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Vasuki

Closing the door behind him, Vasuki grabbed Audra by the arm.

“We have to head North of here. I’ll explain everything when we get far enough away from town, mind telling me what’s going on?” Vasuki asked.

“Felix is here, not sure what he wants but it has to do with both of us being able to Ascend. Any ideas?” She replied.

“Not a clue.” He began walking away from the town and into the forest, Audra walking close behind him.

A bang of thunder right behind them forced them both to cover their ears. Audra yelped in pain, Vasuki looked back before receiving a strong fist to his face. He fell to the ground, and looked up to see Felix standing over him. He was breathing heavily and was covered in cuts. Electricity trembled through between his fingers, one hand pointed at Vasuki, another pointed at Audra who was laying on the ground holding her right side.

“Make another move and I’ll kill them both!” He yelled. “I have enough juice primed to kill a Daosr, do not test me!” The air began to tremble around them, black fog surrounded them. Cabana’s voice echoed around them. It wasn’t warm, it wasn’t cheerful, the words that came from her voice were cold and challenging.

“Try it.” Felix’s eyes went wide with fear, as he looked around. He cried out in pain as he pulled his hand away from Audra’s direction. Vasuki took his chance with the distraction, yanking at the strings of magic, ice followed his lead and a stalagmite slammed into Felix’s stomach.

Vasuki stumbled up to his feet then began to run in Audra’s direction, he could have sworn he saw a woman with black hair pass him as he ran through the fog, giving him a quick and caring squeeze on his right shoulder. The smell within the fog was one of decay and death, disappearing once he came out the other side.

Vasuki didn’t stop running until his lungs felt like they were on fire. He followed Audra’s scent as he came to a walk. Audra was sitting on the ground, leaning against a fallen log, holding her right side.

“You okay?” Vasuki asked breathless.

“Yeah...he...definitely hurt something.” She answered. “Mind telling me what that was?” She asked. Vasuki shook his head confused.

“I don’t know, I think it was Cabana but I’ve never seen her do something like that before.” Vasuki said before coughing, and sitting on the log. He slid the bag off and put it on the ground next to Audra. She shivered slightly next to him, he did his best to control his mentality as he began to sort through the contents. He didn’t bring much from home, besides what he wore, he also packed the Nashatalian language book, Cabana’s Journal, the wooden puzzle Audra had left in his room and his coin purse. Cabana had packed a weeks worth of rations, a medical kit, scale paste to keep mites away, a few whetstones, a couple of canteens, her map of Tristal, a reminder note of where to go, a tent, flint and steel, and a small metal box that had a very peculiar smell.

Vasuki pulled out the rolled up map and the reminder note.

“Head to the Rising Bull Inn at Daemerall. You’ll find a man named Noelem, he can help you hide out for a while. I will meet you there as soon as I can. Stay safe.” Vasuki read aloud.

“Guess we’re heading to Daemerall then. Supposed to be one of the most heavily guarded cities in Tristal, if we’re to believe the books.” Audra pointed out. Vasuki opened the map and quickly pointed it out. “Never seen a map without the cardinals on it before.” Audra claimed.

“It’s fine I know my directions. We need to head northwest from here.” Vasuki said pointing at the map. Audra gave him a knowing look.

“You mean northeast?” She asked, though it was more of a correction than a question.

“No northwest. We’re just north of Nevenal, we need to go up and to the right; northwest.” Vasuki pointed out.

“Drop your damn pride and just listen to me for Maker’s sake, shit we’ve already went through this once!” Audra ordered.

Audra had been putting her weight on Vasuki for a long while since they had started to make their way through the dense forest. The sounds of birds chattering above their heads and the crunching of leaves on the forest floor had been the only thing to disturb the peace around them until Vasuki spoke up.

“What did you do back there?” he asked. Audra grunted from uneven footing underneath them.

“I cut his hand with water.”

“Good job, you’ve definitely gotten better. Since we first met.”

“About time too, I guess I was so caught up in living in such nice environment I forgot why Felix brought me there in the first place.” Audra said before wincing. “He brought me there to learn to protect myself.”

“Well he chose the right place, probably bit off more than he could chew though. Cabana used to be the Amethyst; Head of the Royal Knights.” Vasuki stated.

“They have a history together, she said something about him forcing my Ascension out...whatever that means.” Audra replied, looking to the sky, the sun was setting. “We should set up camp for the night, before it gets too dark.” She claimed.

The pair had come to a small clearing in the trees and Vasuki quickly put the tent up, it was a little loose on one side but he needed to get the fire going quickly. He had put a few loose twigs in a pile and tried multiple times to catch the moss on fire but failed every time he struck the flint. Audra watched with interest as to how he was failing so much.

“Try putting the moss on the flint, the sparks keep popping away from it” He tried one last time, paying attention to the sparks before taking her advice. The moss caught in four more strikes, he replied to her smug grin with a blank look of aggravation. He leaned against the tree and poked at the fire, letting it spread on to the twigs.

“How’s your side feeling?” Vasuki asked.

“Like it was kicked by a horse. How’s your face?” She answered.

“It’s been better. Can’t be as bad as yours though.” He teased.

“Nothing happened to my-oh shut up.” She gave him a light shove upon the realization. There was a silence between the two of them, long enough for Vasuki to reach into the bag and take out a small beef stick from the rations and hand it to Audra.

“It’s weird. How we lived this close to each other, literally a days worth of travel by carriage and neither of us had been to each others home.” Vasuki thought aloud.

“I was just thinking the same thing. Kiaveen was littered with monsters, yet there was a town that was known for having Royal Knights. Why wasn’t anything done about it?” Audra asked, her face wore a scowl at the injustice. “So many people lost their lives, and it was for no reason.”

“I wish we had the answers.” Vasuki replied. “Let’s just get to our next destination, find this Noelem guy and then wait on Cabana.”

“You rely way too much on her.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” He asked.

“What if there’s a time where your life is in danger and you can’t rely on anyone but yourself. You’re almost 23, yet you always rely on Cabana for all of your problems...I’m not getting mad at you. I need to be more independent too.” Vasuki bit the inside of his cheek.

“How do you know I’m almost 23?” Audra started to catch wisps of the cold air around him.

“Cabana told me you’d be 23 this month. When is your birthday by the way?”

“My birthday is in 5 days, if we make good time we’ll be in Daemerall by then. But it takes a couple of days by carriage and you and I know we don’t have that kind of luxury.” Vasuki pointed out before leaning forward to put more small sticks in the flame, but a couple of them were a bit larger this time.

“Igon...your dad, he’s a really sweet man. I didn’t know my dad that well.” Audra began. “But from what my mom told me, he wasn’t that great of a man. Not like Igon. He wasn’t there for us when my mom needed him. He’d be gone late while my mom dealt with a baby. Then he tried to leave Kiaveen. He must have thought ‘Hey the Goblins only come out in the middle of the night, it should be safe to leave in the day.” Audra paused for a moment. “We heard him screaming the entire night. A lot of stories tell about an adventurer going out into the woods on their own and the first thing they come across are Goblins.” Audra’s eyes became glossy and she winced from the throbbing pain in her side.

“I feel sorry for those adventurers, no one tells you how dangerous those things actually are.” Vasuki finished, tears began to fall. “I know your pain, Audra. I may not know exactly what happened, or what you went through, but I know what you feel.” He said, swallowing the hard knot of guilt in his throat. He reached over and gave her hand a light squeeze.

Audra and Vasuki shared the tent, her on one side, him on the other. Rain had lulled Vasuki to sleep but his dreams wasn’t the refuge he had wished they were. Vasuki opened his eyes to see the world covered in darkness, he was back at the Dragon’s Dinn but something told him it was empty, every room and every table would be void of life, only he existed in this twisted rendition of reality. Everything he saw was covered in a thin of layer of darkness, he could still see it but the details were fuzzy as if everything was covered in a strange fog.

Vasuki walked into the hallways and saw the building was empty as he had expected it to be. Leaving the Dragon’s Dinn he looked to the dark sky, the moon was full and bright but still didn’t pierce through the thin fog. The wind began to blow northward, it was cold but comforting.

“Your path will take you with the wind.” Vasuki heard a woman speak, his heart felt as though it was beginning to twist and ache. He may have forgotten many details of his mother, but her voice was something he would always recognize. He looked towards the sound of the voice to see his mother, alive and standing in front of him. He tried to speak but it only came out as a weak choke.

“It’s okay dear, your voice is still too weak to be heard. But soon it will become strong.” She walked over to him and placed her hand on his cheek, his body froze up; complete paralysis ran through his body. His mother’s face began to contort, her jaw opened more than any person’s mouth should be able to. Her teeth were like razors, the skin around her eyes cracked apart and blood began to pour from them. When she spoke her voice was no longer the voice he missed so much, it was distorted, deep, and demonic.

“Trust Vistrata darling, he will guide you to where you need to go.” She reeled back her head and came down closing her jaw around his neck. He screamed, as he felt every tooth penetrate his skin. Then he woke up, the tent still surrounded the pair, he felt tears on his cheeks and burning around his throat. There was no cold aura coming from him, yet the dream had left him as stressed as a taut rope.

Vasuki lay on his side of the tent for a long time, his eyelids were heavy and just as he was on the verge of sleep once again a sound that would haunt anyone echoed through the forest, a sound of rustling foliage followed by three distinct distant sharp taps.