Clara was forced to spend her first night in one of Almerra’s inns. She wanted to move at least one town away before searching for a guild; it wouldn’t be safe staying in Almerra if her father stayed true to his threat of sicking the priesthood on her. She had no provisions for a long trip, though, and it was the middle of the night besides.
She stopped at the first inn she saw. By the time she found one she was dead on her feet, not even registering the name of the establishment. In fact, most of the period between leaving the estate and being in the bed of her lodging was an exhausted blur.
Once she was in bed, though, Clara found that sleep eluded her. She couldn’t stop thinking about the travel ahead of her, and beyond. Worrying, more accurately. To stop herself from agonizing over the future, she pulled her grimoire out and tried to study it. She was too tired to absorb much, but it focused her enough that she stopped fretting, and was asleep soon afterward.
Clara awoke to the midday sun streaming in through her window’s shutters, and she immediately set to gathering up her belongings. She departed the inn as swiftly as she was able, and made her way towards the town center’s market stalls to provision for her travels.
Her first stop was a mapmaker’s stall, which was manned by a wispy little man wearing a pair of round spectacles. “Do you have any maps of the kingdom?” Clara asked the mapmaker.
“Oh, yes, of course. Yes, yes,” he continued saying, unfurling a square of parchment on top of the stall. “As you can see, very accurate. Here, this is Almerra, see?” He pointed at a location on the bottom of the map. “And this is the legend, up here.” He pointed excitedly at the map’s upper corner.
“Do you want to buy it? It will be ten talons. Redrawing a map is a very involved process, you see.” The mapmaker held up his hands to show that the fingers were stained with ink.
Clara didn’t have much experience reading maps, so she couldn’t dispute his claims of it being accurate. The closest town was Rebrook, to the east. The map made it seem relatively straightforward to get there, as it depicted a single main road connecting the two towns. It was maybe twenty miles between the two, if the legend was accurate. “I’ll take it,” she decided, handing the coin to the scribe, who passed her the rolled up map.
Her next stop was a stall that displayed various cloth goods, manned by a nervous youth. From him she purchased a sturdy haversack, a smaller bag for her grimoire, and a bedroll.
Leaving the clothier, she weaved through the crowd towards her next destination, a shop offering various types of food. “Excuse me,” she said to the shop’s keeper, a tall and remarkably fleshy woman. “I’m planning on embarking on a trip, and I was wondering what you might recommend for the road.”
The shopkeeper gave her a strange look, but Clara smiled at her and placed her dwindling coin purse on the stall with a clink. “Oh, well, let me think,” she said very quickly after that. Clara was eventually given a small wheel of cheese, a link of cured sausage, a handful of dried fruit, and a roll of hard bread. It seemed like she had been presented the most expensive of the shop’s fare, but she paid for it anyway. She still had some coin to spare.
Turning away from the last stall, Clara bumped into somebody else in the road and heard the clatter of several somethings hitting the ground. “I’m so sorry,” she began to apologize, but the rest of what she was going to say caught in her throat as she realized who she had run into.
“Ah, it’s no great deal,” her accidental victim responded in a wheezy but gentle voice. He was a short man, thick about the middle. What caused Clara’s alarm was the fact that he was clearly marked by the garments of a priest. He wasn’t paying much attention to Clara, though. The priest was more focused on what he had dropped, an armful of candles now scattered across the road. The press of market-goers split around him as he attempted to collect his strewn belongings.
Clara tried to rein in her panic, her heart still racing. The priest hadn’t recognized her, of course. It was doubtful her father had even visited the city’s church yet. This man was simply going about his daily errands. “Here, let me help you with that,” Clara said as she bent down to pick up some of the fallen candles.
“Oh, angels bless you, child.” After a minute or so, the two of them had managed to collect all of the priest’s candles. “Now, what’s all that about…?”
Wondering what the priest meant, Clara realized that she could hear some sort of commotion behind her. She turned towards the noise, seeing a man interrogating one of the peddlers she had just visited. He stood tall and proud, outfitted in mail armour that the sun glinted brightly off of, making it hard to look directly at him. A tabard bearing the mark of the church adorned his breast. The merchant pointed towards Clara, and the armoured figure turned his head, eyes locking almost immediately with Clara’s. With a shout, he reached for the sword at his waist.
Maybe Clara had been wrong to question her father’s diligence.
She hesitated for a second, as the Church knight began to shove his way through the crowd. The priest beside her seemed confused. It took the knight some effort to work his way through the pedestrians, and Clara took advantage of the extra time to utter the same curse she had used on the bandit just the previous day. Dark tendrils snaked out from her outstretched fingers, wrapping around the knight in an inky shroud.
The knight fell to his knees, just the same as when Clara had used the spell against the bandit. Seeing the dark magic strike down the Church’s knight, the crowd began to disperse, people shouting out in confusion and panic. The priest Clara had bumped into remained puzzled, his arms still full with candles.
Clara tore off down the road without a second thought. Some of the more stalwart members of the crowd, wanting to do their civic duty, tried to grab at her as she ran, but she pulled out of their grasp without much difficulty.
It was then that Clara realized there was more than one Church knight visible through the dispersing crowd. Two more armoured men were bearing down the street towards her, pointing and shouting. Their swords were bared, the midday sun reflecting sharply off of the blades.
Clara flung another curse towards the closer of the two knights, but he seemed to be made of tougher material than her previous victims, as he stayed standing and continued to stagger forwards. Clara turned from the road towards the outlying buildings, hoping to lose the Church soldiers in the alleyways.
The knight that Clara hadn’t afflicted caught up with her as she reached the structures, lunging at her with a thrust of his blade.
Clara twisted away from the attack, but it caught her haversack, slicing into the bag. The knight’s attack was fouled, provisions spilling out of the damaged pack.
Magic surged through Clara as she whirled on her attacker, exploding out from her palm as a gout of flame that washed over the knight.
He was thrown back by the force of the magical assault, falling to the ground and groaning in pain. Trails of smoke rose from his blackened armour. Clara shrugged her ruined rucksack off and let it fall, then took off running through the alleys.
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Clara didn’t keep track of how long she ran. She stuck to the alleys, not wanting to return to the open street. Long after she had stopped hearing signs of pursuit, she kept running.
She was forced to stop eventually. She collapsed against the side of the nearest building, breath ragged and chest burning. Looking around, she realized that she didn’t even know what part of the city she was in. The buildings pressed in closer around her than even Ezexius’ part of town. It looked like a rat warren.
“A bit lost, dear?” a weedy voice asked from behind Clara. She whirled, staff raised. A thin and dirty man stood in the space between buildings. He flinched away at Clara’s sudden movement. “Hey, now. I can help you out, you know?”
“How?” Clara asked, unconvinced.
“Well, you look like you don’t know your way around these parts. I can help you find your way. And, uh, a bit of coin would go a long way.” He rubbed his thumb and two fingers together.
Clara warily reached for her coin purse, taking out a talon. “I need to get to the east gate.”
Seeming surprised to actually see any coin, the vagrant scrambled forward and snatched the money from Clara’s hand. Looking abashed at his greed, he stepped back and grinned, scratching the back of his head. “Right this way.”
They walked for almost half an hour between the close-set buildings. “I saw that you were running from that commotion with the Churchmen earlier. What was that all about?” Clara’s guide asked her at some point during the journey.
“Nothing,” she lied.
He didn’t seem at all convinced, but shrugged anyway. “Name’s Ralf, by the way.”
“Clara.” She didn’t feel entirely safe following this obviously homeless man. Her encounter with the bandits had been mere hours ago, and she had no assurances that she wasn’t being lead into a similar situation. Ralf obviously knew the city better than her, though, and she wanted to avoid bumping into any more Church soldiers.
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She started recognizing where they were by the time they neared the eastern gate. Peeking out from between two buildings, she saw that there were a couple of knights guarding the city’s exit. That was far more security than the usual town watch.
“Want to leave the city, huh?” Ralf asked from the alley. Clara nodded. “Without being seen, I’m guessing.” She didn’t bother nodding again. “Well, I’ve got some people I can introduce you to who would be able to get you out. They would want to be paid, though…”
Clara sighed, feeling at her coin purse. It wasn’t particularly full any more, especially since she had lost all the provisions she purchased. “Lead me to them,” she said anyway. “On second thought, would they be able to get me out the west gate?”
“Yeah, no problem. Come on, this way.” Ralf led her back, almost the same direction they had come from. Another half hour later they were back in a cramped area similar to where they had met. Clara couldn’t make heads or tails of which way they were going, but Ralf led the way through the maze-like alleys with absolute confidence.
They ended up in a curious sort of alcove, the surrounding buildings having been placed in such a way that they created a surprisingly open space between them, like a clearing in a forest. It still looked cramped to Clara, but several people sat around within the open area. They were just as grubby as Ralf, and looked up at the two new arrivals. Clara noticed a few unhappy stares directed at her, and felt thoroughly out of place.
“Got you some business, Brett. Paying, too.” One of the vagrants rose at Ralf’s words, a short man who was nonetheless surprisingly muscular for one of his station.
“What’s she need?” Brett asked, speaking to Ralf instead of Clara.
“Passage out the west side, without being seen. We can do that for her, yeah?”
“Easy enough. We’ll need to wait until night, though. That’ll be ten talons, girl,” he said to Clara. She was almost surprised at being addressed, and despite how empty her coin purse was becoming, she pulled the requested amount of coin out. It was expensive, but it seemed her best chance of leaving the city without alerting the Church.
Brett swiped the coins, and motioned at the secluded nook. “Pick yourself a seat. We won’t be able to leave until after dark, so make yourself comfortable.”
Clara looked around, and hesitantly sat on the ground. It hit her then how tired she was. She had been run ragged by the chase earlier, and barely given herself time to recover, navigating through the alleys of the city. She didn’t want to fall asleep here, though. Promising to help or not, these vagabonds made her feel uncomfortable.
She stopped to think about why. It had been her first instinct upon seeing them, but they hadn’t done anything aside from be a bit dirty. Well, really dirty. Ralf had been almost altruistic, and Brett didn’t seem like he was going to cheat her.
But she had always assumed that people who ended up like this were those who deserved it. People who had done something wrong, like criminals or deserters. She supposed some just ended up falling upon hard times, though.
A few moments passed before it dawned on Clara that she was without a home. She was only a few steps away from living in a cramped alcove like this, begging or stealing just to stay alive. It wasn’t a heartening thought.
The sun inched slowly across the sky. Clara opened up her grimoire, one of her few remaining belongings, and started reading. Eventually, she fell into a fitful sleep on the bare ground.
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A hand shook Clara awake. She was curled up on the ground, grimoire cradled in her arms. It was too dim for her to see much as she looked around, but she managed to make out the outline of Brett crouched beside her.
“Time to leave, girl.” He helped her stand up, and handed her staff to her as she slipped her grimoire into its bag. Along with her coin purse, those were the only possessions she still owned. “Should be easy going. Past this time, the guards don’t care much about what they can’t see.” Her eyes had started to adjust to the dark, and she was able to see Brett beckoning her to follow.
Brett seemed to have traveled this route many times before, as he led confidently even without the benefit of sunlight to guide him. They moved mostly through the alleys between buildings, but twice had to go across open streets. The first time had gone without incident, the street entirely empty, but a guard bearing a torch had patrolled the second. Clara had stumbled and made a small amount of noise while running across the street, but managed to make it to the safety of the alleys before the watchman could investigate. Brett had still chided her and warned her to stay quiet in the future.
Their destination seemed to be a specific point in the palisade wall that surrounded and protected the town. Clara didn’t see how they would be able to get through the meter-high stakes, but Brett went up to the wall and started feeling around. He looked around cautiously before grabbing one of the stakes and pulling it neatly out of the earth. He repeated this for three more of the stakes and motioned towards the opening.
Clara slipped through into freedom. She hesitated for a second, then looked back. Brett was already replacing the stakes. “Thank you,” she whispered. Brett waved goodbye, then finished repairing the wall.
The passage had put her out of the city a fair distance from the road. She could see where it was - the gates were marked by watchmen holding torches - but she decided against heading directly towards it. To reach the road too close to the city would put her within sight of the guards, and she didn’t want to have to explain why she was outside the walls in the middle of the night. She didn’t want to deal with the watch in any way, in fact. So she set off directly away from the wall, thinking she would cut towards the road once she had some distance between her and the city.
It was tough going in the dark. The uneven ground below Clara’s feet slowed her pace; she didn’t want to trip on something. Even something as minor as a twisted ankle would effectively immobilize her.
She had chosen the western gate to throw off any Church pursuit. The nearest town to Almerra was east, so she had chosen to travel to Wayford, which lay down the western road, though it was a day or two further. She wasn’t sure how long it would be before the Church realized she had left Almerra and sent forces after her, but she hoped it was long enough to get situated at one of the guilds in Wayford. She really didn’t want to be on the run forever.
The first few hours of travel passed mostly without incident. Trudging through the dewy grass left the hem of her dress chilled and damp, and she turned towards the road as soon as she felt she was far enough from the gate. It might not have been entirely safe, but she was willing to take the risk for the sake of comfort. Upon reaching the road, she invoked her illuminating cantrip on her staff, causing the carven end to shed a reassuring amount of light.
Not far from the city, though, the road cut into a dense forest. Immediately upon entering its boughs, Clara felt claustrophobic. Even the light shed from her staff didn’t penetrate far through the wooded brush. Remembering her encounter with bandits just the other day, she anxiously made her way down the road, every small noise causing her to jump in alarm.
Despite her fear, nothing emerged from the forest to trouble Clara. At one point she passed over a small bridge that crossed a lazily flowing stream. She took the opportunity to crouch down and cup some of the water into her mouth. It was clear and refreshing, but it also made her realize how empty her stomach was. Not for the first time, she found herself missing the provisions she had purchased in town. There wasn’t much to be done about it, though, so she soldiered on.
While crossing the bridge, Clara noticed that sunlight was streaming through the canopy of leaves. Her legs ached after walking for so long, so she decided to sit down on the side of the road. In spite of her discomfort, she soon found herself falling asleep on the hard earth, curled protectively around her grimoire’s bag.
That was when trouble found her. She awoke some time later to a tugging on her arm. Her eyes snapped open, and she registered a pair of gnarled green hands trying to relinquish the bag from her grasp. She jumped to her feet with a shout, seeing several figures now crouched warily around her.
The creatures looked vaguely humanoid. They were short and lanky, though powerfully corded muscles were clearly visible beneath their rough, green skin. Their faces were twisted and ugly, noses and ears almost comically large. One of them had pilfered Clara’s staff while she was sleeping, and the rest of them held crude weapons of stone in defensive stances, their bodies clad only in ragged animal furs.
Goblins.
They didn’t seem too eager to attack, but they seemed less likely to simply let Clara go. They grunted and chattered at each other in a language that Clara didn’t understand, and continued warily circling her. With how cautious they were, Clara doubted that they were looking for a fight, so she decided to hurl her agonizing curse at the goblin that held her staff, hoping they would scatter when faced with a threat.
The goblin started screaming and thrashing about in the grass as the dark magic enveloped him, losing hold of Clara’s staff. The others didn’t have the reaction Clara wanted and started shouting as they danced around defensively, then suddenly launched themselves at her in a disorganized rush.
Clara didn’t have any way to defend herself, and the attacks were so erratically performed that all she could think to do was protect her face with her arms as the blows rained down on her. Their weapons were primitive stone affairs, but that didn’t stop them from hurting. She could feel more than one cut into her flesh, causing blood to flow.
There was a brief lull in their assault, and Clara came out of her defensive huddle, flinging out a hand with a shakily recited invocation, one she memorized but hadn’t yet tried. Power surged from her and took hold of one of the goblins. The creature’s face twisted in horror as coruscating ribbons of green and purple energy streamed from its eyes and mouth, twisting towards Clara’s outstretched hand.
The energy flowed into Clara’s body, invigorating her. She felt her newly opened wounds seal shut, layers of exhaustion melt away. Her stomach even felt less empty.
Her victim flopped to the ground after a second, and the remaining goblins screeched and cried in their harsh language before dispersing, running off in any which direction in fear of their lives.
The goblin she cursed had thrashed itself into unconsciousness. She reclaimed her staff from it, then looked at the goblin that lay slain. Her draining spell had turned the creature into little more than a twisted, withered husk. It was the first time she had killed. What she was capable of disgusted her, but more than that, it thrilled her. The galvanizing energy still pulsed through her body, causing a desire to act. Goblins fled before her, their morale broken, Almost before she realized it, she had picked one at random to chase. Seeing them scattered was not enough; for attacking her, she would see them run down, to the last wretched body.
Tree branches whipped at Clara’s face as she rushed through the trees after the lanky green wretch. It looked back over its shoulder at one point, stumbled in surprise when it saw a pursuer, and Clara swore she could feel its fear like a palpable force, could feed on that fear once she reached it. The goblin caught itself and kept fleeing, ducking and weaving between trees.
Clara pulled more magic towards her fingertips, flinging a bolt of fire at the goblin. The projectile grazed it, singeing its shoulder, but it kept its footing and suddenly changed course, turning sharply to the side. Clara, taken by surprise by the maneuver, skidded into a tree as she attempted to turn, impacting it heavily and slumping to the ground, dazed.
When she stood up, she couldn’t see the goblin any more. The thrill of her magic having left her, she couldn’t even tell herself why she had begun the chase. The withered carcass of the goblin she had left behind disgusted her, but for a few moments she had felt nothing more than the desire to leave more twisted bodies like it in her path. Unbidden from her, a sob escaped her throat.
Maybe the magic had more influence on her than she had assumed.