Rhiallis: Teleportation, pt. 1

      Today’s snippet, titled “Teleportation, pt. 1”, is a piece I wrote about my PC in Mark’s Pathfinder Campaign.
      Yes, another multi-part chapter. Chapter Forty was a beast – totaling about four thousand words, which may not seem like that much. Still, when you think that an average novel has about a hundred thousand, that’s 1/25th of a novel. Which maybe doesn’t seem like much either but really, it is. I swear, really.
      Be forewarned, there may be mature themes and naughty language below.
– – – – – – – – – – –
      “Ready? Let’s clasp hands.”
      Rhiallis took Aimsley’s hand in her left and Sadie’s on her right. Celeste was between Sadie and Aimsley. Each of them had an enchanted bag securely fastened on their person, weapons sheathed – but ready – and for she and Celeste, full armor.
      “To Kenebres first. I think we’ll aim for a clearing I know, not too far out the city.”
      Aim for? Rhiallis fought the urge to frown and ask more questions. Undoubtedly, Aimsley knows what she is doing. She wouldn’t risk our lives foolishly and besides, people had been teleporting across the world for hundreds and thousands of years. How hard could it really be? You don’t need to understand everything Rhiallis, just let her do what she has trained for a century to do!
      The incantation was remarkably complex, but Aimsley did not stumble over a single syllable. Suddenly, with a sickening lurch, the ground dropped out from beneath them – or did they drop through the ground? – and Rhiallis experienced the wholly queer sensation that her body was a liquid-like stream of material sliding through a vacuum. Then her feet hit the ground again and she doubled over, dropping her friend’s hands to cover her mouth lest she lose her breakfast all over the grass.
      Grass?
      Seconds before, the now familiar cobbled streets of Drezen had been sprawled beneath her boots. Now, a dry carpet of brownish grass. She looked around. The fallow fields around Kenebres would need a lot of work to become fertile once again, but they were instantly recognizable.
      “We made it.”
      “Of course,” Aimsley said. Her braid bounced against her back as she set off toward the gates. “I need to pay my respects, once we get inside.”
      “Of course, we’ll find a room at an Inn, visit the shops, and then-”
      “No. Before anything else. I need to pay my respects.”
      Celeste cleared her throat, but did not press the point. “As you wish. Perhaps the rest of us-”
      “I’m going to go to Sera’s grave, first off.”
      “But- Well, all right. Rhiallis and I can make the rounds on our own then. Perhaps we should meet at, well, whichever Inn is still letting rooms – around noon?”
      “Okay.”
      It was strange, being in Kenebres again. She had spent several years in the city before The Fall, studying at the academy on Clydwell Plaza, drinking mead with her friends at Craimo’s pub, laughing with Ema and Sera and Mira and the other folk she had once known so well. They’re almost all dead now, she thought morbidly. It is hardly the same city Viggo spoke of with such light in his eyes. He wanted so much to see it. And now, he never will.
      “I swear, Rhiallis. I can hear the macabre things knocking about in your head from here,” Celeste said. “Why do you dwell on things so much? We should be moving forward – always forward – toward victory against the hordes. To all the goals we have left to accomplish.”
      “You’re right, I know. It’s just-”
      “Love.”
      “That, yes. But – we’ve lost so many people. Strangers and friends alike. I find it so difficult to put them out of my mind.”
      Celeste gave her a remarkably sympathetic look and lay her hand upon her shoulder. “It isn’t easy. But the path we were called to – it requires that sacrifice. It demands that we look past the things we cannot change and give ourselves to the cause, to fighting against the evil that perpetrated these atrocities.”
      She chewed her lower lip. She’s right, of course. She wouldn’t linger over memories of the fallen when the battle is yet being waged. Graves would say the same.
      “There will – Gods be willing – be plenty of time to mourn and indulge our sorrow once the ‘Wound is closed and the people of the world are safe again.”
      “Are you reading my mind?”
      Celeste gave a wan smile and looked away. A moment later, she pointed out their first stop. The shuttered building looked abandoned, but a bright red sign on the door read “OPEN! COME IN!!!”.
      When the noon-time bells rang, she and Celeste found themselves at a table in one of the make-shift Inns that lined the main boulevard. The matron was a lively little thing with a great deal of local gossip on her tongue; she told them that Queen Gallifrey had passed by and given Terendelluve a beautiful eulogy on her way south to Nerosyan and that a new flophouse or boarding house opened every other day, for there was no end of mercenaries and displaced peasants flooding the city.
      “Send them toward Drezen, I imagine we can arrange an armed guard. Drezen has a rather severe drought of labor and Kenebres can scarcely feed itself at the moment.”
      Sadie popped onto a chair suddenly. “That’s a good idea, Celeste. We should post a notice or something.”
      Aimsley was a few steps behind the hin and ordered a cup of tea as she took a seat with the others.
      “Are we done here?” she asked. “You two seem in good spirits.”
      Rhiallis and Celeste detailed the results of their shopping expedition over a lunch of roasted quail and golden raisins in a spicy gravy. Pleased, the four of them decided that they should avoid Nerosyan, where fighting was heaviest at the moment, and instead opted to head for New Stetven in the morning.
      “All we need now is someone who knows someone in the city or surrounds.”
      They looked at Aimsley with quizzical expressions. “What do you mean?”
      “Er- did I not say that already? I can only teleport us, easily, to places I am familiar with myself. I’ve not been to New Stetven, so I need to be able to scry on someone there – then I can direct us there with the spell.” She swallowed a mouthful of tea and brushed her hair from her forehead. “I’m quite sure I mentioned that before.”
      “No,” Sadie shook her head. “You really didn’t.”
      “Well, it shouldn’t be so difficult, should it? Surely someone around here has family or friends in New Stetven. Right?”
      It was less difficult than Rhiallis anticipated. She and Celeste managed to find two people with connections in the capital of Brevoy. One, a young man who carried a miniature of his long-lost love who had been forced to move away by strict parents, was happy to help. A second, a grizzled caravaneer we less forthcoming, but still managed to provide them with enough details for Aimsley to use.
      “I’ll scry in the morning, and once I’m certain I’ve got the proper location – we’ll go. Sleep sweet, ladies.”
      Rhiallis went to sleep that evening with a queasy feeling in her belly. This should be interesting
– – – – – – – – – – –
Signed, Josie
Note: Image is “King Jagiello Statue Central” by (Mulligand) from SXC.hu; edited by me

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