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[Choose Your Own Adventure] Tales of the Evergrave

Heartsteal

Heartsteal

That guy who's not around much right now
  • As has been done at least once before here on RPNation, I'll be attempting to run a CYOA story, which will be operating via a poll. In the poll I will ask questions, which for now will only be to clarify which sort of character we will be following in this adventure. Bear in mind that it is most certainly possible for this character to perish, and should they, we will begin again from character creation while each character learns a little bit more of the world, and accomplishes more, or less, feats of merit.

















  • A common misunderstanding, is that Dragongraves are simply one location.A Dragongrave is the resting place of the last age's greatest beasts; the Dragons. The Evergrave is largest of the Dragongraves, lying just outside of Dracmarsh. It is generally accepted that the Dragongraves are impassable, so few remain who are foolish enough to hazard the journey across them. None of these are yet charted.


    Dragongraves are the resting places of a dragon's bones, the Evergrave being the greatest of these. While a Dragongrave is often for a singular dragon, the Evergrave is hundreds of miles across, and houses the remains of dozens of dragons.








  • Any priest, or other member of the faithful, can take up an oath of zealotry, at which point they may be forgiven of any sin, and swear what is left of their life to a cause. Upon completion of this cause, a Zealot must leave this world, and kill themselves. A zealot may bear whatever arms or armour they please, so long as they wear a golden mark of their deity plain for all to see upon their chest. While this is a place of high honour among the faith, those outside see it from another angle. Free of sin, many zealots tend toward criminal paths while they move to complete their goals, and will kill anyone who seems to be a nuisance, imagined or otherwise, and take what they need without payment.






  • A popular folk tale, teaching the lessons of travel, and life on the road, "The Starving Vagabond" focuses on a wanderer, usually a greying man, though it also tells of a woman heavy with child sometimes. This particular tale is often remarked to have been the prime inspiration for the Milestone inn's construction.


    The story of all men can be told with strokes both broad and fine, much like paintings we are. In this particular tale, we look upon the portrait of a man in his middling years, everything lost to a blaze set upon his farmstead.


    The farmer-turned-vagabond stumbled up the roadside, his feet bare and bleeding, wearing little more than rags that were once well cared for linens. Hungry for more than memories, the man's stomach rumbled with an alien noise, and he was stricken down by the pain of it.


    Struggling to his feet, covered in dust, the man saw the jumping light of a fire, one set by a camp. Uselessly the man searched his pockets, he'd had no coin for weeks, and no food for near as long. He searched anyways, praying to all the gods, named, and unnamed, knowing he would find nothing.


    The man's feet wept, but he refused to do so himself, and slowly shuffled his way up the old dirt road to the fire.


    At the fire was a small band of merchants. On seeing the vagabond they wrinkled their noses, and bid him be gone. Ignoring their demands, the man crept closer, begging for food, scraps, anything. He would lick the embers for the grease of their rabbit if he must, but the merchants' guardsman struck him.


    The blow sent the man reeling, spots swam in his vision, and he saw naught but blackness. Some time later, the man opened his eyes again, and while he felt as though waking from a dream, it wasn't so. The merchants had dumped him in the ditch across the road, and put out their flames for the eve.


    Thinking better than to try his luck with the merchants again, the man slowly dragged himself back out of the ditch, and continued down the road.


    The night began to grow cold, and the man clutched at himself as he shook, hoping to find some warmth in himself, but the chill had set in his bones, and he was helpless.


    Ahead was the light of another fire, a smaller one, but still certainly better than what he had. As he approached, the man could see a single figure limbed by the light. On the figure's chest was a gleaming symbol, all in gold, a priest's sign of office.


    Thank the gods, the man wept, feeling that his earlier prayers were answered. As he approached though, the man saw that this was no priest, it was a zealot bearing arms and symbols of holy office. His beggaring words caught in his throat, and the zealot said nothing, though the look he directed at the man could wither an oak and dry rivers.


    "Why do you taunt me so?" the man asked of the sky, and of whichever gods dwell within them. The man had moved beyond sorrow, and bordered on anger, though his body was so wracked by the pains of hunger he scarcely had strength enough to shout, let alone rage.


    Rather than dwell, the vagabond stumbled on, dragging his feet which had long since stopped their crimson tears.


    Too weak to carry on, the man collapsed in the road, his body denying his every command, leaving him with little more control than to twitch his fingers. The night passed, and the sun rose.


    The tracks of the zealot's plated boots carried through the dirt alongside him, and so too did the prints of the merchants' horses.


    Then, laying in the morning sun, unable to move, the man wept openly, tears streaming from his face into the roadside. He was wracked by sobs so sharply that he didn't notice he'd been cast over in a shadow.


    "Who goes there?" the man asked, unable to turn himself far enough to see the one blocking the sun from him.


    "It is I and no other," a voice replied, sharp like flint.


    Rough hands rolled the man over, and he could see the other man who'd spoken to him. No doubt this man was a bandit, and the vagabond grew fearful.


    "I've nothing to be stolen, please, do not harm me!" the vagabond begged, unable to do any more than croak the words past dry lips.


    The strange man looked affronted, and said no more, but set the vagabond back into the dirt.


    "Please, please don't kill me! I don't wish to die!" the vagabond continued to beg, unable to stop the stream of tears that still ran down his cheeks.


    "Nobody     wishes to die," the bandit laughed, still out of sight, rummaging about it sounded like.


    Then he came back, back with a handful of hardtack and berries.


    "You can have these, and y'see these berries? They're safe to eat, all over the place around here," the bandit said, crouching down to give them to the vagabond, then left without another word.


    Stunned to silence, the man couldn't utter a word until the bandit had long since gone. His prayers had been answered, and the man had enough to survive, and the knowledge he needed to avoid the situation a second time.


    Where the rich and pious ignored his plight, the one he'd expected to dash his head on the hard dirt was the only one to help, and for the rest of his days the man sought out his saviour to give thanks, but never found him, instead satisfying himself to help those in need before him, as had the mysterious bandit.









  • Evocation is the most complex of magicks, drawing power from the world's wells. These wells also happen to be the sites of the Dragongraves. The closer an evoker is to one such place, the more potent their spells become.


    Evocation causes hallucination universally; any evoker gradually mistakes their surroundings more and more for the lands of a Dragongrave. Some evokers take to calling the dragon-bones in these imaginings, "Sleepers' Bones".


    A powerful evoker is capable of some feats of noticeable magic, though very much simple in reality. One may implant a base urge or concept upon another living being, so long of course, as they remain unaware of the intrusion. Even mundanes with sufficient focus can easily shake off a charm, hex, or other feat of evocation; causing it to backfire on the caster in varying degrees of severity.


    Only those few with "Talent" may become an evoker, as only they possess the mental fortitude, and innate connection to the Dragongraves required for such spellcasting.









  • painting-tutorial-photoshop-noble-man-02.jpg



    His Excellence, King Isador is the current ruler of Lyrennia, and is generally well-liked. His judgements fair, and decisions wise, few have reason to call the King into question.








  • Largely seen as a myth, the Carrion Fraternity is a group of known slavers said to work dark magicks, and some say their home is in Vosgi.


    More recently, a sect of raven-badged individuals surfaced in Lorewind, many of whom were rumoured to be capable Evokers. Some argue that being no slavers, these were not truly members of the fraternity, but rather impressive copycats.








  • The kingdom of Lyrennia is reasonably prosperous, and is at peace with its neighbours, as they are with theirs. The lands are currently ruled by King Isador Blythe as a strict monarchy.




What is it that happens in our world? Nothing, not anymore. Hundreds of years ago the last of the dragons died out. In those days, we were something, there was excitement, there was terror. Now we're left with little more than shadows of nightmares, and the evil of mens' hearts. What though, lurks in those shadows you might ask? What man may truly say that he knows the answer to that question? Perhaps all of us have an idea, somewhere deep in the back of our mind, we're all aware of what exactly creeps just out of sight.
 
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The Milestone Inn

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Late in the evening, amidst the vast and empty Lyrennian countryside, there stood an inn atop a hill. From the inn, naught could be seen in any direction but untamed land, and a long stretch of dirt road, reaching in all directions like the legs of a great spider, all the way out to the horizon. The inn itself was nothing over special, it was possibly the wealthiest establishment in the kingdom; besides Lorekeep's academy and the King's seat itself at least. It was this building, tilted with age, and sprawling in all directions like a cluster of mushrooms at all the extensions built onto the structure.


A raucous call of laughter rang out across the plains, seeming to roll over the gentle hills as though with a life of its own. Despite the size of it, and that every room was open for rent, the Milestone inn was full, as it ofttimes was. Outside the inn, and all along the roadside opposite, travellers were camped, several fires gently burning, dark forms crowded around them all, telling stories, sharing gossip, and a good few even making trade.


Inside were those who'd been rich enough to purchase a room from others who had arrived earlier, and those who'd been too stubborn to sell the comfort of a private bed. In the common room, nearly size of any rich lord's manse, a great wooden stage was filled by mummers plying their trade. They played the story of the starving vagabond; usually reserved as a campfire story when winding down for a night's sleep, though they made a good show of their act.


The story was not one for laughter, but for quiet observance, though one of the actors had burst his laugh, harsh like a hound's bark, and the sound certainly matched his face. No doubt the man mostly played bandits, murderers and rapers in their stories, not an enviable position, but someone needed to play the part.


Barely a hushed whisper came from the inn's workers, all running about, busy as bees while they tried to serve all those in the common room, several even scampering about outdoors for those huddled close to the entrances.


As the show came to a close, and the vagabond got his meal, patrons began to return to their places of rest, whether it be behind wooden door, or beneath starry sky.


While the mummers collected their coin, only a handful remained in the common room, all with rooms, though not rushing to get to them, all for their own reasons.


In the corner, a thin man sat with his back to the wall, looking generally suspicious, one good eye darting from side to side every few moments, as though he expected to be seized at any moment. The wiry man in the corner had an angry red scar, barely healed, stretching from his scalp, near the entire way down his face, splitting his lids near into quarters. Beneath that rent lid lay a milky white eye, dry and blind, no doubt it was glass as such a vicious scar over the eye rarely meant the orb remained intact. With a crook of a nose, twisted to an odd angle, and brows like iron wire, the man looked himself a thief, or at the most a low-payed assassin. The truth of the matter however, he was a tailor, and the callused fingertips told of that, as did the extremely well-kept cloak he wore, not a thread out of place. Why the man was so worried toward his safety however, was a private matter that he'd not revealed as of yet.


In the middle of the room, looking as though she'd just woken, and perhaps she had seeing the number of bottles and flagons the staff carried off from the table through the night, was a woman, travelling alone, with skin tanned the colour of chestnuts and hair black as pitch. What she wore was more hint at what the woman did while the sun shined however, a coat of fine steel rings, dull and unpolished. At her hip the woman wore a strangely shaped sword, one that a sheath could never have been made for. The blade pitched unnaturally far back, forming a near crescent, though the edge was polished to a brilliant sheen, and looked as though a hair couldn't rest on its edge without being cut in twain. This woman was not birthed of Lyrennia, and throughout the night she'd shown to have a very limited grasp of their language, instead speaking in an odd, guttural language from the back of her throat. Despite her drunkenness, the woman had been enraptured by the mummers' play, as though she'd never heard it before, though that seemed nigh impossible, the story was so widespread that all had heard it at some point.


The other, sitting near a window, was a young man, barely into adulthood by some counts, sat with a distant look about him. While he wore the boiled leather of a fighter, and even bore an arming sword, and even dagger on his belt, something about his posture said he'd never used them. Gold of hair, and blue of eye, the young man was the very picture of hopeless youth. While he'd entertained all those who'd sat with him throughout the evening, something left the boy dissatisfied, as though he'd been looking for something. While he'd held more conversation that either of the others still about the room, it seemed that he'd kept more secrets than either, but what exactly were his secrets if he even had any?
 
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Maral Sevan Torosian

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While the two men in the room silently grumbled amongst themselves, more like to themselves rather, the tanned woman had a smile spread across her face that only liquor could perfectly sculpt. The drinks here were so sweet, so new; flavoured with fruits and honeys rather than the bitter brews she was used to. With flushed cheeks and a full bladder, Maral made her way upstairs, thankful that her room had a chamber pot to itself.


It was hard to believe that already she'd been in this strange land for two months, but unless the moon had changed when she'd crossed the sea, Maral couldn't debate it.


Stumbling while she tried to cross the common room, Maral drew looks from the workers, and the other two patrons still in the room, though an indecipherable drunken murmur sent their eyes elsewhere.


The chill of this land was so very different from Vosgi, where every night was a warm damp, and every day was a sweltering sauna. She couldn't complain though, apparently the teeth-chattering cold forged folk into excellent smiths, much like the flame and hammer did for steel.


Inebriated footfalls negotiated their way up the wooden stairs, and Maral only needed the help of her hand on the steps above once before she crested the top, and got to fumbling with her key.


Someone passed by behind the drunken foreigner, but she was far too slow to turn in time to catch sight of them as they slipped into another door just two over.


Shaking her head to clear it, and instead being greeted by a floor spinning beneath her and black pools swimming in her vision like great, vicious jellyfish.


Falling into the frame of her room's door, Maral struggled with the lock for a short time longer until two more pairs of feet came up the stairs behind her. While the math certainly seemed odd, she didn't bother to trouble herself over it, instead keeping focused on the little metal lock that seemed to dance around her key like it was a merry old game.


A wordless curse growled past the Vosgian woman's lips, more like the croak of a toad than the snarl of a hound she'd intended it to be as the key snagged in the hole, then jumped free of her hand.


"This child-key, no fun am I having," she mumbled in butchered Lyrennian whilst she bent to scoop it off the floorboards.


With key once more in hand, and a few more moments of clumsy fingers, Maral had her door opened. Once inside, thankfully there was a sturdy deadbolt she could pull, much simpler for her drunken hands.


The rest of the way to her bed was a blank spot in memory, though when she woke face-down on the floor while the sun rose, Maral supposed there must not have been anything after that.


Painstakingly peeling her face from the enamelled wood floor, Maral looked up to the blindingly white plane set in her wall, which she knew from the night prior was in fact a cheaply made sheet of glass, set in a rectangular hole in the wall to give some semblance of a view to the room. There wasn't much to look at though, gentle hills covered in grass mostly, though there were some farmhouses a way down, though she had no idea what it was that they grew.


While the pain in the base of her skull was nigh blinding, the pressure in the bottom of her belly left Maral much more urgent as she scrambled to pull the bedpan from beneath her cot.


Morning trivialities dealt with, Maral stepped from her room, and on looking around behind squinting eyes in the hall, she saw the door from last night, two rooms over, was slightly ajar, though any thought reserved for it didn't come screaming to the fore immediately, and instead she slowly made her way down the stairs, back to the common room.


Downstairs, there were no more mummers, all's the shame, but there was an intoxicating smell coming from the kitchen, the smell of a local cuisine she'd come to love since travelling to Lyrennia, potato stew, which no doubt was being brewed with the leftovers from the night prior.


Catching one of the table-waiters by the arm, Maral made a clumsy request for the breakfast, "Stew, my liking very much. Please?"


This language was so bizarre, all treated like song, the words coming from the tip of the tongue, so very lacking of heart behind their syllables.


Regardless, learning the tongue was not an optional affair, and the Vosgian woman would need to grow accustomed to it, or just suffer through with her limited vocabulary.


It would be some time before the young man she'd taken hold of would return judging by the hasty bows he'd made on departure, though he'd spoken far too quickly for her to accurately catch wind of the words he'd chosen. While she chose a table, of which there were plenty, Maral began to judge on what she must do next. The night's pay would only cover breakfast, so it would be best to leave before luncheon, but what to do?
 
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Nowhere in the common room could Maral see either of the travelers who'd last left on the night prior. While there was no true significance with them, just other wanderers on the road, she couldn't help but feel that something was amiss, and that was when the events which had transpired that evening clicked together in her now sobered mind. Three had been seated downstairs, but four came up, who was that fourth?


Considering the jarred door she'd seen on waking, the Vosgian woman wondered if it were merely a coincidence.


The thought niggling at the back of her mind, Maral decided to forget the manners she'd been taught as a child, and jammed her nose firmly into someone else's business. Rising from her seat at the simple wooden table, Maral walked back up the stairs, and was shouldered past by the scarred man from the night prior, a grim look about his face.


He must not be fond of mornings, she'd thought, ignoring the slight, and climbing to the second floor. A little way down the hall was another flight of stairs leading up to the third, but those weren't of her concern, the room before them was, its door still open just by an inch.


Approaching the door, Maral realized that the door had no lock, as the plate where it should have been was missing. Curious, the innkeeper had boasted to great length that their every room was always open for rent, and every room had a lock all its own, yet this one didn't.


Through the tiny opening in the doorway, nothing could really be seen, inside was black as pitch, apparently it hadn't a window like her own room had.


Gently the Vosgian woman knocked on the heavy wooden door, not something that could easily be broken down to be sure. There was no response, and so Maral gently pushed the door open to naught but the sound of metal gliding over well-oiled metal.


As light from the hall spilled into the room beyond, Maral could see that it had been torn apart, at least figuratively so. The bedding was tossed carelessly to the corner, the bed upended, and the small chest for guests' belongings was wide open and empty.


In the middle of the floor was a traveller's bag, much like the bag of her father's personal alchemist. Inside were a number of small vials, filled with all manner of herbs, roots, grasses, nothing too atypical really. At the bottom of the bag though was a small cut, and beneath it she could see another open space, a hidden compartment. Lifting her head to glance about the empty room, ensuring no one else was looking, and finding herself satisfied, seeing no one else, she reached into the hidden compartment. Some wiggling of her fingers was needed to widen the gap, it must have been torn in some haste when the bag had been opened, as the hidden compartment was still full, though small as it was, it only had one tiny box inside.


Pulling the box free, Maral examined it in the light, made of a dark wood, and with no apparent seams. A strange little case it was, heavy like iron, though obviously crafted of wood, and making a perfect square on one face, the entire width of her palm. While it looked like heartwood, these sort of things were not Maral's field of expertise, and so she tucked the little box away for now, muttering a brief apology under her breath in her native tongue. Wherever the owner was, the box was obviously safer with her than it was in that little bag where anyone could take, and even had taken the box.


Peeking into the hall, Maral saw no one else, still abed most like, as it had been silent outside the room through the entirety of her snooping.


Figuring that by now her soup ought be ready, the Vosgian woman quietly tiptoed back to the stairs before realizing that she was being completely foolish, and stood herself upright once more as she set down to the common room again. Sure enough, on the table she'd been at before, a bowl of milky looking soup was waiting, and steaming in the early morning sunlight, a worn wooden spoon beside the trencher of hard-crusted bread.


A smile spread across Maral's face at that, the trencher was probably her favourite part of Lyrennia yet, how clever they were to make plates that one could eat. After happily gobbling up her stew, Maral found herself quite surprised that no one had come rushing down the stairs, yelling about their room. Starting to nibble at the trencher, Maral started to doubt that the room's owner would say anything at all, and ended up sitting around for quite some time, simply waiting. As other people descended from the second and even third floors, Maral watched them eat, and leave. She'd long since finished her trencher, and the time was gradually approaching noon when Maral decided it time to leave.


Where to go though?


The road spread in many directions from here, and unfortunately the Vosgian woman hadn't the foggiest idea where her destination lay. Hours it took, wandering around the many camps, asking in her fragmented Lyrennian which way, and even what the name of this city, which she could only judge to be little more than legend based on the responses she'd gotten, which were usually little more than an odd look, and an occasional laugh or derisive remark that she hadn't understood.


With the sun slowly crawling toward the horizon, and her stomach rumbling, Maral was forced to set out late, nearly at dinner on the Westward road, having made no progress in asking for directions. On the West road, the sun was at least before her, and no dark shadow danced in the dirt before her to cast loose stones in darkness, conspiring to trip her up. The same would not be said of morning however, when the sun would be at her back.
 
As the sun began to kiss the horizon, slowly plunging the world into night, Maral finally relented to her stomach's argument, and fished in her pack for a moment, producing an apple she'd bought the day prior, and a chunk of hardtack the size of her fist, still whole and roughly square. Eating while she walked, just beginning to cramp in the legs, Maral reflected on the box she'd acquired earlier that day, the peculiar little square of midnight-dark wood.


Jamming the nearly cored apple in her mouth to more readily rummage through her pack, Maral sought out the strange box, and in short order found it. After awkwardly wriggling the travel bag onto her back once more, Maral turned the little box over in her hand while she took another bite from the apple, nearly out of flesh on it now.


The crimson light of sun's setting glinted from the corners of the box, well polished, but naturally so, without any wax layered atop it, just the natural woodgrain visible on it. Fumbling about with just one hand for a while, then both once she'd finished her apple. Nowhere did the box depress, there was no hidden button or moving parts like the puzzle boxes her father had always been so fond of selling, from another land, further South even than Vosgi, though she'd never learned its name. What was its purpose then?


As she wondered over this, inspecting the box until the sun had fully descended beyond the horizon, Maral eventually gave up on it, and packed the trinket away, and laid her bedroll down at the roadside, nestled between some small hedges, and a farmer's fence. While the puzzle weighed on her mind, it gave Maral no trouble when she bedded down, though the hard earth and Northern chill did.


When the sun rose once more, casting a golden glow over the countryside, including the tan woman bitterly cursing over the cold, hard earth she'd slept on.


Slowly, with plenty of ache, Maral packed her bedroll away again, and shuffled through the roadside hedge she'd slept beside back to the road. Once her feet were firmly on dirt again, away from the tall grass, she leaned back, both hands on hips, leaving her bag in the road. As she did so a series of pops rang out, resounding from the base of her spine all the way up to the bottom of her shoulder blades.


"Excellence," Maral breathed, making the conscious effort to speak in Lyrennian, as she needed to become more acquainted with the motions of the bizarre language.


The day passed slowly, a breakfast consisting of another piece of hardtack, and a piece of salted fish Maral didn't know the name of, and many hours of uneventful walking, seeing the gentle roll of hills pass slowly by her.


When the sun hung high in the sky, Maral found herself approaching a small wood where there was a bend in the road, beginning Northward.


The trees here were as strange as the local tongue, all clothed in needles rather than leaves, all in green so dark they were nearing black.


Normally the shade that the canopy gave would comfort a traveller, especially one on foot, but the sun didn't bear down here the way that it did in Vosgi.


While thus far her day had passed without event, but a few minutes' walk into the wood, and Maral could see a wagon blocking the path ahead, with a queer tilt to it like it were missing a wheel or two.


As she drew closer to the wagon, Maral found herself somewhat discomforted by the small crowd of people to its side, worrying over something. By the look of them, the group were little more than merchants on the road at best, and only two among them bore leathers and steel, probably sellswords, hired to protect the wagon and its cargo.


Coming near, one of the folk ahead notice the foreign woman, and hailed her with a greeting, stretching his hand high over his head to be certain he was noticed.
 
Looking to the left, at still trees, and right, at yet more, Maral looked to the man who'd hailed her again, certain she was the one who was being spoken to. He didn't look particularly roughened by the road, though it was sure that he hadn't bathed any time recently, and nearly within a day's walk of the Milestone. Regardless, lingering on the road with several unfamiliar people, whether they be trying to lure her in or not seemed dangerous, joining herself to prime robbery targets.


"Hail! Good morrow..." the man called, though he trailed off at the end, as though he weren't sure what to call the Vosgian woman.


To his call, Maral merely raised a hand unsurely, in complete honesty, she wasn't familiar with the word morrow.





"Essannet uhorrĕ? Oïael," the tanned woman asked in reply, greeting the man in her own tongue and asking what was wrong.


"Wurryet ĕ maïachell?" she continued, asking if they needed help, yet he just stared, slack-jawed and confused.


"Uh... no?" he queried more than answered, though it was more than enough for Maral, who simply shrugged with off-put expression about her face, and went to step by the man. Something in him made the man step in front of her again, his face still befuddled, unsure of what he was to do next. He bore the stubble of a few days spent unshaven, and this close, Maral could even catch wind of his breath, which was nigh rancid.


Put on edge by his interception, more aware of the eyes on her, Maral made to step around the man, hoping there had perhaps been some confusion, more than she'd cultivated at least. Yet once again he stepped in the way, though his face was angry now, and he drew a deep breath through his nostrils, lips sucking back over teeth almost in slow motion as Maral realized what exactly was happening. To the left of the wagon, where she'd made to go, Maral could see blood spotting the undergrowth, drops fallen upon it as though a bleeding man had stumbled through it, and there were fresh marks from steel on the trees around; there had been a battle here recently. Under the wagon the Vosgian merchant's daughter could see the boots these travellers wore, hard-heeled and steel-toed, much to heavy to wear over a long journey. It was then that time shifted back into focus, as though it had needed to crest a hill on its path, and now things roared past almost blindly.


The man who had called her pulled a knife from the back of his belt, but his draw was wide, slow, and the blade protruded from the back of his fist. In that instant, of all the things she could have done in defense, Maral did as she'd done with her brother as children, and jammed two fingers from her hand up his nose, and lifted, her other hand clasping over his wrist, stopping the blade fast. He screamed then, almost a shriek as a smith's hands hauled straight up on his nose, lifting his weight onto his toes. When his scream died, and the disguised highwayman gulped back a mouthful of air, Maral's knee acquainted itself with his crotch, and in that instant before his stomach emptied itself, she shoved the man away, leaving him to retch in the dirt beside the wagon.


Thankfully, while she'd not gotten by the trap freely, Maral had put the wagon between herself and the other bandits before they could descend upon her.


Despite the time she'd earned herself, it was only a moment, enough to loosen the blade at her hip from its loop, though nothing more. Half facing these attackers, Maral could see that there were five, though two didn't wear weapons, and stayed back. At the fore though, were three men, two in boiled leathers, a sellsword's wear, the other in a roughspun cotton shirt, though by the black patterning on his arms, he seemed as though a shirt such as that was one rarely worn. One of the leathered pair bore a spear in his hands, one with a wicked barb behind the head, a weapon that wouldn't be pulled out once it'd stuck in its target. The other, a broadsword that'd been belted to his hip, dinged and chipped from use, though his grip with the thing was steady and comfortable. The big man, to the back however, held between two meaty fists, a woodsplitter's axe, stained with blood both new and old.


To the back were two women, with the milky skin of Lyrennian folk, though they didn't flee once the men turned their backs, so Maral assumed that they were along willingly.
 
There was little time to make a decision, and Maral found her body moving before she even made one, taking a long stride toward the roadside beside the spearman. The highwayman however, trying to bring his weapon to bear in such close quarters, failed to bring the point toward her, and instead pointed a kick for her stomach to make some space between them.


At the end of her stride, Maral made a short pirouette, her sword twirling around her head before it lashed out. The spearman's kick connected, but not near quickly enough, as it barely budged the foreign woman, the curve of her sword hooking the one foot he stood on. In an instant, the bandit was on his back, and the curved sword dove down in reverse, the point biting deeply into his chest through the boiled leathers he wore.


He began to cough violently, blood spurting from the wound in his chest, and gushing from his mouth.


Killing was nothing overnew to Maral, when she worked as a shipment guard for her father, she'd been forced to do as much several times; on occasion, to other members of the crew, though usually it was rabid animals tearing into shipments of food, or foreign thieves trying to gain some material wealth from the Vosgian merchants.


The other two men came forth then, sword and axe both threatening violence. Maral crept backward softly and slowly, backing off the road into the forest, and it was then that both bandits charged, or rather, the big man did, and the one in leathers followed after. With a roar, the big man swung the axe for all that he was worth for her head.


In that instant, Maral ducked low, bringing both knees near to her chest, and whirled again, her entire body below the northman's chest, and her sword spinning with her, the blade seeming to form a cutting circle around her.


In an instant, the Vosgian woman was past her attacker, his entrails spilling to the forest floor after his stomach was opened. The third man then, was the last to handle, his chipped broadsword moving clearly, though the fear was evident in his eyes by now. Seeing two friends die so swiftly must be unnerving to any, but Maral was running on instinct right now, breath coming fast, and her eyes seeing but not knowing.


The sword came down while she came up, and her own blade rushed to meet it.


When steel met steel however, the sound of it came, and with it, the broadsword shook to pieces, a couple inches snapping off the top and shooting into the dirt as if fired from a bow. A trail of hot pain flashed down Maral's arm, straight across the forearm, but it barely registered as she forced both arms crossways, pushing the straight sword away, and driving her elbow into the man's ear. There was a crunch then, not unlike a melon dropped from on high, and the bandit stumbled sideways into the bushes with a yell.


Without so much as looking, Maral stuck out at the man while he fell, paring away the leathers, and much of the flesh beneath.


Emerging back onto the road, the first highwayman had gotten his feet beneath him again, and was awkwardly walking her way, his groin obviously still in pain.


"Girly-man, hello," Maral said pleasantly, a smile finding its way onto her blood spattered face. Strange, she didn't remember the feel of blood on her face before now.


He looked horror-struck, and dropped the knife from numb fingers as he saw what had been an intended target emerge from the wood, more or less untouched, and spritzed with the lifeblood of his companions. He turned then, and ran, he ran like a fool, stumbling over his own feet, and nearly finding a face full of dirt. There was little point in chasing the man, mayhaps he'd lead her to an ambush, or otherwise he ran aimlessly, and there was nothing to gain in the chase, it was doubtful he'd turn to this again in the future. The women were already gone it would seem, which left Maral alone in the road with a broken wagon and its horses.


It was then that Maral's hand began to twitch and jitter, warmth trickling over the knuckles. Looking down, she saw the gash in her arm, it took a moment for the Vosgian woman to realize when exactly she'd been cut, though the broadsword came to mind eventually. The cut didn't seem too deep, though it was certainly broad, and long seeing as it made most of the distance both along and across her arm in a diagonal.


Maral glanced up, and back down the road, seeing no one else but the dying spearman. A thought occurred to her then, that perhaps she ought end the suffering of the men she'd so badly wounded; and so she stepped forward, and fetched up the bandit's spear, a tool much better suited to the task than her sword. The man who it'd belonged to groaned something Maral couldn't understand, and then was silenced as the head of his spear buried itself in his heart. It was best these folk not linger on the verge of death, as there was no way for her to treat such grievous injuries with her limited knowledge and supplies. She stepped through the underbrush then, back into the wood where she saw that the man with his now broken broadsword had died of his injuries, no longer groaning, nor even breathing that she could tell. The other man, the big one with the axe however, there was no sign of, only the trail his blood had left, leading away from the road.
 
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Wandering her way back out into the road, Maral climbed into the wagon's seat to get her feet up at the least while she treats her injury. She remembered as a child, seeing one of the guards that had been sent off with her father's shipment returning with a deep gash on his upper arm, it'd happened on the ship they said. Over a few weeks, he seemed to be fine, though the flesh of his arm had turned sickly and red, it smelled almost sweet, but drew flies the same as manure. Nigh on a month after, the red markings had spread like spiderwebs up the man's neck, and he'd not woken the day after.


Perhaps the memory had scarred her, but regardless, the merchant's daughter set both her heels to the bar before her, startling the horses some, and took a closer look at the cut, and seeing that while it was shallow, it was ragged, as the piece of blade rolled and bounced through the flesh. Searching through her bag, Maral got a chance to see all of her other things, tossed in a disorderly heap at the bottom while she rummaged about. Eventually though, the Vosgian woman found what it was that she looked for, a bottle filled with hazy white water, which she knew much better than to assume was actually water.


Inside the bottle was something that her father's healers insisted anyone should carry when they travel, a cure-all they always said. Now was time to put the fluid to the test, and so she twisted off the beaten copper lid, and a dreadful smell wafted up from within.


"Jar of piss and dung-horse!" she shouted in surprise, nearly dropping the fine glass bottle at the smell. A roll of cloth she produced from the bag next, a small square of spun cotton it was, the best she had for the task at hand.


Remembering the healers' lessons as best she could, Maral set the bottle on the bench beside her, and dipped the cloth into it, watching the vile water be soaked into the fibers. Next came the part that hurt, and the part she least looked forward to.


Rolling the small, soaking square tight, Maral packed the thing into the cut, and hissed through clenched teeth at the sensation that followed. It was like scrubbing a vinegar-soaked thornbush in the wound as it crackled and spat. The flesh literally crackled and spat, skin bubbling violently as the flowing blood frothed. While the pain spread rapidly up her arm like fire over dry tinder, it suddenly flashed and died behind her eyes, gone in an instant, and with it the weeping gash on her forearm.


Blinking a few times at the spot where she'd been bleeding but moments earlier, though it certainly felt like it'd been longer, Maral could see nothing more than an irritated red scar, like the wound had healed naturally, and scab just vanished. At that, she supposed she owed those wretched old men thanks, as their mystery cure-all certainly seemed to live up to reputation.


Screwing the lid tightly back onto its bottle, Maral had a moment to check through the rest of the things in her bag.


The bottle of cure-all, still nearly full.


An extra pair of boots, and three pairs of woolen socks to combat the cold.


A chunk of flint.


A knife to handle the flint, and anything else she may find need of a small blade for.


Several strips of meats, smoked, salted, all preserved, and tied in a thin strip of linen.


One more apple, just starting to soften by looking at its skin.


A small tin, filled by about another dozen squares of hardtack.


Two waterskins, and a small tin pot to boil water in.


The strange wooden box.


And of course, the leather satchel all of these were held within.


Above, the sun had just begun to descend in the sky, noon having passed.
 
Dead men needed no horses, and neither did the ones who'd run. Regardless, Maral felt like they owed her something for the trouble they'd caused, and as such, she saw no reason why not to take what may be useful. A few minutes spent, and Maral scrounged together a couple pieces of smoked pork left laying in the bed of the wagon, though there was nothing else of use, all dragged off some time ago.


Shrugging at the lack of supplies, Maral found herself unsurprised that there was nothing of particular use in the wagon, as there were only bandits about it for some time.


Climbing down from the wagon, Maral looked up and down the road again, making certain that there was no one else around; finding herself still alone, she climbed awkwardly onto the horse, over its harness, and cut the beast free. Unfortunately the mount had no saddle, but riding was still better than walking, and she'd be able to make much better time in her journey this way. With a light tap of her heels, the horse set forward. Maral never spent too much time riding, more oft than not she was shipborne. Regardless, she'd learned at least the basics as a child, for one that can't sit a horse is certainly an odd sight, especially among those not of noble birth. Taking the mare's mane in her hands in order to steady herself, Maral leaned forward to whisper in her ear, hoping to make friends with the animal, for they'd be spending a lot of time in one another's company from here out.


"Elya, this is you. Yes?" the Vosgian said in a hush, gently naming the mare, and with a delicate stroke between her ears, she whickered in what Maral hoped was approval.


They started off then, at a trot in the beginning, until they found one another's pace. By the time the sun started to dip, and the sky turned a deep shade of orange, Maral and Elya were well on their way, and could nearly see the wood's end. Nowhere in sight was any form of settlement or city, but near the horizon was what she assumed to be a farmhouse of some sort. With night beginning to fall, perhaps asking for refuge might be in her best interests.
 
Too fondly thinking of sleeping in a bed again, even if it'd only been one night from her last, Maral decided to head for the farmhouse ahead. Setting camp while there was light seemed a decent option, Maral doubted she'd be able to sleep atop Elya without a saddle, and the missing bandits had her too worried to turn back to take shelter in the woods.


The skies continued to grow dark, and began to grow cloudy, dark masses of grey and black drifting over the lavender night.


The house began to seem more and more inviting as Maral approached, the sky rumbling softly as it threatened rain. In the dark, anything about what the farmer that lived here grew, was completely unidentifiable. From one of the windows, not of glass, but with wooden shutters across them, the flickering light of a small fire could be seen, perhaps a candle, or a low-burning hearth. Climbing down from Elya's back, Maral shuddered a little bit, part from the chill she'd been repressing, the fire bringing it back to life, partly from the stiffness in her back at the ride, even if it had only been a relatively short one.


Wooden steps creaked underfoot as Maral made her way up to the door, and it was just before she reached the door that the sky opened up, the sudden storm now upon her. A torrential downpour came on in only moments, drowning out the sound of the Vosgian woman's knuckles rapping on the rough wooden door of the farmer's abode. No response came for some time, and she was near ready to give up and be on her way, when the door slowly opened, shuddering on rusty iron hinges with a squeal that could scarce be heard for the rain. On the other side of the threshold was a bent old man, wrinkles marking deep lines in his face, and his lips sucked far back, as though he had few, if any, teeth behind them.


"I told you damn ingrates not to come around here!" he shouted over the cascade of water pouring down over their heads. The hand he'd been hiding behind the wood of the door came around then, a loaded crossbow resting comfortably in it, the sort plenty of farmers used to rid their land of foxes and the like.


"My not understanding. Met have we?" Maral asked; while she had no trouble identifying the words the old man had chosen, the sense behind them was lost on her. She was alone, and had never been here before.


There was a time that passed between the two, Vosgian standing on the business end of a crossbow, out in the rain, and a wrinkled old man, unsoftened by his age, indoors, with his back to a gently burning hearth. Slowly, Maral raised her hands, eyes wide as she tried to appear as non-threatening as she could, when the old man laughed. He laughed long and loud, his crossbow bouncing madly while he did, and making Maral close on panic.


"You're not one of 'em," he said, finally pointing the crossbow elsewhere, and removing the bolt, making Maral sigh audibly in relief.


"I thought you were one of those punks from the holdfast, been robbing travellers for months those dolts," he continued, stepping aside to allow his visitor inside, though she didn't step forth immediately, hoping to get some shelter for her horse as well.


"Horse in the rain. I may?" she asked, trying her best at Lyrennian, though her accent still lay thick, and her sentences fragmented.


"Wood shed 'round back, c'mon in when you're done," he said gruffly, all merriment gone in one chilling moment. It made Maral unsure if she should have mentioned it. She'd have felt awful if the weather sat poorly with Elya, but it felt as though she'd insulted the man who was hosting her, or at least seemed like he was.


After guiding Elya around the little house to what could scarce be called a shed, more akin to a lean-to, Maral made her way back to the front door, which had been left open a crack. Stepping in, out of the rain, Maral realized how well and truly soaked she was, finally having a moment in which the air was dry.


"So if you're not one of them, who the hell are you?"
 
Maral took a moment to reply, carefully examining the way of things, as she was a little uncomfortable with being invited in at the point of a bolt. Glancing about the room, Maral could see that the house wasn't terribly well cared for, and the old man probably lived on his own out here. Regardless, the crossbow seemed like it was in excellent condition, and would've easily punched a hole straight through the leathers and chain that she wore.


"Well? Done admirin' the place yet?" the old man asked, his tone making his mood more than obvious enough. While he hadn't reached for a weapon, and remained in a worn old chair, carved elaborately of a dark wood, plentiful in ornament, though uncomfortable even just to the eye.


"My being a traveller," the Vosgian woman replied cautiously, no idea what to do with herself before the wrinkled farmer's judging gaze.


"An' where'd you find a sword like that, wanderer that you are?" he asked, motioning with an arthritic hand to the curved blade at Maral's belt.


"Forging it, by hammer and fire mine own," she replied in the same fragmented Lyrennian, though the old man seemed to understand what she said well enough.


"You got rough enough hands on you," the old man muttered in reply taking a look at Maral from head to heels, one that sent a shiver down her spine with the gaze.


While she felt the need to say something in reply, Maral found herself choking the words down, not sure what to say, or if she should say anything at all.


"I s'pose you want a place to lay your head then?" the old man asked, giving his guest another looking over. Once again Maral made to say something, opening her mouth to speak, yet words didn't come, and she found herself questioning if this was indeed the best decision. The rain drumming down on the house's slate roof said that she ought stay, yet the temperament, and look of the old man made her feel not quite safe in staying. The old man looked at her expectantly, old hands clutching at the carved wooden arms of his chair as he seemed nigh on the edge of his seat awaiting response.
 
Still uncomfortable with who exactly the old man was, Maral was close enough on edge to walk back out into the dark, but the rain dissuaded her, and so she decided to stay.


"Who, exactly you are?" she asked, stumbling slightly over the words as she chose not to answer the question he'd deigned to ask.


"I'm the wrinkled old prune that lives in the middle of nowhere!" he almost shouted in reply, shoving himself further back into the wooden chair. All around the room, that chair was the only furniture outside the fireplace, and so she was stuck standing to the middle of the floor, unsure of what to do with her hands.


Perhaps there was some bit of etiquette that she was missing, but the response she'd received certainly seemed as much a dodge as her own answer had been. The old man looked quite displeased where he sat, muttering something that Maral didn't immediately understand before he unsteadily rose from the chair, and made his way over to the next room.


"If we'll be yammerin' the whole night, might as well have somethin' to drink," the old man called from the next room, what she could only assume was a pantry by the amount of rattling around that came from it.


For a moment, Maral found herself thinking again, looking from the pantry door, to the exit, and to the only other door in the room, though she hadn't the foggiest idea where exactly it went. While the rain continued to pour down, there hadn't been any more lightning in some time, at least not that the Vosgian woman had heard. The crossbow still lay at the chair's side, all but forgotten, but the third door was shrouded behind a thick black cloth, easily seen as newer than anything else in the room just by looking at it, strange that she hadn't before.
 
While the old man bumbled about in the next room, Maral stood quietly, intently watching the small flame wicker in the hearth. In her mind, the Vosgian had doubts about this man, but she remembered the lessons she'd been taught as a child, that trusting another was the swiftest way to earn their trust. The rain still poured down outside, its torrent nearly drowning out any other sound inside.


"Here we are!" the old farmer shouted from the other room, followed shortly after by the sound of wooden cups being set to a counter.


"Pardon the flavour, 'tis a little sour," he said not unkindly. It seemed that a stiff drink was all it took to ease his mind, which suited Maral just fine, as she'd taken quite a fondness to the drink since she'd crossed into Lyrennia.


"Wine is, my liking. Very much." she stammered in greeting as the old man returned to the common room, a twisted smile on his face, revealing what few teeth sat in his mouth, nigh blackened stubs. There was indeed a sour smell about the drink as Maral took the cup proffered her.


"To new friends?" the old man asked, raising his own drink, to which Maral raised her own with a smile. Both knocked it back in an instant, though it went down wrong for Maral, leaving the young woman coughing and spluttering. The pulp of a cheap drink seemed so insignificant a difference, and yet here she was embarrassing herself over it.


The old man laughed, a little bit of insult in his tone, perhaps at the childishness of her blunder, Maral couldn't be certain. The next several minutes seemed a blur to Maral, her vision getting bleary as though she were seeing through tears, and her entire body feeling flushed and hot, as though with fever. Perhaps midway through their fifth drinks, the old man still chuckling over something or another, Maral felt herself choking on nothing, unable to draw in a clear breath.


Maral could feel her heart quickening in her chest, thumping like the beat of running hooves in her chest, feeling it as an ache from her toes up to behind her eyes. Her entire face beginning to tingle, Maral motioned in a panic at the old man, trying to tell him that something was wrong, but he smiled at her wryly, his chuckle growing slowly into uproarious laughter. It was then that she figured it out, he'd poisoned her! Fumbling for her sword, Maral's numbed fingers scrabbled over the hilt to no avail before she suddenly felt a stabbing pain in her belly. Looking to her other hip, where the pain had come from, Maral realized that she'd fallen to the floor, left on her behind, and centered in the clutching pain in her side, was the fletchings of a bolt, half protruding from her leathers. Her eyes slow to focus, and hearing only her heartbeat, Maral looked up to the old man, confusion written on her face, she knew exactly what was happening, and perhaps that was the worst of it as she felt the pain in her sides with every pulse of her heart, and the burning of her lungs alongside it. What she didn't understand, was why.


Why did the old man do this? Why did her poison her? Why did he shoot her? No, she knew now that this was his intent all along, but why did he let her into his home? Why drink with her? He saw the blade! Everything locked into place then, the old man planned to kill her from the beginning, but he hadn't wanted any risk to himself, if he didn't kill with the first bolt, he'd have an injured and angry swordswoman still to deal with. She clawed backward then, as hard as she could, tearing her callused palms open on the splintery wooden floor. The pain in her hands was nothing next to the pulsating blaze in her stomach, especially when the other end of the bolt hitched on a loose board, twisting it painfully in her wound.


"Y'never fuck wit' the Crooked Blades," the old man said, standing up a little straighter than he had before, the light tremor of old age leaving his hands. He began walking toward Maral, though he was little more than a blurry shape that spoke to her eyes. She continued to scramble backward until her hands slammed painfully into the doorjam, fingertips first. A couple of nails pried away from her fingers with a great deal of pain, and yet even it paled next to that in her lungs, and that in her belly. Somehow she managed to get the door open, crawling desperately into the rain, though somewhere in what bit of her mind remained natural, Maral knew that she would never escape, would never survive. Still though she tried, she fought with what little she had left, but as her right palm slid over the threshold of the house's step, twisting her wrist to a bizarre angle on the stone below, she collapsed and found herself unable to rise.


"G'night sweety," the old man said with that smile, more teeth missing than remaining, and then he kicked her, squarely in the face and the world turned black.
 
Lorewind Keep

​




Early morning, the sun just beginning to rise over the ocean, making the water glow like thousands of fiery diamonds, Lorewind Keep began to rouse from its slumber. Students of the college made about their business, hurrying to lecture from their dormitories, or one of the many other facets to their life learning magic. In the city below, the gallows are being prepared, the executioner wearing a vicious grin about his face, humming as he tied the noose, feet kicking idly from the platform's edge. In the markets below even that, merchants prepared stalls to ploy their own crafts.


With golden rays peeping through the bars of a dreary stone cell, a man, badly bloodied lay unconscious, a hand draped over his face. The man had the recognizable marks of a Saltman, hair of ash, and eyes of ice, though beneath all of the dried blood, his hair looked a matted brown. How he had ended up in this cell wasn't of terrible import, but what happened when he left it was plainly visible from the small window he was graciously granted, the gallows looming in the courtyard below.


Snorting into wakefulness, a mousy girl of brown hair and equal eyes rose to find herself in a library, as she seemed oft to do. Motes of dust circled languorously through the air, tiny specks of white in the brilliant sunlight glow. The rest of the enormous chamber was empty but for the books, even the tiniest noises that the girl made echoed as though made by a giant, bouncing from the vaulted ceilings. Taking a groggy look out the arched windows set high in the wall, she noticed the sun just cresting the bottom of one, and scraped her things together in a hurry, running off with words only for herself.





Further below, at the seaside, while the merchants scampered about, a grey old man, not yet gone frail hauled barrels of fresh fish across the docks with the best of them, a smile on his face that soon soured. Next to his stall, where already he'd lain two barrels of fish freshly caught, stood a slender figure in a cloak of purest black, with a lavender raven embellished over the breast. While they picked idly through the cod at the top of a barrel, he knew what exactly it was that they looked for.
 
Joye Margaret Ingram

​



Another late night in the library, and it lead to another late morning in the same. Joye felt herself the fool for falling asleep at the desks again, reading well past curfew by the light of a flickery old phoslamp. Of course even if that lamp was flickery, and it was picky sometimes about lighting, it was the only artificery she'd ever made that even partially did its job.


Hurrying out of the library, Joye could see just how late she was by the emptiness of the hall, nothing to be seen in any direction but the golden light of late morning reflecting from the polished stone of hallway floors.


Today was... what day was today? Joye remembered her classes were artifice, alchemy, evocation, and history this term, but that didn't do her any good not knowing which she started with today. The mousy girl would have run fingers through her hair as though combing it might organize her thoughts a little better, but she still had the phoslamp and a half dozen tomes clutched to her chest like they were her children. If brushing hair could organize thoughts, Joye certainly would certainly have benefitted from it, the unruly rat's nest of dull brown springing every which way from the top of her head gave her the look of a madwoman, or perhaps what she was, an exhausted girl who'd slept on a trestle table and assortment of books.


To the right was the exit from the main building, and across the yard would be the Artificiary, and the Herb Garden. While the second building hadn't an official title, that was what the students called it, it was where chirurgy, herbalism, and alchemy were taught. To the left would be the lecture halls, and out the opposite end of the building, would be the Silent Hall, where empathy and evocation lessons were held.


So standing in the middle, backed up to the library was Joye, a small girl by most counts, though she was nearly a graduate now, and at nineteen years of age, confused, and lost in her schedule.
 
Starting to count on fingers, still standing in the hallway like a dolt, Joye wouldn't have been surprised if someone decided to use her frazzled head as a hat rack without her notice.


"Alchemy, no history; no evocation, no history..." she went on, talking to herself in a hushed voice, trying to keep from echoing past every class in the main building. "Alchemy!" she shouted, previous thoughts forgotten as she stumbled into a run, sheaves of loose paper trailing behind her as pages of notes went streaming over and under her shoulders, caught on the breeze as they scattered around the hallway. Of course Joye noticed, but losing a few hours of notes was a lot better than leaving the instructor waiting. Head Apothecary Veselko Slaven, he left the time out of his day to teach the alchemy classes once a week, the only time that Joye had it in her schedule, and he wasn't like to be taken for granted.


Crashing into, then through the exit from the main building, an enormous door of maple, at least from her perspective, perhaps to her taller counterparts it merely seemed large. When she tumbled out the other side of the door however, Joye tripped, and her books scattered across the flagstones of the courtyard walk, still slick with morning's dew. Unfortunately, the lamp she'd been so fond of, had burst like an eggshell on the hard stone, and bits of glass scattered everywhere, the core of the lamp flashing bright for a moment, then shuddering into darkness. The shards were scattered all throughout her tomes, and she'd manage to scoop more of them up than the books it would seem, based on the fire in her fingertips.


Bursting into the classroom after a short navigation of the halls that included tripping one more time, and losing one of her books down the botanical wing's waste chute, which she'd rather not recount, Joye hurried to her seat, trying to ignore the heated glares she got from the students, and the blood-freezing glance that Instructor Slaven gave her, even if only for a moment. While the Head Apothecary may have been a soft-spoken, and even gentle man, he despised being looked down upon or disrespected. His wrath was probably one of the most terrifying things that Joye could imagine; she'd already seen a handful of ignorant students expelled with nothing but a word out of him.


"Miss Ingram, so good of you to join us," Slaven practically murmured, the other students hushing their whispers to hear him.


"And why is it that you're late today? Hm?" he went on to ask, putting particular emphasis on the last, as though this were a regular occurrence. Of course, it was a rather common happening.


Looking around the room, as if maybe the answer were hiding in the rafters somewhere, Joye only saw the angry faces of her fellow students, her juniors she remembered, even if they were several years her elder.


"Uh-" she started, throat seeming to close shut around the lump in it, the eyes of classmates sealing her lips.


"I slept in," she stammered out as quickly as possible, accidentally quieting her words at the same time, though Slaven's face didn't betray his opinion on anything.


"And your hands?" he asked, to which a few of the other students changed their look, from one of anger to one of pity, they could see the blood couldn't they? Joye looked down to her hands, still clutching the books to her chest, despite the desk directly before her, which she noticed had a sizable red puddle on it. Finger-long shards of glass were still sticking from her palms and knuckles, blood weeping directly past them, leaving a trail all the way back to the door and probably beyond.


In a rush of startled momentum, Joye slammed her books to the desk as far from herself as they could be without falling off, and immediately could feel her hands. Her eyes started blearing up with tears, she knew that she was about to start bawling, definitely a great way to impress her juniors, but this was phosglass, if they wanted to laugh they ought to try cleanup detail in the Artificiary first.


"P-p-p-perha-aps I should s-see th-th-the Chir-urgeons," she managed to stammer out without screaming. Of course the glass was still doing its job, sucking the heat out of her to glow faintly, light steadier than it'd ever been before, blasted device.


A long moment of near silence passed across the room, Joye breaking it with the occasional sniffle or yelp as she tried her best not to scream, faint, cry for her parents, or any combination of the three.


"You'll handle it," Slaven finally answered, pulling several items from his desk, seemingly at random.


"Come up here, and use these to salve your wounds, fail, and you can see the chirurgeons; but don't waste my time again," he continued, his idea of subtly telling her that she failed this test and she was expelled.


Joye managed to get to the front desk without saying anything, and on the front desk were a pair of tweezers among other tools; at least he didn't expect her to use alchemy to get rid of the glass, that would've been considerably more difficult. Plucking bits of phosglass, shards slivers and chunks alike from her digits, Joye took inventory as best she could of the supplies on hand, especially aware of the number of eyes on her.


A bowl of corn paste, a common enough stabilizer she remembered; it was typically used for binding agents to cure minor illnesses. It may be excellent for a typical cure-all, but lacerations seemed a little bit beyond the typical reach, though there was no telling what could be useful most days.


A bottle of particularly foul smelling, what Joye could only assume was milk, thick and chunky as it was, even that was a stretch of the imagination. Goat's milk maybe? Left to curdle so long it would appear useless, though lactins always had interesting reactions to strong stimulus in alchemical solutions.


There was also the shell of a turtle, just a little one obviously, the massive shell of a sea tortoise would be too impractical in a small study like this one, too difficult to grind into a usable powder. It was usually used for binding wounds or preventing injury in the first place, like the protection a shell offered would extend into the solution somehow.


A cloudy glass bottle filled simply with water, obvious as it was, water was used to dilute most formulas, or otherwise to thicken powders into pastes. Other than these elementary uses, water is only used in a handful of extremely advanced tinctures, none of which use water for these original purposes.


Next was another bottle, also filled with a clear fluid, though it was definitely not water, by the smell of it, it was a strong alcohol of some sort, an aggravator, used to increase the strength of a reaction, though by the smell of it, it seemed to be too strong for this particular test, as if it were intentionally put their for her to hurt herself. Joye doubted that though, even if he was upset, Slaven wasn't one to put a student in any real danger, just expel them. An oversight maybe?


Last was a small square of fine white paper, extremely thin, so thin that you could almost see out the other side. Inside was a fine white grain, though it didn't smell of flour, sugar or salt, nor was it crystalline based on how it interacted with light. No, these seemed almost like spores or seeds of some sort, with a strong earthen smell wafting off of them, almost loamy. If they were what she thought they were, they often burned with intense agony, usually used in chemical weapons, which started throwing up red flags immediately.


These were the ingredients at her disposal, and also the tools required to mix them in whatever manner she so pleased, next came the problem of sorting out which would integrate best. Flasks aplenty, a burner, chillstone, mortar and pestle, and even a mixing spoon if the pestle wasn't good enough.
 
Joye thought as hard as she could, she knew that her education was riding on this decision, but she wasn't entirely sure what to make of such seemingly random ingredients. Working quickly, so as to avoid diminished judgment in accompaniment with her bloodloss, Joye decided to start with the turtle shell. A protective agent; that ought to keep the rest of the formula from backfiring too badly, if at all. Next came the bit she was most nervous about, the spores, seeds; whatever they were. She assumed that they weren't what she thought they were, as it wasn't within Slaven's typical bounds, but judging by his face, he was as impossible to read as ever.


Hesitantly, Joye threw in the spores as well with a silent prayer to no god in particular. Next came the milk; sure lactins could be something of a wild card, but they were also nurturing, and often provoked healing when used in a simple enough mixture. Here's hoping this tincture would be simple enough...


The mousy girl couldn't think of anything else to add, but assumed that a stabilizer would help; she didn't want to be mopped up off the floor later after all.


Unfortunately, something in her mix was wrong, and an enormous bubble formed when the corn paste went in, bursting as quickly as it did, rocketing some of the tincture up out of its beaker with startling force, and a puff of steam.


A simple enough solution, Joye figured. Placing the beaker onto the chillstone to stabilize it again, she once again realized her mistake when all the liquid inside the beaker froze solid into a thin cylindrical rod of what looked like stone. Another glance, and Slaven's features betrayed nothing as he watched, almost like a vulture waiting for its next meal to just walk up and present itself to him.


Joye gulped back nothing, quite visibly too.


"Here goes nothing..." she whispered under her breath, moving the rod into the mortar to be rendered into a usable dust. After a few minutes or so spent hammering away at the thing with the pestle, much to the amusement of her peers, Joye realized that it was ready; down to a dark grey-blue powder.


Putting her hands into the stone bowl, Joye took one last look at Slaven, who by this point had impatiently cocked a brow at her, wondering when she'd stop glancing at him and just get on with it she supposed.


Screwing her eyes tightly shut, Joye held her breath while she scrubbed the powder into her hands, and at first, the pain went away. For a few magnificent seconds, the pain stopped, and so did the bleeding. Then came the bad part.


Just as she'd begun to relax, fresh pain, much worse than before lanced up Joye's arms, stemming from the cuts, and tracing up past her elbows like creeping tendrils. There was screaming. Extremely loud screaming actually, and the whole world was white. It was when her throat started to burn that Joye realized it was her screaming, a scream like a lamed horse while snakes approached. It didn't seem to matter what it was, in enough pain and fear, they all screamed the same way she supposed. It was odd, the sort of clarity that Joye had in those few moments, enough that she had the time to question why she had so much clarity before her vision darkened back to natural light again. Oh yes, and the pain. Oh gods the pain was certainly not going anywhere. There wasn't any more screaming; the faces of the other students were bordering on panic, but there was no more screaming, just an oddly dry whistling sound.


That whistling was the sound of a throat screamed raw Joye realized as there was a little bit of blood pooled around her head on the floor, more like a spattering amidst the puddle of drool. Joye could see Slaven from here; he'd shoved her away from the main desk, and gotten to work on another mixture of his own, his face still betraying nothing. Looking down to her hands, still making the same strange whistling sound, Joye could barely process what it was that she saw. It took a good few seconds staring at her hands before she realized what exactly had gone wrong. Her arms had been petrified to the elbow! The stone that was now her hands had a strange glitter to it, like some mineral stone, pyrite perhaps. Once again, Joye had a moment to question her mental clarity before the pain struck her full in the gut again, figuratively speaking, as waves of searing agony made their way up her arms. It didn't take much longer until the world went out again, turning to black this time, but the pain still followed it; at least partway.


When things came back around, Joye was in a bed, in a pale green room. The bed was one of feathers, as was the pillow; much more comfortable than anything she'd personally owned before. In a few moments, the prior events came back to her, and just like that the pain was fresh again, but only in the back of her mind, not quite as primally grounded as when it had been in her flesh. Taking a look at her hands, Joye saw that they were their usual tiny, slightly pink selves, not the stone they had been before. How long had it been since that happened?
 
So focused was she on her hands and their sudden normalcy, that Joye didn't even notice the commotion going on outside her little green room. Before even noticing that, she realized that she'd been changed into fresh clothes, a simple shift of spun cotton. Taking a closer look, the fabric's weave was almost impossibly tight; so obviously she was still at the college, it had to be done by an Evoker. Drawing in a deep breath through her nose, and about to release an explosive sigh of relief, the little green room's door burst open. As though he were just opening any other door in his own home, a tall and lean man strode in, though he obviously wasn't with the college. He was drenched from head to heel in blood, both dried on, and fresh alike. His eyes of an icy blue gave away who exactly this man was though, a saltman, though she hadn't a clue what one would be doing so deep in the city, and in the college no less!


"Finsk," he said, gesturing with a hand that she come with him. What could he possibly be thinking!? From the hall, two of the campus guards were shouting, she wasn't entirely sure what they were saying, but the intent got across; "Get out or we kill you."


Something flashed on the saltman's face, not fear like she'd thought would, nor anger as most men that were about to fight for their lives, he looked disgusted.


"Muhss," he muttered in a tone that brooked no argument, though Joye hadn't the foggiest idea what it was that he was saying. Assuming that he'd said something along the lines of "Follow me," she cautiously climbed out from beneath the covers of her bed. This seemed far too elaborate to be another prank from her classmates; they tended to just toss her things down waste chutes or wake her up with chillstone marbles in her bed, harmless if irritating things.


In the few seconds it took Joye to cross the room, she'd heard two separate voices cry out in pain, and looking around the corner, she could see the saltman, standing over two armed guards, neither moving. He held something that dripped with fresh blood in his right hand, but as quickly as she'd seen it, he dropped it. Looking over his shoulder, the saltman frowned, then came walking her way. Stumbling backward, seeming to have a difficult time getting her feet to do what she told them, Joye put both hands between him and herself, not sure what else to do.


"No, don't come any closer!" she said, raising her voice a little more than she wanted, and stuck with a traitorous tremor in it.


Ignoring precisely what she'd just said, as though it were request rather than command, the saltman scooped Joye up over a shoulder like she were a toy.


"H- Put me down!" she shrieked, flailing her hands in balled up fists aimlessly. While she might have an excellent grasp on most every topic, she wasn't one for physicality, and the saltman didn't even seem to notice her futile attempt at an attack. He did however seem to avert his gaze from her backside that was hanging over the other side of his shoulder. A real gentleman he was, bursting into her room unannounced, covered in blood, then killing two men tasked with the safety of people like herself, then abducting her. Perhaps abducting wasn't the right word, as he didn't seem any more aware of her being a living breathing person than he did of the weight of her body, admittedly small as it was, on his arm.


With her heart racing at all this sudden attention, Joye started to notice a general light-headedness, as if she were still coming off some sort of drug. Of course she was coming off a drug, she was petrified to the elbows what she could only assume was a few hours ago.


As much excitement as was going on, Joye's eyelids grew heavier with every step her captor took, until she shut them completely, and went dead to the world.


~~~~


When her eyes opened again, Joye was in a considerably less pleasant room. Poorly lit, and with a rough-hewn wooden floor, it seemed as though a house from the poorer districts of Lorewind, or perhaps outside the city's walls. Taking a better look about her surroundings, Joye noticed the bench she'd been lain on, and the thick curtain of spiderwebs hanging from it. With a mild squeak, Joye hopped to her feet, apparently attracting some attention to herself. At the other side of the room, there were three people, one of which Joye recognized as the saltman who'd abducted her. He was barking back and forth with another man, older, with a head bald and gleaming, as though he polished it. The older man had a great bushy beard of grey, that seemed to have salt clinging to it, as though he'd just gotten off a boat. Maybe he had, there was no telling where exactly she was right now. Lastly, stood a figure in a full-hooded cloak, slender, almost peculiarly so. They had no trouble noticing Joye awaken, despite the borderline shouting that the other two were doing.


The hooded figure walked closer with long strides, but they seemed to pick their way carefully across the floor, as though any floorboard may break or worse. Seeing the way that they walked, Joye looked to her feet, and dare not budge an inch. They laughed quietly at that, a gentle chuckle that lilted like a spring breeze, impossible to discern whether it were male or female. With no idea of what else to do, Joye backed herself into the bench, looking around the room for a way out, like a mouse in a trap.


"I do apologize for my colleague's behaviour," the hooded person said in a calm tone, the faintest hint of a foreign accent to their voice. Joye decided that they were a woman, or at least that's what she'd identify them as until more information presented itself.


"He's not one for subtlety, nor does he speak our tongue. It was a mistake to send him; and yet I had to," she said, her voice seeming to calm Joye's nerves with the sound of it alone.


The brown haired girl wasn't quite sure what to do, what to think right now. Her head seemed in a fog over the drugs, but the least that she knew was that whoever had taken her, it wasn't strictly legal.


Opening her mouth to return comment, Joye noticed the pattern stitched into her companion's midnight black cloak; that of a lavender raven. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, Carrion Fraternity shrieked past, but in an instant the thought was gone, stuffed back down by some unseen force. Taking a moment to think, Joye wasn't sure what she was about to say, and furrowed her brow as she shut her mouth.


"We've a rather lucrative offer for you miss Ingram, and there are a good many who are interested to hear what you've got to say."
 
Trying to call back on her evocation lessons, Joye had to struggle to glean even the smallest of memories. The charm being cast upon her was strong, impossibly so in fact, and she knew it. Somehow this hooded woman, or at least Joye still assumed it was a woman, was using magic far beyond human scope, which could only mean one thing: that she'd been drugged to increase her susceptibility to outside influence.


At least Joye knew about it, and in fact, she'd been rather deft with this use of evocation in the past. Defending against a charm was trivial, at least once one knew that they were being charmed. Concentrating inward, her eyes still locked on the shaded portal beneath her captor's hood, though she could make nothing out, simply a rough circle of blackest shadow.


"You've learned a great many things here in Lorewind," they went on, apparently unaware that she'd begun to focus a counterattack to their spell. Imagining herself a battlefield, to one side stood the hooded woman, and on the other, Joye. At her back, Joye had assembled hundreds, nay thousands of imaginary soldiers; and yet the hooded woman had none. The battlefield that they shared in their mind's eye began to shift, gradually, taking on an odd detail here or there.


What was once dirt and grass, all solid ground, turned to mud, and quickly to swamp without even one of the spectral soldiers budging from their place. Then, when the water grew to nearly knee depth, and the fog rolled in, thick enough to hack at with a sword, erasing anything more than a scant stone's throw away from sight; bones began to rise from the ground. Enormous bones, thicker than any tree Joye had ever seen, the bones of all imagined places, the bones that lived in dreams and shadows. Just beyond the edge of sight they sat, slowly rotting, and yet still mournful, watching the world through barren eyes. Simply thinking about those bones gave Joye the shivers, and made her want to end this quickly, and so she sent her imagined soldiers through the fog, charging for their foe and captor.


Just like that, in the blink of an eye, the hooded woman collapsed gracelessly to the floor, like a puppet with its strings cut, just as she'd drawn a breath to present her offer. Joye let a triumphant smile come onto her face as she turned toward the door, and her exit. But then she realized that the two men were still there, the bearded old man, and the saltman. In an instant Joye's eyes went wide, and her lips pressed flat and wide like the mouth of a toad as she realized that winning out over the spell was only the first step in her escape. Unfortunately, there was no plan to lay out the rest of the steps for her.


The two men kept on shouting at one another as though nothing had happened, and after the briefest glance over his shoulder, possibly not even long enough to see Joye or the absolutely stupefied expression on her face, he turned right back to the bald man with a shout, shoving him with both hands; and hard. The older man, easily half again the saltman's size was nearly knocked from his feet but for slamming into the wall. He shouted back in the same strange language the saltman used before the two shouldered their way out the door, red in the face and still arguing.


Looking around the room, and finding herself alone but for the evoker she'd just dealt with, Joye questioned if things could actually have been that easy.


"Wait, that's all?" she muttered, half expecting that this whole affair would have led her on some fanciful quest or another. Perhaps she'd been spending too much time reading stories after all. On the floor, the hooded woman remained, unmoving but for an occasional twitch of the hand. The sounds of the men's arguing slowly grew more and more faint, leaving Joye on her own in this unfamiliar room. Taking another look at the boarded windows, and the motes of dust lazily circling in the light that spilled in through their cracks, she could tell that it was still midafternoon at the latest. Apparently their little escapade at the school hadn't taken very long, which meant that Joye was still in Lorewind! That or it'd been entire days that she'd been unconscious and she could be anywhere in the bleeding kingdom.
 
The first problem to solve, was where she was, Joye knew at least that much. She hadn't the foggiest as to why the men had left, nor when they'd return, so she needed to make the most of her time. Carefully tip-toeing around the evoker, godsbeknownst whether they'd perished, or merely fallen unconscious.


Needing to rise onto the balls of her feet, Joye could barely get a good view out the window with so much of it blocked by wooden planks, but she could see the ocean, or at least water as far as the horizon anyways. Beyond that was the golden orange of the sun, whether rising or falling she knew not. There was nothing else of particular note outside, though Joye guessed that she was in the first tier of Lorewind, possibly near the docks.


Assuming that she hadn't been taken out of the city, Joye still had nothing of particular value or use in her situation. She was still only wearing the shift that had been on when she awoke at the chirurgeons' offices. Left without even shoes, Joye was forced to pad around barefoot over splintery wooden floors. Deciding to check, as though the Evoker might have a note or some such on their person that could tell her where she'd been taken, or what their orders were; anything really. As quietly as she could, Joye made her fidgety approach toward the cloaked body, though it didn't make the tiniest of movements in response. Wanting to at least see her captor's face, Joye's first movement was to pull back their hood, though she gasped quietly at what she saw; not exactly what she'd expected.


Beneath the hood was the face of a woman, attractive in a willowy way, long and sharp features with slanted eyes. The evoker was a foreigner, at least by heritage. On the pale skin of her face was a hodge-podge web of hairline scars, the sort that were so thin they were near impossible to see, lest one knew what to look for of course. Spending a long moment staring at the woman's face, Joye couldn't tell whether she were alive or not, and hadn't the nerve to put her hand anywhere near their face to find out.


Instead, Joye pulled open the cloak, and searched through it for what may be of use. Inside one pocket, over their heart, was a small cube of polished ivory, perfect in its workmanship, without the tiniest hint of a flaw, or marks from the tools used to shape it. The cube was perhaps the size of Joye's thumbnail on one face, and had an unusual chill about it, though not one imbued by artifice; for she'd have been unable to see any indication of runes. Without any pockets, Joye was forced to palm the cube, though it wasn't even the slightest bit difficult. She'd decided to take the cube on a whim, a flight of curiosity in curious times. Continuing to search through the pockets of the evoker's cloak, Joye couldn't find the tiniest clue as to what anyone might want with her. Taking one last look at the pin on her captor's cloak, Joye thought it must have been faceted with flawless obsidian, though she couldn't imagine why that might matter.


With one last look around the room, Joye could truly see how empty it was; only the rough wooden bench she'd just risen from, and a chair that seemed in even worse condition next to the only door out. With how securely the windows were boarded, she doubted that she'd be able to sneak out one, even if she had the strength to haul herself through one safely.


Approaching the lone doorway in or out of the room, Joye tried her absolute hardest not to make a sound, though the floorboards creaked with even the slightest movement, and not three paces from the door, her foot slid just wrong over the corner of one plank, sending a sliver of timber into the big toe on her right foot. Biting her lip in an attempt to quiet her startled outcry, Joye still ended up hissing through her teeth and hopping on her one foot, clutching at the injured appendage with both hands. Not thinking about it, Joye pressed the cube of ivory into the top of her foot, from which radiated a chill touch, almost as though cold gravy being poured over her toes. Why she'd drawn that comparison, she had no clue, but seemed appropriate enough.


Pushing the thought aside for now, Joye slowly opened the door only a crack, and peeking past the jam, she could see an empty hallway of similar construction to the room she was in. There was a door at the far end, hanging slightly ajar, and another doorway to the right, though she couldn't tell what was beyond from where she stood. Creeping into the hall, Joye took one creaking step after another, painfully aware of every tiny little noise. Nearing the door at the hall's middle, a great commotion suddenly erupted outside, at least a half dozen voices all shouting, though she couldn't understand any of them. Perhaps the walls merely muffled their words, or perhaps they were speaking in a foreign language, there was no way to tell at the moment, and Joye found it difficult to keep herself calm enough to identify their words.
 
Hearing the voices and footsteps drawing nearer, or at least she thought she did, Joye did the one sensible thing left to her; run through the door on her right. On the other side, she couldn't hear anything, and subconsciously putting her left hand to it, keeping hold of the small ivory cube, she threw her shoulder into the door, trying to force it open. Apparently not thinking very clearly, Joye was surprised to find that rather than bouncing her meager weight off the portal, she'd bowled right through it, entirely unbarred.


Clumsily tumbling to the floor, Joye scrambled back to her feet, and got the door shut behind her as quickly as she could, not taking the time to survey her surroundings. Now though, with the immediate dangers put aside, she could see that the room she'd entered was much like the one she'd left, though considerably tidier, and more populous as well. Thankfully, there was no one here, but the handful of desks and workspaces led her to believe that this might have been a place of learning, not unlike the college; well, perhaps dirtier and with lesser access to materials, but similar enough.


Of course, seeing this, and knowing the evoker from earlier, Joye had one question buzzing in her mind like an irritating gnat, though only now did she seem to notice. Why me?


It was a fair enough question to be certain; she was only about as abnormal as one could see by looking at her. Hair a little frumpy, short enough that she couldn't quite reach what she needed in alchemy lessons, even on tip-toes; and of course all of the awkward social graces. Why was it that she was receiving the offer, and not someone more accustomed to the conditions she was looking at, a more powerful evoker or skilled alchemist than herself. There were plenty of them at the school; one needn't even look far to find them.


There seemed to be a reasonably well stocked workstation for alchemy, and artifice, as well as a large runic inscription on the far wall that seemed to glow from within, a ward by a glance, one made for safely practicing evocation.


From this room, Joye couldn't help but guess that there were a number of mages here, wherever here was.


As if an afterthought, Joye recognized that there were in fact windows in this room, ones that weren't boarded up. Feeling the need to hit herself for not noticing sooner, she immediately rushed to them, trying not to make too much noise, and failing terribly. As she passed by the desk covered with alchemical supplies, the young woman managed to stub her bare toe on the leg, sending all of the glassware clinking against one another.


From here though, she could more clearly see outdoors, seeing a yard lain out before her, and the arms of an especially old manse stretching toward the horizon, though it was cut short by the end of their rise, where a short flight of stairs lead outward to the shoreline. On the water, she could recognize one of the boats, one of those favoured in Lorewind, a Vosgian vessel that hazarded the Saltrocks to come so far North, one with unmistakably striped sails. The vessel's captain and crew often came to port carrying items from Vosgi to the college, including the Goldcoast mushrooms that had been snuck into her alchemy exam earlier in the day. Assuming this was still the same day of course.


The Torosian family she was quite sure owned the boat, though she wasn't certain how influential they were, as Vosgian diplomacy was so very foreign to Lyrennians.


In the manse's courtyard below, Joye could see a dead body, though she didn't recognize the man who it had once been, she could see his limbs twisted to odd angles from here, his head hanging unnaturally far back as he was propped haphazardly against the dilapidated fountain in the center. While to her trained eye, Joye could look over the body and identify the cause of death, chirurgy had never been her strong suit, and the reason why was rapidly surging up her throat.


Without much warning beyond the acid burn at the back of her mouth, Joye lost the contents of her stomach, which turned out not to be much as she coughed up a pitiful splutter of bile, then collapsed to her knees in dry-heaves, sucking back what lungfuls of air she could before she seized up again. The heaving only went on for a few moments, and now at least she could control herself somewhat, left only with the foul taste to her mouth, and some faint light-headedness.
 
Still gathering her wits about her, Joye decided that perhaps she ought to search around the room. With an alchemy workstation, there ought to be a waste chute somewhere, and while the thought of jumping down a pit full of untrained alchemists' mixtures, she also wasn't terribly fond of sticking around for someone to come find her and the evoker she'd struck down. Would one really be able to call that struck down? Perhaps outwitted would be better?


Vigorously shaking her head to clear the struggle of word choices, Joye took a moment to take a more detailed look at her surroundings. She could see that, barring anything else, the alchemy table was well labelled, and that the ward on the far wall had died out recently, as though it had the power drained from it. While this wasn't a terribly uncommon sight at the college, it startled her to see here. It either meant that there were more than a few dozen evokers at this estate, or a handful of extremely powerful ones; individuals capable of not only subtly leading a mind, but entirely dominating one.


The sounds of people approaching began to grow louder then, at least a half dozen voices drawing nearer, as well as the sharp clash of steel interspersed between shouts. There was fighting coming her way, and as much as she'd have loved to believe that a knight in shining armour was coming to rescue her, Joye wasn't willing to bank on it, and redoubled her efforts.


It only took another moment longer to find the waste chute, though as they were at the college, it was quite compact, made difficult for someone to crawl into accidentally. Luckily, Joye's classmates had shown her that, despite her initial arguments, she could indeed fit down a waste chute, and on several occasions no less! Crossing the room as quickly as she dared, which was to say, at a rapid, and awkward shuffle, Joye pried the small metal square of a hatch open, and, before she could have second thoughts, threw herself into it headfirst.


At first, Joye was worried that she would get stuck, as her shoulders snagged in the frame, and shortly after wriggling free, her hips did as well. Hanging upside-down in the pitch black confines, her hair was tangled all about, blocking any chance that she might have had at seeing anything whatsoever. Snaking her hands back up, scraping roughly on the stone of the walls, the apprentice mage managed to get her palms near to the insert where her bottom end was stuck, and with the mightiest shove she could muster, managed to move herself perhaps an inch or two deeper into the shaft.


Really? This sounds like some awful story that the boys always tell of! She thought to herself, kicking her feet wildly at the air outside when suddenly, without warning, she slid the rest of the way through the opening, and went into a pitched fall immediately.


While Joye tried to scream on instinct, her attempt at drawing a deep breath rewarded her instead of a lungful of air, a mouthful of hair. Instead of howling like a terrified child, she coughed and spluttered like a simpleton on her own hair for but a moment before she hit something, and came to a dead stop. Whatever it was, it wasn't the softest landing, but certainly better than falling into a heap of glass phials and bottles full to bursting with tinctures unimaginable.


Now however, a new challenge presented itself, not to mention the aches and pains up Joye's entire body. She'd just fallen down at least one level, and landed on something hard in the pitch black. When she tried to get up, the ache on the back of Joye's head, stretching down her neck, flared up. About as quickly as she managed to get a knee under her, Joye's head went swimming, and she collapsed back to the floor. It didn't feel like stone, so what was it?
 
Groping through the blackness, lain flat on her belly, Joye realized that the floor was indeed made of stone; it was merely covered by a relatively thick layer of moss. The stones appeared to be cobbled together to form a somewhat even surface, and feeling her way out to either side of her, Joye felt water, sluggish and somewhat warm. As quickly as she touched it, she drew her hand back, only her fingertips dripping. It seemed as though it was only after she realized where her hand had just roamed that the smell struck her like a mailed fist.


Immediately, Joye's head swam, and she felt her stomach do a backflip. She managed to keep from retching again, but only just, and probably because she'd only just gotten through with it. The putrid stench, and slanted grade to the floor told Joye where exactly she was, even if she couldn't see it. The sewer.


As much as the mousy brunette didn't want to believe she'd just fallen two levels straight to the sewer, she had. How she hadn't broken her neck was beyond her, but she couldn't be anything more than glad of it.


Opening her mouth to utter some statement of relief, Joye immediately regretted it as the putrid scent also crept into her mouth before words even formed on her tongue.


Now she retched again; though it did nothing to improve the flavour, nor the reeking of the air.


Slowly creeping her way opposite the water, up the gentle incline, Joye eventually found a wall of rough square brick, which she leaned against gratefully. Keeping quiet but for a low whimper at her various aches and pains, she tried to look over herself, but could still see nothing. Instead, the student decided to feel herself over, probing with fingertips to see where she might have been hurt. It felt as though everything were in pain, yet only more so wherever she searched. Only a brief touch of the shoulder, told Joye that it was at least dislocated on her right side, and further down, she was almost certain that it was broken, though chirurgy had never been her forte. At what she thought a broken bone, Joye noticed the heat behind her eyes, and the water streaming down from them. She felt only half conscious of anything that she did right now; dulled. She was crying, yes, that made sense, she was hurt. Continuing on her way down, Joye felt various scrapes and bruises all the way down her legs, and at the end of her right, her foot was twisted to an odd angle, though she wasn't entirely sure what was wrong with it.


Lastly, checking her head where the pain was worst, Joye could feel it, wet and spongy as though she'd peeled it open terribly, and the flesh around was swollen savagely. The briefest touch of it made her whimpering turn to a hiss, immediately withdrawing, unwilling to turn more pain on herself than she was already in. Her neck was too worrying, making Joye hesitate to touch it, and in fact, downright refuse. She didn't want to make anything worse; so for right now she only had to make it out of this sewer, and back to the... To where?


While she continuously tried to call the college to mind, it was not where her head said that she go. No, she wanted to go to the college, but she didn't; she instead wanted to go Westward, through the pass and ever Southbound. Why did she want to go there? Joye was born only just on the other side of the pass, so perhaps she'd have wanted to go home, to see her parents again after so many years and let them take care of her again; yet that was not where her heart told her that she go. Southward, leagues to the South, to some place she'd never been, and scarce knew. The name of the place was foreign in her mind, yet she knew from Geography lessons ought be called Dracmarsh. Why Dracmarsh?


Unsteadily forcing her feet to the floor, Joye stood, and began to walk, leaning heavily against the wall beside her, feet shuffling awkwardly, much more than they had earlier in the day; almost like the first time that she'd walked on two legs. She found her head swimming, in a haze, though she chalked it up to concussion. Following the wall, Joye stumbled through the blackness for what seemed an eternity before she saw the faintest glow of flickery light. In the back of her mind, Joye knew that this was the happiest she'd ever been to see the light of an unstable phoslamp, and she could feel the slightest tug at her face, smiling at the thought, yet she couldn't bring herself to cheer, nor to say anything else for that matter.


Her tears had dried, but the pain had gone nowhere, throbbing with every footfall, and every muscle tensed.


Rounding one more corner, Joye saw a lone phoslamp, hanging from a hook set in the wall, at the top of a flight of stairs; right beside the most beautiful door of her life. She hurried at the sight, drawn to haste by the promise of escape from this dank and miserably dark place. The steps were a painful challenge, yet they didn't curb Joye's enthusiasm as she scrabbled her way to the top on all fours, well, three quite shortly as her right arm made complaint to the movement.


Stepping past the phoslamp at the top, Joye pushed the door open to see the ocean stretched out before her, the sky gone to blackness, though stars glowed in tiny pinpricks throughout, and the moon hung full and beautiful overhead. The phoslamps lining the streets to Joye's left, and to her right were flickering madly, many having guttered out already, which told her that it must be some time past midnight, yet before the witching hour. Reflecting for the briefest of moments on where she might go now, Joye felt a bodily tug in her chest, pulling her West.
 
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As though a kicked hound on a lead, Joye stumbled with great difficulty toward her right; Southward, to the river, and the pass, which lead inland. The smell of salt and old fish hung on the air heavily, the smell of the docks. While she'd been here a number of times before, it had never been at night, and always it had been with a number of others from the college, including a handful of guards. Somewhere nearby, Joye heard the yowl of a cat, though she didn't jump at it as usually she would have, instead she continued to shamble on as though nothing had happened.


Joye's feet continued on, as if with a mind of their own as she decided time and again to turn around, she found herself unable, as though a passenger in her own body. As she walked, while her stride began to grow steadier, her limp continued, forced upon her by the odd twist in her ankle. Phoslamps lining the streets continued to dim and die while Joye trudged through the dark. Despite how busy the city was during the day, this particular night was near silent, only the sporadic sounds of a tavern or animal breaking this imposing quiet.


Entire minutes passed as Joye limped down cobbled roads through Lorewind's bottom tier without seeing a living soul. Just as she neared the tanneries however, another lonesome individual made their unsteady way 'round the corner ahead, a Vosgian man stumbling with drunkenness that came her way. Immediately, Joye found herself moving, slipping more quickly and quietly than she'd ever thought herself capable of, out of the light, and into an alleyway. Between the wooden wall of a tanner's hovel, and the stone one of its neighbouring estate, Joye remained in the darkness, leaning against the tanner's house behind its raingutter as she tried to bend herself lower, finding her knees uncooperative.


The Vosgian man, no doubt a merchant's deckhand or the like meandered his way down the road lazily, finding himself in no great hurry as he murmured a song under his breath. The words were impossible to identify, and even if Joye were close enough to recognize the tune, she quite doubted that she would have known the song it belonged to.


Once he'd passed, the student crept back into the street, and continued on her way. She really wasn't sure of why she'd hidden, but perhaps it was paranoia at the district and time of night. Being near the tanneries now told Joye that she was near the river, as they needed to drain off the curative filth regularly here. Once she made it to the river though, what was she to do? Even were she strong enough to row a skiff up the river herself, her right arm would not be in any shape for such a journey. Despite her concerns, Joye felt herself calm, putting one foot before the other without so much as breaking stride once where she ought be fretting over these details by now.


Things were beginning to grow curious, what was it that had changed? Perhaps it was only the concussion, and Joye remained lucid behind the fog of her actions, yet even still it made little sense. While she'd managed to escape the estate some time ago, she'd not been injured then; and never in her life had Joye been any good at handling such injuries as those she had now; yet she walked on her twisted foot as though it were normal, and didn't so much as sniffle or tear up at the condition of her arm.


Before she even realized it had happened, Joye found herself at the river quays, several boats rocking gently at their moorings. Skiffs aplenty, as well as quite a few barges, and even a leisure boat with guards posted on its decks, holding phoslamps to stave off the night's darkness, and swords for those more persistent than shadows.
 
Making the pass afoot was foolishness, and Joye knew that much rather well. She'd heard tell of folk too poor to pay a ferryman that made the attempt, but not of any that had made it. While near to Lorewind the river was calm on its surface, the entirety of it ran swift at the bottom; and a couple leagues up, it turned to frothing white caps that swept even the most surefooted away like babes. The river itself had dozens of names as it stretched hundreds of miles, from the capital all the way out to sea. Here, the river had no name, but it ran through the bottom of Giant's Pass; an apt enough name considering that only one of the mythical creatures would have been able to make the journey alone.


In her mind, Joye knew that this journey had to end, and found herself all the more grateful for it. Even were her body being guided by some unseen force, following this inexplicable compulsion was just no longer possible, she couldn't go any further. The only logical course was to return to the college, to have her wounds tended, and to go back to life as normal. As miserable as it could be sometimes, she missed the school already, even her tormentors; a little bit. While she thought about this, Joye didn't particularly notice that she continued on anyways, walking directly up to the boats moored at the docks, apprehensively moving from one to the next, looking for something. Joye found a coldness spreading about her mind as her eyes scanned over banners and sigils alike, crests and coats of arms in search of something, though she wasn't sure what or why.


A golden hawk, stitched into a field of ivy, sigil to the Southgates from far upriver, not what she needed. A bull's head of bronze on a field of crimson, a symbol that she knew originated from the capital as well, the Krantz? A half dozen more were glanced over before Joye found what she sought, a bone-handled mallet of greys on field of mud, with trim of steel. The banner of house Labelle, whose seat was Dracmarsh.


That one, the two-sailed barge with the Labelle banners, that's what she was looking for, that's what would take her home. One foot before the other, Joye found herself slowing, stumbling a little bit more severely the closer she drew to the boat, and there was a desperation in her heart, though she still didn't understand why. Her eyes grew wider as both feet found themselves aboard, the deck beneath her feet rocking gently in the river. A barrel of fresh water was positioned to the bottom of the rearward mast, not ten paces from her, and yet that handful of steps seemed to drag on ahead of her like a marathon, and as her left hand pried the lid away enough that she could see inside, Joye dropped the small cube of ivory from her right, into the water despite the protest from her shoulder.


Slumping to her knees, all of the pain in Joye's body returned with a vengeance, and her mind could do naught but focus on the agony. Collapsing to the wooden planks beneath her, the night turned dark, darker than already it had been, and cold, so cold that she should be able to see her breath. Gracelessly sprawling to the deck, Joye shut her eyes, and didn't open them again.
 
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