Private Tales Blink and You'll Miss It

[Yuric]

"It's been nearly two hours now, hasn't it?"

The two Initiates had been posted up in the Yawning Ogre for at least that long. The cups and plates in front of him and his fellow student had long been cleared of food and drink, and the meal placed in the empty third seat across from them now sat stone cold. Yuric cast a somewhat worried glance over to the girl beside him, swallowing down the last of his drink before continuing. "Vel Ospra isn't a big town. Should have been there and back by now, don't you think?"

He didn't expect an answer. He'd never worked with Marcia before, but the diminutive stature of the redheaded girl didn't speak to her intensity. She'd made no attempt to befriend him yet, beyond a few glares to let him know he was talking too much. Was every woman in his class made of stone, he wondered? It didn't matter, Yuric didn't expect friendship from anybody, so long as they pulled their weight and performed admirably.

It was beginning to look like their superior might be struggling in that department.

Dreadlord Billek had seemed confident in their mission; A smattering of assaults and murders on prominent Anirian figures--Guards and Nobles, mainly-- had been plaguing Ospra for a handful of weeks now. It was a problem, especially as Vel Ospra was relatively deep into their home territory. If word caught on of possible rebel activity so close to home, then the Dreadlords would come under even more scrutiny than they already did. So, Billek was dispatched along with a couple of Initiates to nip the issue in the bud before it grew any larger.

"He was just supposed to scout the place out. You don't think he'd...?" Yuric closed his eyes, humming impatiently as he drummed his fingers on the table. Finally, he slammed his palms down and stood up. Enough was enough. Billek could be in trouble, and if he was, he'd need their help. "Forget this, I'm going over there myself. You coming, Marcia?" Either way, the boy left a few coins on the table, wrapped his lavish blue coat around himself and headed for the door.

It wasn't a long trip to the building in question: A sizable barracks that had gone out of service after the revolution, and had sat dormant and unused ever since. The attacks seemed too coincidentally centered around the block where the old barracks remained, and Billek had suspected their mark was likely hiding inside. It was a difficult building to miss, too. A large banner bearing the pre-revolution insignia of Vel Anir still hung from a tall post atop the roof, and Ospra was quietly winding down for the night, as midday slowly yielded to dusk.

So... where was it?

Yuric stood dumbfounded before the spot the Dreadlord had shown them just after arriving. He knew the building had been here, had seen it with his own two eyes.

Now, nothing. A vacant lot between two homes.

Marcia

 

[Marcia]

At a certain point, approximately twenty minutes after the food had been served, Marcia had begun to wonder if this was all a test. After all, there was a high level of expectation reserved for Dreadlords, and it was them who were supposed to be chasing after fuckhead Initiates whose every action screamed a mistake. It wasn't supposed to be the other way around.

Especially when all the man was supposed to have been doing was scouting.

It had to be a test, if only for the sake of Dreadlord Billek's pride.

In the meantime, the mostly silent meal with Initiate Yuric had been a painful affair. The girl's challenging disposition made for poor dinner company. The most she'd given him were nods and shakes of the head or minute verbalisations hummed dismissively from the back of her throat. Socialisation had never been her strong suit, and at this point, she was so resigned to the mockery of her peers that Marcia had just internally categorised everybody as an arsehole into proven otherwise.

She didn't need the grief or the laughter, for that matter. Fuck, she hated the laughter.

So, when Yuric slammed his hands down and declared his intention to find their lost handler, she couldn't have joined him any faster, shooting to her feet and slinging her large steel buckler over her back by the strapping. Better to be focused on a task at hand rather than stagnating in the Yawning Ogre in stilted silence.

Only the task at hand was...

...complex.

When they arrived at where the old barracks had been, Marcia stood there for a few seconds, mouth agape as her brain tried to process what exactly she was looking at or wasn't looking at.

No Billek, no barracks.

"What the actual fuck," Marcia commented slowly, staring at the vacant space where a building absolutely once stood, her regular profanity escaping her now that they weren't in the presence of seniority. "There was definitely an entire fucking building here before, right?"

 

[Yuric]

By the time the words had left Marcia's mouth, Yuric had already begun crossing the street to inspect the lot, the dumbfoundedness he'd been stricken with overriding any wariness as to who or what might still be lurking around in wait for them.

It wasn't as though there had been some explosion, or some natural disaster had swept through town in the short time they'd been away. No, everything was neat. Nothing was out of place. It was as if the building had never been there at all.

"I don't... understand." He reached out with one boot, pressing his heel against the soft soil, devoid of grass, where the barracks had once stood. The dirt was fresh, malleable against his foot; There was no illusion, no trick of the eyes involved. Finally he turned back to Marcia. "We need everybody to get back. Let's close off this road."

There was already a few curious eyes gathering around them, either noting the lack of what had once been, or questioning the presence of two particularly nosy teenagers. Either way, it wasn't a particularly crowded street.

Though he was still learning about the girl, he had to admire her talent in persuasion. A few particularly strong words, and no more idle pedestrians dare come within a certain distance of them. Once they were alone, the sun dipping below the horizon and bathing them in an orange glow, Yuric slid his belongings off his back and laid the pack upon the ground.

"Now's as good a time as ever, I suppose. Tell me about yourself, Marcia. What is it you're good at?" Yuric opened his pack, pulling out a few books and a canteen of water. "I have a feeling we're going to be here a bit longer than we'd planned."

Marcia

 

[Marcia]

The first notion that followed stunned bewilderment was the need for an answer.

Illusion was the first thing that came to mind, or at least the simplest. Since an entire fucking building couldn't just be picked up, put in one's pocket and carried away, it had to be a trick of the eye. A large spell to obscure the old barracks through the eye of the mundane.

Right?

Yuric stepping on the ground where there should have been wood and stone dented that theory, leading Marcia directly back to the path of bewilderment.

At least the bystanders were seeing what they saw, which ruled out something specifically affecting their perception. However, that didn't rule out some form of magic afflicting the entire town. More to the point, where was Dreadlord Billek in all of this? Had he presumably vanished with the building? Had he caused it? Marcia chewed over her half-baked theories as she diligently ushered the townspeople away from the scene, eventually coming to the frustrating answer of nothing.

She was no wiser than fifteen minutes ago.

So they would keep watch, hoping that something would change or that an answer would appear before them after enough time had passed, or better yet, a building.

With it came small-talk.

Well, she wasn't good at that, for a start.

Marcia grimaced, staring at the vacant space before finally casting the scrutiny of her stare towards her fellow Initiate. "I try to be good at everything," the girl finally replied before wincing slightly at how passive-aggressive the words came out. It wasn't even true; she was noticeably awful at making friends. "They're pushing me towards the Vigilite," she continued, trying to be less blunt and abrasive, "so I've been stepping up on stealth and subterfuge. Makes sense with my reflection magic."

She pointed her boot at his books.

"You an academic type, I take it?"

 

[Yuric]

Yuric's eyes briefly follow the toe of her boot to his books, before looking back to her with a sly little smirk. "Oh, I try to be good at everything." Marcia was putting in effort to be a little more forgiving with her tone now, at least, and it was appreciated on his end; If they were going to be stranded here without a superior officer to keep them on task, they may as well get along. "I like to keep myself educated, yes, but you'll find most of those books are historical, not strictly academic."

Yuric's power draws from the past. To that end, it was vital that he know that past. That was, at least, how he saw it. Taking a swig of water to wash out the lingering taste of whatever grog that tavern had served them with their food, the boy rose to his feet and offered it to her.

"Reflection magic, hm? That does sound quite useful. I'd imagine it's also helpful for dispelling illusions, no?" If this vanishing act had been a trick of the light, some paltry illusion magic, Marcia's talents might have made this all a deal simpler. As it stood, not so. "That's enough painful jabber, I suppose. Do me a favor and look over the vacant lot for me? See if there's anything out of the ordinary, something to clue us off."

Tucking the water away, Yuric turns toward the empty space in front of them, a faint blue glow pulsing from his eyes as he takes in a deep breath. "I'm going to take a look on the other side of things..." Leaning forward, The empty land before the Initiate seemed to peel away, as though he stuck his head through an invisible curtain. Yuric had the ability to peer into the afterlife, the world of spirits. Where they saw nothing in the land of the living, the world of dead could hold many secrets.

Marcia

 

[Marcia]

She could respect it.

Of course, they could all claim to be good at everything, but the proof was found in the results. Marcia was sure that many of her peers couldn't see past her temper, which painted her as a violence-first meathead with no solution other than violence as much as Yuric's books might have painted him as an academic.

"Yeah, probably," Marcia replied stiffly, slightly put out from having never thought of using the skill to detect illusion. Maybe she was a meathead, comparatively. They could try that avenue when he returned from the other side.

She stuck to the mundane for the time being, doing as he had asked.

At first, her steps were cautious upon the dirt of the vacant lot, half-expecting a nasty surprise to emerge while trying to conjure some half-educated thesis as to why and how an entire building could just vanish. The Initiate imagined (or rather, hoped) that Yuric would have more luck in a different realm, but logic could still break the matter down somewhat.

For a start, it wasn't invisible. They'd ruled that out entirely already by standing on the plot. Given the townspeople's reaction, they'd also ruled out an altering of their singular perceptions, but that didn't entirely mark it as an impossibility.

What else?

The dirt. Fresh. Suggesting something had recently been here. It told her that the barracks had, indeed, existed, and it wasn't a matter of their memory being fucked with or that it had never existed at all. Crouching down, Marcia frowned while crumbling some dirt between her fingers. It was as if it had been moved, plucked from the town without damage and placed elsewhere.

Given it was likely impossible to transport an entire fucking building without anybody noticing, it certainly hadn't been moved in this realm.

Where? Why?

"What the actual fuck," she muttered under her breath, frustrated by her own perplexion and hoping that Yuric would return bearing actual answers rather than her half-baked theories.