Archives: The Golden Egg
Chapter 18: Departure from Dragon Scale
Naclia, with Eliamn in tow, headed up to the room they were to share. Realizing that they hadn’t really used any of these rooms, she wondered if they could get some of their gold back. With no source of income, it was important to preserve what they had in case a more serious need arose. A good bit of Eliamn’s Raidens had been spent tonight, after all. Naclia tossed her pack over her shoulder, then turned back for the door. “I’m going to see if I can get a refund,” she said.
The ranger began to go back downstairs, but only a couple steps down, she heard a ring from the front door hitting a bell, notifying the staff that someone had entered through the front door. That was followed by the sound of several armored feet carrying armored men entering. Knowing that they had defied the duke, Naclia suddenly felt cautious. Though she didn’t feel as if they had committed that great of a crime, she wasn’t sure just how the duke would take news of their disappearance. What if it was the city guard?
Naclia threw her hood back over her head, then cautiously peeked downstairs. It was indeed several guardsmen. One spoke to the innkeeper while the others scanned the crowd in the common room. Relying on her sharp elven hearing, Naclia listened in.
“Pardon me, my good innkeep,” the guard spoke. “We’re searching for several fugitives; three elves—two of them female, one knight with purple hair, and a Marfa priestess with purple hair as well. Have you seen a group matching this description pass through your inn?”
Packing up for Eliamn was but a trifle—seeing she had never unpacked she only needed to slip her backpack up, hang the strap of her satchel over her waist and then get going. The shamaness, her thoughts toward the best conditions she needed to begin the air walk ritual in so to carry three people a sizeable distance, failed to pick up on a hooded Naclia inching around the corner meaning trouble and made to go down the stairs.
As Eliamn began walking downstairs, Naclia’s arm shot out in front of the shaman to hold her back. “Shh!“ Naclia hissed.
Meanwhile, the conversation downstairs continued. “Can’t say I’ve seen that group,” the innkeeper responded. He sounded as if he were holding back mentioning that he had seen two female elves though.
The guard picked up on the omission and continued his questioning, “Have you seen anyone who could be a member of that group? A blonde male elf, a blonde female in white robes, or a brown haired female elf in a blue dress?”
“Eli, let’s get in the room and lock the door. We need to get out of here,” Naclia whispered.
Eliamn scooted back, nibbling on her lower lip as she considered the ranger’s words: she couldn’t pull off the air walk ritual without some time to draw the attention of the wind spirits and she also needed a airy place to do so. The inn was a confined space and even with a window opened, Eli wasn’t sure she could pull it off without endangering her own life. She also reflected upon the consequences of their escape, the trouble it would cause the innkeep and how it would surely put them at odds with Mossian law in the future.
{“They might not mean us harm,”} the shamaness whispered back in elvish. {“I believe we should try talking first.”}
Wil, leaving the room that they met with Roke in after the ink had dried on his map, stopped when he heard the guards question the innkeeper. The innkeeper seemed like he didn’t want to tell the guards anything so Wil decided to intervene.
“They were here,” he said in an even tone. “They went to the dark district, beggar alley. It seems they wanted to gather some information from the underbelly of Dragon Scale.” He shrugged. “That was hours ago however. And only the top-heavy one and the other one with the distinct lack of curves went that way. I assume the others left the city. They may still be there, if you go now. It takes a bit of time and coin to collect information in this city, after all,” Wil said, in his best attempt to cover the fact they were still here.
The ranger breathed a sigh of relief as Wil stepped in to turn the guards away. {“I was thinking about escaping from the window, in that case, but it looks like we may not have to,”} Naclia whispered to Eliamn in elven. {“We will have to be careful when we go outside though.”}
The guard seem satisfied by Wil’s testimony. “Thank you, good sir,” the guard said, then flicked a gold coin off his thumb to Wil. “For your assistance,” he added. With a swirl of his cloak, the guardsman turned toward the door, his men falling in behind him. They were a gullible lot, but then, Wil was a good liar.
{“‘Top heavy’ and ‘distinct lack of curves’,”} Naclia muttered. {“I don’t know if I should kick him or thank him...”}
{“I am not offended,”} Eliamn assured Naclia, giving her elven companion’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze before she started down the stairs. Though the ‘distinct lack of curves’ had been used to describe her, Eli seemed mostly unphased by it.
“Thank you,” Eliamn gave the innkeep a nod in thanks and then turned to Wil. “Why do you suppose guardsmen are looking for us? ” The night wasn’t over yet. It seemed unlikely the Duke would have had already noticed their departure seeing they had told him they would stay the night at the Drecloud manse.
“I neither know or care to know,” Wil stated pocketing the ill-earned coin. “Frankly we should take this time I bought us to get out of the city and get as much distance between here and us. Once the guards find out that I lied to them, they’ll be as mad as a shaved dwarf and I’ll be put on the fugitive status as well.”
“Well, Naclia and I both have our things. You should go fetch yours too.” Eliamn pursed her lips a moment and looked to the innkeep. “You may be in trouble as well for sheltering us,” she noted. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
The innkeeper was a little dumbstruck by what had happened. He didn’t know what the elves were in trouble for, though they didn’t seem like untrustworthy individuals. “Yeah, don’t tell anybody you stayed here,” he replied.
At this point, Naclia decided not to ask for a refund. He could keep the money for his troubles. “Do you have a stable?” she asked.
“It’s out that way,” the innkeeper thumbed toward a back entrance to the inn.
Naclia glanced back at Eliamn, then suggested, {“Let’s do the air walk ritual out there.”}
Eliamn resisted the temptation to nervously nibble on her lower lip. {“Naclia, I have never performed air walk with more than one person, and even then never over such a long distance. Even doing it cooperatively, I am going to need a large open space to make sure I can do this right.”}
{“I’m afraid we may not have many options if the city guard is looking for us,”} Naclia replied. {“Try the yard and see if it has the space. If not...well, we’ll try and find some place else.”}
Eli adjusted her backpack’s shoulder straps. {“We could use the help of invisibility spirits until we find the ideal spot. A place that can be windy, in which sylphs would have no problem gathering. Those are the ideal crossover points.”}
{“I don’t want to waste energy summoning invisibility spirits unless we need to,”} Naclia replied. {“I’m not as good a shaman as you are, I want to conserve all the strength I can for this spell.”}
Wil went and grabbed his stuff as he was instructed. Coming back to the common room he had seen that neither Naclia nor Eliamn had moved from their previous positions when he had left to go upstairs. “Alright, ready to go,” he announced to the duo.
With a nod to Wil, Naclia started for the back door of the inn. Even if the yard wasn’t big enough for Eliamn, it was a more conspicuous escape route. Naclia wasn’t sure about what was behind the building and yard, but it was a safer bet than the front. “This way,” she said as she walked, motioning for them to follow.
Naclia led them out into the stable yard through the back door. It was a spacious yard, but probably not open enough for Eliamn’s needs. “Will it be big enough?” Naclia asked, hoping the answer was yes, though it likely wasn’t.
Eli took a look around. With circumstances strained as they were, she merely returned a nod to Naclia. “It will have to be,” she replied pragmatically. Naclia knew of Eliamn’s preferences and she saw little use in repeating herself. If that is all I can have, then I will find a way to make it work. The elven shamaness walked to the center of the yard and promptly spread her hands to her side, a gust of air billowing away and tossing up dust and debris. The sudden gust became more a circling wind which tore at Eliamn’s dress and whipped her blonde hair about.
This was only foreplay for her summoning ritual, a preparation and a wake up call to the wind spirits she needed attending her. “If you wish to link with me cooperatively, now is the time,” she called out over the wind.
Eliamn began her summon so quickly, and it blindsided the ranger. However, Naclia quickly picked up the pace and placed her hand on Eliamn’s shoulder. A physical link was not necessary, but Naclia needed the anchor. Focusing her spiritual will, the ranger forged a connection with Eli, allowing the summoner to take all that she needed.
Having already connected to Eliamn once that night, re-linking took little effort on Wil’s part. Imagining the link reopened he gave a nod to Eliamn to signify that his link was reestablished.
{“Sylphs, hear my plea,”} Eliamn intoned, eyes closed to protect both from the rising dust. The wind grew in strength so as to make their footing uncertain. {“Fly we must and friends we need to help us be reborn, to help us become one with the West Wind!”}
The shamaness said more, but the tearing wind roared in their ears, distorting her words beyond comprehension. The wind became all... and then it swallowed them up.
It took some time for comprehension to dawn, for the mortal mind to gain some understanding of the transition they had gone through.
Whiteness surrounded them. It was ambient, and yet not the only absolute they could perceive. Currents was what filled the void, saturated the seeming emptiness with force and power. The pearly void was alive and yet not—parts of it sentient enough to know of its existence and other parts simply being and existing. It was a wild realm of effervescent, ebullient movement.
One of the sentient parts of it, the places elven empathy could feel life and sapience, became distinguishable. Eliamn was a more tangible part of the whiteness, her form identifiable more for the way the currents needed to curve around her than anything that could register to the eye. Hair, clothing and other gear became unimportant except for how they reacted to the current. An alien sensation of pressure revealed Eliamn’s hands, showing where her body ended and where theirs began.
Understanding what they were, who they were in the foreign place was the real point where sentient intelligence dawned to them; the understanding that Wilhelm was Wilhelm and that Naclia was Naclia (though the latter caught on considerably faster). They felt, even though they could not see, Eli’s violet eyes upon them. In this place, the shamaness was their guide, their lifeline to the lives they once had, the lives they might eventually reclaim. Identity in this world of currents seemed a fleeting thing and Eliamn appeared to hold their existence fast, not by anyway of taming it, but by somehow pushing herself to be as wild a force as it was.
Do not let go for anything, Eliamn’s thoughts—or was it their own?—resounded within them. The currents are strong here. I will not be able to save you and I fear you would be lost within the spirit realm forever.
Naclia, as an elf, was no stranger to the dangers of the spirit realm, but this was still a new experience to her. Following the shamaness’s guidance, Naclia remained steadfast in her focus on Eliamn and the link between them.
Wil continued to focus on the link between him and Eliamn, even more so when Eliamn’s thoughts echoed in his head. The half-elf wasn’t a shaman by any accord but his elven blood, even diluted, understood the nature of this realm. Letting go would mean certain death.
