Maikana
patreon
Chapter 28 – RAW or RAI?
🕑 Added 2025-02-28 04:00:00 +0000 UTC“I’m sure you must be imagining things dear.” Lowy pipes in in her condescending tone, “That spirit has stood watch for hundreds of years, as long as it gets fed now and then, it’s fine.”
“That may be the cause entirely, Lowy…” Ortik ponders before he responds to their assumptions. “Spirits gather around us and it takes a bit of their energy as we pass, initiates bring with them a guide that it can do the same from. Kori here had nothing. The guardian likely took offense and devoured the remaining energy of our spell.”
“Either way, Kori, please make your way back to the den. Given your new skills and the means you used to discover the path out I’m sure you can manage.” Turning to address Lowy directly, clearly considering Kori to have been dismissed and no longer a concern, “Lowy, please call the remainder of the Circle, I believe we have matters requiring discussion.”
A glance at Kori’s still present self and an arched brow all she needs to realize that her presence isn’t wanted for what comes next as she begins to retreat back to the exit. Taking a moment to align herself with the correct brazier and considering the turns she had taken after taking the left-hand branch.
Just before she exits from the cavern, she hears Lowy speaking, her tone of condescending superiority traveling the distance easily. “What’s there to discuss, she’s clearly not suitable. The spirit’s disdain more then enough to prove…” The rest lost as the curtain falls; her hand gone slack at the implication.
“Did I fail? Again?” Going through her actions in her mind. The instructions she’d been given. Their discussion afterwards. “I did what they asked… They never even mentioned spirits or meditating…” Walking the path towards the exit, her mind on everything that happens and trusting her feet, and skill, to take her where she wants to be. Only having to backtrack once when part way through a segment the nagging feeling from her navigation skill insisting she’d made a mistake.
Aside from the singular error she arrives at the door with little effort, barely even noticing before walking into it muzzle first. Falling flat on her tail, for the second time because of this particular door, she gives it a dirty look.
“Meanie!” Sticking her tongue out at it.
Her senses telling her little about the door, barely even registering that it is invested with a bound spirit let alone giving her any interpretation of its intent.
Was the skill easier to use because I was like a spirit after what the Circle did?
Slowly approaching the door again before prodding it a few times to see if it would react to her, she eventually decides that the door is just a door. At least at the moment. Lifting the little latch and opening her way back into the cacophony of the Clans great cavern, the noise strikes her like a tunnels collapse. It’s no louder than it ever is, but even the early morning bustle sounds thunderous to her ears after nearly a week of silence.
Trudging her way through the cavern and to the Elder’s chambers, she sees the line of Kobolds arrayed before the entrance. The meeting must be in session. “Good. I’m not sure I’m up to talking with anyone. If the meeting hadn’t started yet the Elders would probably ask how things went.”
Walking into the meeting and skirting around the edge of the chamber, Kori catches many of the Elders eying her curiously. Including Korse.
Of course he’d be here today…
Thankful she made it past without having to talk to any of them, she quickly retreats to her chambers. Once there she realizes just how tired she really is and curls up on her sleeping pad. Sleep doesn’t come easy to the young Kobold, her mind near exhaustion but her body oddly rested since it had been basically uninhabited for a week.
“Lowy was just being mean, right?” Worrying over what she heard as she left. “Ortik said I passed when I first got up… So hopefully he’ll teach me magic now.”
After nearly an hour of such thoughts chasing each other in circles, she finally succumbs to her exhaustion and falls asleep.
What felt like minutes later, but could have been hours or even days, Kori wakes still feeling lingering exhaustion and stiffness, but also rested enough that she knows no more sleep will be forthcoming for her. Taking some time to brush her clothing and straighten herself before exiting her den.
“When was the last time I ate? Were they feeding me while I was in the trial?” Unsure if she’s even had food for over a week at this point and her stomach rumbling in its agreement that food is necessary, she makes to exit Ortik’s living quarters. Opening the door, she’s startled to find a Kobold she doesn’t recognize waiting outside the door. He’s dressed much the same as she is, though without the sash and with a single large tooth hanging on a leather strip around his neck. An apprentice shaman.
“Good evening, apprentice Kori, correct?” The slightly older kobold addresses her while she’s still processing his presence.
“Uhh, yes? Can I help you?” Unsure what to make of him.
“I was sent to fetch you, though told to wait until you woke.” Giving her a grin. “The initiation leaves you pretty worn, right? You eat yet?”
“It’s strange, I slept during the initiation, but I felt like I’d been awake the entire time afterwards… Except I also felt like I could run laps at the same time…” Fearful he was about to draw her back to the Circle without getting a meal. “I was just going to get some food now. Do I have time to? I’m pretty hungry…”
“Yeah, not gonna drag you back on an empty stomach.” He starts moving with her towards the cook houses, “You cut it pretty close, I was there when you came in and they started it. Your spirit guide point you in circles or something?”
“No… None of them would guide me…”
“Really? So you failed?” A look of commiseration on his face, followed by confusion. “But if you failed, why are they calling you back?”
“I didn’t fail…” The reminder of those circular thoughts thrown back in her face, her features droop and her voice drops to barely a whisper as she replies. “I don’t think so anyway… I made it to the exit door.”
“Really? Without a guide? How? It took me months for them to let me enter or leave on my own. I got lost more than a few times…” A bit of shame in his tone as he gives her a look of astonishment. “The senior apprentices had to beat the directions into me before I could remember it.”
Explaining her feat of navigation as they made their way to get her something to eat, the older apprentice having a hard time believing that something like that could possibly work. Once satisfied with her meal, they passed through the door into the tunnels leading to the Circle, Kori still giving it a bit of a wide berth as she passed through the opening, not really trusting the spirit within.
Moving through the maze, which Kori guided them through as though to prove her point, takes only a few minutes. Though more than it should have when her companion insisted that she was making a wrong turn, surprised to learn that there were more routes that would reach their destination. In short order they were passing through the dangling curtains of hides and stepping into the familiar chamber.
Ascending the steps onto the dais let Kori see that the center was crowded beyond what she had seen before. In the inner circle sat the few dozen shaman sitting on their cushions that had been present when they started the initiation, but now there were several arrayed out behind each of them. And more still sitting beyond ring of water. There had to be well over a hundred Kobolds waiting, her guide walking forward towards the middle of it all. As he came to a stop just outside the ring of water, she caught a telling look from him. One of pity and condolence. He obviously did not think that this was a good thing.
Stopping along side her guide it takes only moments for her to hear Ortik’s voice from within the gathering, “Youngling Kori, enter the circle and face its judgement.”
That does not sound good… He almost never calls me youngling…
Walking forwards as a gap opens between the others as they turn to look at her, she sees everything from pity to suspicion on their gazes. Trying not to think too hard about why, she locks her gaze forward to only look at where she can now see Ortik through the opening. Standing in the very center of the dais with a stern look on his face. Not his usual stern no-nonsense look, but a harsher gaze, untampered by what she thought was his growing affection for her.
“Have I…” Before she can even finish asking her question, Ortik interrupts her.
“Silence.” His voice booming in the enclosed space, though lacking the echoing that a raised voice might usually have within the caverns. “You will speak only if asked and only to provide the answers to our questions. Approach.” Pointing to a thin cushion placed in the center of the circle, he strides back to the ring of seated shaman and takes his place on a cushion of his own. Though his appears more ornate than the others.
Taking her indicated seat, she pans her gaze across the other seated forms. Vaguely recognizing some of them, the only face that stands out is the sneering visage of Lowy.
“Youngling, you are called before the Circle to determine your fate. Your performance within the Rite of Initiation has been called into suspect. We have conferred with the laws of the Circle and the spirits and we find ourselves at an impasse.” As he speaks, projecting his voice loudly so all those gathered can hear him, he pans his vision across the gathered shaman and apprentices. “Each and every one of us here has completed the rite you so recently undertook. And each and every one of us communed with a guiding spirit, or in some cases a mischievous trickster, and gained their guidance.”
“You however, by your own admission, you did not. Normally this is a simple matter and you would have failed. Yet somehow you did what it seems you often do. As though it were a Skill you have already perfected, you complicated matters.” An exasperated sigh escaping as he pauses. “You did what while possible, remained unprecedented and improbable to the point we never considered it so. You found your own path and succeeded in returning the Clan’s caverns.”
Murmurs fill the air as his words sink in. Surprise, shock, disbelief, and more ring out from everyone except those seated. Clearly, they knew already, but the others did not.
“Quiet!” Surprisingly it was not Ortik, but Lowy whose voice rose above the crowd. Her voice ringing out and several of the other Kobolds wincing in response to her statement. “While the Circle is seated you shall remain as silent observers or you shall be removed.” Her voice almost seeming pleased with herself as she speaks.
A nod in her direction the only outward sign by Ortik before continuing where he left off after his revelation. “This creates a situation unaccounted for in our laws specifically, requiring us to debate the intent of those laws. Should we judge you by the bare writ of them, you have passed. But should we instead judge you by the intent of the rite, to introduce the initiate to dealing with the spirits and taking the first steps upon the path of invocation, you have failed. And in that intent, we must place the weight of the matter.” Locking eyes with her as he speaks his next words. “Youngling, we ask this single question. Did you or did you not, commune with, bargain with, or otherwise receive contact from any of the spirits within this chamber?”
Her words catching in her throat, apprehension and despair at what she could see coming tightening around them and preventing her from being heard. Her head droops in shame and disappointment as she manages to eek out her response, barely heard by even those closest to her, “No… I did not…”
With her head hung low she fails to see the look of sadness that briefly crosses Ortik’s face. “Then I call upon the Circle to cast your judgement.”
One by one she sees the seated shaman turn their backs on her until only two remain, Ortik and much to her surprise Lowy. With a gloating grin on her face Lowy then follows suit and turns away, leaving only her mentor facing her. Until with a shake of his head and an inaudibly mouthed ‘sorry’, he does the same.
