Insert Heroics Here - Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Dangers of Pyromancy
The spring is finally coming around and the snow is melting to reveal the beaten soil and rotting trees. The fire flickering amongst the branches brings forth heat that surpasses the next season, and threatens to boil the skin off of my meager flesh and shattered bones. My ankles broken and dragging across the dirt, grasping at chunks of earth. Suspending my body in the air for mere seconds and pushing myself forward, just for any gained distance. Loud rally cries from soldiers behind me. I couldn't run, and had nowhere to hide. If I didn't move quickly, I would surely die. I spotted a river and clawed even more desperately, hoping to wash away from the kingdom and slide into some place safe. The chanting was getting louder and some declarations to my whereabouts were made. I felt my heart race, my body ache as it begged for me to stop hurting it, while my mind conjured up all the horrible things that could happen if I was taken back, behind those stone walls.
The shouts grew louder and the branches above me started to break off their trees, landing in front of me, and inches away from singeing my fur. Rolling around in the dirt, trying to move away from the lit branches, my back hit something that kicked me back onto my front. Groaning, I looked up to see what had kicked me, expecting a dagger to soon be entering my throat or a hammer to break whatever limbs I could use to still try to escape. To my disappointment, it was a familiar face smiling cockily at my misery.
"Oh fuck me. It had to be you."
She chuckled. "Already done that darling. One and done. Now do you want some help or should I let this little kitty burn before being drawn and quartered by Duke Jeremiah?"
"Fuck off." I readied my hands to crawl again but my uninvited savior grabbed me by the hood before shaking her talisman, beckoning a blue circle around us. Light filled my eyes and gravity felt like it no longer applied to my damaged body. This wouldn't be the first time I felt this but it was always surprising to my senses. The sensation ended when we landed at Lothvig, still being held up by my hood.
"You can put me down Morrigan."
"If you say so." She immediately loosened her girp, letting my body hit the cobblestone floor. Pain erupted all over my body, followed by anger swelling over my frame: anger at her for dropping me and anger at myself for not expecting that to happen.
"Not like that you staff shafting bimbo!"
Laughing and picking me up in her arms, Morrigan kept smiling as I twitched and grabbed at my pained limbs. "Oh, Lulu, you're so cute when you're angry."
"It's Alu! Not Lulu!"
"But Lulu is as cute as you are." Townsfolk stared as this 6 foot 5 wolf carried a 5 foot feline in her arms. Heat rose into my cheeks, and I was well aware that it wasn't from the fire earlier. Tired and drained of stamina, I wrapped my arms around Morrigan as she carried me to the local cleric. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell that wolf mage was smiling at my face.
She lowered me onto a table while Miss Garu tended to my wounds with various methods. First with creams, then with oils and finally with what was referred to as the healing touch. She chanted something indecipherable to my ears, and encased her hands in a blue aura. She held her hand over my flesh, letting the magic bleed into my skin, provoking sounds of broken bones snapping back into place and open cuts sealing themselves without resistance. Another coat of oils and creams laid upon my fur to hopefully repair the damage from the fires and Miss Garu let me go without question. I suppose when you've been healing criminals, war veterans and the odd miscreant for forty years, you no longer care how they got their scars.
I stumbled and felt dizzy as I tried to walk on legs that were decimated an hour ago. Morrigan held my arm as we traveled down the road and into her domain, a rundown brothel that no longer tended to anyone.
"You're still living here?" I asked, opening the door for her as we entered the dimly lit establishment.
"Well it functions and no one bothers to look for a mage in a brothel." This mage tended to a teapot on a stove, but was frustrated to find that the firewood was dampened by leaks in the roof. Rain from the last several days had made the kitchen a mess.
"Give me the pot." I said, letting my hand out. She held the pot over my hand as I summoned flame from my palm. Twitch my fingers to control the size and power of the tiny flame, close my hand enough to filter it all through one straight beam. Steam came from the spout and Morrigan brought the pot back to the stove to prepare two cups of Lothvig tea. A typical drink here simply because the brothers who founded this market town grew their own tea. After their deaths, their recipe became a common household drink. Lothry and Ludvig were said to be powerful mages who helped defend the once humble village from raiders. Folks thought them to be immortal and they even reinforced that claim with saying that they had to power to defy death. There were no mages in that old village back then to prove them wrong. The kooky bastards did eventually die but the village still kept their names since they did help in industrializing the place into what it is now.
Since Lothry and Ludvig were remembered for their status as mages, all magic users after the fact were expected to serve the church or serve the militia. Couldn't say I blamed Morrigan for hiding her status as a mage from the rest of the village. She probably wouldn't have fit in very well, learning magic from rabbit man named Gyri. What she didn't know at the time was that Gyri turned out to be murderer and alchemist. He was found and executed when one of his experiments turned him into a hulking beast, an abomination of rabbit and dragon. Like many men of the past, he sought to be a dragon since they were seen as some of the most powerful beings.
I have to hide myself as well, being a pyromancer. Dragons are considered the only true heirs of fire magic, so anything else being able to control it is considered abominable and unnatural. Can't help being the son of a pyromancer and a mage, both considered heretics for their refusal to serve the church, militia or simply just leave.
"What were you doing in Arendale anyhow?" Morrigan asked, blowing onto the freshly served cups.
"Contract." She rolled her eyes and took a gulp of her tea. "What? A fur's gotta work."
"What was the contract for?" Those eyes stared into me over her cup. "You didn't kill anyone, did you?"
"No, I don't do that unless it's in self-defense."
Her stare turned to a glare with her eyes changing from purple to black. "You promise me you're telling the truth?"
"Yes Morrigan, I'm telling the truth. The contract was to deliver a message."
Her eyes retracted back to their usual purple. "Then why was the castle burning when I found you?"
"Well a revolution seemed to happen like 10 minutes after I delivered the message. I tried to escape because all the guards were mad as a hatter and slaughtering some of the people. My attire didn't really help in that situation and I was getting chased by several bulls. Then I got to the top of a tower and jumped off when I realized I had nowhere to go. I tried to use one of the safety spells you showed me but it didn't work and I ended up breaking both my legs."
Choking on her tea and trying to cover her mouth so she wouldn't spit all over me.
"Did you accidentally start a revolution in Arendale?!?"
"No clue, but it seemed justified considering how quick the guards were to kill the revolutionaries."
"Maybe..." Still coughing, she reached out for my hand. "Did you forget to use a catalyst?"
"I don't need a catalyst for pyromancy, why do I need one for magic?" All I need is my hand and my mind to cast flames.
"Because the art of magic comes from honing into the supply that is provided by the world, not from within like pyromancy. So you need to draw the power of the world into the talisman in order to cast the spell."
"But you've cast magic out of your hands before."
"I'm just experienced and skilled enough to be able to channel it through other means." She stated in a dismissive tone, turning her head away from me.
"Anyways, how did you find me? Arendale is like a 3 days walk from here."
Her black eyes came back again. "You know as well as I do why I always know where you are."
I was hoping that one of these days, that wouldn't be the reason, even if everything else would be illogical. That one reason alone is enough to make me smile and put weight on my shoulders at the same time.
"Regardless, I'm sorry that you had to save my skin."
"I didn't have to but I felt the need to. You would have and already have done the same for me."
"Yeah..." Silence consumed the room and all that was left was the tea to slowly drink. A look out the window shows the sun slowly setting and the town's activity dying down: merchants leaving their stalls, bards plucking their strings quieter and quieter until their songs fully faded out, and beggars passing out onto whatever corner they could find. I looked back to see my companion finishing her drink, staring into her cup with those bright purple eyes. Their oddness standing out against her gray and cyan fur, the bright cyan serving as the hair on her head and the vertical stripe between her eyes, stretching from her forehead to what lies below. Her strange but distinct appearance was certainly something to study compared to my own: just straight up purple fur with a lot of singe marks most of the time.
"I take it you've been doing some contract work as well." I said, breaking the silence after for what seemed like an hour.
"What makes you say that?" She responded, showing tired eyes after raising their gaze to me.
"You may live in a brothel but you don't sell yourself to the two tooth folk that roam these streets."
She chuckled but still didn't adorn a very lively face. "Yeah...I have been doing a few jobs. Mainly escorts."
"I suppose you have-"
"Actually," she said, standing up from the table and grabbing a letter from one of her cupboards. "I have a job left over that I need to do, but I don't think it'd be wise to do it alone."
"What's the job?" I said, standing from the table.
"Missing persons: Leonardo Cran and Maria Langstrum disappeared around Nocturne Bay several weeks ago and the authorities of Lowvig have stopped searching. So this woman, Gertrude asked me to try and find them and bring them back home, assuming that I was a mage of the church."
"So you want to take this job? Pretending to be with the Church?"
"Yes, I've already been paid half the sum and the whole payment will be enough to last me for a few years. Even if I split it with you, I'll be settled." The prospect of so much money made those eyes glow like the sun and her smile was certainly genuine, if bordering on so wide that it might break her face.
"Alright, I'll go, but you need to promise to be careful."
"Yeah, yeah, fine." She quipped, pulling my hand out and placing a metal device in my outstretched palm. "Here's a catalyst for both your pyromancy and spells."
"Where did you get this?"
"I made it." She quickly said, now pacing around the house, looking for supplies for the trip it seems.
"Well...thank you." I didn't even know she could craft. "How would this help with my pyromancy though?"
"The idea of the catalyst is to be able to control your art more efficiently and with less concentration. You can make a sword out of fire without needing to concentrate on how to keep the fire in one solitary fixed place while you swing. The catalyst serves as a hilt to any weapon or attack you can conjure."
"How do you know all of this about pyromancy?"
"Not important right now. Try it out."
The catalyst was a hilt with a circular band running around the top and bottom, like a hollow disc. I conjured flame from my hand and without thinking of the shape; the flame exited the top of the hilt and formed into a four inch wide sword. With some imagination put forth this time, the sword transmogrified into a thick club of flame, and then into a mace of hardened magma.
"This is really neat. Thank you Morrigan."
"You're welcome Lulu. Want to meet me at the ferry at dawn? We can start our journey to Nocturne Bay then."
"It's Alu! And sure."
The ground sunk below my feet and latched on as best as it could, for the rain that came last night made suddenly made the earth want to pull me down as much as possible. Mud soaked boots, and wet ankles weren't the best way to start the morning and judging by the cloudy sky, this wouldn't be the last inconvenience I see today. Gray sky and large clouds hiding the light of the sun from shining upon the long expanse of land that surrounded the Yong River: a body of water that ran through most kingdoms in this expansive land. This river would take me to where I needed to go most of the time, to the center of the continent, to the eastern kingdoms of Raea, Lydia and Maronsau, to the northern castle of Aerendale and back home to the western kingdom of Lothvig. Today I was going south to the Nocturne Bay. Never been this far from home before and I've barely heard anything about this area in general. Morrigan and I might be walking into a trap for all we know with how little has been reported on this place. The only thing I do know is that Nocturne Bay is named after an event in which old bards and mages united to create a song that would control the seas. Some believe that this is what led to our nation winning a navy battle without even having our own ships.
Morrigan was waiting at the dock with the ferry boat, adorned in black and purple robes, her own darker spin on what the church robes would look like. No other woman in sight so it seems that our customer won't be coming along for the investigation, which is probably for the better.
"Ready when you are." I said, throwing my sack of food and coin into the boat.
"Put a smile on that face." She said, bearing a grin to an almost creepy degree. "I can't have a debby downer on such a long ride."
I rolled my eyes and settled into the boat, walking up to the cockpit and activating the steam engine. Morrigan took a seat in the back, and by that I mean take up a three seater by laying down on it. Before I could even say something, I stopped myself thinking that she probably needs the sleep more than anything. A tired wolf is one of the least helpful things in a missing person's case.
The boat started up the stream and after what felt like five hours, I could feel my body desperately wanting to fall asleep at the wheel. I whacked myself in the head a few times and then proceeded to look at Morrigan's sleeping face. Never thought we'd be going on an adventure like this again...it's been almost two years since last time.
Seeing a town on the horizon, I woke up Morrigan and stood at the wheel, staring into the distance.
Nocturne Bay, so this is where the mystery begins.