Intricacies of Asymmetry
Not far from the edge of a once mighty forest, there stood a grouping of just five people; four Elves and a human Wizard. The Elves wore traveling clothes now; all grey pants and shirts under traditional green Ranger's Cloaks, even for Vara the Seer. All of them wore swords at their sides, though only Vara didn't carry a spellstaff. Caden stood apart from them, and in front of them. He faced them, and they faced him, and it was all over but the parting words.
"We could use a man like you," Vara said, though it wasn't much of an invitation.
"No you couldn't," Caden replied, though it wasn't much of a denial since she hadn't been offering in the first place.
"Where will you go now?" Both of them asked at once. Vara inclined her head for him to speak first, but Caden was going to talk right over her whether she did or didn't. "I'm going to Salvar. I have to do..." He motioned with his hands, as if trying to convey ten thousand things without a word. Then he asked, "And you?"
"We will leave this place for the surrounding towns and villages. Spread word of what happened here. Evacuate the willing to Tirinost, where a new power may yet be rising. Or perhaps an older, better one -- an echo of the things we have preached for centuries. I feel--" and here, Caden noted, she almost said fear, "--our paths will cross again someday, Blueraven."
"Probably," Caden replied with a shrug.
"I wish you best of luck on your journey to Salvar. May you find your own Caesai Maer," she said, placing a fist over her heart and bowing with something kin to respect as she did it.
Caden stared at her.
"What is the Zero Step?" he asked.
"When you learn, feel free to tell me," Vara answered with a smile that was equal parts cryptic, unknowing, and flat-out cute.
Someone go update the score card.
-----
There wasn't a long good-bye between Caden Law and the Elves of Farstrike. He shook hands with the Rangers -- Ringo, Shaul, and Erral. He hugged Vara, though she didn't exactly put enthusiasm into hugging him back.
Then they walked away from each other without so much as a backwards glance.
Caden didn't have a horse this time, and that was okay. He wanted to be alone for the time being After hours and hours, it was still okay. After a day and a half spent walking, it was just fine. Horses, after all, are big and stupid and eat a lot and they're always shitting and they smell awful and they spit at you and oh gods did his legs hurt.
He kept walking for a week straight until he finally hit a mountainous rise in terrain not far from the city of Trenycë, or from the coast. The night was spent watching the city burn under siege of Xem'zund's forces -- some other Death Lord with some other game to be played, and Caden didn't have it in him this time.
So he sat down on the darkened hillside, made a light glow from where there should've been an eraser on his pencil, took out his Grimoire and started writing the lifestory of a Wizard who had tried to kill him. Because he dared not eulogize Kholia Horren aloud, let alone in the presence of the Elves, and it had taken him this long just to get the vision of stabbing Kholia to death out of his dreams.
It was, in any respect, just a simple eulogy. A summary to the intricacies of asymmetry between a young Wizard and an old one, a good Wizard and a bad one.
I could've been like that.
END
Out of Character:
Losses: The Bazaar Wand and Raiaeran Conscript Vest are no longer part of Caden's inventory. I'll remove them with my next character update.
Requested Gains: Nothing material. Caden now has a working knowledge of basic Necromancy. He will never be able to pull off a stunt like he did in this thread, short of direct Godly intervention or the mother of all plot devices. Incidentally, he only managed to pull it off in the first place because Raiaera is so bloody full of magic, and its forests even more so. Most of the forest will recover, but the next hundred years or so (bar the direct intervention of some other RPer fixing it) will probably see a great big randomly shaped hole of dead land smack in the middle of it.
At the moment, I can't think of anything else. D:
EDIT: And actually, just to clarify: The Necromancy he used was tied to his Geomancy skills. Divination of energies and such. The mass-death was more of a side-effect/tainting of the spellwork by Kholia's former Staff of Power.
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