Setting
Setting
0.00 INK
"Did you hear," an older woman inquired of a passerby. "Old Rufus was found dead this mornin'. They say somebody broke in wi'out touching a thing but the gold in 'is pocket, and just done cut his throat. What's worse, the Watch thinks the killer might still be right here in this city!"
Setting
0.00 INK
A chilly breeze and the drizzle against his face manages to ease Leo's scowl despite having not slept very much since his departure from the Imperial City. He had traveled through the Old Forest even during the night in order to make it here to Gooseneck by late afternoon. As he starts to notice the line of soldiers looking his way in a suspicious manner Leo lowers his head and quickens his pace. With all of these soldiers passing through he guesses that the guard duty might be a bit light this day. This could possibly help him in finding this mysterious book.
"Excuse me," Leo says to a passing farmer, "might there be a book store here in Gooseneck?"
"Yeah," the farmer says gruffly, looking Leo over as if he is surprised that a man dressed like him would be interested in a book. "A rickety old place. Not really worth keeping around a place like this but the old geezer that owns it pays his taxes somehow so I s'pose it'll be around a while longer."
Leo just smiles and nods, walking away before the farmer really has a chance to finish. He'd rather his description not get around town and would prefer just to blend in.
Setting
0.00 INK
He did not want to stoop to asking a guard or even another passer-by but he is beginning to feel hopeless and that perhaps he is on a wild goose chase. With hardly a mood to smile at his ironic placement coupled with his current feeling, Leo gazes at the farmhand and waves as he approaches. "Ho there good sir. Might you know -"
A strange feeling overcomes him and he finds himself suddenly staring awkwardly at the man in front of him. He rubs the side of his neck and adjusts his bow so that the string is not digging in to his bare shoulder. Fixing the farmhand with a stern gaze from those stone cold eyes, Leo continues in a voice just as cold, "A bookstore. Or some place where I might find a special tome or even a person who might know of such books?"
Setting
0.00 INK
"You mean ol' Randen's shop? The bookshop's kinda hard to miss, since he's always got that damned bird in his window... Hey, you're not from 'round here are you?"
Bewilderment gave way to apprehension as he eyed up the man, brown eyes coming to rest on the tip of the bow and shifting to those cold gray hues.
With one hand on his hoe stuck into the dirt, he thumbed in the direction from Leofric had come. "The place your lookin' for's about a mile back thataway." With a roll of his shoulders, glistening with sweat and water from the light rain, he gripped the hoe in both hands, looking up once before resuming his work, and added thoughtfully, "Just don't think about it too much, or you'll end up hopelessly lost."
What a strange response...
Vertigris deposits formed a crust at the base of the gnomon and around the die cast symbols representing the hours and eight celestial signs of the zodiac in a nearly perfect annulus. Sha had barely peeked out from behind the clouds, casting a vague shadow along one of the hour marks, which, if accurate, put him in the middle of town close to evening. Still, the cloud cover made it difficult to tell.
"You hard of hearing boy? When he looked toward the sound of the voice, it was not the farmhand, but a wizened man with a crown of gray hair, wielding in his left hand a carved juniper walking stick with feathers and etchings in the knotted and burled wood. He had one leg propped atop the stone slab on which the sundial was embedded. Curving his left foot over the edge, he pressed the toe of his laced hiking boot onto one of the eight arcane symbols on the face of the dial. "I asked you if you were lost."
As Leofric passed an eye over the dusty ground, he noticed trampled footprints in the dirt. Most of the passersby headed in straight or slightly veering lines away from the center of the square, leaving prints on top of the others, but he could make out the distinct, circling pattern of a set going round the sundial several times and ending right underfoot.
Setting
0.00 INK
It could be said that Leofric the Boldeye grows weary of cryptic talk and since his arrival has become ever wary of each step taken in this labyrinth called Gooseneck. Leofric walks forward and places his own foot up on the sun dial right across from the man and leans forward that the stranger might see the hint of a sardonic scowl. His right arm is cocked behind him to resemble a chicken wing and while it may look like his hand is merely resting awkwardly on his hip, his fingers are in fact drumming against the handle of his knife that would be hidden from any man who stands in front of him.
"A man who likely goes by many names but called himself Anael sent me to chase a goose. This goose I have heard may be accompanied by a man named Randen ... and his bird." Now Leofric is sure that something is up. The voice had sounded strangely familiar like the farmhand from earlier and he cannot help but to smell some sort of conspiracy. His father's enemies, assassins like few others in Ruyn are adept at disguises but since a young age Leofric has been taught to try to look at a man beyond his face and to try to recognize the reflections of his voice.
Still he was also taught to never make any assumptions and to always let his enemies play their hand first. Better that a man react than act for then he may yet have the advantage of knowledge. To counter an attack is always more effective than to make the first one and over the years Leofric has learned that this tactic works just as well in politics as it does in battle.
Setting
0.00 INK
"I ainβt from around here, son, and I don't know nothing about this A-nail or whatever bird heβs carrying around,β the old man answered, shifting his weight to his walking stick to take his foot off the symbol he was covering.
A lemniscate, cast sideways in the copper, formed a double loop both into which dust and grit had settled. Leofric could see, along the rest of the dial, markings of similar design.
βBut, by the looks of those tracks,β he gestured toward the several footprints circling the sun dial with his free hand, βIβd hafta agree, you are pretty lost. You done gone around this here marker a half dozen times, at least. You know, sometimes if you donβt think about it, itβs easier to find what it is youβre looking for.β
Setting
0.00 INK
He had denied the footprints when he first saw them, convincing himself that they belonged to passing townsfolk despite having seen not a soul tread past him except for those few who openly spoke to him. Even the houses around him had felt empty and never seeing even a pair of eyes peeking from the crack of an open shutter this whole time is suddenly alarming to him. His mother told him stories of places such as this but he never believed that they could actually exist in this world. It was like some sort of cross between a plane of Limbo and a demon world; like an unending Hell where a man searches forever in vain for that which cannot be found.
Then he is upon the hiker. He pushes forward with his foot so that as he leaps forward he stands higher over the man even more than normal. His left hand shoots out and reaches for a tuft of the hiker's hair that he may jerk his head back violently and expose the soft flesh of his throat to the edge of his blade that has left his sheath like lightning. The momentum of his vault would end in Leofric standing over the hiker with cold steel pressed against his vitality. He would then immediately drop in an attempt to pin the hiker's arms under his knees.
"NO MORE GAMES!" Leofric screams in a voice that does not seem to belong to him. While he is in the man's face he screams as if he speaks to one who is not there. If those stone gray eyes were ugly before then now they belong to a killer. Despite Leofric's vow to never again take a life he still possesses that look of a man who will not think twice to do so. "What is this place? And the Avani save you if your answer is not direct. NO MORE RIDDLES!"
His breathing is hard and sweat seems to excrete from every pore in his skin. He had ignored the lemniscate not because he did not know what it was. No, it was just the opposite. He knows very well the implications of such 'rune' and so it is much the source for his outrage. There are few things that can frighten a true warrior in this world but endless inaction is at the top of Leo's list.
Setting
0.00 INK
"Guards! Guards!" he shouted, drawing the attention of a few more onlookers into a small crowd that gathered. "Please," he begged of the gray-eyed man, sweat trickling from his hairline into his fearful eyes. "I done told you, I don't know what you're getting after. I'm just passing through. If it's money you want, take it. It's yours, but I've a wife and family. For gods' sake, have mercy."
The hiker glanced to the weapon that had fallen a few feet away from his walking stick, oblivious to anything other than the wild-eyed man before him. "S-s-sure," he stammered. "What-whatever you want, just please, let me go."
Setting
0.00 INK
Before he can give them a truly vicious look that would certainly scare them away, a stranger in green appears in the corner of his vision. Still standing over the fallen hiker, Leofric snaps his gaze to his right only to find the stranger in green disappearing in to the crowd. With a growl akin to that of a wild dog, Leofric dashes forward but not before swooping in on the hiker's fallen knife. His own blade returns to its sheath as he pushes his way through the crowd. When he catches the stranger moving in to the southern alley, Leofric shoves men and women alike to the ground in order to reach the alley.
Of the green-clad stranger, there was no sign, to his right, Leofric could see clear down the next alleyway to a street lined with nondescript buildings, while from his left came the sound of rustling followed by a resonating clatter as a little, slinky black figure, illuminated by an oil-burning lamp hung from a hook on the siding of a brown house, jumped out of a wooden barrel, knocking refuse out onto the walk.
Tail sticking straight up, the feline crept across the stones on silent, padded paws, regarding him with a subtle, yellow-eyed glance before momentarily disappearing into the shadows and poking its head out to blink thoughtfully at him from behind a battered wooden crate. "Mreow?"
The cat let out a panicked shriek, fur bristling as it leaped back and bared its teeth, hissing. Peering around the corner of the crate to watch Leofric leave, the feline waited until he was a good ways off before slinking into the street and trailing the man from a distance. If the warrior happened to glance behind him, he might have occasionally seen a pair of iridescent green eyes in the warm, flickering glow of torch flames.
Dusk settled by the time Leofric reached the square again, and to be sure, he had not overlooked anything, including the sun dial in the middle of town, but passing a window with a "Closed" sign facing out, he glimpsed a stack of books beside what appeared to a blue parrot perched atop a shelf behind the glass. The creature was still as a statue save for one beady eye that tracked him as he walked past.
Setting
0.00 INK
He was leaning back by then and his eyes were fluttering closed. He fell asleep for an hour or maybe two, for it did not seem to matter in the limbo of Gooseneck but when he awoke it was with sore bones but a clearer feeling. It started the very moment he opened his eyes and saw in what could be mistaken as a drunken light a window and stack of books. Leofric only smiled then and began to laugh, softly at first but steadily growing in volume. He sighed and he groaned but Leofric pulled himself to his feet and stretched.
That was when he saw the eye of the still bird and he questioned if he might be dreaming. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, Leofric slowly lowered his arms and approached the front door. Just a breath later and he would be inside and already he had swore that he would never return to this sullen town.
Mr. Snuffles shook his head, and with a noise that sounded very like a sneeze, wriggled out of Felix's hold using the mage's lap as a launchpad to propel himself into one of the open crates. He poked his head out and glared evilly at the pair before slinking down out of sight, where he remained until at long last, just after nightfall, they pulled into town.
When the errand-runner finally brought the cart to a stop by a group of mages standing near the sundial, the town's local landmark, a tall, white-haired woman clad in a belted slate blue robe met the arrival with a stern face. Several of the younger men and women stopped talking amongst themselves and looked up as the duo stepped off the rickety cart.
"Well, well, would you look what the cat dragged in?" someone hollered in the crowd.
No one noticed the black feline creep out of the box and slip to the ground, disappearing into an alleyway, silent as a ghost.
Archmage Tess gave Felix the slightest of nods, whether in approval or acceptance, it was impossible to tell, but her clasped hands twitched in the slightest, as though she wanted to open her arms in that matronly way, but as ever, due to her station, she had her reservations and as such, remained placid.
"Phoenix," one of the guys called, waving him over. "Hey, Phoenix! Man, it's been too long. Where've you been?"
"Where haven't I been?" the pyromancer answered with a grin, jumping off the wagon to join the crowd. Before long he was telling them about a few of his more well-known adventures - but without the embellishments - in return for news about what had happened at the Academy while he was gone. It turned out that things had been a bit more uneventful than Felix had expected, even after the fire all those years ago. The faculty had obviously done a good job in maintaining order.
"So, who's the elf?" asked one of the mages. Before she could say anything, Alexandria was brought forth and introduced to the crowd, courtesy of Felix. There were one or two people who weren't keen on the idea of trusting elves, but since she was the pyromancer's friend, there was little they could do to argue. With this out of the way, Felix left Alexandria with the crowd to speak with Archmage Tess, one of the few people he highly respected.
"Sorry 'bout that, ma'am, but my adoring fans insisted that I visit them," he said, shaking her hand and smiling. "It's been one hell of a while, hasn't it? Anyway, what's going on in Gooseneck that requires the attention of an Archmage? All we were told before we got here was something about... I dunno, things getting messed up? The faculty didn't have much details for us to go on."
"Too long," she agreed, releasing his hand, and cast a critical eye briefly over the elf before allowing her lips to turn up in the slightest of gestures. "It is good to see your years away from the academy have not gone to waste."
"On my return with the class visiting Fort Nuoro this afternoon, I detected a temporal anomaly that, while of no discernible origin, seems to be coming from within the town itself. None of us have been able to pinpoint its location, and if not for the strange happenings since last night up to the Watch's discovery of the recent murder victim this morning, I would have not thought to look for it."
The archmage began walking at a slow, measured pace around the circumference of the sundial, occasionally surveying one of the many buildings surrounding the town centre or glancing at each symbol and 'hmming' in noting some passing detail.
"As you may recall, for thirty years, the Gray Scholars, a group of the academy's elite students and professors, have been on the hunt for an magic book allegedly written and secreted away by one of the Drenn themselves. When sought after, the book erects a barrier within a certain radius preventing its discovery. It is said the mysteries of our world lie within its pages, and whosoever dispels the enchantment and locates this book will potentially wield the power of Ruyn itself.
"That is not all," she continued, stopping at the north-facing copper lemniscate on the sundial, and ran her fingers across the symbol. "Just before the fire, unbeknownst to the public eye and most of the students, one of the Grays went rogue and tried to unleash a spell strong enough to tear a dimensional rift spanning across the realms. You may remember Professor Belmont, our adept Chronomage?"
The old woman paused to led the name and titled sink in.
"He was one of our top scholars. The Council of Mages placed him under investigation shortly before you were expelled. Despite never going to trial, they exonerated him of all charges of arson based on lack of evidence of his involvement, but impeached him on grounds for abuse of magic. Angered, he threatened the council mages with retribution and disappeared shortly thereafter, though we learned through his writings he may have been close to finding the book. What may happen upon unlocking the secrets of that tome is all wild speculation, but I know of no other mage in Zamil powerful enough to fathom let alone dispel an anomaly of this proportion. If he is here, in Gooseneck, vouchsafe he will prove a most formidable adversary."
Alexandria had listened to Tess, and immediately saw a problem with their mission; they were looking for a book that was enchanted to mislead people who purposefully looked for it. However, she suddenly saw the confused look on Felix's face once the briefing was over, and a plan of her own began to form.
"Felix, you're the only one who can do this." the elf said to her friend out of the blue.
"Wait, me? Why me?" Felix asked.
"Because the item we're looking for is... uh..." Actually, that question was a pretty good one. Why need him specifically to find the book? "Because it can only be sensed by powerful fire magic users. You're the only pyromancer around here!" she finished. It managed to not only convince him, but appeal to his sense of heroism, and without any further input necessary from the healer, Felix mustered the rest of the group to fall behind him. Luckily he didn't ask where to start looking, because that was a question that most likely couldn't be answered by anyone present.
"I'll explain this to you on the way, shall I?" Alexandria said to Tess as the two of them followed the wizardly procession.
Outside the town centre, where the rain had long since ceased falling, pockmarks speckling the dirt were nearly trampled flat by passing feet though mud particles still sloughed off dusty wagons and rain gutters onto the cobbles. The narrow streets wove complex patterns through the town, sometimes doubling back or leading to an entirely different network. However, near the end of one of several residential roads lined with nondescript shacks with small farms, the street split off onto a junction illuminated by an oil-burning lantern hung from a hook on the siding of a dilapidated brown house. At first, Felix saw nothing beyond the lamp's yellow-orange glow. Then, Tess motioned toward the right, starting to suggest they head that way, when she suddenly shifted her attention.
"Look!" she exclaimed in a loud whisper, pointing in the other direction as a darkly clad figure jogged across the gap and disappeared into a maze of houses on the next street over.
- 20 posts here • Page 1 of 1