Re: The Merry Maids of Pwnzor--A Valkyrie's Tale

by **Juliana** on Sat Apr 25, 2009 12:53 pm

((Thank you for your consideration, Winnie, but the scene I originally thought I'd put here is going to wait awhile. Instead, we're going to meet someone very special, and get a touch of foreshadowing into the bargain.))

A bluish shadow crept through the midnight fringes of Battleon, looking for its sister. The shadow skillfully avoided detection by the scarred blue moglin leaning against a tree, carefully approached Yulgar's Inn, and slipped inside.

But nothing it could do could stop the door from creaking ever so slightly.

Flaw of Insanity, wakeful even now, heard that sound. He walked down the stairs to the first floor, being almost as quiet as the shadow itself, and scanned the room for any sign of what had made the noise. There! A pair of human eyes glinted ever so slightly in the low light that shone through the windows. "Who are you?" Flaw asked.

The shadow stepped into a circle of lamplight and tousled its own short brown hair. It was a boy, one whose skin was smeared with some sort of dark paste and who was clad in the unmistakable dark blue clothing of a ninja. "I'm Spy," he replied in a low voice. "Where is my sister?"

Flaw stared at him for a moment, then found his voice. "Who is your sister?"

Spy chuckled, an ever-so-slightly menacing sound. "Of course she wouldn't mention her adoptive little brother. All that matters to her is that legendary big sister that we've never even met. She has some delusion that she knows everything about that legend and is going to become her successor somehow because they have the same name. I'm just the little boy that our parents adopted because the rest of our siblings are almost thirty years older than she is. No, I wouldn't be worth mentioning, so I can't fault you for not knowing about me. If she hasn't come up with some pretentious title for herself, my sister's name is Juli."

"Juli? You mean Juliana?"

"Yeah, that's her full name. Mostly I call her Juli because her precious legend is famous as 'Juliana of the Light.' Where is she?"

Flaw looked around at nothing in particular. "I thought she was going to be sleeping here tonight, but if she's not, try her healer tent a little ways outside of town. She'll be there if someone's sick or injured."

"Really?" Spy smiled, slightly maliciously. "She never lost sleep over anyone else when we were kids, but I'll go see. Thanks for your time."

Flaw watched him go. I doubt he's really Juliana's brother. Who did I just send after her? And, come to think of it, he never even asked my name.

Juliana was not at the Inn, so Spy skirted Battleon in search of the healer tent the man in the Inn had mentioned. A little ways east of the place where Twilly usually stood, he found it. The sounds of... slapping? That can't be it! echoed from inside. He took a deep breath, and stepped into the tent.

And was confronted by the exact tableau he had just convinced himself was impossible.

Juliana and Nammie stood in the middle of the tent, slapping one another's faces, as Vamp lay unconscious to one side. Spy cleared his throat, suddenly feeling very awkward. "Juli?"

Juliana started at the sound of that familiar voice. "No... Spy?!?! What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you," her brother replied. "Who're these dudes? Why was the purple-haired one slapping you? And that guy over there looks kinda pale..."

"That's just Vamp," Juliana informed him absently. "He always looks like that. But now that we're all awake... Nammie, what happened? What exactly were you and Vamp doing unconscious outside my tent?"

Nammie blushed and looked down. "I mistook Vamp for some random creep attacking me with a tarp, so I hit him over the head with my baseball bat. Then I realized my mistake and brought him to you. But then I fell asleep."

"Okaaaaaaaay." Juliana walked over to Vamp and inspected his head more thoroughly than before. "Well, the good news is that he probably isn't going to suffer any permanent damage from this even if I do nothing, and I can fix what little there was. The bad news is that I have no idea what he'll think of you when he wakes up, Nams, so be prepared for anything." She frowned. "Hmm, he might have a headache... unless..." A small bubble of light formed in her right palm, floated up and landed lightly on Vamp's head. It then started behaving like a liquid, soaking down through his hair. "There," Juliana announced. "That should do it."

Spy stared. "You love what you do, don't you?" The question just slipped out. The Juli he'd expected to find would have healed only because it did something for her. This was clearly not that sort of person.

"Absolutely." Since becoming a Healer, Juliana had become happier and happier. It warmed her to act for someone else, even when she had to give up something she'd wanted for herself. This feeling was better, much better, than that of a good night's sleep or a day without being attacked or a piece of gold in her pocket. Of course, that's why I can live as a hero. I'm underpaid, overappreciated, hardly a day goes by where I don't get beaten up--and I still manage to love every second of it! Then a thought occurred to her, a revelation made possible by her knowledge of her brother's mind. "You've been lying to yourself, haven't you? Trying to make me out selfish and conceited. Why were you hunting me before Nammie sidetracked you?"

With a sigh, Spy admitted, "The Traitor's side of the feud wanted to know how hard it would be for a hunter to get to you. I don't think they want the information for anything good. They were my original family, and they promised me gold like you wouldn't believe, and I couldn't easily turn them down. But I couldn't even do as much as I did without using my conscience-suppression techniques. If they try to talk me into actually killing you, I'm just going to come down with a bad case of no-can-do."

Juliana smiled, surprising everyone. "I don't suppose I could pay you off to forget that you ever agreed to this? I have an awful lot of gold, and I could also, hmm, withhold certain embarrassing nicknames. And noogies."

Vamp began to wake at this juncture. He coughed, drawing all eyes to him. Then he sat up, and looked right at Nammie. "Nam Nam?"

"Yes?" Nammie was appropriately terrified. After all, she had hit her guild leader over the head with a baseball bat hard enough to knock him out!

"Next time, please don't start swinging your bat until you know who you're swinging at." With that, Vamp got up and strode across the enclosed space.

"Um, I wouldn't--" Juliana began, but too late. Vamp managed to hit his head on the exact same painting Kayleen had collided with just two days previously. "That painting and your head are both getting a lot of abuse lately," the young healer observed.

Nammie couldn't help it. She started to giggle.

Spy glanced at his sister and continued their earlier conversation. "The offer of gold and noogie reduction is tempting, but I did make a promise. Sorry, Juli."

"That's my brother," she sighed. "Physically strong, mentally awake, and morally strange. Why is it that you have no qualms about making those promises, but you won't break them?"

"It's a reputation thing. If I don't keep it up, I'm going to be out of a job, and that means out of luck."

Vamp and Nammie had watched this much without comment, but now Vamp spoke up. "Wait. Juliana, who is this boy, what did he promise, and why don't you want him to keep his promise?"

"He's my brother." At a quizzical look from Nammie, comparing the two's appearance, Juliana amended, "Adoptive brother. He's also the sneaky ninja type, and he supplements his allowance by sneaking around and following people for gold. People hire him to watch people, or sometimes scare them in the middle of the night. He calls himself a 'hunter.' Well, there's this group of people who don't like me much, and they persuaded him--"

"You make it sound so gentle," Spy interrupted.

"--they persuaded him to hunt me. By coming in to chat, he's actually made life easier for me. Everyone wins now. Spy gets his gold, the people who hired him get their information, and I get advance warning that they're trying something sneaky."

"Okay..." Vamp stared at her, a little lost by Juliana's remarkable nonchalance. "What do you plan to do about it?"

"Simple. I'm going to sleep easily at night, because I've got several layers of defense that ought to stop anything. If anyone wants to get at me, they'll have to figure out how to get close without waking any of several naturally light sleepers in the vicinity, how to get past a very loud alarm spell designed to scare the bejeebers out of anyone who trips it, how to actually get through my three different kinds of armor, and how to get back out. Even if they couldn't care less about their own safety, I've got a dozen other things up my sleeve. It just happens that it's easier to do if I'm forewarned. Which I now am." She yawned. "Anyway, it's kinda late, and I doubt I'll be needed anymore tonight. I'm going to bed. Good night."

"Good night, Juli," Spy told her with a fraternal smirk. He slipped silently out of the door and dissolved into the night.

Nammie and Vamp said their goodnights as well, and all three Regulars returned to the Inn. No one woke again in Battleon that night.

by **Winnie** on Mon May 11, 2009 4:34 am

Winnie walked through the forest that morning, her atholyte armor swishing agenst her legs. That was the only sound, and she finally, after much walking, she reached the clearing she was looking for. The gossamer spiderwebs that adorned the trees were swept away. She walked out into the sunlight, but the clearing was empty. She sat sown on a rock- her rock. It was her's when she had first found this place, where she always spent her freetime. Writing, thinking, singing sofly to the forest animals, anything.

Suddenly, a brown haired boy walked out from behind a tree. He was wearing paladin armor, and was a good 6 inches taller. Winnie was taken aback by the sudden apperance of a cute boy, and fell off her rock.
"Ow.." She said, rubbing her head where the rock had hit it.
"Sorry, did I scare you?" He asked, extending a hand to help her up.
"Well, yes. It was odd, having a random person walk out from behind a tree when you think you're alone." Winnie said, taking it and standing.
"Well, I apologise. I teleported myslef here, to the forest, and I was stunned by your singing. You have an amzing voice, by the way." He said, smiling.
"Thank you." Winnie smiled, her cheeks turning a delicate shade of pink.
"Say, what is your name?" He asked, cocking his head to the side.
"Er..." Winnie felt suddenly at a loff for words. "Wi..nnie.."
"What a pretty name." He commented, chuckling. "My name is Damian."
"I like your name too." Said Winnie, not thinking of anything else to say.
"Er... Thanks?" He asked, scratching his head. "Useally people don't like my name."
"Really?" Winnie was pussled. It was a great name.
"Yeah, it's kinda, abnormal." he admitted.
"Ah, I see. When I was in elementary school, everyone called me Fred. It was killing me."
"Heh, I can see how that'd be annoying."
"Very."
"So, what was a girl like you doing here in a clearing all alone anyways?" He asked, puzzled.
"Er, Singing?"
"Well, yes, but why?"
"Becuase That's what I do." Winnie said, looking up at him.
"Oh, I see." He blushed a bit. "Erm say, would you like to go to the inn with me, mabye get some lunch?"
"Alright." Winnie replied, following him inches behind out of the clearing out into the forest toward Mobius.

Meanwhile, back with kayleen, She was worried. She still had not quite admitted about how she re-joined the ranks of the Dark side, and, recently, had been promoted to second in power. "Orha..." she said, scratching her head. "Ok, Winnie, i've been not telling you somthing... i've joined the dark side." She rehearsed her speech, again and again. "No, that's not right." She'd say after every one. Eventually she jsut said "WINNIE, I AM YOUR MOTHER!" Very loudly and laughed. She soon stopped, going back to the matter at hand.
"Dangit..." She said again, wondering. How do people admit to their parents that their dropping out of college..?" She suddenly thought. "They act proud, but sorry."

She then teleported to Winnie, and found herself in the Mobius inn, sitting in a chair next to Winnie and a guy she'd never met.
"Ahh!" Winnie said, staring bug-eye'd at her apprentace. "What are you doing here?"
"Uhhhh....." She stammered, this was a bad time.
"Whose that?" Asked Damian, Looking at Kayleen.
"That is Kayleen, my apprentace." Winnie said, Glaring. "And she shouldn't be here."
"Uhhhhh.... bad time?" Kayleen said, wincing.
"Very bad time." Winnie said, /facepalming.
"Sorry." Kayleen said, teleporting out.

"DANGIT!" Kayleen said. "Who was that guy anyways?" She thought, laying down on her bed. "Mabye tomorrow will bring answers."

Tomorrow did bring answers. The Wrong ones though. It brought Winnie answers.
"What??!!" Winnie said, waving her arms.
"I know.." Kayleen said, her orange hair falling over her eyes.
"You don't know what you did..." Winnie said, getting up.
"I--" Kayleen got up too, but sat back down. "It's useless."
She almost went and dared to ask her whom she was with the day before. She did not, not now anyways.

Winnie was over by the tree in battleon, looking at the gash marks. They diminished the code. All of it... She fingered the cuts. There seemed to me a bit of her blood left. She leaned her head on the tree, letting her throughts flow into the bark. Why? She was doing so well... All that teaching... all that learning... for nothing. Winnie began to do somthing she had not done for years. She began to cry.
It started lightly, but soon it was more of a weep. she buried her face in ehr hands, trying to stop the tears. Why...? Of all the letters in the alphabet, despite all popular belief, Y was the most popular one.

She sat there for two whole hours. She watched the sun rise in the sky until it was about in the center. Then she watched it sink... until it dissappreared below the horizon and Winnie drifted off to sleep.

by Pooks on Wed May 27, 2009 10:44 am

With the rustling of a thousand tiny wings, the forest awoke as the faerie-folk sifted through the leaves, bedewing every flower and spiderweb as they passed. A shaft of sunlight struck Winnie's closed eyes, and she looked up. A roof of boughs was over her head, her backside damp from dew. She remembered falling asleep to the murmer of crickets as fireflies had glinted among the tree trunks. Enormous fireflies. That trailed foxfire of silvery green and blue as they sang their ethereal hymns that named every star and tree, every flower and stone.

She sat up with a growing dread as her pulse quickened and her breathing became slightly faster. This was not the same forest. Or was it? She looked down, and saw she was wearing the same flowing robes with a gold-clasped girdle that she had been wearing before she had awoken in her room in BattleOn. Her heart was pounding now. She remembered BattleOn, but it seemed more and more like a dream every minute. THIS was real. That HAD been real. Where was she? Which had been her? She swallowed down the panic that made a moan tremble in her throat. Which was real?

"Both", a tiny voice whispered.
Winnie went cold and rigid with shock. That voice was not hers. Danger brought clarity. She closed her eyes still seated on the cool moss, and gathered the energy of life from around her, as glowing blue-purple strands in her mind. Her loose sleeves slid down her bare arms as she raised her hands in the air and focused a web of healing energy between them. Then she flung them outward. If there was any living sentient nearby, the web would touch them and she would know who/what was there. If not, that meant it was not living...or that she was losing her mind.

She immediately knew she had found life, but it was not the warm glow she was accustomed to. The touch of life in her web was the trembling jitter that the spider feels when a fly is caught. A voice as clear as a silver bell came from a fountain of fern and iris nearby.
"Halp!"
In her mind's eye, she could see the lines were somehow wrapped around a blue-green spark! Thoughts came rushing: so bright, so much life, but in such a small being! She couldn't imagine what it could be. It was caught in her web! Had she done that? What could be trapped by life itself?!
When she opened her eyes, another shock: she could still see her energy web! It looked blue-white instead of purple. What was going on?

"Release me, I pray, O great one!" The silvery voice sang, in a truly heartbreaking voice. The sound of it went straight to the heart like a well-aimed arrow.Winnie's wide eyes began to well up with tears, despite her caution. She did not want to hurt it, whatever it was--it sounded so sweet and delicate and vulnerable!
"I don't know why you are trapped, but I want answers first!" she replied ina trembling voice.
"Come out where I can see you!"
She rolled to her knees, twisting the long robes around her calves, and looked about the glade of trees.
There was no reply. She gulped, and the thought that she might be killing this delicate, beautiful creature made her heart miss a beat. Closing her eyes, she could still see the little bundle of life, bright as ever. She wasn't sure how, but as if it were a fish on a line, Winnie's mind tugged on the skein of purple energy, and the thing came toward her. Opening her eyes, she saw the ferns rustle as something slipped through their fronds. There it was! The blue-whiteness wrapped what seemed to be a pocket of air, until it came closer. Winnie could see it was a tiny, winged, person-shaped thing! It somehow changed, chameleon-like, to match whatever was behind it, so that at first it seemed the little being was made of crystal, or water.
"You need not entrap the faerie-folk, kind Mistress! I am of no consequence, and could not harm your greatness, even if I wished to! I beseech you, release me from this eldritch entanglement!" The voice quavered so sweetly and piteously that without another thought, Winnie waved her hand, dispelling the web.

Its laughter sparkled through the air with a thousand multicolored twinkles, falling in a shower around Winnie. She could not see the creature anymore, nor did her inner sight reveal its whereabouts.
"Fool Outlander!"
The heartbreakingly sweet voice now sneered with venomous scorn.
"No mere faerie have you to contend with! I have breathed the air of Asgard for more than two millenia!"
The green glow flared bright.
"The wrath of a Pixie will be the last sight you behold!"

A series of stuttering flashes exploded in front of Winnie's eyes, blinding and disorienting her. If she had been standing, she would have stumbled, for she could no longer sense which way was up. As it was, she fell forward onto her hands. The creature's shrill laughter mocked her as it circled her. Blinking rapidly with disbelief, Winnie could not tell the difference whether her eyes were open or shut, and it was very frightening. She took a deep breath and told herself to think like a Paladin. She could heal blindness, to a limited degree. Besides, she didn't think she would need to see to bring this enemy down. It's own pride would likely do that, in the end.

Sitting back to kneel, she pulled inward, drawing energy from around her into a protecting purple cocoon. Suddenly she could see the glowing green of the Pixie flaring through the bubble of light. It hung like a yellow-green star to her right, and seemed to be gathering light to itself as well; a swelling star that glared with a certain malevolence: it was preparing to make the final blow. Again following an instinctive impulse, she readied herself. The Pixie swooped upwards like a falcon, and dove towards her. Just as the tiny fey comet was about to hit, Winnie squeezed somehow. The purple bubble turned inside out in an instant, leaving her outside, and the Pixie trapped within. A silent flash glared from the bubble, bright even through Winnie's closed eyelids. The cocoon held strong.

A despairing wail keened through the glade as Winnie opened her eyes. Her vision pulsed black and green with her heartbeat, and all shapes were still shadowy suggestions, but even now things were becoming clearer as she squinted. She shut her eyes again. The Pixie buzzed in its trap like a hornet in a jar; flashing darts of green and yellow light stabbed at the walls of its prison, to no effect. A final storm of lightning-like flashes erupted inside. Without another sound, the little shape inside dropped like a stone to the ground and was still. Then a faint voice, trembling with frailty, spoke in a heartrending wail of sorrow, once again bringing unbidden tears to Winnie's eyes.

"Alas! I am cut off from the land of the living! Even now the cold earth drains away what is left of me!"
*gasp*
Winnie gritted her teeth against the almost-irresistible longing to free the delicate creature. She remembered her training, and breathed deeply and evenly as she held the cocoon firmly with her mind, even now feeding it new tendrils of healing energy.
"O! Fenaerielle and Temnith, Celedniath and Cooter, no longer shall we get bombed on lotus nectar--"
"Cooter? Get bombed?" Winnie snorted incredulously.
"--alas! Nor shall we sing the "Dirty Dryads" song under Asgard's diamond-studded cloak of velvet of night!"
*whimper*
Winnie peeked over. Oops, nope, it wasn't done yet.
"Farewell, sweet earth and sky Farewell green bough and pure brook!"
*cough*
"I go to nourish Yggdrasil's root!"
*sigh*.......................................................
"And now..."
Winnie rolled her eyes.
*wheeze*
"I...I...f-forgive y-you..."
*wheeze*
"big...meanie...Pixie...hating...type...person!...aahhhhhhh!"

Winnie's eyes again rolled heavenward at the Pixie's overblown histrionics. The little glow inside was as steady as one of Warlic's light-globes, yet it lay still for quite some time. The birds tentatively resumed their singing in the trees above. Finally, as Winnie figured it would, the little figure sprang upright, and a very indelicate howl tore through the peace of the glade.

"YEEEEAAAAARRRRRGH! FINE! YOU'VE GOT ME! I CAN'T GET OUT!" It actually sounded a little panicky now. Winnie knew the bargaining would begin soon. Then perhaps she could find out what was going on without someone interrupting the flow of the story again. Because she really hated that. Like when people took what was happening to a character and assumed they could just take over in order to "fix" all the protagonist's problems. Oh yeah. That was annoying.

A tiny sound like two beetles bashing heads interrupted her reverie. A tiny light sparked as the Pixie snapped its fingers. She could see it, she realized with relief. That little trick had almost cost her.
"Come on, come on! I don't want this to last all day, so whaddaya want?! A pretty pony? Hair that doesn't look like a hobo's? How about some nice ruby slippers? No? Then what!?"
Winnie looked at the Pixie like a cat at a canary. "I'll ask the questions around here, tinkerbell." she purred.
Her grin was as sharp and cold as a shark's.

OOC *This is mine. No touchy. Do whatever you want in Battleon, but leave Asgard alone for now until I get the background up and running. ~Pooks*

by **Juliana** on Wed May 27, 2009 3:01 pm

A distraught Kayleen burst into Yulgar's Inn, surprising her breakfasting friends. They had barely time to notice her tear-stained face and the disarray in which her hair and clothes were before she cried out, "Has anyone seen Winnie?" The nigh-musical sound of hundreds of voices replying in the negative answered her, and she screamed in anguish. "Where could she have gone, where could she be?"

Juliana stepped over to put a consoling hand on her friend's back. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Why do you want to see Winnie?"

Kayleen sobbed. "I... I told her I'd gone over, told her I'd turned evil again. We argued. She was so, so disappointed. I gave her all night to cool off, gave myself the time too, and three hours ago I decided I'd waited long enough. I tried to find her again. I wanted to talk to her, tell her why I'd gone over, and do whatever it took to make things right. But I can't find her, and I can't sense her anywhere. I used all the usual spells, plus a few I came up with on the spot, and then I poked around in all three major cities--that's why it took me three hours--and there's no trace of her." She gulped. "Winnie, Winnie, Winnie, where have you gone?" A trickle of Kayleen's magic flowed out with those words to search for Winnie. Juliana added a pulse of golden power to augment her friend's now-flagging strength.

"You've been looking for three hours, Kayz," Juliana informed the half-dragon sympathetically. "There's a lot of us here. Maybe we could work together?" She glanced over at her huge number of friends. Almost all of them contributed something to the magic, in fact, it was all of them save for those who weren't sure how it was done. For twenty seconds they waited, as their magic washed over the entire planet, a corona around Lore of a spell that sought Winniefred Brave.

"Nothing," sobbed the dragon-girl as the twenty seconds ended and their brobdingnagian spell petered out. She was so changed from the infuriated monster who had invaded the Inn--had it really been only a few days before?--and carried off Drakath that none who didn't know otherwise would believe that they were the same person. "She's not here, she's not anywhere in the whole world."

"Hmm," was Juliana's only response. She had pulled out a simple dagger of pure diamond out of her bag and stared at it indecisively. Her face turned grim, like she had made up her mind but wasn't happy about her choice. "I really didn't want to do this, but we have to know. One way or another, we have to know what happened to Winnie."

"What? Four hundred-odd heroes just cast a spell to scour the planet for Winnie, and we turned up nothing. What're you going to do alone that could do us one better?" asked Kivosk, one of the newer Regulars and a lifelong friend of Juliana's little brother.

In reply, she gritted her teeth and stretched out her left hand in front of her, palm up. "I'm going to wake my own blood," she warned. "The ceremony is probably going to be very frightening, and definitely very messy. You might want to stand back unless you don't mind getting covered in great globs of glowing gunk." Then she brought the crystalline dagger down, slashing a bloody trail across her own wrist, and screamed in pain.

Several of her friends rushed forward to help her, but Juliana shook her head to warn them back. Through gritted teeth, she gasped, "I call the power... of the blood... of the fallen. I have given my life... in the service of the powers of good..." As she spoke, the brilliant red blood that spilled from her arm and pooled on the floor began to glow a deep, mysterious, ghostly blue. Now everyone else understood what she had meant by "great globs of glowing gunk." Though her arm was spattered with dark gore and her skin was even paler than usual by now, Juliana kept speaking. "This blood... spilled once and again... is the source of my power... and the sustaining of my life... renewed. I call this power... as a fallen hero..." She closed her eyes and her entire body flashed blue. When she reopened her eyes, they were blue and swirling with power. The same image appeared in each of their minds: Lore as it looked from outer space. The image swiftly showed every bit of the planet and registered as Winnie-negative. This was repeated with a larger space, increasing and increasing, until it showed something entirely outside anything they had ever imagined. A huge expanse of white--they couldn't comprehend what it really was--but it registered Winnie-positive. Juliana sighed, and the image faded to mist that slowly dispersed. When they could all see properly again, she was binding her left arm with a long strip of linen that she had produced from, well, somewhere.

"Well?" inquired Kayleen. "What did we just see?"

Juliana sighed again. She tucked the trailing end of the bandage into its folds with an expert hand, her entire forearm now being covered with white linen, and studied her handiwork for a long moment. "Well, the good news is that we now know precisely where Winnie is. The bad news is that it's not anywhere we want her to be. I'm sorry, Kay, but she's dead. Again."

"How?" Kayleen couldn't wrap her mind around it. To lose Winnie again, particularly right after falling out with her...

"I'd like to know that too," the healer admitted. "But I have no idea. In fact, we never even figured out how she came back to life in the first place..."

Nammie stepped forward and cleared her throat. "I know how she came back," she told her friends. "I did it. I brewed a resurrection potion I'd found the recipe for in a really old book, and at first I thought it didn't work. But then Winnie reappeared in the middle of everything, which made it obvious that it had worked after all."

Juliana frowned. "Oh, dear. This means... you can't have known. They didn't put it in the really old books, but there's, well, a problem with those kinds of things. There are rules, you see. Unless you have special permission to get tangled up in the forces of Life and Death, any such attempt will be... incomplete. Either you end up with a monster, or with a real live person who dies again within the week. Your good intentions combined with Winnie's own powers precluded the monster option, so this is the result."

"Um..." Nammie was at a loss for words, casting desperately about for something, anything, to say. "How do you know all this stuff, anyway?"

The young healer smiled, a strange glint coming into her purple eyes. "I have that special permission, though there are enough strings attached that I can't use it to save Winnie. The rules are unbelievably strict. Perhaps that's even a good thing, though it's very hard on us. I suspect it's the only reason we haven't had an apocalypse in the past decade, so I don't like to complain too much."

"So that's what we can't do to save Winnie," Kayleen clarified glumly. "What can we do?"

Juliana grinned outright. "Invent a new way?"

by Pooks on Thu May 28, 2009 7:41 am

"My name is not Tinkerbell, honored mistress!" the Pixie said, in a voice of chipped ice. "I shall hardly tell you my Truename, but you may call me--" the Pixie's voice dwindled to a mosquito's hum.
A wave of dizziness enveloped Winnie, and a roaring filled her ears. She thought she was going to pass out, but then the sensation was gone, as quickly as it came.
"Whoa..." Winnie said weakly. The Pixie looked up at her with a blank expression of surprise as she raised her hand to her head.
"Welcome back, mistress," it said carefully. "I expect you will be in Asgard a bit longer this time."
It was then that Winnie realized that, instead of the clear, fresh cool of morning, the air had turned warm, and the slanting light of evening filtered through the trees.
"Despite your friends finding you so quickly," the sprite continued, "they will not be able to come to your aid without the help of the Aesgir." The musical laugh of the creature filled the golden air.
"We have all the time in the world."

The sound of rapid strides came from the hall outside, and was quickly followed by a sharp banging on the doors of the chamber. Magnhildr Freysdottr, Warchieftess of the Valkyrie, did not look up from the floor, where she sat among furs and cushions.
"Enter, daughter." she said calmly, despite the unseemly banging. She didn't understand why, but she was sure she would know soon enough. The meaning of what she looked at on the floor, however...that needed more attention than she could spare for--
The heavy doors swung open and banged against the stops as a tall blonde woman strode through them.
"Battlesinger Aerindiss bids me to tell you: the healer's friends have found her!" Magnhildr looked up sharply.
"Impossible!" she snapped.
"She asks that you come with all haste to the Oracle's Aerie!"
"Don't be foolish, child!" She said sternly. The young woman fell silent.
She paused and took in the girl: The battlemaiden before her had gone rigid at the rebuke, and stood with an intense look on her face as she stared at the floor. She had obviously run the entire way, but was not even winded--and she shouldn't be--although a few wisps of blonde hair had come loose. She was armed--as she should be--and stood ready and alert; moreover, she held her tongue. All as it should be. Not panicked. Certainly not hysterical or addled. Magnhildr sighed. The maiden was looking more than a trifle alarmed. Which probably reflected the state of the one who had sent her.
"The Battlesinger sent you herself?" she inquired sharply.
A single curt nod was the answer.
"And she herself spoke what you said to me?"
Another nod. The Chieftess thought quickly: if this were true, then the Lore heroes were moving more quickly than expected after the healer's latest disappearance. Which it meant they were working together. At last!
She rose to her feet in a smooth motion, flipping the baldric over her shoulder with practiced ease, so that her broadsword's scabbard slapped into it's place between her shoulderblades.
"Forgive my rebuke, sword-daughter. Let us not keep mistress Aerindiss waiting!"
She had slipped her other arm through the straps of her buckler to grab her fur cloak, which she has cast over her shoulders in the same motion. She spun towards the door, armed and ready for whatever would come. Whether she rises from sleep or bath, table or winecup, a Valkyrie must be ready to fight by the time she stands up. Her eyes fell on what she had been looking at before the summons had come. Now it began to make sense, after all. As the women walked quickly to the door, the oracle-bones cast upon the floor scattered, like teeth from a kicked skull. In the minds of the two women who had seen the runes, however, the symbols of The Wheel, The Sword, Chaos and Death would not be so easily dispelled.

by **Winnie** on Mon Jul 13, 2009 9:42 pm

Juliana first tried enchanting the mirror in room 42 to let us get to Winnie, through the looking glass. Fail.
"I don't get it." Vamp said, looking at the mirror. "We said the spell, we see ourselves, we can't get through."
"I don't think that the mirror is the right kind." Kayleen said, taking it off the wall and dropping it out the window.
"Hey!" Said a voice from below, whom apparently the mirror had hit.
"Sorry!" Juliana said, running downstairs. It was her job as the town healer to heal injuries, and, it seemed there was a rather large one down 2 stories.
"Do you think that Winnie's dissappearance may have to do with Kayleen's moodyness?" Pooky asked nammie.
"I guess. They were close..." Nammie whispered back.
"I know. Look what happe-" Pooky was cut off by a large column of flame hurling between her and Nammie.
"I HEARD THAT!" Kayleen said, shooting them a glare. She opened her wings wide.
"Sorry! I couldn't help but notice that Since Winnie was stolen you've been different!" Nammie said, backing off.
"She has a point, Kayleen." Vamp admitted, still a bit scared that in a second he may be crispy.
"I suppose your right.." Kayleen said, "But we have to find her soon."
"Were doing our best." Vamp said, smiling. "Your not going to burn us, right? Becuase if you did then you'd probobly never find her, becuase there are more than 500 of us..."
"I'll keep the fire inside.." Kayleen said, walking downstairs, sulking.
Juliana then returned with Kaotic. "Sorry, Kayleen, you need to watch where you- Hey, where's Kayleen?"
"She went downstairs." Pooky informed her, sighing. "She's been moody since Winnie got taken."
"Well, I'll try to help her. Meanwhile Kao's got an idea!"
"Yes, all you have to do is..."