Her immediate thoughts were to run as nothing good had come
from her upbringing, especially the years in prison. The only way to run was to
pass the guards and the thauman but how? She hoped there was some way for her
to disguise herself in some fashion to get past, as dressed the way she was,
the amethyst would more than likely land her back in the cell. She tiptoed back
into the room with the guard and removed his priestly robes. She was thankful that he was already dead Although they didn't fit
her the way she would have wanted, the bulk of the fabric covered the amethyst
parts of her. She had no idea if this plan would work but anything was better
than waiting for her brain to be removed from her body. As she entered the room,
the guards were still playing cards although the painting had now changed its
tune. The thauman perked up and wagged its tail but all became distracted when
a maid burst into the room. Chloe could see the food she had brought in very
similar to the food she had as a child and for a split second wanted sit down and
eat but there was something about the maid that swayed her. She reminded her of
someone, someone she had long forgot and still could not remember. Chloe swore
she could see the woman wink at her and with a sly gesture, urged her out the
room on the other side.
With the guards and the thauman now tucking into the food
and talking to the maid, Chloe excited by the door opposite her. There was
no sign of the symbol on the stairwell she had now found herself in but there
was a way up. There was no going back now and no way down from here so she
hoped that this would get her out. The top of the stairs was lit by dying candles which cast shadows on the heavy wooden door that barred her way. There were mumblings from behind it, what seemed to be an older
gentleman but what he was saying was not entirely clear. She looked through the keyhole in hopes of
seeing daylight but instead she saw what might become of her. An Aeon Priest
paced the room, eyeing over what decorated it. Behind him were two giant glass
cylinders filled with bubbling liquid, large enough to fit a human inside. A
pale light was cast from the bottom, changing hues from white to cyan and back
again. On what she could see of the desk, there was a statue of a bald head with
markings and scripture on it, as though it was a map. There were also a variety of glass slides and and vials with contents she
couldn't clearly see. To the left on the priest she could see a man with his
back to the door but nothing more. Only his armed moved and she was not sure if he was wearing a hat of sorts, of if shadowers were cast over him but she couldn't make out the top of his head. This Priest was more animated, which surprised her for his apparent age. He seemed important, possibly a leader, and therefore had
keys of some sort in the room to get her out. All she needed to do was to get
him away.
She knocked politely and the door swung open. Although he
did not look at her, her made sure he barred the view from the door to the other man in the room. The priest addressed her as if talking to a servant and it took
all her willpower not to prove him wrong. She apologised for the intrusion and
told the priest that the girl they had captured had escaped from her cell
somehow. His demeanour changed instantly. For a man of greying stature, he seemed
perfectly capable of a young man's fighting spirit and ordered her to get the
guards that were meant to be looking after her cell, to find her immediately.
This was not what she wanted but obeyed to keep her cover. Now she had to try
and persuade the guards that not only was she one of them but of their master's
intent. She gingerly went back down and readied herself. The order she gave was
believed in an instant to her disbelief. She did not know whether it was her ability to deceive,
or if it was the order from the priest upstairs that compelled them. She went back to
report but the man had gone, although he had not passed her.
The other gentleman, the one that had faced away from the door seemed ignorant of
her presence. She gingerly walked over to him and tried to get his attention.
What she had mistaken for a shadow when she had peered in from the keyhole was
in fact something far worse. The man was
missing the crown of his head and it had been replaced by a flat metal plate. His
eyes had glazed over, his breathing shallow, and his face expressionless . In his hands was a quill and letter. He seemed to be a scribe of some sorts but incapable of
any other action. She scanned the note, We
have the child, although from the reports of her initial capture her mental state may be more
shattered than we first thought. She may prove to be a valuable but dangerous
specimen. Due to her mental state and her current crystalline mutations, she will be therefore known to us as the Shattered Child. I hope the joke pleases you. In her mind she was a child no more and certainly not a joke. She would not be experimented on, in fact the 'mutations' they referred to made
no reference to her heritage at all. She was proud of her crystals to some degree and hated the fact they believed she was not in control of them regardless of how true it was. She tried to grab the letter from the
scribe's hand but his grip would not loosen. She tried to reason with him, to which she got no
response. She could not let the letter fall into anyone else's hands and so her
blade caressed the scribes neck till his own ink spilled on the page.
She quickly searched the room for either a way out or keys
to locks that would possibly bar her exit but she could find neither. In
retaliation for the indignity of calling her anything less than who she was,
she stole what she could. A few specimen slides of what she presumed to be
slices of brain, a vial or two and some notes were stuffed in her robe before
she returned to the empty guard room downstairs. The painting had stopped singing
which allowed her to hear the grumbling voices and clattering pots and pans of the room next to her . She knew the servants would never be allowed to use
exits deemed for their employers so they must have a separate way out. She crouched
down low, holding her robes an inch from the floor. The room she entered was a
kitchen of sorts, cramped into two short galley ways with a handful of cooks
arguing and absorbed in their work with another door on the other side. She needed a distraction. Although untested on heat, she believed the plating process would not react well so covered the bottom of one
of the pots that was over a fire in amethyst. It started to rumble before it crashed to the
floor, spilling its contents and burning the left foot of one of the
cooks. Chloe smiled. His pained screams were only
matched by the shouts of concern for the food that had been wasted. They rushed over to salvage what they could leaving little room for the man to recover from his injury.The distraction left one of the gangways open and Chloe bolted to the door on the
other side and out.
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