Chapter 55- Awakening and Noticing

Citadel Fifth floor- Personal Quarters- 3rd day of Vanahiem’s Month the 6983 GR (Early Evening)

Nath’aniel-                   

He opened his eyes. Nath'aniel had expected to hear the Citadel greet him, but instead, he saw a still naked Betsy lying on his chest and staring into his eyes. "Sleep well?"

“Like a stone.” He answered and held her to him before shifting so he could sit up. Once he was settled he asked. “Please don’t tell me you watch me sleep the whole time?”

The Eastern tribeswoman didn't lie to him but instead gave an excuse. "Well unlike you, I have a set sleep pattern."

He chuckled before taking a deep breath. The mage was rather enjoying her naked body pressed against his, but didn’t feel that now was the time to indulge. 'Hells, I am partially regretting indulging in the first place.' he thought. She must have heard the thought because she frowned after he thought it.

So he quickly explained. “I don’t regret the act, only that we might have gone about doing it too soon. After all, we barely know each other.”

As he said that he felt her confidence through their bond. Then she said. "Through my powers, I know your thoughts, not as much as everyone else's, but enough. And through our bond, I know your heart." She reached up and cupped his face before she added. "This might worry you, but this is probably the healthiest relationship I've ever started. So don't think for a moment that I haven't thought about this before I committed to it… Besides, aren't we kind of stuck together?"

"Your mind seems more stable." He observed. Nath'aniel was about to reach over and cast an Appraisal spell on her, but she used the hand that was holding his face to hold his hand before he could.

"It wasn't brain damage from the suffocation… This body is new, so all the memories I had, are fresh." Betsy started to explain. “So some things that time buried, came back and I wasn’t ready for that. So I…”She couldn’t look at him when she admitted. “I tried to run from them.”

“And then the magic took over. Or rather Assassin did, as you are bound to serve.” The mage guessed. When Betsy nodded, he reached for her face. Nath gently turned her so she was facing him again, and then he asked. "I won't ask what was so bad that you tried to hide away in your own mind. But something woke you up? What spurned this on?"

She stared into his eyes instead of answering him. "Your eyes are so beautiful." He smirked, and let her find the words. Betsy sighed before admitting. "Shanna. Seeing her memories struck a little close to home… I realized that I had to deal with it. Or I may one day be like her, running around with two of me inside my head.'

"And then you got your bad news, about your dad killing your mom. Just after I decided to deal with my own past. So it just felt right, us trying to find happiness together. But I know that I am older and not as…”

Before she could insult her appearance Nath'aniel reached over and held her mouth open. "First of all, you are gorgeous. So don't you dare belittle yourself. And second, you are not old. You really need to look in a mirror. While I am not the best at this, but I would guess you are the oldest, twenty-five years old."

“rreellly?” Betsy awkwardly asked.

He then released her mouth before he reached towards a drawer built into the nightstand beside his bed. He stole only a glance at the folded groin covering sitting atop it. Once the drawer was open he removed a small handheld mirror and showed the woman her reflection.

She stared for a time at her own face. He was amazed at how innocent she looked at the moment. “Wow. My eyebrows are purple too.” Betsy muttered.

“So is your garden patch.” Nath’aniel pointed out. She winked and smiled at him for calling it that.

Yet as much as he wanted this moment to last longer, his eyes suddenly drifted passed her towards the northern wall. He thought he had seen a flash. Not here, but in another plane of reality. He shifted his focus from plane to plane, till his attention was on the plane of bone. As a gathering of its denizens gathered near a forming tear.

“Citadel?” He called out to his friend. He frowned and shared a look with Betsy after a couple of seconds, when she hadn’t responded to his request. So Nath’aniel asked. “Citadel, are you all right?”

Slowly the emitters in his room came to life and the image of the Citadel’s true face appeared floating in the middle of the room. “Wow, she really is an elf?” Betsy muttered as she pulled the loose blanket to cover her naked body.

Nath'aniel saw that the image appeared as it always did, but somehow in her tone, he could tell that she wasn't alright.

"Online, young master. Sorry, I am distracted with all that is going on inside of me."

He was willing to let her lie, for now. So the mage asked. “What is happening in the northeastern parts of the Preserve? I can see the beginnings of a tear forming in another plane.”

The image shook itself before it said. "Scanning… I am reading a large spike of energy being channeled from a human body towards a local statue… said energy has been absorbed."

“Statue? Show me.” The mage was really concerned now.

The face scattered and reformed into a panel showing a large stone statue holding the Preserve’s Sun Stone above its head. At the statue’s feet some simple wooden tables had been gathered tied to each of them were the remains of a person. Their chests were carved ritualistically.

Betsy gasped at the sight. Then after a moment, Nath’aniel realized the carvings were actually Surturin. The language of the Fire Giants and another second later realization struck him. The statue was actually a hibernating Giant and not a statue at all.

As they watched muscular men clear one of the tables and another was brought to it, struggling and resisting to replace the corpse. "Oh, no." he heard Betsy mutter behind him as the woman in the raptor headdress form this morning approached. She had requested that he kill her High Priest and aid her in taking over her tribe, once beside the fresh man, she started the craving anew.

"We have to stop them. How many have they already performed?" Nath'aniel said through gritted teeth.

“I count five bodies, the sixth is about to join that count.”

The mage crawled to the edge of his bed and got up. He walked proudly towards his wall closet. Picked out a simple but easily donned vest, groin wrapping, and trousers. When he looked back to see, Betsy still staring at the sensor results, he waved the image away.

She turned around in bed after a second and then stared at him. As he looked her back dead in the eye, he ordered. "We must stop them. Get dressed."

She nodded. Then Betsy just vanished into a burst of light and rematerialized over by her scattered pile of clothes. Then the two of them quickly dressed. He finished first, having chosen easy light clothes to put on. Nath'aniel moved and planned to wait for her by the exit. On his way to the door, he asked the Citadel. "Where is everyone?"

"Most of your guests and prisoners are in the Great Hall, eating. Your Disciple is in the Lower Galley holding an introduction lesson for the one-hundred and thirty-three beast-folk that have nowhere to go, for one reason or another. And Quicksilver is absent of me."

The Citadel’s face followed him as he moved about his quarters. He watched Betsy slide her thigh-high boots back on. Not that he remembered her taking them off during their time together. Nath'aniel shook his head and asked. "Eating?"

“Supper was served twenty minutes ago.”

Betsy grabbed her sword and gloves before jumping to her feet. As she joined him, she frowned and asked. “Wait, Pietro is missing food? Where is he?”

“Scanning… [Subject: Quicksilver] is several miles east of here. He is currently indulging in carnal pleasures with a Stone Singer.”

Nath and Betsy shared a look before she shrugged and said. “Never thought he would have a monster girl fetish.”

“Says the role-player.” The mage countered with a smirk.

She punched him in his shoulder before they left his quarters, and headed for nearest Re-locator. It was a short walk, followed by another to the Great Hall.

"Getting around the Citadel is so much quicker with those working," Betsy said as they got to Hall's door.

Nath’aniel agreed, saying. “And with them working we can get to the Archive and find something there about your condition. Once, life gives us the time to do so. Oh, you will probably have to come with me when I get there."

She gave him a stare and held the door knob, as she reminded him. "You explained that to me already. That it is its own space, and we can’t be apart. But I have to admitted, I hate the library.”

Nath'aniel was about to correct her and say that the library was downstairs on the second floor. But the sound of loud laughter and a glass breaking distracted him. Once the door was open, he saw that both Sam and Erik were clearly drunk and laughing with an equally drunk Mr. Dugan, Mr. Parker, and Ms. Nelson.

John was sitting off to the side with Curha. Who was currently using a Dream stone that he had provided to her. She was currently posing as Ryth’lor, the master swordsman of the Magi. In typical Ryth’lor fashion, he just nodded at them and went back to watching the room. Meanwhile, John stood up and walked over to them.

“How much have they had to drink?” Nath’aniel asked before the other man could offer an excuse.

“Half a keg of frozen dwarven Ghost-chaser Ale.”

The fire manipulator frowned at hearing the name of the booze, as the mage closed his eyes in frustration.

Betsy must have felt his worry because she asked. "Can't you heal them?" He shook his head that he couldn't. Not that he explained that dwarven alcohol was exceedingly difficult to purify away, thus its allure.

Dugan raised his wooden mug in salute towards him. He did it too quickly causing some of his drink to spill onto the top of his hat. The older man then shouts from across the Hall. “Now this finally beats the German’s beer.”

Frustrated and angry, Nath’aniel quickly pulled upon his stores of Vanir energy and wrote a Sleeping spell into being. He didn’t even need to direct it, with a flick the rune quickly became a mote of light and smacked the Tribesman in the forehead. Dugan fell face first into his mashed potatoes a second later unconscious.

The tiger woman pointed and laughed while the usually quiet man slammed his mug onto the table and stood up. Erik wrapped his armor in his magnetic energy, twice before he rose into the air and floated between the mage and Mr. Parker.

John then asked. “What happened?”

“The Sun people are meddling in things beyond their power, and risk us all.” Nath’aniel answered.

Betsy then added. "They're killing people. They're offering them up as some kind of human sacrifice to their god."

“So?” John asked confused. “I mean it sucks to be them. But I thought the whole idea was to let the savages govern themselves?”

“Because they are amateurs. Their work is sloppy and the souls they are releasing are starting to cross over, before the being they are offering them to, can snatch them up. And that act is weakening the Veil. I can already see creatures gathering where the tear will form. Eagerly awaiting the moment they can cross over.” The mage explains.

Erik finally floated over to them. As he landed he muttered. "That man will one day step up to a bully and get himself killed. Not realizing that he can't save everyone." He took a breath before admitting to Nath. “I messed up, how can I help?” Erik would probably be swaying, if not for his armor holding him in the air.

The mage wanted to snap, to yell, but in the end, he sighed and said. "Get these 'agents' back to their quarters. Then stop by medical and get some Herafillian. It will help you sober up." Then he turned around.

As he was about to leave he heard a girl shout out. “I’ll go.” Nath’aniel turned around and saw Rahne sitting off near one of Hall's edge tables with the other collared man. She had leaped to her feet and surprised her tablemate. Yet she quickly pulled her arms back towards her chest as she added. “You about to go off to fight bad guys again, and save people, again, right? I’ll go. I can help.”

Nath'aniel thought to reject her kindness, as he saw her tablemate gesture that he sure as hell was not going, but then recalled that the Sun people were already well enough along on their attempt to awaken the giant and that he didn't have time to be choosey about his allies.

"We'll go too." Mr. Barton and his two other sober agents also rose to their feet. "If what little I heard is true, and the little girl there is right, then this is a good cause and that's what SHIELD is all about. Besides, we are here to investigate. Best we do that right?"

“But we need our gear.” The tanned Eastern Tribeswoman added.

Nath’aniel hadn’t caught her or the Southern tribesman’s name yet, and again he needed the help so he nodded before ordering. “John, Ryth’lor, see them to their things. You all have ten minutes.”

As he left he heard Erik ask. “Where is my son?”

“Ahhh…” John tried to explain.

Meanwhile Ryth’lor sold the boy out, saying. “Sowing his wild oats.”

“WHAT!?!” Erik shouted as the doors closed.

‘Maybe Erik won’t need the Herafillian.’ Nath’aniel thought before heading towards the Re-locator and his next stop, the Armory.