Recent content by Marta Maisal

TEMPLE OF THE EVERBURNING FLAME "I do." A somewhat guilty smile came across her mien, and she added then, "Last I recall, the apothecary in question is locked and secured, its owners having retired to their home to weather the storm. I believe we shall require your strength to breach the...

TEMPLE OF THE EVERBURNING FLAME Marta stood with Grigori at the precipice of the Temple's grand front doors. Outside awaited that foretold Dark which had swallowed the sun and denied them the day, those flames and their attendant lights as could be seen from the frames of windows—the spectacle...

THE TEMPLE OF THE EVERBURNING FLAME Emergency hospitals had been set up in both the Southern and Northern Refectories in the Temple. All of the dining tables and chairs in each of the large rooms had been pushed to one side, and cots set up all throughout their length. Gild's Penitents...

GILD THE TEMPLE OF THE EVERBURNING FLAME "What is it?" said Priest Madrissal. "A trap," said Priest Farajal. "No," said Marta Maisal, "I do not believe it to be so." The three clergy of the Church of Jura stood in the office chambers of Priest Madrissal. He had been the one to receive the...

IN GILD Marta watched the Regulator depart and mount up on his own horse. She suppressed the anger, the resentment, the frustration, the sorrow and so many other emotions brought swirling like a whirlpool in reverse up to the surface of her being. No one man better represented the central...

IN GILD Boesarius Terral was certainly not her favorite person in all of Gild. Theirs was a first meeting, some ten years ago in the War College, characterized by ice and enmity. Some things never did change. She tolerated him for the sole fact that he was here among others, and common among...

IN GILD Marta stood by the Western Gate, along with a few dozen horses and their handlers all arrayed in ranks and columns for a swift departure once all was ready. She watched as the summoned Praetors arrived one-by-one with their gear, and in this her heart was split almost as if cleaved in...

IN GILD "Then let us hurry," Marta said. And before they began, she felt compelled to add, "And Grigori? Thank you. It is an honor to act in Regel's name with you." She was aware, by some small remarks made here and there by Bashrahip Mustafa, of the troubled times through which Grigori...

IN GILD At last was she able to speak! Even that small matter of seconds seemed an interminable torture, what when she knew that time of was the essence and no less than hundreds of lives at stake. "Praetor Irene Savashal and her mission stand on the precipice of catastrophe! They know not...

IN GILD Thank Regel and all the Saints! Of all the Praetors Marta could have chanced to encounter first, perhaps there was none more suited to the task at hand than Grigori Mikhal. He was a hero of the Ommite war, and though the war itself ultimately saw Gild signing an unfavorable truce...

IN GILD Priestess Marta Maisal hurried up the steps and into the Temple of the Everburning Flame. Through the vestibule she ran, alarming the guards posted there, and into the grand rotunda, the great central chamber known as the Heart of Jura which housed the Everburning Flame itself. The...

To Bashrahip Mustafa Junnal, Priestess Marta Maisal reports that she has entered the town of Exeter, north of the Falwood of Liadain. Already have I encountered several Letai in my travels, yet (sadly, I will add) none have been receptive to the flame of Jura and the light of Regel. Ajam ways...

In short order did her dinner arrive at her table: a modest serving, with no meat portion tonight. Marta finished most of it as the dancers danced and the tavern's general revelry continued. She unshouldered her satchel and set it on the table from it produced a quill, an ink bottle, and a small...

"Very well," said Marta after a small moment's consideration. And with a parting cordiality she added, "Enjoy your evening..." she knew not even his name for a proper direct address, and so improvised, "...and may what is good be yours." With that she stood from the stool at the counter...

"Fun?" Marta glanced off for a second toward the tavern dancers, they who reveled in life, they who were experiencing a joy and a pleasure far closer to the questioned word, and then back to Garrod. "But if it is my opinion of the poem that is the question, I shall give the answer. Far from...