Category: Writing

25. Lucas

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

Raella had us cast the compass spell immediately. The image appeared, strangely small for the first time in many days, and more southerly in the circle. Cassandra was laying down, either asleep or passed out – she was bleeding from the head, but it was hard to tell how badly she was wounded. The pale elf tensed visibly. “She’s hurt,” he said, his voice choking on the words with a surprising amount of anguish. I studied him curiously, wondering what kind of relationship they had formed in the brief time we had been here.

Raella let out an angry hiss. “How did she get so far?” she said. “There’s no way the river took her that far that quickly.”

We stood for several moments, staring at the glowing image on the ground. With a sigh, Chase finally broke the spell. “We should continue on,” she said resolutely. Then smiling, she turned toward the three elves we had just met. “If you want to come with us, I believe introductions are in order. My name is Chase Glenn. I am a student of the Imperial University.” She curtsied, dipping her head courteously.

The three looked at each other, then the larger elf with brown hair cautiously nodded. “My name is Silden Vi’Aphil. This is Larina Eth’Adiol,” he took the hand of the female elf, who had bright blue eyes and short red hair. She smiled timidly at us, gripping his hand tight in return. “And that is Lyre Ik’Abalin,” he gestured to the pale elf, who tilted his head forward politely at his name, regarding us with pale gray eyes.

“Slave names,” Zolambi noted. “I am Zolambi Demn.” The pale elf – Lyre – gave Zolambi an appraising look, perhaps also recognizing a fellow former slave by name. I wondered what distinguished the names as slave names, but the introductions were continuing.

Chase gestured to Peyton, Lexie and me. “These humans are like your friend… Peyton Hobbs, Lexie Saint, and Lucas Kearney.”

“They’re from her world?” Larina asked, and she and Silden studied us in awed fascination.

Chase glanced over at Raella, obviously surprised that they knew Cassandra wasn’t from this world, then nodded. “She… Cassandra told you where she was from?”

“Not initially. She was very cautious, and claimed to have amnesia when we met her,” Lyre said. He looked back down at the river far below us again, a slight frown on his face.

“I am Greyjon Pellort,” Greyjon said simply into the following silence.

“You fight well,” Silden said. “Thank you again for helping us.”  Greyjon smiled at him in acknowledgment.

“And I am Raella Harn, Professor of Ancient Divinity at the Imperial University,” Raella said. She looked around at us impatiently. “And I think anything else we can learn from you can be shared as we travel.”

“I agree,” Lyre said, finally looking back to the group. “Let’s be on our way.”

We continued along from the cliff above, walking along the edge of the ravine. There weren’t enough horses for all of us to ride, so we walked, talking as we went. Raella wanted the slaves (or former slaves) to tell her everything they had experienced with Cassandra from the moment they met her. Lyre had been closest to her, so he spoke the most, though it was Larina that initially described the beam of light that delivered Cassandra into what she called the Cursed Sea.

I walked behind Lyre, studying him as he spoke, and tried to imagine what it must have been like for Cassandra, to literally wake up in this world lost at sea and try to make the best of it. She had been lucky to find people that she had grown close to at least – people that apparently cared for her.

Raella listened very carefully, asking a few pointed questions throughout the telling. Early on, when Lyre described casting a translation spell for Cassandra, she said, “She wasn’t speaking Blest?”

Lyre shook his head. “No. I gave her language lessons so she has a decent grasp of it now, but she spoke another language at first. She called it English.” Peyton drifted closer to walk next to me, absorbed in what was being said. “I also taught her to read.” He glanced back at us, frowning. “Did you not have to do the same?”

I shook my head.

Lyre squinted, like he was trying to remember something. “Hello. My name is Lyre,” he said, forming the words slowly, carefully enunciating. Raella’s eyes boggled as she looked at him, like maybe he had grown an eye stalk from the middle of his head.

“Yes, I know,” I said, feeling like I ended the statement with a question mark.

“Were you speaking English just then?” Peyton asked, catching on more quickly than I had. He nodded. “It doesn’t distinguish for us. It all sounds like English, whether you speak normally or not.”

“So that is what an otherworlder language sounds like,” Raella said thoughtfully.

“What if I speak in the elven tongue?” Lyre asked, and he did – the language rolled off his tongue smoothly, sounding nearly as perfect as Zolambi did when he spoke in Primordial.

I shook my head this time. “No, Primordial doesn’t translate for us.”

“Primordial,” Lyre repeated.

Now Zolambi piped up from behind us. “Yes, friend. Our tongue is called Primordial in the Empire.”

Lyre nodded thoughtfully. “I’m sure there’s going to be a lot for us to learn as well,” he said. He continued, telling us about Cassandra’s deal with the ship captain, and how she had begun working to earn her passage. He described the moment that Cassandra had first cast, and the magic lessons he had given her afterward at her request, the escape from the ship, and their trek to and across the desert. “On occasion, she would instinctually cast a new spell. The spell that saved her when she fell off the cliff earlier was one, as well as a true healing spell and a sleep spell.”

“True healing?” Raella asked.

“Yes. She can knit broken bones and close wounded flesh, and we have seen her clear an infection,” Lyre responded. He raised and clenched his hands, which were glossy from a gel that Chase had spread across the wounds he had received in his earlier fight. “She would easily be able to heal these burns if she were here.”

“I see. A truly divine spell,” Raella said, sounding impressed for once. “Then the head wound she sustained should be no trouble at least.”

Lyre let his hands drop back to his side, frowning. “She can’t heal herself.”

Raella hmm’ed, pursing her lips. “That is unfortunate.”

Mostly, their escape to the Empire was a desperate bid to safety, but it was also a journey to find out why Cassandra may have come to this world. “If you were looking for her, then you must know her purpose here?” Lyre tentatively asked.

“You’ve never heard any stories regarding this?” Raella asked, frowning.

“Some. Vague fairy tales about otherworldly beings sealing away monsters,” Lyre said.

Raella nodded. “That’s close enough to true.” And she disclosed everything she had told us about our mission in their world, keeping it rather succinct. As she finished, she asked, “This is very important. The being we wish to seal has been known to reach out to the Graces when they arrive in our world. Has Cassandra mentioned hearing voices at all?”

Lyre shook his head. He had a thoughtful look on his face for a moment, but he simply said, “Never.”

When we stopped to rest and have a luncheon in the afternoon, we cast the compass spell again. Cassandra appeared to be awake now, and was sitting cross legged, a cloak wrapped around her. The head wound must not have been as serious as we thought, the blood having been wiped away. She looked to be lost in thought. “That is a very useful spell,” Lyre said as it was dropped. “Can you find anyone with it?”

Raella glanced at us briefly as she responded. “Not just anyone. It is a spell specifically to find someone from their world.”

Lyre nodded thoughtfully, taking note of Raella’s nervousness. He changed the subject, glancing over at Larina and Silden to say, “Was that the Hunter’s cloak?”

Larina shrugged, but Silden nodded. “It looked like it. Maybe he’s helping us now? He did fight off some of the hounds.” Lyre frowned more deeply, seeming disturbed. Seeing his expression, Silden said, “I’m sure she is safe.”

“You seem very concerned for her,” Peyton noted gently.

“I am,” Lyre said, but didn’t elaborate. We continued after eating.

Lexie spent her time walking very close to the edge of the cliff, which made me a bit nervous. It must have bothered Zolambi as well, because he trailed just behind her, seemingly coincidentally, or at least a lot less obvious than I would have been. As the afternoon gave way to evening, she gestured down below. “What is that?” she asked. I stepped closer to look, as did some of our other companions. Some sort of white string was spread across the cliff face. Even further down amongst the trees and the rock formations closer to the river, there were whole clumps of the stuff. There was only one thing I could think of as soon as I saw it, and it sent a shiver up my spine.

“Webbing?” Peyton asked.

“It’s a spider den,” Raella said. “Though I don’t see the spiders.”

We stared in silence, trying to spot any movement from below. “We should probably move further along before we make camp,” Greyjon said. “We don’t want to be nearby if they come out to hunt at night.” I shuddered at the thought.

“How big do they get?” Peyton asked.

“Judging by the nest below… Big,” Greyjon said, and left it at that.

It started to get dark an hour later, so we stopped to make camp, hoping that it would be far enough away from the webbed lair. Greyjon decided to take the first watch, and accepted Silden’s offer to help. The compass spell was cast, and we were thankfully closer to Cassandra now. She was still sitting, staring thoughtfully into the middle distance with the cloak wrapped around her. From the size of her image, I guessed it would only be a day or two of travel to find her.

We settled in for the evening, eating and setting up our bedrolls. It was decided if a few of us each took a turn at watch, the bedrolls could be shared with our new guests. As I lay down to sleep, I turned on my side and stared at the crackling fire, and tried not to think about an entire den of giant spiders existing just north of us. Every strange noise in the night made me shiver, even if it was obviously unspiderlike.

I was finally starting to snooze when a strange chittering sound from out in the dark got my attention. My eyes flashed open and I stared at the fire. That, I thought, was definitely spiderlike.

I could hear Silden whisper something to Greyjon in the dark, though I couldn’t hear what he said. I heard the soft whisper of Greyjon’s sword leaving its sheath. I turned over to look toward where they were sitting – both were surrounded by the light of magic. I sat up to stare into the dark. More chittering – louder this time. From multiple spots around the camp.

Greyjon waved a hand up, a bright spot of light appearing above him, lighting the darkness around us suddenly and exposing the nearby landscape. I watched in horror as kitten-sized eight-legged shadows skittered away. And then I screamed as I saw something with too many legs shift forward quickly – something massive, maybe slightly larger than a bear. Its many eyes glittered in the light.

There was movement all around the camp as at least three more massive spiders moved forward as well. The rest of the group woke at my screams – several lights flared around me as everyone else reached for their magic. Whatever else they were doing was lost to me, because one of the spiders was barreling straight at me, attracted to my screaming. I instinctively propelled myself back, almost directly into the fire, and screamed again as I felt the flames lick my palms and back.

Panicked, worried that I had caught fire, I rolled on the dirt away from the flames (stop, drop, and roll, the mantra ingrained from elementary school, drifted through my head). Unfortunately, the roll brought me back into the spider’s grasp. I punched up as the legs surrounded me, my fists connecting with the bristly, leathery skin of the thing, and realized I was screaming, “No no nonononONONO!” as I struggled against it.

I was pinned. Its head dipped so close to me that I was looking directly into at least three of its large, glimmering eyes. I felt large fangs puncture my abdomen, and suddenly it was like my entire body was on fire, like the flames I had almost fallen into had seeped into my very blood. I screamed even louder than I thought I knew how to, until suddenly my tongue grew numb and my limbs grew heavy and my head felt fuzzy. This quick, I thought. I die this quick.

I heard screams and explosions in the camp, and more chittering. I could hear my name being shouted. I felt myself being lifted and carried, like floating in a dream. Names, I realized. I could hear multiple names being shouted, not just mine. Lexie?

I woke cocooned in sticky silk. My first instinct was to begin screaming again. Something slapped me – hard – across the face, and I stopped mid-shout, dumbfounded. “Stop making so much noise,” I heard a voice whisper, very close to me. I recognized it as Lyre.

Despite myself, I moaned and began to mumble a whole slew of absurdities, trying to shift to rip myself out of the webbing. It was hard to break through. “Spider web is some of the toughest material,” I muttered, and laughed a little manically.

The point of a rapier slipped through the web, nearly piercing me. I quieted immediately, holding very still. After a moment, Lyre said, “I… didn’t just kill you, did I?”

“Oh. No. Please get me out.”

“Okay, hold still.”

“I mean… I was. For that purpose. Hurry.” He obliged, quickly slicing through. Once there was a large enough opening, it was easy to slide out. I felt nauseous and my entire body felt heavy and fuzzy at once, like I existed in a deep fog. I pulled up my shirt to look at the bite – there were two large spots on my abdomen, both red and very inflamed, but nothing looked necrotic, nothing was turning white or black.

Lyre was still holding the rapier a little awkwardly. He looked paler than normal, like a ghost, probably owing to the similar bite wound on his shoulder. “We should get out of here,” he said.

I nodded fervently, but the motion sent my head spinning, and I winced. We were in a cave of some sort, and I could hear chittering echoing from within. Everything was covered with webbing, and there were other cocoons in the chamber. I wanted desperately to be anywhere but here. Lyre chose a direction to walk in, and I followed, hoping that he knew where we were going. But I took three steps before I remembered that I had heard a voice – Peyton’s voice – shouting my name when I had been carried away. And not just my name. “What about Lexie?” I asked groggily.

Lyre must not have heard me. He continued walking ahead of me.

I felt myself shaking my head, almost like in a distant dream, and the world blurred with the motion, shifting uncomfortably. I had always hated spiders, but I couldn’t just leave a little girl to be devoured by them. I mumbled as much out loud, then I shifted away from Lyre, moving in the opposite direction, sure that he would agree and follow.

Playtest

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

The cards for this week were: video game tester, and wrong number.

It went kind of Ring’ish, I guess, with no reason or explanation, and then ends kind of abruptly and vaguely. You can choose whether you think it means Lacey is just dreaming or if she died. Some people hate those kinds of stories, but I always liked them. Having the uncertainty is sometimes the point.

That being said, I didn’t handle it very well here, and it feels less like chilling uncertainty and more like hot garbage. You’re welcome?

          The game premise was simple enough, based off a famous urban legend with some slight variation to it. In it, you are a house-sitter for a wealthy man. The mansion is out far enough that you have no cellphone signal, and you keep receiving mysterious phone calls on the house’s landline. The person on the other end claims to be in the house. At first you don’t believe him, but strange things keep happening and the caller keeps mentioning things specific to you and your location and the things you have seen in the house.

          Moving about the house and figuring out the character of the wealthy homeowner from the items within is interesting. It’s also a good way to learn about the character you play from their commentary and reactions to the things in the house. The atmosphere eventually builds to panic when you realize the landline is an internal phone system for businesses and doesn’t even dial out, so you can’t reach the police or call for help. Eventually you learn that the caller IS the wealthy man, and that he is a serial killer that specifically hires people that won’t be missed to watch his house so he can terrify and murder them.

          It was a casual Indie game that Lacey had been playing for the past few days. Not entirely out of fun alone – she was being paid to test it. She carefully notated all the bugs she found and provided extensive feedback on the atmosphere and story of the game. It wasn’t very long, and she played through many times, allowing her character to fail at different points throughout the game to test the multiple endings.

          It was tedious work, but Lacey liked tedium, and she was easily absorbed. Because of that, she jumped when her phone rang. Glancing at it, she saw that she didn’t recognize the number calling. Robocaller, she decided, and sent the call straight to voicemail. As she settled in to play again, the phone rang once more – displaying the same number. Wondering if it was something important, Lacey picked up the call. “Is Viola there?” the voice on the other end asked.

          Lacey paused, a little startled. Viola was the name of the character in the game she was testing. She glanced at the number again, wondering if she would recognize it as someone associated with the game. Maybe they were messing with her?
          “No,” she said, “I’m sorry, you’ve got the wrong number.”

          “I really don’t think I do.”

          Lacey frowned, feeling her temper rise. Who the fuck had the nerve to say something like that? How do you call someone and then argue with them about whether you have the right number or not? “Pretty sure you do, buddy. There’s no Viola here.” And she hung up.

          The phone rang immediately. The same number. Lacey blocked it so they couldn’t call her, and set her phone back down, ready to return to work. If it was the designer messing with her, he wasn’t clever OR funny. He could email her later if he had anything important to say. After all, the only game she was hired to play was the one running on her computer right now.

          The phone rang again.

          Lacey frowned at the display, which now read, “PRIVATE.”

          Hesitantly, she picked up the phone. “Hello?”

          “Listen Viola, it’s rude to hang up on people.”

          With a sigh, Lacey hung up and switched her phone to silent. It began to vibrate with another incoming call, and she ignored it. However, after going to voicemail each time, it would immediately begin vibrating again.

          Distracted and annoyed, Lacey took her phone in to her bedroom and plugged it in to charge. Then she went back to her computer desk in the den to continue working, thankfully out of ear shot of the constant vibration of the phone.

          She was able to focus on her work in this way for the next half hour when her doorbell rang. She sat for a long moment, wondering if this had something to do with the phone call. Her arrangement play testing the game had been made entirely online – there had been no reason to share her location with the game designer. There was no way it could have been him.

          She went to check her phone, to see if someone had texted that they were coming over. She had missed 74 calls, with no voicemails left. Frowning, Lacey used the app on her phone to check through the doorbell camera – although it had registered being pushed, it had not registered anyone approaching the door at all.

          No one was there.

          As she stared at the emptiness at her door, her doorbell rang again. The app pinged her on her phone, alerting her to the doorbell ring.

          Annoyed and wondering if the thing was malfunctioning somehow, she went to the door. She hesitated one moment before opening it, glancing down at the live video again to see that no one was there. She opened the door.

          No one.

          She sighed with relief, then moved out onto the porch. It whistled, catching her movement. She examined the doorbell to see if anything was sticking, and pushed it a few times to be sure, but it all looked to be working correctly. She closed the door behind her, and waited several moments, standing just inside her home.

          There were no phone calls. The doorbell didn’t ring.

          Relieved, Lacey returned to the game. As she sat down, she saw that the screen had gone dark in her absence. She wiggled the mouse, and the screen returned, showing the serial killer of the game standing in front of her character’s POV – it was so unexpected that she jumped, then laughed at her reaction nervously. “Hello, Viola,” the character said, smiling at her. “Or should I say, Lacey?”

          “What the fuck?” Lacey said, mildly bemused. And then he leaned forward, reaching for her – reaching right through the screen, his hand mere centimeters from her face. “What the fuck!?” Lacey screamed now, loud, shoving back so hard in shock that she tipped her computer chair over in the process and went sprawling across the floor. She groaned in pain as she struggled to right herself and crawl away, but she was too late. He was there. With her. In the room.

          She screamed again, wondering vaguely if this was a dream, hoping that she would wake.

          And then she screamed no more.

Sleep

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What time do you go to bed and wake up currently?
View all responses

Choosing a prompt to respond to because: got lazy! And somewhat in relation to the prompt, took a nap in the afternoon instead of writing. But I have pulled my cards and have something of an idea for it at least when I post next week.

Generally my sleep schedule can change up quite a bit owing to my work schedule. For the most part, my boss usually gives me closing shifts (or what counts as closing for us – we close at 7 pm) because I enjoy sleeping in and don’t mind working in the evenings. A lot of our employees usually prefer day shifts because they have children or would like to be off earlier in the day. As a result, I go in to work anywhere between 10 am to 12 pm, and will usually sleep in to about 45 to 30 minutes before I am due for work. On days when I don’t have to work, I can easily sleep in until nearly 1 pm.

I’m also a night owl, so I’m up pretty late. I rarely go to bed before 2 am. There are exceptions on days when I am just completely drained and crash early, or when (like today) I take a nap. There are even some nights when I am up until sunrise.

24. Lucas

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

If anyone knew about Peyton and I taking a stroll that evening, no one said a thing. We hadn’t stayed in a place large enough for us to make the attempt again, and we didn’t openly discuss it. I had long suspected that the compass spell needed our presence to work, so that meant that once we found our fourth person, we might all be able to escape together. That option gave me some peace of mind.

The routine for the next couple of days remained the same as it had been the entire trip so far. In the morning, we would cast the compass spell. We would spend the day traveling, listening to Raella’s history lessons, and then find an inn to stop in for the evening. Sometimes we trained a bit with our weapons. Sometimes Chase and Zolambi spent entire evenings trying to get me to tap into my magical ability. There had been no luck with that so far.

They would also cast the compass spell again before we settled down to relax, and discuss our route for the next day. “She must be crossing the desert,” Zolambi said as her course began to take us further south.

Greyjon frowned, studying a map that he had laid out on one of the common room tables of the inn we were staying at. “That’s a dangerous route. She must be incredibly powerful already to have survived this far.”

“Or she has powerful companions. It’s not an unusual route to take for certain slaves. I crossed the mountains myself, but it was summer and the passes weren’t snowed in. The border further north is more heavily patrolled though.” Zolambi absently rubbed at the rough skin of his scar. “If she does cross the desert, she’ll make it to the ravine. There’s a small walled town called Watter close to there. That will be our last inhabited stop, I think.”

“And if she does arrive with escaped slaves in tow?” Raella asked. “We weren’t planning on having many extra people with us.”

“Well, we can’t leave them behind, Raella,” Chase said with some exasperation.

Zolambi nodded. “We can travel back to Watter. They’ve got an organization that helps take in escaped slaves, and acclimate them to the Empire. Most of the border towns do.”

Raella stared at the map, and pointed to a town even further south. “Then certainly Veinwell will have that as well. Then we don’t have to make the trek back. We’ll be looping to the southeast after we find her anyway.”

I looked curiously at the map, seeing what was to the southeast of where we were going. I spotted the familiar name of Glyss along the southern border of the Empire, and remembered that Raella had mentioned that the ruler there had helped open up a friendly relationship with the dwarves. Unfortunately, the map didn’t extend beyond the current borders of the Empire, so I couldn’t see any specifics about the dwarven lands.

We traveled within sight of the mountains that Zolambi had mentioned and then began to take a more southerly course. The Elves called them the Elder mountains, and they terminated just above the desert, trailing off into the human kingdom that bordered there. Zolambi explained that further north, the range became truly massive in scale. Even though it was still autumn, I could see that the mountains were covered in snow. The grasslands gave way to the sparser vegetation of the desert, and the weather was a bit warmer than where we had started.

Watter was a small town, just as Zolambi had described, and not even large enough to merit walls. The inn had only two rooms, so we split them by gender. Lexie groaned about this. “Raella is going to drone all night,” she muttered angrily as she poked at her dinner. “I just know it.”

“Maybe we’ll ask Chase for some pointers on casting as soon as we get to the room,” Peyton suggested.

Lexie didn’t look fully convinced. She was already powerful magically, and picked up on spells easily. As soon as she was shown something, she seemed to understand how to do it. But she completely lacked fine control – if she summoned flames, it was always in a large burst. She couldn’t control the temperature of summoned water, and when she tried to move items through the air, they wobbled and on occasion slammed toward their destination with too much force. “I think Raella believes that’s a lost cause,” the girl said morosely.

Peyton shrugged. “We could say that we want to try to help Lucas again.” I felt the same swirling nervousness in my gut that I always felt when my lack of magical ability was mentioned.

Glancing up, I could see that they were both giving me sympathetic looks. I sighed. “Sure, I can be your excuse,” I said, feeling like there wasn’t much point to trying. I caught Peyton looking between Lexie and me, the hint of a smile pulling at the corner of her lips as we both pouted at our particular weaknesses.

“Well, maybe instead of any of it, we go to bed early. Tonight will really be our last night in a decent bed,” Peyton noted. We sat for a moment in silence as we considered that. We hadn’t known what to expect when we initially left the University, and I think the paved roads and inns had been a nice surprise. Now we were going to travel out into actual wilderness.

With a sigh, Lexie stood up. “You’re right. I’m going to see if I can pretend to be asleep before Raella gets to the room. Goodnight Lucas, night Peyton.” She quickly walked off to where the rooms were. I considered excusing myself as well, but Peyton beat me to it. She had already been done eating at that point and had just been sitting with us companionably, studying the décor of the room.

She stood and said goodnight, and followed the girl back to their shared room. I pushed the remainder of the food around on my plate, wondering if I’d actually be able to sleep tonight.

The next morning, Raella made arrangements for the wagon with our supplies to be taken to Veinwell, where we planned to go after our trek into the ravine. We traveled alongside the wagon most of the day. It was being driven by the innkeeper’s son, who seemed to be happy to get out of Watter for a time. In the middle of the afternoon, we said goodbye to the boy and left the road. I glanced back several times as the wagon grew smaller in the distance, heading further south as we began to make our way west and away from any signs of civilization.

That evening as we stopped to make camp, we called up the compass spell. The image was larger every day, especially as we had gotten closer to the mountains and the ravine that was south of them. It was easier to see what she looked like now, even though we didn’t know anything specific about her still.

Colors were hard to make out, because the image was made of light, so I had no idea if she had brown hair or blonde hair – but it came down to about her shoulders and was slightly curly. She looked disheveled and tired. She was dressed in the same breeches she had worn the entire time, and a tank top underneath a billowy shirt that looked like it belonged to a pirate. Another shirt was wrapped around her head with the sleeves pulled around her neck to hold it in place, probably to protect from the sun. She also carried a pack loosely over her back.

At the moment, she was in the process of testing an improvised crutch, walking back and forth on the ground with it. I could hear Chase gasp lightly from behind me when she saw what she was doing, and could see the frowns on everyone else’s faces. “So she’s been injured,” Raella noted impassively.

They kept the image up for several minutes longer than usual as we observed her. I could see where the pants had a rip high on her thigh, and that was the leg that she seemed to have trouble putting weight on. After testing the crutch, she set it aside and sat down to rest. Then she cupped her hands and brought them up to her face, appearing to drink from them. I paused, confused at what she was doing because she didn’t have any sort of canteen, until I realized that she must have summoned water directly into her hands. I couldn’t see the glow of magic because she was just represented here as a glowing form of light itself.

“Oh, she has learned to cast!” Chase said, sounding excited.

Even without any direct instruction, she had managed to learn to use her magic. I felt even more worthless for a moment, and a little embarrassed. What was I doing so wrong?

The bedrolls weren’t as comfortable as a modern sleeping bag, but were still better than sleeping on the ground. Zolambi, Chase and Greyjon each took a turn at watch. I offered to help at one point, but was told to rest instead. In the morning, the compass spell revealed that the other Grace was moving again. We continued our own journey, leaving the mountains behind.

The next day of travel wasn’t so bad either. We had eased into traveling through the previous days, thanks to the frequent stops and the wagon. A full day of riding still left me sore and a bit stiff, but I wasn’t as uncomfortable as I had initially worried. The increased exercise likely helped as well. That evening when we stopped, Greyjon provided some instruction with the staves again. He tossed them to us, as he traditionally did, and as usual, Lexie missed catching hers. She grumbled about it as she chased after the stick, which had rolled away a few feet. “Statistically, you’d think you’d catch it once by accident,” I said.

She used her staff and a gust of air to trip me before I was technically ready to start sparring. “No magic in these lessons,” Greyjon said, doing his best to hide a smile. “Though that is a good combination to keep in mind if you ever get into an actual fight.”

The day after that we reached the ravine. We traveled along it for awhile as we attempted to find a way down, eventually finding a trail of sorts. “It reminds me of the Grand Canyon,” Lexie said, marveling at the scale of it.

“Same process probably made it. A river and thousands of years,” I said, staring down at the river far below.

“I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon,” Peyton said thoughtfully. “I guess I’ll never get to see it.”

“Well, it’s kind of like this,” Lexie waved an arm to gesture at the view. Peyton chuckled. After a few moments, Lexie added, “I’ve never seen the pyramids. I always wanted to go.”

“Well, they’re not like this,” Peyton said. “But maybe this world has something similar to offer.”

We made camp when we reached the bottom. When we checked that evening, the other Grace was already sleeping. “She stopped early tonight,” Raella noted. The image was almost to scale, I realized. We were close. “Tomorrow we’ll travel further south along the river.”

We stayed in the gorge the entire next day, stopping often to check our course. She was close now. We’d be meeting her soon. Raella didn’t want to travel too far south if we could help it, and casting the spell again and again seemed to be taking its toll on them. We stopped earlier in the evening after finding a place that provided a reasonable path up toward the desert side of the gorge, and we camped for the night.

The next morning, we woke early to the echoey sounds of barking, and people screaming and shouting from somewhere above. I wasn’t sure if we were close – the canyons could have been amplifying the sounds for all I knew. And we couldn’t see what was going on towards the top of the canyons. We hastily packed our items and began to follow what passed for a precarious trail up. It took us several minutes to be halfway up – we were going fast enough, but it felt dreadfully slow hearing the shouts from above.

At one point as we neared the top, Lexie gasped and waved her hands, pointing toward a cliff face slightly south of us. We all turned to look, could just barely make out figures along the edge of the cliff. There were five individuals, four of which glowed from magic use. What looked to be several darting balls of fire weaved around the figures.

We reached the top of the cliffs, and Greyjon quickly mounted his horse, racing ahead to reach the figures – Peyton was immediately behind him, followed quickly by Chase and Zolambi. Raella lingered near Lexie and I, waiting as we mounted our own horses, not being as quick or practiced as our other companions.

As we approached, I watched a pair of figures and a smaller figure, what looked to be a dog, move dangerously close to the edge. I gasped as they tangled and then tumbled over the side of the cliff, and could hear Lexie scream something from not far behind me. I stopped my approach and moved to where I could see what happened to them, Lexie following my lead. Initially, the figures drifted apart in the fall, but then one of the people reached out and grabbed the other. The glow of magic sprang up around them, and their fall slowed dramatically as the dog hit the cliff face below them. They drifted off toward the river far below.

“Oh. That’s a really useful spell,” Lexie said thoughtfully, watching until they were out of sight in the water. I glanced up to see that Raella was staring down as well, watching them drift away. Her mouth was pursed as though she had tasted something sour. Our eyes met, then she gestured with her head and led the way toward where our group had joined the fray.

The fireballs were flaming dogs. A lot of them were dead – some frozen in ice, or disemboweled. By the time I arrived, the remainders of the pack were already yipping as they ran away. One of the strangers, an elven man with very pale features, was standing near the edge of the cliff, staring at the river below. He bent to pick up a discarded pack that was laying on the ground near him, and turned to face us. Raella quickly looked at each of the three figures, her brow furrowing deeper at every set of pointed ears she saw.

A tall, burly elf with brown hair was giving Greyjon and Peyton appraising looks. “Thank you for your help, strangers,” he said as Raella climbed down from her horse. Greyjon nodded in acknowledgement to him, wiping his sword off before sheathing it. Frowning at the gore on her own blade, Peyton followed his example.

“Was it a human woman that went over the cliff? A human that can cast,” Raella said bluntly, ignoring the thanks.

The pale elf frowned at her sharply. “Yes,” he said. He was looking at our group carefully, and I could see that he recognized that Peyton, Lexie and I were all human. “Her name is Cassandra.”

Cassandra. After all our time here, we finally had a name for our lost Grace.