceress. She gives the guards another look and this time a faint smile, adding to Nymuae, "I don't like the feeling at all."

At Alice's words, Nymuae turns around to face the guards. "Gentlemen," she announces, facing them. "Have you business with us?"

The two guards glance to each other. Then one of them bows, a slightly hunched fellow who reminds Alice of a monkey. The movement strikes her as fawning. "Yes, O Lady. Queen Seraph has urgent need of the Optikon, and she asked us to retrieve it for her." They are only a few yards away.

Alice glances at the sorceress in a meaningful and particularly worried looking sort of fashion.

"We just left the Queen, on her orders. For what purpose does she require it?" Nymuae speaks forcefully. If she weren't leaning against a child for support, she would be truly impressive.

"She needs it ... for a test." The man who isn't speaking, a dog-headed fellow, advances on Alice, his eyes on her hand, where she is holding the camera.

Confrontations just aren't something Alice was ever very good at. The accusations thrown at the imposter not included doesn't like to argue with others. Unfortunately for her it seems like she can't escape a confrontation this time. "I do not recommend you advance," says the little girl. She tries to draw herself up and look regal in her own fashion. Her mother would never let anyone push her around just so, she remembers, and she does her best to emulate that memory now. "Where is her majesty now? What sort of test do you presume to suggest? How did she word this request? Surely you can answer."

"Maybe we don't have to," Monkey-face says. Dog-man throws something at them, and Nymuae reacts with a cry, throwing up her hand in warding. Then -- suddenly -- everything changes.

The Store of Nightmares
A darkened shop with mysterious objects of uncertain purpose on the closely-packed shelves. Twisted gargoyles and demonic figures loom on top shelves, stretching into the shadows of the high, unseen roof above. No attendant waits behind the empty check-out counter, with its black cash register perched like an angry insect on one end. The exit is nowhere to be seen, blocked by the rows of tall shelves. At the near corner, a doorway into sunlight beckons invitingly.

A young blond girl stands by the doorway, an oversized white purse in her hands. She's at the store to get something. Something very important, that her mother wanted. But now that she's here, she remembers how much she doesn't like this store, how dark and unpleasant and scary it is. The door is right there ... She doesn't have to stay.

But it's important, thinks the little girl determinedly. As much as she doesn't like this shop she doesn't want to go home empty handed and disappoint her mother. Something that feels very much worse than any scary old shop. She decides she'll get what she needed and do so quickly. The idea of staying too long makes her distinctly uncomfortable.

This thought in mind, Alice ventures a few steps further from the sunlit doorway. What she wants ... it's probably in the back. All the way in the back. The door creaks on its hinges behind her, slowly falling shut. In the distance, from somewhere in the depths of the store, she hears the voice of a young woman. Her tone sounds pleading, but Alice can't make out the words. She takes another step forward. A spider web brushes against her face.

"Pyeh!" The little girl brushes the spider web off her face carefully. After all she doesn't really want to break the spider's web, it must have been very hard to make, but she'd rather not have it decorate her face either. Once freed well enough, she wonders if she heard something. It sounded like someone young, but, that could have been her own mind playing tricks on her. It is scary in here, after all.

As she backs out of the web, she feels something crawling over her scalp. Before she can respond to that, the door abruptly slams closed, with a sound of terrible finality, cutting off the sunlight and leaving her alone in the dark, creepy store.

She hears a scuttling noise behind one of the shelves. The sound of something breathing comes from another. There's a short scraping noise, like claws tearing cloth, from the back of the store.

Maybe she's not alone after all.

"Oooh, I really don't like this store ... " And now she has all the more reason to be reminded of just how frightening it can be. But she can't leave, either. Not until she has what she came here for. She'll decides she's just going to have to try and be brave. It's what her mother would want. "I'm not scared of you, you- dark ol' store," she tells it in a whisper. And then she gives it a raspberry.

Previous Log: Truth of the Optikon	Next Log: A Store of Nightmares

Thread Links
	Previous Log: Truth of the Optikon Next Log: A Store of Nightmares		Previous Log: A Meeting with Nymuae Next Log: A Store of Nightmares
	Previous Log: Truth of the Optikon Next Log: A Store of Nightmares

---

This site serves as a chronicle of sessions in an online roleplaying campaign moderated by Conrad "Lynx" Wong and May "Rowan" Wasserman. The contents of this site are (c) 2001, 2002 by Conrad Wong and May Wasserman except where stated otherwise. Despite the "children's fantasy" theme of this campaign, this site is not intended for young readership, due to mild language and violence.