Aaralon tried his best to shrug off the sounds of sex and with steely determination made his way up the stairs. The tower was tall but it was narrow too and whoever designed it seemed intent on wrapping the spiral stairs as tightly as possible around the central column. The ascent was tiring but it just took a few turns before the sounds of whatever was going on below fell out of earshot.
"So you made it then," asked a tired old voice, "I can tell you weren't distracted by the level below. Why not? Are you stupid? Aren't you the hot-blooded young man I take you for? Some sort of wimp, are you? Too shy to spy?" All of a sudden the voice was sounding angry rather than tired.
Looking around Aaralon couldn't see anything. It was dark up here. Not even a single candle was lit and all of the windows must have their shutters closed. Then again, Aaralon couldn't quite remember seeing windows on the top level of the tower from outside. Uh-oh. Perhaps this wasn't a good idea. "Um, no... I'm not shy. I just wanted to see you quickly. That's all."
"And is that all?" snapped the voice, "You just wanted to see me? See me? Well young Aaralon, I think you've picked unwisely then. If I were to climb this tower just to see someone then I'd have chosen to watch my daughter entertain the minotaur. "
A minotaur! Aaralon couldn't but help imagine just what Sareth meant by 'entertain'. That's if the voice was Sareth. "Actually, I wanted to volunteer to go on a rescue mission. I heard that a local girl had been kidnapped and that we were going to help search for her."
The sarcasm was obvious, "Oh really? what makes you fit to go on search an adventure? Go on then. Impress me. Make it good."
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