Sage Ainsworth kept his eyes on the horizon as he walked down one of the many streets of the town called Stonevale. If he were to allow himself a moment of reflection, he would have easily admitted to himself that this whole journey was nothing more than a wild goose chase, and that the chances of stumbling across his master in a location like this was a rather abysmal one.
Still, it wasn’t a chance he could idly ignore either. His master owned a teleporting magical tower, and while he had served as the elderly wizard’s part time apprentice, that tower had been a novelty. It had allowed his master to travel across the world in the blink of an eye, often for some of the more uncommon materials and ingredients that the elderly wizard would sometimes require for an experiment or two.
That was then, and ever since Sage had been lost to another world trying to find a wizard with a teleporting magical tower was proving to be a rather vexing notion.
He’d been spoiled he realised, first by the tower and then by the liberal use of airships that the Vermillion empire had employed in the other world, so much so that he was shocked that the short journey to Stonevale had taken just under a week to complete.
It made him sorely tempted to want to invoke an industrial revolution, and introduce althanas to the concept of a railway.
Regardless of his woes, his search through Stonevale was sadly coming up empty so far, there was no sign of his master or of the magical tower which meant this diversion to this town was proving to be rather fruitless.
“Maybe not…†he amended when he spied a trio of adventures standing at one of the market stalls, gearing up for a raid on one of the Goblin settlements that often hassled the mining town he assumed.
“Perchance there is a guild nearby?†the boy wondered if he could find anything ought of worth in this town if he took his time to seek it. But Stonevale was uncharted territory for the boy, and as he wondered Stonevale’s streets in search of a tavern or an inn ‘Because all great adventures start where there are drinks to be had.’
The boy was unaware however that he was being followed, a cloaked man followed the boy’s path at a discreet distance with a cold gleam in his eyes, and as the boy wondered into a quieter part of town, he slowly drew closer and closer. redadair
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Sage thought for sure he was certainly going the wrong way, gone were the market stalls in favour of a quieter suburb where a stray cat watched him curiously from a balcony ledge. He was about to turn around to retrace his steps. But he was hit from behind by what felt like a rampaging bull that slammed him forcefully against a granite wall where his head bounced against its grainy surface. His vision was filled with stars and his mind stalled as whatever had hit him kept him pinned against the wall.
But the world snapped back into place when he felt the sharpened curve of a steel blade press against his neck and the person behind him gripped the back of his head and once more slammed the boys head against the wall causing Sage to black out for several seconds.
The young mage leaned against the wall as his knees gave out from under him, his mind unable to make any intelligible thought. He knew he was being mugged but that was the only coherent thought he could grasp onto. He was unable to offer any resistance as his assailant pilfered the magic tome that he kept fastened to his belt before the assailant was away and around a corner before the boy could even discern a single detail about the man.
“…why me?†Sage slurred as he fell against the wall and slumped to the ground while raising a hand to his forehead which stung under his touch and felt unsurprisingly wet. Bleeding, he noted sourly but counted himself fortunate that though the blow had been vicious he had not suffered a concussion. The attack had been fast and quick that there had been no time spent to make sure the boy would not be following anytime soon.
Not on foot anyway.
His sour luck aside, the boy began to chuckle when he noticed that the only thing that had been taken had been his tome, his gold had been left untouched. That was surprisingly fortunate, because of all the items in Sage’s possession the tome was the only one that had an anti-theft countermeasure so to speak.
The thief was going to be sorely surprised and furious when his ill-gotten gains was just going to vanish and teleport its way back into the waiting hands of its true owner. And Sage was just about to do just that and call the tome back into his waiting hands but stopped short of incanting the spell.
The boy hesitated when an errant thought came to him.
“Why just the tome?â€
It was a niggling feeling that nagged at him, and his curious nature begged to not let it go unanswered. He hesitated again as he certainly felt conflicted about finding out the answer, even his hand that was held ready to receive the tome back was shaking due to the sudden and relentlessness of the attack. And he was certainly hesitant to want anything more to do with the whole fiasco than to recall the book and go home and let his master find him instead.
But his mind asked the same question again, why was the tome stolen but his gold ignored. His book was obviously targeted because it was something magical in nature. The boy balked knowing that it was never a good sign when knowledge of that nature was obtained by such ill gotten ways.
but why was it taken?
And for what purpose?
“Something arcane in nature†he answered himself and was starting to realise a repeating trend with his innate draw to magic often leading him into events that should really be left alone and undisturbed.
The mage frowned, and held up his palm to the sky. Magic began to run down the length of his arm coalescing into a single point where the magic grew denser and thicker, taking on the form of a bird until the magic crystallised and was subsequently shed as the magical construct bristled its feathers and fluffed up to shake off any excess arcane energy.
The Raven cawed gently as it observed Sage who now could also see himself from the corner of his own vision and could now see the wound on his own forehead. It didn’t look half as bad as it felt, but he still felt he should go and let a healer take a look at it.
He took one more look at the raven, it was a new spell he had recently devised, and he felt that there was more testing to be done with it. But the raven looked near damn perfect and no one would be to tell that the raven was not a real living thing but was instead was a magical construct.
Sage could hear, smell and see what the bird did and in return the raven shared his intelligence and was able to think for itself in a way that compared to any educated adult human.
But right now, he had a task for the construct, the Raven would serve as his eyes and ears and seek out his assailant and follow him. The Raven cawed with a flick of his wrist and took to the sky. Sage wavered uneasy as he saw the town of Stonevale grow small beneath him for a single moment until he was able to separate the odd double vision and instead allowed the spells intricate workings to take over to process the overload of information.
“… I’ll wait here†he said to the raven as it took to the skies.
