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EmailNano ‘09 – Nov 4 – 4725 Words, 9065 Total
05 Nov 2009 View Comments
in writing Tags: nanowrimo 2009
(I’m 100x happier with this batch of the novel than I was with yesterday’s. Less pointless meandering and characters getting out of hand. Overall, it was a very good writing day – I more than doubled my output and only the last shreds of my sanity kept me from writing the next thousand words necessary to hit 10k. On a more technical note, I reposted some of yesterday’s batch since it ended in the middle of a paragraph.)
Chapter 2
Katryn leaned back with a smile. For once, being ‘that redhead’ was a benefit rather than a curse. Right now, since she wasn’t one of the prophesised ones, she just got to kick back, relax and watch as four ‘destined ones’ got to learn their trades.
It really was quite hilarious – Lillian was currently trying to lift a sword, let along swing it, almost as big as her whilst Carson somehow managed to splatter ink up his arms and onto his face. Rainier looked incredibly bored and half asleep as Viandir droned on about leadership rhetoric. And Cassandra? Cassandra was holding a staff and stabbing a book with a pencil as Peohr looked on. Apparently no one felt that they were suited to their assigned role.
Once again the group was in a large, spacious room. It certainly wasn’t as cavernous as the sanctuary area they first arrived in, but it had echoes of that room with its high, vaulted ceilings and gilded walls. Despite the lavish decorating, however, it was imminently suited for a training room, even if its occupants didn’t wish to learn.
“Ow! Bloody hell this is it!” Lillian swore and dropped the sword with a clang, “I am not trying to lift that sword one more time – it was clearly meant for super humans, not a thirty-nine year old accountant! Give me a new damned role and assign someone else to be the ‘warrior’!”
“Oh, you think you’ve got it bad, mom? Do you know what this book is? It’s a fucking physics text, that’s what! I’m failing physics, remember?” Cassandra snapped the book shut loudly, “I thought magic was supposed to be, I dunno, magic-y, not science-y!”
Katryn sat up straight in excitement,”Physics?” She asked, “Can I see?”
“Sure, be my guest,” Cassandra rolled her eyes and hucked the book at Katryn, who fumbled the catch. Undeterred, Katryn snatched the book off the ground and opened it hungrily. She flipped through it rapidly with an excited smile growing on her face.
“You’re right – this is physics. There’s some chemistry, biology and geology as well, but it is primarily physics,” Katryn turned to Poehr with her dazzling smile, “Can I hang onto this for awhile? I wish to study it.” Poehr could only just nod dumbly.
“What, no!” Leovis yelped, “The Sorcerer must learn from the book, not that redhead!”
“Dude, this ‘sorcerer’ will never be able to understand that book – I’m a creative person, not a science-y person,” Cassandra snorted, “Let her have it – and this staff too. I’m going to explore the city.”
“No! Absolutely not – you must learn the magical arts!” Leovis stamped his foot angrily.
“I disagree, Leovis,” Poehr dismissed him and turned to Viandir, “She’s right – she’ll never be able to learn the art in time. With practice and a lot of hard work, Cassandra could get a decent grasp on the subject, but she just doesn’t have the innate talent that makes a sorcerer a sorcerer.”
“And you think that Katryn does?” Viandir asked, “Having a sorcerer is absolutely critical for the Heroes to defeat the Ancient Evil.”
“I cannot be certain, but judging by the way she is reading from the middle of the book, I suspect that she does,” Poehr said.
“Uh, hate to interrupt,” Katryn said, “But this constant is off – it is 6.626×10-34 Js, not 6.5.”
“I have never heard of Joules,” Poehr said, worrying his eyebrows.
“Yeah, I converted your units to what we use on Earth. They’re actually analogous –we just use different units. Makes sense – the units named after people wouldn’t be the same. After all, it is not like Joule could have found the energy relation in both of our worlds,” Katryn explained, “This constant is called Planck’s on Earth.”
“Okay, yes, Katryn will be a more than sufficient replacement for Cassandra,” Poehr said.
“Yes! Now can I please leave?” Cassandra whined.
“No – I don’t want you wandering around a strange city by yourself,” Lillian shot down.
“Awww, but mooom!” Cassandra whimpered, “The crime rates here are really low!”
“Cassandra, stop fabricating excuses,” Lillian rolled her eyes, “How would you know what the crime rate is like in a city on another world?”
“I overheard Viandir telling Rainier that,” Cassandra shrugged, “C’mon! Let me go!”
“Absolutely not. And that is final. Go sit with Katryn,” Lillian pointed and Cassandra went, grumbling, “Now, while we’re changing our roles, I wish to get out of this one. Assign me a new one, please.”
“If Lillian is leaving the warrior role, I would like to take her place,” Rainier said quickly.
“And if Rainier is taking over Lillian’s position, I want his!” Carson added.
“You? Our leader?” Katryn snirked.
“Hey, I’m not interested in leading anyone – Viandir is just saying some really interesting stuff from an anthropological standpoint. You know, this is a really interesting culture,” Carson explained.
“Do either of you wish to take over Carson’s role?” Viandir asked Cassandra and Lillian.
“No, not particularly,” Cassandra said, “Taking notes is not my idea of a fun time. Dude, maybe I could be a bard!”
“A bard? Seriously Cassandra?” Lillian scoffed.
“What? I can play the guitar – that knowledge has to transfer over to the lute!” Cassandra explained. “Plus, I’m a writer! Of fiction and music! It’d be perfect! Sorta like a scholar with style!”
“That would be acceptable,” Viandir said, “I’ll bring in a music teacher for you, Cassandra. Do you have any idea on what role you wish to play, Lillian?”
“I don’t even know which roles are available! Cassandra’s the one with the Dungeons and Dragons knowledge,” Lillian shrugged.
“Mom! Ixnay on the D&D-ay!” Cassandra hissed.
Carson laughed, “That was the worst bit of pig Latin I’ve ever heard. I’ve been thinking about starting a 4E game myself. But with a space opera theme, not a high fantasy one.”
“And you called me a nerd,” Katryn snorted.
“Dude, so it is a bit geeky! Geeks are totally different from nerds!” Cassandra sniffed.
“Yeah, I’ll just end up using my interests to make money whilst you, what, continue to play hero in your mother’s basement?” Katryn smirked.
“Anyway,” Lillian said as if her daughter hadn’t got into an argument with two supposedly adults, “Do you have an aptitude test or something that I can take?”
“Why, yes, we do. Jerin, could you please go get an aptitude test and tell MusicTeacher to report here ASAP?” Viandir asked.
“Yeah, sure, not a problem,” Jerin shambled out of the room muttering as the door closed behind him, “What am I? The gopher? Jerin, do this, Jerin do that!”
Carson laughed a bit and then turned serious, “I wonder how it is that they use much the same slang and jargon that we do.”
“I’m not sure,” Katryn said, “It is pretty weird that all of their units seem to have direct SI counterparts. Even on Earth we do not have a direct correlation like that – there are still some scientists using the old system of measurement after all.”
“Here’s one for you two to wonder over – how come we all can speak English? And nobody seems to have an accent – it’s like we’re all speaking English from the same region,” Cassandra put in.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Katryn mused.
“Ah,” Poehr said, “This is one of Jerin’s pet projects. He is convinced that there is some sort of spell in place that enables everyone to understand each other. I myself cannot find evidence for it, but Jerin insists that the unchanging language used throughout all of our old manuscripts is proof enough.”
“Unchanging language? You mean that you can read texts from hundreds of years ago and the language is no different than what is used today?” Carson asked, eyes wide.
“Yes. Jerin says that languages evolve over time and that the spoken language used even one hundred years ago would sound different than the language of today,” Viandir elaborated, “His ideas have caused quite a controversy in our academic circles. If it wasn’t for Jerin’s late highly respected father, I’m fairly certain that he would be ejected from academia entirely.”
“Yet he was chosen to be among the welcoming party for your heroes,” Carson said.
“He shouldn’t have been there at all,” Leovis snapped, “There were many more applicants who were much more qualified for the position.”
“It took a lot of finagling on both of our parts,” Viandir ignored Leovis, “but we managed to convince the High Council that Jerin was the best choice. He certainly is the most knowledgeable of us all about the time the Evil One first rose to power.”
“Interesting. I’ll have to ask Jerin about this when he comes back,” Carson mused.
“Are you sure you don’t want to be a scholar?” Viandir asked, amused.
“Hey, I have no problem with research and other such scholarly pursuits. But you don’t want a scholar – you want a scribe. Cassandra’s barding will at least make our story interesting,” Carson said.
“So we’re actually going to go on this… quest?” Rainier asked.
“Well, we certainly can’t stay here,” Katryn said, “I have finals to write in a month.”
“And I don’t think I can get my child support cheques whilst in another world,” Lillian added.
“I can’t stay,” Cassandra said, “There’s no cell signal here!”
“Maybe if it was a space ship I’d stay, but, alas, fantasyland isn’t going to cut it for me. God only knows how much tv I’m going to miss from this ‘adventure’,” Carson shrugged as Jerin walked back in.
“Okay! Here’s the aptitude test and MusicTeacher snapped something about the muse striking her and that the Hero must wait her turn. And then she threw a plant at me,” Jerin said.
“Coolest. Teacher. Ever!” Cassandra gasped.
“Well, at least that explains why you have dirt in your hair,” Katryn rolled her eyes as Jerin gave Lillian the test, a bottle of ink and a quill.
“No, no, that’s alright – I’ll just use my pen here,” Lillian tried waving off the ink and quill.
“I’m afraid that you do need to write with this ink, Lillian,” Jerin said apologetically. He had already confiscated one of Lillian’s ballpoints and had fallen in love. So much neater and convenient than pen and ink! He planned on stealing another to give to EngineerGuy, one of the top engineers in the country. “The magic in the parchment reacts with a spell in the ink to mark itself.”
“Huh. Sort of like a standardised test with magic then?” Cassandra peered at it closely, “Have fun writing with the dip pen, mom.”
“Thanks,” Lillian said dryly. “That is very encouraging.” And, with that, she began to fill out the form.
Everyone was quickly involved in their own pursuits, something that Cassandra was very happy to see. Her mother, as always, was quickly involved in her project whilst everyone else seemed happy to be doing something they were far more suited for. Rainier looked positively gleeful to be carrying a sword, Katryn was going through the textbook – well, spellbook as they call it here – and correctin all of the errors. And Carson? Carson had managed to garner both Jarin and Viandir’s interests and thre three were embarking on a long discussion about life, the universe and everything.
Well, they were originally. The discussion got sidetracked once Carson had to explain why the answer to that question is 42. Viandir and Jerin just couldn’t get it.
And, so, Cassandra looked around sneakily. No one was paying her the slightest bit attention and she took the opportunity to flee. Like hell she was going to wait around for a flighty musician to show up – she was going to go explore the city.
Chapter Three
It took awhile for Cassandra to find the exit. She got out of the room perfectly fine, yes, and made it back to the Sanctum… but finding the exit in what turned out to be a palace sized building? Kind of difficult. After wandering around for fifteen minutes, she eventually stumbled upon a tourist group. She ever so casually snuck into the group and pretended that she was always there.
Surprisingly, it went off without a hitch. Sure, she got a few odd looks about her clothes, but nobody ever challenged her position in the group. Well, they were all tourists – people in strange clothing might be a common sight.
After half an hour of incredibly boring lectures on the history of the palace, Cassandra finally got into the lobby and quickly darted towards the door. Screw the gift shop – there was a whole world out there to explore!
Or, well, maybe just a driveway. A very, very long driveway. So Cassandra did what any resourceful teenager would do when confronted with a transportation problem in a crime free city. She hitchhiked. All in all, hitchhiking back into the city was pretty easy – just look pretty and a little bit lost and ashamed that you spent all of your money in the gift shop buying a present for your invalid mother who really wanted to come see the palace but ended up bedridden.
Once in the city, Cassandra quickly made her way to the shopping district. Turns out that, since it is the capital city that runs off of tourism, the local equivalent of the bus system is completely free. Cassandra suspected that the prices of the items for sale more than made up for the losses garnered by the bus system.
It was then that Cassandra discovered that humans weren’t the only intelligent life on this planet.
-
Silvanus was bored. It was a pretty slow day for stupid tourists and he hadn’t had much luck with pickpocketting. At this rate, he wouldn’t be able to buy that new gaming system after all.
You see, normally Silvanus is a pretty high profile thief. He goes for the big items – art and jewellery – and sells them on the black market. Problem with that is that is that it is very traceable. In the last city he was in, Silvanus was nearly caught and he decided that he best lay low for now. How laying low translated to pick pocketing tourists in the market district of the capital city of CountryName in Silvanus’ mind is a whole ‘nother story.
So. Silvanus was bored. That is, until he caught the scent of an unmarked human. Every cell in his body was vibrating with an unbareable want and he nearly staggered at the intensity of his desire. He had never felt such a bloodlust before – his more benevolent elven nature tended to balance out the carnage seaking sociopathic vampire self. This, he though, must be what human vampires always feel like. God. If they’re smelling this human too… there will be blood.
And, thus, having come up with a suitable reason to follow the young unmarked female, Silvanus darted hungrily, and sloppily, through the crowd.
It was his sloppiness that became his undoing.
-
Cassandra knew someone was following her. She couldn’t tell you how she knew; she just knew that she had a tail. Logically speaking, the people in the palace must have found out that she was missing by now – it was probably just some guards her mother sent after her.
Not wishing to go back just yet, Cassandra darted into an alley and then around behind a stall to double back. Several minutes after the feeling of danger passed, she finally relaxed and ventured out into the alley only to have her spidey sense to come tingling in on full bore.
There was someone there and their eyes were glowing. Frightened, Cassandra backed against the wall and out of the light. A gleaming smile with razor sharp fangs appeared below the glowing eyes. Cassandra whimpered a bit. Crime free? Crime free cities do not have glowy fangy creeps lurking in the alleys!
Cassandra ducked and cringed as the fangy guy pounced… but the thud that soon followed wasn’t due to a body hitting her. As a shriek and the smell of burning flesh began to fill the air, Cassandra dared to open her eyes.
In front of her, the most gorgeous guy she had ever laid eyes on – and that includes insanely beautiful and airbrushed movie stars – was holding a man’s hand in the sunlight – a smoking man’s hand.
“Holy crap! Is that a vampire?” Cassandra gasped.
“A human vampire, yes,” the gorgeous man smiled, revealing a mouth with rather elongated incisors. “I’m afraid that he’s been overcome with bloodlust – you should be careful if you’re going to wander around unmarked like that. You should stay in the sunlight.”
“I, uh, will keep that in mind,” Cassandra stuttered as Silvanus leaned forward and murmured something in the vampire’s ear. He then released the man with a rather violent shove.
“Go. And don’t you dare show your face anywhere near mine again,” Silvanus growled as the vampire fled.
“Wow. I thought vampires slept during the day,” Cassandra said dumbly.
“Most do,” Silvanus said, “It doesn’t make sense to sleep during the night when the sunlight literally burns the flesh off of your bones. There’s always a few wandering around during the daylight hours, however. Mostly the homeless like the one that assaulted you.”
“Oh. Not to be rude, but who are you?” Cassandra asked.
“I am Silvanus of Desirea,” Silvanus bowed slightly, “And, if I may be so bold, who might you be?”
“Cassandra LastName,” Cassandra said, staring as she got her first good look at Silvanus. His ears were rather big. And pointed. “Holy crap, are you an elf?”
“Yes. An elven vampire, to be precise,” Silvanus answered slowly. He was unsure of why Cassandra didn’t already know this – it is not like elves or vampires are particularly uncommon in CountryName after all. But, then again, her manner of dress and her wandering around unmarked was a certain sign that she was a foreigner. A very foreign foreigner.
“But… you’re standing in the sunlight,” Cassandra stated slowly.
“Yes. My elven physiology functions as a partial cure to vampirism – I do not possess nearly as strong of a bloodlust as the human vampires do and I can daywalk,” Silvanus explained.
“Wow. Um, you’re not going to try and bite my head off, are you?” Cassandra asked nervously.
“No, of course not. But I suggest that you stay with me – a human vampire would not be able to control himself around one such as yourself and there are not many elven vampires around to protect you,” Silvanus said magnanimously.
“Um, okay,” Cassandra said, still looking quite spooked.
“I should probably take you home. Where are you staying?” Silvanus asked.
“Ummm… the palace?” Cassandra said.
“Are you serious? You… you’re one of the Heroes, aren’t you!” Silvanus stared, eyes wide and completely shocked.
“Uh, maybe?” Cassandra said nervously.
“Then I must take you back safely,” Silvanus said gallantly, if a little over the top and patently against his nature. “I shall flag us down a taxi.”
“Um, thanks?” Cassandra said meekly. How was she going to explain to her mother that she managed to pick up an elven vampire on her unlicensed trip to the city?
–
“No, no, no!” Katryn said angrily, “You can’t do it like that – the units don’t cancel! You have to do it this way… and your value for gravity is totally wrong! 9.81 m/s is far more accurate than 10!”
“Yes, but when you’re in a hurry, like if you are in a battle situation – which you will be in, by the way – you can’t take out your slide rule and calculate those numbers fast enough,” Poehr shouted back. “War magic isn’t about accuracy and fine control; it is about causing as much damage as possible!”
“Who the hell still uses slide rules?” Katryn scoffed, “Situations like these are why I carry a graphing calculator on me at all times.”
“…Please tell me that you have a graphing calculator in your apron,” Carson said, “That would be so hot.”
Katryn ignored him and whipped the calculator out, “See, I have all common fundamental constants stored in here to the most accurate digit – to calculate the normal force I’d just have to type in this and press this button and… voila, the answer!”
Poehr stared.
“What?”
“You… just solved that equation to five significant figuress in ten seconds,” He said haltingly.
“Um, yes?” Katryn said, “It’s physics 101 stuff.”
“…May I have that calculator?” Poehr asked.
“Absolutely not! I paid 200 bucks for it!” Katryn snatched it away from Poehr and held it close to her chest.
“Wow, you really went for the best model available, didn’t you?” Carson whistled.
“Well, yes, you never know when such a thing will be necessary,” Katryn said.
“At a grocery store? Just about never,” Carson snorted.
“You’d be surprised. People often don’t believe me when I calculate their discount in my head. Whipping out the calculator to confirm my answer generally shuts them up quick,” Katryn says. “At least, it shuts them up quicker than it did when I just carried a 20 dollar scientific calculator on me.”
“And here I thought that I was bad buying the 50 dollar Wolfram|Alpha iPhone app. I’m still not entirely certain why I bought it…” Carson trailed off as Katryn’s eyes lit up.
“Oooh! You absolutely have to let me play with that sometime! Quick – turn the batteries off on your iPhone – I might need that app someday and I’d prefer it to be available,” Katryn commanded. Carson just shrugged and turned the phone off. It is not like he needed it on – he certainly wouldn’t be receiving any calls or texts anymore.
“You,” Poehr, “Will make an excellent war sorcerer. Are you certain that I can’t see that calculator, just for a little bit?”
“Ugh, here, you can take the scientific one,” Katryn rolled her eyes and pulled out another calculator and tossed it to him.
“…Okay, that just went from hot to pretty damn sad,” Carson said. “I can almost, almost see carrying around a graphing calculator but carrying around a graphing calculator and a scientific one? Isn’t that overkill?”
“Not really. It’s just that these pockets are bottomless pits – what comes in does not go out,” Katryn said. “I’ve got pieces of paper with work schedules from a year ago written on them in here.”
“And that’s not sad how?” Carson asked. Katryn opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by Rainier.
“We found Cassandra,” he said. “And she’s safe. And with an elven vampire of all things.”
“An elven vampire?” Carson asked, “This I’ve got to see!”
“Ha! Ten bucks says that she’s in lust with him – she was buying the damned Twilight soundtrack right before we all got sucked through,” Katryn said as she strode through the door. Carson followed close behind and the two trailed after Rainier.
Poehr stayed behind and played with the calculator, fascinated.
–
When Lillian first realised that Cassandra had gone missing (coincidently, it was about 10 seconds after she finished the last answer of the aptitude test), she panicked for about thirty seconds. After that, she got mad. Very, very mad. She had stormed up to Viandir, yelled at him for a minute and then whipped around and yelled at the rest of the room for another two.
Scary.
Very scary.
She swiftly bullied Viandir into organising a search party for her baby girl, whom was to suffer a long and painful death once she got her hands on the little bugger, and would have spearheaded the charge herself if it wasn’t for the fact that she didn’t know the lay of the land. Instead, she was stuck in the war room of the palace. And there, she paced. And paced. And paced.
When, an hour after the search began, Cassandra came back of her own violation, Lillian just about lost it. Swears, insults and queries about one’s parentage were exchanged as Cassandra and Lillian bawled each other out for being controlling and overprotective or reckless and entirely stupid.
Persumably they were arguing in a locked, soundproofed room.
Rainier, Carson, Katryn, Viandir, Silvanus and Jerin, however, could hear every word from the hall.
“Now I really want to know what she scored on the aptitude test,” Carson said revently, “surely it must be something epic.”
Viandir smiled. “She scored the highest in the healing arts.” The other four stared.
“Okay,” Carson said slowly, “I guess I can almost see that. I had this scary dentist once who yelled at me that I wasn’t brushing my teeth good enough. God knows what he’s on – it is not like I have any cavities or anything.”
“I don’t think I want her treating me,” Katryn said as a particularily creative insult was heard through the door in Lilian’s distinctive tone. She turned to the elf curiously, “So you’re the elven vampire?”
“Yes. I am Silvanus,” He said, eyes darting around rapidly. All of these riches! Surely they would not notice if he swiped a spoon or two.
“So how does that work – being an elven vampire, I mean?” Carson asked.
“I don’t have as strong of a bloodlust and I can walk in the sun,” Silvanus said. Again. It was rather boring to have to repeat himself to all of these humans, but, well, at least they only got to hear about the upsides of his vampirism.
“Basically he’s an elf that drinks blood,” Jerin said.
Okay, so maybe they do get to hear about the downsides.
“As an elf, he’s already faster and stronger than humans can ever be. But when you factor in the vampirism, he’s actually rather weak and slow for an elf. Vampirism is truly a curse in every aspect for the elvenkin,” Jerin explained.
Katryn laughed, “Wow, that sucks!”
Silvanus frowned. “I could still snap your neck like a chopstick, human.”
“Yeah, well, I could beat you over the head with this… stick,” Katryn shot back weakly.
“If you would stop arguing with Poehr over semantics, you could be blasting him with magic,” Viandir said disapprovingly. “I know that it goes against your nature, but time is of the essence. The same goes for you, Carson. You need to spend less time on academic pursuits and more on the practical applications of your knowledge.”
“If I wanted to work on practical applications, I would have gone into engineering,” Katryn sniffed, “I’m a physicist because I want to work out impossible, but ultimately pretty pointless, problems.”
“I promise you, once you beat the Dark Lord, you can spend as much time as you like on research. I am sure that the sorcerers would be happy if you stayed for awhile,” Viandir persuaded.
Katryn paused and pondered, “Alright. But I expect full access to all of your data once I fry the bugger.”
Carson shrugged, “Sounds good to me.”
“You do realise that you are going to have to mark them if you seriously expect them to go on the Destined Quest,” Silvanus said, “I mean, being so close to five unmarked humans is… intoxicating.”
Viandir frowned. “Control yourself, elf, or you’ll be forced to leave.”
“Oh, don’t worry. It isn’t my control that I doubt. It is the control of the human vampires. I already stopped one from draining Cassandra today,” Silvanus said silkily.
“They can’t be marked,” Jerin said bluntly, “It’s pretty clear from the old texts that evil can only be defeated by those that are pure. Anyone marked is tainted by the vampiric curse.”
“Oh, well. Good luck leaving the palace grounds then,” Silvanus smirked.
“They won’t have any trouble travelling throughout CountryName, Silvanus,” Viandir smiled.
“I doubt that. As much as the human vampires would like to seethe Dark Lord gone as well, they can’t control themselves around such tasty meat as those five,” Silvanus shrugged.
“They won’t have any trouble because you’re travelling with them to protect,” Viandir’s smile grew wider.
“Uh, what? No way. I’ve read the Prophecy and Its Interpretations. There’s an ice dragon in that quest!” Silvanus backed away.
“I don’t think you understand, Silvanus. It is either that or the stocks,” Viandir pulled a file folder and handed it to Silvanus. His pale features whitened even further as he read the contents.
“And if I go with them?” Silvanus asked.
“This file, and all the others like it, will mysteriously find their way into an open fireplace,” Viandir smiled beatifically as he took the file folder back. “Glad to have you onboard.” Silvanus said nothing. It was a moment of awkward silence as everyone simultaneously tried to look at someone and not look at them at the same time.
Carson was the one to break it. “Hey, it’s quiet!”
“Wow,” Katryn said, “That is truly observant.”
Carson shot her a dirty look. “No, I mean that the shouting has stopped. Do you think it is safe to go inside?”
“If you really wish to find out… be my guest,” Katryn gestured dramatically.