>>5573318The Tower door opens, and a stripe-suited mage-servant stands there—the same one as before, you think?—with two Tower Guardians clad in blue at either side, one wearing a taller hat and the other glasses, and each carrying a staff. They are male, and human.
“It sseemsss that I mussst go,” you apologize. “It wasss a pleasure, Misss… GUARDIAN Parham.”
“Uh, well…” she says, seemingly surprised at the eloquence and elegance you’ve demonstrated in your brief conversation. “You can call me Annabelle, I guess. Weird to have you calling me by my title and last name when I don’t know yours.”
You smile—keeping your mouth closed, and squinting your eyes slightly. The expression seems to confuse her, but at least she doesn’t recoil. Your imitation of human happiness still needs work, evidently.
“Until nexxxt we meet, Annabelle.”
You and your fellow Reptilian infiltrators follow the male Tower personnel at a slight distance, quietly speaking the True Speech amongst yourselves—something you can pass off as foreign dialect, you hope, if you are overheard.
“You did quite well,” Olu says graciously.
“That was repulsive,” Roth notes dryly.
“But effective,” Olu asserts. “I think the Tower Guardian was quite smitten!”
“She was being polite,” the elder Infiltrator snaps. “Gah, young males in rut, I swear to the Dark Gods they will be the doom of us all.”
As you speak, the three of you and your two guides ascend quite the precipitous staircase, spiraling up and up as if to touch the sky. It is enough to even begin to tire you and your Archer, travellers and warriors of great renown though you both are. Roth is visibly winded, and needs to stop once or twice.
“You two do not ssstruggle with these ssstairss?” you ask the mages guiding you, neither of whom look terribly physically-inclined. “How isss thisss?”
They exchange a glance.
“Trade secret,” says the Tower Guardian.
Human magic at work, no doubt. Not evocation, though. Are they augmented through fleshweaving, perhaps? Wearing enchanted accoutrements? You peer at them through your third eye and accompanying sixth sense, but see that both have been warded against such scrying—a powerful defensive magic. You could probe deeper… But no, you would risk tipping them off.
Besides, you are here.
“The Archmage awaits,” you are told by the Guardian in glases, who takes up a vigilant stance to one side of the portal.
“You will not be joining usss?” you ask.
“No need,” the one in the tall hat says, with a grin as malevolent as you suspect yours comes across. “Try anything, and the Archmage’ll turn you into a newt.”
“Or inside out,” the bespectacled one volunteers.
“Or an inside-out newt,” the tall-hatted Guardian concludes.
“Ah.”
