The woman worked hard to deal with the rules of the Synod. It was very frustrating in that she could only do part of the work she normally did. It was frustrating that she couldn’t explain what was going on to those of her friends that were concerned about her. She still had no voice.
The man and his friend worked hard to make things right, but the monster Jejune was very clever. It hopped from one person to the next to spread the poison of boredom and hatred.
The Synod met a week later and made even more rules than before. All the woman could do is sit and listen and do her job. It hurt. All of their work compounded the spell, which still affected the woman. The man had tried to make her stay home and heal, but she was honor bound to abide by the rules the Synod had put in place. She couldn’t afford to just quit. She couldn’t quit because the Synod would only do this to another person if she couldn’t figure out how to stop the nasty hateful spell or the monster.
Then disaster struck the Conservatory. The monster, Jejune, dripped nastiness and made people lazy. It made them not care about their work. Workers dealing with the plumbing in the Conservatory didn’t check everything and water flooded part of the Conservatory. The man discovered the problem, and raced to tell people who could fix it. He had a terrible time of it because people wanted forms filled out in triplicate before they’d do anything. He finally yelled loud enough that someone heard and sent the same workers back over to fix the problem.
Meanwhile, the woman got all the work ready to be moved out of the Conservatory. She knew it wouldn’t be safe to work there. All the power was turned off. So, after packing up all the work she could, she went home and went to bed.
A few days later, the Synod wanted her to go back to work. She was responsible for finding a place to work. She and the man asked in all the government offices in the city. No one had room for them. They kept looking, and finally asked a scholar who helped the farmers and ranchers in town deal with the kingdom to the North. He said he had a place for her to work. He gave her an office in the corner of his great hall. The man helped the woman move all of her stuff into the new office. It was a quiet place most days with just the scholar’s housekeeper for company.
On occasion, a member of the Synod would come by to see what the woman was doing. She always made sure to make herself look busy, even if she wasn’t. It wasn’t her fault that there was nothing to do. However, she didn’t want to get yelled at because she wasn’t doing anything. It was very tiresome.
The woman began to realize that there was very little she could do to hurt the monster. She needed the people to wake up and fight it themselves. However, she didn’t give up.
The man and his friend worked hard to make the Synod understand how wrong they were, especially when it came to how they treated their friend. She was doing her job, and would never have done things without permission. However, the member of the Synod that liked to yell, kept setting traps for the woman. She dodged most of them, but on occasion, she tripped up. Then the man who yelled would be gleeful.
The workers didn’t do a good job of cleaning up. In fact, they just shut the doors and left the Conservatory to mold. This was horrid as the woman wanted to be back in her office. She realized that if the Conservatory didn’t get cleaned up, that she might never get back in there. The Synod said that they cared, but they just stood by and let Jejune delay the workers and confuse the people testing the Conservatory into believing it was better to keep it shut up tight. Instead of mouldering on the outside like a tomato or a loaf of bread, the Conservatory was mouldering from the inside out.
At that point, the woman realized that she would never be able to do the work she should be doing. She would never get back in her building. The Synod was making more rules that were just stupid. Jejune had done such a good job that the woman realized that the only way to fix the Synod and the people poisoned by Jejune was to let them totally break. She couldn’t fix them because they didn’t want to be fixed. They had been broken for so long that they didn’t know any other way to live.
They had broken the laws. The woman realized that they had broken lots of laws, and the best way to deal with that was to no longer work for the Synod. This was a very hard decision. Another friend of her’s had given her information on how to tell the Kingdom in the North of the laws broken and she intended to do so. She knew that she would have to look for a new job. However, anything was better than this half life she’d dealt with for the last month.
With the help of her friend, they devised a plan. So that the Synod or Jejune would not suspect nor try to stop her, they stopped working together. The man and his friend took their swords out and practised until they were very good. The woman worked as she could and tried to make everything look normal. In truth, she was figuring the best way to quit.
The Synod had a meeting. They couldn’t hold it in the Conservatory. It was too moldy. Instead, they had it at a cafe where there wasn’t a lot of seating. This meant that there wouldn’t be many people at the meeting. This was fine with the woman. She was ready. She had crafted a spell of her own. Not a big one, but a very clean one.
During the meeting, the two men kept their hands on their swords to be ready in case Jejune showed up or the other members of the Synod decided to be cruel or stupid. They drew them twice when things got rough. People settled down quickly when they saw that the two friends had no trouble standing up for themselves.
When the meeting was almost over and the Synod had re-written the rules yet again, the woman stood up to present some information. While she started to talk, the man who liked to yell began to work a spell. He was waiting for the woman to finish so that he could cast it. The man saw what he was starting to do and nodded to his friend. Both men put their hands to their swords.
The woman got to the last of her information and then cast her spell. It struck the Synod perfectly. The two men were safe because the woman had crafted it very cleverly. Everyone else was struck dumb. While trying not to smile, the woman sat back down and waited for the end of the meeting. They had no choice but to listen to the woman and her request to work for a fortnight as was the right of her agreement with them. They had no choice but to finish the meeting. Most of all, the man who had the spell in his hand wiped it off quickly as it burned him. All of his plans had come to naught.
That night, the man, his friend and the woman talked of what had been wrought. They weren’t sure if it would hold, but it was the honourable way to end this travesty. The Synod could rot in their own little nastiness. The woman had two places to look for work and although she was scared, she knew she had done the right thing.
When she went to bed, she didn’t cry herself to sleep. She snuggled deep in the covers and slept well. She knew she could live with whatever the Synod or Jejune tried to do to her over the next fortnight. The woman had done what was honourable and right. Letting the rot kill the Synod or Jejune was the best revenge.
