Narrow Streets of Cobblestone

[Cyrus the virus]

He appeared in the shade behind a greasy tavern near central Radasanth, tattered and dirty as if emerging from a year-long war, though no blood stained the clothes or the skin of Luc Kraus. Painful, bright light burned his eyes, and the mage was quick to pull his cape over his brow, falling back against the sturdy brick wall.

The city was bustling on a warm weekend afternoon. The sounds, the smells, and presence of people nearby was a welcome memory. Luc attempted to force his eyes open, to see again the vibrant green trees, the dusty cobblestones, the sun, but after stumbling on his feet for a moment and finally adjusting his vision, all he saw was a bearded man.

He could hardly see himself - it was, after all, just a window - but Luc was surprised at his own appearance. Months in the Alerian cliffs without a shave or a bath had transformed his youthful face into that of a ragged, tired man. He had deep sagging rings beneath his eyes, and his hair was long enough to pass his shoulders. The mage noticed these things for the first time.

Again for the first time in many weeks, Luc looked down at his clothing. His vest and shirt, fine elven garments worth several gold each, were caked with dust and dirt, as if the man were a statue come to life after generations sitting idly in a basement. Had he really been a recluse for so long? Even his pants were stretched and torn from use.

He examined the tome in his hands and its white leather cover, once possessing an almost blinding cleanliness, it was now smudged with grime. It had put him in a trance which he'd entered willingly, and he'd fallen deeper and deeper into his obsession with it. It was written in a language the mage could not comprehend, but he could sense the tremendous power in its pages, as if the magic it contained was beckoning and pulling at him. He'd gone from Ankhas to Xem'zund in search of a translation, but for one reason or another, neither gave him any answers.

Finally, he'd managed to translate a small portion of it himself after months of study. It mentioned a small relic, the details of which Luc didn't comprehend. Small details and hints had led him to Radasanth, but from here he knew not where to go.

Producing a small blue wand from a pouch in his belt, Luc hesitated briefly and then prodded himself in the chest with it. He was transformed instantly, becoming taller and broader. His belly extended outward as his hair receded back into his skull, turning black in unison with his beard, which shrunk to a groomed goatee. His clothing was cheaper and more common of a Radasanthian's, earth toned and hanging loose from his new body.

The tome remained in his hand at his side as Luc stepped out around the building, walking normally among the citizens of Radasanth for the first time in twenty years.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia Ettermire walked away from the house of associate Paige Turner, rubbing her hands over her face wearily. That had to have been the absolute roughest hour of her life to date, and she'd had more than her share of tough times. It was the life she led; if she hadn't been willing to deal with the trouble, she'd never have turned to a life of crime. She'd be a detective in Ettermire still, running down the crooks instead of running rings around the law.

But the news she had been forced to give to the Elven woman and two children staying with Paige...she'd informed many families of the passing of a loved one. She had even gone to family members of co-workers, telling them that their father, husband, son, brother, would never again come home.

This was the first time she had to deliver the news to the family of a man she felt personally responsible for, and it was hell. She needed to do something, to get out and have a run around, to forget, to gain distance and perspective, to let the shackles of the past few months loosen their grips and refresh herself.

She needed a caper.

Reflexively, she tugged the brim of her hat lower over one eye, so that it was obscured. She didn't feel up to looking for trouble, and she knew that was because of the very rough months she'd just left behind her. She really felt like curling up in a dark hole somewhere and just spending a month in solid slee -

What was that?!

Out of the corner of her eye, she'd spotted a leather-bound book a little ahead of her. That wasn't too odd a sight, really. Not in the hands of a scholar. But the average Coronian peasant (as the man who carried it appeared to be) would not be in possession of such a book. It was easy to slip into a loose tail of the man, and she studied the book more closely.

The designs on the leather were vaguely familiar; very ancient, but ancient symbols and patterns were becoming more popular. The age of the pages, though...the yellowed paper told her that they at least were very old, and combined with the detailing on the front made her wonder if it wasn't original.

But why is something like that being carried out in the open, and by such a man?

That was a mystery, and mystery combined with history AND an item meant that the red-coated thief didn't HAVE to go out looking for trouble.

A few light, quick steps brought her within striking distance, and when they came to a junction with an alley, Aly reached out, gently touching the book, and vanished with it into shadow.

She landed on top of a wall not far away, still in shadow, but not enough to obscure her ability to read. And what she found when she opened the tome was interesting indeed.

"Scholars," she huffed. "Now, three thousand years ago, Alerian, Raiaeran, Coronian...not-quite Coronian because it was out on one of those little islands off the coast... they all have chicken scratch for writing."

The scribblings were vaguely familiar; it seemed to be a magic tome. But why would such a man be carrying such a book, when it had very little value save to a mage or an historian?!

[Cyrus the virus]

It was an unusual sensation to be walking as the common man walks, blending with the crowd and walking within the unit. Luc and Radasanth had a history that was long and complex, drenched in blood and destruction. In his everyday body, Luc would have never seen the friendly nod from a nearby guard, or the casual glance from an angel in a summer dress. Instead he'd have been attacked at first sight and fled from - not necessarily in that order.

His mind was elsewhere, despite the change. He was focusing on the earth, the wind, the water, for he could detect magic where magic could be found, and if a relic was indeed hidden somewhere in the area, Luc was confident he could find it with some patience. It was a process that he'd perfected over years of practice.

So focused was he that he almost didn't register the change as his hand suddenly clenched upon nothing. Impulsively he tried to catch the tome as it fell, but it quickly dawned on the mage that he hadn't dropped the book at all. It had simply disappeared.

Panic consumed him. This, after all, was an object of such significance to him that he had abandoned personal health, hygiene and the existence of anything else in the world to study it. It had gripped his senses as surely as iron chains, binding him to it. It was everything, until he could figure out the power hidden within it.

The transformation wand's effect required a rudimentary focus to maintain, but it was lost as soon as Luc realized the tome was nowhere to be seen. Before the eyes of dozens of citizens, the tall broad man shrunk to a shorter, dirtier, smellier man, whose clothes were so filthy they were brown.

He tried to speak to the stopping people but the words were trapped in his throat. It occurred to him that he hadn't actually spoken aloud in months. He choked out, "The book! Give it back!" but it was hardly loud enough for even those close by to hear.

Blind rage came over him, and the mage grabbed a nearby woman by her striped blouse, pulling her close with so much force that her head snapped back. "Give it back!" he screamed in her face.

Someone grabbed his shoulder to try and pull him away, and that someone was ripped through the air so violently by a sudden rush of wind that by the time onlookers realized what had happened, he was gone.

"It's the wizard!" someone cried, and voices started to confer with other voices, elevating in volume as the citizens recalled Luc's actions those many years ago. He'd had his way with the city, raping its women, killing its men, taking whatever he pleased. But that was not the purpose of this visit.

He released the woman as he struggled to regain some composure. Causing havoc in the city was not a wise way to get his tome back, at least not in one piece. But it was as if he'd forgotten how to communicate, as it took him a moment to choose words to say.

"I only want what is mine returned to me!" he cried. To those few in the area who had seen and heard the mage in the past, the desperation in his voice was surprising. He took a step backward and slowly retreated into the alley, unsure of himself.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aly glanced down at the filthy man raving about his possession and hauling a hostage, and her foot tapped idly against the wall on which she sat. Well, this one looked the part of a mage and a hermit, and that would make sense for him to have a book of this age and obscurity.

The thief stepped up on the roof of a nearby building, lightly walking along the less-than-sturdy wooden edge while still examining the text. It wasn't clear, even to her, but she could make out a symbol here and a word there. This text had the potential to be very dangerous...very dangerous, to the victims of the spell yes, but almost more to the caster.

Then again, someone willing to actually do any of what she thought she was reading deserved the consequences coming to him.

Alydia crouched down, supporting the book in one hand and holding it open with the other, and took a few moments to examine his face. Thanks to her long experience as a detective, she was able to mentally peel away the grime and beard and come to a conclusion as to the identity of the man, mage or lunatic who she'd stolen from.

Didn't help that the crowd was just about panicking and labeling him as "the mage."

"All I've heard about Luc Kraus says that he is a scholar of magic and a powerful caster...but I've never heard of him being an historian or a linguist. He'd have to be both to make any sort of sense of an artifact like this." There was no fear in her voice of the man she'd angered; it was the same light, sultry purr she used to mock her stickyfeet.

She sat down, ignoring the ominous creeeeeeak of boards beneath her, and looked at the text again.

"Then again, maybe it is for his own good that he is not." She looked at him from beneath the brim of her fedora with a bright blue eye. Had she gotten his attention? Or was he too disturbed by suddenly having this thing, this text that belonged in a museum, that he didn't even know where her voice was coming from?

[Cyrus the virus]

Alydia's voice seemed to penetrate the crowd like a dagger, silencing concerned voices with her own level, confident one. Luc stepped back into the road and looked up and about until he found her, staring down at him like an ant, as if his possession of such an item was an insult to her.

He had managed to suppress his anger for the time being, enough so that her mocking tone didn't frustrate him as it might have typically. He was placated to know that his tome was still nearby, even if it was in the hands of someone skilled enough to simply take it from him. He again had to struggle to find his words.

"Were I a linguist," he said with a cough, "I would have already solved the riddles of that book. It's the sorcery of it which speaks to me, beckoning me to solve it!"

Catching the desperation that had crept into his voice, Luc forced himself to relax. "I can't explain," he said in response. "You seem to believe the tome doesn't belong in my hands, but I know that it does! I didn't just find it as one finds a gold piece in the streets, I found it because I was meant to!"

It was the first time he'd spoken the thought aloud, and doing so exposed to Luc the strangeness of the thought. He was not a religious man or a man who believed in fate, but someone who always created his own rules and ran his own life. But now was not the time to contemplate it further.

It occurred to him that simply asking for the book back wasn't going to get him anywhere. The woman snatched it so easily and spoke to him so casually that he knew it was an item she desired for herself. Despite this, he couldn't think of a strategy to get it back besides the use of brute force - a tactic he didn't dare try if there was a possibility he'd damage the tome.

There must have been a reason why she'd decided to speak to him, something beyond the desire to simply mock him. Perhaps the thought of citizens being hurt because of her theft was too much for her, or maybe it was something else... Luc wasn't sure.

"It is important to me that you return the book," he said, his voice showing the faintest trace of a threat.

And then, in a whisper that only Alydia could hear, "and it is very important to the people in this city."

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aly smirked down at him. She knew he could make good on his threat of doing something horrible to the whole of Radasanth...but she also knew WAY better than to let him scare her into submission. No...she needed a way to get him out of the city. That was it.

Fortunately, the wily thief had her own ways of getting what she wanted.

"You want it?" She stood up, and the creak turned to a crack. The Alerian tossed the tome from one rooftop to the next, and as the eve she was standing on crumbled, she vanished in a wisp of darkness, appearing on the other roof in time to catch the ancient book in a steady hand.

The book disappeared, pulled into an area where Aly alone had access and control.

"Then you play by my rules. Damage the town, its people, or kill me, and the book is gone forever. I will destroy it."

Her trademark smirk only deepened, and she pulled her fedora down over one eye. "I don't care how you got it, if you were meant to have it or not. I really don't. I also know that you can pore over it until you are old and blind and won't have the right context to translate it. Good luck getting anywhere useful like that."

[Cyrus the virus]

It took all the determination in Luc's being not to openly seethe at the impudent drow. He watched her throw the book, flinching nervously until she transported herself to where it was going, catching it. He crossed his arms, considering her words carefully. He had already drowned himself in the tome for months, trying to decipher it, trying to find clues as to its origin or the language in which it was written. It was easy to believe the thief when she said he could never translate it on his own.

Aging had matured him only slightly, but it was enough to keep the mage from simply lashing out in anger. He weighed his options carefully. He had knowledge of dimensional pockets and identified the woman's ability for what it was - Luc had studied them extensively, and Dan Wilmhearst had access to a similar storage. Either the pocket disappeared from existence when the woman died, or it would rupture and expel its contents next to her dead body. He didn't know enough about the nature of her particular ability to risk it.

Her move had eliminated any leeway he'd created for himself, though Luc still believed any reasonable person would give up any item if he could cause them to lose something they cared about. The problem was, the mage didn't know anything about this woman, and didn't know if the well being of strangers mattered enough to her for her to give in.

The silence among the citizens around them was staggering. Those who had not fled were gripped by the exchange, watching Luc Kraus carefully as he thought. It was clear to him that empty threats were not working, but following through on them didn't seem like an option, either. He needed answers and understanding.

"What good is the item to you, then, if it cannot be translated? Why steal it from me and create such... tension between us?"

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aly smirked and turned, climbing a bit higher on the roof so she created more distance (and height) between herself and the mage. When she turned around, she planted her hands on her hips. He was wise not to test her; she would destroy the book if she needed to.

The thief let her gaze travel over the crowd, the ones brave enough to want to know their fate directly, would they live or die today? Her eyes traveled over the city, looking at the bazaar and over the residential area, but she didn't let any area have more than a glance. Let your gaze linger, you give yourself up.

She looked back down at Luc. "I didn't say it couldn't be translated. It happens to be very distantly related to modern Coronian...but Dheath is probably more intelligible to your average person these days. It's an island language, one of the larger little islands not far from Jadet had a small civilization. The language split from the mainland's version about twenty-five hundred years ago, evolved on its own for another five hundred or so, and then the entire civilization just...vanished."

She folded her arms and cocked her hips. She didn't have to boast that she knew exactly how to get it translated; just that she knew where the text was from seemed to be more than the geomancer did.

[Cyrus the virus]

Luc's gaze didn't wane from the thief. He was feeling more like himself with every passing moment, but the need to get his tome back was the most important thing.

That she knew the language of the tome, the history of it, the location of its origin, seemed to be too much. The mage's mind race. Was it a bluff? Every cell in his body wanted to believe that it was, but he simply couldn't bring himself to believe it. What if it was the truth!? What if she did know how to get the text translated? What if she could find a way?

Luc could see black spots, and it occurred to him that for a moment he was staring directly into the sun. Shutting his eyes tightly and simmering, stewing in confusion and helplessness, the mage was inhaling and exhaling as slowly as he possibly could.

He wanted to lash out, to seize control again by exerting the vast power that he had at his disposal. That was his way of dealing: displaying his abilities, burrowing fear into people's hearts, creating a legacy of horror in the great city of Radasanth so deep that his name would be remembered for ages.

"What do you want?" he Whispered again. "I have gold, magical items, relics of my own. Name your price!"

[Alydia Ettermire]

Ooh, a bribe. An out and out bribe. This object had a great value to the mage if he was so willing to humble himself. Alydia really wanted to strut and crow like she was really something, but she had to be careful.

That book is the only thing keeping you alive, jiharditalwien, she heard the Chief's voice say in her head. She hated hearing that voice, it reminded her to be reasonable. Who liked that?

Her first priority was to get Luc out of the city. After that, well...she kind of wanted to see the area herself; she'd never been to that Island and there was a lot of interesting lore that came out of that little island.

Are you stupid? There was that voice again.

"My price? Hmm..." She looked down at him, then grabbed a lock of hair and examined it for split ends.

"Go to Jadet. Procure a boat."

[Cyrus the virus]

Luc was almost relieved that the woman even suggested she had a price. He summoned a gust of wind about him that pushed upward against his body from all angles, lifting him upward in flight. Those around him retreated from the sudden gust, as the mage drifted to the edge of the same roof as the thief.

"We don't need a boat," he said as he walked to her, careful to keep his footing. "Just tell me where the island lies."

The woman, confident in her bargaining position, merely answered that it was to the southeast.

In response, Luc reached out and touched her arm, and a moment later they were no longer there. The crowd below gasped in surprise, but were relieved to see that the mage had gone and the threat was apparently over. Not three years ago, such disappearances were common by the mage, but they were almost always prefaced by the killing of many men. Radasanth would have another day of peace.

Meanwhile, Luc and the thief Windwalked through the air, their consciousness existing as their bodies moved as wind. It was a disorienting experience, despite the fact that hey no longer had eyes or a sense of vertigo. He followed her directions and led them southeast, until he spotted an island just to the west of Jadet. In a moment, they materialized there.

The grass here was hard and harsh, wild and thick. Luc's impression was that nobody had been here in quite a while, and those who did come here didn't remain for very long. He'd landed near the coast, and he could see nothing of note around him.

"What now?"

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia hadn't really expected Kraus to let her out of his sight. That would have been stupid; she'd have never shown up and he would have had a hell of a time trying to find her again. She hadn't expected he'd just whisk her away to the island via the air. Now she was stuck with the mage away from her people, away from civilization, with no ready way back.

When they rematerialized, the thief put her hands on her knees, fighting down a bout of nausea. While there was no vertigo, that hadn't been fun, and her body didn't know how to react to that experience.

She took a deep breath and straightened up after a moment, scanning the island with a scholar's eye. They were on the north slope; if any ruins survived, they would be several miles to the south west. That was several miles of plains where there were only a few trees, meaning the areas of shadow would be few and far between until they got to the ruins. Even if she could get away, she would be easy to find.

For now, she'd have to go along with the geomancer; she was as good as his hostage.

But I still have the higher value bargaining chip.

As if to re-assert her standing in their dynamic, the thief reached out and grabbed Luc's beard. With a tug and a bit of focus, the whole thing vanished, and then she dropped it to the ground for the rats to pick up for their nests.

"No gross facial hair is what now. Also, we're going that way." She pointed toward the area where, if she remembered her history correctly (there was so MUCH history tucked into her head), the ruins would be.

"And we are walking."

[Cyrus the virus]

Luc's surprise was sated, temporarily, by the joy he felt at working toward this goal. Though it was no longer in his possession and, for the time being, he could no longer sense its power. But like an alcoholic in a dry county, Luc remembered the taste as surely as if it were in his mouth right then, and he knew that the next sip was only just ahead.

"Fine," he responded, trying to keep the waver from his voice. The mage had commanded great powers for most of his life, but the magic within the stolen tome felt different than anything he'd ever experienced. He'd endure the embarrassment and frustration necessary to get it back and understand its contents.

They walked briskly across the island, the sea breeze cutting through the grass below and their hair above, salty and harsh against their faces. The ground under their feet was soft and sunk quickly, but Luc had outgrown his obsession with keeping clean and flying about such terrain - a fact easy to see from his appearance and his stench.

It was not a long journey, and before dusk they were among short, haggard trees with trunks as thin as Luc's bicep, with few limp leaves among their bent branches. Before them was the entrance of a temple only a few feet above the ground, made of yellow stone and covered with brown, dead ivy. It looked like no more than an old, overgrown gravestone, long forgotten by the world. And around it, for yards in every direction, the grass was dry and browning, leaning away from the entrance as if trying to crawl out of the ground and away from it.

How pleasant, he thought but did not say. He looked at his temporary companion.

"After you. You know something about this place, after all."

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia looked at the temple and frowned slightly. While the plant life on the rest of the island had been healthy, if mostly grassland, the area here had plants that were dried out and weedy, plants that were already halfway dead. It seemed odd, out of place. Most ancient sites she'd seen, temples or otherwise, didn't have a dead zone around them.

That this one did spoke of ancient, corruptive magic that still hadn't worn off, or that something was keeping active, even thousands of years later. Aly felt a cold chill run up her spine. She'd been exposed to dark magic recently, terrible magic, and wasn't eager to face anything like it again so soon. It didn't help that she could feel the book, nestled securely in her area of holding, pulling hungrily toward the temple.

Oh, you foolish girl, what have you gotten yourself into?

She stepped forward to enter the ancient building; despite the fact she could almost feel the ancient malevolence whispering in her ear like the threats of Shynt Aubrey, she was still curious enough to want to explore this ancient site. Ordinarily, this was the sort of place she'd rip from the ground and run off with, but there was no one to care if it vanished, and she was likely to drop this particular place into the sea.

"Watch your step. This place looks well preserved, but old sites like this are sometimes out to get you."

When she stepped into the darkness, she gave herself a moment to let her eyes adjust and walked down the narrow corridor where once upon a time, only high priests were permitted to tread. There was surprisingly little dust and few cobwebs for a site so old and long abandoned; that only seemed to confirm that there was something wrong with this place.

The walls were smooth for the first couple of turns, but after that it changed texture. There were glyphs and carvings inscribed here, but due to the lack of light, she couldn't make out what, exactly, they were. Here she could have decided to go anywhere, vanish into the darkness and do the world a favor by stabbing the mage who walked behind her, leave the book here to rot. Find a way back to Corone somehow.

But, curse her little academic mind, she was curious as to what secrets this temple held, what it could tell her about a civilization long gone.

"There's something written on the walls here. I need a light if I'm going to make any sort of sense of it."

[Cyrus the virus]

Muttering a few words in an arcane language Luc enacted his Truesight spell, which allowed him to see in the dark as clearly as he did in the light. He entered the temple behind Alydia, moving the dead ivy aside with a brush of his hand.

For a time they walked in the darkness, their feet shuffling against the dust, dirt and pebbles that covered the cracked stone floor. When they were deeper down the descending corridor, where the smell was musky and thick, the symbols and glyphs on the wall appeared. Luc saw them well thanks to his enacted spell, but he could not read them. There were similarities between them and the glyphs inscribed within the tome, the same symbols as a recurring theme.

"They're glyphs," he responded, "the same that I've seen in the book. You may know more about them than I do."

He lifted the Slykrit Blade from its sheath, just enough to expose its red tinted blade and give Luc access to the magic within it. In a moment he was holding a licking ball of flame which cast orange light upon the hall, illuminating the glyphs.

"Do you recognize them?"

[Quentin Boone]

Cyrus the Virus receives:

1354 EXP
88 [b]GP]


Where in the World? receives:

776 EXP
77 GP


Congratulations!

[Lye]

EXP & GP Added!