Feyrith hadn't expected thick fog to roll in and completely blind him the moment they reached the ruins, but it didn't take him even a second to put together that it was magical in origin. Someone had summoned it, which meant an elf was somewhere around here, possibly about to attack them.
Feyrith jumped off his quasir, grasping its reins in one hand as he took the staff into the other. Because he couldn't see where he was going, it would be dangerous to try to journey further, and so he quickly tried to think of a spell that might get rid of the fog instead.
Deciding to try a basic wind spell, Feyrith aimed his staff right in front of him and spoke the words, producing a gust of strong wind from the staff's tip. A sense of pride filled Feyrith's heart as a part of the fog was blown away, revealing the road. But that lasted only for a second as the fog returned, covering up everything once more.
Feyrith gritted his teeth and tried the spell again, this time using a stronger version of it, but it had the same results, even after doing this several times in a sequence.
He shook his head and climbed back onto the back of his quasir. He would simply have to run through the fog, using the wind spell to reveal the path over and over as he went. With that decided he cast the spell again, making the quasir start walking down the ancient road.
The beast let out a quiet snort, clearly unhappy about the fog, and Feyrith couldn't blame it. Someone managing to create something like this and keeping it in place was disturbing on its own, but the fact that this had to be an elf was something different completely.
Did that mean that this elf was working against the Council? That was the only reason Feyrith could think of to explain why someone would want to they make things difficult for him and his companions. But was that even possible? There was no record of any elf opposing the Council before. Not one with magic, anyway.
Feyrith cried out as his quasir suddenly jumped with an alarmed squawk, throwing Feyrith off. He landed on the hard, rocky ground with a groan, rolling a few times from the impact. Gritting his teeth as pain stabbed through his arm, Feyrith dragged himself to his feet as quickly as he could, grabbing his staff off the ground with both hands as he stared into the white fog. His heart made an uncomfortable flip as he realized that the quasir was gone. It must have run off.
Why had it done that, though? The quasir had been calm until now. Feyrith swallowed, trying to not let his fear get to him, but it was difficult. The fog was putting him on edge. He could barely see his feet, let alone anything else, and it was unnerving.
Feeling like someone was watching him, he spun around, but of course, no one was there. Or if there was, he couldn't see them. Feyrith felt his anxiety spike at that thought. He needed to get moving, but he didn't know how he was supposed to figure out which way to go. He needed to find the quasir as fast as possible, but if he chose the wrong direction, he would simply get farther away from it, and even though this fog had to go away eventually, who knew what might happen to his mount in the meantime.
Feyrith tried to listen for any sound that might betray the quasir's location, but everything was deathly silent. And Feyrith doubted that was a coincidence. His human companions had been only a few steps ahead of him when the fog had appeared, and so he would have heard their confused voices after the fog rolled in.
Swallowing thickly, Feyrith once against cast the wind spell, giving himself a view of what was ahead of him. Unfortunately, his quasir was nowhere to be seen that way. He could try this with all directions, though this only let him see a few feet ahead, and Feyrith wasn't sure how many times he could cast this spell before exhausting himself too much to be able to defend himself if he needed to.
No, he knew what he should do. He had to summon a large gust of wind if he wanted to see anything. It would cost a lot of his energy, but it would at least give him a better view of the entire area—hopefully enough to either find his quasir, Edwyr and the humans, or both.
He'd never been too great at these spells, but he at least theoretically knew them well because he'd been studying them for years now. He breathed in deeply, aiming the staff up above.
"Ist'rah ai kes loria!" he cried, feeling a considerable amount of magical energy draining out of him as the fog above his head gave way to a clear, blue sky. Loud, howling wind blew all around him, pushing the fog out of the way. As Feyrith felt his strength waning and the wind started losing intensity, he finally spotted his quasir, about thirty feet away from him. And before he could even call it, the beast was now running back towards him, its eyes wide and scared.
"Fey!" came a sudden cry from behind him, making him turn around. Lanna was waving at him from the very edge of the fog, where it was slowly starting to take shape again. Feyrith waited as Lanna ran to him, dragging her quasir along with Arbane right behind her.
Feyrith felt some of his anxiety dissipate when the humans reached him. Even though they were only human, they seemed to be quite good at fighting, and them sticking together to combine their strengths if something decided to attack them in this fog was for the best.
Feyrith frowned as he suddenly realized that Edwyr was nowhere to be seen.
"What the hell is this stuff?" Arbane asked, waving his hand around as if he was trying to touch the fog that was once again encroaching on them. His quasir, which was standing behind the man, its eyes wide and concerned, looked a little hazy to Feyrith due to the fog already.
"Yeah, and where's Edwyr? Have you seen him?" Lanna asked Feyrith, who shook his head. Edwyr had been ahead of them before the fog had appeared, so it would make sense that even with the strongest wind spell Feyrith could muster they hadn't spotted him.
Lanna sighed, brushing her hair off her face. "Can you do that wind thing again?"
Feyrith didn't want to admit that doing so would be beyond his abilities, but he would have to. "Unfortunately not." He bowed his head in apology. "If I do, I will exhaust myself too much and not be able to protect you. An elf must have summoned this fog—"
"An elf?" Arbane repeated, sounding even more confused than before. "Why would they do that?"
"I don't know," Feyrith replied, trying to swallow down the feeling of helplessness that came with that admission.
Lanna and Arbane exchanged a worried look. "We need to find Edwyr."
Yes, Feyrith agreed with that, though in his opinion getting out of the fog first and therefore actually being able to defend themselves in case they needed to seemed like a better option. But he knew they wouldn't listen to him in this situation, so he gave a nod, bracing himself as he once again summoned a small gust of wind to clear a path.
He would need to contact the Council about this as soon as they got to safety. He was supposed to contact them only after he had useful information about the ruin, but this seemed much more important than that. If this truly was an elf who had summoned the fog—and Feyrith was sure it was because he couldn't think of another explanation—then he had to report it immediately, and the only reason he wasn't doing it right now was that it took considerable concentration to use a communication stone, even if the magic stored within it was enough to power the entire spell.
Hopefully, the Council would send someone more experienced to handle the situation and they would be able to leave as soon as they found Edwyr because staying here seemed very unwise. He might have been in the Third Circle, but that didn't mean much beyond the fact that he was expected to become very powerful. He still had much to learn, and if this elf had summoned the fog and was strong enough to maintain it for this long then they definitely were more powerful than he was.
He did his best not to keep checking if there was someone behind them as they continued following the road, with Feyrith occasionally casting a spell to clear the way for a few seconds at a time to make sure they were still heading the right way, as the road tended to take unexpected turns.
But the longer they went, Feyrith's fear of being ambushed kept growing, not helped by the fact that his human companions seemed more interested in finding Edwyr than protecting themselves. And this only got worse and worse because Edwyr wasn't anywhere to be found.
Feyrith supposed it was possible that Edwyr had already made it out of the fog, but how would he be able to keep track of the road when it was practically impossible without a way to get the fog out of the way. But the fog would disappear eventually, of that Feyrith was sure, which was why he wanted to get out of it as fast as possible.
He continued throwing glances over his shoulder as they finally managed to reach a point where they could see the road without any help from his magic. Thank the Goddess, Feyrith was fairly tired from having the keep casting it.
He took in a deep breath as the ruins reappeared in front of them, finally able to relax a little. But if anything, Lanna and Arbane looked even more worried.
"Dammit," Arbane muttered, looking back at the impenetrable, white wall of fog. It somehow managed to look even more unsettling from the outside now that the entirety of it was visible, covering up everything. "Do we go back in there?"
"The fog will disappear soon," Feyrith reminded him before Lanna could join his side. They couldn't go back there. The two humans didn't seem to understand how dangerous this situation could be. "A spell like this cannot be easy to maintain."
"Yeah, and what if you're wrong?" Arbane snapped at him, which made Feyrith pause in surprise. They'd been friendly to him until now. Was it normal for humans to use harsh tones when they were concerned for the safety of someone? He didn't like how this made him feel.
Still, Feyrith had to keep himself composed and calm. "You won't find him if you go back."
Instead of replying, Arbane huffed and turned around to face the fog again. He pulled at his hair before beginning to pace. Lanna immediately walked up to him, telling him to relax, which if anything had the exact opposite effect on the man. Feyrith watched for a moment as the two began to argue, waiting patiently for them to decide whether to go back into the fog or not, but as the dispute continued, Feyrith decided that it would probably be safe to leave them for a moment to contact the Council. He walked to a nearby tree, which the quasir were standing beneath, trying to reach its leaves to eat them.
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As Feyrith stopped, standing by his quasir, he reached into his satchel. But his mouth went dry as his fingers made contact with everything except the communication stone. His heart clenching, he took his hand out and looked down into the satchel, opening it as wide as it would go and frantically trying to find the stone. But he couldn't. It just wasn't there.
Trying to handle his oncoming panic, he tried to think where he could have lost it. Maybe it had happened when he'd been thrown off his quasir? Nothing should easily fall out of the satchel, but he supposed it could have happened.
But before he could assure himself that that was definitely what had happened, a second wave of horror hit him as he remembered that he hadn't checked if he had the stone since after being rescued from the bandits. He could have lost it at any point.
Oh, Goddess, why hadn't he been more careful? He would, of course, go check the road once the fog cleared away, but what was he supposed to do if the stone wasn't there? The only thing he could think of would be to retrace their steps as they headed back and hope that the stone would be somewhere to be found.
If Edwyr were here, they would be leaving already, assuming whoever had summoned the fog would let them leave. But even if Feyrith decided to throw away all of his morals and leave without Edwyr, he knew the two humans wouldn't. Above all, he was supposed to protect them, and so even though the information he had for the Council was important, he would never leave them behind
They would simply need to find Edwyr quickly and leave as soon as possible. Assuming it wasn't too late already.
He looked back over at Lanna and Arbane, who were still arguing, judging by their dramatic arm movements, though their voices were kept to harsh whispers, and so Feyrith couldn't make out what they were saying. His eyes soon drifted off to the wall of fog again, quickly noticing that he could see the silhouette of a rock statue through it.
Feyrith walked closer, watching as the fog became less and less thick as he went until it seemed to disappear entirely, leaving behind a clear view of the road, the trees, and the ruins adjacent to it. Finally being able to see how far they were from where the fog had enveloped them, Feyrith was shocked how large of an area the fog had covered up. But because their surroundings were mostly flat, it was easy to tell now that Edwyr was nowhere to be seen.
That didn't stop Arbane and Lanna from running to where the fog had been as soon as they realized it had disappeared, though. But this time, Feyrith didn't mind as it gave him a chance to look for his lost communication stone.
His already waning hope fizzled out very quickly though as he walked up the road and noticed that there were small pieces of rock everywhere. They didn't look exactly like the one he was looking for of course, but they were similar enough that it took him a moment to tell the difference. And the idea of doing this with every step was terrible.
But this entire thing felt off to him. His satchel was made in a way that ensured nothing would fall out of it, even in combat. And there wasn't any hole in it, either.
Still, he wouldn't forgive himself if he didn't check, and so he continued walking up the road, alternating between looking around to spot potential danger, and staring at the ground as his heart sunk more and more with every step because deep down, he knew he would find nothing. And that fear was confirmed quickly once he reached the place where he thought he'd fallen and found absolutely nothing. He searched around, going up and down the road just to make sure, but there was nothing.
Feyrith swallowed, throwing around a nervous look. Something about being in this spot again was making him uneasy. But that feeling only lasted for a moment as exhaustion from casting spells so much finally hit him with full force. There was nothing he could do here. He needed to go back to Arbane and Lanna before he lost track of them, too.
Unfortunately, they hadn't managed to find Edwyr as Feyrith learned as soon as he saw the two humans in the distance. Although he hadn't had high hopes that Edwyr would be found here to begin with, Feyrith couldn't help but feel disappointed. There were only two possibilities now—either Edwyr had turned around and gone back, which made no sense as he would be leaving his friends behind, or Edwyr had gone ahead, and he was somewhere within the ruins.
Or he had been taken there against his will by whoever had created the fog, but Feyrith decided not to think about that possibility, as it didn't help things and they had no evidence to suggest that.
"So what now?" Arbane asked as they met up again. Both of the humans looked even more worried now, which Feyrith hadn't thought was possible. They must have really cared about Edwyr. Of course, Feyrith had already suspected as much, but it was odd to him to see so much concern over anyone.
"Edwyr has to be around here somewhere, right?" Lanna said, nodding to herself. "He couldn't have just disappeared."
The two humans looked at Feyrith after that, clearly wanting him to confirm that. "No, magic cannot simply make someone disappear."
"All right, great," Arbane said, running his hands through his hair. "So where is he?"
The question hung in the air as none of them said a word. Feyrith was sure that a more experienced magic-user could think of a spell to use in this specific situation, but he couldn't. He knew nothing that would help search for him Edwyr.
"We have to search the ruins."
Lanna was right, but her words left a sour taste in Feyrith's mouth.
"Yeah, we do," Arbane agreed, nodding at her. "Let's split up and—"
"That is incredibly unwise," Feyrith cut in, unable to help himself and wait for Arbane to finish. "Someone has summoned that fog for unknown, but likely hostile reasons. They could ambush us at any moment."
"Yeah, but if the person ambushing us is an elf, I don't think we stand much more of a chance together," Arbane said before Feyrith could continue. The elf frowned, having no good argument against this logic.
"Hey, that's not true," Lanna argued, though from her halfhearted tone, it was clear she didn't believe what she was saying. Humans were such strange creatures.
"Look, if we split up, we can cover much more ground than if we go together. And the less time we spend here, the less dangerous it will be, right?"
Feyrith disliked how hard it was to find fault in this argument. Splitting up simply felt like a bad idea, but so was spending more time here than necessary. He sighed. He supposed if they rode the quasir through these ruins, searching through them would be relatively quick, especially if they did split up.
"Very well."
Arbane gave Feyrith a firm nod, steely resolve in his eyes, so unlike the constantly joking man Feyrith had come to expect. "Good. Then let's go. While we still have sunlight."
Feyrith still couldn't shake the feeling that staying here was a bad idea, but he kept it to himself as he was told to go check the western part of the ruins. He hadn't exactly been ordered by Lanna—it had been more of a suggestion—but it still felt incredibly strange to have a human tell him what to do. Still, Feyrith decided not to comment on that either as he set off.
He was a little paranoid that the quasir would throw him off again, but the beast seemed perfectly calm now that the fog was gone. Perhaps it had merely gotten scared by it earlier, though even as he thought that, Feyrith was doubtful.
He rode down the road, trying his best not to gawk at the ruins too much. The stone structures would be fascinating to explore under normal circumstances, but these were anything but that. He wished he had the time to look at the houses more closely at least and to perhaps add to some of the research that was already collected in the libraries on Aendor. But all of that would have to wait.
The thing bothering him the most right now anyway was that he'd lost the communication stone. He still couldn't believe that. He had been careful with it—he just hadn't checked on it specifically in a while to confirm he still had it, but it hadn't even occurred to him that he might have lost it.
Feyrith shook his head, trying to ignore the shame filling his heart. There was nothing to be done about this now, and he needed to focus.
He pushed the quasir to go faster, running between the various broken houses and statues row after row, slowly but surely confirming that Edwyr was nowhere to be found in this part of the ruins. As Feyrith reached the end of the ruins, he sighed as he looked up to see the sun already setting. He truly hoped the humans had been more successful. If they left now, they might still make it far enough to get to a safe distance before it was too dark to continue.
But as he was about to leave, turning the quasir around, he froze, his eyes widening. In front of him stood an elven woman. Even with the dark cloak and cowl she was wearing covering most of her, he could easily tell this wasn't a human.
He knew he needed to run. To get away before she managed to cast anything. But all he could do was to stare at her, frozen in place with shock and fear. This must have been the person who had summoned the fog. And now she was standing here, before him, definitely about to attack him.
As Feyrith finally regained the ability to move, he barely managed to drag the quasir to the side before she yelled a spell he didn't know, purple energy flying past him. Feyrith scrambled to try to get his alarmed, squawking quasir to calm down as he guided it to run between the broken buildings, using their walls as cover to give himself some time to defend himself, no matter how pointless it might be.
Feyrith jumped off his quasir, taking his staff off his back and pressing his back against the wall. Riding the quasir made him too tall to fully hide behind a lot of these broken structures, so he had no choice but to try to run away on foot. But he doubted that he would be able to simply ride out of here before the other elf managed to hit him with whatever spell she'd throw at him, so he would have to be ready to cast a shield spell.
But could he concentrate enough to run away from her, dragging the quasir with him through the maze of ruined houses, and still pay enough attention to know when to cast the spell?
"Come out, whelp, and face me," she snapped, the sound of her boots scraping against the stones and rocks much too loud. Feyrith swallowed. While he was bringing shame to his people by hiding from danger like this, he was fairly certain that the Council would agree the other elf was doing a much worse job of honoring elves by attacking him, so Feyrith was going to stay hidden.
He began to move, pulling the quasir along and desperately hoping it was going to stay quiet as he ran between the two houses in front of him, zigzagging through the ruins between the buildings and not looking back. His heart was beating hard enough that it almost felt as if it would leap out of his chest at any moment as he continued running, going faster and faster while trying not to trip on rubble. Feyrith was starting to worry about stumbling and falling with how fast he was going, but he couldn't stop as if his legs had a mind of their own.
And suddenly, a word he recognized as a telekinetic spell was yelled behind him, and he was falling, hitting the ground with a cry, and barely managing to catch himself with his hands in time. He rolled onto his back, only getting enough time to notice the rope which was now firmly tied around his ankles before his attacker was towering above him, glaring down at him fiercely.
He didn't wait for even a split second, yelling a shield spell immediately as he did his best to scoot away. He wished he could get up, but that wasn't an option right now.
His quasir ran at the other elf, about to slash her with its claws, but the elf simply shouted another spell. The quasir froze in its tracks, staggering before falling down, its eyes closing.
Feyrith stared at the scene in horror, for a second thinking that she'd killed the beast, but then he noticed its sides moving as it breathed. The fact that it was still alive brought little comfort to him, though, as he didn't doubt a much worse fate awaited him.
The female elf cocked her head to the side, watching him struggle to keep up the shield with all his strength while he used his own spell for telekinesis to untie the rope. He was still tired from summoning wind earlier, and he wasn't sure how long he would be able to maintain the shield, but he still dragged himself back to his feet, his teeth gritted in determination.
He flinched as the female elf yelled another spell, sending another wave of purple energy at him. Her magic crashed into Feyrith's shield with a horrible, loud crackle, but still he held on, raising his staff to channel the shield better as he did his best to run away again, breathing hard.
The other elf proceeded to throw more spells at Feyrith, each impact almost making his knees buckle and making the staff in his hands feel heavier and heavier. His resolve finally crumbled as he threw a look over his shoulder, only to see the other elf smirk and throw yet another blast of magic at him. And at that Feyrith finally fell to his knees as his shield disappeared.
He didn't have the strength to look back at the female elf when he heard her repeat what he thought was the same spell she's used on the quasir, making Feyrith fall forward as all of his muscles grew too tired to even keep him kneeling.
He felt the tears of frustration and terror pricked at his eyes as he weakly clutched his staff in hopes of doing anything at all to defend himself. But it was hopeless. He could barely keep his eyes open, let alone pull together the strength to summon a shield again. He was too tired to even feel properly horrified and helpless as he struggled not to fall asleep.
"Good. You'll do fine," he heard her say. And finally, his eyes slid closed as everything went dark.