Presence of the Pillars

JP with Lucian, Bandorchu, Omni, and Lorem

Tarmen took his brutal beating and with each blow Voah winced. She knew what was coming… she was going to have to flee into the mines… this time Tarmen wouldn’t be with her to keep her sane and bring her down from the headaches and the whispers.

Her throat welled up in fearful panic. She found that her hand had moved to the hilt of her sword that she had haphazardly strapped to herself with rope. Some of their archers had arrows nocked and aimed at her for it.

Then she realized something else. Something in her stirred, like an internal hum or vibration. She had felt it before. The Pillars were speaking. That intuition made her suddenly feel calmer, though the fight certainly wasn’t getting mich better.

Tarmen put his claws into the man’s chest injury until the man knocked his feeble hand away. K’ol beat his chest like a wild animal and smeared some of the blood down his own face in another guttural yell.

He stood up from Tarmen and paced around him before giving him a good kick and shouting at him to get up, bloody spittle flying from his mouth.

Tarmen remained where he lay, unable to feel much of anything at this point. His chest heaved as he fought for air, the ringing in his ears blocking out the taunts of the victor.

His mind floated in and out of a waking dream, bringing him back to the ground where he had first felt death this close. He would have laughed at the familiarity of this moment.

He felt the same calm he had experienced then, the acceptance that he might not make it out alive, that Zin would claim him then and there.

The calm stirred something in him. No savage resurgence like on Sentinel Island, or the dead determination in the mines, just a simple strength to move and face where he hoped Voah was. He couldn’t know at this point if K’ol had taken them already, but he still managed to lift his hand and gesture to her. To go, to leave him and protect themselves.

He accepted his end as he found it in himself to try and get up, to extend this distraction to give them time. Each time, any effort he made ended with another kick.
He made a prayer to Zin, for his friend’s safety and for this shell of a man to join him in death.

Seeing Tarmen reach out made Voah’s heart drop. It was time… but she couldn’t move. She acknowledged the sense of a higher power and prayers cascaded from her lips.

Alexis’ gaze was pulled to Voah as the Arbiter started reciting prayers.

The mercenary didn’t pray very often. But hadn’t she already called upon the Pillars just a moment before? Then she should go the whole mile alongside her friend.
She looked back to Tarmen. Her lips began silently moving in a prayer of her own.

The prayers of Voah started to catch like a wildfire. From her tiny spark, Alexis caught aflame. Then the surviving Ostarium miners and soldiers in the tunnel seeing Alexis praying to the Pillars also began. From the entrance to the very back of the tunnel, everyone was in prayer. Their words grew louder with the confidence that solidarity brings.

Gonyaul was looking around befuddled. Did everyone know the same words to say? He felt out of place not being a believer in his heart nor a scholar in his head regarding these Pillar matters. His mind was elsewhere trying to concoct some innovative way to get out of this mess. It would take more than just him to pull any stratagem off, which was unlikely with everyone else rooted in place talking into the air as if that would make something favorable happen.

He was disappointed in himself for not having a working solution to this mess. He also felt like he was letting Voah down personally. His eyes scanned the area outside the mines. Nothing! Not a single one of these Pillar people were present. Were they lazy or perhaps they were off doing something somewhere else.

Gonyaul looked to the forge and was seriously considering just walking on over to it while everyone was distracted. He was racking his memory banks when he had been briefly inside it, to decide if there was anything of note that would be useful.