Luck Pt. 06 - Mschuleft

Mschuleft

----

Talos knelt at the gathering of stone and bones, examining it closely. He spoke quietly while picking up a skull from the pile.

"Bones laid symmetrically, similar to the last one. Must be a shrine, then. If the Orcs revere this place, it could explain their absence," he continued to no one in particular. He found it strangely unsettling that, for the entirety of their journey through the badlands, Orc campfires could be seen dotting the entire landscape until they reached the swamps surrounding Mschuleft. The nights were suddenly devoid of firelight, only the busy night sky sharing its brilliance.

Talos pushed himself to his feet, looking over at Alanna. She would have been perusing his thoughts, of course, so he didn't need to explain his theory to her further. She wore a large, pale white woven shirt, the length settling on her thighs. He had let her borrow it after her latest complaint on the state of her blouse, which was now discarded.

Alanna had proven herself to him over the past couple days. When an Orc patrol decided to make camp not fifty yards from theirs, she had forced them to quickly move on with a controlled group enchantment. When he stupidly twisted his ankle descending from a granite pillar, she successfully not only hid the pain, but fixed the bone itself with her restoration magic. Talos noted that, when given space and time, Alanna worked her magic with skill. Alanna, still looking at the makeshift shrine, smiled as she read his experienced review of her abilities.

He nodded his head towards the southeast, signaling the continuation of their trek through the marshes.

Their surroundings, originally a welcome change to the landscape, unsettled him. Marshes he had traveled through in the past were alive with the sounds of various birds and frogs, feeling alive in their songs. Here, on the other hand, the humid air hung heavily over them with a silence usually reserved for temples. Mist rose around them from the interlocking streams, the interspersed, improbable trees smelling of rot and death. He felt Alanna piercing his thoughts.

"A funny thing, constructing a city in such a location," Talos mused, attempting to get their minds off of the environment.

"If the stories are to be believed, Mschuleft was constructed with the greatest magics of their time," Alanna replied matter-of-factly, "Kings seek out a single conjurer to construct a citadel. This city employed a whole cadre of them, transmuters too, to build their paradise."

Talos looked around, smirking, "They didn't do a very good job."

Alanna audibly sighed, "You know that the stories of course later end in a magical cataclysm, destroying the city? Well, no one really knows what that cataclysm was, even today."

"Or no one admitted to it," Talos interjected.

"Or no one admitted to it." She repeated, agreeing with him. Alanna gripped his arm as she stepped over a fallen tree trunk.

"The way I see it," Talos continued, "nature took back her domain. This city is proof of the arrogance of man in their eternal war against the natural order," smiling at her as she released his arm, "and man will someday try again. Always do."

The first stone buildings were now appearing in the fog in front of them. Collapsed and in disrepair, Talos noted the intricacy of the carved stone ahead of him, carvings depicting all manner of ancient story. It was the sign of a civilization long passed, one that found great pride in constructing with form over function. He wondered when humans would fall back into that trap. From his brief visits to elven cities, the elves had never lost that mindset.

"Say, Alanna. How come you mages don't simply teleport here? Grab the tomes, teleport out, all without those lost weeks in the wastes," Talos asked unrespectfully. He had been acquaintances with one sorceress who 'traveled' with him for a year, merely teleporting herself from location to location while he trekked the old fashioned way. She had constantly complained on his slothfulness, consistently offering to teleport him as well. Talos had always declined. He didn't trust it.

Alanna, answering like she was speaking to a child, replied, "Because the ancient sorceresses here placed a strong ward preventing that very thing from occuring," she stated, "Not to mention, a sorceress needs a powerful mental image of the location she's teleporting to. If no one has been here in several lifetimes, how're they going to portal here exactly?" Alanna hated the way Talos used the word 'mage', as if slighting her and her sisters.

Talos hadn't known or considered that second fact. He held his tongue with his next question, wondering why they didn't at least teleport close-by when he heard Alanna exclaim, "There it is!"

She was pointing at a large domed structure, a corner of which was sinking into the marsh below. She skipped over to the ruined building, Talos picking up his own pace behind her. He read the bold, capital letters of the ancients above the main entrance, proclaiming the complex as the 'ACADEMIA EX MSCHVLEFT'. Alanna stopped just outside, grinning ear-to-ear, her eyes scanning the building as Talos took the lead. He stepped up the thick stairs to the building's opening, flanked by intricate columns.

The marble double doors of the college had seen better days. Talos pulled the right door outwards, the slab settling in the open position due to the unnatural slant of the structure. He noted the left door lying on the floor to his side as he scanned the room before him. Marble statues, some fallen to the floor, dotted the circumference large circular area. It was dim, but not dark as small openings in the stone brought in an appropriate amount of light. He stepped inside, Alanna rushing past him giggling with her torch already lit.

"Do try to be careful," Talos thought, wondering if she was still bothering to read him.

--

The sun was falling over Mschuleft, coloring the eternal haze in warm pinks and purples. Talos had, by now, walked the perimeter of the ancient college twice, noting three smaller entrances besides the main gate up front. He examined each of the statues, artful imitations of kings, sorceresses, and the gods. Talos had never been a godly man and didn't recognize many of the names, but found amusement when he came across a statue of a beautiful woman with the sheathed cock of a dog. He bet that there was a good story behind that one.

He had continued to explore the passageways and side rooms of the crumbling building, finding little of interest to him. Part of him wished he could share in the enthusiasm of his young companion. It's not that he found magic uninteresting, far from it; Talos certainly respected the powers of an experienced sorceress. But when you're told from a young age that, due to your gender you're not allowed or simply capable of doing something, it kind of shuts you off from it.

He didn't immediately catch the irony of his thoughts, then smirked when he did.

"Well, at least I can always be Emperor," he mused to himself sarcastically.

He passed by the library, peeping in from the doorway to see Alanna surrounded by stacks of dusty tomes. He doubted he'd be able to help her do whatever it is that she was doing, and figured she'd ask if he could. He stepped quietly into the room, attempting not to disturb her, and walked along rows of tattered books and scrolls. Talos noted their awful condition and wondered why the mages bothered casting an anti-teleportation ward on the entire city, but didn't bother casting a preservation spell on the books. He then wondered if a preservation spell even existed.

"Ugh!" Alanna groaned loudly from a couple rows down. Talos took it as an invitation and walked over to her, not hiding his footsteps this time.

"Four books... four relevant books in all of this! And I can barely read the text to know if they're even worthwhile!" she exclaimed, obviously stressed out. Talos walked over and put his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to be comforting, keeping quiet to let her complain.

"Look at all of this... all of this knowledge, gone!" she groaned again in defeat, her head falling back to rest on his leg. He kept quiet for a couple moments in sympathy, then grinned.

"I'll be right back," he said mysteriously, shutting his mind from her just in case. Alanna watched him walk away, her sea blue eyes squinting with anger.

--

Fifteen minutes later, Talos had reentered the library. Alanna looked up at him from her place on the floor, squinted eyes quickly widening in surprise.

Talos was holding a bottle of wine, his smirk impossible to hide. He had picked this bottle up in the borderlands when he realized he'd likely be traveling with the girl, noticing that she enjoyed this vintage when they first met back in the tavern. He removed the block on his mind when she saw him.

"Aww, Talos!" she exclaimed, picking herself up onto her feet. She giggled like a young girl again, "You didn't!"

"I did. Normally I'd never waste the space, but..."

"You knew I liked it. Thank you!" Her empath abilities made finishing his sentences a simple prospect, though she tried to avoid it most of the time.

She glanced at the bottle; Pinot Noir -- Beaumont 1272. If she hadn't seen this man kill half a dozen Orcs the first time he drew his sword, this would have been the most surprising thing he'd ever done. The unexpected gentleman.

He uncorked the bottle with a quick tug. "Have time for a break?" asking the question already knowing the answer.

--

They sat together on the front steps of the college, the cool night bringing a dark silence over the ruined city. They had lit a torch which lay on the ground, illuminating them as they drank directly from the bottle.

"Never have I ever... slept with an elf," Alanna smiled sweetly, placing the wine bottle next to Talos. Talos grinned, picking up the bottle.

"I don't think this game is very fair," he replied before taking a swig of the fruity liquid. Alanna giggled.

"You started it!"

"Alright, alright. Never have I ever... stolen from a shopkeeper," Talos stated, Alanna taking the bottle back from him and bringing it to her lips.

"What?" she asked when she saw his amused look. "It's different when I do it," she said in a flowery voice, "I'm cute."

"What'd you take?"

"Oh... those boots you saw me in back when we first met, for one. Walked right out in them!" she giggled. "Some bread too, when I was younger. Father tried hard to feed us all, but the winters were always harsh." Alanna looked down to the marble steps, pondering something distant. "I couldn't wait to get out of that place."

Talos looked on her sympathetically. He couldn't imagine Alanna as a poor peasant girl, but sorceresses had to come from somewhere.

Alanna tore her sight from the ground and looked back into his eyes. "What about you? I never hear about your childhood."

She meant that he never thought about his upbringing, of course. Fact is, Talos chose to push those thoughts away from him many years ago. There probably wasn't any harm in telling her. He grabbed the half-empty bottle and took another drink.

"Ever heard of Evorus? Maybe a hundred leagues northeast of Catriona?"

She nodded. "Heard of it? I grew up, um, not even twenty miles from there! Father even paid to an Evoran tax man."

Talos chuckled lightly. "Well, my father was the Count. I was the third in line when I left oh, about sixteen years ago."

Alanna's mouth was left agape, but kept quiet hoping he'd continue. He took another swig. "He was a harsh man to us, except to my eldest brother of course. The rest o' us might as well have not even been related."

Talos kicked a small chunk of marble down the steps. "Always speaking of honor and duty. He pushed, no, expected me to join up with the Imperial legion and bring the family glory. I never understood what glory there was for a family that exiled all members but the eldest male..." He explained morosely.

"One night, he had learned that I had slept with the fletcher's daughter. Beat me for ten minutes in a rage, screaming that the simple act somehow dishonored him, that I was a disgrace to my ancestors." Talos paused, his grave voice perceptibly fainter.

Alanna scooted a bit closer to him, head tilted with sad eyes. Talos set the bottle down. "I couldn't stand the man. One night, I guess I stopped caring. Took what I could carry and headed south... The rest, as they say, is history," he finished with a shrug.

Alanna wrapped her closest arm around his back, picking up the wine bottle with her free hand as a thousand questions swam in her mind. "Another time," she thought as she changed the subject.

"I remember my first day away from home," she said softly, "a lonely girl who only had fourteen years of age. You wouldn't believe how nervous I was," Alanna smiled.

"A sorceress had visited our town just two days before. She saw me in the streets, carrying some water home from the well. I remember her gracefully walking over to me and placing this circlet on my head," Alanna continued as she pointed at her forehead briefly.

"Said I had a great gift. At the time, I didn't know what she was talking about... I guess I thought everyone could read each other," Alanna reminisced with a soft laugh, happy that Talos chuckled too. She took a long drink of wine before continuing.

"But on the road to Catriona, alone, my gift felt like a curse. Do you know how dangerous the world is for a helpless girl?"

Talos nodded once. "I could imagine."

"No, you can't. Almost every man I passed thought of kidnapping me, or worse, while every woman ignored me. One morning I awoke to a man pressing down on me, already unbuckling his pants as I screamed and screamed. An old farmer with a pitchfork saved my innocence that day, scaring him away. He even fed me," Alanna explained, her arm moving away from Talos and taking a drink. Her eyes moved to the torch.

"After weeks of this, that little girl started to find a little bit of thrill in the attention. I found myself doing stupider and stupider things to see what I could get away with. Changing my shirt in front of some street boys, or accepting an invitation to sleep in a man's house for the night."

Talos scooted a bit away from her, green eyes focused on her moving mouth.

"It became quite the game to me in the end. A game I never lost." Alanna stated with a hint of confidence, taking another swig of wine, "A game I still haven't lost."

Talos stood up, hints of anger showing on his face in the dim torchlight.

"And you're still a virgin, aren't you Alanna?" he asked flatly. Her head quickly turned to him upon hearing the question. She didn't intend to let that slip.

"Well, I..."

"And I guess all of this," his hand motioning between them, "is just part of your game."

She shook her head quickly. "It-it's different with you I swear!" she stammered out truthfully, attempting to diffuse the situation. She felt Talos didn't believe her.

"And refusing me under the waterfall? You've been intentionally working me up for weeks to just-" he paused abruptly.

Tears were welling up in her eyes. "It's not like that!" she wanted to shout, only managing to vocalize 'it' a couple of times.

"I'll take watch tonight."

Alanna sat alone on the steps for a moment, breathing quickly as Talos stomped away. She tried unsuccesfully to compose herself before making her way to the library to grab her pack.