2 AL: IRENE

The western wall of the greenspace was just within sight. Irene leaned against the southern wall resting, as she kept her eyes on the forest. The walking staff in her hand was her trusty broom handle. When she returned to the entrance she found it leaning against the wall. It was only with its help that she made it this far.

It took her three days to cross the green. She ended up climbing a tree each night. She tried to spend her second night in the forest on the ground with her back to a sturdy trunk. Her leg was extremely painful and she didn’t think herself capable of climbing. Less than an hour later she heard the approaching sounds of a large animal. Her fear made the climb easy.

On the third night a scurry of squirrels discovered her high in a tree. Irene thought they were frighteningly misnamed. Squirrels were adorable little creatures that gathered nuts. These animals were larger than the rats and frighteningly aggressive. At the very least they should have been named after a carnivore. Irene was able to frighten them off with a combination of ice-bolts and shots of lightning. The lightning seemed especially effective on the squirrels, since they would fall from the tree when stunned. It took multiple hits to kill a squirrel, unlike the rats. Irene wasn’t certain how many hits it would take, since she didn’t think she killed any of them. She was happy when they left but she didn’t get much rest.

She was physically exhausted and her leg still hurt. The wound was healing well. She cleaned it at least once a day and there were still no signs of infection.

Since she lost her light she was limited to traveling only in the day. Even as she approached her destination, the west wall of the greenspace, she was uncertain how she could travel further once she got there. She was still hoping to catch up with others heading in the direction of Londontown.

She woke up with a jerk. She dozed off on her feet for a second. She couldn’t go any further today. Regardless of her desire to find someone else, she needed to rest. She pushed herself off the wall and stood. She inspected all the trees within sight, trying to decide which one looked the easiest to climb.

She leaned down to pick up her pack. As she did so she noticed something odd about the wall just east of her. She limped over to get a closer look. It was a door. The door and the wall it was set in were made of the same glass as the rest of the south wall. There was the same complex latch on this door as was on the doors in the corridors. Since the door was transparent, Irene could see how the mechanism worked. The engineer in her found it fascinating. She realized her attention was drifting. She shook her head trying to wake herself up.

Looking through the glass she could see a darkened room beyond. It was illuminated poorly by the light in the greenspace filtering through the glass. Has this been here this whole time? Irene wondered. She didn’t notice it when she stopped for her break. It made her nervous about what else she was missing in her exhaustion. The room was empty. There were several piles of debris littered around. A layer of dirt coated the floor. The room, or maybe area was a better term, narrowed down to a corridor that headed away from the light. The darkness completely hid what lay beyond. It was an entrance to the greenspace. Irene didn’t know why this one had a door on it.

Irene unlatched the door and stepped inside. She put her back to the glass wall next to the door and slid down. She set her pack, which was slung by one strap over her shoulder, onto the floor next to her. She held her staff across her lap. If anything came out of the dark at her, she would retreat through the door into the green. That was pretty much her last thought before exhaustion overwhelmed her and she passed out.

She awoke to near total darkness. The only light came from a scattering of stars in the sky far above the structure. Then it wasn’t the only light. Something far down the corridor flickered a bright clear white and went out. Irene grabbed up her staff. Her heart raced. She forced herself to stay silent. She strained her eyes, listening for the sound of claws on stone.

The light flickered again. She was staring right at it when it happened. She could see that there was a ninety degree turn in the corridor not far from where she sat. The light was coming from something high around that corner. She thought this light must be what awakened her. It flickered again.

Something about that flicker was familiar. It reminded her of the behavior of a fluorescent light with a bad ballast. She found her eyes drifting up to the ceiling even though she couldn’t see it in the dark.

The light flickered again. The flicker lasted longer, like it almost switched on. The darkness was still quiet. The only sounds she could hear were the normal forest sounds she heard every night. The glass wall was blocking most of them so they were much softer than she was used to.

She pushed herself to her feet and instinctively picked up her pack and swung it over one shoulder. Remembering the piles of debris that were scattered across the area, she clung to the wall as she worked her way in the direction of the light. She approached the corner with extreme caution. She ran her hand along the wall feeling for it. When she found it, she leaned forward to look around while keeping most of her body hidden from whatever was down there.

The hall beyond was dark. It was just as dark as the one she was in. The flickering light was gone. Irene told herself to be patient. She flexed her left hand, getting ready to toss a spell if she needed too. She held her staff in her right hand to help her reduce the weight on her injured leg. She was pretty good at using the left to cast both lightning and ice-bolt after the practice of the last few days. She thought that she should have taken the time to learn fireball so she could use it to see down the corridor.

She did a double take. Why would she need to use a fireball? She actually knew a light spell. She didn’t know why she didn’t think of it earlier. She blamed the easy use of her flashlight in the first days of travel and her grief and yes, embarrassment at its loss. The natural light in the green kept her going. By the time it got dark in the evenings, she was tired and more than ready to stop for the night.

She cast the light spell in the general direction of the ceiling. A ball of light appeared just past her thrown fist and flew up into a glass panel on the ceiling. A round circle on the panel ignited into a bright white light, before that light spread out across the whole panel, dimming as it spread.

The hallway around the corner was empty. The floor was cleaner than the section by the glass door. Irene could see the edges of the stone tiles that made up the floor. It reminded her of the drawings on the map that showed how you could tell direction by how those tiles were laid in intersections. In the light from the panel she turned on she could see that there was another light panel just past it and another after that. Actually almost the entire ceiling was covered in the panels.

The third panel down flickered. A ray of light shot across its surface from corner to corner and bounced back three times. The panel went dark. Irene threw a light spell at it. It behaved exactly like the first panel. Unlike that round panel at the ruin entrance, both of these lights seemed to be holding their illumination level. She remembered the entrance panel fading to darkness quickly.

She looked back at the glass wall to the greenspace. A trace of light was leaking in from the green. She realized it must be just before dawn. She made her way back to the glass wall and sat down by the door. The trip back was easier with the light from the two panels around the corner. She would see anything approaching her from that direction back lit by the panels. Feeling more secure than she had for days, she drifted back to sleep.

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When next she woke it was day. She felt good. Even her leg didn’t hurt if she lay perfectly still. It was amazing how much the stress of the last few days wore her down. The room was now illuminated by the sunlight coming in through the glass. She could see that all over its ceiling were also panels made of dark glass.

Irene entertained herself by throwing light spells up onto the panels. When all the panels were illuminated she started wondering how long it would last. She got to her feet with just a little help from her staff. She went down the hallway to the corner to see if the two panels she turned on near dawn were still running. The panel that was flickering was still powered on but the panel that started out dark was once again dark. Irene considered what that might mean. She decided the flickering panel was trying to turn on by itself, right before dawn. When she hit it with the light spell it jump started that process. The other panel was dark then. It must be considered dead. It was only powered for however long her spell lasted. Looking down the hallway, she could see no other working panel. She could just make out another turn ahead.

She felt like this working light was hinting that this was the way to go. She resisted that notion. The light reminded her that she knew how to turn them on, maybe that was its purpose. Irene thought that if she started down this corridor she was giving up any chance of rejoining some of the others. She wasn’t ready to do that yet. She may have ran into problems and traveled slowly but maybe some of them could have found trouble too.

She wanted to make it to the point described on the map for the exit to Londontown just in case. She thought she was getting close. If it wasn’t too far and no one was there, well maybe she would come back here.

After a quick breakfast and cleanup she headed west.

Two hours later she found what she was looking for. The ground fell down in an uneven series of terraces, as if the floor below it collapsed. The sunken area revealed a stout wall made out of stone and reinforced with steel rods. The rods were exposed here and there showing broken ends. This wall was broken by a corridor that ran farther west. The corridor was dark.

Water was running down a stream from the east out of the green and cascading over the terrace breaks, where pools formed. The deepest pool was directly opposite the corridor and looked like it was filling a continuation of the hallway. The water was held back from the open corridor by what looked like a pile of debris. Irene knew it was impossible for a random pile of debris to end up watertight but it was really nicely done.

The result was a staircase wrapped around a water feature that led to the exit which was on the floor below the ‘ground level’ of the greenspace. Around the water feature were beds of plants separated by ‘debris’. Each bed was dominated by a different plant. Irene recognized many of them from the lecture on edible plants. One of them was a plant with arrow shaped leaves. She remembered there were two to them, one edible and one extremely poisonous. She didn’t know which one this was. She decided to just avoid it.

Irene carefully made her way down the stairs. She threw a light spell at the ceiling of the lower passage before she reached the bottom. The spell hit a light panel and activated it. The hall beyond was empty. Dirt and leaf litter covered the floor but grew thinner farther from the green. Irene turned on all the light panels her spell could reach from the entrance.

She saw a small group of rats flee the light and retreat into a cross hallway. Watching the animals she realized the depths of the hallway weren't completely dark. She thought a light panel must be working down there.

Irene decided to fill her water bottles, clean her wound and gather a few of the plants for lunch. The deep water seduced her and she ended up taking her first full bath since entering the ruins. She sacrificed the other pants leg from her ruined pair of pants to make a second bandage she could change to. She washed out the used bandage and laid it out to dry. She didn’t want to take the time to wash her clothes, so she forced herself to put them back on dirty.

The top of the water was about four feet below the floor of the forest. Sitting beside it she did not have a good view of what was approaching from the trees. She knew she was taking a risk. She kept alert for sounds as she dug out some tubers. The plant was easily recognizable as one of the listed edible plants but no one mentioned the tubers. She ate a small amount of one to see if it would make her ill. The rest she planned to carry with her.

She heard shouts first. She dropped the tubers and put her knife back into its sheath. She swung her backpack on and secured its straps. With a firm grasp on her walking staff she backed up across the terrace she was on until her back touched the stone wall behind her. She thought a lot about what she did last time she heard trouble. She wasn’t going to go rushing out this time. She tried to keep calm as she watched.

The shouts were coming from the north. Irene could hear at least two voices, a man and a woman. At first she couldn’t understand what they were saying. As they grew nearer she heard the man say, “I can’t…” something, something. This was followed by loud crashing as something large moved through the underbrush.

The man cried, “Shoot it! Shoot it!” Those words were very clear, both for the volume they were issued at and the fact that the man was running toward her. She could see his figure through the trees but she couldn’t see anything behind him.

Jake burst out of the trees into the little clearing around the drop. True terror flashed across his face as he saw the drop off in front of him. He stumbled as he swung to his left to clear the obstacle. The animal behind him burst out of the underbrush closing the distance.

It was the same animal that brushed against Irene tearing her leg open. For a second she froze as fear flooded her system. Then, to her surprise, her fear vanished under a wave of fury. She threw three ice-bolts in quick succession. The animal’s pace slowed after each hit. Jake pulled ahead.

Sophia came running out of the trees behind the beast. When she saw how close she was to the animal, she slid to a stop and raised her bow. There was already an arrow set on the bow string. She fired. It struck the beast in the right rear leg. The animal crashed to the ground, sliding to a halt.

Suddenly Jake was there. He swung his ax with his full strength onto the beast’s head. The animal collapsed.

“Yeah!” Jake said, “Take that!” He did a little victory dance around the carcass.

“If you ever do anything that stupid again, I will shoot you,” Sophia declared.

“What are you upset about? We handled it and just look at that pile of coins!” Jake countered.

“We didn’t handle it!” Sophia nearly screamed back at him. “I couldn’t catch up. If it wasn’t for that ice-bolt you would be dead right now.”

“Ice-bolt?” Jake countered. Irene realized neither of them saw her where she stood below. She took a step out away from the wall. The motion caught their attention. They both turned to face her with their weapons raised.

“Glad to be of service,” Irene called to them.

“Irene wasn’t it?” Sophia asked.

“Yes,” Irene responded. She climbed up the terraces to join them. There was an actual pile of coins sitting beside the animal. There was also what looked like a chunk of meat and two tusks. Irene looked back at the animal. The carcass was still equipped with all its tusks. Now that she was close to it she could see it wasn’t actually the same animal that hurt her. It was just the same type.

“You didn’t limp before, did you?” Jake asked.

“No. This isn’t my first contact with this kind of animal,” Irene admitted.

“A boar?” Jake responded. “Did you kill it?”

“No,” Irene responded. “I was lucky to get away by climbing a tree.”

Sophia reached out and touched the pile of coins. From Irene’s point of view nothing happened. When Jake touched the pile and again Irene realized they were all seeing different things.

“Do either of you see that big chunk of meat?” Irene asked in order to confirm her observation.

“What meat?” Sophia asked.

“Just there,” Irene said. She reached out to point at the item. At the last moment she tried to not touch it by pulling her fingers back. She ended up making a kind of come hither motion. The meat disappeared, so did the tusks and the pile of coins. She must have stumbled on a pick up all command. “Oops,” Irene said, “I picked it up.”

“I didn’t see anything there,” Sophia responded. “It must be your reward for helping us. There are these little altars where you can turn the rewards into physical items.”

“I haven’t seen anything like that,” Irene observed.

“They are in the rooms,” Sophia explained. “I wouldn’t worry about it unless you get something better. Everyone said these boars taste like crap.”

“Why were you hunting it?” Irene asked.

“For these beauties,” Jake said, as he stroked one of the tusks.

“They are supposed to have a high value,” Sophia conceded.

“Value to who?” Irene asked.

“Crafters,” Sophia replied. “We are on our way to Londontown. We hope to trade them there.”

“I am on my way there too,” Irene said, jumping on the opportunity before her. “Perhaps we can travel together.”