Khyree's Story

While you ponder the purpose of the guards stationed at the archway a cart turns into the arch from the main road.

"Stop!" says a guard as the two step away from the wall into the cart's path. You can make out one guard asking, "What is your business down this street?" He waits for a response from the driver, which you cannot hear. "Late to market?" He waves to the other guard, who peers into and examines the contents of the cart. The examining guard nods. "Okay, go ahead," says the commanding guard. The cart driver urges the cart forward, heading through the arch in the direction of the market.

As that incident is occurring, you also notice the young man from the market shimmy over the edge of a roof on this narrow city street to your right. He carefully slips down on top of a second floor balcony awning and disappears. A moment later--before the cart has passed by you--he pokes his head out over the awning and whispers--loudly, "Psst, hey, you better have a good reason to be going that way if you’re thinking about walking past those guards. I suggest you don't. Safer moving around up here."

"I do have a good reason." Khyree replies back. "I want to get out of this damn city."

"Then we have that in common. You may have noticed already, but I kinda urgently gotta get out of this town." he says, still poking his head over the awning. "My guess is you're not from this city or the jungle out there and you got a boat stashed up the coast."

He then--in a swift stealthy motion--flips himself around, shimmies off the awning onto the balcony below it, hops over the rail, and then hangs from it for a moment, before dropping onto to the street not far from you. Crouching behind a weathered wooden stall behind the warehouse, he looks to make sure the guards at the arch did not notice him before he continues, "I'm pretty handy and know my way around a boat. And more importantly I know a discrete way out of these city walls."

"I am all for discreet." Khryee replies to the man. "Get us out of this city and we can talk about the boat once we're safely out of here."

The man nods to you and kneels down. "Get on boy." He says, "And hold on tight."

As the boy--still tightly clutching the amulet--gets on the young man's back wrapping his arms around the man's neck, the merchant cart fully passes by on the street. The man stays low behind the stall for a moment.

"It's, Rowan, Rowan Kael. Here goes our discrete exit."

With the boy on his back, Rowan, keeps low and moves to a shadowed warehouse wall. The nimble man uses vine covered drain pipes, decorative stonework, and stone sills to make a stealthy ascension up the warehouse toward its roof.

Khyree follows Rowan's lead and climbs up after him. "Khyree. Khyree Vadis." She says by way of quick introduction.

You easily follow Rowan to the roof of the warehouse.

What you see on the roof is quite amazing. The blue energy ceiling dome you saw inside the warehouse now makes a breathtaking canopy roof of swirling force. At the center of the roof juts out a pole. Attached to the pole is a wide cable that angles downward off the city wall side of the warehouse.

Rowan does not step on the blue dome but keeps to the stone sill on the edge of the roof. He pauses and rustles through his bag as he explains, "They don’t guard the energy hubs because they don’t think anyone can get near them. But I’ve designed a few things that allow me to do just that."

He takes a pair of identical odd contraptions from his bag and clips them to the bottom of his boots. They have curved metal posts with small round ends that contact the roof sill instead of the bottom of his boots. A mesh of some material you can’t pinpoint connects the posts.

He takes out another pair and hands them to you. He also takes out two straps that are made of a mesh similar to the mesh on the boot clips.

"With these we can walk up there to that post and use the straps to slide down to the underground tunnel that the energy comes into the city on."

Oddly the energy on the roof doesn’t seem at all dangerous to you, in fact it feels familiar, comfortable. You notice that the blue energy nearest to you seems to subtly respond to any small movement you make. It swirls in response to you. Rowan, proud of his invention, doesn’t even seem to notice.

Khyree slips on the footwear devices and straps them onto her feet. She resists the urge to reach out and touch the familiar surge of blue energy and nods when she is ready. "All ready..."

"Great. Let's do this," says Rowan. "Don't let go kid," he says to the boy.

He steps onto the blue dome. It ripples a bit as if it is water, but the round ends of his footwear devices barely sink into the blue energy. He walks up toward the pole in the center of the blue dome.

With your first step, the blue energy not only ripples but swirls under your feet obscuring the contents of the warehouse below that before stepping you could vaguely make out through the translucent blue dome. As you continue making steps the energy begins to rise up and circle you, at first just your legs, then up to your waist, finally around your chest. You know this force. It is the dragon force. It surrounds you and embraces you, enhancing your focus and Ki.

The force offers you strength by sacrificing some of itself. But something about it troubles you. It also feels stretched, trapped, and imprisoned. You feel like it swirls around you in attempt to ask for your help.

"How did you...What was that!?" asks a stupefied Rowan when you make it to the pole and the energy subsides from circling around you.

"I'll try to explain once we get out of here." Khyree tells Rowan. "I also want to know where this energy comes from? I have a bad feeling about how it is obtained."

Still astonished Rowan says, "I will surely like to hear that. Let's get a move on it then." He makes sure the boy is secure. "Hold on," he says to the boy. Then he flips his mesh strap over the cable, grabs the two ends of the strap with both hands and slides down the cable toward the stone structure-just inside city wall-that the cable is attached to.

He makes it down the cable and drops onto the top of the stone structure. The structure has an opening on top of it that the cable goes into. The opening is wide enough for a human to enter and climb down.

"Coming?" Rowan calls up to you, somewhat subdued, as he is trying to be discreet.

From the top of the warehouse you see the sun is low in the sky on your right to the west.
Khyree--Current HP: 17, Temp HP: 0, KI: 1, Temp KI: 7
Time: Early Evening

Khyree doesn't verbally respond to Rowan's question, but takes hold of the strap and makes for the stone roof and the hole as well. She slides nimble down the cable and lands on target.

When you make it across, Rowan helps the boy down off his back. He points at the shaft at everyone's feet and says, "You're gonna have to climb down yourself kid. There's not enough space for both of us climbing together, because we have to stay to the side the cable is not on. We can't touch the cable." He looks at you, "Well...I know I can't touch the cable anyway...after what I saw on the roof I'm so not sure what you two can touch or can't touch."

He notices that the boy clutches something in his hand. "You're gonna need both hands kid." The boy doesn't say anything, but looks reluctant to loosen his grip on the item he protects.

What's left of the daytime sunlight shines a bit into the shaft and you see the fat cable disappear below as the shaft bends. It looks like about 40' down the shaft turns and heads under the city wall.

Khyree looks at the kid. "I could put in my pack for safe keeping for the climb down, but you'll have to trust me."

The boy looks at his hand, then back at you. Then his gaze flickers between his hand and the escape route. His internal struggle is evident, but he silently nods, looks at you, and opens his hand.

In the boy's hand is a simple red stone set in a black leather casing that has a leather string attached.

Khyree plucks up the amulet from the boy's hand and carefully places it in her pouch for safekeeping. "Careful." She tells the boy. "We need to keep moving to get out of this town."

The boy watches you place the amulet carefully in your pouch. You can see in his face that his internal struggle is conquered as he puts his full trust...and hope in you.

Rowan already has descended into the opening using the narrow spiked brackets and thin rails opposite the fat cable as footholds and handholds. "Do as I do," he says mostly to the boy. The boy breathes with resolve and follows Rowan's lead.