Post by Damien on Jan 7, 2015 15:40:53 GMT -5
Outside the city of Kyros on the coast sat a cozy cottage, the sides made of white stone and the roof of thatch. While it wasn’t the biggest of cottages, it certainly wasn’t the smallest. For Izaak and his husband Dorian, it was perfect.
The two had met during Izaak’s journey across the multiverse alongside many other individuals, some mages and some not, in search of the Mage of the Beginning. Dorian had stowed away on the airship they had been using to travel across worlds, only to make his presence known as the group as they were running from a mob of angry villagers thanks to one of the group’s necromancers, but that’s a whole other story.
The weather on that particular day was much like it had been on every day since they had helped stop the Celestial invasion of Mundus Magica: bright and sunny, with crystal blue skies and a light breeze coming off the ocean. Izaak and Dorian lay together on a blanket that they had put down on the grass, the two side by side with Dorian’s head resting on Izaak’s chest.
Izaak was a tall man and rather muscular considering the normal stereotype of mages, which was usually ran the gambit of tall to short but almost always thin and not very athletic. Izaak had done some combat training with the staff, his preferred weapon for both melee and magical combat, and that helped him to build up some muscle. His raven-black hair fell past his shoulders, but it was normally kept in a ponytail to keep it from falling into his sapphire blue eyes.
Dorian was about as tall as Izaak, shorter by only an inch or two. He, too, had a rather athletic build, but his body was more suited for speed. He had taken up fencing when he was younger, and the rapier became his favored weapon. While he did fit the image of the stereotypical mage more than Izaak, his speed and precision more than made up for his lack of raw power and strength. His dark blonde hair was much shorter than Izaak’s, and his bangs were a bit longer than the rest and kept spiked upwards, keeping them away from his amethyst violet eyes. He also sported a blonde beard that was kept pretty short almost to the point of being stubble.
Dorian looked up at Izaak, Izaak returned his gaze, and both sighed contentedly.
“This is wonderful,” said Dorian. “I’m glad all that mess is over with and we can finally just be together.”
“Me, too,” replied Izaak, looking back up at the beautiful blue sky. “I was so worried that the Celestials would get to you and hurt you.”
“You mean like this?” asked Dorian, his voiced laced with pain and anger and causing Izaak’s blood to run cold.
Izaak looked back down towards Dorian only to find him clutching at a gaping wound in his chest, his body and face splattered with blood. Izaak’s eyes began to well up with tears as he moved himself into a seated position and pulled Dorian’s dying form into his arms.
“No!” Izaak cried, tears streaming down his face. “Don’t you die on me! I can’t lose you!” He pulled Dorian close, trying to think of any spell he could that would help save his love, but he knew better. All the spells he knew were elemental magic, and the best he could do was cauterize the wounds, but he’s still bleed out.
He managed to look away from Dorian long enough to see a hooded figure off in the distance, and he knew exactly who that figure was.
“Apophis,” he growled as he felt something grab at his shirt. He looked back down to see Dorian, his eyes beginning to glaze over. Izaak grabbed his hand and held it tight, sobbing all the while. “Don’t leave me, Dorian…I need you…I love you.”
“And I love you,” said Dorian, smiling at Izaak. His eyes closed, but the smile remained…
Izaak sat up quickly on his bed, breathing heavily. His chest and arms were soaked in cold sweat, and his face in a mixture of sweat and tears. He got out of his bed and walked over to the giant wooden tub of water that the priests had brought up to his room in the church. He had come to this world with just the clothes on his back, his staff, and the twin crystalline daggers given to him by his friend Sorin before he went off into the multiverse. This time, he had landed on a world called Toril, specifically the continent of Faerûn.
He did not know a thing about the place, but he had managed to find his way to a region called Amn, known to the locals as the Merchant’s Domain. Amn was a tremendously wealthy nation in West Faerûn that controlled many trade routes to many other cities, so it was not unheard of to see carts and buggies of trade goods being shipped here and there along the roads. Specifically, he was in the city of Crimmor, a walled trading hub east of Athkatla, the capital of Amn, and just south of the Cloud Peaks along the southern Trade Way. Crimmor was also the open center of Shadow Thief activity, which Izaak helped to stem and eventually stop.
Crimmor was the Caravan Capital of Amn. Many caravans were sponsored and arranged in Athkatla, but the goods were loaded onto barges there and towed up the Alandor River by horses and mules on River Road until they reached their mustering point at Crimmor. Some folk said nearly every caravan in Faerûn passed through Crimmor in time. Just outside of the city was a church to the goddess Chauntea.
The priests and priestesses of the church found Izaak after his jump into Faerûn and took him in. Ever the cautious one, he did not let them in on what had happened in his past or how he had gotten there. However, he was getting worse, and he could not hide it any longer. Even though he had become so close with the priestess Solvarra, he still would not open up about this.
He lifted his face to look at his reflection in the mirror. He had dark bags under his eyes from the lack of sleep, waking from nightmares almost every night, and those that did not bring terrible visions of his lover dying in his arms were still fitful and without rest. He had lost a lot of weight and muscle in his depression from losing the love of his life, and in his time helping to rid Crimmor of the Shadow Thieves, he had almost been killed multiple times. Not that he would have minded, of course. He longed to be with Dorian again, and if that meant dying to do it, so be it.
His head fell again, and he slid down in front of the tub and leaned against it, face in his hands, crying. He heard a quiet knock at his door and attempted to pull himself together, but the door opened, revealing Solvarra on the other side.
“Izaak, what’s the matter?” she asked, her elven voice sweet, soothing, but worried.
“It’s nothing,” he sniffled in response. “I just had a nightmare. That’s all.”
“No, there’s more to it than that,” she said knowingly. “Tell me what’s troubling you.”
And he did. He told her all about Mundus Magica. He told her all about the group that travelled the multiverse. He told her everything he could until…
Until he came to Dorian.
He began to cry violently, unable to catch his breath, unable to speak, unable to even open his eyes. Solvarra grabbed him and pulled him in tight, stroking his hair and making soft shushing noises in hopes to calm him. After almost an hour, he had finally calmed enough to tell her about him. He told her about how they had met, about how he would always chastise Dorian, how he had actually thought the puns were funny, and how it all led up to him falling in love.
She sat there and listened, quiet and unjudging. When he finally finished, she spoke.
“Well, Izaak,” she said, “that’s quite the incredible story.”
“You don’t believe a word of it, do you?” he asked.
“Quite the contrary. Here on Toril, there are similar magics, but nothing that would allow the caster to move between universes. Only other planes of existence, like the Elemental Planes, for instance.” She turned his face towards her so that they were looking straight at each other. “I also think that Dorian was a very lucky man to have someone that loved…no, loves him as much as you do.”
Izaak lowered his head again, but he smiled a bit, remembering the immense love the two had had for each other. “A lot of the time, I think I was the lucky one,” he said. “I don’t know where I would have been had it not been for him.” Tears welled in his eyes again, and he choked back a few sobs. “Dammit, I miss him so much. It hurts so much.”
“I know what you’re feeling,” she said, looking away from Izaak. “I lost my dear Marathal five years ago when the Shadow Thieves attempted to ransack the city and the church. He was beyond the healing ability of any of our clerics and priests. He died as I held him in my arms.” She turned back to him as she heard him quietly sobbing again. “It’s hard to lose the one you love. It’s even harder to watch them die in your arms and be powerless to stop it.” She lifted his gaze to meet hers again. “I know it’s hard to hear, but you shouldn’t be so upset. He gave his life to save you from that creature. I know many people of many different races that claim to be in love, but I know for a fact that none of them would sacrifice themselves so willingly to save the other. I think that Dorian would want you to be happy. But enough on this,” she said, getting up from the floor and pulling Izaak with her. “You need to rest. You’ll never survive if you don’t manage to get some sleep.”
She led him back to his bed and sat him down. He lay back down, the sheets somehow dry. He wanted to ask how she had done it, but at that point, he was too exhausted to care. He looked up at her to find her in deep concentration. He figured she was casting a spell to help him sleep easier, and he was right. He felt the enchantment trying to enter his mind, and he willingly let down his mental defenses, letting the spell take hold. Within seconds, he was in a deep, dreamless sleep.
Izaak woke up several hours later, feeling less fatigued but still mentally and emotionally exhausted. He found Solvarra still next to his bed, “asleep” with her back against the wall. Izaak knew that she was not truly asleep. In this particular world, elves are capable of entering a meditative state that recuperates them to the same degree as a full night’s sleep for the other races, albeit in a shorter time.
When he shifted into an upright position in his bed, Solvarra’s eyes fluttered open.
“Good morning,” said the elf. “Sleep any better?”
“Yes, thank you,” Izaak replied. “Still feeling a bit exhausted, but I think I can manage to do it.”
“Do what?” she asked, her eyebrow arched.
“Cast the spell to move on to the next universe.”
“Izaak, you don’t have to keep doing this,” Solvarra said, her voice worried. “You could stay here until we’ve figured out a way to make the spell take you back home.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I have to keep moving on. If I stay put too long, I’ll just get worse. I have to keep moving.”
“Very well,” she sighed. “At least give me time to gather everyone so that they can say their goodbyes.”
“Deal. I wasn’t planning on leaving without saying goodbye to everyone anyway.”
“Good,” said Solvarra, chuckling. “They’d be pretty upset with you if you did.”
The two walked downstairs into the fellowship hall. The priestesses and priests were together eating breakfast. Izaak heard a few in the chapel praying to Chauntea for their daily spells. He found it somewhat strange that people had to study or pray in order to be able to cast their spells, but then again, he had seen much stranger.
The priestesses and priests in the hall looked up upon his and Solvarra’s arrival. They knew that he would be leaving, and they had prepared some things for him to take with him.
Everyone stood up and made a line leading to the door of the church. As Izaak walked down the line, he was handed a leather backpack, and each person put something in it: food, a waterskin, bandages, ointments, and other necessities. When he got to the door, Solvarra was waiting for him. She was holding a rather large locket, and as Izaak approached her, she presented it to him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“While you slept, I called for a wizard skilled in magic of the mind to come and look into your mind for a vision of Dorian. He then left to find a painter. I suppose he projected the image into the painter’s mind and warped time around them so as to finish it before you woke. He came and brought the locket with the picture inside.”
Izaak opened the locket to find a small painting of Dorian, his smile just as Izaak remembered. He began to tear up but managed to hold back.
“Thank you,” he said, pulling Solvarra into a hug.
“You’re most welcome.”
As Izaak opened the door, the priestesses and priests broke file and gathered around him. They all walked outside the church, and the clerics all waved and shouted goodbyes as Izaak walked away.
Izaak had been walking for a couple of hours, taking care to go in a direction that would take him away from cities and towns. He eventually found a large clearing in the middle of the forest he had found. He had hoped that no one would follow him into such a dense forest, especially with the threat of all the wildlife and possibly trolls or ogres.
When he had reached the center of the clearing, he set all his belongings down and pulled some scissors and a set of five mirrors from his pack. Apparently, the mirrors were enchanted by one of the priestesses to levitate in such a manner as to be able to see herself from all angles when she was putting on her ceremonial robes. He spoke the trigger word that activated the enchantment, and the mirrors began to levitate, forming somewhat of a circle around him. He directed them to the area around his head, and once they had settled, he began his work of cutting his hair.
After a time, he was finished. He had styled his hair to match that of Dorian as another way of keeping his memory alive. He gathered up the mirrors and scissors and put them back in his pack. He then casted a cantrip to churn the earth around where his hair had fallen and bury it, effectively cleaning up after himself.
He stood and brushed himself off, all the while recalling the words to the spell to create the portal to another universe. He took up his staff and, using the bottom end of it, began to trace an archway in the air as he spoke the words. As he did so, a thin strip of light came from the end of the staff, physically outlining the archway. As he reached the end of the spell, he reached out his free hand and made the motion of turning a key. The outline filled with a nearly blinding light that dissipated after a few seconds, revealing his destination: walls of stone and gated archways. He passed through and was greeted by people of a very short race, very goblinesque.
“Welcome to…” one started until he was interrupted.
“Oh, don’t bother,” said the other. “It’s a human. He knows where he is.” And with that, the two left Izaak alone and went back to their work.
Izaak looked behind him to see an enormous ring filled with purple energy. Probably a permanent portal of their own making, he thought. He began walking down the path under the gated archways, passing by guards in steel armor and regular citizens in street clothes.
Everything there was stone, and there were wooden carts lining the path. He eventually made it to a staircase that lead down further into the place. Off to his left was an exit to the area. The walls seemed to rise very high here, signaling that he may have found his way into a fortress of some kind. Adorning the opening in the grey-black walls of the fortress were carvings of the heads of two hawks with feather-like patterns carved into the wall below them and to the ground.
Suddenly, while marveling at the sculptures, a woman, a bit shorter than him, with fair skin and raven hair approached him at a run.
“Excuse me,” she said, looking up and down Izaak, seeming to size him up. “Oh, good! You’re wearing pants! You can probably help me then.”
“What?” said Izaak, completely and utterly confused.
“Never mind the pants thing,” she said. “Just answer me this.”
“Okay,” he said, awaiting the question.
She stared directly at him, a serious look on her face.
“Have you see Trillia Midwell?”
The two had met during Izaak’s journey across the multiverse alongside many other individuals, some mages and some not, in search of the Mage of the Beginning. Dorian had stowed away on the airship they had been using to travel across worlds, only to make his presence known as the group as they were running from a mob of angry villagers thanks to one of the group’s necromancers, but that’s a whole other story.
The weather on that particular day was much like it had been on every day since they had helped stop the Celestial invasion of Mundus Magica: bright and sunny, with crystal blue skies and a light breeze coming off the ocean. Izaak and Dorian lay together on a blanket that they had put down on the grass, the two side by side with Dorian’s head resting on Izaak’s chest.
Izaak was a tall man and rather muscular considering the normal stereotype of mages, which was usually ran the gambit of tall to short but almost always thin and not very athletic. Izaak had done some combat training with the staff, his preferred weapon for both melee and magical combat, and that helped him to build up some muscle. His raven-black hair fell past his shoulders, but it was normally kept in a ponytail to keep it from falling into his sapphire blue eyes.
Dorian was about as tall as Izaak, shorter by only an inch or two. He, too, had a rather athletic build, but his body was more suited for speed. He had taken up fencing when he was younger, and the rapier became his favored weapon. While he did fit the image of the stereotypical mage more than Izaak, his speed and precision more than made up for his lack of raw power and strength. His dark blonde hair was much shorter than Izaak’s, and his bangs were a bit longer than the rest and kept spiked upwards, keeping them away from his amethyst violet eyes. He also sported a blonde beard that was kept pretty short almost to the point of being stubble.
Dorian looked up at Izaak, Izaak returned his gaze, and both sighed contentedly.
“This is wonderful,” said Dorian. “I’m glad all that mess is over with and we can finally just be together.”
“Me, too,” replied Izaak, looking back up at the beautiful blue sky. “I was so worried that the Celestials would get to you and hurt you.”
“You mean like this?” asked Dorian, his voiced laced with pain and anger and causing Izaak’s blood to run cold.
Izaak looked back down towards Dorian only to find him clutching at a gaping wound in his chest, his body and face splattered with blood. Izaak’s eyes began to well up with tears as he moved himself into a seated position and pulled Dorian’s dying form into his arms.
“No!” Izaak cried, tears streaming down his face. “Don’t you die on me! I can’t lose you!” He pulled Dorian close, trying to think of any spell he could that would help save his love, but he knew better. All the spells he knew were elemental magic, and the best he could do was cauterize the wounds, but he’s still bleed out.
He managed to look away from Dorian long enough to see a hooded figure off in the distance, and he knew exactly who that figure was.
“Apophis,” he growled as he felt something grab at his shirt. He looked back down to see Dorian, his eyes beginning to glaze over. Izaak grabbed his hand and held it tight, sobbing all the while. “Don’t leave me, Dorian…I need you…I love you.”
“And I love you,” said Dorian, smiling at Izaak. His eyes closed, but the smile remained…
~~~~~
Izaak sat up quickly on his bed, breathing heavily. His chest and arms were soaked in cold sweat, and his face in a mixture of sweat and tears. He got out of his bed and walked over to the giant wooden tub of water that the priests had brought up to his room in the church. He had come to this world with just the clothes on his back, his staff, and the twin crystalline daggers given to him by his friend Sorin before he went off into the multiverse. This time, he had landed on a world called Toril, specifically the continent of Faerûn.
He did not know a thing about the place, but he had managed to find his way to a region called Amn, known to the locals as the Merchant’s Domain. Amn was a tremendously wealthy nation in West Faerûn that controlled many trade routes to many other cities, so it was not unheard of to see carts and buggies of trade goods being shipped here and there along the roads. Specifically, he was in the city of Crimmor, a walled trading hub east of Athkatla, the capital of Amn, and just south of the Cloud Peaks along the southern Trade Way. Crimmor was also the open center of Shadow Thief activity, which Izaak helped to stem and eventually stop.
Crimmor was the Caravan Capital of Amn. Many caravans were sponsored and arranged in Athkatla, but the goods were loaded onto barges there and towed up the Alandor River by horses and mules on River Road until they reached their mustering point at Crimmor. Some folk said nearly every caravan in Faerûn passed through Crimmor in time. Just outside of the city was a church to the goddess Chauntea.
The priests and priestesses of the church found Izaak after his jump into Faerûn and took him in. Ever the cautious one, he did not let them in on what had happened in his past or how he had gotten there. However, he was getting worse, and he could not hide it any longer. Even though he had become so close with the priestess Solvarra, he still would not open up about this.
He lifted his face to look at his reflection in the mirror. He had dark bags under his eyes from the lack of sleep, waking from nightmares almost every night, and those that did not bring terrible visions of his lover dying in his arms were still fitful and without rest. He had lost a lot of weight and muscle in his depression from losing the love of his life, and in his time helping to rid Crimmor of the Shadow Thieves, he had almost been killed multiple times. Not that he would have minded, of course. He longed to be with Dorian again, and if that meant dying to do it, so be it.
His head fell again, and he slid down in front of the tub and leaned against it, face in his hands, crying. He heard a quiet knock at his door and attempted to pull himself together, but the door opened, revealing Solvarra on the other side.
“Izaak, what’s the matter?” she asked, her elven voice sweet, soothing, but worried.
“It’s nothing,” he sniffled in response. “I just had a nightmare. That’s all.”
“No, there’s more to it than that,” she said knowingly. “Tell me what’s troubling you.”
And he did. He told her all about Mundus Magica. He told her all about the group that travelled the multiverse. He told her everything he could until…
Until he came to Dorian.
He began to cry violently, unable to catch his breath, unable to speak, unable to even open his eyes. Solvarra grabbed him and pulled him in tight, stroking his hair and making soft shushing noises in hopes to calm him. After almost an hour, he had finally calmed enough to tell her about him. He told her about how they had met, about how he would always chastise Dorian, how he had actually thought the puns were funny, and how it all led up to him falling in love.
She sat there and listened, quiet and unjudging. When he finally finished, she spoke.
“Well, Izaak,” she said, “that’s quite the incredible story.”
“You don’t believe a word of it, do you?” he asked.
“Quite the contrary. Here on Toril, there are similar magics, but nothing that would allow the caster to move between universes. Only other planes of existence, like the Elemental Planes, for instance.” She turned his face towards her so that they were looking straight at each other. “I also think that Dorian was a very lucky man to have someone that loved…no, loves him as much as you do.”
Izaak lowered his head again, but he smiled a bit, remembering the immense love the two had had for each other. “A lot of the time, I think I was the lucky one,” he said. “I don’t know where I would have been had it not been for him.” Tears welled in his eyes again, and he choked back a few sobs. “Dammit, I miss him so much. It hurts so much.”
“I know what you’re feeling,” she said, looking away from Izaak. “I lost my dear Marathal five years ago when the Shadow Thieves attempted to ransack the city and the church. He was beyond the healing ability of any of our clerics and priests. He died as I held him in my arms.” She turned back to him as she heard him quietly sobbing again. “It’s hard to lose the one you love. It’s even harder to watch them die in your arms and be powerless to stop it.” She lifted his gaze to meet hers again. “I know it’s hard to hear, but you shouldn’t be so upset. He gave his life to save you from that creature. I know many people of many different races that claim to be in love, but I know for a fact that none of them would sacrifice themselves so willingly to save the other. I think that Dorian would want you to be happy. But enough on this,” she said, getting up from the floor and pulling Izaak with her. “You need to rest. You’ll never survive if you don’t manage to get some sleep.”
She led him back to his bed and sat him down. He lay back down, the sheets somehow dry. He wanted to ask how she had done it, but at that point, he was too exhausted to care. He looked up at her to find her in deep concentration. He figured she was casting a spell to help him sleep easier, and he was right. He felt the enchantment trying to enter his mind, and he willingly let down his mental defenses, letting the spell take hold. Within seconds, he was in a deep, dreamless sleep.
~~~~~
Izaak woke up several hours later, feeling less fatigued but still mentally and emotionally exhausted. He found Solvarra still next to his bed, “asleep” with her back against the wall. Izaak knew that she was not truly asleep. In this particular world, elves are capable of entering a meditative state that recuperates them to the same degree as a full night’s sleep for the other races, albeit in a shorter time.
When he shifted into an upright position in his bed, Solvarra’s eyes fluttered open.
“Good morning,” said the elf. “Sleep any better?”
“Yes, thank you,” Izaak replied. “Still feeling a bit exhausted, but I think I can manage to do it.”
“Do what?” she asked, her eyebrow arched.
“Cast the spell to move on to the next universe.”
“Izaak, you don’t have to keep doing this,” Solvarra said, her voice worried. “You could stay here until we’ve figured out a way to make the spell take you back home.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I have to keep moving on. If I stay put too long, I’ll just get worse. I have to keep moving.”
“Very well,” she sighed. “At least give me time to gather everyone so that they can say their goodbyes.”
“Deal. I wasn’t planning on leaving without saying goodbye to everyone anyway.”
“Good,” said Solvarra, chuckling. “They’d be pretty upset with you if you did.”
The two walked downstairs into the fellowship hall. The priestesses and priests were together eating breakfast. Izaak heard a few in the chapel praying to Chauntea for their daily spells. He found it somewhat strange that people had to study or pray in order to be able to cast their spells, but then again, he had seen much stranger.
The priestesses and priests in the hall looked up upon his and Solvarra’s arrival. They knew that he would be leaving, and they had prepared some things for him to take with him.
Everyone stood up and made a line leading to the door of the church. As Izaak walked down the line, he was handed a leather backpack, and each person put something in it: food, a waterskin, bandages, ointments, and other necessities. When he got to the door, Solvarra was waiting for him. She was holding a rather large locket, and as Izaak approached her, she presented it to him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“While you slept, I called for a wizard skilled in magic of the mind to come and look into your mind for a vision of Dorian. He then left to find a painter. I suppose he projected the image into the painter’s mind and warped time around them so as to finish it before you woke. He came and brought the locket with the picture inside.”
Izaak opened the locket to find a small painting of Dorian, his smile just as Izaak remembered. He began to tear up but managed to hold back.
“Thank you,” he said, pulling Solvarra into a hug.
“You’re most welcome.”
As Izaak opened the door, the priestesses and priests broke file and gathered around him. They all walked outside the church, and the clerics all waved and shouted goodbyes as Izaak walked away.
~~~~~
Izaak had been walking for a couple of hours, taking care to go in a direction that would take him away from cities and towns. He eventually found a large clearing in the middle of the forest he had found. He had hoped that no one would follow him into such a dense forest, especially with the threat of all the wildlife and possibly trolls or ogres.
When he had reached the center of the clearing, he set all his belongings down and pulled some scissors and a set of five mirrors from his pack. Apparently, the mirrors were enchanted by one of the priestesses to levitate in such a manner as to be able to see herself from all angles when she was putting on her ceremonial robes. He spoke the trigger word that activated the enchantment, and the mirrors began to levitate, forming somewhat of a circle around him. He directed them to the area around his head, and once they had settled, he began his work of cutting his hair.
After a time, he was finished. He had styled his hair to match that of Dorian as another way of keeping his memory alive. He gathered up the mirrors and scissors and put them back in his pack. He then casted a cantrip to churn the earth around where his hair had fallen and bury it, effectively cleaning up after himself.
He stood and brushed himself off, all the while recalling the words to the spell to create the portal to another universe. He took up his staff and, using the bottom end of it, began to trace an archway in the air as he spoke the words. As he did so, a thin strip of light came from the end of the staff, physically outlining the archway. As he reached the end of the spell, he reached out his free hand and made the motion of turning a key. The outline filled with a nearly blinding light that dissipated after a few seconds, revealing his destination: walls of stone and gated archways. He passed through and was greeted by people of a very short race, very goblinesque.
“Welcome to…” one started until he was interrupted.
“Oh, don’t bother,” said the other. “It’s a human. He knows where he is.” And with that, the two left Izaak alone and went back to their work.
Izaak looked behind him to see an enormous ring filled with purple energy. Probably a permanent portal of their own making, he thought. He began walking down the path under the gated archways, passing by guards in steel armor and regular citizens in street clothes.
Everything there was stone, and there were wooden carts lining the path. He eventually made it to a staircase that lead down further into the place. Off to his left was an exit to the area. The walls seemed to rise very high here, signaling that he may have found his way into a fortress of some kind. Adorning the opening in the grey-black walls of the fortress were carvings of the heads of two hawks with feather-like patterns carved into the wall below them and to the ground.
Suddenly, while marveling at the sculptures, a woman, a bit shorter than him, with fair skin and raven hair approached him at a run.
“Excuse me,” she said, looking up and down Izaak, seeming to size him up. “Oh, good! You’re wearing pants! You can probably help me then.”
“What?” said Izaak, completely and utterly confused.
“Never mind the pants thing,” she said. “Just answer me this.”
“Okay,” he said, awaiting the question.
She stared directly at him, a serious look on her face.
“Have you see Trillia Midwell?”