Age of Freedom

[Gelidus]

Sarah followed Olaris and began cleaning along with him. When Elliandra spoke she thought, Great so now I'll be cleaning pots and pans the rest of my life. If I go back with Olaris I'll be able to slip into the wild, but I have to be sure not to attract too much more attention to myself. I'll have to lie a little bit...but I don't want to stop this conversation... She finally spoke, "You may be right Olaris, there really isn't anywhere safe for an escaped slave. It would still be nice to imagine a world where I could live for something more than work. Wouldn't you like to do some sort of research or increase your knowledge further?"

[✡]

Drake sat back in shock.  Two hundred years??? But...this sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen...not to him. He ran back through his memory of the past week. He was hunting...a storm in the mountains...wind...snow...then what? He realized that there was a huge blank in his memory. Could that gap actually have been two hundred years long? He felt like curling up on the ground and blocking this new and terrible world out. The old world was gone, his new life awaited him. He would spend the time he had life fighting those human captors and regaining what he lost...freedom.

[tangletail]

Olaris looked up from the mop and frowned to Elliandra "I am sorry for the interruption, but I do have my orders Madame Elliadra." He looked back down to the mop and dunked it back into the water, and slopping it onto the floor quickly moving it side to side as he backed up "No... I have all I need in the library within the castle. And I have had my fill of what was out there when I was younger." he sighed shaking his head before groaning in a very aggravated tone "Huge... unprecedented...mistake."

[Gelidus]

Sarah began mopping as well with her bucket and mop. Olaris's change in emotion caught a lot her interest. Her eyes open wide, "What happened? Who taught you when you were younger? Why was gaining your knowledge such a mistake?" Her strokes back and forth became slower as she stared and Olaris, anticipating the answer.

[tangletail]

"Hm... I am not sure how to answer that second one. I honestly don't remember who taught me. As for the other questions" he sighed as he backed into a wall and taking a step to the side and walked forward to collect his bucket and move to a different location. "Well... do you know what a Sphinx is? Either heard about them from stories or the guards... servants or anyone?"

[Gelidus]

"No, I've never heard of it. I didn't get too much outside knowledge where I was. What is it?" Sarah realizes shes hardly mopping any more and picks up her speed.

[tangletail]

Olaris finally set the mop aside and picked the rag from his wrist and gave it a quick flick so it was pretty much open as it hung from his hand "Horrible beast... make no mistake... a good majority of them are not anthro, they can easily disguise themselves." he said as he began moving things out of the way on the nearby table and whipping the dust from it "Sphinx are interesting creatures none of the less. Their true form varies slightly. The one I encountered had the body of a lion, wings of an eagle followed by a main from the very feathers, and the head of a... human I believe. Well Sphinx are... passive aggressive so to speak. They will not allow you to pass a certain point unless you answer a riddle. And if you fail... well... you can hope for the worst." he finished.

[Gelidus]

"I take it by your somber tone that you lost a riddle given to you. What did the creature do to you? And how did you come to be in contact with one?" She had given up on mopping as well and leaned against a nearby wall

[Daemon]

Balzhamest looked at Drake for a moment. "Are you... okay?" he asked, then sighed. "I suppose not. You have future-shock. I'm sorry for your loss of your old life. I don't understand much of what you left behind, but maybe what happened happened for a reason?"  Marissa whispered in Balzhamest's ear. "He won't let you touch him, so I don't think he'll l t you do that." Balzhamest shook his head and coughed. "Anyway, we need to find somewhere else to go, we've waited here along enough. At least it's quiet and I'm not hearing any of the voices."

[tangletail]

Olaris hummed to himself as he finished the desk and moved to the shelf “I... well...” he began as if looking for some better words to say then the ones he had on mind. “Well... I had the worst run in with the face of death it's self. I would rather chance fighting a dragon with half a splinter, then another run in with a Sphinx. It came in front of me as I was heading back to the castle after having to think about my actions and it spoke in such a gentle yet... Erie voice. It circled me asking questions about myself before eventually lying down in-front of me and bestowed the Sphinx's Challenge. The riddle if you will. She felt that she should make it more interesting and asked if I would be willing to take a gamble, if she wins, she has my soul, I win... well I can't quite remember. Mind you I was scared witless so I brainlessly accepted.”

His eyes glanced to each book as his hands went to work pulling books out and placing them back into alphabetical order as he spoke "During this challenge she stared at me with this empty soulless glare that made me just want to kill myself then and there then let her do it. The first riddle took me an hour of thinking, the answer was an egg. The second one was a bit tricky and I nearly lost." By this time Olaris was fiddling with his tail, his fingers danced around the fur, only stopping when his claw snagged something so perfectly well hidden within the bushy tail. He gave it a gentle tug, and pulled what appeared to be a string all the way up his tail and eventually off came a necklace with a talon like lions claw. He tossed it to Sarah and went back to work. It seemed like a normal claw, larger in comparison to one with some differences. Upon closer inspection it was oddly colored, and seemed to never have experienced the effects of time, the claw did have a few very small hard to see feathers hear and their deeply embedded into the shell as if it had grown there. “This is what she gave me... before departing. I have no idea what significance it holds other then a keepsake."

[Chrono Blackwyng]

She kept an eye on the girl that was with Olaris while listening to his story, then shook her head as if she knew something. "Olaris, you do know that there is no cover if you try to escape the mines, or did you forget to tell your friend that the last fifty didn't even get past the gate without getting an arrow somewhere in their chest cavity?"

[Gelidus]

Sarah spoke to Elliandra, trying to reassure that there was no problem. "Ms. Elliandra, I had no intention of escaping. These injuries and Olaris's logic were enough to keep me from doing it again." While thinking in her head stupid ***** thinks she can threaten me. I'm not getting stuck in that hole.

Sarah caught the strange object and examined it for a bit "Why was it such a big deal Olaris? You won both the riddles and received a trophy for doing so. Did it really scare you from learning anything further?" She continued to look at the object. The peculiar feathers intrigued her.

[tangletail]

Olaris thought for a moment before his head rolled back for a moment as he started giggling a bit to himself “Oh yes. I remember that very very well.” he continued giggling idly slowly growing louder as he finished the top shelf and moved down one “I recall exactly what they did. They expected to leave unscathed through the main entrance and run out the gates like a bat out of hell. Well... it didn't work to well.”

His left ear perked up some from his back catching Sarah's voice in the middle of his laughter, which quickly subsided. “Well... it's hard for me to explain. So I will simply agree with you for now, if you find me a coward so be it. And the trophy is just a bother to me. I wish to part with it but I can't.”

[Gelidus]

Sarah sets the necklace on the desk and walks over to where Olaris put down the rag. She picks it up and moves over to the window sill and begins to wipe it down. "I won't brand you a coward. There a things I don't understand and I won't pretend that I know what you have gone through. Although it does seem we both fear very different things." She can't help but to glance at the strange talon on the desk a few times. "Is there any reason you can't part with the necklace? I would be glad to take it off your hands, but I have a sense there is more to it then simply getting rid of it."

[tangletail]

Olaris came to sudden halt, holding a book halfway on the shelf slanted down towards him. His hesitation was quite obvious before he quickly pushed the book into a vacant slot. "I am afraid I don't have a reason, however I just simply can't part with it." he said at last with a sigh heaving his shoulders as well as he relaxed again. He twisted his body and held out his open hand, signaling for the claw.