![[Featured thread]](./images/medals/Featured-Thread.gif "[Featured thread]")
6th Bell - 20th Day of Winter, 516AV - Endrykas, Topaz Quarter
Calendar Entry20th - The cessation of the storm leaves behind a heavy mist which drifts in the air and clings to everything. The unnaturally thick fog causes hallucinations in everyone it touches.
The mist held no terror for him. He'd done some of his best work with it back home.
Then it was a cloak to his deeds and his form. It seeped in across the city from the sea, thick and stinking of rotting fish and the soot that was dumped into the bay. Stench so deep a man could choke on it, but a clever one could wait until every alley and street was a miasma of fog, and then use it.
Konrad wondered how he'd appeared, in those last few moments. Just a tall, fuzzy figure that seemed birthed by the mist, moving so fast that his target would not even make out his face before his blade moved, everything so choked of light that the steel would not even gleam... and then he would be gone.
Back into the fog. Vanished and vanquished from recollection before the mark was even finished bleeding out. Those kind of jobs... Konrad appreciated them. They added to his mystique, his reputation, important things for a sellsword in Sunberth. But out here, the mist was different.
Thicker, too.
Impossible as it sounded to him, his eyes didn't make his mind liars. The air was like soup, clouds dragged to the ground and then thickened by the rains. For two days there'd been nothing but a steady deluge across the plains, soaking the moving city wherever they traveled. By the second, Konrad could already tell that this was not a good thing.
Hunting and trapping became difficult, then impossible. The animals had trouble grazing, spooked by lightning and then robbed of food by the muddy, churned up steppe. Whenever the city stopped, by the next morning dozens of tents had been washed away or collapsed by impromptu waves, rivers running through the avenues between the pavilions every morning.
Konrad had felt useless. The rain meant tracks were obliterated within bells, so trapping was impossible. Hunting parties didn't stray too far and he was self-aware enough to know he hadn't enough practice with either his bow or his pony to go with them.
Speaking of practice...
The mist seemed to rush to greet him as he unfolded from out the flap of his tent. He inhaled and that cold, crisp wetness filled his lungs, so deep and close that-
Gods, it's like soup going down the wrong hole.
After that little coughing fit was over, he straightened back up, and was pleased to discover he could do that without his body rebelling under him. He pulled on his coat without his shoulder screeching below his ear; he stood up straight and the burning in his back was quietened down to a dull, mundane ache; his stomach growled, but out of hunger, not lacerated innards. And his leg...
Konrad felt an eel of worry turn the back of his neck to ice. The limp wasn't going away. It wasn't like he was dragging his foot everywhere or had to use a stick to walk, but still... no, he forced the future from his mind. It had been, what, fifty days since he brawl with Three Eyes? That was hardly enough time for injuries that serious to heal. Best to focus elsewhere.
Thus his mind turned onto why he was up so early. He felt little drips and splats of dribbling rain smack into his hat, the last dregs of the two-day storm. Around him tents and pavilions were great, grey smudges through the fog that was simply everywhere. He could see it crawling across the ground as if stalking something vast and unseen, curling under flaps and smothering the sky. There was no blue beyond the grey when he looked up, and Syna wasn't even a suggestion to be found.
Though if he had to guess he'd say... that way. Maybe.
"Mornin'."
Ah, that was a tone he expected from that weather. Morose and sluggish. One of the Pridesun pavilion trudged past him, hips swinging as he powered through the mud. Konrad gave him a crisp nod and watched him vanish... gods, barely a tick or two after. Into the fog he went and it was if he'd been swallowed by another world. The Sunberth man scratched his stubble-covered cheek, following his scars until he was near his temple and decided to stick with the plan.
"Don't go far," he muttered to himself as he squelched his way to the edge of the Top Quarter, where the usual sight of the eternal steppe had been replaced by a wall of hanging dew. "Keep the tents an' the torches in sight. Only gotta stick it fer a bell, remember?"
Ungodly or not, he knew Syna would be at full rise after that time, and he also knew that the fog would be burned down to wisps not long after. So he had some time to do some other practice that had been lacking, also because of that damned, endless rain.
Konrad stepped beyond the edge of Endrykas and closed his eyes. The hanging water coated his face and he smiled minutely, picturing a different liquid pulsing around his body. Feeling it, softly at first but stronger every tick he imagined it, until he tilted his head down and willed it gently-
Out.
-and opened his eyes to see the eerie green glow of rest wriggling out of his scarred palm.
The mist held no terror for him. He'd done some of his best work with it back home.
Then it was a cloak to his deeds and his form. It seeped in across the city from the sea, thick and stinking of rotting fish and the soot that was dumped into the bay. Stench so deep a man could choke on it, but a clever one could wait until every alley and street was a miasma of fog, and then use it.
Konrad wondered how he'd appeared, in those last few moments. Just a tall, fuzzy figure that seemed birthed by the mist, moving so fast that his target would not even make out his face before his blade moved, everything so choked of light that the steel would not even gleam... and then he would be gone.
Back into the fog. Vanished and vanquished from recollection before the mark was even finished bleeding out. Those kind of jobs... Konrad appreciated them. They added to his mystique, his reputation, important things for a sellsword in Sunberth. But out here, the mist was different.
Thicker, too.
Impossible as it sounded to him, his eyes didn't make his mind liars. The air was like soup, clouds dragged to the ground and then thickened by the rains. For two days there'd been nothing but a steady deluge across the plains, soaking the moving city wherever they traveled. By the second, Konrad could already tell that this was not a good thing.
Hunting and trapping became difficult, then impossible. The animals had trouble grazing, spooked by lightning and then robbed of food by the muddy, churned up steppe. Whenever the city stopped, by the next morning dozens of tents had been washed away or collapsed by impromptu waves, rivers running through the avenues between the pavilions every morning.
Konrad had felt useless. The rain meant tracks were obliterated within bells, so trapping was impossible. Hunting parties didn't stray too far and he was self-aware enough to know he hadn't enough practice with either his bow or his pony to go with them.
Speaking of practice...
The mist seemed to rush to greet him as he unfolded from out the flap of his tent. He inhaled and that cold, crisp wetness filled his lungs, so deep and close that-
Gods, it's like soup going down the wrong hole.
After that little coughing fit was over, he straightened back up, and was pleased to discover he could do that without his body rebelling under him. He pulled on his coat without his shoulder screeching below his ear; he stood up straight and the burning in his back was quietened down to a dull, mundane ache; his stomach growled, but out of hunger, not lacerated innards. And his leg...
Konrad felt an eel of worry turn the back of his neck to ice. The limp wasn't going away. It wasn't like he was dragging his foot everywhere or had to use a stick to walk, but still... no, he forced the future from his mind. It had been, what, fifty days since he brawl with Three Eyes? That was hardly enough time for injuries that serious to heal. Best to focus elsewhere.
Thus his mind turned onto why he was up so early. He felt little drips and splats of dribbling rain smack into his hat, the last dregs of the two-day storm. Around him tents and pavilions were great, grey smudges through the fog that was simply everywhere. He could see it crawling across the ground as if stalking something vast and unseen, curling under flaps and smothering the sky. There was no blue beyond the grey when he looked up, and Syna wasn't even a suggestion to be found.
Though if he had to guess he'd say... that way. Maybe.
"Mornin'."
Ah, that was a tone he expected from that weather. Morose and sluggish. One of the Pridesun pavilion trudged past him, hips swinging as he powered through the mud. Konrad gave him a crisp nod and watched him vanish... gods, barely a tick or two after. Into the fog he went and it was if he'd been swallowed by another world. The Sunberth man scratched his stubble-covered cheek, following his scars until he was near his temple and decided to stick with the plan.
"Don't go far," he muttered to himself as he squelched his way to the edge of the Top Quarter, where the usual sight of the eternal steppe had been replaced by a wall of hanging dew. "Keep the tents an' the torches in sight. Only gotta stick it fer a bell, remember?"
Ungodly or not, he knew Syna would be at full rise after that time, and he also knew that the fog would be burned down to wisps not long after. So he had some time to do some other practice that had been lacking, also because of that damned, endless rain.
Konrad stepped beyond the edge of Endrykas and closed his eyes. The hanging water coated his face and he smiled minutely, picturing a different liquid pulsing around his body. Feeling it, softly at first but stronger every tick he imagined it, until he tilted his head down and willed it gently-
Out.
-and opened his eyes to see the eerie green glow of rest wriggling out of his scarred palm.
