A KEEPER’S APPRENTICESHIP

This was my original synopsis document, where I wrote a brief summary of the plot to remind myself of its lines as I wrote the story. I never finished the story, but this synopsis is what went off to Black, and the base for his excellent conclusion to my lacklustre start. Enjoy!

The Hammerites are building a new temple, a temple that is unfortunately on top of the only entrance to the Keeper Compound. The Keeper Compound is home to the Order’s immense library, and also most of the dormitories, workshops, classrooms and training areas. To make another entrance would be difficult, but it must be done. The Keepers have decided to leave the entrance sealed, but to create a secret passage in the designs that will allow them to access the entrance if the need arises. However, there is only one design for the plan, and it is kept in a locked safe in the centre of a Hammerite installation. The plans are impossible to break out without leaving a trace, but there is another option. By making a duplicate set of plans and swapping them on the building site whilst the work is in progress, there will be no trace of the exchange.

Unfortunately, the plans have been printed on distinctive paper, and with the aid of a mechanical printer. The mechanical printer is in a printing workshop that is controlled by the Hammerites. If the Keepers can sneak in, alter the plans, and print the new ones, then there will be no need to painstakingly forge the plans. Keeper Tyball has been chosen to infiltrate the printers, with an aged member of the Order who has the skill to successfully forge the plans. The old man was once a Hammerite, who was recruited into the Order after seeing one of them during the events at the Barricades. Also breaking into the printing works is a young Keeper Acolyte, named Garrett, who is in the final stages of his tuition. The job proceeds flawlessly, the forger replicating the plans and printing them in the machine, a vast construction of metal. Being stationery, it is powered. However, Tyball is not proficient in operating the machine, which cannot be stopped and soon explodes, alerting guards outside. The guards attack and pursue three fleeing shadows, and catch up on the old man. As Garrett reaches the window, he turns to see the old man run through with a sword. Dead, through Keeper Tyball’s mistake. As he leaves the print works burns to the ground behind him.

The next week, Garrett and his mentor enter the construction site through the concealed entrance, and make their way to the site office. The makeshift building is patrolled by Hammerite guards, even at this late hour, but the two Keepers find their way in. However, once at the office they find that the plans have been moved, and are now in of the completed rooms of the temple. The Hammerites have built the dormitories already to provide accommodation, and the plans are in the room of the Master Forger supervising the construction. Garrett and Tyball manage to slip into the dormitories, and finally make their way down to the Master Forger’s room. There, the man asleep in the corner, Tyball picks the lock on the safe open, and replaces the plans.

They get back to find that there are serious problems. There have been unanticipated difficulties sealing the entrance, mainly due to the power conduits and sewers that run through it. The Keepers need more time to bypass these sewers and conduits, running their functions through others. Garrett thinks that he and his mentor are to be sent on this mission, but in fact they are to go on another. The project needs to be stopped in a way that will not seem suspicious. Keeper Tyball and Garrett need to break into the burrick house where the animals are kept in between their stints in the cranes, and add gas crystals to the burricks feed. These powerful anaesthetics send burricks into comas that can last for several months: time enough for the entrance to be concealed. The two break into the house through a grate in the floor. They emerge in the burrick house, and are thus able to easily access the food supplies. They break the crystals into the feed, and then head for the main entrance. The way in is one-way only – the switch to the sewer is controlled from the main office.

On the way to the gate the pair are forced to hide in a room, where they find a young boy, who has snuck in and fallen asleep. Garrett sees himself in the thin, starved boy, who will soon die if not fed. Tyball refuses, saying that to help the boy would to be something other than an observer. They move off again, and Garrett is fuming at the heartlessness of the Keepers. The apparent refusal of the Keeper Council to punish Tyball for the mistake he made at the printers, which resulted in the death of the old man, further infuriates him. As they slip through the halls, Garrett takes his leave and makes his way into the manager’s office. There he takes loot and the manager’s dinner. Hastening back to the boy, he finds that the boy is already dead – if the food had arrived earlier, then the boy might have lived. Garrett resolves to strike out on his own, to return to the streets as an independent thief. He takes the loot with him, and then makes for the front gate. The two guards there fall victim to his skill at concealment and with the sword, and from one of them he takes his bow and quiver.

Stepping outside, he hurries off to the half-remembered streets of his upbringing to find a pawnbrokers he once stole from. From the shadows outside the door to the burrick house, Tyball watches. The laws of the Keepers are strict. One whose heart is clouded by anger or sentiment cannot be a Keeper. However, Garrett is not angry with the Keepers, but at Keeper Tyball. There still might be hope for him. He hurries back to the Keeper Council.