[Tancred]

Tancred’s face falls as Lyulfe tells his fears; first white with fear, then red with anger… and lastly darkening.
A voice, crooning and sickly-sweet, echoes in his mind.
“I bumped into you earlier, girl, but I had no idea you were one of this great knight’s closest companions…”
The hell you didn’t, Ursula! Murderous thoughts come, unbidden. The HELL you didn’t!
He stumbles past the dragon, back into the pavilion, hands outstretched - already mumbling a prayer. Lyulfe and Joram are already behind him, yelling words at him, but he’s deaf to them.
A faint but pure white light begins to glow from his hands as he lowers them to touch Skye’s forehead…
“Woah, woah! WOAH!” yells the sword at his side.
Tancred doesn’t listen to Karnas much, if ever. Something makes the knight pause, though; an urgency, a seriousness in the mage’s voice that he cannot remember hearing before. Something even more striking than the impassioned pleas of the squire and the dragon.
“What?” asks the paladin irritably, still in the traditional lay-on-hands stance. “Karnas, I can cure this!”
“You don’t just… MEDDLE with poisons and curses without knowing what they are, you moron!” snaps Karnas. “You know the drill; this doesn’t seem like any normal poison now, does it?”
Tancred looks back at Skye, noticing with alarm the cold sweat forming on the Bard’s brow as she sleeps. Miraculously – or perhaps mercifully – she remains asleep.
“For god’s sake, you idiot, listen to the damn sword!” Lyulfe growls.
“Then… what?”
“Draw me. Lay me on the bed for a moment. Let me work.”
Tancred stands there for a moment longer. He looks from face to face; Joram, Lyulfe. Both are nodding, slowly.
He waves his hands, and the light fades from them. He draws his sword with a frustrated grunt, and lays Karnas down by Skye’s side.
The golden light surrounding the sword glows for a moment, and Karnas is silent…

Karnas Looks at Skye. Not just looking, but Looking; focusing his own impressive willpower and channelling it into her body, searching for whatever it is that…
He withdraws his thoughts and backs off as if stung. Careful, careful, he thinks to himself. That didn’t feel good at all.
He moves back in, slower this time. The power he felt at work in Skye had the feel of a snarling beast about it; alert, wary, ready to spring at any moment. He moves up and down Skye’s spirit, watching and noting what he sees, occasionally dodging around the more dangerously affected areas.
At the last, he finds what he is looking for; a pulsing, magical thing, alien to Skye’s body (he assumes), at the base of her heart. He moves in, closer and closer, a step at a time; he can feel the power of this thing, and is determined not to trip any safeguards that may be in place.
He stops at the last, as close as he can get, and Looks.
He gasps. Awe washes over him, and despite himself and the situation Karnas smiles.
Now THIS is Art…

“Well?” asks the cavalier.
Another five minutes pass. Lyulfe begins to tap his paw nervously. Joram begins pacing the room. Tancred realises he’s gritting his teeth, and tries not to.
“WELL?” he asks at length.
“Aaah…” Karnas’ voice comes at last. “Whoever made THIS little beauty certainly has my professional respect.”
“Oh dear.”
“What you’ve got here is a masterful piece of work; a magical poison, almost a curse… some kind of long-term nastiness. This reminds me of something old Abi-Dhalzim would try, and he was GOOD. Just like a spell would, it’s got resistances and a certain sense for when someone’s trying to remove it. It’s got an amazing grip on her system already; a normal curative spell or prayer isn’t going to shift it.”
“But a cleric with real power could?”
“Wait, wait, let me finish… See, that’s the MAIN effect. But from the look of it, there’s three other subpoisons built into this, three independent curse-like spells, and they’re all watching the main curse AND each other. Try to cure THIS – even tinker with it – and it’d all come crashing down. She’d most likely die instantly. Most likely you would too. Maybe it’d take out the whole pavilion field, I dunno.”
Silence reigns in the small pavilion. Someone whimpers; Tancred can’t be sure it wasn’t him.
It falls to Joram to make things perfectly clear. “So… only some kind of antidote could stop this?”
Karnas makes an inward-whistling kind of sound. “Well… that’s if there IS an antidote. I certainly never bothered making curses and spells that could be reversed. Someone paid hard cash for this, boy. I daresay whatever massive fee was involved bought a guarantee as well. That said… I suppose searching for one isn’t going to hurt, and it’ll give you something to do tonight besides wailing and gnashing your teeth at Dead-Girl’s bedside here.”

OOC: We're a bit ahead of ourselves here; Legolas, feel free to reply to my inquiry in the last post, and I guess we'll retcon it in...

[ 01-23-2003, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: Tancred ]