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At the touch of the boiling
hot rain, Mia screamed again, running for the
doorway. Cale hauled Dais to his feet and shoved him out the
door, pausing to
allow the frightened woman out before taking his leave. Sekhmet
ground his
teeth against the scalding of the water against his skin. He
reached down
inside him, summoning his strength to move forward into the rainstorm
and grab
the imp. As his unprotected fists closed about the neck of the
creature, he
felt tiny, hardened claws rip into his arms, raking and gouging
furiously.
Sekhmet felt the other imp jump upon his back, pounding away with
puny, cold
fists.
Cye ran to help his friend, grabbing the ice imp from his back.
The imp was
only inches shorter than the smallest Ronin, and finding itself
so evenly
matched, promptly contemplated retreat. With a quick exhale and
a shower of ice
shards at the young man, the imp leapt out the window.
The ice melted in the boiling rain, before it ever touched the
Ronin. The
steam mephit saw its companion leave and gasped its displeasure.
Past Sekhmet's
ever-constricting grip on its throat it croaked.
"Garblufink, you coward!!"
Sekhmet tore the imp from the floor and threw his uncerimoniously
into the
refrigerator. The imp hit with a crack, shaking the fridge and
slumping to the
floor. The boiling rainstorm faded without the imp's steam to
sustain it. Cye
smiled at the Overlord as Sekhmet picked up the limp imp and joined
the others
in the living room.
"Selfless acts are becoming quite the habit, huh?"
Cye asked jokingly.
Sekhmet looked from the imp in his hands to Mia and the others.
"Yeah," he
replied in an equally joking tone. "I guess they are."
"Uh... what was all that noise?" Liza asked, coming
halfway down the stairs.
"And why did Whiteblaze and Ryo just take off into the woods?"
Sekhmet dropped the imp to go over to her. Cye looked at Dais.
Dais looked at
Cye.
"You don't seriously think I'm gonna pick that up?"
Cye asked. "It's nearly my
size!"
Dais grinned. "I wouldn't dream of it."
Liza came down the stairs all the way and went to take Sekhmet's
hand as was
her habit. Pausing, she gasped.
"Sekhmet, you're bleeding!"
Sekhmet looked at his arms, where the imp had raked and gouged
out furrows of
his flesh. He was, indeed, bleeding heavily. Raising his eyebrows
in mild
interest he made a frightening observation.
"I don't feel anything."
"ARTEMIS!"
Artemis was in deep meditation,
the kind of state that one takes when troubles
of the real world are too much and one has to get away. She was
oblivious to
the outside world, except of the pungent smell of freshly mown
lawn around her
and the texture of the grass that she lay prone and spread-eagle
in. Most
outside stimuli were just ignored by her, like the leaping of
an ice mephit over
her, and the pound of tiger's feet on the ground. Even Ryo, as
he jumped over
her, was ignored with the best of them.
There was only one thing she was conditioned to react to even
in her deepest
meditation. The sound of her name, called in fear and worry.
She didn't even
have to "hear" it, only sense that it was being called.
And from the sound came
the most sincere reaction one could imagine.
Artemis leapt to her feet, feeling, more than hearing, Liza shout
her name.
She ran back to the house, moving fleetly across the expansive
yard. Half of
her mind still lingered in meditation, giving to her urgency a
state of calm
placidness that couldn't be shaken. It was that calm that permeated
the air
around her as she entered the house and paused at the sight of
Dais, holding
suspended in air, the unconscious form of a steam mephit.
The same calm calmed Liza as Artemis moved over to where the
girl had forced
Sekhmet to sit down on the stairs. Artemis looked briefly from
the steam mephit
to the Overlord and could tell they had tangled in battle. The
skin of
Sekhmet's forearms had been burned by the boiling rainstorm.
Artemis took his
wrist and lightly ran her hand over his arm, waiting to see if
she would receive
a hiss of pain from him. Sekhmet looked at her without flinching,
but he was
exhibiting an increasing panic.
"Mia," Artemis said in a commanding tone. "Fetch
me some cool water and long
strips of cloth. Liza, go to our room and bring me the leather
pouch that is on
the writing desk beside the incense."
Both women ran off to do what was requested. Dais and Cale approached
her,
holding the mephit between them.
"Is there anything we can do?" Cale asked.
"Don't let that thing wake up!" Artemis snapped.
"Tie it with something that
won't weaken with water."
Dais jumped at her tone, so accustomed to hearing her speak gently
and s
oothingly with everyone. But he went with Cale to accomplish
the tasks, feeling
somewhat useful. Sekhmet watched them go.
"So the prognosis?" he asked quietly while Liza was
still away.
Artemis smiled. "It looks worse than it is." she
began. "You've had the
nerve-endings overloaded with sensory input. Kind of a.... a
shut-down of the
nerves." She stopped as Liza appeared.
Liza was back with with the leather pouch of herbs. Losing her
jovial smile,
Artemis dug through the pouch for a moment, coming up with two
small packets of
herbs. Handing one to Liza, she directed:
"Boil this in a cup of water, and let it cool until it has
a faint greenish
color."
Liza nodded and took the packet, hurrying to the kitchen to get
it done. Mia
exited as the girl entered. She carried a large bowl of cool
water and had half
a dozen strips of white cloth over her shoulder. Mia set the
bowl near Artemis'
feet and stood back to wait for Artemis to need the cloth.
Dunking the second packet of herbs into the cool water, Artemis
waited an
watched while a pale orange color seeped from the packet into
the water. She
swirled it around until the color diffused through out the whole
bowl. Looking
up, Artemis beckoned for one of the strips of cloth.
While she thoroughly wet the cloth, Sekhmet fidgeted and waited
in tense
silence. His arms were numb from the sleeves of his tee-shirt
to the tips of
his long fingers. He couldn't even feel Artemis begin to wrap
the cloth around
his arm. Liza came back when Artemis had finished both arms with
a small mug of
the herbal tea.
Artemis smiled and stood to allow Liza to take her place.
"Drink it Sekhmet," Artemis directed. "Then I
suggest you go to your room."
Liza hesitated at the glance she recieved from Sekhmet. "What
is it?" he
asked.
Artemis smiled, the gentle tone returning to her voice. "A
mild sedative...
you need to sleep to regain your energies." She nodded to
Liza.
Liza raised the cup to Sekhmet's lips and he drank the full amount
quickly,
eyes raised over the rim to Liza's worried gaze. When he finished,
Liza handed
the mug to Mia, and helped him stand. He carefully flexed his
hands, feeling
the tendons pull slightly but not the sensation on the skin.
Liza's arm slipped
around him and they ascended the stairs together.
"<Hyuck,>" the sound came from the mephit. "Now
doesn't that just tweak my
heartstrings... IF I HAD ANY!!"
It thrashed and twisted in its bindings of heavy chain, chain
that was left
over from pulling a treestump from the ground a few years ago.
It laughed and
jeered at the people gathering around it.
Artemis ran a hand through her hair and approached it. Dais
lowered his hand
slightly, lowering the mephit to eye level with the petite woman.
The
Underrealmer's gaze was hard and cold as she confronted the mephit.
"Why are you here?"
"Why should I tell you? Huh?" the mephit cackled,
writhing in its chains.
"Why should I even stay here when I could easily get out?"
"If you can get out so easily why don't you do that?"
Artemis countered cooly.
The mephit paused. "Because I don't want to." it finally
replied haughtily.
Cale chuckled.
"Hey, whatchu laughing at, scar-face?" the mephit twisted
to see him. "I could
whoop you with one ear tied behind me back!!"
Cale rolled his eyes, chuckling even harder. He pushed the mephit
causing it
to swing to and fro on the end of the chain by which Dais held
it.
"Don't tempt me." Cale warned.
Swinging back and forth, the mephit's grayish skin took on a
green tint. "Hey,
I get motion-sickness! Don't you have any respect for intelligent
life?? Wait,
you can't 'cause you don't know intelligence when you see it!"
The mephit found
itself extremely funny, bursting out cackling.
Cale wasn't the least bit amused. "Artemis?"
"I have control, Cale..." Artemis said, turning away
from the mephit. She
retrieved the orange-tinted water. "Do you see this, mephit?"
she asked.
"Yeah.... so it's diluted orange juice, what should I care?"
it asked,
squirming uncomfortably.
"No... not orange juice... water... laced with a tiny bit
of an anodyne...
pain-killer." Her smile changed to a grin as she observed
the mephit's
reaction.
It was a proven fact in the Underrealm, that a mephit imp lived
with the utmost
excruciating pain in the world. Being made of the psuedo-elements
of ice, lava,
steam, mist, smoke, or the element of fire, they mantained forced
forms and
those forced forms were painful to keep. But if the pain of the
form were not
present... each mephit would disintegrate into the component elements
of its
physiology.
The steam mephit visibly paled and trembled, taking upon itself
its craven,
"yes-master" expression of fidelity.
"Now, let's try this again... why are you here?"