Finding Patia was easy. She was always in the library. Finding enough bravery to interrupt her studies was a lot less straightforward. Rye would have stood around the corner for upwards of an hour had Elia not pushed her forward.
“Ah. Apprentice Rye.” Her teacher looked haggard, like she didn’t get much sleep at all. Her skin was turning from silky white to gray and here and there a scale frayed at the edges. “How may I help you this… day. Morning. Ugh, how I miss the day and night.”
“Are you alright?”
Her teacher slowly looked around, as if wondering why she was in a library in the first place. Then, her attention snapped back to Rye, her entire body going still.
“I am… alright, for the time being.” That was a lie. Her movements were stiffer and rougher than usual. “Do I have something on my face?”
“What? Oh, nono, I was just wondering if I could take a day or two off training.”
“Granted.”
Score! “Also, do I have permission to cast spells outside of training now? I kind of need them when we’re going out in the city and–“
“Granted.” Patia yawned, her maw opening so wide Rye could see all the way down.
“Are you sure I can’t do something to help you, miss Patia. You seem oddly…”
“Odd?” Her teacher smiled and it frightened her. “Odd, yes. Perhaps that is why I’m out here in this tiny temple library and not in the university of Yorivale, giving talks about the favorite foods of certain astral entities. Tell me, Rye, what do you know of the race of the Vili?”
The three-armed people, like Avice back in Crossroad Temple?
Rye thought for a moment, examining the question for any hidden traps. “They are one of the manufactured races, are they not? Like the stone men, except their essence comes from the land of Viln.”
“Yes, Viln, the cradle of conjurations.” She closed her eyes, as if remembering something from long past. “We Vili live for a long time. We take in the world as it is and the world takes us in. The more we live, the more our bodies change. Some become stone. Some become metal. Some become piles of meat, lumps of wheat and other such things.”
“You’re dying,” Rye said, not believing it at first. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because it would have distracted you. You are filled with potential I fear to imagine, Rye.” She held up a hand to keep Rye from speaking. “No, don’t misunderstand me. Acolyte Rye, your dedication and single-minded pursuit of conjuration has been a rather pleasant use of my remaining days. I would call your results rather frightening were you to not take that as an insult and a diminishment of your efforts. You have learned in sixty-five days what others did in a year. Being an undead helped for once since fatigue can so easily be drunken away. But only the physical variety. Your mind never wavered. Your curiousness only increased. From this day forward, you are not my apprentice anymore.”
Rye couldn’t believe it. Here was Patia, dying day by day and she was talking about Rye’s academic efforts. She wasn’t even that great! There was nothing else to do and Elia was a big help memorizing all the different facts and equations. What now, was she just supposed to make her way through the perilous art of conjuring all on her own?
She looked to her teacher for guidance.
“I could teach you many things, yes, but I have given you the tools. There is little more to be learned from someone pre-chewing the scrolls for you.” With one look she made Rye aware of a leather scroll-holder at her feet. “Therein you will find a copy of the beginner’s scroll you graciously donated, and something more. Consider this a farewell gift.”
Rye felt the scroll holder, all impressions feeling muted. A ring plopped out of it, the same copper one she had given Patia months before.
Apprentice Ring
A ring of interwoven copper, infused with a hint of a guiding conjurer’s essence. When the scales of subtlety in the air are unbalanced, its surface will turn green as if aging quickly.
Oh wow. That’s a good magic item. What do we, Rye?
“I…” This all felt too sudden. What if she miscasted, what if she had questions to ask? She always did and Patia never saw it beneath her to answer every little inquiry in detail. “I do need you. Without your guidance, I would have done who-knows-what.”
“Yes, but the ball has already begun rolling. You have graduated, congratulations and my heartfelt well-wishes on your continued life. Not all of us have an eternity to spend. I pray you spend yours with care.”
With creaky motions Patia returned to her scrolls and books. Rye could tell when she wasn’t wanted anymore. She left with a thousand words stuck in her throat and none that managed to make the trip past her lips.
----------------------------------------
The temple-bathhouse atop the small lift in terrain was styled in a fashion similar to how the Romans once did it. The architectural style didn’t spread further than down to its base. A few houses down there looked vaguely mediterranean, what with their square foundations and central courtyards, but the moment they stepped into the next road it was as if they had breached a barrier into another world. Here, the houses were built on a hexagonal base with thin minaret-like towers growing from the middle of every significant crossroads. Like every civilization, whoever built this loved their arches and pillars and loved even more to style them in just as many ways. The roofs looked like someone had placed a dollop of cream on top of both them and most of the larger buildings which led Rye to refer to them as ‘sweet houses’.
All Elia saw was the bling. Statues of mythical and less mythical creatures lined the entrance to the richer houses. Most of the roads were wide enough for four-lane traffic. She looked up and spotted an oddity among a few decorated manors.
“Is that gold?”
Yes?
“All of it?”
… yes?
“... really?”
Oh my grug, just keep your eyes on the road.
They kept up a good pace through the cobbled streets, but soon enough they happened upon an emerging undergrowth that grew to jungle-like density. Walking around it took another few hours and by the point that they had crossed a road split by a great ravine down the middle, Karla was making noises that Elia sure hoped didn’t mean they were lost.
They did.
After trying and failing to retread their tracks, they decided to make for the nearest tall building. It was a short trek over roots and fallen leaves that made way too much sound for her liking before they arrived at a building that looked outwardly like a temple. Inside, they discovered that it was a giant central bank, safes and lockboxes torn open, coins strewn across the polished marble floor in a dozen denominations.
Elia picked one of them up.
Golden Catsi
An old golden coin, faded with age.
She flipped it back and forth.
These must be worth millions!
“If anyone still bothered using coins, they wouldn’t be strewn about like cookie crumbs,” she said.
What? Well, these ones are just gold. Basically worthless.
Elia did a double take. “Excusè moi?”
Well, it’s one of the most common metals next to iron. Can we take some with us? Just a bag will make the homecoming that much richer. Also, I hope my parents will forgive me running away if I bring home the worth of our entire estates in coins.
“’Entire estates.’” She huffed. “Alright, miss fancy pants. Any caviar?”
You won’t find me dead wearing pants, you know that Elia. And caviar was made illegal under the empyrean fish-protection acts. It helped, but the fish population of the ferrish sea was dying anyways.
“Sure, sure. Time to get some money then.” If it made Rye feel at ease, carrying a few pounds more wouldn’t hurt. “So, I guess I should be looking for, what, copper coins?”
Pshhh, sure, if you can find one. Copper is used for magical stuff and sent directly to the gods, remember?
“And silver?”
No one makes coins out of silver! That would be ridiculous.
Of course. That was where they drew the line. Elia sighed and together with a much-enthused Karla began sifting through overturned lockboxes, crates, and barrels full of lesser denominations. Most of the coins were round, though a few were more of an oblong shape. Those were iron and they could be broken in two for smaller trades, like a dollar bill that could be cut in half.
Eventually, next to the masses of iron, gold, and less frequent ivory, they had just about filled two bags with two pounds each of smooth and metallic dodecagons (Elia understood they were made of a chromium-platinum alloy) when Elia spotted what seemed to be a hidden compartment under the rug.
“Hell yeah! Let’s crack this sucker open.” She whipped out a set of lock picks and got to work.
Lock picks
A leather pouch holding everything a thief needs to pick a lock.
The punishment for thieving is severe in the lands of Loften. Where one would normally lose the offending limb for such a transgression, all of Loften is under the direct jusridiction of the gods. When judged by them, maiming could be seen as a mercy.
After five minutes of click-click-clacking, the compartment flipped open. Inside it was a coin-collector’s box. It was shaped like a business handbag and made of varnished wood with a smooth mauve felt. Elia dumped the entire contents into her bag. However, one of the coins made her loot-sense tingle.
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OH MY GODS, IS THAT COPPER?
… Rye also helped by yelling that into her ear. Regardless, one boop later and she could practically see how this coin was created, smithed under a great heat by a lone craftsman, polished and inlaid with a dozen small crystals.
Aurani coin
An old copper coin with embossed silver script. Depicts the sun and a winged woman in flowing wreaths and billowing toga. Sacrifice upon an altar to gain great fortune.
Despite claiming dominion over the sun, Aurana was not even the first among her sisters intent on claiming its endless might.
“Huh. Guess this means there’s a bit of tension between the gods, is that right?”
Oh, like you wouldn’t believe. There are oodles and caboodles of stories about one god playing a prank on another, or finding that their spouse was cheating on them, or testing the ‘vigor’ of the new generation of mortals, or any other thing the gods get up to. There is generally a fight in some manner and it ends in one of three ways: Either the wronged party secretly gets back at the other, or Ruthe finally has enough and forces them to make amends, usually through some symbolic exchange of gifts and favors.
“Oh. Huh.” Elia checked if there was any hidden compartment inside the hidden compartment, finding nothing. “What about the third option?”
Wroti cuts their heads off. Rye’s voice grew dim. All stories show that the first daughter of Worga inherited her short fuse and temper from her maternal side. She’s kind of like you, in that regard.
“Oh screw off, I’m not that bad.” She told Karla to finish looting, as the girl was heads deep in a barrel. “Am I that bad?”
Well, you certainly haven’t gotten any friendlier over our short existence of becoming more similar.
That shut her up and soon enough they had found their way again, having scouted the building the mage was supposed to be holed up in from one of the upper floors. The building in question was a gigantic tower that was still far, far away. Neither of them had an idea on how they were supposed to climb up it while it was floating upside down some tens of feet off the ground.
Karla said she got a bad feeling staying up in the open and anything that made her nervous basically screamed danger into Elia’s ears. Maybe if she had better senses she would know why she was getting that bad feeling. It wasn’t due to any roc business as far as she could tell, nor any fear of heights.
They swiftly moved back inside. There was no sign they were being followed, not when they left nor on the entire journey through backyards and ruins, but they did happen upon a number of creatures best left with a short description. A horde of black leeches as thick as a lamppost, languidly squirming along some equine cadaver. A lizard as flat as a flounder that hissed at them from where its camouflage melded with the brown sandstone. A very dense bush of brambles that spooked them when it opened a volleyball-sized eye.
None of the encounters ended in violence, in part because Rye was holding Elia back and in part because they neither wanted to exhaust themselves before reaching their goal nor did they want to attract whatever smelled so strongly of brimstone and ash. The city was crawling with nasty creatures and the few times they were forced to engage on previous ventures it tended to end in a death or four.
“Floopin’ demons,” Elia cursed under her breath, her suspicions all but confirmed even without sticking her nose into the wrong hole in the ground. “They can really go glip my… florp.”
I’d rather they stay in the ground. Underground, in hell rather. But good for you, not a single curse in two hours. Hoorah! If you continue like that, the gods may yet show clemency.
“I’d rather they show me the door out.” She turned around to Karla, who with her shield on her back was doing her best at navigating through navigatory navigation-things. “How much further do we have?”
The girl jumped, closing in for fear of even her whisper being overheard. “It should be just around the next bend and then over a bridge. We ought to see it right…”
They took one peek out of their comfortably hidden alleyway. There was no bridge, only further claustrophobic streets winding away into the unknowable.
“Alright Karla, you have some explaining to do.”
“I-I rightly can’t!” She flipped the map twice, then flipped it again just to be sure. “There were three barber shops we should have passed and didn’t, but since everything else on the map was in place I didn’t think much of it. I’m not an idiot, I can read a map.”
Elia looked up to where the north-duck cloud hung high. A bad tingle ran down her back. It was the maze all over again except the walls were buildings. By the ongoing logic of everything being backwards she wouldn’t be surprised if they all just up and walked away.
“We can’t stay here. We’re moving, until we find a bowl or our goal.”
They advanced, hesitantly at first but soon with quickening steps. The sound of rumbling and things going clickity-clack swelled and waned like the tide as they rushed down a curving pathway, took a left, right, right, then left again only to find themselves on a backstreet that had apparently been abandoned mid-market. More suspiciously, the scattered produce appeared fresh.
Elia grabbed an apple, not questioning how it had remained red and plump all this time. She bit into it and it bit back.
“Ow, fff–“
La-language– eeew, what is that?
Elia didn’t wait for the spider legs to unfurl themselves. She threw the not-apple on the floor and stomped on it for good measure. A trickle of soul flowed up her nose but the brief moment of surprise didn’t slow them down. The piles upon piles of fruit, vegetables, and wheels of cheese were undulating, and the duo decided to follow suit and scoot. Another detour into a side alley took them down a straight path with buildings leaning precipitously over them, the sound of rumbling behind them rising to a crescendo before ebbing into the distance.
Just as they thought they had left the chittering produce behind and entered the backyard of what seemed to be a tavern, a deep snort to their right made both Karla and Elia freeze. There in the gloom of modest stables stood a large hooved thing, shaggy fur clinging to its flanks like moss as it languidly ate with its back turned to them.
Ummm, so, Elia, you remember when you said that equine boon was useless?
“Shut up, Rye,” she hissed, her instincts going haywire at the mere sight of it. “That’s a deer… thing, not a horse.” Though it was rather approaching moose-size. Her eyes roamed to its horns, a rather thin, deerlike growth protruding from its scalp.
Oh really, a deer? Dear me, I’ve never seen a deer before, never heard of it either. The word sounds rather endearing, haha. Please laugh.
Elia didn’t, and not just because she was a harsh critic but because Karla was rather insistent on tugging her arm to bits.
“This is the Fine Feather’d F’inn.” The girl pointed to her map. “I know where we are.”
She waited for Elia to say anything in response, following Elia’s peek backwards down the narrow hallway. The light at its end seemed so distant and in the next moment it disappeared completely, closing like a maw.
The buildings ARE moving!
“Alright. So, we may have a problem or four. Did you notice any bowls of respite, Karla?
The girl vigorously shook her head.
“Alright. Well, forward it is. Follow me. Watch your step. Stay quiet. If we sneak up on this creature, we might not even need a fight. Quiet and slow, you got that?”
Vigorous nodding.
And then they were off, two pairs of boots sneaking through the mud of a scrap-filled backyard. Nobody had bothered turning it into a pretty garden, not in these quarters. It looked mostly to have been a convenient place to empty latrines or the household trash. Gingerly, they stepped past old nets and bones that stank of fish. The thing was still busy burying its head in a haybale when Elia stepped on a pumpkin, and the pumpkin screamed.
The deer-thing turned to look at her. Elia swore because the vegetarian kind of deer didn’t have sharp teeth nor forelimbs with claws that could grasp and catch. It crunched a bone beneath its teeth.
You have challenged: Bone-starved beast
“Shit, there goes stealth.” Elia readied spoon and shield as the creature pulled back its lips in a bloody grin. Suddenly, she felt violently and primally ill. The air seemed to swim as she retched. A thin wisp of white left her mouth.
Five (5) boons suppressed due to Bone-starved beast’s superior spirit
And that was their cue to book it.
“Go go, run Karla!” she yelled.
They reached the tavern in moments and though the door was unlocked, it didn’t budge. Elia ducked just as the thing flung the remains of a corpse it had been snacking on at her. It splattered across the wall, caking both her and Elia in bits of gore. By the squeak of shock and disappointment, Karla couldn’t cast her living chain either.
“Fuck.” Elia gave the door one last kick, then turned around. The bone-starved beast knew it had them cornered. It languidly made its way towards them, discarding the mangled body of a dreg. “Karla, get that damn door open, Rye, casting time.”
It’s much easier when I’m fully in control–
“Do you want to be in control?” she yelled, her instincts blaring danger as the wendigo-like thing stalked its way towards them. “No? Then get to casting, caster.”
Her arm fizzled. She swapped shield for staff. The thing chittered.
Keep me steady when I cast… snowball!
A ball of ice materialized and flung towards it within half a second. It hit the creature’s head, frosting over a good piece of it. The forest beast barely flinched. By the second ball, it lunged towards her.
Elia ducked under a swipe, feeling the wind bite into her neck as it clawed at her again and again. A squealing rent tore across her breastplate as she backstepped the flurry of blows. Sweet seconds passed like minutes and when she stumbled back, another ball was ready – only one?
“Cast, cast, cast!” she yelled in the hopes it would hit an eye or its groin.
The orb disappeared into its underside, a dull poff sound the only reaction. The creature reared back and Elia had the good luck to untangle her foot from a discarded net just in time to leap out of the way of a stream of fire.
“Oh, great, CAN EVERYTHING BREATH FIRE HERE?” She ducked under a swipe that could have taken her head clean off. Karla was still bashing the door when Elia moved with her back to her, ready to bolt at any second. “Come one, Rye, something BIGGER than SNOWBALLS!”
I-I only have the basics of the other one down. The shell’s unstable, it’s not finished!
“Door’s open!” Karla called from behind.
Elia sidestepped a thrust of its antlers, slowly making her way back to the tavern. “Then cast a bigger snowball – fuc–”
Elia parried. By the gods she parried barely, both metal spoon and staff creaking under the impact. The singular swipe of its clawed cloven hands sent her flying straight through the tavern’s window. Glass and blood and pain erupted all around as Rye righted her helmet from when it had bashed against the windowsill.
“Ow,” she said as Karla heaved the door shut.
Yeah, fudgin’ ow.
“G-great, we swapped agai – EEEEE!”
The deer thing pushed its snout through the window, finger-length teeth gnashing and frothing, an unholy glow building down its gullet. Rye nearly tripped as she called down as much power as her spirit would allow. Her channels groaned as it momentarily eclipsed her flow capacity, cracks appearing all around her spell. A tenth of her reservoir left her as a snowball four times normal size materialized in front of her, filled to the brim with a chaotic swirl of crackling rainbow energies.
The deer chomped, its jaws distending out of its mouth like a fleshy snake. Rye looked down in shock where her ball used to be. And her staff. And her hand. She screamed and the creature didn’t look much more pleased as colorful ice shards spiked out from its jaws and Karla bashed its skull to the sound of a sickening crack.
Still, the pain was staggering. Quite in opposition to her hand, in one moment it wasn’t there and then in the next it was.
Switch, switch, switch!
Her ring grew one third green. She still had to do the sign. Dread, dread grew as she felt the bubbles expand and slip up, giving her position away.
‘Do the sign, do the calm sign. Big spell, big splash, big danger, eyes above, crushing depths, pain, pain, pain.’ It echoed in her mind as did the sound, that terrible crunch and the screams of Karla as she stabbed the creature’s snout and forced it out.
She finished the sign, barely. A tingle spread over her remaining hand and then the pain was finally gone. She breathed in, slowly, and Elia breathed out again. Elia immediately scooted back from the window, right next to a Karla who wiped away deer-blood from her face. The girl couldn’t tear her eyes from Elia’s bleeding stump. Elia could relate. It exuded a sort of incredible pain that made it hard to ignore.
“Wyckwax. Fudging, now!” Elia yelled, smearing her own reserves on it. Karla complied though in silence and with shakier hands. “Ow, ow, ow.”
I’m sorry, Elia, I–
“Shut up, Rye, not your fault – OW, stop shaking so much Karla!”
“That wasn’t me!” she protested.
A shudder went through the house, followed by the feeling of the ground lifting, lurching.
“S-see?” she said, quivering smile slightly manic. “It’s the house that is moving, not me.”