Not So Epic- Chapter 4

Familiar Faces...

Chapter Four

            A pair of pitch black serpents came to a halt at one of the archways in the cavern, rising up and hissing nervously as a hole opened in the air in the center of the chamber, its ragged edges warbling with a queer blue light. Visible through the hole was what appeared to be a similar cavern, but one which was lit from within by flickering torches of odd bluish flame. A pair of creatures stepped through the hole, radiating a power that not even the native demons and monsters of the mountain’s network of twisting tunnels could hope to match. The first of them appeared to be a man in a sleek black three-piece designer suit, his hands covered in thin leather driving gloves, his head covered with slicked-back crimson and black waved hair tied into a short ponytail. His face was long and angular, with a single deep pockmark scar on his left cheek, a sallow fellow who could have passed for Plague’s biblical cousin.

            Striding through the hole behind him came a much stranger creature, but one who might not stand out too much in certain areas of the realms of Tamalaria, a tall, raven-headed humanoid dressed in a black-and-white checkerboard suit, his feathered left hand clutching a shining silver microphone. His too-human eyes took in the surrounding cavern, and the snakes, sensing the ungodly power and intense madness inherent in this second figure, slithered away back into the darkness beyond the cavern.

            “So, where is the connection point from here back into her world,” the human-like fellow asked, tightening his gloves. “Do we at least have some general idea?”

            “Far to the west and slightly north,” replied the raven-headed man with a broad smile filled with needle-like teeth. “Our scouts inform me that it is inside of a monastery belonging to a rather storied monk brotherhood. Such orders are highly revered in this world, and often hold historic significance in world events. You know what to do once you arrive?”

            “I do,” said the human, his hair wavering as intense heat began flooding out of his body. Seconds later, orange flames licked out of his eyes and spiraled up into his hair, his entire head engulfed in otherworldly fire. He snapped his fingers, and the flames disappeared, as if they had never been. “I will not fail you, my liege.”

            “See that you don’t,” said the raven-headed creature, stepping back through the wavering hole. “Go now, Jago, and do your master’s bidding.” The hole warbled one more time, loudly, then crumpled in on itself, leaving the stranger standing alone in the cavern. He cast his eyes about, settled on an archway from whence he could spot faint daylight streaming in, and headed off that way, determined to accomplish his mission.

**

            Dren snorted and flapped his hands, coming up into a sitting position for just long enough to realize that the momentum of his snapping upright was enough to propel him backward, the stool tipping with a creak of aged wood as he tumbled to the floor with a crash. Several curses slipped from his mouth as he rolled over, trying to get to his feet. His arms and back protested, unsatisfied with his abusive treatment of them the previous day. The fingers of his right hand curled up like claws, unable to fully extend after being used for writing for the final hour that he’d managed to stay awake. He was absolutely drained from the work he’d put in, and true to Mr. Dolstov’s accusation at the Red Rooster, Norto hadn’t lifted a finger to do any of the work, or even help. Instead, the older smithy had disappeared up into the apartment they shared over the forge, listening to the radio he had installed with the aid of a helpful gnome engineer from the trinket store he’d purchased the device from.

            The younger smithy, meanwhile, had not only done all of the reserve jobs, but he’d sent for a messenger, had each customer informed, taken in payment and handed off the works to eight of the ten clients, and recorded the transactions in the log book, ultimately falling asleep on the stool at the writing desk. When he finished dusting himself off, he yelped, looking up and finding himself looking directly into the bloodshot eyes of Andrei Dolstov, who was seated on another stool just a few feet away.

            “Pathetic,” Andrei said grumpily, arms folded over his chest.

            “How long have you been sitting there,” Dren asked, wiping his dry mouth with the back of his hand. He walked over to the forge’s small coffee maker and set about preparing a fresh pot.

            “Long enough to know that you slept at that desk last night, as opposed to in a bed upstairs,” the freelancer replied. “I wanted to come by this morning to tell you that we leave tomorrow at sunrise.”

            “I’ll tell Norto,” Dren said, fetching his mug.

            “No need. I ran into him when I first got here. He was about to head out to deliver those last two orders you finished yesterday.” Andrei heaved himself up off of the stool with a grunt, hand rubbing the side of his head. “You got another mug, though? I’ve got a bitch of a hangover.”

            “Cupboard over the finishing bench,” Dren said, pointing to one of the work benches. The minotaur warrior fetched out a large brown mug and accepted a pouring from the scrawny smithy, taking a long pull of the steaming liquid. “It’s a new blend, shipped from Arcade.” Andrei swirled the coffee around, sniffing the brew.

            “Arcade, eh? Should’ve probably tested it for poisons before I drank any. You know that city’s crawling with thieves and assassins, right?”

            “Everybody says that, but no city-state can get by on theft alone,” Dren answered. “The beans grow wild in the Murder Marsh east of the city. They’re said to have a higher concentration of the chemical that wakes you up than most coffee beans.”

            “Makes sense. You have to be more alert than most if you live in Arcade, what with the theft and murder all around.”

            “You really don’t like Arcade, do you?”

            “I’ve been there just a few times, and it never ends well,” the minotaur said dryly. “Pass along the message to your boss when he gets back,” he said, finishing off his coffee in one more long pull, setting the mug gently aside on Dren’s anvil. “And Dren?”

            “Yeah?” Andrei put one hand on the small smithy’s shoulder.

            “Sleep in a bed tonight, man.”

**

            Cardiff sat in the darkened corner of the coffee shop, sipping a steaming cuppa, looking about for the man he was waiting to meet. Spotting him when he came in wasn’t difficult, for even in the metropolis that was Desanadron, where many a strange and storied individual could be spotted on a daily basis, the man carried himself with a certain unnatural aura. He didn’t draw a lot of attention to himself, however; whatever odd power it was he tapped into by means of his very existence, it seemed to cause most people’s focus to just slide naturally off of him, as if blocking him from the perceptions of most individuals around him. Yet when he had approached Cardiff and Quay some months earlier, they had seen him quite clearly, while nobody else seemed to be aware that they had ever been joined at their table by this third fellow.

            The man wore a thin black jacket with long metal buckles up its front and on the cuffs of the sleeves, a pair of travel-worn jeans and boots covering his legs and feet. The hood of the jacket was up, matching a cowl connected to a gold-plated skull mask, its teeth set apart in an eternal menacing scream. This odd traveler passed through the various clusters of customers in the café toward Cardiff, his movements purposeful and, it would appear, aimed at minimizing his impact on those around him.

            “You saw the mark,” Cardiff said quietly as the masked man settled in across from him. One thin-gloved hand rose, one finger up, and a moment later, a glaze-eyed kobold waiter delivered a pure white cup of espresso to the table, setting it right in front of the masked man before the kobold scampered off. “I was worried that you hadn’t.”

            “I saw it the moment you drew it,” said the masked man, taking the small cup in hand. He brought it to his mask-mouth, tipping his head back. Cardiff saw the espresso pass through a thin mesh between the molded teeth, presumably into the man’s actual mouth. “But I was too far away to respond immediately. I had to wait before I could act upon it. My apologies, Mr. Cardiff.”

            “No need to apologize, Simon,” said the half-elven aquamancer. “I wanted to tell you that it has been set in motion. Miss Redtail will be going on a journey, one Quay and I believe will help her realize her full potential.” Simon, the masked man, drank off the rest of his espresso and reached his hand behind him, the kobold waiter darting past and snatching up the small cup as if on cue.

            “Excellent. Should she survive, and we must hope she does, then another duck is in the proverbial row. Your part in this is ended, Mister Cardiff, and I apologize again for having dragged you into it. It is most unbecoming to force anyone onto a given path, no matter the importance of that path being trod.” Simon got to his feet, as did Cardiff, and the half-elf cleared his throat. “Yes, Mister Cardiff?”

            “Simon, I must note, your accent is quite notable. You sound like a native of Ja-Wen, or perhaps some other region heavily populated by dwarves and gnomes. Where from do you hail?” The masked man, Simon, chuckled low in his throat, a warm, inviting sound that seemed to somehow brighten the colors in the world around the half-elf.

            “The land I am from is known as Brooklyn, though my loving parents were from Ireland, Mister Cardiff, but that is not important,” he said, waving one hand dismissively. “What’s important to know is this; there is another far traveler here now, in your realms. I sensed him this morning, far away across Tamalaria, but already heading west from whence he arrived. His task aims at the creation of chaos, and he must not succeed. I am not allowed to directly interfere here, but I need not even worry about doing so, now that your Miss Redtail will be embarking on her quest.”

            “About that,” said Cardiff, reaching out and grabbing Simon by the wrist for just a moment before snatching his hand back. In the brief blink of an eye that he had been in contact with the strange, masked traveler, the aquamancer had seen in his mind’s eye a sprawling, infinite tangle of webs, each strand connected to a vital soul, all interwoven and bound to a single nexus. In the center of that nexus something trembled, waiting to be unleashed, and the only word that suited it was madness. He took a deep, steadying breath, and rasped, “What if she should perish along the way?”

            “Then another will have to step in and take her place, when the time comes,” Simon replied. “There are others who can, but with each replacement, the odds of success, when the Great Moment arrives, fall ever more. We cannot fail or falter when the Great Moment comes, Mister Cardiff. If we do, all is for naught.” His warning delivered, the masked traveler removed himself from Cardiff’s presence, slipping unseen out of the café, and out of Tamalaria altogether.

**

            Holly went through the contents of the trunk one more time, still mildly confused by the whole arrangement. When she had handed the requisition slip to the dwarven quartermaster at the guildhall, the bushy-bearded little man seemed annoyed. Without comment he had disappeared into a room attached to his little office, the occasional grunt or curse being muttered in his native tongue as he banged around out of her view. After about ten minutes, he came out of a small side door into the waiting area, lugging a wheeled trunk behind him. “Just warning you, miss, the number five configuration doesn’t get used much these days. I had to toss in a few substitution items, which I have marked down on the checklist inside the lid. Careful wiv’ it.” He lifted the handle up to her, and the moment Holly took hold, the dwarf vanished behind his side door and popped up back in his seat behind the raised counter.

            Now, sitting in her tiny apartment, Holly wiggled a small orange gourd back and forth in her hand, comparing the small paper tag tied to its root with the checklist. The object was listed as a ‘Blackout Bladder’, an item for which she could find no description in her edition of ‘Travelers’ Goods’, a compendium of common travel gear descriptions put together by various cooperating merchants’ guilds every few years. Then again, my edition is two behind current, she thought, shaking the gourd, listening to the odd sloshing inside. The rubber stopper on the gourd’s root was perfectly fitted, and wouldn’t be easily dislodged should she accidentally drop it, but she set it aside nonetheless. Better to be safe than sorry, after all.

            Another item that made her question Cardiff’s choice of gear assignment was the obscure little dagger that had been loaded into the trunk. Stored in an oiled leather sheath, it was a short, curved blade, six inches in length, with a pommel crafted in the shape of a snake’s head. The look of the weapon made her leery, and seemed more appropriate in the hands of a rogue or pickpocket than in her own. Still, she supposed she did know some mages who preferred short knives to the blunt weapons preferred by most. Besides, a knife is a multi-purpose tool in the wilds, so it’s a sensible choice in the long run.

            Satisfied with the dagger, the cuyotai sorceress took out the thin lap blanket that had been rolled up inside, a simple throw made entirely of one piece of dark green fabric, but thrumming with an enchantment she could not as yet identify. Holly prided herself on her extensive knowledge of blessings, enchantments and curses, which made her inability to identify this one all the more infuriating. She had referenced every sensation she got from holding it, rubbing it between her fingers, sniffing it, and randomly tossing it about her bedroom, but every one of these results led her nowhere. In the end, she wound up setting the blanket aside on her bed, rolled up tight and tied in place with a length of twine.

            A small lacquered wooden box of deep scarlet came out of the trunk next, and this was one item she felt fairly confident she knew the purpose of. She was traveling with companions on his job, and having a fold-out chess set, complete with miniature pieces inside, seemed a logical inclusion. It would help pass the time in the evenings when the company set up camp. The tinderbox also made plenty of sense. The farsight scope without a viewing lens, however? Not so much. So too did the seemingly unfinished map of Tamalaria she found, with no political lines or markings to denote townships, seem to serve no obvious purpose that she could decipher. Still, she left these things in their place and took the lap blanket under her arm, heading out of the apartment and toward the northwestern market area of the city. While she was determined to find out what sort of enchantment was on the material, she refused to take it to the guildhall and ask for guidance; such would be a surefire way of losing any confidence the senior membership had in her regarding this entire assignment.

            The cuyotai mage had changed out of the house dress she had been wearing and into a functional pair of black trousers and a beige top, tugging on a lightweight pair of open-toed shoes. Simple and airy, this ensemble would work best for running about town and making her final preparations throughout the day. With the streets filled with both residents and visitors of all sorts, it was simple enough for her to melt into the flow of foot traffic along the wider streets of her home district, angling her way north and west.

            After passing through two districts, Holly came upon a City-Cart station, a broad wooden platform set up along one side of the street in a mostly vacant lot. Parked beside the platform was a long, narrow autocart, with fifteen bucket seats bolted to the flooring deck, a slightly wider roof deck for cover, and a thick banister wrapped around the center, hinged to allow passengers on and off the cart. She noted a distinct lack of the sort of odor she usually associated with machinery like this, the strange black grease that the engineers slathered on the wheel axles to ensure that everything moved smoothly once the cart was set in motion. She wondered, momentarily, how frequently the mass transit autocart from this location ran its route.

            Five minutes later, she had been joined by no less than eight other waiting passengers, and a pair of gnome gentlemen in strange, shiny white tunic uniforms came ambling toward the raised platform from a nearby machinist’s garage. One carried a small canister, from which Holly could, at twenty yards distant, detect that grease odor she had been seeking when she first arrived. When the pair of gnomes drew close, one of them ascended the ramp to the upper platform, while the other disappeared below the loading area planks and support struts. Moments later, the odor was overwhelming, and she could hear the little bearded man grunting under the mass transit cart’s frame as he applied the grease. The gnome who had joined the passengers on the upper deck hopped into the cart, swiftly situating himself in the pilot seat behind a wheel and a set of strange looking levers. When he had fiddled with a few knobs, the gnome looked over at the waiting passengers.

            “Folks can start loading on now, if’n you like,” he announced, his tone casual but his words precise and clear. Holly lowered herself into one of the closest available seats to the platform, followed by her fellow passengers. Nobody tried to sit next to her, though this was not unexpected; magic and technology had, as late, seemed to have some fairly poor interactions in close proximity, and she fairly exuded magic from her very fur. Being in close proximity to her might spell trouble, to the unwitting common folk.  If they only knew, though, she thought. Like most magic-users, Holly didn’t have a cloud of mana, magical energy, swirling around her all the time. This notion was a common misconception among non-magical folk, one she had become skilled and comfortable with explaining when necessary. This wasn’t one such time, however, and as she caught a peek at a kobold seated in front of her trying to sneak a look back at her over his shoulder, she widened her eyes, looking around in a faux-panic at the area by her feet as the auto-cart whirred into motion, slowly pulling forward. She then looked up at the tiny, dun-colored goblinoid with his snout-like face and gave him an imp’s grin, sly and just a little dangerous. He gave her a half-lidded shake of his head, clearly not fond of her pantomime, and faced forward once more.

            The auto-cart ride was a little bumpy, but it got her eight districts  north in a matter of just half an hour, a feat that would have been impossible on foot without being a quicksilver, a weretiger in full stride in animus form, or a rooftop scrambler, like some of the city’s more skilled rogues and pickpockets. The oversized vehicle docked itself next to a staging platform much like the one she had climbed aboard at, and she along with six other passengers clambered off and took the stairwell down to the street level below.  The shop she was heading for wasn’t too far away, and this district, Desanadron’s 11^th, was a quieter neighborhood, primarily residential.

            Holly understood quite well why the 11^th was a quiet neighborhood, though, and the underlying cause made her draw her awareness to a razor’s edge, her mana reserves awakening at a slight mental prod. Desanadron’s 11^th district was one of the city’s ‘gray zones’,  part of the enormous metropolis’s collection of neighborhoods that was left to its own devices by the local constabulary and law-abiding guilds. There were unwritten rules about what could or could not happen in such places, and about who was or was not welcome. The 11^th district was inhabited largely by members of the humanoid races; humans, elves, illeck, dwarves, jafts, minotaurs, lizardmen and gnomes. But while these men and women shared the commonality of being under the umbrella of ‘humanoid’, they also predominantly shared another characteristic, one that made the 11^th an unpleasant place to be:

            Most of them were criminals.

            Holly knew the stories up and down about the folk of the 11^th, or the adults at least. No, none of them had been arrested or charged with or convicted of a crime in the Desanadron city-state or its protectorate territories and townships. No, none of them could be coaxed into talking about their pasts in detail. Yes, bounty hunters from other nations and regions throughout the realms of Tamalaria turned up dead in the alleys and taverns and gaming halls of the district all the time. Yes, a few of these folks had been summoned by tribunals in foreign countries to answer for state crimes, and summarily ignored those official pleas. Yes, more than a few of the residents were probably just as likely to shove a broken ale mug in your face as say hello.

            For Holly’s purposes, however, she had to come to this part of the city. Though the local police would not help any troubled citizen, no reasonably talented person who offered no trouble to these locals would come to harm. Avoid certain questions and topics of conversation, and everything can proceed just fine, she cautioned herself. Don’t make too much eye contact, but don’t carry an air of ‘Likely Victim’.  What brought her here could not be found elsewhere in the city, a small 2-room shop on the corner of Green and Vessling Street owned and operated by an illeck woman named Syvana Kretchkoff. The dark elf, as the illeck were often referred to, had a reputation for magical scholarship that put her in a position of prominence among the city’s magically academic. Whenever an artifact came into someone’s possession of an enchanted nature, the odds were high that if they could not identify it themselves, it would come across her counter. Without error she would swiftly strip away the layers of mystery surrounding the object, write down on a parchment for her customer the nature of the enchantment, and would charge a fee for the release of that scrap into the customer’s hands that varied upon her own personal judgment of the power or usefulness of said enchantment.

            The fluctuating price didn’t worry the cuyotai mage all too much, thanks to a simple charm she’d developed while training at the guildhall. It was one of her proudest achievements in the area of magical studies for about a week, before she discovered the flaw that rendered this particular spell unworthy of inclusion into the scrolls of the Adventurers’ Guild at large. The spell’s immediate effect was to allow Holly to control what her target said for about ten seconds, effectively turning them into her own personal ventriloquist’s puppet. She had tested the charm on a few of her superiors in the guildhall, each time to more amusing effect than the last.

            After about a dozen successful uses of the charm, Holly decided to try tampering with it, adjusting some of the subtle hand motions that accompanied the whispered words used to cast it in an effort to make its primary function last longer. Having already used the charm once on Clannis Munts, a bright but only modestly skilled aeromancer in the ranks, she tried the new version on him. Before the mana swirl of her spell, visible only to her eyes, wrapped itself around him, it sputtered and fell apart. Confused, she performed the first version of the spell, the one that had worked, and found that it once again failed to take hold.

            The charm could only be used on a person once, in short.

            Lost in her own thoughts, formulating a conversational strategy for her transaction with Kretchkoff when the time came, Holly nearly walked smack into a lumbering jaft man trundling along the sidewalk in her direction. She caught his scent only a few yards away, however, and looked up, her snout involuntarily wrinkling up at the natural stench wafting off of the blue-fleshed humanoid. The jaft man held a large, dark green bag in his hand, and as she stepped around him to avoid a collision, Holly watched as he pulled the bag open and pulled it down over top of a public trash canister, turning the container upside-down. She heard the trash fall into the bag, yet when the public works fellow turned the can back over, the bag didn’t appear anymore full than it had been before. The cloth, however, appeared to turn a slightly lighter hue of green.

            Well, at least they’re not hauling around those foul wagons anymore, she thought, proceeding on. At the next intersection she turned west, now walking steadily down a narrow, twisting street composed of broken cobblestones that had likely not seen repair efforts since before she was born. Halfway down the street, she turned to face the little shop she had come to visit. The cuyotai mage took a deep, steadying breath, brought her mana to bear, and strode through the door. Having never visited the shop herself, Holly had been relying on the stories she’d heard of it and its proprietor from other members of the guild. Clearly, the tales had been somewhat embellished.

            The walls of the shop were not lined with shelves possessing myriad mystical and wondrous items, as the stories claimed. The few furnishings scattered about the main shop area appeared about as exotic as the nearest trash heap; when her eyes landed on a cracked leather armchair, she thought she saw something moving in the backing, attempting to shift into a more comfortable nesting position. And as for the illeck woman herself, Kretchkoff, what Holly had heard previously proved to also fall short of accurate. Many of her peers had described this woman as haunting, dark, and disturbing to behold.

            Insofar as Holly could estimate, however, these brief descriptors had fallen well short. Syvana Kretchkoff indeed possessed a haunting quality, but it came from being a stunning example of raw physical beauty. Her pale flesh stood in bright relief against a black leather corset, worn in full view under a long-sleeved half-shirt, her considerable breasts pushed up and together for maximum cleavage. She sat on the countertop, legs crossed, knee-high, multi-buckled leather boots creaking as she bounced one foot rhythmically back and forth. An aqualine nose perfectly bisected a face that seemed ageless, and her lips had been glossed a vibrant, bloody red.

            Yet the beauty disappeared when Holly looked into the illeck woman’s eyes. There, the cuyotai mage came upon eyes of an ice blue that did not whisper, no, but rather howled of a deep and merciless nature that, if tested, might result in the thoughtless slaughter of whomever dared cross this woman. Kretchkoff wore a smile, sure, but that smile’s mirth blew into so much dust the moment it tried to reach those eyes.

            I have crossed from a mildly dangerous neighborhood directly into the lair of a murderess, she thought. This will require the best of me. She tried to grin, felt foolish, and dropped a semi-curtsey to the illeck woman. A small mental effort showed Holly the mana streams flickering around Kretchkoff, a talent she had honed over the early years of her studies, and in that brief glimpse, she saw only confirmation of her sense of danger in Kretchkoff’s presence. Where Holly’s own inner supply of mana, fully flexed, could fill a small den, this woman’s passive magical stores flooded her shop from end to end.

            “Ms. Kretchkoff,” Holly began, aiming for a neutral tone, keeping her voice from cracking. “I have come to procure your assistance in a matter of identification.” The illeck sorceress nodded, whipped her legs around the back of her barter counter, and hopped down, her stare and smile still locked on Holly.

            “Of course, my child,” Kretchkoff said, her own voice cool, sultry. “Please, whatever you need to have me look at, set it up here,” she said, patting the countertop. Holly took the lap blanket out from under her arm and eased it down on the counter between herself and Kretchkoff, who immediately began working silent spells over the fabric. Her ministrations took only a minute, and when she was finished, the look that took control of her visage put Holly in mind of a card sharp who knows he can’t be caught cheating on the next hand, because the pit bosses are inept. “Telling you what’s on this, and how you can use it? This will not come cheap.”

            Holly looked away for a few moments, gathering her thoughts, her courage, and focusing on those conversational gambits she had practiced in her head on her way there. Here we go, she thought. Finally, she locked eyes with Kretchkoff, and made her first move. “Ms. Kretchkoff, many’s the mage and sorcerer who has sworn by the accuracy of your identification rituals, yes?”

            “You know this to be true, child,” Kretchkoff replied evenly.

            “And you’ve never been proven wrong about an identification.”

            “Correct.” The knowing, ‘I’ve got the winning hand right here’ grin faded just a fraction from Kretchkoff’s mouth.  “Your point?”

            “My point, Ms. Kretchkoff, is that you are a woman of your word,” Holly said, feeling a slight uptick in her confidence as she noticed the way Kretchkoff’s mana streams flickered, drawn in tighter toward herself. The reflex, involuntary if Holly judged it right, came as a good sign. “Would you say that’s accurate?”

            “Yes,” said the illeck woman, the grin now almost gone. “My word is my bond.”

            “That, madam, is precisely what I wanted to hear,” Holly said, the fingers on her left hand tracing the subtle, seemingly aimless motions required of her charm. “How much, then, will you charge me for the knowledge of what enchantments this material holds and how to make use of them?” Kretchkoff took a breath, and just before any sound could issue from her mouth on her own accord, Holly activated the charm. What came out of Kretchkoff’s mouth were not her own words, but those which Holly pushed through from her own mind with a magical flicker.

            “I swear before all the gods, I will charge you nothing for this service,” Syvana Kretchkoff said, her brow furrowed in confusion, mouth quirking hard to the left side of her face. She shook her head, hands waving randomly through the air around her shoulders, fingers flicking at her ears. In a few seconds, she seemed to have finished these twitches, eyes shifting around the shop, landing finally on Holly’s left hand. “I did not mean that,” the illeck rasped, teeth clenched together, glare rising slowly to meet Holly’s level gaze.

            “Yet you swore it before all the gods,” Holly replied. Her guts squirmed, a thrashing horror of nerves birthed in the moment Kretchkoff’s eyes pulled even with her own now the trick was done. “Tell me what you can, and I’ll be on my way.” Kretchkoff scoffed, shutting her mouth, lips pressed into a tight line, eyes squinted at Holly. She pushed the lap blanket off of her counter onto Holly’s side of the floor and sighed, turning to present her profile to the cuyotai.

            “The blanket has been layered with enchantments that can remove a variety of minor and moderate curses and bindings,” Kretchkoff said. “You need only touch it to the person suffering from such things, and they will be healed. However, the enchantment can only absorb so much curse magic before it is broken, at which point that will become a very ordinary blanket. Now, young lady,” the illeck snarled, pointing one long finger at the door, “you will leave my store. Do not dare come back for some time. I can forgive much, but this, this trickery, will require a while to do so.” Holly nodded, turned on her heel after retrieving the blanket, and half-ran out of the shop, sprinting for the mass transit autocart platform.

            While Holly waited, heart racing, Syvana Kretchkoff sat on the stool behind her counter, shook her head, and snickered to herself, smiling. “That one has promise,” she said to no one.