Member
EXP: 22,896, Level: 6
Level completed: 42%,
EXP required for next Level: 4,104
It wasn’t my fault!
I had been relaxing in a small village tavern with a cold pint, chatting up a nice Salvaran lass and otherwise minding my own business. It was shaping up to be a pretty pleasant afternoon until her husband spoiled the party. How was I supposed to know she was married? She hadn’t said a word about it. One moment, I was enjoying myself. The next, I was slammed up against the bar with a big bearded oaf’s rotten breath befouling my air.
He fed me a typical tough-guy line, and I responded by telling him to learn how to satisfy his woman. Maybe then she wouldn’t come to me for attention. Not the most diplomatic thing I could have said, but hey; when your “nice to meet you” is trying to throw me through the bar, tact is the first thing I toss out the window.
He responded with a fist to my face. I leaned back and dodged the worst of it, but he did graze my lip. The metallic tang of blood rose upon my tongue. That was unfortunate for him. His wife started screaming, the bartender yelled at us to take it outside, and there was just enough hubbub for him to miss the fact that his boots were now frozen to the floor. I gave him a shove, and he toppled like a stack of books. I hadn’t planned for him to bash the back of his head on a nearby table as he fell, though.
Okay. That part was a tiny bit my fault.
Now things went from bad to worse. One unconscious guy in a bar is just Wednesday. But the oaf’s feet were still rooted to the floor by a block of ice, and a few interested onlookers wore gray ecclesiastical robes. The Church of Ethereal Sway; nobody used magic around these people unless they explicitly permitted it. I had goofed. The four of them started pointing and hollering about “witchcraft” and “violating the natural laws of the Sway” and a jumble of other overzealous nonsense, but when I heard the word “crucifixion”, I decided to be somewhere else. I slung a quick apology at the fool's shrieking wife and bolted.
I left the sleepy little village behind with the foursome hot on my heels. Well; three of them, anyway. The fourth’s physique left him ill-equipped to run more than ten steps in any given direction, and he quickly fell behind, puffing like a bellows. I led the others on a jaunt through the snow and boughs of the Salvaran forest.
A ball of light whooshed by my head then. It crashed into a snow-covered tree limb, exploding into a hail of twigs and powder. I skidded to a halt and looked back. There my three assailants stood; one of them still held his hands theatrically out in front of him. He was a man of average height, and he sported short, light-brown hair and a neat beard.
“That was a warning shot,” he informed me smugly. I had heard of this; certain members of the Sway were permitted to use magic in their quest to root out all other magic.
I turned to face him with an eyebrow raised. “You practice what you preach, don’t you?”
He launched into a tirade about blasphemy and Sway-given exemptions and divine missions, his nose getting higher in the air with every word. Just as he was getting to the part where I should forsake my heathen ways and come quietly so my soul might be salvaged, I raised an arm. Sparks danced at my fingertips and ignited into a ball of flame, though more slowly than I might have wished. Blood for power; little blood, little power. My cut lip didn't offer me much of either.
My adversary crouched and extended his hands, one in front of him, one behind. The air shimmered and swirled around him. A shield. I quickly sized up my opponent. His postures and bluster were meant to intimidate me, but his ward was weak. This guy wasn’t very powerful. I had to be careful; I wanted to subdue him, not kill him. My list of misdeeds was already ugly enough for one day. I fed my fireball until it was the size of a melon, then fired.
Last edited by Atzar; 10-07-2017 at 04:03 PM.
