Private Tales At Cursed Crossroads

[Vereshin]

A horizon, split by the line of the sun, blurred before Vereshin's fluttering eyelids. Opaque energy bled from his form, trailing behind his feet as he pulled himself through the grass. At his side, he held a hand tightly on a gash which separated the skin of his midsection. Although shallow, the wound breathed in the elements and stung, causing his movements to slow with every stride. Glancing upward, he rested a hand on a post and beheld the vast farmland stretching for miles ahead. A spear of pain ran up his side, causing him to contort his features and hiss.

"Void take that bitch!" Clenching his teeth, Vereshin cursed the magehunter who had maimed him. He dug his nails into the post and winced in pain, feeling blood seep between his fingers.

In the distance, an isolated building caught his eye. As the sun began to disappear, he blinked twice and tried to make out the writing on the sign, which told him that he stumbled across a local inn. With a sigh of relief, he looked over his shoulder to make sure that he had not been followed, before releasing his grasp on the post and walking forward. Dirt roads parted into the hills from the patch of land where the inn stood, leading carts drawn by horses and other beasts to stop for the night. Never pulling his eyes away from the building, Vereshin trudged down the hill and followed the dirt road.

From within the stone walls, the notes of a lute strummed into the evening and drew Vereshin to the door. Farmers loaded their carts around the entrance, some offering travelers a ride for a small payment. They cast wary glances towards Vereshin, who shifted his eyes between each patron. He stopped in front of the door and wrenched the handle, hearing the lute become loud as he greeted the scene inside. A handful of patrons, no more, sat around tables, while some hunched over the bar. Behind the counter, a plump woman wearing a tattered kirtle waved a hand in his direction.

"Oh allo there sorcie! Got yourself into a bit o' trouble?" She exclaimed as she tugged at the cross-lacing in the front of her kirtle, which was worn over a chemise. The top of her breasts peeped over the collar of the chemise and bounced upwards as she tugged at the kirtle, tightening the bodice around her chest.

Closing the door behind him, Vereshin cast a wary glance over the patrons, who stared back. Every movement he made with his eyes carried a subtle threat, warning them to leave him alone while he mulled over his sorry situation. He sighed again and strode past the top of the bar, locking eyes with a man crafting arrows in the corner. He was short in stature, shorter than Vereshin and must have been around the same age. Resting a hand on the bar, he diverted his gaze to the woman now cleaning the surface with a rag and managed to smile amidst the pain shooting through his side.

"You wouldn't happen to have any bandages and healing serum would you?" Raising an eyebrow, Vershin inquired with a hopeful lift in his tone.

"Should do, I'll bring 'em to your room once I fix you something to eat." The barmaid nodded and continued to mop the rag over the counter. Vereshin returned the nod and turned around to face the man seated in the corner, then gradually strode away from the bar. Brushing a hand over his hair, he flattened down the strands which had come lose when he had fled the magehunter and pulled his hand away from his side. While bleeding had stopped for the most part, he would still need a healing serum to clean the cut. A pause followed as he stood at the table where the other man sat.

"What kind of spell are you using there?" Tilting his head towards the arrows, Vereshin noticed that he was attempting to enchant them. He slid into the chair on the opposite side and rested an elbow on the table. "I was never much of an enchanter myself, but I could help depending on the effect you wish to achieve." He offered, his voice audibly calm. "Ugh." Grimacing, he looked down at the dried blood on his hand, which he rubbed off on his shawl.

"Ere you go love, and here's the key to your room." The barmaid announced as she arrived baring a bowl of soup and a cup of mead. Nodding in appreciation, Vereshin retrieved the key as she placed the cup and soup on the table. "I'll see about them bandages and serum." She clicked her tongue and pulled her chemise up again, then left Vereshin alone with his new company. He pulled off his shawl and wrapped it around the key. He tightened the cross-lacing on the front of his black tunic and brushed the dirt off the sleeves of his white shirt.

"I really must get this cleaned up." Vereshin referred to the gash in his side, still fiddling with the cut in his tunic and shirt. Repressing the urge to touch the wound any more, he dipped a spoon into his soup and took a light sip. "Fuck it, I'm starving." He gently lapped up the soup, blowing away steam every so often to take a sip of mead. He creased his brow in curiosity, still pondering the spell which the stranger was using to enchant his arrows.

Sekido Sei

 

[Sekido Sei]

For simple mountain folk, a tavern was more than a place where you went at the end of the days for watered down ale and overly salted roast beef. It was the closest thing farmers had to a forum, and the sign of community for settlements many hundred leagues away from civilization. Yet for the simple traveler with no home to call his own, taverns was just another alternative to a damp cave or a tent. While the quality of its food was suspect, Sei could gleam glimmers of insight for elusive marks: in a small community, nothing escaped the eyes of bored, blank eyed countrymen.

He tore a chunk of stale bread and dipped into the lukewarm soup of wild mushrooms and forest herbs picked by the barmaid's skinny daughter. Sei knew this, because earlier this morning he had nearly shot the poor girl, mistaking her appearance for a wild forest lurker. The superstitious tales of the elders were still engraved in the back of his mind, and in his most vulnerable moments the highlander could almost see sense in their stories of ghostly banshees, wraiths and murderous kappas.

It was good soup nonetheless, and he chewed on his soup-soaked bread as he ran a finger along the length of a black-feathered arrow. "Phen ih'n tza oi" Sei murmured. The arrow's tip glowed briefly before returning to its mundane state. Sighing, the man tossed it to another pile of arrows and picked another arrow from a separate bundle. "I say all of that," he said, frustration creeping into his voice "but wasn't it a shame one of your ilk still missed him?"

His grip tightened around the shaft but the wood failed to bend, a blue glow flaring dimly. Sei grumbled. "What kind of spell are you using there?" The man looked up, his concentration broken.

"Careful friend," he cautioned to Vereshin, eyes swiveling left and right for any unwanted listeners. "Demagogues make their homes far away from civilization. Those who preach against the unnatural especially." Sei sized the man up, pausing for a moment at the marks of blood around his midsection. He could barely spot it over the edge of the table, but he kept his seat and coughed into his hands.

When the barmaid came with the man's bandages and serum Sei hailed her over, sliding a copper coin. "Mead, please."

"Och' sure! Anything else you give a hoot and aul' be here."

He watched her walk away before returning to his new company, drumming his fingers on the table. After a moment of contemplation Sei repeated the same soft incantation with his new arrow. Once more it glowed and ended up in the small pile with a clatter that went unnoticed over the general din of the inn. "These arrows won't break, and they do-. . " he stopped his sentence as the robust woman came back with his cup of mead. ". . rarely miss. S'long as it's not a running quarry, or you don't screw up your aim. I rarely experiment, unless I've something in mind."

Gesturing back at Vereshin as he pulled out yet another mundane arrow, Sei shot his own question back. "Run in with the lawless?" His eyes looked pointedly at the newcomer's healing serum.

Marf

 

[Vereshin]

For a moment, Vereshin watched the shorter man enchant his arrows from the center of the inn. Still clutching his side, he opened his mouth to excuse himself as the barmaid walked by, almost colliding with him and spilling her tray of drinks. By the time she had darted around the counter, he had said nothing. He approached the man slowly and caught the tail end of a sentence in a language he did not recognize. Vereshin held a hand to his mouth and chuckled when he realized that the man was talking to his arrows, a habit to which he could relate. As he opened his mouth to speak, the man turned to face him, his concentration broken.

"It's alright friend, I talk to my corpses, although they can only hear me if they haven't received a proper burial. Still holding a hand coquettishly above his mouth, Vereshin laughed as he admitted his own eccentric tendencies. "Their spirits haven't quite entered the afterlife, you see?" He tilted his head forward, making a note on the detail which he mentioned.

When the man mentioned the arrow missing a target, Vereshin's lips parted with intrigue. He retracted his hand, thinking for the moment about just who this individual served. It could have been anybody, even Safiya, the magehunter who was hot on trail, although Vereshin assumed that this man would not have made his presence so obvious should he be intending to harm him. He lightly pressed the wound in his side, then strode forward, welcoming a feeling of ease as he leaned his back into the chair. The barmaid quickly arrived and placed a bowl of soup and a glass of mead in front of him.

"If you don't mind me asking, who was it that your arrow missed?" A raised eyebrow accompanied his question. Resting an elbow on the table, Vereshin buried the side of his face in his hand. He allowed for a pause as he dipped his spoon in the soup, swirling the brew as it cooled. The stranger's warning caused him to swallow a gulp, his senses heightening out of habit.

"Believe me, I know." With a sigh, Vereshin rolled his eyes, not at his company, but at the officials in Alliria. He took a sip of mead to dampen his dry throat, before sipping the soup. "My practice is usually less of a problem in more remote areas." Wincing, he touched the wound again. Footsteps approached and the barmaid arrived with a cup of mead, which she placed on the table, in front of the other man. "What is your name?" He asked following another pause. "I'm Vereshin, but I go by Vi if you like." The weight of his tone lifted and he happily offered the man his nickname.

Vereshin took gradual sips of his soup, eating more by the mouthful as it cooled, all the while listening to Sekido recite the incantation to enchant his arrows. The soft, flowing syllables of another mage's chant brought him genuine pleasure and he found himself relaxing somewhat as he listened to the incantation. He drank the mead between spoonfuls of soup, occasionally shifting an eye towards the arrow, never any less enchanted as he watched another mage's technique. By the time Sekido had finished enchanting the arrow, Vereshin had wolfed down all of his soup, which he settled with a long swig of mead.

"That was quite lovely, thank you." With the cup of mead held to his lips, he expressed gratitude, even though Sekido had not actually intended to do anything for him. He said nothing for a moment and savored the taste of his meal. All the while, a closed smile beamed on his face, conveying the visual pleasure he felt from observing Sekido's magic.

"They don't break, you say?" Vereshin inquired, gesturing the cup forward. He looked at the wooden beams in the ceiling and became lost in thought, already devising all manner of wicked and impractical effects with which he could imbue the arrows. Truly, Vereshin knew nothing about archery and could not possibly design a spell relevant to the skill or the use of a bow and arrow. "Impressive work. While I am quite skilled with cursing, I don't know enough about weapons to enchant them." He admitted with a chortle. Although Sekido's arrows never broke, judging by previous exclamation, they had missed his last target.

"What do you think of an arrow which curses a target as it hits them? Of course, this would only be useful should you intend for them to live. Vereshin snapped out of his daze and looked at Sekido. He snapped his fingers as he explained the idea, having suddenly found a way to combine his skill with cursing and Sekido's skill as an enchanter.

When Sekido asked his final question, Vereshin swallowed a gulp. He froze in his seat and shifted his eyes from one side of the inn to the other, distracting himself with the notes of the lute. He took a breath, then leaned across the table, cupping his mouth as his voice dropped to a whisper.

"A magehunter by the name of Safiya Ragi." The wayward sorcerer uttered, still glancing to either side to make sure that nobody was listening. "She has dark skin and hails from the Aberresai Savannah. He continued to whisper as he described his assailant "Bitch chased me across Falwood." Vereshin hissed, his lips tightening in an angry pout. He risked his safety to reveal the identity of the woman who had maimed him, in the hope that Sekido might be able to assist him in losing her, or if things came to the worst, killing her.

Sekido Sei

 

[Sekido Sei]

Sei dismissed the man's ramblings on the subject of spirits and dead bodies by taking a sip from his cup of mead. "Dead men don't talk," he commented very briefly before picking up another arrow. In his line of work, if the most dangerous thing was a corpse that could still spill their secrets.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat when Vereshin introduced himself after asking who it was he missed. "Sekido Sei- Sei is my first name." he paused, tossing another enchanted arrow with the rest. "Highlander tradition." The archer pondered if it was wise to give the name of his quarry so early into their interaction. He had no guarantee Vi was not already working with Safiya- to his limited knowledge, he had heard stories of mage hunters using captured mages to root out their brethren. Rare were such hunters, but that didn't mean they didn't exist in the wild.

Allowing the stranger to ramble on, Sei continued his work, silently whispering the phrase repeatedly in a slow and methodical manner. His pronunciation of certain words were clipped as though abruptly ended; several times he stopped himself with an irritated expression, sucked air between his teeth and repeat the process. From a casual observer's point of view, he placed an extreme emphasis on the duration of pronunciation for certain words- a second too long earned the arrow an irritated huff. His ears perked when Vereshin asked about combining two schools of magic together.

"An arrow that can curse a foe has more uses than you might think. Not every arrow fells their mark, but a wounded prey will limp and prolong the hunt longer than necessary." The hunter held an arrow at the middle of its length, balancing it precariously on his fingertips. "Enchanting something takes three things: an understanding of the effect you wish to impart on the object, the visualization of the effect and sheer willpower. Arguably the hardest part is in providing the willpower: if you so much as doubt any of those two elements, you may find yourself with an arrow that does not produce quite the same effect you had in mind, and at that stage the only way to find out is by testing it."

As if to prove his point Sei grabbed the arrow on both ends and bent it at an extreme degree. When he released the arrow, it simply returned to its original shape, a little energetic spring at the end. He held a finger as he held the shaft and produced a pocket knife, to which he pressed the edge against the wooden shaft. He pressed hard, tried sawing it and even made a few attempts at hacking it until he gave up. "If adding one enchantment to a simple object such as a piece of wood is difficult however, then adding another on top is even more difficult, because then you have to make sure your next effect doesn't tamper with the established rule you gave to the first enchantment. They must be two wholly separate clauses, independent, yet dependent on the same pool of willpower: if you doubt the first, then you will doubt the second, and that is how your heart-seeking arrows miss."

Sei leaned back to take a deep breath, twirling the arrow between his fingers lazily. "What I am saying is, friend: adding curses on top of a heavily enchanted arrow is asking for trouble. Feel free to try of course, you no doubt have experience in containing curses than I."

He stiffened at the mention of Safiya, arrow paused mid-twirl betwixt his index and thumb. "Then I must apologize." said Sei, his voice lowered so that only two of them could hear each other. He leaned in, setting the arrow back into its pile and clasping his hands together, elbows rested on the table. "I believe you have fled a wolf that I flushed out of their den. Falwood you say? That's not too far from here: if she does not bed tonight by this inn, then she will be around the outskirts of the village. How have you covered your tracks leading here, if you did?"

 

[Vereshin]

Vereshin's mention of his craft did not seem to phase Sei, who took a sip of mead and continued to enchant his arrows. He observed the man as silence filled the space between their words. Sei's dismissing of Vereshin's comment told him that the man harbored no malicious intent towards mages who practiced more questionable arts. He squinted and tilted his head to the side, eyeing Sei down with a look of intrigue. When Shade expressed his belief that the dead did not speak, the line of Vereshin's mouth turned upwards into a crooked smile.

"Oh really?" Vereshin asked in an exaggerated tone, challenging Sei's remark. "By the sounds of it you've never met a ghost." A wink accompanied the sentence. Sliding into the chair, Vereshin winced as he bent at the waist and pressed hand against the wound in his side. As Sei introduced himself, Vereshin tilted his cup of mead in the direction of the man in a gesture of recognition. "Well met, Sei." He chimed, then downed the cup.

When Sei chose to ignore Vereshin's question regarding the target he had missed, the dark mage raised an eyebrow in suspicion. He placed down his cup beside the empty bowl, all the while wondering if Sei knew something which he did not. Deciding not to mention the topic, Vereshin sat back in his chair and listened to the archer enchant his arrows. He closed his eyes halfway and enjoyed the methodical manner in which Sei recited the incantation, noting several jumps in his pronunciation as he stopped to remember the correct syllables. He appeared to draw out his words in order to enhance the properties of the small, although not too long to avoid buckling the effects, Vereshin assumed.

"You clip your pronunciation in some places, is that intentional?" Cupping his chin in thought, Vereshin posed his observation with a question, although one intended to learn more about the man's craft. "Then you draw out your words, but not too much. Am I correct in assuming that is to stop the arrows from buckling?" He asked as he watched the arrows glow with the effects of the spell. The barmaid walked by and stopped to watch Sei enchant his arrows as well.

"You best get that cleaned up soon, love, or it'll fester." The woman warned as stood above the table, holding a tray above her hip.

"Yes, yes!" Vereshin batted the air with his hand, dismissing her with slight irritation. She craned her head forward with the look of a threatening parent, warning Vereshin that she would not come to help him when he came down with a fever miles from the inn. He knew that she was right and made his priority to properly clean his wound, as soon as Sei and himself had finished talking about magic. When Sei explained possible uses for the idea, Vereshin's eyes glowed with delight. He was happy to hear that Sei and himself were on the same page.

"That's exactly what I was thinking." Vereshin chimed in regards to Sei's evaluation. "If a target has been hit and manages to escape, the curse will still maintain it's effect and would allow you to manipulate them from afar." He added to the idea as he watched Sei balance the arrow on his finger, taking note of the man's fine dexterity. He ceased talking for the moment and allowed Sei to explain the finer elements required when enchanting an item. He absorbed the steps which Sei explained, committing them to memory in order to use them when applying his own skills.

"Thank you for that explanation." Vereshin offered his gratitude, his tone quiet and still restrained as he thought. "In order to curse an item, part the practitioner's own soul must be used in the imbuing process." He picked up the cup of mead to take a sip, only to remember that it was empty. "Only a fragment, nothing more." He quickly reassured Sei that using a tiny portion of his own soul to imbue an item was harmless, should the process go smoothly. "By doing so, you establish a connection with the item, allowing you to both sense and manipulate anybody who touches it." Vereshin looked forlornly at the empty cup as he finished his explanation.

"To avoid overburdening one item with conflicting properties, I would simply curse one arrow and enchant another." Vereshin responded quickly to Sei's warning, turning to the most simple answer. As he waited for the other man to respond, he began to think again and considered a more efficient approach. "An arrow could also be cursed with a specific effect which hinders the target or slows them down. Of course, this would not allow you to locate the target or control them." He paced his words thoughtfully, focusing on the motion of the arrow as Sei twirled it between his fingers.

"That would require imbuing the arrow with a fragment of the user's soul." Vereshin concluded. "Of course, that method pertains exclusively to the one who curses the arrow, it could not be used by anybody else." Thinking back, he expressed an addition to his idea. A pause followed before Sei reiterated his warning, to which Vereshin only smiled in response.

"Come now, why not curse and enchant the same arrow? He batted the air, dismissing Sei's warning. "I think I'd rather like to see what would happen." Withdrawing his hand, he placed a finger under his chin as he pretended to think. A pause followed. "Oh I'm just kidding." He chuckled.

When Vereshin mentioned Safiya, Sei's reaction told him that the target he had missed had indeed been her. The archer apologized and Vereshin waved his hand in a reassuring gesture, forgiving Sei for having ignored his earlier question. He set his bowl and cup aside, to give him room to lean across the table. Vereshin fell silent for the moment, thinking back towards the events of his day. While had escaped Safiya using the shadows of the forest, he had made no effort to cover any physical traces which he might have left. He took a breath and turned around, scanning the patrons of the inn to make sure that nobody was listening.

"I conjured a plane of darkness to lose her in the forest." Dropping his voice to a low whisper, Vereshin began to regale the last he had seen of the magehunter. "That's when you use shadows to disappear." He took a moment to explain the spell he had used. "She was swinging blind when she cut me and she didn't see where I went." He paused and regretted that he had not in fact, covered his physical tracks, something he truly did not know how to do. "Apart from that I did not cover my tracks." He stretched the end of his mouth and pulled a face, making light of his mishap. "Oops." He stated nonchalantly.

Sekido Sei

 

[Sekido Sei]

Sei blinked and frowned when Vereshin dismissed his warnings with the air of superiority. He leaned forward, tapping impatient on the table with his finger, ready to lambaste the sorcerer when he chuckled out a hasty, "Oh I'm just kidding." He raised an eyebrow and leaned back, deflating his chest. "It's funny to you, until you've seen yourself displace three of your fingers onto an arrow you shot at an elk- an elk that hasn't died and is scrambling to get away from you."

The hunter shook his head as he listened to the sorcerer speak on. He moved to take a sip of his ale, but instead hailed the barmaid and ordered a cup of warm milk. Sei passed another copper coin to her as she walked away before returning his attention to Vereshin. "Darkness will not avert her for long- she will find you eventually and you will have to flee once again. If she is a competent hunter, you will only have a night's rest, if that." The barmaid returned with his milk, and he thanked her softly.

While he drank he gathered the remaining arrows and placed them back into their quiver, spilling a little of his drink onto the tabletop. Cursing, the archer pulled out a blue handkerchief to wipe up the stain. He spoke as he cleaned, although his eyes were glued to the aged tabletop. "If you do not balk at the idea of a cooperative effort however, then I can help you." Sei's eyes flicker towards his arrows and then back to his calloused hands as they ball up the handkerchief together. "In more ways than one."

He paused and waited until everyone within the room was too busy with their business to notice him before reaching into his pack and pulling out two smoothed, oval lodestones. They shone green-black, sickly but with the veneer of a freshly made wooden furniture. Sei brought the two stones closed together and made a motion for Vereshin to keep a look out. He rubbed the two stones together until they hummed softly. "N'ge lyang 'e zxuo ti, wuu khe'n'ye gushuoda, lyii gen gwo zhufu'o." You are two brothers of stone; I speak to one, the other repeats.

Satisfied with his work as their humming only rose in pitch, he slid one the stone to Vereshin and prompted him to pick it up. He made a motion to bring it close to his ear, before covering his lodestone with his hand and speaking to it. "A rudimentary trick," came the voice from the stone, for Sei's own voice was not heard out loud as before. Instead it was a clear and sharp whisper that emanated directly from the green stone. "But it will keep our conversations more private. Whatever we say will only be heard by the one who holds the other half of the lodestone, so don't part with your end."

"Now, if you're not too wounded - or not against the idea of danger - then listen: while Safiya has tracked you for days, I have traced her for weeks. She is eager, as most of her ilk are- but short sighted. She will not expect her hunter to team with her prey, and she will make a grievous error in her pursuit." He paused, most likely for dramatic effect with a shallow and barely perceivable smirk on his face.

"She will come after you, without taking time to pause and consider. She will be too distraught by the recent attempt on her life, and be too angered at the idea of letting her own prey flee her grasp. What I mean by all this, is that we can end her with an ambush on ground of our own choosing."

 

[Vereshin]

While Vereshin smiled at his own joke, Sei shot him a frown. The halt in his breath told the dark mage that he did not realize that his suggestion had been in jest, something which amused Vereshin all the more. As he waited for the silly remark to set in and fester, he watched the hunter become tense. Sei's posture relaxed as Vereshin dismissed the idea of imbuing an arrow with both a curse and an enchantment as just a joke, both satisfied that the hunter had fallen for it and disappointed by the sense of humor which he seemed to lack. An awkward silence followed, filled only by Vereshin's laughter.

"That would be very funny because I wouldn't be the one shooting the arrow." As quick as Sei spoke, Vereshin posed a retort, also one in jest. He leaned back on his chair and creased an eyebrow in a suggestive manner, pressing Sei's resolute with his cheeky tone. The image of an archer displacing his fingers with his own arrow while chasing after an elk caused him to hold a hand against his mouth and giggle, flashes of his pitch black teeth visible through the spaces between his fingers. Once he was done being a fool, Vereshin wiped away an imaginary tear and took a breath, retaining his composure.

"Forgive me, I'm taking the piss." He sighed and dropped the volume of his voice. As the barmaid swished by again to take Sei's order, Vereshin stopped talking for the moment to avoid the woman hearing any dangerous information in the unlikely event that she knew Safiya. Once she left, he turned back around to face Sei. "I wouldn't wish any harm on you while my life is in your hands." A promise made quite literally. The mutual respect between Vereshin and Sei was necessary to the dark mage while his life was in the hands of the hunter. As Sei warned him regarding Safiya's intentions, the lack of concern which Vereshin had shown for somebody else's well-being was discarded the moment his own life was in peril.

"I ought to implant her soul in a dog like the bitch she is." Vereshin hissed through his teeth. His eyes narrowed as he listened to Sei's plan, watching the archer spill some of the milk from his glass, which may have made him chuckle only a few minutes ago. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the arrows which Sei slid into his quiver, communicating to the sorcerer that they ought to leave soon before Safiya found them first, or so he assumed. "Do you think that we should leave tonight, or wait until morning?" Vereshin asked, not so sure if he was able to travel right away.

"For certain." He nodded in response to Sei's offer. So far the hunter had proven himself both astute and intelligent, although slightly more uptight than than Vereshin himself, which only meant that he took the task at hand seriously. "I'd be most appreciative of your assistance." Vereshin confirmed and watched Sei roll up the handkerchief in curiosity. The hunter slid a hand into his satchel and procured two gemstones, which Vereshin failed to take his eye away from, without noticing Sei's gesture for him to remain on guard. He looked over his shoulder once to make sure that nobody was listening.

As the stones collided, Sei recited an incantation which Vereshin did not recognize. Sitting still, he recoiled in his chair and looked at the floor, his ears still focusing on the lyrics uttered by Sei. After the incantation ceased, he slid one of the stones across the table to Vereshin, who wrapped his around it and held it to his chest. The effect of the spell cast a line between the two men, establishing a verbal connection which could not be heard by the rest of the people in the inn. Holding the stone to his chest, Vereshin felt the surface warm against his tunic, unable to help being fascinated by the technique despite the dire nature of his situation.

As Sei explained his progress in tracking Safiya, Vereshin absorbed the information, repeating words in his head and attempting to form them into some kind of solution. While Sei expressed his idea in the form of an ambush, the mage knew that he would require rest before attempting to cast offensively. With his chin resting in one hand, he nodded in the direction of the answer, his attentive gaze clearly telling Sei that he was impressed with his work so far.

"I must treat my wounds and will require a good night's sleep before I am able to cast again." The dark mage explained, still resting his elbow on the table. He began to think of a way in which Sei and himself could actively monitor her before they attempted to strike, a spell to inform them of her location in the fashion of the curse which Vereshin had already suggested. He turned around and rubbed the stone with his index finger. "If you will join me in my room, I have an idea which may reveal a glimpse of her location. As he pulled himself to his feet, he looked around to see if anybody had noticed.

"First of all, I must see to this cut." With the stone still in his hands, Vereshin slid out from beneath the table. He looked over his shoulder and waited for Sei to do the same, before walking along the side of the wall and exiting into the back corridor of the inn. "After you." He offered to Sei with a hand resting on the corner of the wall.

Into the shadows, Vereshin slipped unnoticed before the crowd and carried the key to his room, as well as the stone down the corridor. He stopped at the door which bore the same symbol on the keys and unlocked the latch. The iron handle turned in his palm and opened, to reveal the bandages, needle and thread, as well as a bottle of healing serum resting on his bed where the barmaid had left them. He left the door ajar for Sei to join him once he he had arrived, then walked inside and sat on the bed. From the tavern, the bard now played a violin, which echoed in the hallway and through the space between the door.

With a heavy sigh, Vereshin unhooked his belt and set it aside. He then flung his shawl on the pillow and unlaced the front of his tunic. After pulling the tunic over his head, he removed the white shirt which he wore underneath and sat only in his trousers and boots, both of which were thankfully in one piece. As night fell, the air dropped to a chill and hit his slender form, the elements feeling raw against his uncovered skin. He only just noticed that the barmaid had been kind enough to leave a bucket of hot water below the bed, along with some clean rags. He shoved one into the water and began the process of wiping away the dried blood from his cut. He did not place the rags back in the water and left them aside to be used in the technique which he hoped would aid Sei and himself in finding Safiya.

Sekido Sei