Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I see." Carda wanted to cry. "The damn Council," he muttered. "All high and mighty, playing God with the lives of people, stripping the souls right out of people who dare to disagree..." Carda clenched his fists. "Never mind. It's not your problem. This is something I need to do myself." Carda was determined that no matter what had happened in the past, things were about to change. He was not going to sit idly by and watch the most important people in his life be stripped away one by one.

But he was right. It was something he had to do himself. This was his conflict, and he had no right to haul anyone else into it.

"Why ARE they doing this to me, anyway?" he whispered to himself.

Carda smiled wanly. "Thanks. That means a lot to me."

He sighed. "It's difficult to even remember last week without wanting to hurt something, but I think I can restrain myself. You remember how my teacher was exiled as punishment for so-called heresy? Well, what's supposed to happen is that they strip away your magic, leaving you a normal person again. Then they send you to your homeworld and place a guard on you so that no other Striders can ever make contact with you."

Carda started to tear up just from the memory, but he remained in control of his emotions for the time being. "I discovered that for some reason Xironielle had been exiled to MY homeworld instead of hers. At first I thought that maybe there was some extenuating circumstances, you know, like there was some reason why she couldn't be exiled to her own world... I decided to risk it. I had to get in touch with her. So I sent Seraphim into the house where she was staying..."

Carda was desperately trying to avoid breaking down in front of Sosiqui, but it was becoming harder with each word. "Seraphim said she was sitting there with a blank stare on her face, completely oblivious to anything going on around her. That's when I knew that something was wrong, but when she said that she couldn't see Xironielle's soul..."

Carda couldn't take it any more. "You see why I had to quit now?" he sobbed, tears streaming down his face. "If I don't do something soon, I might as well have signed her death warrant! I can't live with that on my conscience!"

Carda just stood there, not saying anything else. Seraphim did her best to console him, but it didn't do much good. Carda was in too much grief to respond to much of anything.

Seraphim piped up from her perch atop Carda's head. It somehow seemed like too silly a place for her to be, considering the scene, but it was where she chose to be, and that was that as far as Seraphim was concerned.

"It was Xironielle. I made sure to ask the Lord of Light if it was really her, and He said it was."

"They put her soul into a sword," Carda managed through his sobs. "Don't ask me how I know, I just know. I have to get into the Strider Armory, get that sword, and get back to Xironielle before her body withers away to nothing."

He sniffled. "But you're right about one thing. They wanted to get to me. They used her as bait to get to me, but they didn't want to make it obvious. They wanted me to slip up so I could get caught doing something I wasn't supposed to do... But WHY? I don't get it! What is it about me that is so important to them that they would strip the soul from my teacher? Heck, I'm starting to think that they had something to do with Michelle's disappearance!"

Carda shook his head. "I don't know why this is happening to me, but I'm the only one who can do anything about it at this point."

"Well, the Armory is constantly under surveillance, but Xironielle's body had about... I dunno, maybe four or five guards around the house. As for your other question, Striders can only detect spatial distortion. Time is completely out of our league. I mean, the magical undercurrent can be felt, but aside from that, it might as well be a fairy sneezing for all we know. The only reason I recognized your magic for what it was that first time I saw you in that alternate Gaia was because of this necklace..." Carda stopped short as a thought occurred to him.

"Oh CRAP."

"Why didn't it occur to me before? OF COURSE. They wouldn't dare go after a kairomancer, but if they had a piece of a kairomancer's power... Combine that with the power of a Strider, and..."

Carda looked up. He couldn't see Seraphim but he could feel her still sitting atop his head. "Seraphim, what would happen if someone had the power to control time AND space?"

"You'd pretty much be able to do anything you wanted to but of course the only One who has that much power is the Lord of Light-- HOLY CRAP!"

"You took the words right out of my mouth, Seraphim."

Carda turned to Sosiqui. "I hope you've got some sort of plan, because I think I just figured out why I'm the Council's target."

Carda began scratching his right forearm absently as he talked. "Okay, this is bad. VERY BAD. If they ever figure out that that piece of you died, they'll start looking for another one of you. And they'll probably track me down to do it, because they'll think that I'll be searching for--" He froze as he realized what he was doing. "Crap, I'm being watched."

Rolling up his jacket sleeve, Carda could feel the entire signet-shaped scar on his arm itch like a colony of ants were marching over his skin. "There's someone nearby using spatial distortion to hide themselves," Carda added nervously as he began looking around for something that didn't look or feel quite right.

Another thought shot to the surface of Carda's consciousness. "My headband!"

"I left it at your house," Carda commented. Carda glanced down at the scar as he continued. "Okay, the headband needs to be destroyed. Sentimental value be damned at this point. As for this," Carda added, indicating the scar, "I don't even remember how I got it, so I have no clue how to get rid of it. But we have to sever any connection that other Striders might have to Gaia. If they ever discover that that part of you died, they'll try to track me down under the assumption that I'll go looking for another part of you. They probably assume that that part of you knew more than she did and that she told me everything... How they found out about you I don't know, but-- Bingo. Gotcha, sucker."

Carda had been talking the entire time to cover up what he was really doing: using his detection sense to pinpoint the spatial distortion that was causing his scar to react. He spotted it over by a tree across the way; the telltale shimmer of distorted space was as good as a warning flare to Carda. He opened a tiny spatial portal beneath his staff, the other end of which was located just a couple of inches above the spy's head. Carda then casually rapped the ground with his staff, which instead of hitting the ground, impacted the top of the spy's cranium. Space snapped back to normal as the Strider lost his focus and collapsed to the ground, blissfully unconscious.

Carda grinned proudly at Sosiqui.

"Well, the first thing I'm going to do is find out if I know him. Then you can do whatever you like with the slimeball."

Carda walked over. Strange, the long black coat and floppy hat seemed familiar... He rolled the unconscious figure over on its back and promptly recoiled in shock. He was suddenly sorry that he had called the guy a slimeball.

His own face peeked out from under the hat.

Carda felt like he was going to throw up.