NaNoWriMo 19

Really feeling miserable right now.  I attempted to write last night but just could not seem to focus.  I managed to muddle through 1500 words, but I feel like I chopped this chapter off at a weird place.  I will continue on and finish it tonight, but for the time being here is what I have.  I probably should have stopped a long time ago, but I keep introducing new forces in the world as the various groups meander their way towards their destiny.

Here is a recap of everything that has come before, once again it is raw, extremely raw… especially this mornings post.

1. Shadowed Stone
2. Little Giant Girl
3. Birthday Wishes
4. The Gifts
5. The Incursion
6. The Watch
7. Rough Landing
8. Dragon Bone
9. People of the Storm
10. The Lady
11. Cambridge Beneath
12. Prisoner of War
13. Woodbinding
14. Parting the Veil
15. People of the Earth
16. The Pack
17. Brittagus Escape
18. The Lightskimmer

19 – The Nightlords

As they walked nearer to the wildfae enclave a sense of dread hung in the air.  In part the mood had simply not recovered from the ambush by the reavewolves two days ago.  This however was not the only reason.  As they moved closer and closer to what should have been a relatively large Wildfae concentration they saw none of the familiar signs.  When Jace and Kale had approached Dobin’s enclave they were traced by little green lights darting around just out of sight.  The fae should have made their presence know or at least felt in some way.  Instead they walked through the woods in a complete and eerie silence.

Merowyn grumbled to herself “We should be seeing sprites by now, welcoming us to the conclave.  I don’t like this one bit.”  She glanced over at Dobin and he face was worn by worry.  “This does not make sense at all.” he grumbled as he fluttered past the main group of the party to scout ahead.  He had reached the outer perimeter of the conclave and still not a single wildfae made their presence known.  It was not out of their nature to hide from strangers, but if that was their concern they could have cloaked the entire conclave.  This was something else, something had happened here.

Dobin with two fae that had buzzed up to join him flitted about the village, zooming in and out of huts each time coming up completely empty.  Where could everyone be, there were no bodies, no signs of a struggle.  The village was just completely and utterly empty.  The village seemed to have been deserted white a while.  As dobin fluttered into another cabin he noticed that the stones in the hearth were long cold and dormant with no signs of a recent fire  How did almost a hundred fae disappear.  It had been not two months since he had been up to this conclave to deliver a message.  At that time the place was a bustling hub of twinkles and wings.

Mero, Jace and Kale set up a camp of sorts in what had been a communal hall.  They gathered some wood nearby and within a short while the hearth was blazing with new life again.  The walk had been long so they would need to rest despite how downright spooky the village seemed without life in it.  Dobin simply could not rest, and nor could two of his guard Scree and Nera.  The two of them had family in this village and it was all he could do to keep them from rushing ahead without him.

In moments they had fluttered ahead beyond the north boundary of the conclave and on the road that lead to the Sunwall.  They were zipping ahead looking for clues when Dobin signalled a halt.  The fluttered over to a spot of ground and he zoomed down to examine it more closely.  Something had been through here recently, a large bipedal creature with claws on its feet.  It appeared to be dragging something that looked a bit like a large stick.  Pointing to places in the dirt he exclaimed “See how it drags the ground every few feet, that is the gait of someone walking with a staff”  Dobin said as the other two fae nodded appreciatively. 

The tracks continued up the road as far as he could see, but he did not want to stray too far from camp.  They would be needed if something attacked over night, so as hard as he tried he urged for Skree and Nera to follow him back to camp.  Finally he appealed to their sense of duty to protect the Lady.  That while they did not know what happened to the conclave, they could protect The Lady in the meantime.  By the time they reached the village the other two were full of patriotic loyalty and buzzed off to stand watch on the outskirts of town.

He returned to the side of Merowyn reporting back his findings.  “There are the tracks of something large moving away from this village north towards the Sunwall.  We followed it a ways, and they looked to continue down the road.  We doubled back to wait until morning before following them further.”  The little fae addressed the lady.  “We will find out what happened to them tomorrow.  We will get to the bottom of this.  While I chose your village, these fae are my children as well.”  Merowyn said with a look of distant determination.

The group settled in for the night, and while the tiny warders heard the occasional strange noise in the night as a whole the evening went without much event.  In the wee hours of the morning there was a commotion from the far side of the village, coming from the north along the path that the sprites had scouted the night before.  There came a fluttering and the occasional bumping noise, and as the sprites rallied to the noise, Jace could see that it was another sprite flying towards the camp in a very erratic manner.

The light that normally shone from each sprite had gone and replaced was a light dim glow.  As he flew towards the center of the camp a trio of sprite guards managed to intercept taking the beaten fae in their arms allowing him to collapse tired against them.  The trio flew the newcomer to Merowyn, who took the tiny sprite into her arms.  The tiny sprite sputtered and coughed and managed to squeeze a few words out.  “They came, made us do things” it stopped trying to catch its breath obviously wounded somehow.  A tiny rivulet of blood appeared at the corner of its mouth and ran down its cheek.

The tiny sprite seized for a moment in Merowyn’s arms and then was deathly silent.  Great tears pooled up in her eyes as she blinked furiously to try and stop the torrent.  With a quavering voice she decried “Whoever did this will pay.  Everyone gather up camp, we follow the trail northward.” With that the camp was broken and packed back into the various bags and the group set forth retracing the steps of whatever beast had done this.  The telltale dragging of the staff was relatively easy to follow in the soft loam of the trail.  It was not long until they had arrived at the end of the village and continued following it up towards the Sunwall.

When they reached the Sunwall something seemed off there too.  The path lead up to it and in what should have been a solid wall of fire there was a small empty space.  Merowyn thought to herself…  if the Sunwall had been breached there could be all manner of things that had slipped through.  She herself had never actually been on the other side of the wall.  It was the permanent line between summer and winter and had been that way since the war of the seasons.  To cross the wall meant certain death, or that was what the elfen told their children to keep them safe.

She could tell the other sprites were restless and uncertain of the path ahead.  All of them had grown up with similar tales of faceless demons on the other side.  If she was to find the source of that that poor sprites pain however, she would have to summon her bravery and cross.  For a moment she stood there breathing in deeply trying to forcibly calm herself, and then in the next she was moving forward towards the breach in the wall.  She felt the sensation of the warmth of summer, that was suddenly replaced by the bitter biting chill of winter… and she was through standing on the other side.

As if summoned by her courageous act Dobin and his retinue joined her first, soon to be followed by Jace and Kale leading up the rear.  The other side of the wall was a very different place indeed.  The other side was an endless blanket of shroomspire forests with only small paths carved out here and there for people to traverse the wilderness.  This side however was a barren and craggy plain with bits of ice and rock jutting up everywhere.  The earth was much more firm and for a moment she had a bit of trouble picking back up the trail.

She soon found the familiar staff drag marks lightly scraping into the ground, and they continued following to the north and east.  There was a slight path cutting through the terrain and she assumed that the nameless other had been following it.  Everything about the surroundings set her on edge, and this was not helped by the assorted bleached bones that lay strewn about the landscape.  She wondered if the summer side once looked like this too, or if this was simply the machinations of the Trogjan.

The path lead to a rocky cliff overlooking a valley.  Deep within the valley she saw a small keep of sorts.  Less a proper battle keep like she had heard tales of, but instead more a territorial watch post.  As she watched she noticed little shapes moving around shifting in and out of focus.  At first she thought it was her eyes playing a trick on her, but as she stared more intently she began to make out individual shapes and noticed the same dull purple glow emitting from each.  She was pretty certain they were the sprites of the conclave.  What were they doing guarding a Trogjan keep?

NaNoWriMo 18

Yesterday as I said I was feeling like crap.  It probably would have been the ideal opportunity to write, but alas I did not until early evening.  I did however manage to make it through roughly 2000 words taking my total word count to 32,129.  I take joy in watching the “words per day” estimate on NaNoWriMo.org lower.  Last night I was at 1300 words per day to finish on time.

Once again here is the story to date, all of it raw and unedited.

1. Shadowed Stone
2. Little Giant Girl
3. Birthday Wishes
4. The Gifts
5. The Incursion
6. The Watch
7. Rough Landing
8. Dragon Bone
9. People of the Storm
10. The Lady
11. Cambridge Beneath
12. Prisoner of War
13. Woodbinding
14. Parting the Veil
15. People of the Earth
16. The Pack
17. Brittagus Escape

18 – Lightskimmer

It was nearing high shadow when Josah first saw the familiar glow of the sunwall.  He and Torklah had travelled for for most of a day and he knew they had a quite a bit further to go before they arrived.  Looking over at the old sasquatch, Josah thought it was probably a good idea for them to make camp for the evening.  “Torklah, we should make camp here.  We will need our strength when we arrive at the river of sun.”  The elder shaman agreed rather easily, and he was showing the signs of the days journey.

The two of them made camp in a small grotto near the trail.  It looked as though others that had come before them had camped here.  There was a partial circle of stones that obviously housed a fire.  “My people uses this camp during hunting trips near the river, we should be safe enough here.” The shaman said as he settled down onto a rock leaning back against a treeshroom.  “The fire will keep away anything that might attack in the night.”  The elder sasquatched rifled through his pack producing a loaf of bread and some cheeses.

The two of them rested eating in silence for a bit before Torklah spoke up again.  “What is it that you intend to do when we reach the river?”  Josah thought for a moment and then responded.  “I should be able to summon a lightskimmer, and we can ride that to Valkore territory.  Once we get there we should be able to determine where the Trogjan will be attacking from.”  Torklah let that sink in “What is a lightskimmer?  I have never heard of that before?”

“Lightskimmers are magical craft that the elfen employ to traverse the river of sun.  While we call it the sun wall your name is actually more fitting.  It is in fact a road that connects every corner of the elfen lands back to the capiol of Avalon.  While there are hundreds of miles between us and the Valkore lands, it can get us there in less than a day”  Josah responded.  He thought that it must be an odd concept to a Sasquatch, even a Shaman.  As a people they actively shunned using magic to make their lives easier, and as a result they lived very spartan and simplistic lives.

As far as power goes, Josah was not really certain what the Sasquatch had.  He knew they were called the people of the earth, but he did not really understand what that entailed.  The elfen based their magic on life, or in the case of winter the absense of life.  The scions of summer could harnes the power of the sun to create great flame magics.  Regardless of the application every last casting was based on some aspect of the cycle of life.  It seemed odd to Josah that magic could exist that did not directly involve this cycle.

“Torklah, if you don’t mind me asking… .what is the source of your magic?”  Josah asked with honest and curious eyes.  The old shaman thought for a moment before responding.  “We draw our power from the earth.  The ground beneath our feet is alive and speaks to us.  We stand as a conduit for it’s will.”  Torklah concentrated closing his eyes for a moment.  “It’s okay little one, you can show yourself.  Old Torklah will protect you.”  The wizened shaman addressed an unseen force.

As the coaxing continued there was a stirring in the dirt at his feet.  It churned slightly almost like a whirlpool before the dust and dirt coalesced into a form.  It was of a crudely bipodal shape with stubby rock feed, a large dirt clod for a torso and bits of vine forming arms.  The little earth thing crawled up upon the shamans lap and sat down apparently rather at ease with the sasquatch.  “That’s it little one.  The earth has guardians with us always.  It is just that most cannot feel them like I can.”  Josah a little taken off balance stared at the rockling for a moment.  “Spirit of the earth I greet you.  I am Josah a spring scion of the elfen court of Avalon.”  Torklah looked down at the rockling as though listening to it.  “The guardian is please to meet you”.

Josah explained to the rockling his plight, how the events of the farmhouse lead him to see the help of the Sasquatch.  How he planned to rescue his queen and find his beloved Morrow.  When he had finished his tale there was a long and akward silence, once again the Shaman appearing to be listening to the rockling.  Finally Torklah looked up from the rockling to address Josah.  “The great earth mother has felt your pain, and feels the ripping and tearing of the Trogjan callously cutting into her crust.  She offers you her assistance in saving your queen, in the hopes that the cycle of nature and the cycle of earth can live together in harmony.” 

Josah was not sure what exactly he had expected, but he did not expect to get the help of a primal force such as the earth mother.  He had heard stories about her influence, but since the elfen were not able to commune with her he simply was not sure of her power.  It was said that the earth mother had the power to move mountains as needed and raise giant golems to battle her foes.  The thought of any assistance, let alone a force that powerful was beyond anything he could have imagined. When Josah finally spoke he addressed the Rockling directly.  “Guardian, I am humbled by the support of the Earth Mother.  It too is my hope to restore the balance of the cycle.”

The little rockling hopped down from the shamans lap and collapsed back into the soil at his feet.  By this time the coals in the fire were crackling low, and the deep shadows of the night wrapped in around them.  “We should get some rest, the river of sun is still quite a ways off”  Torklah finally mused.  He slid down off his rocky perch and laid a mat from his pack out alongside the fire curling up under a blanket.  It was not long before Josiah had joined him in doing the same, and the two of them drifted off to sleep with the low embers warming them.

The elder shaman was the first to rise and by the time Josah awoke, he was hobbling around camp tending to things.  “You should have woke me” Josah said stretching up from his mat.  The elder sasquatch gave him a sideways glance before replaying rather flatly “You are still under the influence of the poison, and needed your rest more than I did.  Once you pack your bedding, we can get under way.  I’ve made us a small roll that we can eat as we walk.”  Josah did just that and within a quarter hour they were back on the road.

It had been awhile since Josah had been this close to the sunwall.  It of course wraps its way around Avalon, but the walls and spires of the city obscure the view.  Seeing it stretching across the wilds, cutting a swath through the shroomspires was an entire different vista.  The walked mostly in silence, other than a few one or two word comments back and forth.  Josah was fine with this, he really didn’t have much to say, especially since in this thoughts he was still obsessing over the events of the farmhouse and the dread that something might have happened to Morrow.

The last time he had seen her she had been badly wounded.  Then they were both struck by the humans weapon that had flung them apparently in completely different directions.  He hoped beyond hope that she managed to land near another member of the council.  Josah was certain that if Benj or Bemel were near her they would have tended to her wounds.  He just realized… he had not thought at all what might have happened to Jace and Kale.  The queen sacrificed herself to save them, but he felt horrible that he had not once thought about their safety in this whole ordeal.

Kale looked like she could more than take care of herself, and hopefully she would watch after Jace.  In this most recent bout of obsession Josah had not noticed that they had arrived near the foot of the Sunwall.  He stepped up to the wall looking batch at Torklah “You might stand back, the Sunwall can be unpredictable”  The old shaman nodded and took a few steps back giving him a wide berth.  Josah held his hand out to the wall letting his hand dip into the flames as though they were skimming water.  He felt out through the surface of the wall and feeling the familiar resistance of a skimmer he gave a great tug with his mind.

The Sunwall began to churn violently like a roaring river.  To the east a shape appeared riding along the top of the wall.  As it got closer Torklah realized it was some sort of a boat.  It slowed to a halt hovering above them at the top of the wall.  Josah waved his hand up at the sun ship, and a ladder toppled down to the ground.  “My apologies friend, but we are going to have to climb.  This is why I thought we needed our strength”  Josah said hooking a foot in the ladder and pushing upwards beginning to climb.  Torklah thought that the elf did not realize that the Sasquatch were natural climbers, capable of scaling shroomstalks almost from birth.

While it took the Elfen quite a bit of time to work his way up the ladder the elder shaman managed to do it in what seemed like one fluid motion.  Torklah stepped out onto the deck of the ship and it looked much like he would have expected a water going vessel to appear.  There were a wide array of seats out on the deck under a giant sale like canopy.  There appeared to be stairs leading down into the body of the boat, which he assumed would have sleeping quarters.  “The lightskimmer is designed to carry both military and royalty alike, so you will find it suited for both purposes”  Josah pointed at what looked like crossbow stations up and down the deck.

The elfen walked up to a small perch with a crystal device set into the wall.  Reaching out with his hands he touched the crystal and it pulsed to life,  Speaking an audible command Josah beckoned the crystal. “Take us to Hagengarde, in the Valkore Territory”,  With that the boat lurched forward starting at first slowly, but accelerating rather quickly.  Torklah looked over the bow and immediately wished he had not as he watched the tops of shroomspires whipping by at a dizzying speed.

He took a seat towards the interior of the deck, trying to get his balance and calm his suddenly churning stomach.  Josah walked over to join him, retrieving a drink from a chest beside the seating and handing it to the big sasquatch.  “Drink this, it will help with the nerves.  It is a tonic of sorts that we keep on hand for those not used to Lightskimmer travel.”  Josah helped himself to a similar looking bottle and leaned back against the seat.  “We should be completely safe up here, as we skim along the top of the Sunwall.  According to the guidance crystal it will take us almost a days time to reach Hagengarde.  I suggest in the meantime we relax.  We have no idea what awaits us on the other end.”  The shaman agreed and slowly sipped his own bottle. 

NaNoWriMo 17

I still feel relatively horrible, in fact this morning it seems worse.  The crud that my wife and I have had for some time seems to have settled into my lungs.  I did not write nearly as much as I had hoped, however I did manage to knock out roughly 2500 words yesterday morning.  This takes me over the 30,000 word threshold at 30,154 wordcount.  So I may not be leaps and bounds ahead like I had hoped but I am still very much on track.

Here is the story to date if anyone wants to catch up.  Once again completely unedited and raw.

1. Shadowed Stone
2. Little Giant Girl
3. Birthday Wishes
4. The Gifts
5. The Incursion
6. The Watch
7. Rough Landing
8. Dragon Bone
9. People of the Storm
10. The Lady
11. Cambridge Beneath
12. Prisoner of War
13. Woodbinding
14. Parting the Veil
15. People of the Earth
16. The Pack

17 – Brittagus Escape

As the days went on, Pico spent an increasing amount of time down in the catacombs beneath Astanax’s home.  The presence of the Inquisitors made it such that she did not feel she could risk exposing Astanax, Berrol and the Order of Merlin.  This was fine to her, as it gave her time to pour over the various tomes on this side of the gate.  They all dated back multiple centuries to a time she could not even imagine, and many were penned by Merlin himself.  Over these days often times she would find herself joined by little Berrol, who it turned out was extremely curious about all things related to the order.

Pico had never really been one for children.  When women passed around pictures of their kids she always felt like her skin was crawling and it evoked a fight or flight response.  There was something about Berrol however that she really liked.  He did not act like the snot nosed brat she was expecting.  Instead he was more than content to happily pour over the thick leather bound books beside her.  She even took to employing her in the search for information “Berrol, the wards on my side are weakening.  I need you to look for any information relating to their creation.”  The little boy nodded with bright eyes “Yes miss Pico”.

While they were working on this little side mission, Astanax was moving cautiously on his own mission.  Turns out all of what would be the United Kingdom is made up of a vast colony of human magic users called Brittagus.  Merlin forced this fate upon every magic user, and as a result they rebelled against him and his imposed exile.  Where Merlin wanted to free mankind from the burden of magic, the Magistrate Council seeks to control it in every aspect.  Their brutal inquisition is there to ensure that there can be no decent among the ranks of the magic users.

The Order of Merlin is almost dead, thanks to the hands of these Inquisitors singling out and assassinating each and every member.  Astanax said he was the last of the line, or at least the last he knew about.  Before the purge they had stopped congregating, in a failed attempt to protect the members.  This worked for a time, but the purge swept through the land and with it went every member but him.  His assumption was that they somehow were infiltrated and betrayed from within.  Luckily because of his place as steward of the archives, his involvement had been kept a closely guarded secret and as such many Order members died without revealing him.

All of this meant that as Astanax moved throughout Brittagus, he had to do so ever vigilant of the Inquisition.  The Magistrate new something was happening however, because the frequency of the random Inquisition “visits” had increased over the last few days.  Pico wondered if they were able to sense the border between realms being breached, much the same way as they were on the other side.  If so they were obviously not as sophisticated since they did not seem to be targeting this location directly.  They were however canvassing this neighborhood, and with that she was afraid to let her presence be seen by anyone.

Astanax had been trying to track down a source of dragon bone for her, to very little success.  It was apparently common knowledge that it had been a primary component of the wards, and as a result was greatly restricted.  From the way he talked about dragon bone, it sounded much like ivory is in her world.  There were all manner of uses for it, very few of them legitimate but since the dragons were so powerful the bone must be as well.  She thought it was humorous that people on this side ground up the bone to take as a tonic, much like they do with rhino horn.  Just because a people have actual magic does not apparently make them immune to baseless superstition.

To her left she heard a series of excited noises coming from Berrol who was laying on his belly thumbing through one of the big books.  In quick order came “Miss Pico! Miss Pico! I found something” the little boy was pointing at a picture on the page of the book.  As she crossed the room and knelt beside the book she thought to herself… maybe he did.  It was a diagram of the ward that she had seen before, but beneath it was a list list of all of the components and their purpose.  Beside dragonbone there was the following description.

Dragonbone is among the rarest materials in our world.  It is special because of its great strength and flexibility.  In my experiments it has been showing to carry the vibration of the matrix core to the surrounding area.  Dragonbone is merely a conduit and has no real effect on the success of the matrix, but instead allows for the signal to be transmitted clearly.  It should be stronger than the black iron that holds the pieces together and as such last for a much longer time.  Iron construction alone would have been shaken apart by the vibrations.

So that was the key to the mystery…  Dragonbone is simply really good at taking vibrations and transmitting them.  She was certain that if she had a reasonably sized sample she could simulate this effect with either a metal alloy or ceramics.  Maybe they didn’t actually need to find all those dragons.  She just needed to find one, and even then just a piece of it to take back and run tests on in her lab.  She knelt down and kissed the boys head “You did really good Berrol, this will help me save the wards.”

As she thumbed through the rest of the book it gave a detailed description of every part, its function in the design and its limitations.  With this book she felt reasonably certain that she could replicate one of the wards.  Now she just had to find some dragon bone, and a way back home.  She thought about the little grey box sitting in her pack.  Inside of it was a tiny ball with a red button on top.  It was originally going to be a handheld “analytical grenade” but after the recent events and the damage in the ward caused by her analytical designs, she halted work.  She had tossed it into her pack as a “only in an emergency” weapon if she encountered something she could not handle on this trip.

She could not use it here, at least not within the presence of Astanax and Berrol and preferably not within Brittagus at all.  If the Inquisition had detected a breach, they would most definitely detect one that was forcibly blown open.  To be honest she had no idea what the device would do if used on this side.  She theorized that it would push everyone in the surrounding vicinity of the blast to her world, but that was not a certain thing.  In order to use it she needed off of this island nation.  Hopefully Astanax could help with that, but she did not want to put him or Berrol into any more harm.

There was a sound echoing down the passageway of stone grating on stone, a sound she recognized as the entrance hatch to the archives being moved.  Always before Astanax had yelled down at her to let her know he was coming down.  This time it was complete silence.  Fearing the worst she gathered up berrol in her arm, stuffed the book into her pack and hid in one of the side chambers behind some large urns. She heard footsteps echoing down the hallway, hard soles against the hard stone.  As the shape passed the doorway without pause she could see that it was a man in dark robes, shrouded in a dark hooded cloak.  She could not make out anything of a face, and he held in front of him an illuminated staff.

Pico carefully and quietly slid out a 45 caliber pistol from her pack.  She did not know how it would work, but it would be better than nothing if she got into a pinch.  Suddenly the man cried out “I know you are down here, I bring word from Astanax” he said in a kind voice.  She remained silent and placed her hand over Berrol’s mouth to make sure he knew not to respond either.  The man stopped in the hallway near her door “I know you are afriad, but I mean neither you nor the boy any harm.  Astanax has been captured.”

Something snapped in Pico and she leapt out from behind the urns pistol drawn and pointed at the man.  “What do you mean he’s been captured?  Who are you, how do you know this?”  The man lowered his staff and spread his arms out in a gesture of surrender.  “It’s okay, my name is Karrek.  I am a member of the inquisition, but before that was a loyal member of the order.  I joined to pass information to the remaining order members for their safety.  Astanax inquired about dragon bone to the wrong merchant, an inquisition sympathizer.”  The man said with a sense of honesty about it.  “I briefly was allowed to speak with him as they took him to the grey tower for questioning.  He pleaded with me to get you and his son Berrol out of the city.”

Pico thought for a moment, that did seem like something Astanax would want if he ever got captured.  He had made her promise to watch after Berrol if anything happened to him when the Inquisition patrols increased.  She lowered the pistol and the man visibly relaxed.  “We don’t have much time, the Inquisition will be here soon to search this place.  I have a carriage parked in the alley near the back door.  I will get you to the waterfront and onto a boat away from here.”  He looked around nerviously “Do you have any gold?  I do not have money to pay your transport.”

It was at this that Berrol came from behind the urns and spoke “I know where papa keeps some” he said sheepishly.  The trio rushed upstairs and Karrek stood watch at the front door while Berrol lead Pico into another room.  There the boy moved aside a painting and set into the wall was a safe of sorts.  Berrol spoke a series of words in a language that pico did not understand, and there was an audible click noise as the door to the safe swung open.  Inside were several heavy bags of what she assumed were golden coins.  She dumped all of them into her pack and rushed back to meet Karrek.

Opening her bag and showing it to him “We have this?  Will this be enough.”  He nodded “more than enough, don’t offer them more than one of those bags”  He knew their time was almost up “We have to leave now” and herded them out the back door and into his black carriage that was emblazoned with the inquisition seal she had seen elsewhere on the patrols.  As they rounded the building and passed the front of the house a procession of black robed figures was walking down the sidewalk towards the front of the house.  She and Berrol ducked down in the carriage to make sure they were unseen and for his part Karrek proceeded as though nothing was strange.

Within a few minutes she could smell the familiar salty air she associated with ports.  Risking a peek out the window she noticed they were riding along a wharf of sorts.  They sped past hundreds of boats moored on either side of the dock.  She wondered where exactly Karrek was headed as many of these boats looked seaworthy and available for charter.  The rows of boats parted and were replaced by something slightly different.  It looked in every way a boat but instead of sitting down in the water it floated high above the docks, with a little ramp leading down to the wharf for boarding.  The best she could tell they were flying ships, like she had never seen before.  It was near one of these that the carriage finally stopped.

Karrek dismounted the carriage and moved around to the door.  He opened it helping Pico and Berrol out.  “These are skyships of the Valkore.  As a people they are dragon hunters.  If anyone will have your dragon bone, it will be them.  Charter one of these and ask them to take you to Hagengarde.  This will take you far away from the reach of the inquisition.”  She looked at him with frustration “But what about Astanax?”  he looked back with sad eyes “I will do what I can to free him, but I am not sure if that is even possible.  The grey tower is our most secure prison.  The important thing is for you to get Berrol to safety, it is what he wants more than anything.”  Still not happy about it she nodded in agreement.  She would protect Berrol, even if it meant bringing him back to her own world.

Karrek waited until they were walking up the gangplank to one of the skyships before travelling on.  The ship was rather nice, far nicer than she had expected based on the ramshackle nature of the wharf region.  As soon as they had reached the deck she was met by a woman and two male guards.  The way the woman carried herself she assumed she was the captain of the vessel.  “I’m Captain Barret, and what are you doing on my ship?” she said in a rather callous tone.  “I’m sorry for the intrusion, my name is Pico and this is Berrol” motioning to the boy hiding behind her.  The removed from her pack a small sack of gold coins and held it out to the captain “We need safe passage to Hagengarde”.

The captain took the sack, rattled it around a bit and then nodded grimly.  The Valkore had no love of Brittagus or the inquisition.  Barret would rather never have had to come here, but they needed supplies and with the Valkore in impending danger, this was the closest place with something to spare.  The captain looked over Pico “Do you know what you are getting yourself into?  Hagengarde and all of the Valkore villages for that matter are under attack by the forces of winter.”  Pico shook her head, she didn’t know at all what she was getting into.  “Any place is better than here….  also I need dragonbone and I hear Hagengarde is the place to go for that.”

The captain nodded grimly once again “Yes I suppose that is the case.  Alright you can find someplace to sit down below.  We have just resupplied and are about to get under way.”  With that the captain moved to the great ships wheel and Pico took Berrol under deck, finding a quiet corner to sit down in.  “Miss Pico, I’m scared…  I miss papa”  she ran her hand through the small childs hair “I know Berrol, I’m scared too”.  The boy leaned against her nuzzling in and sobbing silently.  She leaned back against the ships hull closing her eyes.  This was the first time in a long time she was really and truly scared.