Hopefully this comes out formatted okay. Having to send through my tablet, since it somehow bypasses the paywall. -LurkingWolf --- Lois fully intended to return to the training chamber so that he could at least dismiss Paula from her training of the day. Every step between the scene of the tinsmith’s sudden and unbelievable downfall added yet more weight to the hefty load on his thoughts, however, and by the time he had entered the halls, they only danced in confusing arcs and circles as his thoughts did, and he could not think clearly enough to return. Suddenly, another arcing hallway led him into a large, circular room. He came up short, but before he could react, the stones of the adjoining hall moved themselves, trapping Lois in a perfect prison, free of all chance of escape. “What am I to do with a man like you?” a female voice asked. Lois’ dagger was in his hand before the first syllable had left the specter’s mouth, but he quickly realized what the signs meant and dropped the blade, abasing himself quickly in the presence of the Keep’s guardian spirit. She circled around from behind him to stand before him, nowhere near as imposing a figure as such a powerful spirit should be in Lois’ own opinion. She looked to be a young woman, only a few years older than Paula herself. Her eyes reflected the colors of the stones in the room as the few flames about the circumference danced across their surfaces, and they carried another sort of flame, a restrained anger that would consume any who did not tread carefully. She wore a light dress that hung with an impossible weight upon her shoulders, yet breathed and danced with every small breath of air. She gave no order for Lois to rise, instead allowing him to bow there while she continued her original thought. “Vincent Lois, assassin these twenty years, here again within my walls as you were ten years ago.” “I am no assassin!” Lois somehow found himself daring to stand and challenge her, but the flame in her eyes turned its full blaze on him for a moment, halting any thought of continuing. “Of course you are. What man retires from his work before he has fully trained his successor? The girl, Paula. You tread dangerously with her. You know not the depths of the darkness that she has seen. Remember, Lois, it is the nature of men to create monsters, and the nature of monsters to destroy their makers.” “I train her as a fighter, as all men and women in Metamor are trained!” “The skills you teach her have little place in the battlefield. Even you proved that during your patrol, striking from the shadows to halt the attack. Your methods are a recourse only for men who dare not fight in the sunlight.” Lois wished to rebut her accusations, but her eyes were still fixed on him, and her very glare stole any words from his tongue. “Know this, Lois, I do not presume to decide for the duke whose allegiance he should accept, and I would not interfere so far as to eliminate you of my own accord while Thomas still sees your use, but know this: I do NOT suffer your presence gladly. Your kind has more place with Nasoj than here, protected within my walls.” Lois managed to find his tongue again as she turned away to circle him around the perimeter of the room. “Tell me this; is it not true that you shelter many here whose pasts are marred with every sort of stain? Why, then, am I different?” “Many shelter here who are more suited for the dungeons, indeed, but few are as wholly wrapped in their own delusions of redemption as you are. I have watched you since your arrival, watched your actions, your thoughts… You pushed yourself to the limit of your strength to see your patrol companion back to these walls in time for the Yule, you fund out of your own purse the cost of an entirely new mechanism just so that he has a chance of walking again, and you take in young Paula, all the while thinking it for her benefit, and not your own. Now you come here into my halls with your mind a slough of guilty thoughts about how you could have saved the tinsmith, Snow.” “You speak as though these are bad things,” Lois observed. “You’re stretching yourself to find more and more ways that you can do good, as though that will save you from what is coming. Tell me Lois why you actually went into a blizzard tonight over a matter that did not concern you?” the Keep’s guardian spirit asked. Lois began to speak, but realized as he did that he did not know the answer. He looked at her in consternation. “You say that as though you’re suggesting something,” he observed. “I will tell you why you left the safety of my walls tonight. Revonos has so tight a hold on your soul that you were drawn by his very presence.” Lois felt a sudden sour taste in his mouth. “That’s not true! I serve no god, be they Daedra, Aedra, or Eli himself!” Kyia laughed bitterly. “Many who will spend time in the hells would say the same thing, I am sure,” she suggested blandly. “Drift worshiped Eli, I’m sure he would deny any suggestion of allegiance to Revonos.” Lois glared at her, unable to say anything against her accusations. He stood there, responding to her stony gaze in kind. After several moments of silence, he finally spoke again. “I still do not see how this makes my concern for the man anything other than good.” “How long did you know the man? A few weeks? And you may have seen him for a total of five hours during those meetings. Why do you think you could have made a difference, when the combined efforts of all of his friends fell far too short?” Lois sighed. “I remember little that my mother said, but one thing I do recall is the phrase ‘a stroke of a butterfly’s wings can topple kings.’ It means that even the smallest thing can make a difference in the world. I saw that Drift was troubled the last day I saw him before tonight, and I waved it off. I could have made a difference!” Kyia laughed sardonically. “How. Would you have assassinated Revonos? Or perhaps more direct, killed Drift himself.” That was too far, and Lois was too furious to realize how stupid it was before he had already reached for a dagger. As he did, however, his fingers brushed across something else. He hesitated and looked down, even as Kyia continued to watch him, seemingly disappointed that he hadn’t tried to kill her. Suddenly, Lois heaved a heavy sigh and began to laugh. “Of course,” he said quietly. “He looked up at the apparition before him. I knew that Kyia was far too involved with other things to truly take an interest in me tonight.” “What are you talking about?” the Keep’s spirit asked. “You’re getting very clever,” he replied. “Still, you will have to do better. My dreams are my own.” He turned about before the apparition could say anything further, and simply passed through the immaterial wall, back out into the twisting corridors of his dream’s Keep. * * * Lois woke comfortably the next morning. His dreams had been peaceful once he had realized that he was dreaming. Those who sought to control him had apparently decided that trying again was not worth the effort that night. Lois checked to be certain that he was awake, then sat up in his bed. He did not remember having returned to his room and fallen asleep in his bed, but that was where he found himself now. He stood and walked over to a washbasin that he kept ready, using it to wash the sleep from his eyes. Last night had been closer than usual to deceiving him. He was concerned by this eventuality, but at the same time he realized that his ignorance had given him more time to coax information from whomever it was that walked his dreams. He considered what had been said for a few moments, trying to piece together the memory of the words. He was not certain if it had not just been part of the act, but he recalled the distaste that Kyia’s specter had expressed regarding his actions at the Keep. He liked to think that it was a real expression of frustration, that his actions within the walls had been thoroughly contrary to his enemy’s wishes, but he could not be certain. She had mentioned his taking Paula as an apprentice with distaste as well, and he found it difficult to expect that his watchers would not have been happy with that course of action. Lois took some notes down about what had been said in his dreams before closing his journal. He considered the relatively new book quietly, remembering the loss of his original journal. Fortunately, whoever discovered it would find it little more than a curiosity. For once at least, even with his opponent’s new strategy, the dreams of the night had been less troubling than the events of the evening itself. The dreams had provided no real answers to his questions, and Lois still wanted to know more about what had happened to embroil the unfortunate smith in a daedric plot. The only place he could think of that might afford some information was the tinsmith’s workshop. While the events of the past night made him doubt that he would find the tinsmith there, perhaps someone else would be able to shed some light on the events of the previous night. The trek through the halls was a little longer than usual, but Lois finally did reach the familiar door. Despite the fact that the sign had been removed between his visits, he had been in the smithy enough to recognize the door now. As he arrived, he found that it was slightly ajar. The ermine rapped on the door a few times, but only barely heard the response from within. Still, he pushed the door open slowly and took a look inside. The former assassin bit back a curse as he saw the interior of the forge. Despite the short time he had known the man, Lois was familiar with the somewhat haphazard manner in which the samoyed organized his workshop. What he saw before him was not the result of haphazard organization, however, but of a disastrous rampage. A familiar metal fox was the first other creature to make their presence known in the forge. The fox cocked its head before bounding back into the workshop and exclaiming something about strange visitors to whomever was within. When the automaton reappeared a moment later, he was trailed by another familiar sight, that of Misha Brightleaf. Lois remembered meeting him the night before he met Drift, the metal fox that called him Papa serving as the model for Gerard’s newly minted leg. The battle-worn fox’s face was set in an unpleasant expression. “Vincent Lois? What brings you here?” Lois nodded respectfully to the man. “I heard that something had happened to Master Snow. I thought that this might be the best place to seek more information.” The fox’s expression did not lighten at this. “What do you know already?” he asked. “I heard that Drift had somehow become involved with the Daedra,” Lois replied briefly. He intended to continue, but he was interrupted. “Liar!” the fox snapped. He advanced on the ermine like an oncoming storm, and Lois was forced to dance around the forge to keep away. “You might have heard of Drift’s fall, or of Daedra, but there would have been no connection for you unless you were involved. Tell me, what part do you have in this? Speak!” Before Lois could do so, the Long Scout continued his diatribe, closing to within an arm’s length of the former assassin. “Someone had to set the trap, so tell me, Lois, where were you last night, and then tell me why I shouldn’t kill you as a traitor and a murderer?” Lois took a quick step forward and gave Misha a solid two hand push in the chest. Misha resisted most of the impulse, but it put him on his heels and gave the ermine a bit of separation, hopefully enough to allow him to speak before being killed. “Peace!” he yelled desperately. “I was in the lower Keep last night, and I saw the end of the matter, that is all! Everything I know, I learned from the Lightbringers there!” “So you were there.” Misha’s voice was barely recognizable as human anymore. He started to advance again, but Madog suddenly interposed himself between the two men. “Papa! Friend! Ermine is Drift’s friend!” This brought Misha up short, and after a brief moment he allowed himself to sag back against the low wall of the forge. He didn’t look up at Lois, and the ermine waited a few moments before saying anything else. “No,” Lois finally said. “I should have been so lucky to call him my friend. I only knew him briefly, but I knew even from that brief interaction that he was a good man. I just want to know what happened.” Misha nodded. “As I said, someone set a trap for him,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “A cursed blade that drove him to madness, and a truth from his past that he should never have learned. Now Revonos claims his soul, and few offer any hope. All that is left is a cold forge and a ruined workshop.” An otter woman approached Misha from behind and wrapped her arms about him. Lois sighed and stepped out of the corner where he had been trapped by the enraged fox. Madog looked up at him briefly, but had soon turned to comfort the grieving fox as well. “I want to help,” Lois said once Misha had regained his composure. “No,” Misha said quietly. “I promised Drift I would do this. Please, leave me to it.” Lois sighed, but he nodded in understanding. “I am truly sorry for your loss,” he said quietly, and then he stepped towards the door. Only after he had exited the forge did Lois realize that he was being followed. Madog stood in the doorway, eyeing Lois seriously. “Can I help you?” Lois asked. “You don’t remember.” Lois blinked. Madog was playing his games again. “I’m sorry? What do you mean, I don’t remember?” “You recall. Facts on a test, not points on a timeline. You don’t remember.” Lois sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, if you expect me to understand you’ll have to be plainer about how you say it.” The ermine could have sworn that Madog flashed a smile for a moment, and then he returned to the forge, leaving Lois standing outside. The former assassin shook his head and marched off down the hall. It seemed that there was nothing left for him to do about Drift, but there were other things he could still do. Focusing his mind on finding Balrog, Lois set off deeper into Kyia’s halls.