2
the big break
It was early morning when Nautilus called upon Vox, Heather, and Raven to discuss his recent discovery of the Meedan’s Gemstone.
Raven was sitting in the kitchen of her parents’ home, sipping a cup of Naga Nectar and speaking with her mother, Soroya. She was pushing sixty but looked no older than thirty-five, with luxurious brown hair and beagle dewlaps. She was a fan of youth potions, a brewer of them, too. They were difficult to make; moonstone powder and phoenix ash were almost impossible to obtain on this side of Arvandor – you had to head north towards the volcanoes for the best chance – and the price of just a couple ounces at the average vendor was five hundred gold. With that sort of coin, Raven could purchase a weak offensive gemstone – not that she wanted one. She was indeed much more psychological in her magical approach. Psychological magic was less chaotic and involved a great deal more cogitation.
Her mother made good money, however. Both her parents did. She on the other hand was struggling to make ends meet with what little coin she’d been earning over the past few months. She didn’t have the skills or experience to secure powerful artefacts in the more dangerous parts of Arvandor. Her stone may have been powerful against kingsmen and many forest creatures alike, but the monsters underground, ones buried deep in the dungeons, were far beyond its reach.
Maybe with time she would improve, but for now, she was a stick-in-the-mud nobody. A powerless witch.
Raven explained this to her mother, hoping she would understand how difficult it was to find a guild that would allow her to take on greater and more ambitious expeditions, but she disagreed.
“You’ll get better, Raven,” she said, and mustered a weak smile. “You chose the path of a hunter not because our city needs more but because your heart knew it was right.”
“And what if I don’t, Mother? Do I stay here and mend shoes until the weeds take me away?”
Soroya approached the wooden kitchen table and poured herself a cup of tea from the pot. Her hands were a little shaky. “What’s so wrong with that? It’s a living, is it not?”
“Living only to make coin isn’t living,” said Raven.
“You sound just like my sister and her half-witted husband. You’re a grown woman, you can decide what to do with your life, but your father and I are perfectly happy.”
“I’m not saying it can’t make people happy,” said Raven. “Life down here is quite comfortable and safe for witches and wizards, after what the aura-blind did to us.”
“We’re at peace.”
“We’ll never be at peace so long as we’re stuck underground, Mother,” said Raven matter-of-factly.
The door to the old creaky house opened. Stepping through it was the large and imposing build of Raven’s brother Darian. He was clothed in a wrinkly cream linen shirt with leather-padded slacks, a few folds of gold and silver around his neck. His long, straight hair was tied back into a ponytail. The scar of a bear claw had grown deep and red across his forehead. Adorning his neck was a black, chained necklace upon which a sinister red gem slowly pulsed – the reason for his greatness, the reason he could do what Raven couldn’t.
The Crimson Locke.
Despite this, Darian spoke eagerly: “How are you, sister?”
“Good,” Raven said, and sipped her Naga Nectar. The bitter taste of cardamom and cinnamon spiced her tongue. She enjoyed it very much.
“Find anything useful out in the big, bad world today?” He pulled out a linen pouch and tossed it to her.
Raven caught it. Gold, as expected. She didn’t have to open it to know that. “I take it you did?” She resisted the urge to display any sense of frustration at her younger brother’s success. He, like few others, was a member of one of the most skilled guilds in the Litch Shadowhood: the Enchantment Syndicate. All thanks to that wretched gem which allowed him to unleash a potent form of bloodmagic on all that stood in his way.
It was a gem of ego. He claimed to have taken it from the heart of a Bloodthorn Weaver, a legendary spider beast that resided deep in the caverns of the Nightspinner’s Crypt. She didn’t believe that story. To think that he had managed to somehow make it more than a couple steps into a lair of that calibre, team or not, was absurd, never mind managing to take down a legendary creature. Add to that the point that he and his previous team had only a basic arsenal of stones and it became even more unbelievable. But no matter how many times she had called him out on it, he insisted it was true, and chalked off her intensive questioning as nothing more than rivalling jealously.
“Twelve middle-power stones,” Darian said. “Two hundred and fifty gold a piece.”
“Well done, Darian,” said Soroya.
Well done indeed….
“I suppose this calls for another celebration,” said Raven, humouring herself. Last week it was a drink at the Burning Tongue with some of his fellow guild-members. Raven would have liked very much to be able to spend her time and money on something as trivial as drinking at a pub, but it seemed that lifestyle wasn’t in her favour.
“Celebration?” Darian laughed. “You’re funny, sister.”
Raven squeezed the bag of gold before tossing it back to him. “Was it difficult?” she asked in the most pleasurable voice she could muster, and yet she couldn’t help but let an undercurrent of disdain reverberate in the back of her throat.
“Everything is easy once you start learning magic the right way.” Darian was aware of what he was doing. He really needed to find new ways to make her angry; this was getting old. “How’s your training been, Raven? Have you figured out that fairy stone yet?”
She scowled at him and then perked up at the sound of footsteps creaking down the wooden stairs. Mira, the little girl with fishbelly-white hair and drowsy crescent-shaped shadows under her eyes, stopped and let out an enormous yawn.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Morning,” Mira said, rubbing her eyes with the sleeve of her brown tunic.
“What keeps you up?” said Darian.
“I don’t know.” Mira approached the sink, grabbed a wooden cup, and filled it up from the tap.
“The dark man, Mira?” asked Raven.
Mira’s face lit up redly. Those wretched nightmares had been attacking her ever since her birthday two months ago. Raven had taken her to an apothecary on the other side of town to see if there were any potions that could get rid of them, but to no avail. Mira often spoke of a dark man. An open field of frostwing blooms and bloodthorn roses was the most common stage. She once told Raven that she wanted to run among the flowers without the fear of being hunted down by the aura-blind. It was not just any dream – it was the dream.
And Raven did her best to understand what could have been causing this dark man. Was there something deeper? Surely, there must have been. The dark man was too frequent. He would chase Mira through the field, the whole way back to the underground. He would grab her and choke her. Mira claimed she could feel pain. Raven couldn’t believe it.
At one point, she thought her sister had been cursed, but how? Mira was only a student at her junior’s magic academy. Who would be interested in cursing a girl as young and as fruitless as her? Unless of course she hadn’t brought the curse upon herself. Darian could have quite possibly dragged home something evil from one of his ‘hard-fought’ adventures. A dreaming curse perhaps. The only cure would be time if that were the case.
“What dark man?” Darian furrowed his brow.
Raven tapped her long fingernails on the table. It wasn’t surprising to see that Darian knew nothing of Mira’s nightmares. After all, he rarely spoke to her. “A recurring figure in her nightmares. Nothing of your concern.”
Darian scoffed and rolled his eyes before tossing the bag of gold up and down. He quickly turned his attention to Soroya. “Where’s Father?”
“At the shop, why?” asked Soroya.
“He’s always at that blasted shoe shop, isn’t he?” Darian said, ignoring her question.
“And so?” said Soroya.
“I’m thinking of visiting one of the kingdoms,” Darian said. “There’s only so much you can spend your gold on in the Litch. Abundoria has rare potions.”
For a wild, improbable moment, Raven thought he would be sniffed out by the kingsmen, should he choose to take his business there, but then she remembered Abundoria already had its fair share of undercover wizards from Nautilus’ group lurking in the shadows, listening in on what the locals referred to as king’s business, and they had gone unnoticed for the past few months.
Or, so she believed.
Occasionally, they would report back to Nautilus to let him know of anything that may have proven valuable: weapons, stones, and yes, potions. The alchemists in Abundoria were known for brewing potions that granted the aura-blind temporary magical prowess, but they paled in comparison to what even the weakest of gemstones could do. Enchantments were much stronger, but they required the help of wizards or witches. It still didn’t stop the undercover wizards from bringing them back to the Litch and having them examined by alchemy experts. What resulted was a fair number of strong brews that were developed from the ingredients observed in the stolen potions. They were pricey all the same.
Raven understood that Darian was overconfident, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that infiltrating the North Kingdom was a rotten idea. “Why do you need Dad’s permission anyway?”
“I don’t.” Darian chuckled. “I need his horse, and maybe some clothes to help me fit in with the rich folk. The tailors can handle that part.”
“Your father has some clothes upstairs.” Soroya pointed towards the ceiling and gave a single nod. She didn’t care at all that her only son planned to walk among wealthy commoners in a city packed with guards wielding enchanted equipment, but it was clear, at least to Raven, that Soroya didn’t see Darian as the little boy who had once snuck out of the Litch and gotten attacked by a berrosk. No, she saw him as brave, powerful, able to handle his own against dangerous beasts.
All thanks to that bloody stone.
“No thanks,” Darian replied. “I need something less conspicuous than his longcoats.”
After saying his goodbyes to the family and setting out to the shoe shop, Mira, who had finished the last drops of her water cup, tapped Raven’s shoulder. “Can you bring me to school now?” There was a curiosity in her tone that seemed unwarranted. Why so soon?
Raven glanced up at the clock. It was only seven o’clock. School didn’t start until eight in the morning. “Eat your breakfast, Mira.”
“I’m not hungry,” Mira said.
Raven shook her head and sipped her drink. The remaining tea dust swirling at the bottom of the mug washed over her tongue with grit and earth, akin to the remnants of a forgotten storm that carried the whispers of ancient, untold secrets. She winced at the overly bitter taste. “You need food to fuel for the morning, especially if you haven’t had sufficient rest. Trust me, Mira.”
Sighing, Mira turned to her plate, grabbed the fork, and stabbed it into a slice of bacon. She ate the whole breakfast within five minutes, and when she asked if they could go to school early again, Raven questioned why. Mira told her that she wanted to meet up with her friends, who often palled in the school grounds bright and early, and against her better judgement Raven agreed to bring her.
Moments later, they trailed along the underground city footpaths, the darkness staved off by the phosphorescent fungi that clung to the walls and ceiling of this otherwise giant cavern. It cast an ethereal blue glow over the buildings of stone and earth intwined with the most sophisticated of enchantments.
Wizards and witches rushed past in riptides, going about their business as normal. Some were clad in dark robes, adorned with their individual gemstones, while others wore simple garb, like Mira’s tunic, their power only evident in the glint of their eyes. The kiosks predominating this side of the Litch gave way to merchants who stocked items under their tarps with mere flicks of their wrists. Lanterns hovered overhead, illuminating signs: FRESH TAILORS, CHEAP ALCHEMY, SPELL STONES, HIDDEN TREASURES, and so on.
Vendors shouted, their voices overlapping each other.
“I serve the best valour in the seven kingdoms. Armour, cloth, linen. I have it all!”
“—can solve that pain in the back of your tooth. Dentari Elixir, and—”
“—gemstones retrieved from the Enchantment Syndicate! The strongest yet!”
The last merchant had quite a build-up of people. While most of the wizards couldn’t afford what he had on sale, many liked to watch and see what the stones were capable of. Even Raven tuned in sometimes; she hoped one of these days the man would have a cheap but powerful psychological gem, but those were incredibly rare to find in shops, much less on the streets of an everyday milk market.
Eventually, Raven and Mira made it to the gracefully arched stone bridge that spanned the Stygian Current, a small river that ran through the cavern and slipped into the lake of Litch Mountain, and on the other side of it was the great Arcana Lyceum, school of wizardry. Raven too had studied here in her younger years. She didn’t have as many friends as Mira did now, but she enjoyed the various spell and potion books the school’s library provided, as well as the museum of ancient dormant stones that were said to have constructed the entire cavern under Litch Mountain.
The school itself was an architectural marvel, seamlessly blending the natural beauty of the cavern with the magic-infused craftsmanship of the wizards. Its walls were adorned with intricate carvings of mythical beasts, celestial bodies, and ancient runes, each seemingly imbued with an aura of enchantment. The school's many spires spiralled upwards, reaching towards the cavern's ceiling like fingers grasping for the knowledge of the cosmos. Alumni of all ages were gathered outside, their voices creating a din of magical conversation.
But as Raven and her sister walked across the bridge, a voice spoke to her. It was distant at first, but she realised it was coming from her bracelet stone.
“Vox, Heather, and Raven. I’ll need you to report to HQ.” It was Nautilus. That baritone voice couldn’t have belonged to anyone else.
Raven patted her sister’s head, whispered goodbye, and watched as she made off towards her circle of friends, her backpack hooked in her fingers.
“What is it?” said Vox, voice emotionless.
“I hope you’re not thinkin’ of firing us already, are you?” quipped Heather.
“Not at all,” said Nautilus.
“Is it a job?” asked Raven. “Please, don’t contact us unless you have something worth our time.”
Nautilus chuckled. “I think you’ll like what I have in store for you. This may be the biggest break yet. Come to HQ. We’ll discuss it further from there. See you in fifteen minutes.”