Returning Magic (Private)

[Maeve Valor]

In a fantasy land, the races of this realm used to live in harmony, that was until the Humans decided to take more than what they were given by the Gods. By conquering other lands, and engaging in war, this has severed the unity, therefore decreased the amount of magic in that land making it extremely rare to come across now. Magic is now considered a myth that has been passed down the generations. Now it is up to an unlikely duo to revive magic and unite the Races together.

 

[Darkbloom]

THE GAME BEGINS! Let's start with Meara, who is approaching the town. What reason does she have to come here?

 

[Maeve Valor]

As Meara walked into the bustling town she had a cloak over her along with a scarf. Most wouldn't think much of it since it was slightly cold out. Other people also had similar attire so she blended in quite safely. She stopped to look out down the walkways of said town and thought, "How am I supposed to find it here? There are so many people and so many shops. It will take weeks and much sleuthing to find it." She heard from a reliable source that there was special tome written in ancient Elven that would fetch a pretty penny in certain underground markets if she were to ever come across it.

 

[Darkbloom]

Lightbloom walked into the town, getting a good number of stares/weird looks due to the fact that he's an elf. A very well-dressed elf with a weird hair style, but it somehow fit with his green eyes. He carries with him a question written on a piece of paper that he hasn't been able to answer, two bottles of ink, a small knife for utility, an ink pen, one page of parchment, a little bag of sand, and some other items. Due to the fact that humans were responsible for the disappearance of magic, he has a natural distrust toward them and would prefer to have nothing to do with them. They were, in fact, all much less smart than he was. His eyes surveyed the town. It was getting dark, and he needed to find somewhere to stay, so he started looking for an inn or tavern to stay at.

 

[Maeve Valor]

With as many shops as there was around Meara figured that perhaps it would be beneficial for her to try to get her information from taverns of the like. And so she did search for one that was cheap. Once she did see find one she entered to find a grungy-old and rickety scenery. Very much not favorable, but she was sure that this place would be cheap. Without hesitation she walked up to the counter and asked, "I'd like a room for the night, I'm not sure long I will be in town yet."
The burly man set down the glass he was holding and looked to the mysterious woman with a raised eyebrow, "How long?"
She merely smiled from under her cloak and said, "It depends on how soon I can find a certain item, an Elvish tome. I'm willing to pay if you have any information on where I can find it."

 

[Darkbloom]

The burly man shakes his head. "Nope, I've never seen or heard about anything called an Elvish tome. Not sure where you'd look, either. But I'll set you up with a room."

You give the burly man enough coin for renting a room for the night and he gives you a key for room 3.

 

[Darkbloom]

Meanwhile, Lightbloom has explored the entire city. And oddly enough, there seems to be only one tavern that exists in the whole city. "Very strange..." He tells himself as he walks through the door. He didn't expect it to be terribly busy, and he was partially right. The burly man was leading a fairly attractive woman to a room, so Lightbloom sat down at the counter and waited for the bartender to return.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara huffed in disappointment before the man walked from behind the bar to show her to her room as she pulled her hood more securely over her head. While she was being led she saw a fair-haired man walk in, and made note of another person taking refuge at this establishment, but she didn't get a good look at him. She assumed like most in this town, he was human. Once she was at her room she asked the burly man, "Do you happen to have a map?"

 

[Darkbloom]

"Yeah, one moment. I'll go get one for you at the front. I have another customer waiting." The burly man walks back to the counter and picks up a map, and to his surprise it's an elf! "Uh... What can I do ya for, sir?" A slight bead of sweat rolls down the man's head. He must've had a bad experience with one or more elves in the past.

Lightbloom replies, "I'm here for a room. It's getting rather late, and this is the only tavern in the whole city. Pretty strange. So can I have a room please?" He hands coin to the bartender and waits for a reply.

"Sure, sure. Right this way." He gives Lightbloom a key for room 8 and walks him to it. "It's not everyday you run into an elf."


"You're right, it certainly isn't. We're a rare breed these days thanks to those... Humans..." He says with a bit of a snarl. As Lightbloom walks past Meara, she can see now that his ears are pointed and he walks with the natural grace and pose of an elf.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara raised her eyebrows in surprise upon seeing his ears. It had been a while since she had seen an Elf, not only that but to see one here in the city and so open? She was surprised he didn't disguise himself like she had so as not to face racism from all the Humans around. She discreetly continued looking him after he walked passed her and thought to herself that he didn't look half bad either. He looked slender yet still well-built and his face had impossibly no blemishes on him. Of course she would never care to be open with this opinion on his looks, but she was intrigued. After the man showed the Elf to his room, he handed her the map and nodded a head with a mumbled thank you before she too walked into her room leaving the door open as she inspected the place which was surprisingly nice compared to the old bar area.

 

[Darkbloom]

This is the map she was given, quite devoid of any real details, but it was easy enough to piece together.

 

[Darkbloom]

Lightbloom stretched his muscles out a little bit before going to bed. It was dark, and late enough into the night that when he would wake up four hours later, there would be light outside again. The next four hours were relatively peaceful. No sound to be heard except the crickets and frogs outside near the river.

Four hours later, Lightbloom woke up and silently made his way to the tavern area. "Water." The man nodded and came back with a glass of water, which Lightbloom swiftly drank up. "What's your name, barkeep?" He asked, not really wanting to refer to him as the barkeep or the burly man. "Burt, is the name." He says as he cleans the dirty glasses from other customers until they're squeaky clean. Burt was clearly not too used to speaking to elves, so he remained quiet. "Say Burt, have you heard of any rumors recently?" Burt shook his head. "I have a hard enough time focusing on keeping this joint running! With all the political strife and whatnot."

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara inspected the map. Deciding on her first course of action for the next day. She figured she would start looking in the shops she was currently at in the upper ward and then make her way down to the Old District. She nodded to herself and then stood up stretching and got ready for bed, she was extremely tired from the long journey.

The next day she woke up quite early to do as much as she could during the day so she equipped herself with all the essentials along with her hooded cloak and walked back to the bar area to hopefully grab some breakfast. As soon as she walked in she noticed the Elf from the day before talking up the barkeep. She didn't want to interrupt so she grabbed a seat where one chair was in between her and the handsome Elf. Once the Elf was done asking the man whom she now knew as Burt about potential rumors she spoke, "Do you have something to eat before I head out?"

 

[Darkbloom]

Lightbloom was going to ask Burt to elaborate on the political situation, but thought to himself that the humans could handle it easily enough. He wouldn't be interfering just to help out the race that destroyed all of the elven cities. Not long after that, the very attractive woman he had seen walk to the room earlier had sat one chair over from him. He pretended not to look but decided to see how much he could figure out from his peripheral vision.



Burt replied "I can ask the cook what she has available." He disappears into the kitchen, leaving only the two of them at the counter.

 

[Maeve Valor]

When Burt left the two of them she refrained from uttering a word. Meara can usually be vocal if she wants to be, but when she is in the city she tries her best to not draw attention to herself. She wanted to know what the Elf was doing in town, but she decided against it because absolutely anyone could be a potential enemy. Unbeknownst to her though, one of her white locks of hair had tumbled down from her hood making it visible. Around these parts, only one race had white hair like that, and it was Changelings even though they too were very hard to come by, maybe even more rare than Elves.

 

[Darkbloom]

Wait... That hair color can only be one race... Lightbloom knew from his elven teachers that white hair was only seen on Changelings. Changelings are just as scarce as elves are. Okay, Lightbloom, you can say something!

In a low, masculine voice that could make almost anyone melt to a puddle, he says "You might want to hide your stray lock of hair, Ms. Changeling... Be calm, I'm not looking for trouble." He looks around. No one is close enough to hear and none of the races that are around have good enough hearing to know what he said.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Taken aback, Meara quickly tucked the strand of hair behind an ear and finally looked in his direction inwardly almost relieved that he spoke to her. "Damn, he looks better than I thought." But it would take a lot more than looks to win her over. With her shining silvery iris' she looked him over once more before scoffing and said spoke in his Elvish native tongue, "That's what they all say, Elf." She then turned in her chair to fully face him. "If you aren't looking for trouble, what are you looking for?" She asked albeit a tad bit more flirtatiously than she had originally intended.

 

[Darkbloom]

He ignores that she sounded a bit flirtatious. Not that he minded too much, but he wasn't looking for a relationship at the moment. All that mattered was reviving magic. Wow... She even speaks Elvish... He was impressed, but his face didn't show it. He now also replies in Elvish "These damned humans destroyed all the elven cities, which in turn made the population of elves go down in number and decreased the belief in magic until there was only stories to tell... I'm going to revive magic at all costs, is the goal. And then I'll destroy all the human cities like they did with the elves." His eyes show that he isn't joking either. There's a dangerous glint to them.

 

[Maeve Valor]

She tilted her head in curiosity and carefully let his words sink in before she responded with, "You're serious aren't you?" It was true that she had heard tales of magic once coursing through this land, but she never gave in to the notion that those legends were actually true like this fool believed. Aside from that, it baffled her that he outright told her. She had heard rumors of the king employing non-humans as spies in order to keep the mass compliant. Though she guessed it was a safe bet to trust her considering she was in disguise. "How do you intend to do that? How do you even know that it's real?" She continued in Elvish.

 

[Darkbloom]

Burt comes back from the kitchen. He sees the two still sitting at the counter, but doesn't know that they've been speaking in Elvish while he was away. "We don't have much ingredients for making anything too fancy, so the cook threw this together." He says in a gruff voice. It's an omelette with cheese and onions.

Lightbloom is silent as this interaction continues. He won't spill this part with others around. "When you finish here, I'll be in the nearby forest." He stands up and walks out of the tavern to the forest, making sure no one follows him and that no one is already there.

 

[Maeve Valor]

She didn't agree to anything nor did she even nod to him, she just watched him walk out and then briefly turned back to Burt and said, "This will do just fine, thank you." As she ate she going back on forth on whether she should humor the Elf by meeting him after she was done eating like she said or just ignore it and start searching for the tome like she originally had planned to. She didn't want to waste daylight by listening to this nut-job, but in the back of her mind, a voice kept on nagging at her saying, "But what if it's all true."

After Meara was done eating she placed money on the table while looking off in the distance making a last minute decision. Finally she cursed to herself and grabbed her travel bag before walking towards the forest grumbling, "This better be worth my time, or else he'll be in for it."

 

[Darkbloom]

His elf ears twitch a little bit as he hears foot steps coming his way. He jumps down from the tree he was sitting in. "I checked the area. Shouldn't be having any surprises. Anyhow, you're right. I can't really prove that magic is real. But as an elf, having listened to stories from other elves in my family line pass down the stories they heard from their family members, it's only logical that we were able to use magic before. My first descendant, Thomas was his name, started my whole family line. From the stories I heard, he learned as much magic as he could to protect his family. Their names have been lost to time, however. I've heard about ancient ruins that contain priceless treasures, knowledge, and some of them might even have hidden magic to unlock. Those ancient ruins are where I'm going to look, but it's too dangerous for just me."

 

[Maeve Valor]

When he jumped from the tree, and then notified her about how he patrolled the make sure to make sure they were alone, she thought, "Hm, maybe he isn't as daft as I had originally assumed." As he continued on explaining her thoughts were further backed up, because if what he was saying about his lineage was true then it would make sense. She had heard that for centuries there have been travelers in the land that told tales of large ruins with unknown origins. If Meara had to guess where magic could possibly be stored, these fabled ruins would have been her first guess as well just on the mere fact that they were so elusive and mysterious.

In response, she said, "And that's why you started talking to me. You want my help going to these ruins. Am I right?" She couldn't blame him, with her being a Changeling and looking obviously capable of herself with her rapier, daggers, and short bow with arrows all in plain sight.

 

[Darkbloom]

"You are correct. You have the look of an adventurer about you. I had just arrived here yesterday, shortly after you. Therefore, I haven't gotten around to asking the townfolk about rumors." His elf ears twitched. He wasn't picking up anything sinister, but he thought he'd heard something. "We'd best be heading back. Mustn't linger in one place for too long."

 

[Maeve Valor]

"Now hold on a second, I haven't agreed to anything yet," she sighed and placed her hands on the curve of her hips while looking around in thought. "Alright, look, I'll help escort you to locate and go through one, and I do mean one, ancient ruin. If we do not find magic there at all then that's where our partnership ends. If we do by some chance find magic then I will carry on accompanying you. In turn... I want you to help me find an Elvish tome I'm looking for in town. I've heard I could sell it for a lot, but the problem is it's written in ancient Elvish. I won't be able to read it to really know what it's worth. So if you can help me find it and translate it then I'll help you," she pointed.