Act 2: Upheaval III - The Master Weaver and the Arena

Mihai is eerily quiet at Fluffle's comment for a moment, then somberly replies - "...yeah."

"Leave off the first part of his name, and that's what I'd write on the headstone, if next-of-kin must be notified."

He sits down with the notes and the booklet.

"Hmm.
'Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
yet grace must still look so'."

He 'ahem's. "I think that was from one of the plays Aemilia would take me to see."

The fairy ponders the quote and says, "Goodman is the angel, right?"

". . . ."

"Fallen angel. The Morningstar rebelled and was cast out of the sky kingdom or something like that. Been a while since I read that story."

"And left us to clean up his mess, the fucker..."

The door leading to the dining room opens and the party members see Amber peek her head in. "Hey, everything alright?" she asks.

"Yeah. One of the guys down in the cells woke up. He's sane - probably thanks to the shackles."

Konrad is focused in on the notes in front of him, reading.

"That's great news! Maybe they can be saved."

"Perhaps they can, with our report and without these notes. I would like someone to watch at the top of the basement, and by the front window, and to come warn me if anyone besides the Administrator herself... I don't think we should give them a chance to notice that these were taken."

He continues reading.

Amber glances at the servant inside the dining room to make sure she's not trying to escape, and then focuses her attention back on her companions. "So what, we wait until the Defenders arrive?"

"We don't have to, but i don't think we should leave these people alone right now."

"I'll be in the dining room," Amber tells the party before closing the door again.

"I suppose I could. Please turn the heat down if the kettle starts doing it's thing." He walks down to the basement to do just that.

Steve finds a nice bottle of Lorinthian red wine from the year 412. He returns to the kitchen and the party members must decide what they'll do until the Defenders arrive.

Steve makes the tea and hands it out to anyone who wants some. When he's done with that he'll start writing a letter to Zelk. He finds it hard to write this one, because of all the crazy things that have happened in the past few days. After staring at the blank paper for a while, he sighs and puts it away.

Mihai walks over to Lucyna and unties her - "The Defenders should be here before long. Eat something maybe, and get some rest. They'll probably have questions for you, but you should be able to go home after."

Mihai will still keep an eye on her, but mostly to make sure nothing happens. He'll wait for the Defenders to arrive.

Konrad looks at the Lorinthian bottle with blatant disapproval, but very well, wine is wine, and he didn't paid for it anyway.

He pipes up when the housekeeper's binds are removed. "Wait...oh, very well, as long as she cooperates. Feel free to pull up a chair, Miss Lucyna. I'm sure you could go for that drink, now that your hands are free."

Konrad continues to read the notes, slipping the booklet into his summer coat. As he reads, he separates the stuff related to mind control and the two runes being designed specifically for that damnable practice to be placed into the pocket with the booklet.

The ex-captives thank Steve for the tea and then ask when the Defenders will arrive. Once they have their answers, they begin chatting with each other, relieved to hear that they'll soon be leaving this awful place. Fluffle stays with them and talks with the woman, helping her open up a little. She's fascinated by the young fairy and his life up until now.

The housekeeper is grateful to Mihai for untying her, and she decides to eat some bread with cheese while waiting in the dining room. Since Mihai is watching her, Amber decides to spend some time in the lounge with the others.

Meanwhile, Konrad reads Professor Goodman's research notes and learns that they're categorized by patients. His first test subjects quickly died following certain complications—the results were quite gruesome—but he gradually got better with time. He assigned numbers to his captives, performed a medical examination and wrote down the results of his experimentation on their sheet. Konrad then notices something interesting; the first experiment started ten years ago, and he's had a little over two hundred test subjects over this period of time.

After forty more minutes of waiting, the adventurers hear Amber call for them from the lounge. "The Defenders are here!"

Disgusted, Konrad folds all the notes and puts them in his secret coat pocket with the booklet, with the mind control stuff inside the booklet, also folded neatly. This must to be brought to the Administrator before anything else happens to it.

"How many are there?"

A bored Steve stands up from the chair he was sitting in. He looks relieved to have something to do besides waiting.

Amber looks out the window in the lounge to count how many of them there are exactly. "...At least twenty of them," she says.

Mihai walks in the kitchen - "Steve, could you you stick around Lucyna for a bit? I'm going out there."