Snippet #1618556

Pandora was having a bit of difficulty deciding what to do. Then again, she tended to dither about what to eat for dinner (assuming she had a choice) so this probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She was fairly certain that Ishtar was not bluffing, and did in fact know that the both of them were lying. This was honestly impressive, because even though she had known that Victoria wasn’t telling the truth, she’d almost believed her anyway. Maybe she was just gullible or something.

Setting her teacup down, the mage fiddled with her hands, trying to decide exactly how to handle it. Really, she wanted nothing more than to run for the door and never come back. Since that was definitely not a possibility if she cared about the city even a little bit, she was left with two choices: try (and probably fail) to lie again, and fess up. Her natural predisposition to honesty pretty much decided for her, but she shot Victoria an apologetic “sorry-I’m-messing-this-up-so-badly” glance before turning back to Ishtar.

The words of a conversation from the day before came back to her. Just before she’d left, Loki had pulled her aside. After waving off all Pan’s meager attempts at formality, the princess had left her with a real thinker: “if it all goes to hell, just blame me. This is all my fault, and mine alone.” The sentiment was one that Pandora understood to be rather selfless, though she doubted Loki would ever admit to that much. She wasn’t sure she personally could do it though.

“We were sent here… to gather information on the rebellion. The princess wants to stop it before too much blood is shed,” she offered almost guiltily. This whole business felt horrible, really, but at least she believed what she was saying this time. “I’m the only mage she knows who would do it, so it had to be me. Victoria is just here to make sure I don’t get myself into any trouble I can’t handle, really.” She paused, waiting for some kind of reaction, maybe an attack, she wasn’t sure.

When none was immediate in coming, Pan at last had some odd inclination of an idea. “But… if you wanted to trade information on Gilgamesh, does that mean you knew already?” Gilgamesh didn’t outwardly have anything to do with magi; he was a man who hated them with great fervor, actually. So why would Ishtar know so much of him? It was suspected that he was pulling strings, of course, even she knew that, but how closely was he watching over the result?

“I did not know, but I suspected,” was Ishtar’s reply. “There are precious few people who would risk what it takes to stand against that man; you and your allies among them. As for myself, well… I like to think that I might as well.” There was a contemplative look on her face as she said this, but it soon smoothed out. Standing, the woman went to a corner of the room and tapped the wall a few times until she got a hollow sound, then moved aside the wood paneling and withdrew something from within.

Returning to her seat, she spread the rolled parchment for the two others to see. A strange symbol was etched into one corner of it, but the rest was taken up by a roughly circular map that seemed to map an underground network of passages beneath the city. “Sewers?” Pan asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Sewers, yes, but not all of these passages carry waste. Gilgamesh holds his prisoners here-” she pointed out a place beneath Alpha, and though Pandora would not recognize it as such, it was almost directly below his mansion- “And when he’s ready, they are taken here.” Her index finger traced a pattern down to Beta, indicating what appeared to be a dead-end passage.