[IRP] Power Begets Power

[WyvernSlayer]

Satsume felt like he had a good handle on bluffing his credentials by the time he made it past the castle gate.  Amusingly enough, he felt as though having the unexpected entourage was helpful in getting inside.  And to think I would have ended up just as blind and dumb, had I stayed with the regiment, he thought.  His boots finally found the castle interior, clacking on the marble floor and threatening to beat his similarly noisy armor in a shouting match.

Right... now to find Cecily.  Straining to remember what she had told him about the castle's layout, he blinked a few times and stood still.  One of the garrison soldiers spoke up.

"Sir, shall we present ourselves to the master at arms?"

"No, wait..." Satsume held up his hand to silence him.  Right, then around the corner, down the stairwell...

"Is something the matter?" asked the other soldier.

"Something... something isn't right," he lied.  He took a couple of pensive steps in the direction of the first hallway on the right, holding his hand up to communicate silence to the soldiers.  He peered down the hall.  A maid was just rounding the corner, leading to where Cecily said the servants' quarters were.  Okay, here we go... let's try not to screw this up.

"There!" he shouted.  "That man in the cloak!  Grab him!"  Without hesitation, he started sprinting down the hallway as fast as his armor would let him.  He was able to get several long strides ahead before he heard the two soldiers start chasing him.  He needed to maintain as much of a head-start on them as possible!  As he thundered toward the corner of the hallway, he rounded his route and leaned hard to the left, trying to avoid hammering into the wall and killing his momentum.  As he rounded the corner, he captured the slightest glimpse of the maid disappearing into a side room.

The noise from Satsume's charge must have echoed down the hallway, because she immediately popped her head back out to see Satsume barreling toward her.

"Move!  Move!" he yelled.

*Gasp!*  The young woman hastily slammed the door shut.

Okay, she said fifth door on the left... Satsume took another wide route and came up against the door.  He gritted his teeth and braced!

SLAM!  Satsume powered through the door and swung it wide open, stumbling into a simple bedroom with a few bits of shelving and a privacy screen in the back corner. He reached for his spear and held it, collapsed, across his body.  The footsteps of the two soldiers behind him grew closer.

"Here!" he called.  "They're here!"

As the two soldiers sprang into the room, swords drawn, Satsume lifted up his weapon and snapped it up to full length, right in front of his sternum.  With almost comical timing, the soldiers caught the shaft of his spear right in the throat, abruptly stopping them and sending them to the stone floor with a couple of resonating clatters and muted thumps.  Breathing heavily from his sprint, Satsume kicked the swords out of reach.  "I... really need to quit smoking...!" he huffed aloud.  He put his spear away and started to close the door to the room.

"Is everything alright over there?" called a voice from the hallway.  "I heard a crash.  You okay?"

"It's fine!" Satsume called back from behind the door.  "Just uh... moving an armoire!"  He shut the door and took a sigh of relief.  Then he set about removing the sheets from the bed to bind the soldiers.


As Satsume was setting about cutting pieces of cloth to make impromptu rope, he heard a shuffling noise from behind the privacy screen.  His head snapped up in the direction of the noise.  It sounded like a... scratching or crumbling sound?  Good timing, he thought to himself, as he watched Cecily push the screen aside from the other direction.

"And here I thought people went behind those things to disrobe," he quipped, as the remainder of the group filed in behind her.