"Johanne," Violet asked from the open door to his office, "do you have a moment?"

"Always for you, my dear," he beamed at her. "Come in and have a seat."

Crossing the room, she sat in the chair across the desk from him. The desk was an untidy mess, with maps covering the entire surface two or three layers deep and sheets of parchment with lists hastily written scattered on top of them. The map Johanne had been studying, from what she could see from her view, was of lands to the north.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Do you know my story?" she started.

He nodded, "Tamirell and Tamival filled me in before they left."

Good, she thought. At least she didn't have to go over that again.

"Well, I've been thinking and I'm not sure I want to go back to my world anymore."

Johanne sat back in his chair, "no?"

"I miss it, sometimes, but I was alone there. I couldn't openly practice my magic, what little there was of it. I had no purpose, no goals. No life," she finished simply. "I just existed from day to day, drifting along pointlessly."

When he didn't comment, she continued, "here, though I've been in danger more than I've been safe, here I feel alive. Like I could have a purpose. I already have friends. And best of all, I don't have to hide my magic from anyone."

"So, what is the problem? I'm assuming there is one."

"The problem is finding that purpose. Finding something for me to do. I mean, I just can't stay here forever."

"Hum," he hummed. "Do you want to be a Harper?"

"Maybe. What else is out there for me to do?"

"Would you want to stay in Shadowdale?"

"Maybe. Storm offered to take me on as her apprentice."

"That's quite the honor," he told her.

"I know."

"But?"

"But," she sighed, "I'm not sure that I want to spend more years in study. I've spent most of my life studying. I'm ready for something else."

"Well, if you don't want to be a Harper…," he started.

"I didn't say that," she interrupted.

"Okay," he started over, "if you decide not to become a Harper, there are still plenty of opportunities here for you. This is a major road into and out of the Dalelands. Many adventurers come through here. Someone skilled in alchemy or enchantments would have a steady customer flow."

Violet's mind immediately went to the jewelry she had in her room. Could she duplicate the spells? She hadn't tried enchantment since she had been transported to this world.

"I don't know," she muttered.

"So, it seems you don't know quite a lot. Young woman, I think you need to make up your mind about what you want before you go any further. That might help you a lot more than I can."

She nodded in agreement, "you're right. I'm just wasting your time."

"Don't worry about that. I'm always happy for an interruption from work."

She smiled her thanks at him and took her leave.

Later that day, she sat at the table in her room, her eyes closed. She carefully built a picture in her mind of her grimoire back on earth in the same way she had for her new grimoire here in Faerun.

After leaving Johanne, she had indeed come to a decision. If she wanted more spells to learn as well as potions and enchantments, she needed access to her family's grimoires. There were numerous examples of all throughout their pages, especially the ones from her ancestors. However, she wasn't willing to risk their grimoires right away. Despite her success at summoning the one from Highmoon, she wasn't going to take a chance that something could go dreadfully wrong summoning them across dimensions. That's why she was starting with her personal tome. Its destruction, though painful, would not be as horrific as the destruction of the other four.

Concentrating, she spoke the words, "èist thigibh a m'ionnsuidh a nis!"

This time, she felt a resistance she hadn't felt before, but she doubled down and forcefully willed the spell to work, "èist thigibh a m'ionnsuidh a nis!"

There was a sharp pull from within her, much like when Aseiohiamenti had tried to wrench her magic forcefully from her, then a loud bang as the grimoire exploded into the space over the table, flinging parchment all over the room. Nori shot up into the air with a screech and disappeared.

Grimly, Violet picked up the pieces. Torn and scorched beyond use, the tome was destroyed. There would be no attempts to retrieve the other four books.

Unnaturally tired from the effort and depressed by the loss, she lay down and drifted off into a troubled sleep.

Violet practically skipped down the road towards the village. Word had arrived that the fighting was over, and the brave defenders of the realm would be back in two days' time. It was a cause for celebration and Johanne was preparing for a feast at the hall to welcome everyone back. In the meantime, she was going into Shadowdale to shop for presents for her friends. Hopefully, this time she would actually give them the gifts she bought for them!

The lovely late summer weather that had graced the land for the last few weeks had given way to overcast, stormy skies that hinted at the coming winter. The farmers were busy gathering their harvests to beat the turn of the weather. Still, though cool and breezy, the day wasn't uncomfortable, just a bit gloomy.

Cresting a hill, she started to see an unusual figure standing in the road, waiting for her.

"Ah, there you are!" Sabah clapped her plump hands together. "I was beginning to worry that I misjudged your pace and missed you."

"You were waiting for me?" she asked.

"Of course," the sorceress answered. "Why else would I be here?"

"What do you want?" she asked in a terser tone than she intended.

Sabah tutted as she approached Violet, "are you still in a snit about your magic?"

Violet planted her hands on her hips and retorted, "you were less than helpful."

"Yes, I was, wasn't I," Sabah said thoughtfully. "That's why I brought this for you."

The sorceress held out her hands, palms up, and a thick tome appeared, hovering over them. She smiled benevolently at Violet.

"What is that?"

"Aseiohiamenti's grimoire, of course," she pronounced.

"You're giving it to me?" Violet asked hesitantly.

"I certainly don't need it," the sorceress said with a sniff of disdain.

Violet reached out to take the tome but paused just centimeters away.

"Is it safe?"

"Smart child," Sabah grinned. "I've disabled all the traps set on it. It's safe enough that a babe could play with it and get naught but a papercut."

Violet took the book from her and flipped through the pages. The words were all unintelligible to her.

"I can't read this," she said flatly.

"Nothing a simple translation spell can't fix," Sabah assured her.

Thinking about it, Violet thought she could work it out if she put her mind to it. Just like the spell to identify the enchanted jewelry.

"Thank you," she told Sabah sincerely.

Sabah gave her a mocking bow.

Curiosity about the fate of the buried city and its inhabitants she asked, "what about the city and everyone in it?"

"Well, they're minus a sorcerer, but luckily for them I'm there," Sabah told her.

"And they are all back where they belong?"

"Not yet," the sorceress said. "The king and his mother are not too excited about their city being relocated to the middle of a desert. So, I'm working with them to find a more suitable place. Maybe somewhere in the mountains just to the west of here. As far as I can tell, there are no major settlements there."

"Just a bunch of blood thirsty undead." Violet shivered at the memory.

Sabah waved a dismissive hand, "easily taken care of. Do not worry about us. Now," she changed the subject, "before I go, there's one more thing."

She reached into a pocket and pulled out a slim bracelet with a dark gem hanging from it. She held it out to Violet.

"This is for you also. A little bird told me you might need a little help on your quest."

Violet took the bracelet, "what quest?"

Sabah's shoulders moved in a semblance of a shrug, "the bird didn't say."

"Huh. What's it do?" she asked.

"That stone will pull in the direction you need to go and turn lighter as you get near your goal."

"How would it know what I need?"

"It's magic, child. Maybe it knows what's in your heart. Maybe it can read your mind. Maybe it knows your fate and keeps you on the right path. Who's to say?"

Satisfied that her duty had been dispatched, Sabah clapped her hands again, "well, if there's nothing more, I have a city that needs my expertise."

Unexpectedly, she reached out and grasped Violet's wrist. Casting her gaze about them, she spoke hurriedly in a hushed tone, "be careful, child. You are caught between powerful forces. Right now, you're just a pawn in their game. You need to change that. You might not be able to change your part in their plans, but you can change how you come out of it in the end."

Releasing her quickly, Sabah stepped back, twisted a ring on one of her thick fingers and disappeared, leaving a bewildered Violet alone in the middle of the road.

Forgetting about her trip into the village, Violet hurried back to the hall with the grimoire clutched tightly to her chest. She couldn't wait to peruse its pages.

First, she had to be able to read them.

Sitting at her table with the tome open to the first page, she carefully copied a few sentences from the first page onto a page she had torn out of her grimoire. After her epic failure while trying to summon her grimoire from earth, she was not going to take a chance on destroying this one. Putting aside Aseiohiamenti's grimoire, she focused on the sheet, imagining the strange writing changing into something she could easily understand.

"Èist eadar-theangachadh," she commanded.

The writing, which resembled Sanskrit to her untrained eyes, began to move on the paper. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the words changed into a neat print written in her hand.

On this day, the 61st day of King Taqi al-Ra IV, I, Aseiohiamenti Ursh Ei-uskh, have started my apprenticeship with the renown royal magician, Ameniritis Kar Ei-uskh. I vow that I will become the most powerful magician in history and crush those that would oppose me into dust under my sandals.

"He was full of himself even back then," she snorted reading the lines.

Setting the page aside, she pulled the tome back to her. Concentrating and speaking the incantation, she watched as the words on the page rearranged themselves into her handwriting.

"That's convenient," she said. "At least it's easy to read."

Flipping through the pages, she saw that every page up to halfway had been translated. Why the other half hadn't been was beyond her, but she would worry about that later. Pulling her grimoire and writing set close, she started reading.

The next day was again overcast. Violet was loath to crawl out of bed and face the day. The reading from Aseiohiamenti's apprenticeship had been difficult. His master had been a foul man who berated the young sorcerer at every turn, even beating him on occasion. Violet found herself feeling sorry for him, despite what he had tried to do to her.

Most of the spells were simple. Aseiohiamenti had called them cantrips and had chaffed at being forced to learn such low-level spells when he was already so powerful – at least in his mind. Violet had painstakingly copied them into her grimoire. There were a couple spells that she hesitated to copy. One was a psychic attack, the other poison. Both went against everything she was brought up to believe in and the life she had lived back on earth. But life here was more brutal and spells like these would have come in handy at times. She refrained from adding them to her grimoire for now, instead marking the pages so she wouldn't lose them.

The changes between Aseiohiamenti's abject misery and his grandiose boasting were jarring and combined with her precise reproductions of the spells, had left Violet with a headache.

Johanne's preparations for the return of the Harpers and their allies were going smoothly and didn't require her help. Though she still hadn't made it into the village to buy gifts for her friends, there would be plenty of time today to take care of it. She already had a good idea of what she wanted to get for each person and where to get it from, so it wouldn't take an inordinate amount of her time.

It was with that in mind, that she decided to go for a walk in the dales by herself, since Osvif had gone off somewhere without a word. Neither of them had seen any threats while they had been out on their walks.

She just wouldn't wander that far, she promised herself.

"Nori, do you want to come with me?"

The fae cracked one eye open, sneezed, then rolled over to face the wall.

"You're getting fat," Violet admonished her.

Nori's tails flicked as she huffed her disagreement.

"Well, don't expect me to carry you everywhere when you get too fat to fly."

Nori didn't respond.

"Suit yourself," Violet told her as she went to the door. On a whim, she stopped at the lockbox and pulled out the bracelet Sabah had given her. She wanted to see what it did and today would work as well as any day.

"Where are you off to, this morning?" Johanne asked her as she passed through the hectic main hall.

"I thought I'd go for a walk to wake up," she told him.

"There's a storm coming," he warned. "Don't get caught out in it. They can be powerful this time of year."

"I don't plan to be long," she promised. "I've a bunch of things to do before the others arrive."

He turned and plucked an oiled leather cape from a hook, "humor me and wear this, just in case."

Rolling her eyes at him, she threw it around her shoulders and tied it into place. Meant for a man, it hung past her knees and the hood fell in front of her eyes down to her chin. Johanne turned back the hood to uncover her eyes.

"I know, it's too big," he laughed. "But it will do for just a few hours, eh?"

"You'd make someone a great mother," she teased.

He swatted her with the rag he had been using on the table. "Enough of that talk!"

Laughing merrily and already feeling better, she dashed out the door, letting it bang shut behind her.

Outside, she stretched and breathed deeply the cool, damp air. Johanne was right, a storm was brewing, the sky was overcast and gray with heavy clouds peeking through the trees to the north. Weather reckoning had never been her forte, but even she could predict the oncoming storm. Nonetheless, she figured she only had two to three hours before it hit. Maybe she should just stick to the road.

As she strolled down the road towards the village, she pulled the bracelet out of her pocket. The chain was made from finely crafted bright silver links with a simple fishhook clasp. The links themselves were etched with a design too small to make out without a magnifying glass. A dark, opaque stone the size of her thumbnail dangled from a 2cm length of the chain.

Pausing, she fastened the bracelet around her wrist and held it out in front of her.

"Okay, how do I make this…Oh!"

Before she uttered the last word, the gem swung on the chain, stretching it out flat to lay against the underside of her wrist. It pointed towards the village.

"Huh, interesting."

Testing it, Violet slowly turned in a circle, watching as the gem moved to remain pointing to the west. If she focused, she thought she could feel a slight tug also, but it could have been her imagination.

"Well, I was already heading that way. I might as well see where you take me," she told it.

As she continued towards the village along the winding road, she could feel the stone moving as it stayed aligned with its intended destination, tickling her wrist. At the edge of Shadowdale, she noticed that the stone wasn't pointing at the village, but at an angle slightly to the north. She kept following the road through the village until she crossed the bridge and approached the House of the Lady. The gem's angle away from the road had increased the farther along she went until it was almost 45 degrees.

Violet looked north at the looming clouds trying to gauge how much time she had left. They were closer, but the storm didn't seem imminent. She had been walking for just under a half hour, another thirty minutes wouldn't hurt.

Sticking to the road, she continued west out of Shadowdale. Soon, the road turned to a more southernly route and away from the direction the bracelet wanted her to travel. Curiosity warred with caution. She wanted to see where the bracelet led, but every time she wandered off by herself, trouble inevitably found her. Still, she reasoned, she was better prepared now with all the training she had been given over the last month, and she had a few spells memorized and ready to use. At some point, she was going to have to stop relying upon others to protect her and take care of herself. This seemed like the perfect opportunity. This close to the village, what could possibly go wrong?

Her mind made up, she stepped off the road and into the tall grass, going northwest.

Walking through the grass was difficult, almost like wading through knee-deep water, but the field didn't extend far before ending at a tree line where the land began to slope gently upwards. Fae from the fields and the woods flitted around her chattering in their language. Violet laughed with delight. She had missed the mischievous little scamps and again she wondered why they avoided Osvif.

The forest was young, even Violet could easily wrap her arms around the largest trees and clasp her hands together. With the trees spread out, more sunlight reached the ground, encouraging the growth of underbrush and brambles that grabbed and snagged on her pants and the oiled cloak. Struggling through the tangles of vegetation, she wished she was back in the tall grasses of the fields.

A rumble of thunder overhead reminded her about the approaching storm. She wasn't ready to give up, but she didn't want to get caught out in it either. Sighing, she promised herself she would come back another day. A quick glance at the straining gem on her wrist made her stop. Lifting it to her eyes, she saw that the gem was no longer black. It had faded to a gray that was just a bit lighter than the clouds above her.

Biting her lip, she considered her choices. One, she could turn back now and make it back to the hall before the storm. If she did that, she wouldn't find out what the bracelet was leading her towards. Was it something that would still be there after the storm? Was it something that she needed to reach before the storm? What if it was someone in need of her help? Turning back now would be tantamount to abandoning them to their fate.

Two, she could continue and risk the storm. She had the cloak Johanne had insisted she wear. It would keep her relatively dry and warm, plus she had the patchy coverage of the forest around her. The thunder wasn't a clear indicator of the start of the storm, anyway. Back home, she had heard thunder for over an hour at times before storm struck.

As if encouraging her to continue, the clouds parted overhead just enough for a sliver of sunlight to shine down on the forest ahead of her. Three of the forest fae immediately began an impromptu flying dance within the golden ray of light, spinning circles around each other.

"Well, you can't get a much clearer sign than that," she told herself.