#2354   Penthesilea
     
The Keyholder's Magickal Workroom

     The Keyholder stirs. After a moment, she shoves herself into a seated position and takes her aching head in her hands. “I'm gonna kill somebody..... later.”
     Realizing that her weakness is due to energy imbalance, Penthesilea pulls herself into some semblance of a seated position and reaches for the earth again. This time to ground. As her head clears, she sends out a thread of thought to the one whose howl she heard... Daemon

#2356  [Rewritten by Penthesilea]
     
     Penthesilea pulls herself to her feet. Help now! Faint later!  I’m coming, Daemon!  “Ashera! Explosions at the gremlin caves. Dispatch emergency teams there -- NOW!”

#2358  [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     Penthesilea’s spell was intended to take her to her brother and it did so. She appeared amid the chaos of the disaster site. Daemon was in the middle of it helping move the rock fall that trapped Satira.  Penthesilea came quickly to his side.
     “Everyone get clear!” She orders and is obeyed. The spell is called “Small Change” and the results are simple and spectacular. Penthesilea concentrates and focuses her will on the rock and it is gone, transformed into breathable air. The gremlins rush in to examine their wounded while Daemon and Penthesilea bend over Satira. She is badly injured but still breathing. Quickly, Penthesilea casts a healing spell designed to heal the worst injuries first -- a very useful spell when there is no time for a proper diagnostic spell or examination. Stretcher bearers arrive to take the injured out of the cave.  While Satira is loaded onto a stretcher, Penthesilea checks gremlins that were trapped with her. None of them are as seriously injured for which both Daemon and his sister are thankful. Penthesilea then accompanies the injured as they are taken out to the makeshift clinic outside the caves while Daemon and his team go back inside looking for more victims.

#2360  [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     Since she isn’t injured, only faint from overwork, Penthesilea takes up a position under a spreading oak tree and dozes.  After a while she is awakened by the familiar sound of hovercraft engines.  She looks around and see that transports have arrived with emergency supplies including shelters since the gremlins had moved nearly all their belongings into the caves. 

#2362     [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     By the time the supplies are unloaded and the temporary camp set up, Penthesilea has a plan. Despite Daemon’s orders not to return to the cave, Penthesilea needs to speak with the gremlin clan leaders and most of them are in the cave, so she goes in. She is quickly directed to where they have gathered and puts her proposal to them. A short debate ensues -- a certain amount is unavoidable in gremlin decision making -- and they consent to Penthesilea’s plan. She heads back outside with a couple of the clan leaders to get things moving.

#2364  [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     Penthesilea’s transport spell puts her and Satira in Satira’s quarters in Tower Three. Penthesilea gets her settled in her bed and does one last diagnostic check on her before she leaves.  Then, with a promise to have a meal sent up to Satira, Penthesilea leaves.

#2366  [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     She was out of the tub and wrapped in a soft, comfortable robe when the maid appeared with her dinner. With it was a thick dispatch case bearing the Lord Marshall’s seal.
     “This came while you were at the caves, my Lady. The courier is in the guest quarters if you need to speak to him.”
     “Let him rest. I’m sure that the Lord Marshall was most thorough in his reports.” With that the maid left and the Keyholder set herself to devouring her dinner. The reports from the Lord Marshall would require her full attention.  Once she put the tray aside, she curled up next to the fire and began to read. She went through the troop reports first, the cut and dried facts and figures about military action in the field. Only when they were out of the way, did she take up the Lord Marshall’s personal report to her.  She read the first line and smiled. Kodiak was an intelligent, well educated man but you would never know it from reading his written word! His grammar wasn’t too far off the mark, fortunately. Spelling was problematic but usually phonetic. Punctuation, sadly,  was non existent. As a consequence, figuring out what the Lord Marshall had to say was an exercise in code breaking!  Still, once she had gotten the hang of it, she enjoyed reading his letters. She could hear his voice in the written word and his dry wit was sprinkled through the missive. With a happy sigh, she settled in to decipher the Lord Marshall’s letter.....

#2368  [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     Penthesilea emerged from her tower into a beehive of activity. The gremlins greeted her in gremlinese as they bustled past her as she made her way to where Daemon stood with the gremlin clan leaders. “Morning, Daemon. How did things go last night?”
     “Morning, Penth. We had some scavengers nosing around but we ran them off without any more casualties.  We’re getting everyone moved in now. Once we’re squared away here, we’ll go back to the caves and start clearing them out again.”
     “You don’t need to worry about another earthquake. I’ve checked the bedrock. The area is entirely stable now. Whatever caused the quake yesterday wasn’t natural.  And I’ve put a ‘detector’ spell on the cave complex that will register any buildup of geological pressure and alert us.”  Another crowd of gremlins arrived with MoonCat and SpiritFire in the lead. They split off from the group and join their mother and uncle.
     “I did several scans to detect magick last night,” Spirit told them. “I picked up traces but they weren’t ‘solid’ enough for me to know how old they were or where they came from.”
     “I had better luck,” MoonCat announced. “I couldn’t get as far in as I wanted to but I definitely picked up faint traces of explosives. Since the gremlins hadn’t started their blasting operations, I’m thinking that someone managed to plant a bomb, probably more than one, in the caves.” That piece of information set off a storm of angry chittering among the gremlins.  They wanted blood to avenge their dead as well as for their destroyed home. Penthesilea couldn’t blame them.
     “When we find out who did this,” Daemon promised them, “there will be no mercy.” Penthesilea would have understood their agreement with that even if she hadn’t know their language.

#2370  [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     Satira entered the Main Hall a few moments after Penthesilea had left it and saw Daemon standing with a group of heavily armed gremlins.  She buried her nervousness under a heavy layer of feminine charm and walked toward him. Her God had assured her that there was no possible way to connect her to the bombs in the gremlin caves. She had no choice but to believe Him. As she approached, she noticed that the gremlins were talking excitedly among themselves and seven heavily armed and armored gremlins joined the group. Suddenly apprehensive, Satira was about to head in another direction when the press of people in the Hall parted and Daemon saw her. He motioned her over and she had no choice but to join them. 

#2371 [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     Daemon smiled at her and her heart skipped. “Norlac and the others told me how your shout of warning saved them from serious injury. I am in your debt as are the Clans.”
     The armed gremlins took up positions around Satira, giving her a start, then the tallest of them spoke to her. “You saved our clankin. Clan leaders say guard you, be escort. We best, fiercest fighters in Clans. Our blades yours.”      

#2373  [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     For a horrifying second, Penthesilea believes that the body is Kodiak’s and she rushes to his side with prayers on her lips. The dead man is not the Lord Marshall although he is dressed in the uniform of Penthesilea’s fledgling army.  The broken shaft of an arrow protrudes from the dead man’s chest and fastened securely to it, is a silver medallion. Carefully, Penthesilea removes it and puts it into her pocket. Her expression is closed and hard.
     “What is it,” Daemon asks when he reaches her. She stands up and answers him with the inspeaking, the method of telepathic communication used by their family,
     That poor man was carrying a medallion tied to the arrow that killed him. I’ve only seen one like it in all my years. It belongs to the Lord Marshall and he never removes it. Penthesilea looks up at her brother and her expression chills even his blood. Say nothing of this yet. I WILL find Father and then, I WILL find Kodiak.
     Daemon opens his mind to make his reply and so his sister also hears the scream that was meant for him alone. Penthesilea knows her brother’s need without his speaking it and knows as well that he wants her to stay out of it.  For now. She casts a transport spell for him intended to carry him to the source of the scream since his own farwalking would be too slow.

#2375   [Rewritten by Penthesilea]

     Within the hour, the evacuation is underway as the area bounded by the Mile Wall is systematically cleared of people and livestock. The people already know what necessities to bring and what to leave behind. Only those things that cannot be replaced are to be brought to the Castle. The people already know that Penthesilea’s magick is sufficiently powerful to restore or replace any material object.  They suspect that if she truly desired, Penthesilea could call back the dead but since no one wishes to be the subject of such a spell, everyone makes haste to pack up and head in. 
     The Keyholder is everywhere since she knows all too well that with her forces spread so thinly, she is the best defense that the Castle and her people have. Still, the necessity of remaining on the Castle grounds and on alert grates on her. Her father is missing and her brother has answered a summons that consisted of a scream of agony. And although she will not admit it to anyone -- she is barely able to admit it to herself -- her greatest worry is for the dashing Darklord who is her Lord Marshall.