Dragon (S)Layers Ch. 07: Visions

VII

Dreams and Visions

Sarah usually understood the difference between dreams ripped from the depths of her mind and those that just skimmed the surface.

This wasn't one of those times.

Despite countless hours of meditation and prayer, learning how to channel her deity's power into a mortal form and her own considerably grounded ego, she couldn't make head nor tails of her current situation.

She 'awoke' with a jerk, sitting in what looked in every way like a bank-- a very boring, very sterile bank. The room was wide and long with dozens of windows spaced evenly in the farthest wall at predictable intervals. Behind each half drawn pane of glass was a smart looking young person in a strangely cut suit that looked overly formal but had none of the ruffles associated with nobility.

Long queues were lined up from each window with dozens of different people from all races filling in the space between the velvet ropes. Most of them held scroll cases with the traditional red and yellow ribbon of a sacrificial offering to the Great Inventor. They were holding tickets and a brightly lit board over each queue displayed a series of 8 digits or more under a dubious "NOW SERVING".

That's when it hit her.

Oh, bollocks.

There was a tingling sensation in the back of her mind that told her she may as well have been sitting in the waiting room to get into hell, but it was the Inventor's Workshop she was in. The administrative portion, at least. There was that tell-tale tang of machine oil in the air and salient mutters about one design or another. This meant she was probably in for something that was going to be infinitely less than pleasant. Maybe they had finally decided to strip her of her powers.

Sarah slumped in her chair and braved the harsh lighting in spite of the pounding between her ears that told her she had drunk too much. The pain was a minor reprieve from the soreness between her legs, but not by much. That was right, she recalled, the dusky skinned girl with the 'good girl' fetish. The toy had practically split them both in half when Sarah had climaxed. She would need to tweak the gearing ratio.

The chairs that filled her portion of the 'bank' were put back to back and stuffed with several different men and women of different humanoid races-- some attractive, some grotesque, most of them somewhere in between. All of them looked bored. Some goblins lined a trio of chairs nearby and when one would kick their feet out the other would do so when that first one's feet came back to a resting position. They continued on like this for some time while they fiddled with parts of what looked as though they would have made a crude crossbow.

It took her a moment to notice that everyone had something in their hands that they were occupying themselves with. She was the only one who didn't have anything. Sarah leaned over to her nearest neighbor and whispered, "Pardon my interruption, but isn't that a locking roller?" She pointed to a small tumbler on the gnome's lock box. "Shouldn't that be half-cocked?"

The gnome looked up at her with bemusement. "Yeah." He sighed, "Yeah it should be. It won't lock and I don't know why. Mother will be so disappointed if I don't make something this year! She's going to kick me out, and all I have to show is this box!"

"Well," Sarah found herself curious. "What's it do?"

"It's a tentacle monster trap!" When Sarah arched her brow, the Gnome kicked his feet out to scoot forward, looking left and right before leaning in conspiratorially. "Tentacles, you see, my lady elf, are a scourge on everything decent! No one knows where they come from or how they subsist! But! We know that they're a menace to everything pure and just! A threat to purity everywhere!"

Sarah nodded slowly, mulling it over. "So you want to trap them." She pointed to the box. "In something the size of a jewelry box."

He must have seen her skepticism because he pulled the box back protectively and patted it. "By the Inventor it will work!"

"I have no doubt, dear, but don't you think you would need something bigger?"

"Well. . ." the gnome trailed off, considered his box. "It's worked once, I don't see why I need something bigger."

"Oh?" This piqued Sarah's curiosity. She had never seen a tentacle monster before. "Can I see?"

He looked around skeptically. "R- Right here?"

"Why not? Seems we're not going anywhere for a while."

The gnome shrugged and reached for the latch just as a young woman in one of those strange suits opened the door to what served as the tellers' windows. She looked directly at Sarah before she said her name in a tangy eastern accent. "Inventor Kettar, this way please."

"Just a momen--" was as far as she got before a sharp pain pinched the tip of her right ear. A little floating clockwork orb had materialized beside her at some point and when she paused again, a tiny stick prod came out and stabbed her ear again. She ducked away and batted at it. "You win!"

Sarah skulked over to the woman who lead her through a catacomb of chambers so perfectly built that they had to have been prefabricated. Each one of them was a picture of perfect symmetry and spotless, sterile. Cold.

Each of the chambers was ringed with workbenches and clockwork animatrons that worked on devices of indiscernible purpose, each no bigger than Sarah's thumb. When one of them would finish its task, it would deposit it into a chute beside its table. All around them the hum of running machinery and the tang of sulfur and oil filled the air as they traveled down the wide spiraling arc of the chambers' pitch. They went deeper and deeper into the bowels of the mechanical plane until finally they arrived at a silver clad door marked 'Kettar'.

"Should I feel special?" Sarah smiled to hide her unease.

"No." The woman replied flatly as she swiped a metal card through a slot beside the door. It opened smoothly to reveal a tiled office with three pieces of furniture; a file cabinet made of metal, a desk made completely of iron and a chair behind the desk. The chair was unlike anything Sarah had seen before and when the girl deposited herself in it, she reclined.

"Capital. Wouldn't want to get a swelled head or anything." Sarah mused, slipping in with a dubious glance around.

"Miss Kettar, I'm required to make it clear that this is an official inquiry, anything said in this room stays here but will go on record, as will your cooperation or lack thereof." The woman motioned for Sarah to stand in front of the desk, reaching in and removing a paper file holder which she placed atop the desk. "Before we begin, do you have anything to say?"

Sarah swallowed, eyed the woman, stood straighter. If she was going to face this, she could hold on to some dignity at least. "I can't imagine this is going to be favorable-- but might I know the name of the angel who will judge me?" Sarah eyed the woman with a slightly more lascivious expression. Dignity be damned, if she could cheat this, she was going to.

The woman wasn't particularly attractive. Plain looking, dull even in good light, but the way she had her hair fixed in an 'I'm a professional' bun told Sarah that she probably had a wild streak a league wide. Those girls were always the best kind-- easy to manipulate, fun when you were with them and didn't get clingy when you moved on. She could do this.

"Very well, my name is Lathanacoblaxiantoresinfoursixthreetwonine."

Sarah blinked. "Ah, of course! If only there were as syllables available for me to describe your beauty, my good woman--"

"Sarah."

Oh, dear. Sarah flashed a smile. "Hm?"

"I'm your appointed case worker. I watch everything you do. Let us get to the point, shall we?" She flipped open the folder and started cycling through the pages with startling efficiency. It wasn't a terribly thick file, Sarah noticed, trying to decide whether that was good or bad. "Is your native home still located in Desrol?"

"Ah, yes. . . That's where I took my vows." Vows, of course, that implied she had a choice in the matter.

"So no change. No acolytes, and your last invention of note was," she glanced up through the shadow of her bangs at Sarah. "Twenty eight years ago." The words hung in the air like an axe blade.

"I've been designing things, my good woman, many--"

"Let me ask you something." The woman reached down into the bottom desk drawer and pulled out a box that looked like it was made from stiff paper. She upended it and sent a cascade of dildos, buttplugs, anal beads, spreaders, gags, a harness device and a swing across the side of her desk. She patted the bottom of the box, peeked in and slapped it again. A leather horse cock dropped onto the pile with a meaty thump. Part of the internal metal skeleton was showing along with the actuator for the pump that would make it hard.

The two women locked gazes. Sarah held her hands out in a gesture as if to say 'and?' The younger woman picked up the horse cock which flopped lip in her hand and bobbled this way and that. She gave it a firm shake and it slapped the back of her hand. "What part of this says "I am a priest of the Great Inventor?"

"Could you do that again?"

The girl glanced at the toy and dumped it back in the box. "It has been nearly three decades since you made anything of value--"

"I object to that remark. There are plenty of people who have need of that little spark in the bedroom--"

The woman cut her off. "That might be true if you sold them. Making money is not a crime, it spreads the message of your patron, or have you forgotten, cleric?"

Sarah felt naked under the woman's gaze and for the first time in a very long time she actually blushed.

Lathana sighed faintly, turning another page. "I know you're long lived but we-- I am beginning to loose my patience with you. It is only because of the Inventor's belief in you that you still have your powers at all; if it were up to me, I would have stripped you of everything long ago."

"Fortunately it isn't," Sarah grabbed a mental foothold and stepped up to the desk, trying to get control of the situation again. "I have-- and continue to-- serve Him. Despite what your file may say, my devotion to my patron has never wavered."

At Sarah's approach, the woman slid the file back and closed it, clasping her hands over it as she eyed the half-elf. "The only devotion you have is to yourself. Ever since Ithric was killed—"

Sarah slapped her.

Hard.

She didn't realize what she had done until she felt the sting in her hand.

The woman turned her gaze back to Sarah with an angry red hand print across her cheek. "I rest my case. He's dead. Get over it."

She should have apologized, she should have got down on her knees and begged for forgiveness, instead she opened her mouth and cursed the most profane thing should think of in Sphinx.

That got the woman's attention. She narrowed her eyes. "You were a prodigy in your time, Sarah, for some reason He still has faith in you, but if you don't show some result, I will convince him that you're not worthy of the title of Inventor." She sat back in her chair, taking the file folder with her. Her gaze roamed Sarah with skeptical, hard eyes. "It's staggering to think that the same person who invented repea-- Er. . . Ignore that. That hasn't happened."

Sarah opened her mouth but Lathana cut her off, seeming to have gotten her anger under control.

"There was nothing you could have done differently." She dumped the file folder in the desk and sat forward to meet Sarah's gaze. "The ship was perfect in every way. The sails, the ballast, the gas you used and even the steering was in tune. You didn't waste a single drop of sweat, stop beating yourself up over it."

"It was never about the damned ship!" Sarah winced even as she felt the scar peeling open. She couldn't let this go. Not now. Not here. No. Struggling to get herself under control, she stood up and paced away from the desk. "Have you ever been in love? Can you even feel love?"

"Of course."

Sarah looked over her shoulder. "Oh? Tell me then," she used the Sphinx word for cherub, relying on the link between the two races in her patron's hierarchy to carry the rest of her meaning.

The woman shifted, clearly uncomfortable that Sarah had access to such forbidden knowledge. Sarah smiled to herself. Served her right.

"Go on, you have no qualms of digging your hooks into me, yet shy away when it's done to you?" Sarah started towards her again with renewed confidence.

"I'm engaged, that hardly means anything to you-- do you even have the slightest concept of propriety any more? Do you even think what you're doing to your patron's image pleases Him? This spoiled brat that you have become is a far cry from who you could be again if you tried."

"So what? How would you feel if you lost your--"

"Find an immortal lover, just do something with yourself, you fool!" Lathana jumped to her feet. "I am giving you five weeks to show me you are worthy of His power and if you don't I will suspend your access!"

"B--"

"Enough!" She bellowed. Sarah shrunk back from the sudden force of the woman's power as it burned her ears with the rage of hell. "Do this, cleric, or I will banish you to the abyss myself!"

Sarah skittered back holding her hands up protectively. "All right, all right. I understand."

Lathana planted her hands on the desk and sighed. "One more thing." She said in a soft, caring, voice.

"Yes?" Sarah swallowed.

"Stay away from anchors. . . The knots won't slip next time." They shared another look and a sudden chill came over Sarah. Before she knew it, a hole opened up in the floor under her and she was falling. She screamed and reached out for anything to catch herself on. Above her was a murky sky casting dim light through a sheet of water. The heavy pulling of a weight dragging her down father, faster-- cold water wrapped around her absorbing her scream.

And then Sarah was awake.