City surrounding Justice Keep
Noon, January 18, 795 TSR

A horrid chill ran down the keepmaster's spine. He thought that the chill might be good; he might want to keep his spine as flexible as possible since the man standing before him looked as though he might break it at any moment. He wondered why the man had been admitted past the front gate of Justice Keep in the first place. He must be important. He looked important. He looked dangerous too.

Sage Advisor turned away from the servant who had been doing his best to be helpful, but had not been. Sage almost felt bad for him. He did not usually let his frustration show outwardly like this, but the circumstances of the situation had brought him out of his usual norm in ways he was constantly discovering and trying to control.

He headed back towards the inn where his company of apprentices was staying the night and considered his options while he walked. Indoru was not here. They had never heard of him, in fact. Maybe the study-mage had decided that life at Justice Keep was too taxing for him. He had always been sort of lazy. Or maybe he was dead. Sage didn't have time to hunt him down. He could possibly head for New Avalon, though that would take several days and he was already concerned about time. He could continue to look for a mage here. Surely Justice Keep had another study-mage, but Sage's prestige was not what it used to be and he was not sure that it would take less time to filter through the Dantimosian bureaucracy than it would to reach New Avalon.

Then, oddly, Sage was on the ground. There was no danger, but he had bumped into someone. He should have sensed the person, but he had not. Whoever it was, it was laying on the ground next to him, collecting itself.

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Kiara shook her head and noted the warmth of the Xidana against her flesh. Somebody important was nearby. Also, somebody had just knocked her over. Collecting herself, she noted that it must have been an accident, because the fellow was next to her on the ground himself.

"Are you alright?"

He raised his head and responded, looking her in the eye. Quite. And you? There was something eerily familiar about that voice. And his eyes.

"Yes...say. Might I ask your name?"

Why should you want to know a silly thing like that, stranger? I hope you're not thinking of sending some sort of note of apology. It was obviously an accident on both our parts.

"What was...oh, that. Yes. Say." It wasn't his eyes, it was his complexion. They didn't match. "You...you aren't from here are you?"

That depends on where 'here' is. You know, I really have to be going. If I've damaged any of your possessions I can certainly pay for them.

Kiara got up and Sage noticed the sun glint off of something on her exposed shoulder. That chain looked familiar. He had seen one just like it, recently, but on.... Sage grabbed the chain and yanked it off of her. He was not sure what happened next, but he felt a jolt of mana glance off his shieldward.

Where did you get this? You should not take things that do not belong to you. Sage was examining the bright red jewel that did not quite look like a normal jewel. The woman had not responded.

Kiara realized, frustrated, who this man was. She hoped she could resolve this, but now that she understood the situation, she thought that she would be able to without much trouble. First she needed to retrieve the item before Sage Advisor hurt himself. She stepped back and concentrated.

Sage Advisor glanced up to see what this thief was doing now. She appeared to be meditating. He felt a pain in his hand and turned back to the medallion. It was glowing bright bright red now, and he could barely look at it. It was most certainly burning him and he let it go, but shifted his ward aura to contain it. The medallion started to shake, which was odd, because it shouldn't have been able to move within the ward aura. Then Sage was on the ground again. The medallion had shattered the ward and shot back towards the thief-woman who had caught it in and was starting to say something. More dangerous than he had anticipated. But he had only seen a medallion with a jewel like that twice before in his life and he knew that it was no mage who had any idea of what it could do would be carrying it around the streets of Justice Keep. Sage shifted his ward to an ward-attack and prepared to gently rotissere the thief.

Kiara sighed. Nothing was ever easy. She hadn't thought that he would try to kill her, though, and was almost caught off-guard by the ward attack. Almost.

Sage raised an eyebrow. The thief-mage-woman had raised the medallion and somehow absorbed the ward attack. That was definitely not good. She obviously did not know what she was meddling with.

Kiara attempted to speak again. This needed to end immediately. They were attracting far too much attention. She tried to explain herself, but found that Sage Advisor had implemented a voice ward and was starting to draw magepouches from his cloak. Gagh! Obviously, he did not know what he was meddling with.

Sage was contemplating a localized earthquake, when a hand impossibly burst through his shieldward and knocked him comatose. Kiara dispelled the voice ward, collected Sage's body and nursed her bruised knuckles (from breaking one of the world's best shieldwards). Sometimes, the old-fashioned way was best.