Javindar kept an eye on the old man and the girl as the drunk struggled to pick himself off the ground. Nahbob took a step to help the thin haggard looking man, but the Prince waved him off. It wasn't because he was indifferent to the man's plight, but there was a tangible aura of danger in the area. He already thought he lost his servant earlier to the amalgamated shadow creature and would not risk losing him again.
"Say…." Asked the drunk as he finally rocked himself upright onto one knee. "Why is everyone here speaking Jhinrabi, Binragi, err…Vinnrahje?"
Javindar raised an eyebrow at his point. The drunk was right, though his particular mastery of the language was broken and barely comprehensible. For Nahbob and himself it was natural since it was their native tongue. While he had not seen the other two speaking he had heard them from the other side of the wall. The old man had Khanian features, but they were not as angular as those of a typical Horselord. It seemed more likely he was descended from the denizens of the Emerald throne who to Javindar's limited knowledge were not proficient at Vinraji. As for the woman, with her olive skin, dark brown hair and blue eyes, she looked Grommish or perhaps Thyatian, or at least some mongrel blend of the two. While she was definitely from the west, she spoke flawless Vinraji ,though with a dialect he was not familiar with. At least that is what he concluded from what he had heard from the other side of the wall before he was rudely smashed through it.
"Who are you people? " demanded Javindar with weapons still drawn. While he addressed all three of them, his attention was focused on the old man in yellow, and he was ready strike if he saw any sign of magic. "What do you know of the Black Scrolls?"
The man in yellow and the militia woman remained silent, though they exchanged wary glances with each other when Javindar mentioned the scrolls. The drunk on the other hand looked about confused before he reached into his vest.
Javindar tensed, coiled like a cobra ready to strike if the drunk drew a weapon, but instead he extracted a dark crumpled and beaten parchment that looked like it had been alternately used to sop up spilled drink or perhaps to dry one's hands after one relieved himself.
Despite the tattered nature of the parchment, the evil emanating from it almost floored Javindar despite not attuning his special vision on to it. There was no doubt in the Prince's mind that this was the legendary Black Scroll.
"Aiieee!" cried the man in yellow, breaking his silence as he placed his hands before him to shield himself from the drunk's scroll, even before Javindar could react. "Away from me! Less it corrupts me! "
"Relax," said the girl as she slipped behind the drunk. "Martin, please. Could you put that away. You are scaring our…guests," she said as he guided his hands gently to place the scroll back into his vest. Javindar noted she was careful not to touch the scroll herself. After the scroll was stored, she retrieved a small bottle of what looked like the spirits the locals bottled and placed it in the drunk's now shaking hands. While Javindar watched the two carefully, the man smiled nervously as he took the bottle and incredibly stepped into the shadows and vanished before his eyes.
It was incredible. They literally disappeared. He did not step behind a pillar and hid, or created a distraction before vanishing, he simply just disappeared. Even his special vision which detected evil could not pierce where the man and that blasphemous document absconded to.
"Where…where did he go?" asked the man in yellow, giving voice to Javindar's thoughts. "More importantly, how..how could he stand the scroll's touch? I sense no taint in him."
Javindar puzzled over the man in yellow's statement and silently agreed. While the scroll was obviously evil, he noted he sensed no evil in the drunkard. Though objects do not normally transfer evil by touch, it would not surprise the Prince if this particular artifact did. While he never considered it, he assumed Whelp had some method to transport the scroll when they found it, or more likely hoped her holiness would protect her from it.
The girl shrugged." Martin is around. Here or there, I am not sure. Even I cannot predict where he went, though I suspect his apprentice can. As for his resistance to the scroll, well….that's why I brought him here."
"What's going on ?" whispered Nahbob, unable to follow the conversation between the pair. "Are we going to fight the old man again?"
Javindar wasn't sure, but he was the Prince of Ghata on a quest to retrieve the scroll in question, and he hated to be ignored. "What is going on here! " he said in a commanding voice. "I am Bey Javindar, holy warrior of Puranas on a quest from Holy Sampada, high Mahadevi of Nashput. I demand you relinquish your Black Scroll to me!"
The man in yellow and the militia girl finally turned their attention back to Javindar. While the old man gave off an aura of power, the girl seemed inconsequential…till now. With a simple glance, the Prince felt his legs give way and almost toppled from her glare. His servant was not as resilient, as Javindar heard Nahbob slump to the ground.
"No….it is you that shall answer my questions. What do you know of the scroll? Why are you here? And ….and…." before the girl could continue she seemed to grow faint and almost fell over like Nahbob had just done. Fortunately for her, the man in yellow caught her and guided her gently to the ground.
"That…that takes a lot more effort that I remember," she said weakly as she regained her breath. "As you can see, I did not weather the millenias as well as you did my old friend."
The man in yellow shook his head as he place the girl on her side to rest. He then turned towards Javindar and Nahbob.
"I recognize you now. You were on that island, harrying Prince Vleda's men," said the old man in the yellow robes. "A nasty business slavery, but none of my concern. My battle is not with you, so I will allow you to leave in peace."
Javindar raged at being dismissed out of hand so easily by this old fool. "Your battle may not be with me, but mine is with yours," warned the Prince. He then thought about what he said and when it made some degree of sense he returned his attention to the old man. "I have questions, and I demand answers, but that pales against the crimes that you inflicted on Whelp."
"Whelp? Who is that? Is that a person or an object?" asked the old man, puzzled.
"Err…that's a nickname for a person," replied Javindar awkwardly, unsure if he should reveal Holy Sampada's alias to him.
"Was she a pudgy woman with small horns and an evil aura?"
"Whelp?" said a voice in the shadows. "Sammy? Jimmy's old flame? Nahh…nevermind, she's in Nasshyputty."
Javindar ignored the unseen drunk. "Of course not! She is tall and fit, like err a giraffe, a woman most pure!"
"Ah the priestess from the jungle. I do not know her fate after you chased me away with your bow. . Whatever crimes I may or may not have done, you can exclude me from the ones that involve this giraffe person Whelp."
Javindar wasn't sure if his statement was a relief or not, but that did not deter him from his quest. "Regardless. Surrender your scroll to me, I will not ask twice," warned the Prince as he assumed a battle stance.
The old man opened his hands towards the Prince and shrugged. "I do not possess the scrolls, and truth be told, I am uneasy in their presence. They are foul corrupting things that taint everything that they come in contact with. I have lived as long as I have by making sure not to come in their presence. My comrade here it seems was not as lucky," he said as he motioned towards the resting girl. "If you want the scroll that the man in the shadow possesses, be my guest. "
Javindar was angry, but was not sure how to proceed. He wanted to fight, specifically with the man in the yellow robes, but he had given him no reason to.
"I have two scrolls actually," said the voice from the shadows. "One I got from old cat face Mogombo, about …errr ten maybe twelve years ago. I can't remember. And one I picked up just a couple of days ago from that horse Prince Vleedy guy. I don't normally steal, but he lost and he owed me one…owed me something. I ….hic….filched the scroll from him, thinking it was something nice….but well…it's just more of this nasty paper."
Javindar stopped. Prince Vleda, here? Javindar was accosted by Khanians on the Sea of Dawn but thought they were a simple raiding party. He did not suspect their Prince….his rival was involved.
However surprised Javindar was, his reaction was nothing compared to that of the man in yellow. "You…you took Prince Vleda's scroll! Return it this instant!" shouted the man in a voice that shook the building.
Javindar reeled from the boom. He had heard elephants trumpet, icebergs crash into each other, sides of mountains collapsing, comets fall into the ground, and even demon lords shout in anger, but he had never encountered a noise like this. It was like thunder incarnate and it rattled every brick and floorboard in the building. In fact, given the age and repair of the building, Javindar sensed that it would not remain standing long.
The Prince sheathed his weapons and grabbed his still stunned servant in one hand, and though she was an unknown he instinctively scooped up the mysterious militia girl with his other hand as bricks and timbers began to fall around him. With the two firmly under his arms, Javindar charged through the hole he inadvertently created earlier, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the falling building behind him.
As he recovered in the alley, Javindar saw that the man in yellow's voice was not just confined to the building they were just in, but several of the adjacent buildings as well. Two collapsed shortly after the first one did, while sparks of blue magic attempted to hold the third building together, before it too fell into a heap of rubble. Javindar guessed that it was protected by a ward, but it proved insufficient against the man in yellow's voice.
Speaking of which, as the dust from the rubble cleared the man in yellow strode forward, not a single speck of dirt on him, though Javindar was positive he saw a beam fall directly on his head. Despite his show of power, he seemed ashamed at the destruction he had unleashed.
What was he? He was more than a mere a mage. Though they thought a few weeks earlier, Javindar recalled the man a match for Whelp against her magic, and it took his bow Red Flight to turn the tide. While he could turn the bow on this man now, they were too close for the Prince to get a shot or two at best against him.
"Yeessh…if you want the scroll so badly, you could just take it," said the voice from the shadows again. Javindar barely heard the man, despite his own magical protections the shout still left a ringing in his ears.
A similar but different crumpled up scrap of paper was tossed towards the man in yellow and it landed at his feet. The old man stared at it in confusion, before jumping away from it. "Away from me! Keep it away!"
Javindar stared at this strange confusing scene. The old man was obviously powerful, perhaps more than any guru, efreet, or demon he had ever met, but was terrified of the scroll. He instinctively reached out to grab it, but a slender hand grabbed his hand.
"No, " said the young militia girl who had somehow made a remarkable recovery. While he felt no compulsion to obey her like before, he sensed the wisdom of her simple words and refrained from taking the scroll. The girl then produced a curious object, a long scabbard wrapped in living vines and used it as a crude stick to fling the scroll back into the shadows. "I think you should take the scroll for now Martin. It's best in your care."
The scabbard vanished as the girl then turned to the still cringing man in yellow. "Do you see now? Can you not grasp the possibility that the appointed hour is at hand?"
The old man nodded, with a shamed look on his face. "The guardians are united, but we only have two of the three scrolls. We do not have Taraksun's."
The girl's face frowned as she nodded at his comment. "Yes, that is a problem."
Javindar was not sure if he should be in awe, terrified or confused. He was in awe, because he witnessed the old man destroy this cluster of buildings using just his voice. He was terrified, because he considered fighting the man and unless he loosed some lucky shots through his eyes or something, he was terribly outmatched. He was confused because he had no idea what was going on. Everything seemed to be occurring without any use of him. He was a fly in some grand spider's web.
"Ahem…I think I might be of some assistance."
Javindar, the old man, and the even the militia girl turned to face Nahbob who straightened himself out, still wobbly on his feet.