✨ Dark Times Test Us (Part 2 of 2)

In the middle of the night i was awoken by a kick to my tent, and when hands pulled back the privacy flap i began swinging haphazardly and half asleep with my dagger. A few hits were scored, but i was hit with a strong magic attack and knocked out, only to be revived mere seconds later... by mr smith! The group that was around my tent consisted of himself, emric, ceridwen, and a few of my other friends. They were somehow unaware that i had moved myself outside of the city to a tent of my own, and thought it was a trap or a bandit encampment. Apologising for the intrusion and waving off my apology of attack, they wished me a good night and ceridwen mentioned in departing that i could perhaps ask taios or another celestialist to ward my tent in the future. It's something i might consider.

That interruption aside, i woke up well-rested shortly after sunrise as usual, and went through my normal morning routine - that is, i spent some time listening to the birdsongs and practising the whispering, and then went into the city to open up the healers guild, put out the candles left burning overnight, and sit myself outside the entrance until aunt cyn arrived.

After doing some very quick morning work at the guild, aunt cyn told me she was headed to onothera, dragonreach's capitol city which is a walk of just seven verstăs from valbrough, to commission an object and speak with baron vigilance. As it happened i was going to be headed there myself - the events of the previous night had proven to me that blades alone would not be enough for me to survive in my duties, and i felt it necessary to finally learn celestial magic. I had been torn over the last piszot about whether i should pursue earth magic instead, since i was a guardian of its guild, but as a child of the stars i just feel more attuned to sky magic, and aunt cyn seems to have no problem with it. So we made our way out of valbrough and down the main highway that, four ghurries later, brought us to onothera.

My own task was very easy as the capitol market is filled with vendors and stalls of all kinds, including several celestial masters who taught such things for free. Just under three ghurries with one of them gave me a solid grounding in the casting of spells from memory up to the fifth tier, rather than by incanting a scroll as i have been limited to. I was done sooner than aunt cyn so i whiled away half a ghurry before seeing aunt cyn and baron vigilance parting ways. Joining up with her immediately so she didn't have to come looking for me, we headed back toward valbrough, encountering ardos and lukas halfway there and spending the remainder of the walk in various small conversations with them. Ardos inquired about my ordeal the previous night and wanted to ensure i knew i was guarding the people of the guild, not the building - which might sound silly but i thought quite reasonable, and assured him that at the time i had told him i was guarding the people, they were still in the building.

I finished the short remainder of the morning sitting outside the guild as usual, and then crossed the square to rest at the tavern. Shortly i was joined by mr smith, emric, saro, 13, scarlet, robert, and kai, who had recently come from a contract job and were divvying up the reward payment. To assist them, i exchanged ten silvers for one of the gold pieces to make the division easier, and also purchased eight repel scrolls for one gold six silver since none of them particularly sought scrolls. Saro also mentioned that, since i was technically still an initiate of the moonless nights, i was welcome to join them in their cabin whenever they were in valbrough, but i politely declined explaining my path with the whisperers and that i was tenting outside the palisade.

While the moonless nights and a troll friend of theirs pursued a contract bounty on a slaver, ceridwen and naomi convinced me to go investigate with them a posting from the job board in the tavern, where someone had been stealing bones from a family's crypt. While examining the board i also noted that someone who had just purchased a mine shaft had been afraid to enter it because of odd noises coming from inside. Thinking that perhaps these were wild animals and i could put my whispering to good use, i asked them to join me on that once we were done investigating the crypt. They agreed, and we also asked aunt cyn to come with us to have a healer handy, to which she agreed.

The crypt was a fairly straightforward job - shambling corpses under the control of some sort of semi-mummified necromancer were digging the bones up for him, and he used his control of the undead to instruct them only to defend themselves if we attacked, while explaining to us that he was not hurting anyone and making the excuse that it was for his brother who was trapped in a shoddy discount golem body. Eventually we had had enough, fought our way through the undead, and cornered the cowardly necromancer in one of the mausoleum's dead ends... whereupon naomi went full feral, broke his neck, and began pummeling his skull into dust. Aunt cyn managed to snap her out of it after a few moments, and very very cautiously we ushered her back out of the crypt, informing the family member on the other side of the village that their ancestors would now remain undisturbed.

The mineshaft was - from a whispering standpoint - a disappointment. The strange noises inside the mineshaft were not animals as i had supposed (i had been envisioning bears), but the spirits of long-dead miners who had been trapped by a rockfall and abandoned by their foreman. Aunt cyn tried to help the spirits move on by asking their names (they did not remember them), then even pretended to be the foreman and letting them «kill» her (naomi then revived her), but even this did not put the spirits to rest. So naomi passed me her blade to use instead of çerhêni, since it was both extra sharp and earth enchanted and would do a lot of damage to the spirits. At first slowly then with more ferocity, we all forced our way down the shaft, extinguishing the poor tortured spirits, and found their bones in the tumbled dirt at the end of the passage. Quickly naomi and i extracted all the bones and gathered them in her cloak, held by ceridwen and aunt cyn, and then we took them outside of the mine and ceridwen enflamed them to burn them to ashes. We took the gathered ashes to the nearest village where aunt cyn made the request of a stonemason to create a gravemarker and bury the ashes in their cemetery. Though bewildered by the request, the stonemason like most of the villagers knew of the tragedy and agreed to fulfil our wishes.

Just as we returned to town, gideon called out to let us all know the afternoon meal was ready. Gideon and belfry had taken a cooking shift at the tavern this weekend and had prepared breadwraps of pork and potatoes, which were wonderful. i declined the addition of vinegared tomato sauce but i heard others praise its taste. My meal was somewhat soured by the company of a painfully friendly newlywed couple on their honeymoon (with their manservant Hans) who informed us in extremely heavy accents that they wanted to watch adventuring in action. Pointed reminders by myself and others, that being in such close proximity to adventurers might mean their demise, were rebuffed cheerfully as they figured at least their deaths would be exciting. Slightly disgusted, I moved to a table on the opposite side of the tavern to try and enjoy my food.

Our lunch was cut short, however, when mutt and dusty happened to glance out the tavern windows and began shouting about incoming attackers. As we all looked up we saw a stream of fire elementals rushing toward the town square. Most of us immediately abandoned our plates, drew blades or mystical energy, and rushed outside to meet the oncoming elemental wave -- which surrounded none other than cressida, the fire-shooting hobling member of the pride. Cressida was not able to be reasoned with (enchanted or possessed perhaps), none of the other pride members were anywhere to be seen, and neither did they respond to aunt cyn's extremely loud and frantic hails behind the battle line.

We tried to avoid hurting cressida at first, but seeing as there was no way to get through to her and she summoned another fire elemental for every one we felled, we ultimately had to kill her. The remaining elementals dissipated and, after a quick search of the square and a messenger sent to the pride's cabin to see if anyone was there (there was not), we returned to our lunch inside the tavern. However, when the female elf came in and approached our table, and told matthis and radi that aunt cyn needed them at the guild to help with some spirits needing resurrection, i had a terrible suspicion based on recent events and i followed them. Sure enough, nyio (who had a bottled spirit and had instantly rebirthed by himself, unlike his pridemates) confirmed when i arrived at the guild that cressida and the other members of the pride were the ones that aunt cyn, radi, mathis, and other healers were working to resurrect. 

Once the resurrection was well underway, naomi took me aside and said that she wanted to help me better my swordcraft, based on how i had acquitted myself during our adventures earlier in the afternoon. While she said i did well and had a good basic understanding, i lacked proper training and she had identified several details in which i could better myself. She said all this somewhat hesitantly, as if not wanting to offend me, but i was actually relieved by the offer and asked if she wanted to go outside and begin right away, since we could both monitor the guild and guard it from intruders while sparring out front. In total agreement she followed me outside and instructed me in a more neutral and balanced stance, full-arm motion of my arms in swinging blades, and avoiding «chicken wing» which means sticking my elbows out, making them an all-too-easy target for enemy combatants.

Though dusty (who happened to come start watching and then offered to help as well) pointed out (accurately) that i was intimidated (rightly so) by naomi, i did understand that they were both trying to help me and tried my best to follow their advice. Things like loosening up, not locking my knees, keeping one foot in front and putting my weight on the balls of my feet rather than by heels, and swiveling my wrist as well as swinging my forearm to provide a more acute force behind my attacks. After a rough ghurry's workout and exercises i had made improvement... very minimal improvement, but again dusty and naomi pointed out that familiarity would come with practise and not simply come to me right then and there. Naomi promised to work with me a ghurry or so every market weekend if i so desired, which i assured her i did.

It was not long after this that things returned to as «normal» as they get around valbrough, and with aunt cyn's blessing i headed out deep into the wylder to make up for my lost time last night and this afternoon that i normally would have been practising my whispering. I have found a suitable location four verstăs or so into the deep forest, and now that i have updated this journal once again, i will be spending six or seven ghurries meditating, listening, and whispering. I hope nothing terrible happens while i am gone from valbrough, though i know my friends are more than capable of handling practically anything that comes their way.