Solo A Forgotten Trail

[Zandelia]

65th Winter 513AV – Quarters

Sahova was…Sahova. Zandelia was still not entirely sure what it was that she had expected to find within the city of the mostly dead but she was sure it was not stagnation. Hers was a mind that rebelled at stillness, or pointless stillness to be precise. Oh she had never expected to be running anything major at the outset – such constructions took time, resources and the help of sympathetic or adequately ‘cajoled’ helpers. She had not been prepared for the shocking level of apartheid that lingered like a stench within the stone tomb that was the city proper, whispering along the corridors and filling the secret passages that no doubt existed with a toxicity that only affected that which was possessed of a pulse.

Pulsers indeed! she snorted to herself as she sat in the gloom that was her cell for the interim.

It was a wretched affair and not the type of accommodation that she had become used to, small and cramped as it was. She could almost touch the walls if she lay in the middle of the room and stretched her limbs to the quarters. Still, she had managed with less in the past – sometimes without a wall. Her skin itched however, as if she could feel eyes upon the back of her neck. It was psychological she was sure, to make those not accepted and reciprocal to the city processes as uncomfortable as possible – until they were of course. It was a prison but it suited her needs for now. It was somewhere to keep her belongings at the very least.

“And I brought my own bedding too so stuff their mouldy straw up their…wherever the undead stuff it!” she growled to herself as bundles it all against the inside of the door so as to provide at least a semblance of security.

She had seen the glances after all, read the thoughts behind the cold gazes – ones such as her were tolerated at best, loathed at worst. She would not be surprised if someone attempted to kill her just for the fun of it. If Nuit could even experience the thrill of fun that was. She sighed as she slid her back down the wall until her rear thumped onto the bedroll in the corner. Sloth and lethargy were grabbing at her, deathly fingers trying to throttle the last of her alertness. She slapped her cheeks and grabbed a random book from her bag – it turned out to be her father’s book. It had been some time since she had even bothered to look at it. The advice within he had now outgrown but there were the occasional riddles and clues as to events of the past – sometimes informative and at other merely saddening.

And he is alive somewhere and hiding. I will find him and kill him…but not yet she vowed to herself once more, always expecting to and never really getting around to fulfilling said oath.

She opened it at random and began to flick through the musty, cracking pages. Here and there a letter was wedged between the pages – some were from Neilles’ room in Nyka. Another friend who had disappeared forever. Others were from Garret, some dated back to the foundation of the Crimson Edge. Her life could be read, in increments, in the pages. They were dangerous to keep but still too raw to get go of. She rubbed the bridge of her nose as she closed the book once more, ne letter dropping to the floor just before the snap.

Providence would have a sense of humour this day.

[Zandelia]

She picked up the small slip of paper almost a small note rather than a full letter. She turned it within her fingers idly, toying with its edges and running her finger across the crease and wondering what opening it would reveal. She knew most of what could be found within the wad of parchments she carried with her – relics of past encounters and a life that had never truly learn throw to climb high enough to possess proper means of cataloguing information. It was strange what things could be kept, almost without knowing until you were reminded. She had facts and figures of many places – Sunberth for the most part – though she knew most would be wildly inaccurate by now. She frowned as she found she could not summon up a memory of this one.

Such a small thing…where did you come from little one? she mused for a few more chimes, staring at it in the gloom, the only light coming from her lantern.

“Damned if I know!” she snorted as she flicked it open with her right thumb and shifted it in the embers of light. It took a while to come into focus out of the shadows.


MS,

Time is short, the chains are broken. Reconciliation impossible. Abort this idle fancy.

The woods are the destination. Where feral creatures speak seek her out. Do not find yourself alone under the stars.

Safe is not safe.

Find the old stone where age does not touch. Glory be the ancient and unmoving peoples.

Find me in the dark. Deep in shadows.

~ A Servant




She pursed her lips and rifled through the past, the note must have registered somewhere – it was certainly strange enough to do so. Rereading it she found only a small flickering of understanding, a vestige of some forgotten dream. Closing her eyes she pushed her head back against the chilled stone wall she was propped up against and mouthed the word over and over, seeking their meaning. Cryptic yet simple, descriptive yet possessed of more purpose. Hardly a cipher, though there was no other word for it. It wasn’t a word substitution but a minor variation – cryptography at its weakest.

Descriptive code, sometimes the simplest things are the most vexing. Patterns can be discerned but meaning is not always so obvious. Yet….I must have picked it up somewhere. Where? she asked herself as she read it yet again lest something leap out at her.

She let her free hand rifle through her pack once more until it found two items – a quill which was dogged but still serviceable and a small pot if black ink. She levered out the cork and let the tip of the quill rest through the hole, the ink would be absorbed shortly. She took her time, there was little else for her to do this day after all.

“Key words, that will be the key to this little lock. Key words” she muttered as she waited.

Her mind began to shift and work.

[Zandelia]

She picked up the quill and held it delicately between forefingers and thumb, the nib resting a little above the mass of ink now and being allowed to drain of the excess. Careless writing had ruined thousands of scripts over the centuries she was sure and she wold not ruin this one unless it proved to be naught but foolish babble. In truth she was not evne sure anything of note had been, for want of a better definition, encoded. It seemed like the standard type of missive – though the wording was intriguing she had to admit. She started at the beginning and circled the addressed recipient.

MS…an easy one. No other reference it could be in my bits of information than a name…THE name she felt a sudden surge of rage, flaring uncontrollably and causing her writing to judder a little as her hand tenses.

Markus Sansom – bastard she wrote next to it with a small smile, a mirthless rictus of hatred that smothered her anger for now.

Her lips pursed as she considered the rest of the small text and where to begin. Simple steps were the best she knew but it all seemed simple. She searched her past for reflections, the odd whisperings and sightings. They had certainly been fleeting. Garret had been with her for perhaps a score of days and he was her best source on the man that detestably laid claim to being her progenitor. She ruminated upon that then, the only person who had had the ability to contact Markus, wherever he had tucked himself away in the shadows. She had not seen Garret since leaving for the Spires…but he had had assassins sent after her. Well…poor mercenary killers but the intent had been there despite the failure.

Garret – missing link she wrote next to the ending referring to a servant after underlining it smoothly.

She dipped the quill back into the ink once more, bobbing it up and down roughly before pausing for thought again.

Safe in unsafe? That is interesting…Garret spoke of a safe house. Could that be the reference? Safe is never unsafe unless it changes. But it can’t change as a concept…only as an item. Or did it mean the city? Sunberth? Was that now not safe? He could have thought I would have retaliated if not killed… she mused.

She rifled through her mind and found the picture she was looking for after a few chimes, eye closed in recollection. A dark, dingy building with rotting window shutters. Scarred wood and damp air down near the docks of Sunberth. Strange in that it held two floors but the top was more of a small box upon a larger one – not uniform. Guards outside the door she had seen, though no more than ten people had ever been there at one time. She had had too little time before setting off on the damned crusade with Cade. It had proven to be his death sentence.

The ‘Safe House’? Or the city? she scrawled next to the appropriate line in her rough, angular script.

“Hmmm, so a letter to my father. Possibly from Garret. But what does it hide?” she asked the world in general.

She was not overly concerned about being heard, few made the trip to see her and they would know nothing of her past. She was a nothing in Sahova, a ghost with a fake name.

[Zandelia]

The quill came up again, poised with a small drop of ink she hoped would help reveal the nature of the missive before her. She skipped the firs line and focused instead on the second. The words there found more of a grapple with her memories. The recollections were not pleasant, filled as they were with forbidding mists and death averted on an almost daily basis for a time. For Zandelia at least, the trip had claimed the lives of many under Cade’s command – including the giant barbarian himself, his head separated neatly from his shoulders on the journey. Fighting the Jamoura had been his last mistake.

Though perhaps it was a better death than that which Mok and those left behind in Sunberth had faced she noted with a twinge of sadness, the death of her first real hopes had hit her hard at the time. Now they were aught but a dull throb.

She had loftier goals now, ones which experience had granted her. She circled three words – feral, speak and woods and joined them all with meandering lines.

The Jamoura. Spires Campaign she wrote where the lines ended and as an afterthought added They knew our movements. Garret

The damned Nuit had known her plans that season, before she had lost track of him and the mercenaries had come calling. She reflected that the reference to the stars must have been a veiled clue of the attempt upon her life. They had certainly not been singular, there had been several. The phrasing suggested that Markus had visited the Spires though and that troubled her deeply. If he had then he had done so without her knowing and the disposable blades had revealed nothing of his presence despite her interrogations.

Did he go? Did he watch me flounder and smile? Laugh!? Or was he too much of a coward to face me and sent others in his stead. Either way he clearly wants me dead the anger in her thoughts brought a bitter twist her lips and a fire to her gaze that wouldn’t go out until death came to one of them.

Me was all she wrote next to the first line now. It could only be written about herself if her guesses were aright. She had freed herself from slavery, had pushed herself from Garret’s clutches too. She hated her father, this much was easily discovered. But then…it also meant that Markus had considered trying to get her to join his fold. The concept as alien, writhing in her mind like a viper and just as deadly. The very idea made her skin crawl and she was forced to strike a line through the offending words for her own sanity.

“Which just leaves the last portion,” she sighed, “where did you go little Nuit? Where are you hiding?”

[Zandelia]

She smiled at the last little problem, a smile that if the text were sentient would give pause for thought. It was a strange couple of sentences and seemed difficult to understand unless you knew the mind behind it. If it had been Garret, as she now suspected within reasonable doubt, she would be able to see it for what it was. He had always been wordy and vague, it had been a boon and a blessing at the same time. Vague enough to be non-descript but lacking in focus. She tongued her teeth as she ruminated. There were a few words worth circling and she did so without hesitation.

Old Stone. Age. Ancient. Unmoving were all roughly circled after a few moments of ink dipping and much cursing when a few of the scrawls became slightly wayward. She disliked waste and running the bottom of the missive through carelessness would be tantamount to sin.

She thought more a few more moments, quill resting within the ink pot beside her thigh. She wondered where the location was, pondering upon the nature of the man. He was older than she knew, she was sure he had lied to her about the true length of his life and un-life. Still, all that meant was that he could be very well travelled – she had suspected as much already. In many ways his own tales of yonder places had inspired her to travel herself, though she was loathe to give him credit for anything.

But where? Somewhere old…well that could mean anywhere. But how far can he travel as a Nuit? He is fragile, the last I saw him seeking for a few vessel. Likely he has changed bodies by now so even if I knew how would I find him? Unmoving though…that is strange she thought to herself.

Cities were far from common but the one thing she had learnt was that they seldom moved, it was practically the definition of a city. People also were fairly sedentary. Trade criss-crossed the lands but in general populations stayed where they were. Travelling was dangerous at the best of times. Sunberth was too far from most places for safe travel. Zeltiva was common enough but she did not know of a reason for a trip there. Sahova…

“There is something,” she mused, “the Nuit here are not famous for leaving. Even the living mages stay here too apparently. If what I have listened to is correct then travellers were scarce too. The only trade seems to be in dead bodies too. Is he here? Correction…was he here?” she asked herself.

The notion was a tempting one but upon reflection it was likely that her own bias desire was lulling her into believing it was so. After all, how convenient it would be for her. Information went hand-in-hand with misinformation. The curious nature of the latter was that it required little effort as the targets often conjured up the bulk of it themselves, allt hat was needed was a seed.

Still…he must have been here once. I mean how many places can make you a Nuit? Does he have friends here? Would they know where he is? the thought held possibility and though she knew she may be conjuring form a seed herself it was more than nothing.

“Very well then…we search. A forgotten trail. Perhaps it may lead somewhere of note, and if not…well there is nothing wasted” she told herself as she packed away her things after blowing the ink dry upon the missive.

It was a beginning, of sorts.

[Mirage]

Zandelia

 

Skills Improved

• Cryptography - +3
• Philosophy - +3

 

Lores Gained

• The Begining of a Journey: Does Sahova hold the key?
• Cryptography: Deciphering the message

 

Character Notes

Great job! This actually gives me an idea. PM me when you get the chance If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to PM me!