78rpmlife wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2024 7:01 pmElda runs the tip of her tongue over her dry lips as she nods.
"If we get close enough, I know how to find my way through the barrier. At least to let her know we're aware and working on it. Anything to feel less alone," she says.
"If there can be something good to come out of that period of my life, then..."
Her slim shoulders rise and fall. She looks up at Georg, the markings on her face turning a warm golden color he's learned to recognize as being grateful. She says nothing, aloud or mentally, just tilts her head toward a hallway and leads on.
As they walk, Elda sends,
If she is being held captive and we don't want to draw attention, we'll have to approach from a different direction. I should be able to get close enough without us being seen, but it will take a few moments for me to break through from a farther distance.
They reach a hallway of small rooms: study carrels, practice areas and the like. There are a couple of Scholars and Novices about, moving into and out of the rooms. None of them seem to take note of Elda and Georg in particular -- Whitestone is big enough that not everyone knows each other. One fellow, reading a slim book open in his hands as he walks, does do a double-take when he looks up and finds the towering Granite Scholar a few feet away, but he just murmurs an apology and changes his path to avoid a collision.
Last room on the right ought to work.
They settle inside the room and close the door behind them. Elda goes to put a hand on the back wall and closes her eyes. She makes no movement other than breathing for a long while, long enough that Georg starts to wonder if she's not able to make contact. Suddenly she breathes in sharply and her shoulders relax.
"I have her," she whispers.
Whatever telepathic conversation they may be having, Elda doesn't clue Georg in immediately. It isn't until she lets her fingers slide down the wall and withdraws her hand that she turns to explain.
I was able to communicate to her, but I couldn't make a big enough break in the barrier for her to communicate back beyond emotions. She is furious and tired and grateful and lonely and... I couldn't untangle them all. When I told her we were going to talk to this Risine Barimond, I felt as though she approved. But at least she knows we're working on her behalf. I would have said more, but it was difficult enough to break through. Any longer and I fear I may have alerted someone. There's no guarantee that I didn't set off alarms anyway, but I don't believe that I did.
Georg rests a hand on Elda's shoulder briefly, then squeezes through the hallways after her, painfully aware that he is quite out of place here and therefore quite memorable. If Rothenend doesn't already know he's conspiring with Adaye and likely working against him, it won't be hard for him to find out. That's a risk he's willing to take, however, if it means letting Adaye know that they are aware of what's happened and are working to help her.
Once they find a suitably quiet room, Georg stands guard just inside the door in case anyone tries to come in while Elda is working. It takes long enough that Georg has time to get antsy and wonder if there's something he can do to help, but he errs on the side of not distracting Elda while she's working. Sitting with nerves and waiting is a useful skill for a Granite scholar to practice, after all. When Elda makes contact, he takes a deep breath and lets his shoulders relax.
"That's good work, and it'll make things easier all around." Not that anything about today was going to be easy, but being able to truthfully say that Adaye had approved of their soliciting Risine to be her advocate on her behalf might help smooth things over.
78rpmlife wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2024 7:01 pm
Risine Barimond may not have given up an office in the Dawnstone faculty area, but it's clearly not because she had a great view or a short walk from her residence. Her office is in a weather-beaten converted residence whose better days passed decades ago, on the ground floor, in the back corner of a back hallway next to what appears to be a maintenance closet judging from the mops and brooms visible through the door that seems to be missing a latch.
There is a nameplate on her half-ajar door that attributes the room beyond to her with a small brass sun sigil of Orien beneath it. Before Elda and Georg can approach and knock, however, she appears in the doorway. She is quite tall and angular in build, dressed in a tailored green jacket and matching necktie over a wide-collared white shirt and a slim skirt that reaches to mid-calf. Her silver hair is a bit wild and unfocused, but her gaze is anything but as she discovers visitors out in the hallway. Her features around a pair of wire-rimmed eyeglasses are sharp and handsome, with strong eyebrows on a lined forehead, suggesting she's prone to raising those brows in skeptical disapproval. When she speaks, her voice is deeper than perhaps expected and smoky, rough around the edges from long use.
"You are no janitors and few get so lost as to find their way here by accident, so I am forced to deduce that for reasons I hope are fascinating you have come looking for me specifically," she says, leaning against the doorframe with one outstretched arm, other hand resting on a cocked hip.
"Well, you have found me and I beg of you, regardless of whether I am right or wrong, please tell me a good story. If not, I will be forced to attend an interminable and pointless meeting likely to result in my premature death due to boredom."
Georg had been expecting a fairly run-of-the-mill office, not an ill-kept closet, but on reflection, it makes sense. Dawnstone likely retains the right to re-assign offices "as needed," even if they are obligated to set one aside for Barimond, and making it the least palatable room they could while still meeting basic requirements is exactly the kind of petty bureaucratic revenge Georg has come to expect. When Barimond herself comes out and declares that she has somewhere to be (even though she doesn't want to be there), Georg is forced to consider something that he really should have before now. They are relying on Morwenna's recommendation, but Morwenna is not from this page. For all they know, this Risine could have made different choices than the one she knows, could have a different position or priorities, in the same way that Drexel's Georg had made choices that estranged him from his family. She may never have thumbed her nose at the College on principle at all. Adaye had communicated approval, but that may have been for the idea of getting her an Advocate in general, not for Barimond specifically.
It's a bit late to second guess now, though, especially when they don't have a better option. Reminding himself that Drexel hadn't realized he was a different Georg until he hadn't known things he was supposed to know, he places his hopes on the idea that, different choices aside, character might be essentially the same across pages. It's all moot if they don't convince her to talk to them instead of going to her meeting anyway. Georg had been preparing to make a serious, urgent plea, but with the way Risine is talking, he reconsiders. She is, apparently, desperate for distraction. She wants a
story. Thankfully, Georg knows how to give her just that.
Georg draws himself up to his full height, just barely avoiding scraping his scalp against the ceiling, not to loom, but to adopt the air of a herald on the stage declaiming exposition.
"There has been an egregious abuse of power," he solemnly intones.
"Headmaster Rothenend has confined Master Adaye of Ningen without warning nor cause. Rumors swirl about that the charge is treason, but there has been no official word. Worse, he has imprisoned her behind wards that cut off her telepathic communion with her people, an act tantamount to blindfolding her and tossing her in an oubliette." Georg gazes down at Risine.
"She needs a champion—an Advocate—to fight for justice and relieve these unconscionable conditions. Will you answer that call?"
The small talk fades as Iana leads the way to the Archives. Located at the center of the building, there is only one entrance to the Archives and it isn't so much guarded as it is highly controlled. All items taken in or removed are assiduously catalogued by the archivist on duty. The running joke in Obsidian is that you have to have your sense of humor surgically removed when you join the Archivists. Like any running joke, there's a healthy amount of truth to it, and to the alternate version: only people without a sense of humor ever think of joining. You learn early in the Bin to not mess with the Archivists, because they can and will make your life extremely unpleasant. 
