14 A.L.
It was almost four months before Irene returned to Redfalls. She took time to check on her shop in Londontown. Sales were down again. She restocked the shop easily. She increased the percentage that Anna received from the sales, once she calculated that the sales clerk really was earning less than rent and food. She tried very hard not to listen to the reports of violence.
“Is Ian in the square?” Irene asked as she checked into the inn, renting the room for a week.
“He’s been in and out. There’s a lot of hostility along the border. He was concerned when you weren’t here until I told him you went up to Moscow,” Ellen reported. “Did you find who you were looking for?”
“No,” Irene admitted. “I knew she was going north with an exploration party, but I hoped word would be back on what they found by now.”
“Is it more peaceful up there?” Ellen asked.
“Sort of,” Irene responded. “There is still the red-blue split, but there isn’t open fighting. News of the fighting down here has reached there and tensions were higher. There is a red healer in Moscow building up a following. They came from a red square called Mumbai. I've never been to it but I was told it is ruled by a healing clan.”
“A red healer?” Ellen asked, “I’ve never heard of that. I thought the healing spell only worked for blues.”
“No, it works for everyone, but the healer and the patient have to have related colors. A blue healer can’t heal a red warrior, and a red healer can’t heal a blue. But a violet healer can heal both a blue and a red. What is interesting is that if the colors don’t match, like violet/red there is no addiction, but it hurts like hell,” Irene explained.
“I’ve never heard of a violet wizard,” Ellen commented. “What would violet be? Fire-ice? Ice-Fire?”
“Electricity,” Irene responded.
“Like Ian’s stun spell?” Ellen asked.
“Exactly,” Irene responded. “That is the purple spell tree.”
“Does that mean Ian is a violet wizard?” Ellen asked.
“Oh, no, he is a red wizard. The color of a wizard’s magic doesn’t control what spell they can cast. Look at me, I can cast fire, ice, force, fear…”
“I heard you scare the animals off from the gatherers,” Ellen said, breaking into Irene’s list. “Is that the fear spell you’re talking about?”
“Yeah,” Irene responded. “It is the yellow tree. I’ve never met a yellow wizard, but there probably is one out there.” Then Ellen surprised her.
“I met a yellow once, in the very early days. She could cast fear. When she touched crystals in rests they turned yellow. At the time no one knew what that meant. She was killed when she tried to frighten off a bear. Instead of running it turned on her and tore her to shreds,” Ellen commented.
“That’s awful,” Irene responded. “The fear spell is dangerous. If you use it against a low tier animal it is fear, but against a higher tier animal it is enrage. The bear was too high tier for her.”
“That seems backward to me,” Ellen said. “If I knew fear I’d want to use it against the big scary stuff.”
“It is kind of a trap. I use it to get rid of things I don’t want to bother with. If you're truly afraid, you need to stand your ground and fight with both physical blows and magic,” Irene advised. Ellen would remember those words. Years from now and miles from this place, they would save her life.
Irene went out with the gatherers in the morning. They were all delighted to see her. Irene noticed there were two warriors traveling with them, Richard and another man. Richard smiled welcome, but the second man was reserved. He warmed up as the morning passed and Irene pointed out animals, but never claimed any for herself.
When Irene headed in the direction of the grappler vines, the group didn’t follow. There wasn’t any Grappler juice at breakfast and Irene missed it.
“What is the problem?” Irene asked.
“There’s a boar den in that direction,” one of the women told her.
“Oh,” Irene said. She straightened up and secured her gathering bag. “I hate those suckers,” she said as shifted her grip on the walking stick. “I’ll go get rid of it.” She stalked off in the direction of the vines.
“Is she really going to kill it?” the new hunter asked the old one.
“I have no clue,” he replied.
“Yes,” one of the women replied. “She killed them before when she was with us.”
Irene found the animal eating grappler fruit and making a mess of the vines with its tusks, which just pissed her off. She knew it didn’t really have a den in the area, that was part of the weirdness of the animals in the structure. Animals did get ‘assigned’ to an area and wouldn’t leave without provocation. When she killed this boar, a new boar would appear someplace in the green by morning, but the odds were it wouldn’t be here. She cast enforce on her staff. It was a long lasting spell, casting it now freed up her hands to cast different spells later.
She fired off a low tier fear into the flank of the animal. The animal turned to face her in a fury. This was the real use for the fear/enrage spell. As enrage it drew animals to you.
The boar screamed and charged. With her left hand she cast rooted while with her right hand she cast fire spear. Fire raced along the length of the staff transforming it into a spear. The digging claws on the animals' feet threw dirt as it closed the distance. She aimed for the spot just below the jaw but above the breast bone. It was the sweet spot on the animal and could kill it instantly.
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The instant the beast made contact with her weapon she released the rooted spear. She jumped to the right, throwing up a shield to the left to deflect the tusks away from her. The rooted spell failed under the force of trying to stop that much momentum. The animal probably weighed five or six hundred pounds. The boar dropped to its belly and slid to a stop.
A round of applause rose up, Irene looked up to find Ian looking down at her from the nearest hill. He approached under a camouflage spell, so she didn't notice him until he dropped it. A vaguely familiar hunter was just behind him.
“Ian,” Irene said with a smile. “Ellen told me you were away.”
“Just a quick training trip,” he explained. Irene went over to the boar and grabbed her staff. She used force tap in reverse to pull it free of the animal. Ian joined her, looking down at the beast. “That was very neatly done,” he commented. It was a strangely physical approach for a wizard to use. He gave Irene a quick kiss, while she smiled at him. “Did you want the tusks?” Ian asked.
“Oh, no. It was just in the way. I wanted grappler juice for breakfast tomorrow. It looks like it did a real number on the vines, but maybe some can be salvaged. Just a second,” she said as she pulled away from Ian and started back in the direction she left the gatherers. She found them closer than she left them. “I got it,” she said to the group. She returned to the boar to find the hunter studying it with a strange look on his face, it almost looked like hunger. “Did you want the tusks?” she asked him.
“No,” he responded. “It is your kill.”
“I don’t really have any plans for them. I know a man who makes these beautiful buttons out of ivory, but I’ve never learned the skill,” she told him. She picked up the front foot and tried to roll the beast. Its heavy weight resisted her.
“Need a hand?” Ian asked. He was leaning against a nearby tree, enjoying the show. The gatherers all jerked when he spoke. They missed him standing there. They hurried past to start gathering what fruit they could.
“No, I got it,” Irene said, holding up her staff. “ She used the staff as a lever to roll the animal over. Twenty minutes later the boar was skinned. She rolled up the hide and tied it with a rope. She looked down at the tusks.
“I’ll carry them for you,” Ian said. He knew that look, she wanted them even though she really didn’t have a plan for them. Irene smiled at him. He walked over and with a sharp force infused blow cracked the tusks off.
The gatherers circled around Irene and her kill during the time she spent processing it. She called out to them that she was heading back in the direction of the square. Richard asked Irene if he could take some of the meat.
“Of course,” Irene said. “Let me help you quarter it.” The hunters with the gatherers handed off the squirrels they already collected to the women. Irene helped them quarter the animal and trim them back to something they could carry. Each hunter took a quarter, including the hunter that was with Ian. He took a heavier hind quarter. They left the last hind quarter behind. Irene was surprised they wanted the meat at all. It was nutritious enough, but no one liked the taste of boar.
The heavily loaded group headed back to the square. They retraced their route back, in an effort to limit their encounters with wildlife. Irene excused herself to her room to clean herself up, before rejoining Ian in the common room. She changed out of her hand made leathers into the hunter’s greens Ian purchased for her on her the last visit to Redfalls.
“How was Moscow?” Ian asked when Irene returned to the common room. She sat down at the table Ian chose.
“A little tense,” Irene reported. “They have a new red healer who is trying to carve out a following.”
“That’s interesting,” Ian replied. He needed to find time to head up to Moscow one of these days and learn the red heal. Ian long suspected the spell must exist. Since the blue heal didn’t work on reds, there must be a red version out there. He didn’t have the time to visit the north. The scouts they sent north to check for any encroaching settlements returned after a month without finding anything. If this Moscow really existed, it was very far north. Didn’t Ellen say two months? Ian thought. Things were really kicking off here now. He couldn’t be away that long.
“The existing power structure was trying to figure out a way to get rid of them. The square is run by a committee composed of the first group to discover the square. They can’t agree on what they should do.” Irene said. Ellen delivered two plates of food, beer for Ian and water for Irene. Since both the beer and water were served in tankards, they looked no different from each other. Irene tasted the meat and found it to be rat. She made a note to bring back a badger.
“The area is rather dangerous, so the healer is a temptation. Although very few people who manage to get back to a square after being injured in the field die. Usually if you can make that trip, you’ll heal up if you wait long enough. Not that it's pleasant,” Irene observed. Internal injuries were tricky. Internal bleeding could kill you later, but also hunger and dehydration. If someone was injured too badly to eat, without a heal they would starve to death. The process was rather quick, since the nanobots used the materials of the players body to try to fix them if there wasn’t any food available. That was why it was so important to continue to try to force a severely injured person to eat and drink, even if they could barely swallow.
“I never really understood turning your warriors into addicts,” Ian commented. “I don’t know how you could trust them to do their job, if they are desperate for a fix.”
“It is about taking the threat of revolution away,” Irene responded. “Although an addict will do anything to get their fix. If you drive them right, they will do things you wouldn’t do.” Ian took note of Irene’s words. She said them with a casual condemnation, but as a daughter of the queen, Ian figured she would know.
“There are rumors that the queen has finally taught some of her grandchildren how to heal. If we could win one of them away from Londontown, perhaps we could convince some of their warriors to change sides,” Ian commented.
“That’s hard to believe,” Irene replied. “Maybe one of the grandkids figured it out by careful observation, but I can’t imagine the queen teaching someone. The warriors will be fanatical in their defense of anyone that knows heal. To get anywhere near a healer, I suspect you would already have won the war.” Which was something to remember when they did win, Ian thought to himself. If he secured one of the young healers, he could use them to control the addicted. If he kept them isolated, they would never learn any new magic, keeping them controllable.
He wished Irene knew heal, then he could just use her to control the warriors. He had a sudden flashback to her standing calmly before the charging boar. Or maybe not, he thought. She was tier four and obviously abhorred how her mother was holding on to power. He would keep her happy by expressing the same sentiment until they were in Londontown. By then she would have children to keep her occupied. If she questioned the continued healing of the warriors he’d spin it as a mercy or something.
Ian was disappointed to see she was just as slim as before. He expected her to be showing the first signs of pregnancy. He was rushed off by the emergency meeting too quickly. He didn’t get back to Redfalls until two months later. He was shocked when Irene wasn’t there waiting for him. Luckily he took the time to calm down and think about his approach since then.
“I got you something,” Ian said, later that evening in his room. He pulled out a loaded gathering bag and handed it to Irene on the bed. Irene shot him a questioning look before taking the bag. She opened the top and spilled out the object inside. It was a weird contraption of metal, wood and bits of ceramic. A blue scavenging party dropped it while fleeing. He picked it up thinking about all those crafting tools that littered the floor of her room. If the scavengers liked it enough to pick it up, it must be something.
“What is it?” Irene asked, turning it over in her hands in fascination.
“I have no idea,” Ian responded. “I thought of you when I saw it.”
“It is awesome!” Irene declared. She sprang from the bed to envelope him in an embrace. This was how a woman should react to a man’s attention. Now Ian knew what kind of gifts to bring to keep her happy.