Chapter Eight
Selaena walked on in silence, letting the two talk. Up a hill, down the other side, over a small wooden bridge, and into a lightly-forested area, the road dwindling to little more than a wide path of packed earth. Abruptly she stopped and glanced about. Yes...this was familiar. Glancing back to beckon, she strode up the bank of the road and vanished between a pair of small trees, lightly rustling the leaves.
The two paused to either side of the gap into which she had disappeared, glancing to each other with small thoughtful frowns...then exchanged a nod and slipped through, Ellisia going first and Aric following grudgingly behind. Once through, each once again stood to either side, Ellisia with her hands on her hips and Aric with his arms crossed.
It was clear that this had been used for a campsite not very long ago. A bare spot, now scorched, had a ring of stones set up around it. A secluded little place, one could spot the road through the foliage, but unless deliberately poking around for it, it would be difficult to find. Turning so she could rest her back on a tree trunk, she inquired softly, "Good enough?"
"Satisfactory," Ellisia said as she tugged at a low-hanging leaf nearby, speaking in a tone that suggested she was offering a generous estimation.
Aric, on the other hand, was for once focused entirely upon this newcomer with apparently similar troubles to their own. Exactly when he opened his mouth to speak, however, was when Ellisia decided to drop the midnight-blue armor slung over her shoulder with a conspicuously loud rattling, drowning out Aric's words and causing him to flinch and glare halfheartedly at her. Clearing his throat as she dusted off her hands, he returned his attention forward again. "Okay. We've done introductions. What comes next? I'm sure we all have questions."
The bells tinkled wildly as the White Sorceress jumped at the clatter, her wide sky-blue eyes momentarily flashing to the source of the sound. Then, catching that ruby gaze on her, she fidgeted restlessly, the bells jingling softly. "...well, yes," she answered quietly after a moment, "I have a multilevel of questions. I think I had better start with asking why the Guard wanted my staff." Her delicate brow creased a little with concern as her grip tightened on the smooth surface.
Aric bit back the urge to correct her, realizing that at this rate he would be doing so every other breath. Again the two adventurers exchanged a glance, before looking back to her. And again, it was Aric who spoke. "Well, first off, may we see the staff for a moment? I want to check something." Ell suddenly glanced at him, questioningly, but he ignored her for now.
He wasn't prepared for what came in response to his request. Yelping and edging back like he'd asked she perform a striptease, the young woman clutched the staff to her so hard he feared she'd warp or break it, her knuckles paling over the ivory-braced shaft. Screwing her eyes tightly shut, she nearly squeaked out, "Shadow Web!" As though the light had changed direction above, her shadow stretched out across the ground, just far enough to touch both of theirs...and in so doing, render them immobile. Aric blinked in surprise; then narrowed his eyes slightly. After all his dealings with Emilio Van Strahd, to be caught like this...
"I-I'm sorry," Selaena apologized hastily, meekly, as she shifted her weight awkwardly from foot to foot. "But I can't let you have it. This is the only momentum I have...!"
"Memento," he corrected dryly.
"That's what I said."
He sighed, tiredly. "...well. You know, I think there are more civil ways to go about this," he said with deceptive calm, in spite of the ominous twitching of one azure eyebrow. Ellisia, herself, seemed at too great a loss for words to even speak, though the gauntlet of ire, indignation and wrath that her expression went through said perhaps more than enough. "There are harder ways to do it, too, but I'd really rather not resort to something like violence when a simple 'no, I'd much rather you not' would suffice."
"I-I didn't say you couldn't look," Selaena hedged, almost like a child. "But I have to be certified--"
"--certain."
"--that you won't take it. This staff is the only thing I own, and the only thing I have left of my people."
His own twitching eyebrow, while a similar sign of unpleasantness to come, was nevertheless rather more subdued than Ellisia's boiling kettle of thwarted rage. His tone, however, remained relatively cool, while the blonde seemed beyond the point of words. "Well, as a White Sorceress I think you'll need to work on your people skills. You get a better reaction with that kind of request if you ask a little less rudely. Ell?"
Startlingly, the young woman's expression smoothed into regal composition almost instantaneously, as her voice rose in echoing cadences of incantation. "Light, born from the flame; gather to my hands and be my power!" In spite of the fact that her hands were still at her hips, illumination flared from both of them, lancing from within the gaps between fingers and folds in fabric, bathing the small campsite with light and erasing both their shadows--and thus, countering the spell.
"Now, how about we try this again?" Aric said, as Ellisia examined immaculate nails and fluffed her radiant hair again. "May we...look at your staff and compare it to something?"
Toppling backward to her rump in astonishment as the young woman freed them, the bells jounced as she clutched the six-foot-long object across her middle. When she nervously lifted her head to glance between the adventurers, her almond-shaped eyes sparkled with tears. "You...you will not take it?" she asked quietly.
Nodding slowly, Aric slowly uncrossed his arms and stepped over to kneel next to the armor suit. Ellisia was still busy verifying her immaculate appearance in a small hand-mirror she had produced from apparently nowhere, so the blue-haired sorcerer ignored her and took a moment to study the suit first-hand, as the only part of the set he hadn't gotten a good look at.
The armor was more ornamental than utilitarian, based less on principles of maximized maneuverability and protection in combat and more on style, like a king's ceremonial wear. Whatever metal it was made of, the entire affair was in varying shades of blue, save for the golden filigree that swirled across the breastplate, greaves and vambraces. Even the chainmail was a deep ocean-blue, one of the darkest shades he'd ever seen. The elaborate pauldrons on each shoulder were fashioned into the likenesses of dragonish heads sans lower-jaws, and the ends of the vambraces made to cover the back of the hand were in the form of stylized talons. He smirked, slightly, to notice the pattern almost completed--save for the staff itself, oddly enough.
Examination through, he disconnected the vambrace plates from one side of the armor suit, leaving only the deep blue chainmail behind. Stepping closer toward the reluctant White Sorceress, as though approaching a frightened rabbit in the wild, he brought the armor closer to her staff. While she watched him curiously, cautiously, she allowed the approach and even hesitantly lifted the Artifact a little. With a soft hum, almost inaudible first but gradually picking up in pitch as they drew closer together, a subdued glow flared up along the length of the staff and around the traceries of the armor. When the light cleared, left running along both places were sets of shimmering runes--a sight that even drew Ellisia's attention from her exercise in vanity, her dark eyes wide.
Selaena's braid jogged free again as she sharply shook her head, and inquired pleadingly, "What's that? What have you done to my staff? What's going on?"
"Aric?" Ell spoke up in a similar, but less frantic tone.
"I've seen magic like this before," Aric explained, even as he hastily pulled the vambrace back and edged a safe distance away. Even as the distance was renewed, both objects lost their glow, the runes fading to nothingness and leaving both pieces completely unmarked. "I'll bet you a year's supply of Amnesia Dust that if you bring the Token close to these two, more writing will appear on it as well." Somehow, Ellisia managed to remain silent even as he handed the vambrace off to her, merely accepting it and moving to reattach it to the rest of the suit. Then he turned back to Selaena, whose wide eyes seemed almost unaware of the vanishing markings. "Are you sure you won't part with that staff? If what we're beginning to suspect is true, it could be dangerous to keep it. We can reimburse you, or replace it...whatever it takes. We really, really need that staff..."
But Selaena clutched the staff to her middle, so hard that it almost seemed the bones of her hands would emerge through the skin. "N-No!" she said in a startling display of vehemence. "No amount of reinvesting is possible! Haven't you heard me? This is all I have of my parents, their home, their past--my past! I can't give it up! I won't be able to learn anything without it!"
"H-Hey, wait...!" he tried to placate hastily, his hands raised in a gesture of surrender as he backed off. This was getting too complicated for comfort, all of a sudden. "There's no need to be unreasonable about this, lady..." A slender hand plucked lightly at his sleeve, at the elbow, and he glanced over his shoulder.
"Let me handle this, Aric," Ellisia said loftily, tugging him back by the pinched fabric and then focusing her formidable gaze upon the timid sorceress. "Listen, dear. It seems to me that all of us share a similar problem, regardless of who carries which of these Artifacts, and that is that every human and his brother seems eager to claim them all by hook or by crook. You need this staff of yours to find your...answers, or whatever. We need this staff in order to perform a complex unsealing ritual that will lead to a treasure lost since the days of the last Mazoku War, when Elves and Dragons both cooperated to create magical wonders. Let's weigh benefits, here, and be nice and reasonable."
The bells jangled as she planted the staff's blunt end on the ground firmly and leaned against it. The wild look eased from her expression by degrees as she thought over the regal young woman's words. "Well..." she hedged thoughtfully, "I could let you make use of it, if you would not mind having me along." Her eyes hesitantly sought out each of the others' as she added, "And m-may I ask to seek my answers as we travel?"
While Aric was highly reluctant about this, Ellisia steamrolled ahead without so much as half a glance in his direction for approval, confirmation or even acknowledgment. "Fair is fair, dearie. You get your answers, we get our coin back and I get my Zenafa Armor!" For the briefest moment, as she looked aside and vaguely heavenward, she seemed almost literally starry-eyed as she struck an exaggeratedly noble pose and let visions of glory dance before her eyes. The moment passed in a blink, and she turned away and went back to primping her hair. "Aric, be a dear and start us delicate ladies a fire, will you? It's been a long day and I, for one, am not budging so much as another furlong."
"Start your own fire," he grumped, flopping down to sit in the grass and then blatantly laid back, folding his hands behind his head. "I wanna go to sleep. I'm not moving another inch until I catch about eighty winks."
In a sudden fit of generosity and goodwill--prompted in large part by Ellisia's booted foot grinding into his face--Aric had a change of heart and decided he would, indeed, collect the makings for firewood. To his surprise, Selaena moved to help as well, unbidden, and even started the fire herself with a weak fire spell.
"Honestly, dear," Ellisia spoke up as Aric continued to gather up firewood to the edge of the clearing, in spite of the fire having already been started, "You really didn't need to do that. It's the gentleman's job to take care of such things as building fires and whatnot when he's with two refined ladies in the wilderness."
Struggling mightily to resist chucking a block of wood at the blonde, Aric stooped to collect another.
"After all, why should we have to do work when we have a perfectly good pack-mu--" Donk! Suddenly Ellisia lurched to the side and then came up, rubbing the side of her head and then delicately adjusting the disarrayed strands of hair as Aric casually went back to wood collecting, his urge vented. "--Ah, that is, traveling cohort," the woman continued with a little glare in Aric's direction, before looking steadily back to Selaena, "to do it for us?"
"Because I can help," the lavender-haired sorceress murmured quietly, staring into the miniature flames as she settled her staff across her knees. "And because he trusted me, a stranger."
With her hair more or less back in proper condition and Aric once again preoccupied with his work, Ellisia reached up to remove the flowing white mantle she wore, smoothing it out on the grass and then lowering herself to sit cross-legged on the inner lining, as deep a black as her fathomless eyes. "Well, as you would have it. But if you're going to follow me in my travels you're going to have to learn how to travel in luxury. What else are sidekicks fo--" Donk! "--What else are compatriots for?" This time she looked distinctly disgruntled, but instead of commenting she neatly placed the two pieces of hurled firewood side-by-side, ready to be added to the fire at such time as was needful. Then she saw to her hair once more, this time continuing to comb fingers through it here and there even after undoing the damage. "Now about this staff of yours. Why so viciously protective to the point of un-provoked magical paralysis?"
Selaena took a deep, steadying breath, taking a cross-legged seat of her own with her staff laid across her lap, folding her hands across the shaft. "This staff is the only tangible clue I have to the answers of who my people are and why I was sent away with my parents...and this." She patted the staff lightly, then let her gaze fall to the dancing flame again. "...I was the only surveyor of a shipwreck, when I was little," she murmured, "and this was found close by me."
"Survivor, dear."
"That's what I said."
"Hmm..." Frowning slightly, Ellisia lifted a hand to her delicate chin, thumb absently stroking the line of her petite jaw. "I can't imagine why, unless your parents were trying to unearth the Zenafa Armor as well...
Returning at last, Aric bent down to arrange his collected firewood atop the stack Ellisia had begun with his two projectiles, before joining at a point to one side of the campfire in a kind of unconnected triangle, not bothering to remove and sit on his cape the way his companion had. "Could have been trying to hide it, you know," he put in, glancing back and forth between the two. "You know, from the wrong kind of people. These things don't make their way to boobytrapped sorcery labs and dungeons on their own."
"It is possible." Selaena admitted quietly. After a moment of silence, she took a breath and started, "Have you ever seen a mark like this before?" Gesturing at the concentric triangles on her right cheekbone, she explained, "The others from the wreck all had the same mark."
Shrugging slightly, for his part, Aric turned a questioning glance on Ellisia--who could only shake her head with a small frown. "Certainly not familiar. And I'm familiar with most different forms of racial and religious markings," the blonde replied reluctantly, as though galled to admit that even this was beyond her knowledge.
Aric spoke up again, drawing up one knee and propping an elbow upon it. "Was there anything else like that staff on the ship at all? Anything with similar markings?"
She shook her head slowly, then tucked her braid behind her ear again. Glancing at her left wrist, she mentioned, "But this was all over fragments of chests, pieces of railing...and the ribbons." Lifting her left arm, she drew back the rose-maroon sleeve to reveal another black tattoo; it wound vinelike around her wrist, the leaves shaped like little flames.
Again an exchange of glances and, again, no sign of recognition. "I'm terribly sorry, dear," Ellisia replied helplessly at last, spreading her hands and shaking her head sympathetically, "but neither one of those markings looks familiar in the slightest. But I'm sure we'll have the chance to do a good deal of looking along the way--likely we'll have to chase that platinum-haired cretin and his sword-toting slattern from here to the ruins of Sairaag and beyond, with the head start he has." Giving Aric a hard look, she continued in a tone that didn't match her own narrowed eyes. "We've got two pieces to his one, now. He'll likely try and find a place to hide the one he has before seeking ours."
But Aric shook his head, crossing his arms stubbornly. "No, you don't know Emilio like I do, Ell. He's a man of drama--well, okay, he's a loon. He'll be coming after us, probably, and we can't just go around lugging this armor like this. It's noisy, it's cumbersome and it's heavy and I just know I'd be the one expected to carry it!"
Resettling her sleeve with a little half-disappointed sigh, she cradled the staff with one arm. Glancing up at the pair of them, she inquired innocently, "Can't it be worn? Isn't that what armor's for?"
"Well...setting aside the fact that it isn't exactly sized for either of us," Ellisia said glibly despite an awkward bead of sweat, as Aric himself was busily occupied getting better acquainted with the grass, "this is a suit of enigmatic enchanted armor that defies all forms of magical probing and identification. It could do anything from locking itself magically into place--never to be removed again--to changing the wearer into a hideous freakish beast. Or, Lord of Nightmares forbid, even change the wearer's gender. Did you know there have been crackpot human sorcerers in the past who made those kinds of things as practical jokes?"
A bead of sweat rolled down Selaena's temple. "Oh...that might be a problem." she acknowledged. Fidgeting a little, she let the silence stretch on for a moment as the daylight started to fade. "...if you have some rope and can cut a pair of straight young saplings, I can build a pully to carry it on." she offered.
"You mean a litter of some kind?" Aric asked once he had righted himself, frowning and glancing over his shoulder at the suit in question. "But that would still be so cumbersome. We wouldn't be able to move with any speed, and if there came a point where we had to move fast we'd have to abandon it. I still say we need someplace secure we can store it."
Ellisia, however, rolled her eyes. "Ah yes, of course. You mean like the complex trap-ridden underground dungeons where we found them behind armies of guardian-monsters and pitfalls and collapsing ceilings."
"How far to the closest?" Selaena inquired softly, apparently trying to sound practical.
For a moment they both simply stared at her, the sarcasm evidently lost on the poor hapless sorceress. Exchanging a glance, they decided to simply cleared their throats in almost-unison and steer the subject back toward a possible solution.
"Uhm...let's see..." Aric muttered, planting his palms on his knees and hunching his head between his shoulders as he thought. "Hanging around and waiting for Emilio to come to us is out. We might have to try putting it on, nevermind whether it fits or not. Unless we can find some patsy to try it on for us and see if he gets cursed or not." ...slowly, they both turned to look at the lavender-haired girl.
Blinking, she looked up...and gave them both a bewildered "what, me??" look. Gazing appraisingly at the object under question, she gently shook her head. "I don't think I would fit, either."
Reluctantly at first, they glanced between her and the suit for a moment--as though seriously contemplating a bit of judicious resizing--and then simply shook their heads. "No good. What we need is some big dumb brawny type," Ellisia grumped, propping her delicate chin onto the heel of one hand and sighing just shy of dramatically. "Or at least somebody taller than five feet."
Glowering for some undisclosed reason, Aric crossed his arms and grunted.
"I wonder if a Flow Break might work on it..." Selaena speculated aloud, tucking her braid behind her ear again, the emerald swinging gently over her shoulder.
"Not enough power," Ellisia dismissed with a small frown and a wave of her hand...though it left a thoughtful expression on her face, "But perhaps the right track. What we need is a higher level of spell-breaking...spell."
Glancing over his shoulder toward the armor, Aric grunted. "Shouldn't we find somebody to put it on first? We don't even know if it has a curse on it for sure, and it'd probably get a priest pretty pissed if we brought it up for nothing. Assuming we can even find a priest who won't turn us in to the Seyrune militia."
"Perhaps one might be found close to the other." Selaena shrugged, fingers idly tracing over the material of her staff. "The best luck might likely be in the country; a sleepy little town where news of the caparison doesn't come through as often... It's the best I can think of, anyway."
"News of the...?" Aric started, not even sure what correction to supply this time, but Ellisia thankfully had her priorities straighter, and she drew herself up to a higher seated pose and spoke imperiously.
"You're both still ignoring our biggest problem, and that's how to transport it! I'm not about to lug this thing on my shoulder as we go traipsing about the countryside from town to town, and Aric is being a wimp and won't carry it either--" Donk. As she fixed her hair, Ell looked from the chunk of firewood lying on her cape beside her, to the pile nearby that was conspicuously missing a piece, and up to an entirely too innocent-looking Aric who was busy rooting through his pockets for something.
"Ugh! You know what? Hell with it. Aric? Go put the Armor on."
"Bite me," he answered politely, already easing himself to lie down again and curl up in his cloak. "I wanna go to sleep."
"Fine. Then I'll put it on." At first, Aric ignored what was obviously some attempt to wheedle him into stopping her, until he heard her footsteps approach the suit and heard the metal begin to rattle as it was lifted. Pushing himself unhappily to sit up, he glanced questioningly to Selaena, who merely sat watching and awkwardly scratching her cheek.
Frowning, he turned to Ellisia herself, who had already donned the chainmail shirt and leggings and was beginning to buckle the greaves in place.
"Sh-Shouldn't we...you know, stop her?" Selaena asked, hesitantly. Aric just shook his head.
"Nah. Might be fun to watch. I'd recommend you move back a bit, though." He was already edging away, keeping wary eyes on Ell as she worked. He hadn't expected her to actually do it, but it might end up being worth a cheap laugh--he wasn't really worried, since most of the time when sorcerers cursed their artifacts with anything fatal, the curses would take effect upon touching the relic rather than donning it.
Selaena scooted back the same as he, placing a goodly distance between themselves and Ellisia even as she slipped the breastplate--thankfully already buckled together and large enough to pull on--down over her head and moved for the vambraces at last. While the effect thus far was still a little large on her, the contrast wasn't as stark as Aric had expected, which made him begin to suspect multiple layers of enchantment.
For a long moment, once she had buckled the second vambrace into place...it seemed nothing would happen. Ellisia stood, tapping her foot expectantly, but completely unchanged. Aric, Ell and Selaena were just about to heave a collective sigh of relief, when--
the clearing exploded. Well, not in the most literal sense, that would have left charred and blackened bodies and a crater pockmarking the earth. But there was a clap of localized thunder, an explosion of light and force that sent both Aric and Selaena tumbling end-over-end until they reached the fringe of the clearing and were stopped by trees. The last he saw of Ellisia before the whiteness blinded him completely was her dark eyes, instantly seeking his out the minute the explosion started, and her mouth opening in the beginnings of a silent scream, two syllables he couldn't quite make out.
Then it was done. The light dimmed, the blast receded to nothingness, and the wind faded to silence. All was as before, even the campfire untouched, and Ellisia...