Fire and Rain

[Brian]

After leaving the meeting room, Parthipan finds himself in the lorekeepers' tower ... but Serril is nowhere in sight.  There are other lorekeepers milling around, though none of them know where Serril is, either.

From what Parthipan can remember, the method of linking lorekeepers' powers requires a large chalk circle, with a number of subcircles equal to the number of people who are working the spell....  And the lorekeepers who are not leading the spell must completely entrust their will to the leader, or it will fail.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai runs off to Liandral's room to see if Serril might be there.

[Brian]

Liandral's door is closed when Parthipan gets there -- and barred shut, too.  "Go away!" Serril yells from within when he hears Parthipan knock.

[Ginrai]

"Serril?" Ginrai calls out.  "This is Parthipan.  I wanted to ask you a question with regards to tonight's battle."

[Brian]

Extended silence meets this question, until the sound of a lot of furniture being moved around sounds, and the door is unbarred.  Serril pokes his head out, looks about furitively, and then physically hauls Parthipan into the room and slams the door shut behind him.

The interior of the room is a filthy mess, greasy bits of metal liberally coating almost the entire floor.  Liandral is currently sitting at the table, grinning like an idiot and giggling quietly.  Qurral sits on the bed and leafs through some notes idly, and the majority of the table is covered with a thick layer of metal pieces, many of which are blood-spattered.

"What is it?" Serril asks, rubbing at his forehead.  "We're a tad busy."

"Another draught, Liandral," Qurral says, not looking up from his papers.  "Only a sip, mind."

Liandral nods vacantly, fumbles with a greasy cup with his left hand, and sips from it, his eyes becoming even more distant as he sets the cup down, picks it back up, and sets it down again.  "Core," he whispers, which sets him into another fit of giggling.

[Ginrai]

"I see..." Ginrai says, eying the blood-soaked weapons.  "Is he going to be alright?

"Anyway, about why I came to see you, Devin came up with a plan which would be able to immediately wipe all of tonight's Dreadmarchers, including the general.  This would involve me combining my powers with those of a lorekeeper of the path of fire and that of water.  If this works well then I would be able to summon a titan that would make short work of the enemies.  The drawback to this, though, is that if it fails it's likely that all of the participants could die.  For this to be successful the two linking their powers with me would have to completely entrust their will to me during the spell."

Ginrai looks at Serril directly in the eye.  "And with that said I was wondering if you would help me out in casting this spell."

[Brian]

"Yes," Serril says, turning away and bending over the table, towards where Liandral's right hand should be under all that junk.

As a spark of flame leaps from Serril's fingertips, you remember that it's actually Liandral's right stump now.  "Unfortunately," he says, grunting as he grabs a pair of pliers with his free hand, lessens the flame, and starts wrenching pieces of hot metal around, "I expect to be busy for a few hours, and won't be able to come up with any more of Qurral's pain-killing medicine in time to complete this operation, so I'm afraid I can't be spared from this."  He grunts, as there's a hideous screeching sound of metal on metal.

Liandral shudders, and grimaces, his happy distracted by a wave of pain as a jet of blood spurts out from the mess on the table.

"Ah," Serril says, frowning.  "That's a good part of it."  Unbolting Liandral's wrist from the clamp stuck there, Serril says, "Now, raise your arm."

Liandral does so, and there's now a black iron skeletal right hand that looks to have been (quite painfully) been grafted onto his stump.

"Good.  Accuity test?"

Liandral grunts in pain, as the 'fingers' slowly curl together, a bit more blood seeping from between the points where the metal frame enters his body.

"According to legends, the fair ones were killed by the touch of cold iron," Serril observes to Liandral.  "Aren't you glad that's not the case here?"

Liandral nods slowly.

"Good, good.  Now, let's try to finish the rest of this quickly, so we can get you healed, and this will only be a memory."

Liandral nods more quickly, and takes another sip from his pain-killing drink.

[Ginrai]

'Okay... so those weren't weapons but pieces for Liandral's new robotic hand.'

"Auto-mail?" Ginrai accidently mumbles before shaking his head.

"I understand, though this will make my search a bit more difficult.  Do you know of any lorekeepers that are good enough to help me out?"

[Brian]

"Not off the top of my head," Serril says, somewhat distracted as he resumes welding Liandral's new hand together.  "That Astryd girl seems to like you.  Why not ask her?"

Liandral grunts as Serril does something that causes more pain.

"Almost done," he soothes.  "Just a few more minutes."

[Ginrai]

Ginrai shakes his head.  "She doesn't follow either of the necessary paths for the spell.  Still, I might as well ask her if she knows anyone.  Anyway, good luck with Liandral's hand."  Ginrai waves and heads back to the tower.

[Brian]

Astryd and Devin (and Radagast and Eske) aren't around the tower when Parthipan returns.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai looks around to see where those following the path of fire are.

[Brian]

There's a few lorekeepers in the main hall, most of which are minding their own business and flipping through scrolls and books.  The majority of lorekeepers are in their rooms, however, and none of them wear anything much more distinctive than the generic brown robes that all lorekeepers wear.  Though, come to think of it, Astryd was wearing a really fancy dress the first time you saw her.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai walks up to closest lorekeepers and asks, "Excuse me, but do you know any lorekeepers who follow either the path of fire or water?"

[Brian]

The lorekeepers seem to recognize that you (being a Windmaster according to Eske and Radagast) outrank them, and quickly run off to assemble the followers of the paths of water and fire.  Pretty much every lorekeeper aside from yourself, Devin, Astryd, Radagast, and Eske is here.

Come to think of it, the only ones missing are Mattias, Neil, Ashton, and Serril.

By the numbers, there are five followers of the Path of Water, and 12 of the Path of Fire.