Day 7
—
Name: Phoenix
Magic: Death, Dismiss
Spells: Death Ward
Skills: Persuasion 22%->25%, Passivity 26%->30%, Read and Write Empyrean 0%->20%
Luck Uses: 1
Hit Points: 13(14) [Healing, 30 hours remaining]
Magic Pool 31
Magic Burn I
Weight: 71 kg -> 70 kg
—
Phoenix started on what had become a routine, he did his usual chores glad that the rain had stopped despite the cloud cover remaining, hunted a rabbit down for meat to supplement the mushrooms and strawberries, and started drying out wood for the day's fire. He then cut soggy sod behind the temple with his Lance, where he moved all the remains he could gather, in careful individual piles as he could, given that most were fragile and fell to pieces as he picked them up. Last was the scattered remains of the priestess of Arachnae. Once he placed the cut sod back over the remains, he opened the tome to the page with one of the few obviously religious rituals inside, a blessing for the dead. He didn’t need to read it to remember it of course, but it felt right to read it out loud, solemn and heartfelt, even if he wasn’t truly a priest.
She probably thought I was a member of the enemy force that sacked the place, come to loot her home. And I was terrified out of my mind and dazed from the injury and acted on instinct. Self defense, yes, but a tragedy all the same, and one that might have been avoided if I had just acted a little differently. I wonder what task she had that kept her spirit bound to this place, and if it could be completed, a kind of penance maybe.
He then went to the canal and cleaned himself up as best he could, remembering Annirith’s comment on being ‘stinky’. Not terribly much he could do without her soaps, but he did the best he could, shivering and cursing in the cold water. Then, drying off in the altar room with a warm fire, he retrieved the flower from where he had stored it safely behind some rocks, and he called Annirith’s name.
While he waited, he tackled reading his new book, the cobalt glass manual that Sabiya had defended. He now knew the name of the language it was in, from his panel that morning, Empyrean, and he struggled through the pages with the minimal vocabulary he had been able to develop in the short time with her. He wasn’t making much headway, honestly, but it was something to do with his time, and he could feel his brain making connections and deducing relations, which might slowly result in some progress later.
The soft buzz of her wings alerted him to Annirith’s approach, and he stood to greet her, plastering a welcoming smile on his face. When she appeared in the doorway, he gestured to a rock he had placed for this purpose.
“Annirith! I am glad you had time to visit! Have a seat, we can talk. Would you like some berries?” He didn’t know if she would eat meat and had set aside his morning’s catch in a cache out of sight, in case it made her uncomfortable. She seemed a bit nonplussed as she stared around the hovel he had made of the place, then when she finally looked at him, she stamped her foot, for all the world like she was angry.
“You are hurt! Something has happened! Tell me!”
Hastily he raised his hands, trying to placate her. “No, I mean, it's barely anything really. Pushed a little too hard unlocking my magic and got a mana burn, but it's almost healed now anyway. I appreciate the concern however. Sit, sit, please.”
She flitted about his head and shoulders, as if to reassure herself that he was telling the truth and wasn’t hiding any other injuries, then consented to settle down, en pointe again, on the rock. Not exactly sitting, but then, this seemed like it counted as ‘relaxed’ for her.
“Cherish your health more! You are the only male anyone knows of for hundreds of kilometers, you must be more careful!” After her admonishment, she calmed a little. “I had been anxious for your call, imagining something might have happened to you.” Suddenly, she grabbed a strawberry as large as her head and stuffed her face into it, as if to hide from her words.
So many questions, heavens above, what did she mean just now?
Sitting down himself he decided to address the less personal questions first. “Only male? What about Damuyre? Or any of the other uh… faeries?”
She stopped her voracious attack on the strawberry to look at him quizzically. “Damuyre is a hir, a girl in a boy role. All the male faeries fled with the Free Elves when the Empire was destroyed here. Even Melite would not be able to protect them if the hags knew they were here.”
Well that sounds grim. “How, I mean, if it isn’t indelicate to ask, how do you continue your population?” he said, feeling awkward.
“Faeries like Annirith and Damuyre are engendered by Melite’s Blessing of Lia. Melite of course is Long, and has no need for boys. If a boy appears from the blessing, which happens sometimes, she sends them through the Ways to the Free Elves to watch over. But it hasn’t happened since I have been alive, you are the first boy I have met.” she wrinkled her nose again, then returned to eating more slowly.
Extinction is suddenly getting much harder to avert I see. He didn’t know what to ask about first, so he went with his primary goal.
“Forgive my ignorance, but what are the hags and why would they be interested in men?” he said instead.
Annirith frowned at that, the expression marred her normally expressionless face. “I don’t know all about that. The hags are a great evil, fey like we are but twisted beyond even the Dark Fae, corrupt, chaotic and foul. They take men they find and do something to them, and then they can bring more demons into the world, through the Goddess Arachnae’s barrier.” she sniffed “we are safer here because we have nothing the hags want, and Melite is powerful and dangerous. Still, the goblins chase us for their pleasures or to eat us, so we have Lalan. Lalan trains the knights, who fight if the goblins show up, and Melite chases away Kan-Tal-Yek should they summon him. And thus we have been, for my whole life. Until you.”
More and more questions. “Just men? Women are immune?” he felt like focusing on the whole extinction angle for the moment.
“No, sometimes a girl will be taken, but the hags don’t use girls for demons. Making new hags, or so Lalan claims.” Annirith dismissed the threat. “What did you do to get a mana burn?”
Change of subject noted! “Oh, I unlocked, or uh, resonated with a pair of Glyphs I wanted to use to defend myself. I guess that was one too many, but honestly I don’t know exactly why it happened.” he said in return.
She finished her strawberry, a long black tongue, far out of proportion to her diminutive size, flickering out to clean her hands and face from the residue. “I don’t understand. Did Arachnae punish you for hubris?”
It was clear to Phoenix that she didn’t know about the magic that he used, and he spent a few minutes explaining the difference, as he understood it, between worshiping Arachnae and resonating with the Glyphs as he did. She obviously didn’t really get it, but seemed to accept that it was what he did and that was fine.
“Do you get your magic from Melite? Or one of the goddesses?” He wanted to maybe find out a little more about Annirith in particular, and this seemed as good an opening as any.
“Yes, Melite takes my sacrifice as Head Maid, but I also sacrifice to Lia. I am Head Maid because I have grown in power faster and stronger than all the other maids, and Melite favors me as a result.” She strutted proudly, moving into the air to pirouette and then examine his things.
“So what does a Head Maid do, in service to Melite? It seems like a very important job.” he asked.
She stopped her examination of the blue-glass book to twirl and curtsey again to him, as if introducing herself once more. “MOST important! I direct all the maids, so that we have the dew ready each dawn, and the flowers open with the sun, and that the fragrance of the trees is always sweet and fresh. We bake the bread and prepare the nightly feast, tend to the fields of wild grain, and care for the young faeries.” She nodded “The butlers think they are the most important, but they are silly. They see to it that all the workers are working, that the things are made when we need the things, fix the things that need fixing, and so on, but what could a worker do, and what use would a butler be, if there was no grain for bread and the feast?”
“I did dearly love the bread at the feast, so fluffy, warm and soft, it practically melts in your mouth.” yes he was buttering up the bread maker, but it never hurt to compliment a talented chef!
Annirith blushed clear to the roots of her hair, and quickly turned to look at the book again. “Well. That's.. That's good. Maybe, if I have some to spare, I’ll bring it next time.”
“I’d like that!” His response was enthusiastic and for more than just flattery. The bread truly was a delight and he could use an alternative to strawberries, mushrooms, and meat.
“This book” she said, pointing “It is a Lia book. Where did you get it?”
“Can you read it? I got it from a priestess in the tower in the center of the city. Well, undead priestess, I mean. Dead now. Not because I killed her! I just helped her pass on that’s all, and she left it to me!” He hastened to explain some of the details of his exploration while Annirith stared at him with those big black eyes and an unreadable expression. Under that continued scrutiny, he added in the story of the sanctum below where they now sat, the priestess there, and how he got the silver tome he had been using as a magical tutorial. “And then I buried them, behind the temple there, and performed the rite as Arachnae had given in this tome. Best I could do really.” He finished up, lamely.
Annirith started darting back and forth in the air then, wringing her hands and muttering out loud to herself, as if he was merely part of the furniture. “Lalan said boys were emotional and reckless, but this is crazy! She says every adult has to fight to survive but She doesn’t know about any of this! He isn’t an adult, he is a toddler walking towards a cliff!” She stopped and gestured with both hands, encompassing all of him. “He doesn’t even have any shoes!” her tone made it clear that was the final straw.
Well ok, so there had been some stumbles admittedly, but saying he was a toddler was a bit much he felt. Honestly, he was getting a handle on things, lately, even if it was just short term survival stuff. When he opened his mouth, to object or correct he wasn’t quite sure, she forestalled him by flying to the door.
“Wait!” He called, and she turned to look at him. “Wait, are you leaving already?”
“Yes, I am sorry to leave you alone again Phoenix, but She must be made to see sense in this. Tomorrow, I will return tomorrow. Can you… will you make it until tomorrow?” She seemed genuinely worried.
Balancing her concern against his pride, he decided to go with conciliatory. “Yes, of course, I have enough to eat. I’ll stay here and read.”
“Just read! No mana burn, no exploring! Promise!” she actually shook her finger at him!
“Ok Ok yes, I promise, I’ll be here warm and content with my books until tomorrow. There, you can rest easy now right? Come sit and talk again.” using both hands he dusted off the rock for her.
“No, no there is no time. Tomorrow. Stay safe Phoenix!” And with that she was gone, that rippling effect encompassing her as she vanished into the distance.
It was his turn then, to mutter and flounce about, discontent with her sudden departure, even if he kind of understood where she was coming from. He could get a dim and warped picture of himself in the glass of the Lia book, and he looked quite young, late teens maybe, certainly nothing like what age he felt like with scattered memories of a previous life ricocheting around inside his head. And from the hints she had been dropping, Annirith must be close to fifty years old, maybe more? So naturally she might not consider him an adult. As well, setting aside personal feelings on the matter, objectively he was barely getting by at the most basic and mean level, hunting and foraging for food and firewood. That might be fine for a week or two, but he would quickly deplete the nearby resources if he continued, and be forced to either move or range even further afield. If Annirith could get Melite to relent and allow him to join the community there, he would have a much easier time of things, even if he was treated a bit like a child. He could work to prove himself useful and competent, maybe, and then from there dive into whatever goal Arachnae was going to have for him.
Annirith had also given him a lot to think about. This whole issue with men being targeted to bring demons into the world was a worrisome facet of the extinction problem. How did the Empire manage? Or these Free Elves, for that matter? Most importantly, was he at risk or even worse, was he putting these fae folk at risk by being here? Perhaps instead of thinking about joining this community and starting work here, he should head for the capital as Sabiya had suggested. But months of travel on foot? It would require considerable planning. And shoes, definitely shoes.
If he was correct, and it was spring, he had a good six or seven months before things got cold again. At the rate he learned, the only thing stopping him was the unknown limits behind that mana burn. He had plenty of ideas of other things he could experiment with, resonating with Earth for example, or trying to figure something out that would permit some kind of telekinesis or even self flight. He was thinking of ways to make tools by molding earth using magic when he forcibly pulled himself out of an oncoming dreamy haze. Damn, I almost started resonating already! Have to watch that, and after all I did promise. Fine. I’ll be a good boy.
With that he opened up the Arachnae Tome and started re-reading the rituals on spiritual progress. Once again, he did not need to read these to refresh his memory, but rather it felt right from a ritualistic perspective to quietly recite from the book while practicing the meditative techniques. Like the book itself had some mystical quality to it that enhanced the whole process. Plus he really wanted to know how long it would take to rebuild those sacrificed Magic Pool points, which would in turn guide him in how quickly he could resonate with new Glyphs. This is one area where being supremely agile mentally wasn’t really any benefit. Spiritual practice wasn’t so much an exercise in rapid, precise, creative, or structured thinking. Instead, it was an attempt to bridge the gap between worlds, and once bridged, build the bridge wider and stronger such that it could support more traffic. For it was the traffic, in both directions, that generated the pool and the points it contained. A wider and more dense flow both contributed to this, so the practices varied between spiritual stretching exercises, which amounted to filling his pool with as much energy as he could, and gently trying to fill it more. Then there was something akin to high weight, low repetition weight lifting, which was to hold his pool as rigid as possible and compress his magic points, which strengthened the boundaries of his pool so it could sustain heavier traffic. Finally and not to break the analogy completely, a generalized aerobic style practice, just cycling the energy to and from the other world to clear out any blockage or impediments that might exist by emptying his pool into a kind of proto spell and then gathering it back again, over and over.
It was in this last practice that he noticed the true effects of the mana burn. The link he had with the other world felt rough, like it had been abraded or developed lots of little bumps, all of which seemed to drag at his magic, creating resistance. So beyond the hit point loss from the burn, he had set himself back magically by doing… whatever it is that he had done. The practical effect of which was, rather than regaining all of his Magic Pool back after emptying it into the proto spell, he lost a point to the ‘friction’ he felt. Easy enough to refill either with time and respiration or with Draw Breath, but definitely not something he wanted to be hanging over him forever. Well, no sense in crying over spilt milk, he turned his attention to wearing down those bumps and cleaning out his link.
He contented himself by a kind of cycle of this, first setting up his passive spells, his Conjure Light halo and the Death Ward, as well as setting a warm torch sized Conjure Fire to burn without any fuel. Once those were cast, he refreshed his pool with Draw Breath, then went into metaphorical hands and knees sandpaper mode, grinding down the bumps in his link between worlds. When the spells all expired, he started again, striving to increase the duration of the spells and thus the length of his spiritual practice each time while working on the spiritual bridge. It was very calming work, and the day passed quickly. When night had fully fallen, he went to sleep eager to hear back from Annirith about her success, which was enough to ward off any more nightmares of skeletal priests and burning skulls.
Day 8
—
Name: Phoenix
Skills: Meditate 18%->20%, Duration 35%->41%, Passivity 30%->36%
Luck Uses: 1
Hit Points: 14
Magic Pool 31
—
Phoenix was jolted awake by the terrifyingly close sound of thunder. A steady howl of wind echoed over the crack in the ceiling, stealing the heat out of the room, but very little rain, a sort of spitting misting spray. He sat up and glared at the weather, as if that could force it to calm down. Wouldn’t be fair to call Annirith out in this mess. Of course, silly him, he hadn’t hunted enough for today's meals, so he might actually have to go out in said mess. He was going to have to take some steps relatively soon to reduce the amount of time he spent just getting food.
First would be to kill something larger than a rabbit or squirrel for meat. A full sized deer, for example, might give 25 kg of meat, which if he dried it out using magic and then ground it up and combined it with the fat and dried berries and mushrooms, he could make into pemmican, a recipe he recalled from that hazy former life. Time consuming to make, mostly in the drying and grinding stages, but would last literally years if kept out of the weather. The bag, once properly clean, would do for that at least. If he ended up with enough berries and mushrooms, he might have 40 kg of food, which was a good one or two months worth, depending on how active he was. That would free up considerable time for other activities, instead of spending half the day hunting and foraging.
Problem was, of course, that he wasn’t a hunter and didn’t have a clue how to track down a deer, or a buck he supposed. Best he could hope for is a wandering herd to cross his path. Maybe that was worth a try, give that Luck Uses a work out? It had been distressingly quiet all this time, just sitting there waiting to save his life or some such thing. He made his way out to the outside exit, noting the fog that swirled around his feet as it rolled in from the air outside.
Wait, intense wind AND fog?
When he looked out over the canal towards the forest, it was towards a scene out of some kind of dream, or maybe nightmare. A sea of fog hovered just above the ground level, whipped into wave-like froth by a tearing wind and punctuated by bright flashes of lightning which struck from the fog's mirror in the sky, roiling and black. The tree tops swayed, casting crazy sharp relief shadows in the actinic lighting, leaving him blinded in turn by too bright and too dark a world. He shaded his eyes to try and make sense of his surroundings, and in the halflight between flashes could see the clouds take on the form of a wild woman, streaming smoke behind her and hurling lightning into the ground in the distance to the time of the thunder. The return strokes of light were like laser beams out of fiction, bolts of sunlight from ground to sky which refracted into those bright harsh white flashes but with no accompanying sound.
Gods at war! Is that Kan-Tal-Yek in the sky? Is this a goblin raid? Or is that a hag? And then a horrible thought: Did I bring this on, did that thing sense me like Melite sensed me and came to investigate?
If this was a goblin raid, the faeries were in danger. While he knew, intellectually, that they had fought these battles before and would again, he just couldn’t stand there and watch as possibly Annirith or others died. He rushed back to his camp, quickly stuffing both books into the bag and slinging it over his shoulder. Then outside again.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Ward. Death.” The feeling came to him swiftly and he stretched to put as much power into the spell as he possibly could. “Conjure Light.” Prepped now, he started at a jog towards the conflict, then broke into a run.
—
Magic Pool: 13(31) [respiration, 11.6 hours remaining]
Death Ward. Light Halo.
—
He dodged around the densely packed pines of the forest, glad for the Death Ward protecting his feet as he was moving far too quickly, and the fog was too dense, to see where he trod. The booming thunder and bright flashes easily pierced the tree cover, and thus little danger of losing his way. Judging by the delay between the flash and the sound of thunder, he was about two kilometers away, give or take, which might take him seven or eight minutes at this pace, assuming he could maintain it. He resolved to maintain it, it didn’t matter if he was winded when he arrived, as long as he could think he could cast and thus fight.
The time seemed to stretch endlessly, and he was surprised when suddenly in front of him was the fray. A humanoid figure, shorter than him by a good head, dressed in some kind of overlapping scale armor made of leather, windmilled out in front of him, swatting at firelights that struck it with arcs of electricity. Two feathered darts about the length of Phoenix’s hand were embedded in the side of the thing's torso, and it was shouting in some unknown language, sharp and guttural. The halo of his light illuminated another half dozen figures like that, most engaged with two or three bark armored faeries a third their size, armed with spears or sharp knives.
He pulled up in his run, trying to figure out the sides and recognize someone, Lalan or Annirith preferably. In the middle distance, he could see the burning trees around the grove, and Melite towering in the center, four or five meters tall and glowing like a miniature sun. She was the source of the bright flashes of blinding light darting into the sky, and the lightning was clearly targeting her exclusively, although she seemed to have some kind of defense that was holding for the time being.
She can take care of herself. I hope. While he evaluated, the creature nearest him scattered the lights that had been harassing it and drew a dagger from its belt, turning towards him. It’s features were oddly compressed, its mouth a thin gash three times as wide as his own, its nose just vertical slits above it, with large, slanted eyes shining yellow in the light of his Halo. It was screaming as it charged, skin bloody and burned, knife raised to strike.
Fine. That makes this easy. Terrified in the back of his mind, but calm as ice in the front, Phoenix raised his hand and channeled the Halo into a Lance. The beam struck the thing just below its chin, and then he jerked up when he saw the blood, slicing a ragged gash through the thing's throat, chin, and face up to its nose. It dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, its cry silenced by a gurgle of blood and explosively escaping air from the hole in its throat. He watched it fall, and wanted to close his eyes to the sight, but he just couldn’t. Too many other things were going on at the same time.
The cloud of faeries whipped around his head, their bell-like voices too fast and high pitched for him to understand.
“Lalan! Take me to Lalan, or Annirith!” he hoped they spoke Tul’Lian!
They darted away, parallel to the vague battle line and towards Melite, so Phoenix trotted after, Halo ready for a clean shot at another goblin. He assumed they were goblins. They fit the look. As he weaved through the trees, he saw who he assumed was Lalan, fighting with another figure thrice their size, while wielding a glowing spear and shield. Phoenix took aim while Lalan and the much larger goblin traded blows, and then let loose, carving into the goblins shoulder and shield arm and spraying a gout of blood into the air. The goblin cried out in agony and Lalan took advantage of the moment to skate behind it and stab it behind the right knee, dropping it to the ground. Lalan took the weak backhand stroke on their shield, then neatly stabbed the goblin in the face, killing it.
“Nicely done but what in the Goddesses name are you doing here Phoenix!” Lalan called out, as they wrenched the spear free of the skull.
“Trying to help!” Phoenix stopped in front of Lalan, but was looking around for another target.
“Fine. See if you can find that hobgoblin witch! I am going to roll up their flanks, maybe they will break!” and putting action to words, Lalan winged off to stab another goblin in the back that had been facing off two of the other faerie knights.
Just then a lightning bolt deflected off of Melite’s defenses, and struck a tree maybe three meters away, exploding a deadly shower of splinters over the battlefield. Lalan was safe behind their shield, but their compatriots both went down screaming as shards cracked the back plates of their wood breastplates. Phoenix instinctively ducked and threw his hands in front of his face, and could feel the breeze as the splinters deflected off his Death Ward, or lodged harmlessly in the metal fabric of his cowl. The struck tree slowly collapsed, first down the shattered trunk, then it leaned drunkenly over, tearing branches out of its neighbors as it smashed into the ground a few meters past Phoenix.
Lalan shook their head and switched to an overhand grip on the spear they were carrying, using it to point the way. “Over that tree that way, about 20 meters! Try to take them by surprise!”
Phoenix nodded, hurriedly forcing his way through the collapsed branches. Once on the other side, he switched to a half crouch, stepping quickly and hoping the sound of the battle between the deities would cover any noise he made. True to Lalan’s directions, Phoenix saw a taller goblin-like woman, dressed in straps and bones and carrying a staff mounted with what could only be a faerie skull. Annirith, Damuyre, and a cloud of fireflies were facing off with her. As he closed the distance, Annirith let loose with a bolt of light similar in kind to the ones Melite was launching into the sky. The witch formed a hexagonal shield in front of her, which absorbed the spell, and responded with four withering bolts of power, which struck Annirith and sent her spiraling into the ground.
Rage mixed with the terror in the back of Phoenix’s mind, but he held onto the icy cool instead, bringing his arm up and waiting a moment for the witch to turn towards Damuyre, then unleashed. The Lance struck her across the back and side, leaving a trail of bloody rent robes and white sparkling motes of the magical defense she must have had. Damurye took advantage of the distraction to do something to Annirith, and Phoenix and the witch faced off across 10 meters of space.
“Pig sow of an Elf! Suffer my sting!” the witch cried out, and three sharp thorns of bone shrieked across the distance at Phoenix. He dove for the safety of a nearby tree trunk, but didn’t quite make it fully. One thorn tore a bite from the tree trunk, the other was deflected by the Death Ward in a flash of violet light, but the third impaled the back of his thigh, driving all the way through before becoming lodged.
—
Hit Points: 10(14) (healing, 8 days)
Left Leg Crippled. Shock I [effects offset by high willpower]. Bleeding II.
—
A scream was wrenched from his throat as he pulled in behind the tree fully, hands gripping the wound. Gritting his teeth tight to stifle any further cries, he pulled his cowl up to examine the site, hoping that the major blood vessels had been missed. You have nothing to bind it with, leave it in to keep the blood in! The thought was like a hot poker in his brain, to match the searing pain in his leg, but he willed himself to leave it there. When he looked up, two more goblins were dashing towards him, clubs raised. Shakily he aimed and fired low, striking the right goblin in the leg and severing it at the knee. Howling the goblin went down, dark blood spraying out over the ground as it rolled about. The left goblin closed the distance and struck a two handed blow, and another grunt of pain involuntarily left Phoenix’s gritted teeth. Shards of violet magic scintillated away from his left arm as he threw it in the way of his head to block the lethal blow of the club, and he felt his Death Ward collapse from the strain of damping the blow.
—
Luck Uses: 0 (1 recharging, 24 hours)
Hit points 7(14) (healing, 14 days)
Death Ward Failure
Left Arm Broken, Left Leg Crippled. Shock II. Bleeding II.
—
The goblin halted for a second, staring at Phoenix’s naked waist where he had drawn the cowl up to examine his wound, then shouted something. It then wrapped its arm around Phoenix’s throat in a choke hold, cutting air and blood off equally. The crippling pain, loss of blood, shock, and choke hold proved too much. All he could do was paw weakly at the goblins arm with his left hand, before darkness creeped into his vision and he fell into its merciful embrace.
Day 9
—
Name: Phoenix
Attributes: 0 points
Strength: 4(6) Constitution: 13, Coordination: 11(13), Mentality: 21, Will: 17, Charisma: 17, Luck: 13
Skills: Duration 41%->42%, Range 36%->39%, Passivity 36%->38%, Magical Targeting 68%->72%
Luck Uses: 0 (1 recharging, 12 hours)
Hit points 5(14) (healing, 17.5 days)
Magic Points: 31
Left Arm Broken (Set), Left Leg Crippled (Bound). Blood Loss II.
—
Groggy and in pain, he struggled to open his eyes before realizing that some kind of blindfold blocked them. He was laying on a wooden surface, which jounced and bucked like it was moving. He tried to stay still and quiet, but something must have given away his new consciousness as a harsh voice called out something in that goblin tongue he did not understand. A short time later, the witch’s voice announced itself in his ear. “Now now, sleep my precious darling, wouldn’t want the hags to lose their prize would we! No no indeed!” A cup of bitter liquid was pressed to his lips, and when he tried to twist away, multiple pairs of calloused hands gripped his head, nose, and cheeks, forcing the drink down his throat.
—
Poisoned IV (Narcotic)
—
Back into dreamland, at great speed.
Day 10
—
Name: Phoenix
Attributes: 0 points
Strength: 4(6) Constitution: 12(13), Coordination: 10(13), Mentality: 21, Will: 17, Charisma: 17, Luck: 13
Luck Uses: 1
Hit points 8(14) (healing, 10.4 days)
Magic Points: 31
Left Arm Broken (Set), Left Leg Crippled (Bound). Blood Loss I, Chemical Sensitivity Response II.
—
Again Phoenix woke to pain, a deep throbbing in his arm and leg. He was laying on some kind of smelly prickly hay-like substance, so at first he imagined he was back at his camp somehow. When he cracked open his eyes, fortunately not covered anymore, he didn’t recognize the dim outline of the cell he was in. Made of crudely cut but thick and sturdy looking squared off logs with some kind of wadded clay and grass in the gaps, with a dirty floor similarly designed. It smelled of waste and urine and rotting meat. The door was equally robust, with a square window at about waist height, currently covered by a block of wood. Etched into the door and glowing softly was some kind of sigil, of a much more artistic and careful design than the room itself.
He did not have any manacles or other bindings. His arm was splinted in much the manner of the room- brute and crude but sufficient for the job, and his leg was bandaged with some kind of herbal mixture that he dearly hoped was meant to be antiseptic in some way. Certainly the room wasn’t designed to ward off infection. He was otherwise completely naked. Once again.
Judging by his panel, he had either been unconscious for almost a week or the bandages and poultice and whatever time had passed had done some work to accelerate the healing of his hit points. Taking a closer look around the room in the dim light, he identified a bucket (presumably his latrine) and the still form of what looked like a winged humanoid. Heart in his throat, he shifted over as quick as his wounds allowed.
It was Annirith. She was still breathing, thank Arachnae. He carefully examined her for any injuries. Like him, she was nude, and her pale skin was marred by several ugly bruises on her torso and legs, but she wasn’t bleeding or bandaged or splinted and appeared mostly to just be sleeping. Gently, he touched her shoulder to wake her up.
“Phoenix!” She threw herself onto his neck, holding tightly and shivering, her wings beating like a hummingbird. Hurriedly he shushed her, warily eyeing the door. “Quietly sorry, I am glad you are alive but I don’t want them knowing I’m awake.”
She took position in front of his face, almost like before, en pointe and hands on hips, face a stern mask. “Why! Why did you come just then! This is a disaster!” She was at least scolding him in a whisper…
“Some heroic impulse, I am sorry. Do you know where we are? How long was I out?” He tried to divert her anger into something a little more constructive.
“Nnnnnrgh.” She sounded a bit like a tea kettle starting to boil, and once again he made placating gestures with his good hand to try and mitigate the noise.
“You were very stupid and reckless and brave and you killed so many goblins and you saved my life and saved dozens of others and you shouldn’t have oh, Melite forgive me, but you shouldn’t have done it at all.” She had her hands over her eyes now, crying softly.
I don’t really know how to respond to all of that. He thought, a little grimly. “Annirith? How bad is our situation?”
Annirith wiped the tears from her face and returned to her normal pose, folding her arms under her breasts and schooling her face back to that cool indifferent look she preferred. “I do not know where we are, I was unconscious like you until yesterday. I believe we have only been gone for a day or so. We are in a very bad way. They have only kept me alive because you are here and they are waiting for the representative from the hags to arrive. We are both to be given over to them, if what that filthy witch Vuiloa says is to be believed. Me, for whatever foul process that creates a new hag. You, for whatever horrific fate is in store for boys who get used for demons.”
“Right. Have they looked in that window at all since you’ve been conscious? Do they feed us at set times or anything like that, check on us, patrol or stand guard on the outside of that door?” He stood and nearly smashed his skull against the ceiling, ducking at the last moment. Everything was built to goblin scale it seemed, several feet shorter than he was. He approached but was careful not to touch that weird sigil.
“No, I have not heard or seen any guards. Vuiloa spoke to me when I regained consciousness, to gloat and threaten and explain about the hags. She was very angry, as were her goblin guards, with the deaths you had caused, and was delighting in what the hags would do to you, to us.” Annirith paused, watching him inspect the sigil, then spoke up again. “That is a ritual mark that conscrates this cell to Kan-Tal-Yek, and thus blocks my magic and my connection to Melite and prevents us from being found through auguries.”
Phoenix looked back at her, then returned to examining the door. The hinges were even cruder than the rest of the construction, simply a solid bar driven through a rounded off side of the door and into the ceiling and floor. It looked to have been made out of wood itself, or maybe bone. Peering through the gap, he could see a solid plank of wood set across the door to bar it, presumably set into holders on either side of the door. Nodding to himself, he first tried his ward.
“No problems at all.” He used Conjure Light next, the halo forming around his wrist like a bracelet, illuminating the room. “Looks like they didn’t account for me. We are getting out, get ready.”
—
Magic Points: 13(31) [respiration, 11.6 hours remaining]
Death Ward. Light Halo.
—
She stared at him for only a second, then darted up to his shoulder, hovering there. “I am ready.” She whispered.
Carefully lining up on the gap between the door and the threshold, Phoenix lit off with the Lance, easily burning a dark cut straight through the bar, which fell to the floor with a loud clatter. Quickly, he shoved the door open, and together they entered the room beyond.
The room was quite large and thankfully empty of goblins or other guards. The wall with the door he had just cut open contained another five just like it, presumably more cells. A table and chairs, again sized appropriate for the occupants, was on one side of the room, on top of which was his cowl and bag, apparently discarded there. The stone fire pit nearby had the smoldering remains of what looked like bark armor in it.
He hobbled over, his leg objecting to holding his weight but holding up for now, but he soothed himself with the knowledge that he could retrieve his belongings. “Sorry about your armor.” he whispered to Annirith, as he threw the cowl over his head and put the bag on his good shoulder.
“Getting out of here is much more important.” she was back to being nearly unreadable.
Once dressed, he limped to each cell door and looked into the windows, opening them each in turn and shining his halo flashlight around. They were all equally filthy and equally empty, so he turned to the doorway that led out of this room. First he planted an eye against the gap between this door and its jam. Thankfully the goblins are straight terrible architects. From his limited vantage, he could see two other buildings, one to the right and one across a yard of some kind. The one on the right was larger, two stories tall and made of stone- just as crude but considerably less flammable. Across the way looked like a barn or maybe stables of some kind. Surrounding them both and presumably this building as well was a series of sharpened stakes, Angled outwards to create a hedge with a ditch on the other side. A gate barred the entrance. Not a wall or palisade, thankfully, and the stakes were far enough apart that he felt he could squeeze through. The sky was cloudy and appeared to be late afternoon.
His limp was going to be a fatal flaw, he was terribly slow with it and the goblins or Vuiloa would be on him in a flash. Unless he could create a big enough distraction. He could set fire to this building, the barn, and maybe set some independent of fuel fires in front of the doorway to the stone building to catch exiting goblins by surprise. If he could risk recharging his Magic Pool by drawing breath. He turned to Annirith.
“I won’t be able to make it very far unless I can set up a distraction to delay pursuit. I was going to light some fires, but I need to refresh my Magic Pool. Melite could sense that, do you think this witch Vuiloa could do the same?” he was still keeping his voice to a whisper, just in case.
Annirith tilted her head, clearly confused. “Sense, I don’t think she could, not unless she cast a specific spell to do so. She will be mostly drained, just as I am, from the battle still. If you can get us outside the boundaries of the consecration placed on this foul hovel, we might find a Way that I can use to get us out of here.” Looking him up and down, she then asked “How do you refresh your Magic Pool? I’ve never heard of that being done, other than to rest.”
Phoenix nodded in response, somewhat reassured. “Cheat, naturally. Here, watch out the door for a minute.” he then concentrated on the Draw Breath, feeling the influx of air from the room and through the cracks around the door as it coalesced around him.
—
Magic Pool: 31
—
Annirith watched in wonder, then shook her head and whispered “I felt nothing but the breeze, we should still be safe, unless Kan-Tal-Yek is near. But if she is near, we have no chance of escape anyway.”
He focused on the open doorway of his cell, and the Conjure Flame ignited the dirty mat of hay they had been using as bedding. He let go of the spell as the fire seemed to be doing fine on its own, and then opened the door to the outside and hobbled over to the barn, Annirith darting back and forth keeping an eye out for any goblins on guard. Ducking a head in, he was revolted by the smell, muskier and danker than what he would have expected from horses, cows, or sheep. No animals or goblins were present, so he ignited the floor covering of this building as well.
Where are they all? The main building?
Turning, he set as big a flame as he could in front of the main entrance to the stone building, hoping to catch a goblin or two as they exited in a hurry in response to the fires, and then made his way painfully to the stakes, awkwardly sliding between them as he traversed down one side of the ditch and up the other.
—
Magic Pool: 18(31) [respiration, 8.4 hours]
—
Once clear, he made his best speed, a kind of stilted limp where he would nearly jump with his good leg, bite his tongue in pain on the landing, then repeat. He could feel blood dripping down the back of his leg where his wound had reopened, but it didn’t matter, getting out of sight was paramount.
A cry of alarm could be heard as the thick black smoke curled up from the prison building, and then a high pitched scream as someone must have stumbled into his fire trap. He made it to the tree line, nearly 200 meters away, just as he felt Conjure Flame extinguish, either out of duration or dispelled by someone.
Annirith visibly perked up once they were in the woods. “Out of the consecration! This way!” Annirith called, flying ahead and then returning, urging him on through the woods. “A Way is just ahead, we will be much safer once we traverse it!”
Mustering what willpower he could, he forced himself to continue limping through the pain. Another scream behind them, this one of rage, announced that their escape had been discovered. But just then, he felt that distinct warping as Annirith took him into the Way, and the world blurred around them.
Once they finished moving, he collapsed to one hand and his knees, panting and grunting in agony. Hastily he inspected his damaged leg, first seeing the stream of blood, then pressing the poultice more solidly against his flesh to stem the tide. Annirith was in a tizzy, flying about him worriedly and wringing her hands.
“Do you know how to get back to your people from here?” He mustered up enough strength to ask.
“I can contact Melite from here, and once I do, the Way will become clear. Oooh you're so hurt!” she said.
“Yeah, not great. Still, top priority is getting in touch with Melite or your people, so please start that up. I can hold on.” he replied.
She nodded, and moved over to one of the nearby trees, communing or communicating or worshiping it he wasn’t sure.
It is guaranteed they are after me. And the hags know I am here, so everything Annirith said about the fae being left alone is no longer true… at least for as long as I am nearby. I wonder how much time I have till the next attack, hours, days? I would need weeks to recover from this wound without help. Maybe Melite will be grateful enough that I got Annirith out of there, she might spare some of that healing rose water? And some portable food? And some shoes?
His heart sank with each added item on his bare minimum list of needs to escape towards… somewhere. The Free Elves, probably, or he could attempt the trip to the Empire. His mind felt like it was racing a mile a minute, and he was starting to accept that he was in way over his head and might just be panicking a little.
Oh and I’ve killed three people, with an assist on a fourth. Looking forward to THOSE nightmares! I mean, they were all bad, right?
Annirith had finished her ritual while his thoughts spiraled darkly about his mind. She turned to him and alighted on his good knee, crossing her arms to hold herself and shiver. “Melite knows where we are, and is coming to us. We have but to wait. Everything will be ok Phoenix, just hold on a little longer.” She patted his knee gently, barely felt through his cowl, and once again he marveled at just how light she was.
He was able to track time through his panel, and it was about an hour until Melite showed up in a rush of leaves. With barely a word, she gathered Phoenix and Annirith together in her arms, her stature somehow twice her usual size, or perhaps Phoenix had shrunk, it was very dream-like. And then they were whisked away to safety. It felt like moments, but his panel said it had been another hour past, when they arrived back at the meadow. Annirith and Phoenix both were brought to a hidden pool off from the pond, made of copper and wood and steaming hot, and Melite gently put them in the water. Various maids wiggled Phoenix out of his clothing as he sank into the warmth, grateful for the assistance given his broken arm and other wounds. Annirith seemed to perk up immediately, but it took him a bit longer, the maids removing the crude bandages, the water fizzing pleasantly around his thigh wound and quickly stopping the bleeding. They washed his hair and body, then led the two of them out to a soft bed made of flowers and downy feathers, where they drifted off, Annirith curled innocently in his arms as he felt the magic of the place overcome him.