Wind hissed through the grass, ruffled at clothes, and whispered between the hills. It was an overcast day, slate grey clouds threatening rain, so it was hard to tell what time it was. Cold nipped at any exposed skin, but it wasn’t so bad as it had been recently, hints of spring creeping in with the smell of flowers in bloom.
Lucas was considering whether being killed by hostile plant life back in the overgrown city wouldn’t have been so bad after all. It would’ve been a slow and painful death, but at least he wouldn’t have to look forward to any nights kept awake by this embarrassing moment.
His face was steaming hot, undoubtedly red as a tomato. His hands had gone clammy. His smile was fixed awkwardly in place, and no matter how he tried he couldn't seem to get any of his facial muscles to move. Any plans he’d concocted had gone out the window, his throat closing up and clamping down on his stupid bloody traitorous vocal cords.
Jamie, meanwhile, appeared to have curled up and fallen asleep inside Lucas’ vitality channels, the little shit, restoring Lucas’ senses to their baseline.
More to comfort himself than to genuinely prepare anything, he started letting vitality trickle out of his channels, seeping it into grass and claiming command over it without giving it any orders.
Wick looked far more intimidating up close than he had from a distance. He towered over Lucas, a bulky 7ft colossus in his heavy grey armour, and there was no hint of the amiable smile he’d shown his comrades before. He’d moved to the front of his group, interposing himself between them and Lucas. “Greetings,” he said neutrally. “Odd to meet a stranger out here.”
“Yes,” Lucas said automatically, but his mind failed to conjure up any further words. Maybe he should’ve let the beast eat him? With its three mouths, it surely would’ve been relatively quick, compared to this agony.
Rena the Bowmaiden had pulled a carmine arrow halfway from her quiver, but her shortbow was still at her side. This close, he could see the limb of the bow was an intricate helix, two pieces of smooth sandy wood spiralling around each other to form a curve. The string glittered like a long, thin jewel, and he wondered if it was even a string at all. “What brings you so far north?” she asked. Her chime-like voice was cutting.
Lucas swallowed. Problems were already popping up, quite apart from his stage fright; he didn’t have the slightest clue where he was. North? North of what?
“I got lost,” he said, then inwardly cursed. It was technically true, at least.
“You got lost,” the Bowmaiden said slowly. She glanced at Jyn the robed probably-wizard, whose expression was hard to decipher when all but his blue lips were covered by his loose hood, and they were studiously neutral. She looked back at Lucas, brow furrowed. “From whence?”
“I… don’t know,” Lucas said. True again. “I’ve been lost for a long time.”
Rena eyed him up and down. “You look the part, to be true. No offence intended.”
“None taken. Things have been… rough.” The more he thought about it, the more he liked the ‘tell the truth but omit some details’ angle. He was neither a practised liar nor a skilled actor. This made things easier. “I was attacked by a beast in an abandoned village nearby. I barely escaped with my life.”
Sympathy appeared in Wick’s eyes. He reached up to move a lock of his shaggy black hair out of his face. “That sounds like an ordeal. But I must repeat Rena’s question, stranger: what brings you so far north? We’re a long way from civilisation, and surviving out here so close to the Blighted Lands is a dangerous prospect for a man alone.”
Lucas grimaced, his eyes going wide. “I didn’t know I was so close to the Blighted Lands,” he said, because he hadn’t ever heard of the place until just now.
The Skycloak spoke for the first time, blank-faced as ever. “Your name, ser?”
Trying not to show any alarm, Lucas reached for the first name that came to mind. “Rian,” he said.
Jyn had already been quiet, but now he went completely still, which basically meant his robe stopped ruffling in the wind. It was an eerie effect, like he’d been put on pause. Was the colour of his robe darker?
“Like the Lost Swordsman? Bold of your parents,” Wick said. “Many think of him as a deserter and curse his name.”
Jyn sneered, probably in agreement, but still said nothing.
What the fuck?
Lucas shrugged, affecting nonchalance as best he could. “Not mine, I suppose.”
“Your clothes and your sack have the feel of magic to them, though crude,” the Skycloak observed mildly. “Where did you find them?”
Lucas startled and looked down at himself. The off-white robe he’d weaved back in the overgrown city looked mundane to him, if extremely ugly, and the rough things vaguely resembling a shirt and trousers he’d bodged together during his travels showed no sign of magic he could see. “How can you tell?” he asked.
The Skycloak pinched a fold of her sky-blue cloak and raised it to her eye level. “Woven magic lingers for a time. Your fabric has no patterns to channel it, so the residue is faint, but I can tell these things.”
Oh. Lucas hadn’t known that. Hadn’t picked up anything at all from his clothes. Was it another vitality frequency he hadn’t found yet? A part of him itched to search for it immediately, but he couldn’t just ditch this conversation now that he’d plunged himself recklessly into it. The four weren’t quite hostile, but he didn’t want to inadvertently escalate things somehow.
“Our resident Skycloak is a talented sensor,” Wick said. His eyes had never left Lucas for a second. He barely seemed to blink.
“Talented is a strong word,” the Skycloak said. Her eyes flicked down to the ground at Lucas’ feet then back up again. “Mana senses are of limited utility if their range is low. I can hardly claim to be anything special when I didn’t notice Ser Rian here until he was upon us.”
There was a moment of silence, four sets of eyes lingering on Lucas. He swallowed.
“What about you four?” he asked, turning the questioning back on them.
“We’re heading for the Lost City. I’m Wick, acting as Shieldmaster for this excursion, though I can wield the sword as well,” Wick said. He gestured behind him vaguely. “I can’t hold a candle to our Skycloak on that front, so it’s the shield for me for the duration. The silent one in the robes is Jyn, and the fair lady is Rena. As you can probably guess, they are our Wandmaster and Bowmaiden respectively.”
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“Nice to meet you,” Lucas said. “Does your Skycloak have no name?”
Rena rolled her eyes. “Perhaps she doesn’t. She claims we don’t need to know it, but I suspect she’s embarrassed that no one thought to give her one when she was born.”
The Skycloak didn’t rise to the taunt, but her blue eyes were icy, and it took Lucas a moment to realise she was looking at his arms. “Your clothes, Ser Rian. They can’t have been made more than a month ago. Did you weave them yourself, or is there another Wandmaster nearby?”
Lucas swallowed. He’d been slowly threading his vitality into the plants around him. Not wanting to blast any of the people before him with his vitality, he’d been shaping it low to the ground, grasping at the foliage beneath his feet and preparing in case things went wrong; the way Wick was staring at him wasn’t a good sign.
He was cursing himself for that decision now. If the Skycloak’s ‘sensor’ ability was anything like his vitality sense, it was likely she’d noticed his magic use. But then why had she focused on his clothes specifically, calling out the magic residue rather than the technique he was actively using right now? Was she testing him, somehow? Or had she not noticed it after all?
Whatever her reasons, he didn’t want to lie. Besides, what harm could it do? If anything, revealing it would help him. Not only could he offer it as a skill in exchange for their help, which they didn’t seem likely to give right now, but it could be an explanation as to why he was out here. He wasn’t going to say anything along those lines, but letting them form their own conclusions would be fine. They’d have no reason to connect plant magic to Lucas Brown, surely?
“I made them myself,” Lucas said. “Woven from plant fibre with my magic.”
For some reason, that caused a shift in the group before him. Wick’s easy grin returned to his face, Rena looked like she was trying not to laugh, and the tension seemed to drain away from Jyn as he sighed.
“I see,” the Skycloak said. Her gaze turned away, scanning over the hills. “You’re a floramancer, then?”
Floramancer? Is that what it’s actually called?
“Yeah,” Lucas said. “Not a master or anything, but I know a few tricks.”
“No amount of tricks will grant you victory over the Lost City, friend, though I don’t suppose that stops anyone from trying,” Wick said amiably. He paused to chuckle with a shake of his head. “Though I’ll say I admire your guts, Ser Rian. Or should I call it arrogance? Admitting to floramancy in front of a Skycloak takes a special kind of man, I know.”
Lucas took a step back, alarmed. He looked at the Skycloak, but she seemed to have dismissed him as something unworthy of interest.
“I didn’t mean to cause any offence,” Lucas said.
“I’m sure she won’t take any,” Rena said. “We’ve got a devout one here. Still has faith in Lucas Brown’s arrival, if you can believe it!”
What does that even mean? Why bring that up? Where’s the connection, here?
“That’s our purpose out here,” Jyn said, smiling wryly. His thin voice was a bit of a shock, the wizard having been silent for so long that Lucas had forgotten the sound of it. “We’re visiting the Lost City to find out why Lucas Brown never arrived with the others.”
The others?
Lucas’ head was spinning at this point.
“If you were hoping to battle against the curse and find some loot,” Jyn continued, “it behoves me to warn you that many mages, some great, have tried. None who enter the city return.”
“We hope to be the first,” Wick said.
“We hope to reach the place only for our Skycloak to have a change of heart when she realises the futility of our quest,” Rena corrected him with an impish smile. “Full pay for escorting her there, none of the danger of having to actually enter the city.”
“Will you travel with us, Ser Rian?” the Skycloak cut in. “We could use a floramancer’s skills on our quest.”
Lucas smiled awkwardly. If the Lost City was what he thought it was, letting them form their own conclusions about him and his goals hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
The others turned to stare at the Skycloak with wide eyes. Even Wick, who’d been watching Lucas without blinking since the moment they’d encountered each other.
“You’ll be compensated for your help, of course,” the Skycloak continued. She tilted her head, letting her braid sway down her shoulder. Her blue eyes were cool, serene. “Think of it as a guarantee. On your own, you may not find anything and end up leaving empty-handed. With us, you may still find nothing, but you’ll make some coin regardless.”
Or, he thought, he could never go near that fucking place again.
“Also worth pointing out that you’re a lucky bastard to even make it this far,” Wick said with a frown. “Close enough to the Blighted Lands to hear the Demon Lord buggering his undead horses, and only one encounter with a beast? You’ve surely been blessed with luck, Ser Rian.”
Lucas almost laughed. “Doesn’t feel much like it.”
“Believe me, friend. You’re fortunate to be alive,” Wick said.
Rena nodded. “What madness drove you to travel alone all the way out here? Nearest town I can think of is weeks away, if the maps are true.”
“They may not be,” Jyn added. “Wandmaster Aelyx feared the increase of beast attacks in Harwyckshire meant a horde assault was coming, and our last correspondence was two moons ago. It’s entirely possible Harwyck no longer stands. The safest option is to head for Dawnguard, six weeks’ travel from here.”
“Which brings us back to our initial question,” the Skycloak said, watching Lucas neutrally. “Where do you hail from, Ser Rian?”
Lucas took a moment to consider his answer. “Far away,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too sad.
“Aren’t we all?” Wick said with a wry smile that didn’t meet his eyes.
The Skycloak’s gaze had sharpened at Lucas’ answer, but her expression smoothed out again when she caught him looking. She gave no reply.
“I’m not sure I want to find the Lost City at all, with the way you’re all talking about it,” Lucas said slowly.
“Why?” Rena said. “You’ve already taken an equally massive risk, travelling this far alone.”
“It didn’t feel so dangerous,” Lucas said.
Rena scoffed, propping a hand on one hip and glaring at him. Despite her blatantly unfriendly change in posture, it was actually a comfort; she’d finally let her arrow slide back into her quiver. Unfriendly was better than combat ready.
“Whether or not you accompany us inside the city,” Jyn said, “I highly recommend you travel with us there, Ser Rian. For your own safety. We will see you back to civilisation afterwards.”
Now that was appealing, as much as he didn’t want to ever set eyes on the Lost City again. Maybe Lucas could wait out of sight while they went in and, well, searched for Lucas Brown. This whole situation was rather awkward, now that he thought about it.
Then another thought occurred to him. “What were you planning to do without a floramancer?”
Jyn raised an arm, poking a hand out of his voluminous sleeve. He held a black rod about the length of a drumstick clenched in his fist. There was a spark of vitality, but before Lucas could make any sense of it, there was a flame dancing on the end of Jyn’s wand like it was a candle lighter.
It took everything Lucas had not to grimace. He knew in his bones, with instinct honed from spending a month in that damned piece of shit city, that burning the plants wouldn’t work. Oh, the fey intelligence inhabiting that place might let them think it was working for a while, just long enough for them to let their guard down. The plant hive mind was no human intellect, but it had tricks up its sleeve. Its floramancy could be deadly.
Suddenly, with a certainty as sure as death itself, Lucas knew that none of them would return from the so-called Lost City if they went in there without him.
And he knew, with equal certainty, that he didn’t have it in him to let that happen.
Fuuuuuuuck.