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Inner Sanctum First Floor | 11:17 AM | Third Day
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what?" Kamrusepa exclaimed, her eyebrows shooting up. "But that''s impossible. It''s not four yet; there can''t have been any more scripted changes to the defenses." She looked to Linos. "That''s what Anna said, isn''t it?"
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directly? Impossible," Kamrusepa declared, putting her hands on her hips. "It''s not even something you can achieve with a single incantation. You need to block multiple forms of extra-dimensional energy transition at once, and even if you managed that much, you''d need a whole pile of scepters worth of eris if you wanted to make the effect last more than a few moments. There''s got to be some other explanation--"
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I mean, she''s probably doomed either way, so what does it matter?
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What?" They both said at roughly the same time, though with differing tones - Kam more with indignance, and Linos with worry.
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Gets you?"
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desperate to speak up, his face visibly going red with some complicated emotion, but didn''t.
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Three!"
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shot. Even thinking back to our youth, I wasn''t sure I''d ever seen him move so fast, though it was more of a manic than athletic speed - the kind of movements you surprise yourself with when you''re being chased by an angry dog.
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need to wear glasses to begin with; my general presentation wasn''t exactly suited for perfect vision at all times, is what I''m saying.
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something peeked out from the left wall in the conference room, just where the hallway started to narrow as it approached the terminus. It didn''t look human; all I could see was a shadow, but the shape was long, and came to a sharp point--
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much more confidently than I''d feel upon looking back later. "Something was coming out from the left side of the room."
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Well, that''s easy to say, isn''t it? "I''m sure!" I declared, in a tone that lent my claim what was probably the minimum amount of credibility conceivably possible. "It was right there!"
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grave looking.
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you''d made me jump so much my stomach went halfway to my throat," she retorted.
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Oh, so that''s what that was. And here I was thinking they were having some argument.
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The one Sacnicte mentioned was close to the pantry and the logic engines. "It''s possible that there was some remaining eris that was improperly removed, and whoever did this made use of it."
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Anomaly-Divining Arcana?" I asked. "When you were performing the divinations."
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Clunk. Crack. It struck five steps in total, and each time the noise was different and multi-faceted - the noise of something very complicated breaking.
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blank in the way you''d associate with dissociation or shock.
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save for the fact that her head was a little slumped and she wasn''t meeting our eyes. Her legs were crossed, and her hands resting in her lap. Her hair fell gently over her face, framing her beautiful features.
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There was a little drool coming out of the corner of her mouth.