The soft tinkling of a pair of iron balls, filled with copper beads, woke the miner long before any bird could. His eyes slowly adjusted to the cool dusk and the silhouette of a petite figure curling around the door. The figure moved forward, creeping into the room, as soon as the miner craned his neck up from his coarse linen pillow. The bed-sack stretched to its limits as the miner's daughter slid inside, her new shoes adorned with bells piercing the quiet as she went. A small smile surfaced on the miner's face. He slid an arm around his daughter and she threw an arm across his belly. They lay there for a while until the sunlight came. [center] [hr] [h2][color=9e0b0f]Those Lost Within The Isolated Mountain[/color][/h2] [h3]Part One[/h3] [img]http://i.imgur.com/RDswpr2.png[/img][/center] D'shad was the first to receive the message. The cast iron door to one of the palace entrances had been hammered by a small fist a worrying amount of times before a patrolling guard soon unbolted and heaved open the door. She had ignored the guard's initial query entirely, ducking under his armoured hand. A hostile shout followed the girl into the opulent hallway. She had dodged and weaved past the milling palace residents and the council members, the honour guardsmen and the Ministry attendees until a narrowing series of steps defeated her stamina. She had run all the way from the lower slopes of the Isolated Mountain, specifically from the developing mines, with snot streaming from her nose and welling tears that were only kept from bursting out by the panic that gripped her. The gentle tinkling of her bell-tipped shoes had raised quite the clamour throughout the echoing halls and two honour guardsmen were upon her in a second - one of them nestling her into an uncomfortable and strong hold while the other dug through the pockets of her clothes and patted down the shoes on her feet. "There's nothing on her." This guard concluded. The brutish one that held her grunted in response. The girl was frozen in shock all the while, her vocal cords seemingly unemployable though she was itching to scream up the stairs to where the Ministers were. Her eyes fluttered about the stairway, finally stopping for a second on the guard that had searched her. She recognised his presence properly for the first time. This man before her, his intimidating appearance aside, was just as able to listen to her as the Ministers were. Bushy eyebrows and a pair of confused and relieved green eyes were all she could see of the guard's face, so she hoped that he had functioning ears by which to listen, nevertheless she began: "Father went into the-" "What on Azoth is going on here?" With this exclamation, the girl stopped short, and both she and the two guards swung to face the archway at the head of the stairs. There stood an additional two of the honour guard, two women, one on either side of the youngest Ahsor Vok sibling. This man was important enough in both presence and rank to have taken hold of the room and its inhabitants immediately. His young age of twenty-one displayed a sense that the man had reached his highest potential, and that each subsequent year would only wear the man down, but he would tell you otherwise, instead believing that he has much more to learn and that he is strong enough to adapt to life in any form it comes to him. Whatever the rumours about the Minister, he was at this time certainly a reliable figure who could stomach disturbing news. The girl recognised him as such, now standing silently, with the first guard's grip still on her shoulder. The guard with the green eyes stood aside from the girl and bowed his head slightly in respect, then promptly spoke. "Minister D'shad, forgive us. We captured this girl running through the halls, heading in the direction of the Ministers' Quarters. Other guards were shouting behind her, so we assumed..." He trailed off awkwardly, realising then the lack of information they actually had. "What? That this girl is some pint-sized assassin? First of all, I am concerned of your opinion of any of the Ministers if you believe we cannot defend ourselves from an attacker of this stature. My mind subsequently dwells on the actual purpose of a girl clanging her bell-boots through the palace halls. Did either of you think to let her speak her mind in your [i]ever[/i] so necessary defence of mine and my family's lives?" D'shad droned on in an amiable tone characterised by humour and sarcasm. The two guards chuckled with embarrassment and one quickly relinquished his grip on the girl's shoulder. Then the green-eyed guard thought of a legitimate response. "She didn't speak, Minister, up until... well, she mentioned her father in a breathless state." The guard knelt and brought his face before the girl's, his bushy eyebrows raised high and expectant of the girl to release some exposition. "Go on, you were planning on telling him this, right?" The girl nodded somewhat and drew in a deep breath, composing herself in preparation to speak, though she was still sniffling and her eyes held onto some quantity of liquid. Even D'shad, famed for his endless quibblings, was impressed by her ensuing rapid sentences. "Father went into the mines a little after daybreak, I mean he's a miner, that's his job, he wasn't going in without being allowed to, I mean you know the few houses placed near to one of the mines? Yes, we live in one of those, me and Father, not Mother anymore because she stayed behind in the city and started living with this other man who had more money, but Father took me here some time ago and now he works in the mines. Uncle Mhyrie is our mine's supervisor, that's how Father got to work in this one, because he is the brother of Uncle Mhyrie, so we live next to his hut by the mine and Father goes in most days to do his job," The girl sucked in more air and gave the onlookers a short reprieve. The green-eyed guard looked to D'shad to allow him to stop her going on, but the young Minister was too amused for the moment to heed him. "Yes, so, he went in after daybreak, not long ago, and I like to watch him go in because he waves to me, and afterwards this supervisor, not my Uncle Mhyrie, usually gives me some of his leftover bread which is nice. I was sitting there, just before, and then there was a huge noise from inside the mine and rock on the ceiling fell down and filled the passage a little into the mine! And Father and Uncle are down there today with some others, and now they're trapped! They- They're trapped!" Her breath failed her at this point, and the snot and tears began to flow once more. "Oh, oh no." The other guard by the girl, the one that had grabbed her, muttered suddenly. D'shad's humour had all but fallen away, and the cogs in his mind were almost visibly at work. No-one moved for a second, until D'shad spun around and pointed his finger at one of his female guards. "Please, would you alert Rhashul and Habruth to this news? Tell them I am going to this mine without delay." The woman bowed and left through the archway. With but a gesture D'shad bade his other guard to follow him and they rushed down the steps to reach the girl. "Now, brave girl, thank you for informing me so soon. What is your name?" "Vernillios Calsh, sir." The girl said betwixt sobs. "Very well, Miss Calsh. Would you be helpful enough to guide us back to the exact mine wherein this event occurred?" She nodded one final time. "Come, take my hand, then. We will do all we can to aid your Father and your Uncle Mhyrie." "D'shad - Minister D'shad, sir!" One of the honour guards called before they could leave the stairway. The Minister turned in irritation, that someone would prevent him from rushing to the disaster site. This someone was not the friendly green-eyed guard, however, but the brutish guard who had grabbed Vernillios in the beginning and had taciturn since. "Please, there's a man, one I knew was in Supervisor Mhyrie's group today. I'd like to come..." He could not think of more to say. D'shad was concerned about being slowed down. "A relative? I can take a message, if you're quick." "No, sir. I... I'm sweet on him, Minister, and he's the same for me. Please, I'd like to be there." D'shad sighed and then beckoned, "Come, then. Quick. Drop as much armour as you can, so you can be faster." The Minister re-affirmed his hold on Vernillios' hand and then jogged towards the exit. The guard began to fumble with his iron vestments, and with both the green-eyed guard and D'shad's female attendant, who was already free from heavy armour, assisting him, he was soon on D'shad's trail. [hr] The band of four ran as fast as they might through the narrow streets of Zoltur. The beginnings of a working day showed its signs all around them; merchants hung up their signs and offered new deals on products they had a surfeit of, children gathered around wells with empty buckets in hand, people gathered around early morning preachers with their palms together and their eyes closed. All in all, the city was operating as normal. People hadn't heard yet of the mine's collapse. D'shad spared the people his notice for the nonce, though he usually made efforts to maintain good relationships with anyone living inside Zoltur. He was not spared their attention, however, for a handful of well-meaning shouts came his way, and one man, after losing his job and drinking his sorrow away the night before, blamed his misfortune on D'shad and the Ministers. Vernillios had found some new source of energy within her body, as she found herself in the lead of the four despite her previous run having just ended. Behind the girl and the Minister, the male guardsman was turning red with the effort, and he was beginning to struggle to keep pace. He glanced incredulously to his fellow guard, a woman of D'shad's personal detail, who was releasing not a sound of exhaustion and sported the same expressionless face as she had maintained previously. They passed the last stone-bricked building, cramped close between the city wall and a clutter of other buildings on the street. D'shad yelled to a standing guard by the sturdy wooden door and flashed his Ministry Seal in his hand simultaneously, for good measure. The guard noticed both the man and the Seal and the door was ajar by the time they rushed through it. The four were alone now, on a beaten path of dirty brown rock, that was bordered by tall grasses on its right side and the towering wall on the left. The path had been built up with sand from the nearby coast, for the rock had been littered with potholes and sudden drops into the grassland below, and the sand now shifted under the impact of the band's boots. Before long, the only sound was these repeated impacts, and the sharp jingling of Vernillios' bell-boots. "It's around this path, here." The girl shouted, turning and choosing the lower of the paths where the last path stopped and two new ways appeared. This path ran parallel to the other, but it remained on a steady level while the other climbed quite drastically to an opening in the mountain that rose up before them. They ran almost exactly south for fifteen minutes, making sure to watch their footing when the path grew narrow, for what had been an incline downwards upon leaving the city was now a veritable cliff. Finally, they made it to an open landing, where a fence protected unknowing men from the cliff and a collection of houses stood. They were all of them completely out of breath, save for the female guard who seemed quite unperturbed by the journey. Although, D'shad kept moving forward, leaving the others to rest for a second. He examined the nearest rock-hewn house up close. In truth, he only knew of the tiny miner villages and their ventures into the Isolated Mountain by their concept, and had never travelled this high before. He had always been too preoccupied with city matters or his own dealings around the various grasslands and cultivation sites. The view from the vantage point was spectacular - it extended the horizon far out to the sea, and the coast's every indent and outstretch was visible. D'shad made a mental note to this place at some point. He had discovered something he had been missing: a comprehensive, mountain-aided view of the land they lived on. "Well, then!" Came a gruff voice from the mine's opening. "'Seems little Vernillios climbed all the way up the food chain! The 'honourable' D'shad Ahsor Vok finally graces us with 'is presence." D'shad responded, quite offended, while the girl and the two guards gathered behind him. "I'm sorry, but I think any hostile precedent you have set against me should be put aside. We are here to help with this cave-in, not squabble." D'shad said this forcefully, but with enough of a congenial tone to make the miner in front of them unclench his fists. "Yeah, well... thanks. Your two soldiers there can go help the other miners," They did so immediately, the man obviously more enthusiastically than the stoic woman, "Now, if ya' don't mind, lil' Vernillios, me an' mister Minister here might talk alone fer a second." She seemed about to protest, but a serious look from what D'shad assumed must be another supervisor sent her walking off toward the mine. When she was far enough away, the supervisor stepped a little closer to the Minister and his voice declined to a hushed muttering. "Now," He said, "Ya' might be wonderin' about the particulars of this here 'cave-in'. We were too, us supervisors, an' we agreed that there ain't no way any pressure or structural problem caused the mine ta' collapse." "Well, if not that, what else is there-" D'shad started. "If ya'd let me finish!" The supervisor snarled. "Ya see, we found some kinda signs a ways into this mine a coupla' weeks back. Troublin' signs. Signs of somethings' bein' here before Zoltur was even a dream in yer big brother's head. An' it may be... that these somethings ain't dead and gone. It may be that they've finally found about us livin' here, an' diggin into their ol' home. If that's the truth, Minister," He bit his lip and showed genuine worry in his eyes, "Well, you might be wantin' to get a few more of yer soldiers up here..."