Lasutro awoke the next morning refreshed, their worries of being attacked by creatures of the night and the like alleviated by the company of the caravan. For a little less than an hour after they got up Lasutro watched,as the rest of the caravan prepared for the day’s travel; the few individuals assigned to cooking duty, quickly portioning out bowls of simple stew, and others returning their bedrolls to their pack, putting out fires or feeding the horses. With no desire to impose upon the food made for the actual employees of the caravan, Lasutro prepared their own meal: a small piece of smoked meat, along with some cheese and bread. Not long after she had finished, the caravan began its trek for the day.
The caravan followed the road north to Leira, a large lakeside trading town, a destination which was mentioned to them by Fyair during their brief interaction. While travel there wasn’t strictly necessary for Lasutro to reach Traclins, the prospect of not having to wait till their arrival in the port city to ingest their potion from Waelim was too tempting to refuse. Lasutro nearly buzzed with their excitement with the thought, yet she managed to keep most of the new found energy in their mind, some of it found its way to their footsteps allowing them to keep up with the rest of the caravan with ease.
Not long past noon Lasutro found that energy gifted to them by their excitement left them, their actual endurance making itself known again. Seeing some of the other travelers sitting on the backs of a few of the less filled carts, Lasutro searched the caravan for a similar cart for themselves while she tried to regain some of their stamina. After finding a less packed cart Lasutro made their way up and asked if they could ride along with them, even offering some coin for the trouble. The coin proved the right choice as the driver slowed down enough for them to hop in the back of the cart alongside a few scattered crates. In the back of the cart Lasutro quickly removed their bags from their back and set them aside before she handed over a few large copper pieces which the driver snatched up nearly as fast as they had agreed before returning the cart to its previous speed.
Lasutro relaxed in the back of the cart, lying back and watching the sky for a little under an hour before she felt she had regained enough of their stamina to resume traveling on foot. Reinvigorated, Lasutro hopped off the cart and thanked the driver once more, grateful for the ride. As the sun made its way farther and farther west, Lasutro kept pace with the caravan, keeping to themselves until the question of what the caravan was carrying began pestering them. Seeing no reason to deny their curiosity, Lasutro gave into it in a matter of minutes and started looking for one of the younger merchants to ask.
After only a couple minutes, Lasutro was successful in their task, stepping beside a younger half elf like themselves who introduced themself as Sasuin Myraa, and asked her about the caravan’s cargo. While Sasuin was not totally informed on the details of everything the caravan was carrying or what they were picking up in Leira, she was clear that some of the cargo was ordered by the Empire for what she assumed to be military research with the growing tensions with their long time political enemy the Tuersun Kingdom, as for the rest she believed them to be standard fare for adventurers and the nobles of Udriaph.
The mention of adventurers brought a slight sting to Lasutro’s heart, despite how long it had been since their parents had passed. Though the thoughts of their parents momentarily threw them off, Lasutro found their curiosity pushing them to ask about Tuersun. However, before she could ask and push away the emotion to deal with later, as she had been for the past few days, Sasuin began to ask if she was alright. The inquiry itself didn’t bother Lasutro much, but the idea of spilling their guts to a stranger they had simply approached to satiate their curiosity felt like a poor choice, if for no other reason then that it was not unlikely that the people who had found Gorv were searching for the very silver bracelet in their possession.
With their conversation reaching an uncomfortable end Lasutro thanked the young merchant before heading to the back of the caravan in hopes that there she could regain their composure. In the minutes following Lasutro managed to make their way out of their own negative headspace instead focusing on how the potion they gained might help them in understanding magic. It was those thoughts that kept them occupied the rest of the journey to Leira.
When the caravan arrived in the still bustling town of Leira, Lasutro watched as the carts lined up and traveled down one of the larger roads towards what she would later learn was the warehouse district. As they did so, a small portion of the employees, with the exception of the caravan guards, made their way, along with most if not all of Lasutro’s fellow travelers, to various inns and taverns throughout town. Following suit of one of the drivers she recognized, Lasutro found themselves outside the Sour Desk Tavern.
The tavern’s exterior wasn’t particularly loud,the largely plain wooden walls and a roof built from a marginally darker wood matching the slightly worn main door. Above the door swaying in the gentle evening breeze, a sign depicting a variety of citrus both cut and uncut on a desk. Despite the lack of light, Lasutro could make out the fading paints on the sign before she entered.
The inside of the tavern contrasted greatly with its exterior, the customers rowdy,and the employees even more so. Most, if not all of the seats inside were taken, the dining area filled with all sorts of jolly folks, almost all of them bearing a near infectious smile. Portions of the walls marked with blade marks old and new, other parts holding several different taxidermied fish like creatures, some more whole than others, each unfamiliar to Lasutro.
Even with the tavern as crowded as it was, Lasutro found themselves making their way through the crowd with ease as if the all tavern goers had coordinated for the movement beforehand. Behind the surprisingly small bar, considering the taverns popularity, Lasutro addressed the younger hochlling man who stood behind it, his white pupiless eyes meeting theirs when she did so. Caught off guard by the vast space behind or rather inside the man's eyes, Lasutro lost the words she just had at the tip of their tongue before the man asked them with a tone so sure in what the response to their question would be that it was somewhat uncomfortable.
“A room for the night and dinner?” Lasutro nodded in response, before she asked if she could get a hot water basin in their room as well for after dinner the man nodded,a weak smile on his lips, clearly used to their own unsettling nature, as he pulled a key with small parchment tag numbered nine out from under the desk. As he handed it over he told Lasutro the expected cost for the night which she handed over as quickly as she could thanking him before she moved to find one of the few open seats.
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After finding a seat and a corner of a table, Lasutro set down their pack in front of them trying not to think about five clear mercenaries who occupied the rest of the table, too busy with their drinking and conversation to even notice them sitting there. Quickly bored with watching the rest of the tavern in their cheer, Lasutro decided to pull out the new book they had gotten in Kadmique, hoping it might be suitably entertaining until their dinner arrived.
Lasutro traced their fingers across the dark red leather of the tome before they opened it to the first page. In large, almost fanciful writing the title page read: The Life’s Work Of Paydaego Freesill. On the next page a story began in the same style of writing as the title page though considerably smaller and messier.
Story began simply enough, written as if meant to be told to children, a young wizard freshly out of their apprenticeship under a far stricter wizard traveling the realm to study the greater magics of the world. On their travels the wizard kept a red leather notebook, in which they inscribed their days, along with their and whenever it became full they bought a new one. They continued to travel each year becoming wiser, and soon they were known throughout the land. Though they had seen much they knew they had not seen it all, so they traveled to the sea, below it even and when they returned to land they found themselves in a place they were not known, so they began their travels there. Though soon enough they found themselves known across the world and a powerful curse placed upon them yet they did not stop, they traveled the planes: the feywilde, the shadowlands, the elemental planes. When they returned, their body weakened,they said their goodbyes and began to assemble their notebooks now in the thousands for a complex ritual of their own design meant to merge the books together. When their few apprentices of their own learned this they sought after their old master. They only found the results of ritual, a single red leather tome with no trace of their old master. When they approached the tome they found it always escaping their grasp no matter the method and eventually it too disappeared in the sands of time much like its creator.
Lasutro was captivated by the story, it wasn’t particularly well written but it had a pull to it, like it had a leash attached to their neck and wouldn’t let them pull away until it wanted them to. By the time she had finished the story, which only took up ten or so pages after the first two, following the title page, Lasutro’s dinner had arrived with a small clank which shook them just enough to stop them from turning the next page in the book.
Begrudgingly returning the book to its place in their pack, Lasutro turned to face their dinner. Laid atop a bed of steamed vegetables, a large filet of what Lasutro assumed was some sort of fish. Despite their reservations on eating what they now classified as mystery fish, Lasutro dug into their dinner, finding it full of flavor and finishing it quickly.So much so she nearly choked several times in the process, leading to some chuckles from the surrounding customers and even some of the staff.
Shortly after she finished eating, Lasutro made their way to their room which she discovered to be the among the closest rooms to the stairs on the second floor. The room itself was as sparsely decorated as she expected; a simple bedside table, a slightly larger than average bed, a table topped with a small candle and a shuttered window across from the door. As Lasutro set their things down inside, she turned to head back down to ask about the water basin they had asked for, only to notice a steaming water basin placed just to the side of the door along with a small bowl, a washcloth and a small towel.
After closing the door and waiting a few minutes for the water to cool down, Lasutro took on the task of washing themselves. The act itself cleansing,and more than just their skin; it cleansed their mind of the false perception that the blood of those who were murdered in the Impaled Lupine was on their hands, an idea that had started to fester in the back of their head hiding behind their increasing paranoia. Following the methodical exfoliation of their skin, Lasutro used the small bowl to rinse off, before beginning to work on their hair. Thanks to its shorter length, it wasn’t long after she finished and prepared themselves for drinking their recently acquired potion.
Dressed in a simple tunic and breeches , Lasutro checked their door ensuring it was locked before pulling out the small bag in which the potion was stored and sitting at their room’s table. She sat for a moment watching the small dancing flame of the candle in front of them, letting their growing excitement and anxiety flow through them. Removing the vial from its bag, Lasutro took a minute to inspect the concoction inside.
The liquid inside flowed continuously creating a storm of gray, an endless churning sea. Occasionally in the center of the potion itself orange sparks would spray through the gray like lantern light on a misty night. Despite their growing desire to drink it and take in its effects, Lasutro found themselves hypnotized by the motion within the vial,fixated upon the various hues of gray folding into one another. It wasn’t until she nearly fell off their chair trying to get it closer to the candle light, did she snap out of the haze she had been finding themselves in more often in the recent days.
With their curiosity burning and unable to hold back their excitement any longer, Lasutro downed the small vial. As the potion passed their lips and down their throat, the texture nearly made them gag. It was as if a single type of oil was mixed with thousands of other oils with differing densities. The taste on the other hand was less a traditional flavor instead a variety of feelings, and an aftertaste best described as the links between ideas, but also the material. Despite all this Lasutro drank it all to the very last drop and waited for something to happen, yet nothing did.
Lasutro moved over to lay on the bed incredibly frustrated with both Waelim, and themselves for getting their hopes up, that a “simple” potion could help them solve the question that had been burning in the front of their mind the last few days. She seethed in quiet anger on the bed for what seemed to be an hour, unable to rest. After coming to the conclusion that sleep wouldn’t take them for a while, Lasutro dragged themselves over to their bag to continue reading The Life’s Work Of Paydaego Freesill. That's when she began to see gray flickers between objects, as she moved to inspect them they gradually became clearer. A grin snuck its way onto Lasutro’s normally stoic face,as she approached the one of the flickers,she watched the flickers form what could almost be described as currents of gray between what seemed to be the door lock and the key she had left on the bedside table morphing into an ethereal gray chain.
After taking a moment to inspect the chain,she found their hands passing through it as she tried to grasp it, leaving them with a faint tingle. As she took in the flickering gray wisps in their vision she looked down at their chest discovering the beginnings of an ethereal chain that tethered itself to something inside their bag. With each step towards the pack Lasutro watched their chain maintain its tautness even when she reached the pack. Opening it revealed the other end of their chain: their new book. As she pulled it from the bag the ethereal chain shifted coiling around the arm Lasutro gripped the book, tightening itself against their skin before fading from sight, leaving an almost familiar tingle of energy in its place. Lasutro’s eyes lingered on the sight for a moment before finding their attention pulled back to the book in their grasp.