First the priest and her group of adventures had been caught by a group of orcs.
Because of Mists prayer for help, Sasherial had started to negotiate with a representative of a warrior order from the human pantheon to reroute a paladin, or at lest a squire, to save her. Help from that kind of groups came fairly cheep since they lived and often died for that kind of work.
Then the priest and her companions seemed to have been rescued by a wandering monk of an unknown deity. Human gods popped up every other day, so she wasn’t worried about that. Humans tended to a rather short lifespan, so human needed a lot of gods to be secure of the fact that there would be another day.
But it would not be a good idea if her department gained a debt to an unknown god.
That carried a bad risk that some third ranking god who got caught in an internal fight over godly jurisdiction suddenly called the favour in. Unknown favours always carried risks, great risks.
All those human gods tended to create a lot of interdepartmental fights in their section, so they loved to have favour due from another department. Those situations often quickly turned bad. Holy wars, pogroms, burnings. You name it, the humans got into it with a lot of enthusiasm and downright zeal.
Sasherial had in light of the risk ordered Mist to assist the monk in return for the favour of being rescued. She had then returned to update her files and prepare a case of a resurrection for evaluation upstairs, when the cleric suddenly had started to pray again, rather intensive at that too.
As they said: From the ashes to the fire. How in the world had they managed to gain the attention of a mature green dragon?
So now it seemed that Sasherial either had to make a very large debt to a warrior god or write of the priest and her party as a loss.
It would be a pity to lose the clerics party, since it had being doing rather well in promoting elf’s values in general, even if the monster that they had killed of in their adventures had been minor.
Fortunately the bards tended to ignore that kind of things, when they had the possibility to sing about 7 beautifully elf maidens doing good deeds. Of cause some of the songs about certain good deeds were only played at late night for a male audience in the more rowdy inns. But all in all that party had been one of the better ideas this eon from upstairs.
And Sasherial did know that one of the “smart” guys upstairs would do his very best to put the blame on her. He had never forgiven her for rejecting him at that department party. Maybe he had been the new up and coming guy at the party, just having entered the service after a successfully life as a priest down below, but that didn’t mean that she was the company’s welcome wagon.
As Sasherial considered what to do, the prayer stopped rather abruptly. Well, it seemed she didn’t have to spend any more time of that particularly case anymore. The dragon must have been rather hungry.
Normally green dragons took their time to prepare an “elf” dinner, since they appreciated elves as a delicacy. A fact that many green dragon had suffered from, since it made it possible to get a rescue party in time to the dragons lair.
Of cause the drows had returned the favour in another way, teaching the hill-giants to catch and prepare green dragons for dinner. You could say much about the drows, but they did have their own sense of humour. Sasherial put the file she was working on to the side of her desk, and went to the cabinet to find the case of Mist. Maybe she could arrange to get the late priest a job at the department. No doubt that they could need an extra hand in the office. And Mist had been pretty, so the pigs upstairs would probably be in favour.
Sasherial found the file and returned to her desk, where she took out the red pen to write end of case on Mists portfolio. As Sasherial opened the file to do so, Sasherial became, to say it, very much surprised to see that the Mists case was still active.
Although the letters forming before her eyes on the paper made absolutely no sense: “It seemed that the boy was able to speak with the dragon. Was the boy / girl a dragon lord? One of the legendary beings that in ancient time commanded dragons in the wars of the skies.”
The girl must be out of her mind with fear, delusions no doubt. The dragons of old have been much weaker, both in term of raw powers as in mental abilities. Now a day dragons only allowed beings of the highest rank to ride them, and not as common creatures, only as companions. Conclusion: The green dragon must be playing around with the monk before making its kill.
It seemed that Sasherial still had time to make a call for help, but no doubt that it would be expensive and she was already over her budget for this period. What to do, decisions, decisions.
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(Posted Fri, 26 Dec 2003 13:39)
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