Private Tales Amicability in Odd Places

[VREILAR THE NECROMANCER]

How long had Vreilar been walking? He’d stopped counting after the first thirty days, and the road had brought him little respite in the time since. What few healers he came across said they could do little for his injured arm, which now hugged close to his stomach in a sling of dark canvas. A half-shattered mask carved from alabaster wood hung at his hip, looped to his belt through its right eyehole.


He had watched as the Spine grew from a faint silhouette on the horizon to the daunting visage that now rested only a few days away. He had felt the air grow colder not only as he left the desert behind, but as the sun lingered closer to the horizon with every passing week. His entire body hurt, aching for rest it was not yet allowed. His gangly figure trundled through the foothills, growing wearily closer to whatever awaited him in the West. He just had to keep going until he found the unknown, and maybe stay alive in the meantime.


A small stone wall was the first sign of civilization Vreilar had come across in days, caught in what midmorning light filtered past the trees. The structure was worn by time, but he could feel the faint, telltale tension in the air of supernatural defenses. Even plainer to sense was the lingering scent of garlic which he traced to a nearby clove of the pungent vegetable hanging just beyond the wall, stopping the mage dead in his tracks. Garlic spoiled, and wards expired, but both seemed rather fresh to him.


“Good morrow?” A hoarse tenor worn down by too many years of manic shouting called out towards the small hut of a house. Vreilar stood just beyond the stone fence, not too keen to blunder forward and trip some unseen ward that would send him skyward if he wasn’t invited in.

Asuego 'Susanna'

 

[Asuego 'Susanna']

»SOO, SOO-ASUEGOOO!« The stove began to rumble loudly.
The witch in the other end o the room was sitting on her rocking chair, with Apollo the cat on her lap and a book in her hands.
She flipped through the page and the cat turned his head from left to right and left to right.
»What is it now Ardomma?« The white witch briefly set down the book.
»A VISITOR. - AT THE DOOR!« The stove sprite gleefully exclaimed.

The witch glanced at the wards in her home. They were still.
» Let them in then.«


The small wooden gate before the necromancer opened on its own accord. The path appeared rather inviting this time around.

 

[VREILAR THE NECROMANCER]

Vreilar watched as the gate unlatched itself and swung open, leaving him free to walk the path ahead at his own peril. The man's gaze fell momentarily to the mask at his hip, peering into its empty eye for two heartbeats before pacing ahead.

Two light knocks were all he awarded the door to Asuego's cottage, taking a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow before he had to make a first impression.

 

[Asuego 'Susanna']

Lastly, the door of the house opened up.
Greeted by the smell of incense and various herbs drying upon the shelves above the stove.
From the low ceiling hung various poppets and fetishes. turning round and around like hangmen from a tree.

» What lost soul enters my domain at such a time.« The witch rocked on her chair, not even glancing at the visitor.