WRITE-YOUR-OWN ADVENTURE - 6 tales WYOA: Air-N-Darkness WYOA: HH Barmaid WYOA: Donnickcottage WYOA: Red_Rose_Remix WYOA: Spacedlaw WYOA: Metafrantic WYOA: Air-N-Darkness Yane and Ashagir headed carefully down the grassy slope toward the smoldering remains of Drannow Vale - it was steeper than it looked, and the tall grasses hid craggy tree stumps and gopher holes - the partners each keeping at least one wary eye out for signs that whatever villain or villains had wreaked this havoc were laying in wait for a couple of mismatched investigators to come along. Ashagir said, "I smell mint, do you? Mint and…" the fairy flitted a few feet into the air and in a lazy loop-the-loop before coming back to sit on Yane's shoulder again. "Mint and vex seed oil." "Ah, well that might explain everything," Yane said, grimacing, "If they failed to properly spell their crop against infection by Rapid Vitroline Disease, that is. It tends to make the plants just a tad aggressive." He shook his head, looking once again at the remains of the Vale, "Just a tad." Ashagir shifted uneasily on Yane's shoulder, "Perhaps, but we have not had an outbreak of that in the kingdom in longer than long. Means someone brought the infection here. Never mind that if it was a normal strain of RVD, the plants would be after our hides as well." "I do not like this." Anxiously, Ashagir's wings flicked and twitched for the while longer they spent surveying the scene from just beyond the edge of the destruction. All signs of life were missing from Drannow Vale; there were no stock animals, no people, no pets, and the fields… It looked as though someone had uprooted acres of crops and made them disappear utterly; leaving only disturbed soil and the empty village behind them. The fairy said, "I don't know what worries me most - that there is some mad mage out there tampering with magical plant diseases, or that the surrounding villages may have allowed their crop wards to lapse, as well." "We should warn them." Yane seemed distracted, in spite of his concern. He pointed over to the heart of the smoldering village. "The fire seems to have begun over there. See the anvil in front? It must have been the blacksmith." He shook his head in confusion. "But without anyone tending to it, the forge should have just gone cold, not burned down the whole village. And not even vexed crops would have gone near enough to it to catch fire…" Ashagir was already zipping across the little town ahead of Yane toward the remains of the blacksmith to search for possible survivors. "Clever of them to try hiding behind a firewall. I just hope they didn't die horribly for the risk," he muttered to himself. Yane followed cautiously after Ashagir; being human, and of common birth at that, he lacked the protective wards which were the fairy's exile's birthright. Not that Yane couldn't protect himself, but sidestepping danger is so much easier than facing it head on. "Warn them? Last I checked, we weren't the parish criers," Ashagir sighed, "Besides what if it turns out like the time with the Skitterking Skeeves and have people turn around and blame their misfortune on us? We aren't exactly a welcome sight in most villages, you know." Ashagir darted about, checking likely hiding places, "I am not finding anyone alive. For that matter, I am not finding anyone dead I..." The fairy broke off abruptly as they finally reached the center of town, staring down in shock at the patterns etched into the ash. Spinning in mid-air, he turned a mixed look of fury and fear on Yane, pointing one arm down at the symbols. "Mint and vex seed, no dead but the smell of death lingers and that! Do you know what that means, Scryer?" "Yes… The Necromancer has returned." Yane's plain features creased with vividly recalled pain and he shivered a bit from reaction. "But this is so far from where he was last seen…and in a different direction than the one he was heading in when he left." Denial, coupled with dread had the man grasping for any explanation that didn't lead toward the obvious one. Ashagir flew to within an inch of his partner's nose to provide the shocked human with something to look at besides the runework on the ground. "Stop reacting, and think! It had to be him, and he was here perhaps just hours ago." Still, the fairy didn't have the Scryer's full attention. "How could he have passed this far into the Kingdom without being spotted?" Yane's eyes were blinking rapidly, the beginnings of a Vision already upon him, though he hadn't yet initiated any exchange with the Gods. On the other side of the forest, a tall, cloaked figure paused in his step. Eyes, he could feel eyes turning in his direction, even if those eyes were currently closed. Eyes that he had not expected, not so soon at least. "Now, now, little Scryer, this will not do" he murmured, "I need you blind till the next dual moon." His hand dipped into the bag hanging at his waist, withdrawing a small handful of ash. He turned to face back along his way, and then with a muttered invocation, he seized the attention of those prying eyes, forcing them open, holding them open. "I learned how to cheat Death of his prizes. I can most certainly cheat the Gods of their Watchdog," he said, as he blew the ash back toward the Vale. Yane screamed. While Ashagir darted frantically around him, trying to discover the source of his partner's pain, the Scryer thrashed on the ground and tore at air before his eyes with hands curled into claws. It wasn't until his head struck a jutting tree stump hard enough to batter consciousness from him that he finally quieted. Even then, his eyelids and fingers twitched in response to whatever torture had affected him so dramatically. The fairy hovered in the air and dread made him shiver. If an attack came now, he would have to abandon his incapacitated ally to escape with his own life, and the thought made Ashagir desperate for another solution to this problem. Without the Scryer as his advocate, the exiled fairy had few prospects in the human world, and absolutely none if it was ever learned that he left a human as valuable to the King as Yane was to die in some ruined provincial village just to save his own green skin. Ashagir looked all around and finally found help. Of a sort. Halfway up the grassy slope on the opposite side of the Vale from the one they had come down was an old stone ring. The blue stones were much eroded and in fact the tallest barely poked up out of the grass. All the fairy had to do was get his partner's limp body into that ring and… Well, he would worry about the last part after he figured out the first part. Fairies had many advantages over other races, but physical strength wasn't one of them. If Ashagir meant to move Yane out of the village and into the stone circle, he needed help. As there was no soul around - neither sentient nor beast - Ashagir had to make do with mechanical assistance. Machines he could use. He could never push a cart, even without Yane's weight inside. He couldn't just drag his partner halfway across the Vale… Or could he? He found what he needed at the edge of town in a barn that hadn't been completely destroyed by fire. Thanks to his fairy quickness, he had the pulleys and ropes strung together in a complicated web that amplified his meager strength enough to pull poor, battered Yane from one anchoring tree stump to the next in several stages, all the way into the stone circle. The exercise of stringing the web, dragging Yane, taking the apparatus apart and rebuilding it for the next length of pulling exhausted Ashagir and it absorbed the remainder of the day. But at least the fairy hadn't had time or energy left to panic over the potential for attack. It was sunset by the time he finally had the last inches of Yane's human height tugged inside the bounds of the stone ring. By then, Ashagir barely had strength enough to stay above ground for a moment at a time; he doubted he could even stay awake long enough to wake the stones and beg their protection for his injured partner. He did try, though. "Please…" he panted as he clung to the old worn stone closest to Yane's still form. "Please help him. Yane has been devout. He…" Ashagir wasn't very experienced with human rituals. He didn't know what to say that would honor his partner's gods and move them enough to extend shelter over him now. "He only wished to help people. Please help him now…" It was the best he could manage before exhaustion claimed him and he too surrendered to unconsciousness. I their dreams, Yane and Ashagir heard nothing, though peace found them and stole away their pain and fear. Miles away, however, the Necromancer once again felt eyes on him, and anger. "You open your eyes again too soon, little Scryer. I suppose I shall have to pluck them-" He hesitated. Something was coming, he felt, though he could detect no living thing in the night for miles besides animals and insects. "What mischief is this?" As if in answer, the Necromancer heard a whisper on the breeze. "Deus ex machina…" Then wrath descended upon him from the heavens like the crushing heel of a giant. He was struck from the pages of the Worldstory and nobody missed him. WYOA: HH Barmaid Yane and Ashagir headed carefully down the grassy slope toward the smoldering remains of Drannow Vale - it was steeper than it looked, and the tall grasses hid craggy tree stumps and gopher holes - the partners each keeping at least one wary eye out for signs that whatever villain or villains had wreaked this havoc were laying in wait for a couple of mismatched investigators to come along. Ashagir said, "I smell mint, do you? Mint and…" the fairy flitted a few feet into the air and in a lazy loop-the-loop before coming back to sit on Yane's shoulder again. "Mint and vex seed oil." Watching Ashagir in flight has never ceased to make Yane smile. He wished he could join her but he knew that he brought his own skills to their partnership. They complemented each other well. This was the key to their success. "Ah..." It was a comfort to feel her settle back on his shoulder. "Yes. Vex seed oil. Well, that explains a lot doesn't it. Guess we better put the masks on before we go any further. We won't be much help to anyone if we breath in that combination of vapors." Ashagir sighed, her face turning fierce and sharp. "It must have been horrid for those who were caught unaware here. We must stop them Vane, before they wreak more havoc on the people of this world." If Ashagir seemed ferocious, it was only because her innate compassion had been impinged upon by the gory display before them. Yane was certainly the more stoic of the partners because, as a mere human being, he was not as moved by the psychic traumas at crime scenes as Ashagir and the other magic examiners like her were. Only after their masks, which were enchanted to prevent any magical particle from passing into the wearer's lungs, were properly in place and sealed to the skin on their faces did they advance on the remains of Drannow Vale. The village was completely wrecked and the bodies of the slain were strewn about like rubbish in the streets. It was much worse than they had expected, and so as soon as they had finished their initial survey of the scene, Yane popped open his palm-sized magic mirror and called for back-up investigators. "Send the team. Looks like we've had a rogue dragon." Ashagir and Yane began making record of the destruction, starting on the near side of town, where he fires seemed to have originated. The fairy darted from clue to clue, giving names to all the important psychic details that her merely human partner couldn't help but miss, and Yane made careful sketches and lists accordingly. It was a time consuming task, especially at such a complex and large crime scene as in Drannow Vale. They had barely penetrated a dozen paces into the scene when they were attacked. A veritable cloud of dragonets came winging out of the south and they set upon the investigators with an unreasonable fury. "Slayers!" they cried, and, "Oathbreakers!" They raked at Ashagir and Yane with their glittering claws and breathed such fire as dragons could manage in their adolescence. In moments, they had the investigators pinned down inside the town's stone well house. Ashagir's wings were badly singed and she didn't protest when Yane dunked her quickly underwater to cool them before tucking her inside his shirt for safekeeping. Normally no fairy could stand being wet or held, but she was in bad enough shape that she actually thanked him for it. "Anything for you, partner," Yane said, before flipping his hand mirror open again and shouting at the dispatcher's face. "Warn the other investigators! It wasn't one rogue dragon, but a flight of dragonets with a flaming vendetta against the town! There was an oathbreaker in Drannow Vale!" "A dragonslayer? No wonder they're mad," remarked the implacable dispatcher as he flipped open several other small mirrors on his desk. Once the other investigators were updated, the dispatcher uncovered a large mirror in an intricate gold frame and tapped it with his fingernail. A sound like a gong emerged from the other side of the looking glass, and shortly the pearly-scaled head of an Elder dragon came into view. "YES?" rumbled the Elder in the quietest voice a creature of his incredible size could manage. The dispatcher held up Yane's mirror so that it faced the dragon's and let the investigator explain the situation as he understood it. When Yane was finished, the Elder said, "AH, THE STUPITY OF YOUTH. WASTING OUR PRECIOUS VEX SEED OIL TO DELIVER FLAME WHERE TIME AND THE LAW COULD SUFFICE." He sighed and his image on the mirror quivered in resonance with the frequency of the impressive sibilant. "I WILL SEND AN ADULT TO SUBDUE THEM UNTIL YOUR INVESTIGATION IS COMPLETE AND OATHJUSTICE IS ASSURED. THEY WILL SUBMIT TO LAW." Yane sighed his relief. Trust the wisdom of an Ancient to enforce order above vengeance. "Thank you, Elder. The truth will out." With that venerable dragon's support ensured, it was just possible that peace could be restored before violence spread beyond Drannow Vale. Within moments, the sound of thunderous wing beats drowned out the noise of the angry dragonets outside Yane and Ashagir's much battered shelter. Then a roar of dragonspeech preceded the crash of complete silence. Finally, after an earthshaking thump informed him that the adult had landed, Yane dared to step outside the well house. The dragon outside was perhaps half the age - and so half the size - of the Elder. Yet it dwarfed the dragonets, all of whom now lay prostrate on the ground before its withering glare. Yane felt as small as a freckle on a fairy as he looked up and up at the dragon. Small as he was, his emergence from hiding caught the dragon's eye. "TRUTHSEEKER YANE?" The investigator felt those words vibrate in his own chest and it was only with effort that he didn't flinch. "Yes. Thank you for coming so quickly." "THESE OATHBREAKERS DARE NOT TROUBLE YOUR INVESTIGATION FURTHER." The dragon leaned its great head closer to the earth. "YOU APPEAR DAMAGED, TRUTHSEEKER." "My partner and I were mistaken for dragonslayers, but I believe we will heal." The adult thundered a draconic epithet down onto the heads of the adolescents. "ADD YOUR WOUNDS TO THE COUNTS AGAINST THESE TRAITORS TO THE PEACE." At a loss for anything more appropriate to say, Yane simply bowed his head respectfully and said, "For the sake of the peace, I wish only that Oathjustice be done." "OATHJUSTICE BE DONE!" It was that booming vow that welcomed Yane's colleagues to the scene of the crime and set the tone for the rest of their investigation. WYOA: Donnickcottage Yane and Ashagir headed carefully down the grassy slope toward the smoldering remains of Drannow Vale - it was steeper than it looked, and the tall grasses hid craggy tree stumps and gopher holes - the partners each keeping at least one wary eye out for signs that whatever villain or villains had wreaked this havoc were laying in wait for a couple of mismatched investigators to come along. Ashagir said, "I smell mint, do you? Mint and…" the fairy flitted a few feet into the air and in a lazy loop-the-loop before coming back to sit on Yane's shoulder again. "Mint and vex seed oil." Bragi was not amused. "What is that goo you've laid my rabbit into boy? I told you to roast him over the fire, cut him and place him in the pot with the vegetables and mint, not fry him in some dung beetle lard!" "It's vex seed oil M'lord" Fayleex said with a wry grin; "all the rage in the Sophomoric Castle kitchens! It's said to have the potency of ten women vexed! And in spite of its rancid aroma, it tastes quite divine!" "Well it had better boy" Bragi retorted. "I'll not be poisoned by a squire, no matter the king's wish that you accompany me and see to my needs. Whatever possessed the old sod is beyond me in any case; I am well worn to the earth and fully capable of filling my own gullet. I need no whelp to keep my house, indoors or out!" Fayleex bobbed his head once in deference to his lord's mood, and tended to the vexed rabit he had been given higher orders to prepare. Truthfully, he'd hoped to have the meat cooked and on a plate before Bragi had returned from laying false trails in their wake to confuse any who might be searching for them, but Bragi worked thoroughly-yet-quickly, and that was exactly why the King had set the man on this particular mission of destruction and why he'd also assigned Fayleex to the temperamental Lord. There was more to the 'rancid goo' than the boy had explained; his job was in part to ensure that Bragi didn't discover the manipulations he was subject to, and vex seed oil was such a potent substance that it could mask the taste and smell of nearly any other. It was a pity that one of the bottles had come uncorked somewhere along their journey; it would be hard to replace so far out in the Territories. Meanwhile, outside of Drannow Vale, Yane and Ashagir made camp for the night. They had easily discovered an obvious trail leading away from the village, and lucked upon the real trail left by Drannow's destroyers. This advanced tactic had them scratching their heads and delaying their pursuit until they could puzzle out the meaning of this new information about the villains they pursued. "I begin to wonder if we are searching for a bandit gang at all. I don't see how more than a handful of men could have slipped down that little trail without leaving at least a little more sign than the print of one boot heel and a few greasy stray hairs." Ashagir had gathered the hairs - long and straight and human - and stowed them in a sack with the rest of the few clues they had gathered as they had tracked these miscreants from razed village to burning town across the provinces. "I tend to agree with you, but let's not jump to any conclusions. Perhaps only one or two left by the trail we found and the rest were too careful for us to detect." Yane didn't much like the thought of villains who could not be tracked over land. Last season's run-in with Wraiths had nearly killed him and cost him his previous partner. "Well, one bandit or fifty, their trails will join up again eventually. And after what we learned today we'll be able to track them all the long way to the sea if we must." The fairy referred to the vex seed oil, the scent of which thinly coated the hairs they'd found and better marked the escaped rogues' trail than any prints or broken twigs could have, thanks to Ashagir's incredibly keen sense of smell. "Let's get some rest, and catch up to the bastards in the morning." Yane shared his bread, cheese and apple with his diminutive colleague before curling up under his cloak on the ground to sleep away the warm night. As a fairy, Ashagir never slept, so he contentedly kept the watch all night. A few miles away in their also fireless campsite, Bragi slept almost as deeply as the dead. The vex seed oil his dinner had been cooked in had completely masked the mindwash weed that Fayleex had been ordered to drug him with nightly so that the warlord would never resist or question the mission the King had sent him on. Bragi was ruthless enough to complete his gruesome task as 'Tax Enforcer' to the rural masses, but he was also just cunning enough, left to his own devices, to turn the job against the King in a sort of tax-dodgers' revolt. The King had enough troubles in his Court without one more experienced leader bringing another assault on his throne. Hence Fayleex. The 'boy' was nothing of the sort, but was rather a baby-faced spy unknown to anyone at Court but the King. To keep Bragi on task, Fayleex fed him mindwash weed nightly and whispered such things in the warlord's ear as he slept that kept Bragi convinced by day that he had been personally maligned by the villagers in the towns he savaged. It prevented him from many thoughts but those of violence and retribution, but the stuff wore off eventually and took Fayleex's mischief with it. At long last they had come to the end of their trek across the Territories, and Fayleex's mission was at its end. He whispered one last ugliness into Bragi's ear and struck off into the night. Fayleex wanted to be miles away by the time the King's hounds caught up with the warlord the following morning, as they should if the rumors of their investigative prowess did them any justice. As near as he could tell, he left neither sign of his passage nor any clue that he had ever been in Bragi's company. On the chance that Bragi escaped or killed the King's men, Fayleex didn't want the warlord to be able to trace him back to the King. Ashagir woke Yane a little before dawn, and the odd pair crept out through the dim pre-dawn light. They followed the fairy's nose, which still had little trouble finding the trail, but they were slowed by inability to see dips in the terrain and jutting tree roots. Still, they arrived in Bragi's camp while he was yet sleeping and it was a simple for Ashagir to fly silently up to him and slip an enchanted snare around one of the warlord's wrists. As the knot cinched tight, Bragi was instantly transported to an awaiting cell in the King's dungeon. The investigators' sense of a job well done was somewhat diminished by the feeling that it had been too easy. "Something's not right," Yane muttered, though he couldn't put his finger on what. They searched the camp. "Bragi reeked of vex seed oil, but there doesn't seem to be any here with him." Ashagir closed his eyes and flared his nostrils as he buzzed above and around the area in a widening spiral. "Aha!" "The trail?" Yane finished gathering the last of Bragi's meager supplies - including the warlord's sword - into the evidence sack and went to join his partner. Ashagir grinned. "It leads west for a bit and then turns sharply back northeast." Yane considered this a moment. "Toward the capitol?" "Yes. And the trail is hours old; as if the villain moved out in the night." "Lead the way. With any luck, we'll catch our next traitor napping at noontime." WYOA: Red_Rose_Remix Yane and Ashagir headed carefully down the grassy slope toward the smoldering remains of Drannow Vale - it was steeper than it looked, and the tall grasses hid craggy tree stumps and gopher holes - the partners each keeping at least one wary eye out for signs that whatever villain or villains had wreaked this havoc were laying in wait for a couple of mismatched investigators to come along. Ashagir said, "I smell mint, do you? Mint and…" the fairy flitted a few feet into the air and in a lazy loop-the-loop before coming back to sit on Yane's shoulder again. "Mint and vex seed oil." Yane sniffed the air tentatively, then nodded. "Mint, definitely, though your nose is more sensitive than mine to the vex seed oil. I can't smell it with all the smoke." The odd pair had been a step and a half behind whoever was causing this destruction for days, and slowly, they were gaining. They knew they were gaining because the embers were still glowing, and the dead left behind looked fresher. "Odd, isn't it?" remarked Ashagir. "Looks like only villagers died. The bunch responsible for this is a rather efficient group." Mint... Vex seed oil... No casualties on the other side... "Ash, do you think it's more than a handful of people? An army would destroy whatever it couldn't use. This looks more like destruction for the sake of it than military pillaging." Ashagir's quick, pale eyes surveyed the scene, and he grimaced. "Vapor Fiends. Damn. The bounty's not high enough on this one." Yane nodded her agreement. "Send off a message; tell her what we've got and that we need to renegotiate." While Ashagir was away to the nearest relay tower, Yane did a body count and searched for survivors - fewer than fifty villagers had lived in Drannow Vale, and now they appeared to all be dead. Stray chickens and untended livestock had returned to town after the carnage out of habit and now wandered all over the scene, possibly destroying evidence and obliterating the Vapor Fiends' trail. Yane herded several quiescent goats and a few distressed milk cows into the paddock at the far end of town to stop them crapping on potential clues and so that they could be taken away later to join the Queen's herds. Her fairy partner returned soon with a message from their employer. It wasn't good news. "She said what?!" Yane was instantly furious. "We did not come all this way-have not tracked and chased half way across the frontier-just to lose out on a nice fat bounty because the Vapor Fiends are apparently headed straight toward a regiment of her best warriors!" "Her Majesty was adamant. She hung up on me." Ashagir radiated futile anger. "But not before she said we'd have to settle for 'expenses'." "Expenses?!" "The gold is waiting for us in Ureillar." "That will not do." Yane had on a scheming look. Ashagir never thought her more beautiful than when she plotted revenge. "We're going to catch those Fiends before the fighters do, and we're going to collect the Queen's bounty, 'Her Adamancy' be damned." She glanced around the wrecked village. "You scout ahead northwest. I'll grab a few supplies here and meet you on the Vapor Fiends' trail before dark. I think we're close enough behind we can possibly catch them up before midnight." "So, we're doing our standard, 'New Moon Surprise'?" Ashagir divested himself of excess fairy dust so that his natural glow wouldn't give them away in the dark. Yane nodded, already saddling a leggy steed and peering around Drannow Vale for a bag of oats for the horse and a few other handy items for the adventure ahead. "Yes, but with a twist. I want to bring one back to the Queen alive." "Alive?! You're mad!" The agitated fairy's wings buzzed sharply. Yane grinned. "I want rumor of our unprecedented success to reach the Queen ahead of us. By the time we arrive in Court, her own subjects will be demanding Her Majesty's bounty for us." She bit into a found apple, fed one to the horse, and tossed a third through the air for Ashagir. She seemed lighthearted in the face of the potential disaster ahead of them. "The Queen will have to shower us with gold just to shut up the masses." "The Queen will lock us up for bringing a Vapor Fiend anywhere near Court." "Come on. It'll be fun." "Fun like a prison sentence…" Yane laughed out loud. "Don't make me get rich and famous all by myself, Ash." "You're terrible," sighed the fairy. "For the record, if I didn't know firsthand that you're even better in a fight than your reputation suggests, I'd abandon you and this foolish mission right now." Yane blew her partner a kiss. "I'll see you on the trail, you little charmer, you." WYOA: Spacedlaw Yane and Ashagir headed carefully down the grassy slope toward the smoldering remains of Drannow Vale - it was steeper than it looked, and the tall grasses hid craggy tree stumps and gopher holes - the partners each keeping at least one wary eye out for signs that whatever villain or villains had wreaked this havoc were laying in wait for a couple of mismatched investigators to come along. Ashagir said, "I smell mint, do you? Mint and…" the fairy flitted a few feet into the air and in a lazy loop-the-loop before coming back to sit on Yane's shoulder again. "Mint and vex seed oil." "Vex seed oil? What on earth is that supposed to be?" "When you get vexed about something, the negative feelings plant a seed into your brain and then, when the weed starts to develop, all sorts of mayhem - big or small - happen. Both in your brain but also to people around you because you'd be acting a wee bit irrationally. The seed produces some oil which is greasing your brain into accepting the weed. Anyone who manages to eradicate the seed before it takes root into your brain can press it for oil. It's a great household remedy against bed sores, funny enough." Because Yane was the sort of person who found many things vexing, he tried not to imagine how overrun by weeds his own brain might be, failed in he attempt, and instead resolved to be a more positive person going forward. He could tell just by looking at the ghastly scene before them that it was likely a bad day for that kind of resolution, however… Meanwhile, Ashagir had flitted away from Yane's shoulder again to try and locate the sources of the unusual odors present at the scene and to determine if they had any relevance to their investigation, or if their presence was merely incidental. "Actually, if I remember correctly, vex seed oil can also be extremely inflammable and might well have been the fuel to that ghastly disaster." Yane just looked blank as his fluttering partner-in-justice-and-equity applied its preternatural sense of smell to the rubbles, sniffing the faint wisps of smoke that soon vanished in the dampish air of the Vale. Not a whole lot of heat ever made its way to this rather mossy place, even in the height of summer. Surely setting that place ablaze must not have been a simple case of arson or unfortunate domestic accident... As they moved from one end of the village to the other, each exercised their investigative specialties; Ashagir's was obviously his nose, and Yane's was, less obviously, an incredibly honed sixth sense. While the fairy sniffed out actually concrete trace evidence, the man filtered through the intangible clues hidden in Drannow Vale's last memories and emotions. Hopefully, between them, they could deduce who or what was responsible for all this carnage. And then perhaps they would understand why this entire village had been targeted for destruction while others nearby had been spared. There was a trace of doom in the memories of the place. Could it be that the village (if not its inhabitants, who would have fought or fled otherwise) had had an idea of what was coming? The biggest chunk of wall left standing was positively soaked in misery and resignation, leaving a spectrum of sickly greenish veneer in the air. A prophecy? A curse put on the place many years ago? It could not have been anything new: it felt so intimately bound to the stones. What was left of the old earth places was reeking: they must have stewed over the advancing storm night after night, unable - or unwilling ? - to communicate the news to the owners of the houses. Wasn't there any witches in this village? Yane felt that his internal query about witches was answered by a tingle of regret that came from somewhere a bit further on in the ruins of the town. He pursued it, curious about the story that the scattered bricks and incinerated marketplace relics had to tell about the missing Drannow witches. According to the tidbits of feeling he garnered from the singed herbs growing along one path, there had been three witches living in the Vale. A fire-cracked stone totem to the crop goddess subtly informed him that the witches had been well-liked in town. The scattered and blackened pages billowing out of the small collection of texts that must have passed for the village's entire library whispered to Yane that the witches had all been lured away as recently as a month ago. For Ashagir's benefit, he wondered aloud, "What incentive could possibly entice a comfortably entrenched coven to abandon its people without so much as a protective ward in place behind them?" "- A curse? Maybe they had to leave and try to lift it?" "Unlikely. I could not sniff a single trace of hope." "Suppose the witches did not want to raise false hopes?" "Mmm… That still does not explain why they should leave the place without even a minimum of protective spell. Those were respected witches. They never would have left without taking care of the people first." "Well….Maybe they were abducted?" "Abducted?" "Yeah, you know. Somebody - or something - seized them and placed a price on their freedom. If the village could not pay up, it - and the witches - would meet a sticky end. That sort of things…" "I guess that's possible." Yane fell silent and he and his flighted partner drifted apart again to criss-cross the town, each following their own invisible trail through the ruined village. There had been a small inn located at essentially the center of town and Yane expected it had served more as the backwater locality's hub of government than it ever did the business of housing strangers in town. Nearly all that was left of the place was its stone foundation, which showed signs of having been built up from more than once, but as there was no indication that this violence had origins in town, it made sense to check the old inn for any lingering mystic memory of any recent newcomers. Yane found what he wanted. "Ash', I need your nose…" The fairy buzzed through the damp, sooty air making a sound like one of those tiny gnomish motors sometimes heard in the big cities. "Well, well, well. What have we here?" "It's a troll hole." Now even Yane could smell the vex seed oil. It smelled like bile and rancid candy. "If those witches were abducted, Ash, they were grabbed from under their beds at night. What wards there were around the town must have vanished when they died, but they wouldn't have helped anyway." "Blasted trolls came up within the town. The people never saw them coming." Ashagir's eyes watered as much from the malodor as from the horrible truth. Now that he had found the key to this mystery, the special lock in Yane's mind that normally kept him shielded from the random energies that surrounded him came open. Everywhere he looked the scene of Drannow Vale's final moments played out in ghastly forward-backward motion before his eyes. He watched the unlucky innkeeper discover the troll hole in his basement in the most unlucky manner imaginable. His screams had alerted other nearby villagers, to their gory misfortune. From there…it had been a chain reaction of slaughter and destruction that had finished the whole place in less time than it had taken Yane and Ashagir to find the source of the stench lingering above the vile den below the village. Ashagir tugged his partner's ear ungently. "Snap out of it, Yane. They could come back." Yane wrenched his mind away from the mystic memories flickering in and out of life for his wide open mind. "Right. Let's place a Perfect Remedy Seal on the inn's foundation and get away fast." "Let me set it while you run. I've got a much faster getaway than you." Ashagir was only half teasing. At a dead sprint, Yane might not have the speed to outpace an event-reversal of the magnitude of the massacre at Drannow Vale. The psychic human handed the enchanted disc to his winged partner. "The best view's going to be from the west; the sunset won't get in our eyes." "I'll meet you there." Yane ran as quickly as he could without compromising safety. The last thing he needed was to turn an ankle on rubble when a Perfect Remedy was about to take effect. It was a worse death than trolls, he'd heard. Ashagir waited until Yane's retreating form was almost to the edge of town before he placed the Seal on the demolished inn's bare stone base, tapped the gems on its face in a particular, arrhythmic order, and said the right magic words. It all had to be done just so, but once it was begun… Ashagir didn't linger. Yane had only turned and sat on an exposed tree stump a hundred paces outside Drannow Vale when his partner joined him to watch the huge, wild display of reality-warping magic. The Perfect Remedy was exactly that. It unmade terrible events all the way back to their very beginnings. Once again, Yane watched the tragedy that had befallen the village play out, but now the perceived passage of time only flowed in one direction; backwards. Thanks to the Seal, even Ashagir could see the villagers springing back to life as the trolls weapons were withdrawn by magic and the monsters swarmed back down into their tunnels. The magic went so far as to return the vanished witches to existence and close all the troll holes. It was a beautiful thing, and when it was done, all seemed right in the Vale. The investigators waited a little longer for the powerful artifact to complete its vast and complex task, and then they strolled back down to the little resurrected town. A Perfect Remedy Seal was tightly focused on a single catastrophe - lest it unravel time all the way back through all the disasters of history through the first - so by its nature it was not a preventative magic. Yane and Ashagir had to warn the people of Drannow Vale before the trolls tunneled their way into town past the witches' wards, but thanks to the Seal, they had that opportunity. WYOA: Metafrantic Yane and Ashagir headed carefully down the grassy slope toward the smoldering remains of Drannow Vale - it was steeper than it looked, and the tall grasses hid craggy tree stumps and gopher holes - the partners each keeping at least one wary eye out for signs that whatever villain or villains had wreaked this havoc were laying in wait for a couple of mismatched investigators to come along. Ashagir said, "I smell mint, do you? Mint and…" the fairy flitted a few feet into the air and in a lazy loop-the-loop before coming back to sit on Yane's shoulder again. "Mint and vex seed oil." Yane's sense of smell wasn't as sharp as the fairy's, but he believed him; for all that Ashagir had a crude sense of humor, he would never joke about vex seed oil. Yane silently drew his sword with his right hand; with his left, he unhooked from his belt the firm oak handle with the wicked, scythe-shaped blade. Ashagir already had three of his deadly blood discs at hand. As Yane began to walk again, his footsteps muted by years of training, he felt the tension in the fairy's body against his shoulder; Ashagir was expecting a fight, and intended to give no quarter. That was the amazing thing about fairies. It wasn't enough that they were magical beings or that they could fly and detect things that were beyond the range of human senses; what defined them best was not their nature, but rather their culture. They were ferocious warriors to the last, and even the weakest among them was as deadly as venom. It made Yane almost glad to have a fairy for a partner, instead of a member of one of the larger races… Almost. "Down!" Ashagir hissed suddenly. Yane didn't hesitate for a second; he immediately dropped into a defensive crouch, his eyes darting back and forth. When nothing dangerous appeared - when nothing at all appeared - Yane whispered to the fairie "What?" "Third hut from the right," Ashagir murmured. "Two heartbeats, your size. Strong. Beating fast; not injured, just...scared, I think." It was astounding how useful it was to be able to hear and interpret a heartbeat from forty yards away - or at least to be partnered to someone who can. "Take a flight?" "Oh yes," Ashagir sneered, flipping his long hair irritably, "because I fancy a crossbow bolt in the gut." "Fine," said Yane, his voice all hardness and familiar resignation. Just because fairies were remarkably able warriors, didn't mean they were especially eager to make targets of themselves on behalf of the larger races. Ashagir braced himself for Yane's predictable 'plan B' by hovering just behind the human's left shoulder and charging each of his blood discs with magic meant to shatter the blades after they'd passed into an enemy's body. Sensing his partner's readiness, Yane made sure he had at least a little bit of cover, in the form of a half-crumbled stone wall. Then he called to the heartbeats in the third hut on the right, "We are the King's Men. We know you're in there. Come out with all weapons lowered." Ashagir turned and stared at Yane incredulously for a moment before putting his head in his hand. "I never said they were inside the hut," he muttered with weary resignation. "They're behind it. Why would I worry about a crossbow bolt from people inside?" Yane bit back a sharp retort. The fairy was right, of course; the charred structure had its windows boarded up, so there was no way someone inside could have... Wait a second. "The windows are boarded," Yane said quietly. "From the inside. Someone was trying to keep something out." Ashagir's eyes narrowed as he keenly studied the hut. "You're right," he replied tersely. "And I think they failed." "Don't kill us!" A young voice, tense and angry about it, called from behind the hut, "We didn't do this, we swear!" Yane and Ashagir braced themselves for a surprise attack from the other side of the squat, fire-damaged home; they had seen the tactic before and easily resisted being lulled by any vow of innocence. Yane barked, "Throw down your weapons and show yourselves!" A crossbow and a pair of matched swords were immediately flung into view, followed quickly by a tall, gangly redheaded youth so covered in freckles that it was the pale spaces in between that seemed to stand out on his skin. Next, and moving with great care came a half-breed; half troll, to judge by his height and camouflaging fur. Ashagir whispered so that only Yane could hear. "They barely seem grown, but I still don't trust them." Yane nodded almost imperceptibly in agreement. "If you didn't do this, then how did you come to be the only people in this village still alive?" Back to the Sandyplex | Back to K's page | Back to SubverttheSpace