(IC) Interlude: Contemplations Interrupted

[Celedor]

You akwardly get the loop over the head, and pull it tight, your lungs begin to burn as your pulse hammers in your head.

Dropping the rock, you begin to float upward, then grabbing the rope you pull hand over hand even faster. Breaking out of the cold water, the cool surface water feels warm, and you feel a bit more awake, but your lungs demand air.

You break the surface next to the raft, gasping and then coughing as you inhale a little water. After a couple of breaths the pounding in your head is gone.

Tendu is regarding you cooly from the corner where he was when you dove down.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

Emu

He takes a few deep breaths then repeats the procedure.

[Celedor]

Tendu looks down at you over the side of the raft.

"I don't have any more ropes, we need to pull this one up before we can get another one."

[Grinnen Baeritt]

Emu

"Well... I suggest you get started. I'll help hauling it onto the raft once I'm back on the raft..."

[Celedor]

Tendu looks like he's going to argue, then huffily begins pulling in the rope. After three pulls the rope goes tight, and he leans into it. The raft moves forward, pushing against you until the rope is vertical. Tendu grunts with strain, pulling the immobile rope, then falls over backwards as the rope suddenly starts to move again.

You hear him muttering, out of view, then the rope starts to reel in with steady jerks. All you can see of Tendu are his toes on either side of the rope, he must be laying in the raft with his feet braced on the side.

Looking down, the statue appears as a blob out of the deep water, trailing off a cloud of mud into the water that is almost gone by the time you move out of the way to let it surface.

The head of the statue hits the bottom of this side of the raft with a dull thunk, and Tendu stops pulling. You can hear him breathing hard.

The statue jerks a couple times, sinking about a foot, then Tendu's head appears over the side.

"It's tied off, you push while I pull."

Pushing doesn't really work so well, you just move back in the water, until you get one hand onto the side of the raft. Mostly you guide it up, while Tendu pulls, and it's not so bad. . .the statue weighs about 30#, and other than a near miss of running it over your hand that's holding the raft, no mishaps.

Tendu rolls the statue to the far side, and this end of the raft lifts in your hand slightly. . .then the coil of rope comes over the side and lands on you, the slipknot noose still tied in the end.

Tendu's head appears over the side, solem, then his hands, carrying another of the shore rocks.

He fakes dropping it on your head, laughs, and grins, laying the rock on the side of the raft.

"Ready to dive again, fish?"

[Grinnen Baeritt]

Emu

"Fish?" says Emu, somewhat ironically.

He waits to get his breath back, grasps the rock and rope in the same manner as he did before, takes a few deep breathes and goes down again.

[Celedor]

The second trip is faster, knowing what to expect, and what to do.

The raft has shifted, and you land among the statues, your elbow touching one, and your knee another. . .you cannot see either, or anything at all. . .

Even in the dark, it's easy enough to grab the statue next to you, then drop the rock, it's an annoying angle, so you grip the statue with your knees to free your hands to pull the loop tight over the head.

With the noose tight, you kick off for the surface, and only as you break contact with the statue do you realize it's not cold and "dead" like every other rock you've been trying to work with, it felt more like something inert but once living, like wood.

As your head breaks the surface and you paddle back to the raft, Tendu is already hauling in on the rope.

[Celedor]

Tendu hauls it up, and you push it aboard. . . . .you hear Tendu lashing it down out of sight. You're not used to holding your breath so long and you're gulping in breath and getting the black spots to dissapear when Tendu re-appears at the edge of the raft and tosses the noose end of the rope over.

He dissapears again, and "chunk" puts the last of the shore rocks onto the side of the raft.

you're not seeing spots anymore at this point, but you are still panting.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

Emu

Since there is no apparent hurry, he hauls himself out of the water, dries himself and gets his breath back.

"I'm having a rest, after all, I'm a mystic not a mermaid..." he say with a smile.

(He tries for the last one after ten minutes)...

[Celedor]

As you pull up over the side, water comes up through the loose bottom of the raft and washes across before draining out through the holes.

Tendu hisses and backs up to stay dry. He seems about to comment to your mermaid remark a couple of times, then shrugs and sits back on the dry side.

The sun is hot, even down here on the lake, and you feel better for resting a bit. The two idols laying lashed down to the sides of the raft seem to soak in the sun, and the first one you brought up is steaming. . .where it's dry it's gone from a glossy to a flat black.

As the sun and air soak back into you, you feel alert and ready again. . .

Sitting on the edge of the raft, rock and rope in hand, you make the third plunge.

down down to the bottom again.

familiar and rested, this time it's almost easy. . .you can feel the statues, and get a rope around another neck. . .and back to the surface without more than a bit of panting on the surface.

Tendu reels in this last one. . .and you boost it up and aboard.

While he lashes it down, you climb on. . .this raft is crude, and the weight of the two of you and the three statues has the surface of the lake just barely below deck level between the lashed logs.

Tendu "To the east landing." he points off to the east. . .the mist is mostly burned off, but the stone pier and house in that direction are still a bit vague from here at the center of the lake.

Tendu tosses the anchor float overboard, pulls out his paddle and begins pulling in that direction.

[Celedor]

The raft wallows deeper in the water, and the going is harder, but after a bit you bump to the stone pier on the lake side of Valasca's house.

Tendu pulls up onto the stone and ties the rope onto a post set into the stone there. The raft rises noticably, and you're no longer sitting in a thin layer of water on the bottom of the raft.

As Emu pulls himself up over the side, he see's that the double doors are wide open, so the surface of the pier seems to just continue on into the house.

He's taken a few steps when he sees that the two people here are in a conversation, and pauses a moment.

Valasca is standing in the middle of the doorway, Tendu is right in front of her. She's not very tall, and slender, but has a definite presence. . .you think it's the eyes. Her black hair is pulled back in a braid, a single streak of white starts at her temple and vanishes into the braid that hangs down her back.

She's speaking to Tendu, pointing a finger at him, which bobs and points as she speaks. She's not speaking loudly, but her voice is sharp.

"So pull the raft around the side, and get them off at the shore, I don't want to break one trying to haul it up back here. Just bring them in the side door to the workshop, and set them on the rug I laid out next to the table."

She stands there pointing at him for a moment until he nods, then flicks her finger and he walks rapidly back toward you, his face red.

Her voice is not as sharp when she says:
"Emu, come inside, I need to speak to you."
Before turning and walking inside.

Tendu's eyes lock on yours for half a second as he passes you toward the raft.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

Emu

He acknowledges her request...

... as he meets Tengus eyes he gives a faint sympathetic smile and a shrug. His relationship with this person would not be improved by the rebuke that he had just been given. That was a shame Emu wasn't in the business of making enemies.

"Thanks for your help on the raft.." he says earnestly.

He then follows Valasca into the hut.

[Celedor]

Tendu grunts and breaks eye contact, but the hard look on his face slid a bit beforehand. He grabs the rope off the pole and scrambles down the rope to the raft.

The longhouse is smaller than your mother's house, but only one person lives here. The workshop takes up the whole rear of the first floor of the house, the front is the kitchen.

Instead of the usual mixed jumble of projects you recall from your last visit almost a month ago, there is a row of partialy completed statues along each long wall, ranging from rough blocks of stone to what look like finished ones. The work table in the center has a wooden mallet and chisel, along with a lot of smaller bronze tools. None of the glassware, lenses and odd knick knacks that had always intrigued you are in evidence. Laying next to it is the rug she mentioned, more of a rough mat. It all looks a lot cleaner in here than you recall, there's not even stone chips around the partial statues.

She turns at the table to face you. She seems eager, excited about something, she's usually so contained and still.

"It's been over a week since we've spoken Emu, have you had any success with stone or metal yet?"

[Grinnen Baeritt]

Emu

It was the question he was dreading.

"No... I don't think so...I can feel them but little else I'm afraid..." he says apologetically.

[Celedor]

She shrugs "It will come to you, you're too gifted in the material side of the power for it to frustrate you forever. Perhaps getting away from it will help, sometimes you only find something when you stop looking."

Tendu comes in the side door, hefting a statue, and sets it on the rug next to the work table. In the same room, it looks essentially the same as the completed statues near the far end of the line against the walls, but there's something subtly different you cannot put your finger on.

[Celedor]

Tendu brushes his hands off and heads back out again.

[Celedor]

Kamu arrives, ending the interlude. Combined both (IC) threads into the main chapter 6.