Chapter 3 - Part 2

She did not hurry down the eight flight of stairs from the top of the tower, and even forced herself to stop and admire a particularly fine engraving on one landing. She knew she was being watched, and not just by the guards. She had a small dragonshard woven into her shirt that alerted her to scrying attempts. As she exited the tower and walked through the chilly garden, she felt the scry spell leave, its caster satisfied that she was not returning to the Cannith meeting after all. She waited another minute or two to be sure, admiring the various plants that thrived even in winter, and then closed her eyes in preparation.

Gripping holly and mistletoe in her pocket, and murmuring ancient words of growth that sang of the first blade of grass in the first spring that ever was, she reached out with her mind. She found the sparrow quickly, a small, inconspicuous bird, that she had cast several, subtle enchantments on, some of her own devising. The bird’s mind and senses melded with hers, and she directed it to fly upwards, towards the top of the tower.

The sky spun and settled as she aligned her mind with the sparrow, and she felt cold stone under her talons. Resting a small, feathery head by a vent, she concentrated until she could hear the voices.

“Make him stop with the planes and constellations already,” someone was groaning.

“He’s here because he worked on the first successful forge,” someone hissed. “And Du’Bray wants him here.”

“Ahem, if you are done muttering in the corner?” That was the tight-lipped woman. “It is time to discuss dissecting the warforged. If we can rig an apparatus that keeps it alive, we can see if it has a physical defect or if this was a mental miscondition.”

“It’ll be screaming in pain while we do it, won’t be able to interrogate it well,” offered the voice from the armored man.

“We’ve got her notes,” another voice said. “We know what the stupid thing thinks.”

“For a stupid thing it’s pretty smart, and it’s a lot more intuitive than most of the models,” said another. “We may waste money if we disassemble it. What if this is a good flaw, what if the thing can be taught wizardry? It doesn’t have the composite plating, after all, so the somatic -”

“Teach it wizardry, are you out of your f’tesk mind?”

“What if others are like this one, and we don’t know what they are thinking? I say we invest in some truth spells, get an adept of Onatar, we have enough on the payroll –”

“Let’s just drop him in front of a wave of Karrnarthi skeletons and get some use out of him,” grumbled another.

“Let’s just make a decision, any decision, and get back to work!” hissed someone.

“Alright,” Du’Bray cut in, his soft voice shutting the babble down. “I’ve heard it all, and this is what we are going to do. Firstly, I want –”

Pienna felt three, strong, inhuman fingers close around the sparrow and crush it to death. The druidess gasped, her eyes rolled up, and she collapsed in shock on top of the bush she had been pretending to study, shaking a light dusting of snow loose as she fell onto the path.