Panic.
Fear griped hold of Ioanna's heart, just as surely as the hands grabbing hold of her flesh. She tried to run, but could not move, for her legs were pinned to the blistering desert sands. She tried to scream, only to find a hand clamped firmly against her face. The scabby, calloused fingers stunk of sweat and filth, sending waves of revulsion up and down her spine, and bile crept up her throat. The more she tried desperately to get away, the harder the sausage-thick fingers squeezed against her skull.
She didn't dare close her eyes, for all that stared back at her was guilt. The cold, dead gaze of Aesif, the man who had rescued her once, stared at her from his mutilated husk of a body. Silently pleading with her. Why didn't you run? he seemed to ask.
But when she opened her eyes, it was so much worse. Bloodshot eyes, swollen with lust, stared at her from blackened pits set deep in the misshapen heads of monsters that walked like men. Yellow teeth grinned hungrily from behind sun-cracked lips, saliva dripping all over her in huge, disgusting globs.
And the hands.
So many hands. Groping. Clawing. Pulling. Dirty, jagged fingernails digging deeper and deeper into her skin. Again, she tried to scream, and again, nothing came out, save a desperate, muffled gurgle from the back of her throat. The more she tried to squirm out of their grip to escape, the harder and harder the pressure against her increased.
"Just relax, whore!" one of them growled in her ear. "You might even enjoy it!" She shut her eyes tight, struggling with all her might to try and escape. More hands came from nowhere, grabbing at her legs, and...
A shriek cut through the blackness.
Ioanna sat up with a violent start. Confusion washed over her like a bucket of ice water had been upended over her head... or was that the cold sweat still clinging to her face? She gasped several times, trying to steady her breathing, still unsure of where she was or what was going on.
Silence.
She was alone in the darkness, sitting on a bed in an unfamiliar room. Except... except, no, this was... this was her room now, wasn't it? That's right... she was...
The door flung open with a crash, and she practically jumped out of her skin in surprise.
"Ioanna!" Tuera burst in with her sword drawn. "What's going on? Are you alright? Are we under attack?"
Ioanna sat there frozen, seemingly unable to say anything, or even move. Her mind was buzzing, like it was home to the nest of a thousand wasps. Everything around her was a haze, with too many thoughts – and sensations brought on by those thoughts – for her to process at once...
A firm hand gripped her shoulder, and she instinctively recoiled at the touch. She looked up to see the familiar face of Tuera staring at her with a concerned look and a furrowed brow. Her red eyes glittered like rubies in the moonlight filtering in through the window, and it was obvious that her mouth was moving... but Ioanna could not hear any words. That buzzing, that white-noise drone... it filled her ears, making it impossible for her to make sense of anything happening around her. Dozens of tiny invisible pinpricks attacked every inch of her skin, and she soon felt completely numb.
And then the tears arrived.
It was as if something vital within her – the last thing keeping her moving forward these last few days – had broken, and she could no longer pretend everything was fine. Ioanna practically threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around Tuera almost as a reflex action, and buried her face into Tuera's chest; if she hadn't already been sitting on the bed, Ioanna likely would've collapsed completely.
This is not what Tuera had been expecting when she heard the shriek, and felt ill-equipped to deal with this situation indeed. Carefully – gingerly – Tuera cradled Ioanna in her arms, trying her best to support the bawling girl, whose hysterical sobs and frantic babbling about monsters – and hands – were mostly muffled with her face buried in Tuera's chest as it was.
A sensation cut through the nightmare fog of Ioanna's mind. She could feel a hand on the back of her head, but... this was different. It was not rough or forceful, grabbing her by the hair with enough force to yank it out, like the others that filled her with a paralyzing dread. No, this was a soft, reassuring caress; a welcome sensation that flooded her with a sense of comfort. It made her feel warm. It made her feel safe. The terror began to slowly ebb, like a wave breaking against the shore one final time before the tide rolls back.
"You're safe," a voice found its way to Ioanna's ears; the strong arms holding her seemed to reinforce the truth of those words. "They cannot hurt you now..."
Oblivion soon overtook her senses, and before too long, Ioanna fell into a deep, restful sleep.
She did not dream again that night.
Some time the next morning, long after the sun had risen over the jagged mountains in the east, Ioanna slowly made her way out of her room and down the stonebrick stairs of this converted warehouse.
Few concrete details of the night before remained in her memory. The nightmare, and her brief moments of waking, had fallen into that dark mental abyss which claims all we choose to forget... especially when it hurts to remember. Only a vague sense of unease remained with her now, like a film of oil clinging to the inside of her mind, and which stubbornly refused to wash itself away.
Ioanna looked around as she cautiously made her way down the stairs, finally able to see their new 'headquarters,' such as it was, in the light of day. In truth, the main room was most of the building: a wide, open, high-ceiling space like a storehouse, full of random furniture and boxes, tapestries and unlit torches lining the walls, and a prominent shaft of sunlight filtering through a dusty skylight in the ceiling.
Most of the group were already awake and assembled, having gathered around a table directly underneath the sunbeam. The only one not there was Obsun, as he was at the far end of the warehouse, standing at a clay stove and surrounded by ingredients. The unmistakable sizzle of meat merrily cooking a cast-iron skillet which had been greased in animal fat echoed through the building, carrying with it the pleasant aroma of breakfast being cooked. It wafted on the wind, straight to Ioanna, and filled her with a calming warmth that helped to further melt away the horrors of the night.
As soon as she noticed Ioanna's arrival, Tuera left her spot at the table and made he way over to her.
"Good morning," Tuera said softly, ensuring the others could not hear. "How are you feeling?" Ioanna put on a brave face, and gave a well-practiced smile; it was the same she'd used many times before when living in the King's palace, back in Brythunia.
"I'm fine," she said with a dismissive wave, just a little too quickly, and then added: "I'm... I'll be fine." Ioanna leaned around Tuera, to get a better view beyond her. "So... what are we doing?"
"Planning," Tuera replied. "Your timing is perfect, actually. We've only just gotten started."
Now was not the time to try and have a conversation with Ioanna about what transpired last night, she reasoned to herself, and decided to drop the subject. She gently placed a hand on Ioanna's shoulder, and led them both to the table in the center of the room. A large linen cloth had been placed atop it, big enough to cover the entire table with extra draped over the edges. Intricate, precise designs drawn in what appeared to be thin lines of dark-blue paint decorated the cloth, and even the most cursory glance revealed its true nature as a map. But not just any map:
"A map of the Exiled Lands?" Ioanna asked, and Tuera nodded, addressing everyone at the table.
"Yes, as I was saying: I apologize for the crudity of this recreation. It was a bit of a rush job last night, and I didn't really take the time to draw it to the proper scale, or to color it." Ioanna looked at the map again, noticing a myriad of subtle details, and wondered just when Tuera had even found the time to make it at all.
"Better than I could've done..." Hunter Ophelia muttered from behind their mask.
"Alright, let's go over what we know so far..." Tuera continued, reaching below the table and producing a small wooden box, setting it down with a thud. It was filled with the tiny wooden pieces, bone-dice, and tokens from the game Jamila and Shevatas had played the other day.
"Here is us, at Sepermeru..." As she spoke, she pulled out a small soldier figurine carved out of wood from the box and placed it at their location, along the extreme western edge of the map. "Here's the Palace of the Triumvirate in The Capital..." she placed another token in the heart of the vaguely-star-shaped city, due east. "...and over here is where The Archivist indicated we need to bring the artifacts when we find them all: the Altar of Chaosmouth, I believe." Tuera put down another token, at a spot on one of the lines vaguely north-east of The Capital.
"All told, there are six artifacts we need to find." Tuera briefly paused, considered her words, and then corrected herself: "Okay, technically seven, but Thoth-Amon has the Serpent Ring, and who knows where he is? But we have the general locations of six of them. We will need:" She grabbed a handful of tokens, and placed them on the map, one by one, as she spoke:
"The Diadem of the Giant-Kings..." almost directly north of Sepermeru, "The Mask of the Witch Queen..." along the extreme southeast border of the map, "The Tears of Two Races," roughly halfway between The Altar of Chaosmouth and the volcano in the north, "The Star of the Champion," due north of The Summoning Place, "The Heart of the Sands," near the southern edge of the map, south-southwest of The Summoning Place, "And finally: the Shining Trapezohedron." Tuera placed the last marker right in the middle of the caldera she'd drawn, right at the north edge of the map.
"Seems about right..." Samar grunted out softly, slowly nodding as he surveyed the map, scratching his chin.
"How'd you even remember all this?" Jamila asked. "I mean, I know it's important, but... still." Tuera merely shrugged.
"It's a gift. So!" she clapped her hands together loudly. "Which one do we want to go after first?"
"Figured you would decide that yourself, being our 'fearless leader,' and all..." Shevatas said, his mouth curling into a smirk.
"No sense making an arbitrary decision for everyone if I don't have to," Tuera replied. "We're all in this together, you know. Besides," she began to grin broadly. "When it all goes wrong, this way we can share the blame equally."
"Do you think it matters what order we collect them?" Hunter Ophelia asked, scanning the map with their hazel eyes.
"Probably not," Tuera replied. "Though, I suspect it's safer for everyone involved if we focus on only one of these artefacts at a time..." She looked at the assembled group and smirked. "While there are technically enough of us to split up and go after all the artifacts at once, that would just be asking for trouble in this lethal madhouse."
"Why don't we just go after the closest one, then?" Jakkad offered up, gesturing to the figurine north of Sepermeru. "It might give us some idea of what to expect with the others."
"And if it turns out to be a waste of time, it'll be a short trip back," Shevatas grunted out.
"So... the Diadem of the Giant-Kings first, huh?" Tuera mused out loud, rubbing her chin thoughtfully, before turning to her left. "Alright Monty, time to make yourself useful. What do you know about this thing?" Ioanna peered around her, and then did a double-take: The silvery snake-staff was also here, stuck in the ground somehow and facing the table, as if he, too, was involved in the planning. Which, she reasoned after a moments thought, he technically was.
"Oh, yes! I certainly know of that one!" Monty's high pitched and strangely accented voice emerged, his reddish-orange eyes flashing and flickering with every syllable. "The Diadem is an artefact of singularly..." he paused for dramatic effect "...unimpressive power!" The snake let out a few hearty chuckles. "My former master, the Priestking, he used to wear it as a symbol of his authority, yeah? I tell ya, his head looked like a ripe carrot with a silver belt wrapped around it! But, it certainly provided him with all of the qualities you'd expect from an elderly authority figure: stuffiness, a great love of his own voice, and the inability to control his bowels!" The staff started giggling to himself.
"Fascinating," Tuera deadpanned, letting out a weary sigh. "Anything useful you can tell us?"
"Well, the last time I saw it – or him – I was tumbling down into The Dregs. It was right before he went north, to do battle with his half-breed son, Tyros. So it's probably still somewhere in the northern battlefields. Assuming it hasn't been snatched by looters or destroyed in the last thousand years since the war, that is. Though, if you ask me, I doubt it has."
"What makes you so sure?" Samar asked, furrowing his brow.
"A battlefield like that? Father against son? Alien conqueror versus a half-breed warlord? Imagine the drama! That's the perfect recipe for SCORES of undead to crop up in its wake! Place has probably been utterly crawling with nasty skeletons and spooky ghosts for the last thousand years! Only the brave or the completely stupid would dare try and pick through the bodies! And besides, assuming the Priestking is there, either alive or dead, then he should be easy enough to find. All we'll need to do is follow the smell! Hah-hah!"
Tuera began to narrow her eyes with suspicion, the more Monty spoke. She really couldn't put a finger on it, but an errant thread was hanging loose in her mind, desperately calling out to be tugged. Monty was very clearly and blatantly lying to them about something, but she wasn't sure what was a lie and what – if anything – was the truth.
"Make way! Clear some room!" a bellowing voice called out, snapping Tuera out of her thoughts. Her eyes went wide at the sight; she quickly snatched all the tokens from off the map, shoving them back in the box, and pulled the cloth map off the table in a single swipe. Just in time: Obsun had appeared on the edge of the group, carrying a massive platter – almost as wide as he was – filled with plates and bowls, all of which were piled high with all manner of hot foods, sending sheets of steam into the air. He set it down in the center of the table with a heavy thud, shaking the very stones beneath their feet. "Breakfast is served, my friends! Come! Eat your fill!"
"From the looks of it, you've eaten our fill for us already," Jamila grinned, patting Obsun's barrel-shaped chest in the gut. "Hells, I bet if you eased up a bit, we might be able to see something under this belly've yours." Obsun looked down at Jamila with bemusement and started laughing heartily, a wide grin appearing from deep within his bushy beard.
"And why would I do that, hmm?" he asked as he produced a long fork from nowhere; he speared one of the large sausage links and held it aloft. "Abs are not a sign of power, you know. It's just a sign you're not eating enough!" He laughed again, taking a huge bite out of the sausage. He patted Jamila's back several times, sending her stumbling forward a step as he literally knocked the wind out of her. "Come! Eat well and hearty! There's plenty to go around for everyone!"
They continued to discuss their plans over breakfast for some time, until every last morsel of food had been devoured. Eventually, everyone in the group began to disperse, one by one, to complete the tasks they had each decided upon. They had all agreed to leave at first light the following day, as everyone wanted to be sure they were prepared for whatever the might encounter. Shevatas, Jamila, Samar, and Hunter Ophelia left in four different directions, scouring every inch of the city of relic hunters for tools and fresh supplies; arrows, torches, actual tents, and the like. Jakkad disappeared sometime after, intent on finding a few contacts of his that he claimed knew the terrain to the north. Obsun was busy finding rations for everyone that wouldn't spoil.
Which just left Ioanna and Tuera alone at the headquarters. But even Tuera had disappeared suddenly, offering no explanation... and Ioanna wasn't quite sure of what to do with herself. As she found herself wandering through the warehouse, she could hear the desert wind outside the warehouse blowing loudly, throwing dust and small stones against the outer walls and only barely muffled. However, the air inside the building felt... stagnant. With no one around, the emptiness of this place felt palpable.
Ioanna did not care for it.
"Oh, hey there cutie!" the familiar, vaguely alien voice of Monty squawked from the other side of the room. "They leave you here all by your lonesome, too?" His red eyes flashed with every syllable as he spoke; the silvery snake staff was standing upright, just like he was earlier, wedged between a pair of sandstone bricks in the floor.
"Yes, it would seem so..." she muttered softly. Ioanna began to slowly make her way over to the staff, and with every step she could see the glowing red eyes glitter and glisten, like rubies in a treasure box. And even though she knew that the wide open maw of the metal snake-staff was frozen in place, she could almost swear that he was smiling... Surely, just a trick of the light?
"That's great news!" Monty exclaimed with a chuckle as she approached, just out of arms reach now. "Why don't we make the most of this opportunity, eh?" Ioanna halted in her tracks, the confusion evident on her face.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, see the sights, of course!" Monty said with yet another convivial laugh. "As you can imagine, I never really got out much before now. I mean, I was stuck in that pit of slug runoff for near a thousand years! We could take this opportunity to really explore the world outside these walls!" His red eyes gleamed brightly once more. "You can't spend all your time hanging around the others like a lost puppy, eh? You and I should do something, to better prepare for the inevitable trials ahead! And believe you me, we'll definitely need to prepare for some of these! Ha-ha! What do you say?"
Ioanna regarded his words, first with suspicion, then with curiosity. He did seem to have a point, in a strange way... She thought back to when she first met Tuera, days ago, and even before then with Aesif. Ever since she had been unceremoniously dumped into the Exiled Lands, she had spent every moment... surrounded by others. Being protected.
Her mind was cast back to her former life in her homeland of Brythunia; barely more than a month ago, and yet it felt like years. How often she had been able to slip away from the notice of that boorish 'King of Oafs' and the rest of the court. The solitude then had been a comfort. A welcome relief. But here, in the Exiled Lands? Where danger and death awaited any and all who let their guard down, for even a moment? In Brythunia, she could exist freely, since she was in her element. But here...
She was merely a burden.
"Well... I..." she began. Ioanna could not deny, there was... something... strangely tempting about this snake-staff's proposal. And if she had taken the time to look down, she would have understood: the gemstone of jade set in the serpent bracelet round her wrist was glittering and glowing, just as it always did when magic was afoot.
Instead, something else snapped her out of her thoughts. The sound of someone humming was echoing through the building somehow, and she looked up and away from the staff to try and locate the source. At the other end of the warehouse, through a doorway leading into a narrow hallway, Ioanna could see Tuera quickly walking past. She was carrying what looked to be a pile of scrolls in one arm, and was humming softly to herself, heading to her destination with such purpose that Ioanna would have missed her pass entirely had she turned around even a second too late.
"Perhaps later!" Ioanna said quickly, before turning on her heel and leaving the staff behind.
"Damn..." Monty muttered angrily under his breath. Ioanna had already disappeared, and didn't even hear him.
"Tuera!" Ioanna said, finally catching up to her. "There you are!"
She had arrived in a makeshift laboratory, much like the temporary one Tuera had created in the caravanserai the other day, only this one was somehow even more cluttered. Beakers and vials filled with unknown liquids littered the various tables, surrounded on all sides by arcane devices of unknown use, and Ioanna could only speculate on the purposes of each. Sheets of parchment, covered in all manner of arcane symbols and mathematical formulae, were posted on nearly every inch of available wall space.
"Oh! How fortunate, your timing is impeccable," Tuera said with a wry grin, turning from her stack of rolled up parchment to face her. "I was actually just about to come find you."
"You... were?" Ioanna faltered slightly, caught off guard.
"Well, yes, after I finished up the wards," Tuera said, picking up one of the scrolls. "With everyone else running their various errands, and what not, I thought we could take this time to have another quick lesson in magic!" she smiled broadly, a slightly manic look in her eyes. "I wanted to test out my hypothesis first before I found you, though. After all, no point getting your hopes up only to discover that, whoops, I was wrong about this one. But, good news! It appears to work, and I think I've found another loophole! It's all very exciting."
Ioanna recalled what Tuera had said the other day, during their first alchemy lesson, about how magic was fundamentally about loopholes... but before she could inquire further, Tuera was already speaking excitedly again, unrolling one of the scrolls and flattening it out on the table.
"Truth be told, I did suspect that this was going to work, since the hermetic circle I carved on the alchemy table the other day still seems to be working as intended. But honestly, that's an entirely different system than this one." Tuera finished unrolling the parchment, and revealed a pentacle, shaped vaguely like a star, surrounded by several rings of concentric circles and various characters that she had never seen before, and could not read. "Pulling in ambient mana to create a single spark acting as the catalyst in an alchemical reaction is one thing; creating a spellcraft inscription that draws in enough energy to kickstart a self-sustaining event, and which requires no input from a sentient caster? That's something else entirely!"
Ioanna said nothing at first and merely nodded, while Tuera rattled off strange words and phrases at a breakneck pace. She wasn't even going to pretend that she understood half of what Tuera was talking about, but if the other day was any indication, it was best to just... let her get the excitement out of her system, first. Then, more understandable explanations will come later.
"Now, from a purely technical standpoint," Tuera continued, gesturing at the parchment. "...this specific protection ward scroll is a relatively low level affair. At least compared to the things I was used to dealing with, before being trapped here. But I think it will suit our purposes quite nicely."
"Purposes?" Ioanna asked.
"I'm not sure how long we're going to be gone during our little trek up north to find the Diadem," Tuera began. "And even though this warehouse we're using is on the outskirts of Sepermeru, it's possible some enterprising thief may see us leave, and see an opportunity."
"You mean like Shevatas?" Ioanna said, trying (and failing) to hold back a smirk as she recalled their first meeting with the Zamorian thief.
"Exactly. And while I'd prefer to give someone like that a job, bringing them into the fold as it were, I'm not sure how well it would work when I'm not actually here." Tuera flashed a wide grin, her sharpened canines glinting in the light filtering in through the window. "So, I've prepared a few wards that we can place around the warehouse, ensuring that our headquarters here remains secure from all but the most determined of troublemakers while we're away. After all, a deadbolt on the door is good, but very little in this place is likely to beat a glyph of Impenetrable Fortress."
"So... wait," Ioanna furrowed her brow, looking back down at the scroll on the table. "What are we actually doing?" She expected the answer to be something like helping Tuera paste them on the walls around their headquarters, like the other scrolls she saw adorning the walls of this magical laboratory. But no.
"I thought I would teach you a few basics. Simple runes, a little theory, some introductory syntax for the construction of basic spellcraft for use on scrolls. Something like this..." Tuera tapped the scroll several times. "... might be a little too advanced for right now, but who knows? You could surprise me like last time!"
"Last time..." Ioanna muttered to herself, looking away. She recalled their previous lesson: she had felt so clumsy and utterly buffoonish the entire time. The entire lesson, she'd only managed to successfully make a single potion, and it seemed nowhere near as impressive as the example Tuera had crafted with such effortless precision. She kept replaying the events, over and over in her mind... and they bled into other memories. Every moment over the last few weeks, where she either couldn't do what was needed, or simply wasn't good enough. The memories started to run together in her mind, like fresh paint under the pouring rain, and it all just reinforced how she kept thinking of herself now...
Useless.
"Why are you wasting your time on someone like me?" Ioanna asked softly, sitting down in a nearby chair and refusing to look Tuera in the eye. She rested her hands on her knees, balling them into tight fists, her knuckles popping from the motion. Tuera saw this, and furrowed her brow in concern.
"I would hardly call this wasted time," she said. "Honesty, you're a natural at this sort of thing!"
"How can you even say that?" Ioanna asked, still looking away and genuinely confused. "You saw what happened last time. We never even got to some of the other potions you told me about, because the only one I didn't screw up was a single weak healing potion. How is that -" Before Ioanna could finish, Tuera quickly cut her off.
"Because making even a single potion – on your first day of lessons, and with no prior magical education or tutelage – is an achievement very few can manage," she said simply. "Do you want to know how long it takes most alchemists before they can make their first viable potion? Months of practice, usually, and this is already on top of years and years and years of learning fundamentals."
"Wh- really?" Ioanna asked, looking up, a glimmer of hope starting to edge out the doubt in her mind. "Was it like that when you learned?" Tuera's expression faltered slightly, and she held up a finger in protest.
"O-okay, first of all: I'm a bad yardstick to measure yourself against, for a multitude of reasons that I'm not going to get into now," she said, quickly trying to regain the momentum. "But trust me on this. I've seen a lot of wizards, warlocks, mages... I've seen all sorts who have been at this for years and weren't able to pick up brand new ideas the way I saw you do the other day."
Ioanna lowered her head and looked away again, clearly still not convinced. So Tuera leaned over, getting herself to eye level, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Considering what happened this morning, she knew exactly what Ioanna's current lack of confidence was really about, and decided to cut right to the heart of the matter:
"Look, I get it. You've been through a lot lately, and it has left you scarred, and feeling broken. Believe me when I say: this is normal. You're not used to this sort of lifestyle of adventure and magic, and the initial shock will always take a toll. Even those who think they're prepared can wind up broken when they get their first taste of this life, and you never had the kind of advantage of knowing it was coming. But you are much stronger than you know. You have talent, you just need to learn how to harness it..." Ioanna looked up just in time to see Tuera smile, her red eyes twinkling in the light. "And I know that you will, in time. You will take this strength that lives within you, you will face the monsters in your mind, and I know that you will overcome them. Because you are better than them."
Tuera stood back up, and offered her open palm to Ioanna.
"I can show you how, if you'll let me."
Ioanna did nothing at first, except gaze at the hand in front of her face. There was a feeling welling up inside her that... she didn't know what it was, exactly. She couldn't place it. This feeling flooded her limbs, tied up her insides into knots, and sent a shock of pinpricks up her spine. Instinctively, she bit her lower lip, and knew immediately that she wanted more.
Ioanna took Tuera's outstretched hand, and was lifted back on her feet.