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27th of Cylus 718

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Neronin
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Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2017 4:34 pm
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Cave Conversations (Ivanthe)

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27th Trial of Cylus, 718th Arc
Woodlands outside Etzos


His hands were a mess. Sometimes, to get what you needed, you needed to get a little messy. Of course this mess was much more manageable than his usual. The darkness of Cylus had settled in completely now. And Neronin knew he needed to prepare for a cold season ahead, and his return to Etzos in earnest. Still under Vuda’s thumb, the mage wanted to find any long mission away from Al’Angyryl to avoid his obligation to spy on them. He was squatting outside of the tiny cave that had been the home to a bear in a more harsh winter. Neronin had found the evidence. It suited him for now.

He knelt down and hissed as the cold water touched his oily and pitch covered hands. He had bought a few pelts of leather from a merchant in one of the small villages outside of Etzos and had stollen some oil from the same merchant. One of the oilskins had ruptured and leaked all over his hands. Neronin was washing them before eating. It had been a painstaking task, but he required the fur and the oil to survive the season. Immortals only knew the next time he would get a warm bed to sleep in.

The thought excited his spark.

Neronin rummaged in his sack and found the old bit of dried meat he had been saving and put it in his mouth. He let his saliva soften the meat as he laid out the leathers. Neronin found it easier to work in the cave, though the light was even dimmer. The wind, however, was much depleted. Neronin labored for nearly half a break to get the small bundle of twigs he had gathered lit with the flint and steel. When it sparked, he crouched over it and shielded it from the wind. Finally, the spark became a small fire and he fed it with more wood.

The problem was it was raining, a cold bitter rain. It was preemptive of snowfall. Neronin knew he would need to fix up the leather before that happened if he didn’t want to freeze to death. So he began to work after the fire was stable, still chewing away at the dried meat.

Neronin’s work began as a coating of the mossy brush he was working with. He would dip it in the oil and make sure the stuff was well soaked. Then he brushed the clump of oiled moss across the leather. Neronin worked it diligently into the leather. The process of oiling the stuff took nearly a break by itself. The fire was roaring by the time the leathers were suitably oiled. Then Neronin set them close to the fire.

Once the leathers dried he would repeat the process and eventually they would become something of a water-resistant shelter. He could drape them over his furs and retain heat at least. Neronin knew it was sloppily done, but he hadn’t been at it for long, so excused himself. He had also been through quite a lot recently and had more on his mind than proper alchemy procedure.

Neronin looked up quickly as he heard a sound outside, something more than the rain...
word count: 548
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Ivanthe
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Cave Conversations (Ivanthe)

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The rain was cold as ice, slicing right through Ivanthe’s clothes and painting his skin with fiery agony. Exhaustion weighed like iron from every limb, every movement, every aching breath he had to drag as he forced one foot in front of the other.

His cloak did nothing against the weather; he was soaked, his pack was soaked, even the dead duck tucked under his arm was soaked. He’d given up all hope of finding his way back to Etzos; all he could hope for was find shelter and try not to freeze to death.

Through the blurring veil of pain, Ivanthe was aware of two basic facts: he needed to find hills for shelter, and the dry streambed he followed was his best chance of doing that. To his knowledge, he was following it upriver, though that was by more prayer than actual evidence. He was fairly certain the two banks had been getting steadily taller and more jagged; there were depressions here and there that had caught his attention, but they were all too shallow. Every time he marked one in his mind as a last resort, he would come to another that was just a bit deeper, just a bit more promising, and yet still barely usable. They would protect him from rain, but not cold, wind or hypothermia.

He was beginning to wonder if he would wander the storm forever, when he saw a star in the darkness.

It was just a moment, and not even in the sky. It was on the ground somewhere ahead, just a single heartbeat of red and yellow flickers before it was swallowed up by nothingness. The small, rational part of him that still survived was certain it was his imagination, but the rest of him was so desperate he didn’t care.

Unable to feel his hands or feet but too stubborn to give up, Ivanthe dug into the mud of the streambed walls and hauled himself to higher ground.

He followed the memory of the light instead of actual signs, which he knew was almost as good as nothing. As long as he kept moving in a straight line, he persuaded himself, he could always just turn back around and try to find the stream again.

Then he saw it again. Longer this time, brighter, and not quite like a star. Fire?

Ivanthe managed to go faster.

The ground rose before him, then dipped suddenly. From somewhere beyond that dip, Ivanthe could see firelight; it danced in the water and turned the raindrops into falling stars, though that might have been his delirium at seeing signs of warmth. He was too far gone to worry about slavers or bandits; all he could think of was that there was fire, and he had to get to it.

So without even a shout of hello, the ten-arc-old dragged his half-frozen body into the shelter of the cave.

He promptly fell to his knees in exhaustion as the very second he was out of the rain.
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Neronin
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Cave Conversations (Ivanthe)

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Neronin had decided to rebel against Vuda’s hold over him. He wasn’t sure what Al’Angyryl were doing now, and that was ideal. He didn’t want to inform on them and instead squatted here in the woods on a mission to gather Tendrilshroom and Emberback. Such a mundane task, he could have sent his minions out to do it, as he had done before. He had lied and told Mongrel and the others that in the darkness of Cylus the thralls could not differentiate ideal specimens.

He looked up from his work as he heard the footsteps barely audible over the rain. He did not have any thralls active, unaware if Vuda could track such magic. The Etzori mage struggled to his feet and stepped around the fire to peer out into the night. He could just make out a figure approaching in the distance. Wait, no, it was a small figure, a child. Neronin stared out at him as the boy approached.

He was a ragged little thing, dampened by the rain and looking as though he too was in dire need of some warmth.

“Who sent you? Did Vuda?!” Neronin barked before he could stop himself. No, Vuda wouldn’t send a mere boy to retrieve Neronin, would he? No. Neronin did not know that bizarre man very well, but he knew that. The necromancer was clearly not thinking straight because of the solid four seasons he had spent on the run, fighting, or else overstepping to escape with his life. The shock of his own survival hit Neronin like a bout of warmth. He sighed. It was just a boy, a stupid boy. If these were any more dangerous caves to stumble upon than this one, Neronin would be surprised. “Nevermind then. Come warm yourself by the fire...” Curiosity. That was why he ended up letting the boy come into his cave. It wasn’t a sense of moral restraint, although Neronin didn’t much like killing children normally either. He certainly didn’t have any qualms about it to protect himself however, not if they were the ilk of Vuda. No, it was curiosity about why such a boy was alone out here that stayed his hand.

Neronin turned back to his work, rubbing the oil into the leather. “So... what brings a young kid like you out into the woods in the dead of Cylus? Not many folk about out here.” Neronin thought then about what he’d say if the boy asked him. He was out hunting? With no bow. He settled on the truth, or a butchering of it.

“Me. I’m out here collecting herbs for...medicine. I’m a doctor.” Neronin said. Shit, he wasn’t much of an actor. That was Maws the chameleon. That damn man could convince someone he was their own brother. But this was just a kid, perhaps he didn’t pick up on such things. “Here, have some jerky.” Neronin tossed a piece of dried meat to the boy. There, polite and giving. He was being so nice the boy couldn’t suspect what he really was.
word count: 525
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Ivanthe
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Cave Conversations (Ivanthe)

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Ivanthe knew someone had shouted at him, in the same vague way he knew that someone else must be in the cave. It took a few moments for thoughts to manifest, each circling the gaunt, pale figure looking his way. Ivanthe rolled to his side, taking in the man’s ghostly pallor, the hollowness of his face, the overall dampness, and then didn’t remember how to be a polite person.

“Shit, man,” Ivanthe said in absolute wonder, “You look deader than me, and I might have just froze to death.”

There was no living part of him left to rationalize, maybe you should have filtered that, so he simply struggled unsteadily to his feet and made good on the invitation to approach the fire. The mere sight of it was enough to lift his spirits, and then the glow hit his skin like hot silk. The young hunter sank down beside the hearth with a weary, aching groan and extended numb hands a bit closer to the flames than necessary.

So, what are you doing out here?

“Shit,” Ivanthe chuckled, unable to remember a single one of his usual excuses. “I, um––hunter. Father, he’s––I was just…” He sighed heavily closing his eyes with a delirious, exhausted smile. “You know what? Rotten fucking luck and no coins to rub together. I’m a bit less broke than a beggar and old man Farlin at the Chopped Block pays me to kill things, so…” He gestured at the whole of himself. “... just freezing my ass off, as you do.”

Something was funny, and he snorted, though he wasn’t sure if it was at what he’d said or at the general situation. Or perhaps it was just hypothermia.

“Medicine,” he responded softly, not thinking twice about the oddly shaky explanation. “Know a bit of that. My… person I knew, he was a doctor. Thanks for the jerky, I’ll pay you back.”

With the fire bringing his senses back, Ivanthe took a moment to really look around at where he’d ended up. He looked mostly at the cave itself, the walls and dirt and the fire, because something felt oddly off about it. It took a few heartbeats to really see things, but once he did, Ivanthe saw it everywhere. The rickety pyramid of the fire, and its odd placement in the cave. Supplies spaced out oddly, with no practical pattern Ivanthe could see to ward off wind or rain. The cave itself was dry and earthy, with fine arched walls and a sloped ceiling that looked perfect to gather smoke and funnel it into the open… if the fire was placed a bit closer to the back, where the heat would be amplified.

“Your camp…” Ivanthe murmured, finally regaining enough forethought to attempt politeness. “It’s uh… interesting. Your fire, it’s, er…” He leveled an uneasy look at the stranger. “You’re not used to being out here, are you? Because your camp looks half nonsense.”
word count: 502
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