Arianthe Vardis entered the Temple of Praxeum as a slave. Selling herself was the quickest way to earn the twelve gold pieces needed for the Temple’s donation cum tuition, and she had no time back then to look for another way out.
She needed to come here. She had to know what her mother died for --
the Order -- and why. The local constable back home had ruled her mother’s death an accident, but Arianthe knew better. It was a murder story that revolved around this mysterious Order, and she would do anything to unravel the mystery.
After her mother's death, Arianthe had spent a year hunting for pins in haystacks for any hints of the Order of Ma’Talzin. It was a stroke of godsent luck to have found an Order searcher passing through Beinost two years ago, and she latched onto him with fervor. He was amused by her tenacity and offered to buy her way into the Temple.
That's how most of us Order folks started, he said. She readily agreed.
The searcher technically still owned her, and she would return to his ownership unless she was apprenticed or managed to pay back a heavenly sum.
Arianthe Vardis would leave the Temple as either a Sorceress-Apprentice or a slave. She had swore to herself that it would be the previous. To do so as the latter would be utterly unbearable.
---
Arianthe slept fitfully that night. Her blankets felt too warm, but it was too cold to sleep without covers.
---
Tessa Ree won the bet. Of course she did.
Mistress Moore sat at the head of the staff table during breakfast. She was a thin, dark human in her fifties, and Arianthe had never seen anyone else with hair that white or robes that thick. Arianthe spent part of breakfast staring at the ring on the Mistress’ spindly fingers.
The thing is, Arainthe thought,
I never actually agreed to that bet.
---
“A trial,” Master Taiu announced, which sent a scattering of whispers through the class of acolytes. All twenty of them were here, and no one was late. “You will go to the Tomb of the Alkar’chuhan. You will seek out the Diadem of Greater Restoration buried in the tomb, and one of you will succeed.”
The whispers grew louder. They were seated in a classroom at the other end of the Temple. The acolytes were supposed to review fire sorcery lore today, but the lessons were forgone for this announcement.
Mistress Moore nodded from her spot on the dais beside Old Man Taiu. She spotted a thin smile. “I will be waiting in your instructor’s quarters for the next three days. If one of you poor, miserable acolytes managed to bring me the Diadem, you will be richly rewarded.”
“Do your best to survive, won’t you poor lot?” Taiu continued. “The Tomb’s in the Red Forest, and I’d like to have a class left by the end of this.”
The class degenerated into chaos.
The Red Forest? Arainthe felt Darger’s eyes drilling into her back.
---