Open Chronicles Disappearances

[Wallace Grimley]

"Wurmroot, ya shaid?"

Well hell, she just had to pick the one damn thing he didn't have readily available on his person. Alright, alright, so there was a number of things like that, not all of them come as far as the Ixchel Wilds, but still. Wallace was the Walking Bazaar but even he didn't have enough room for everything--just them usual type items, commonplace things more or less, the reliably in-demand.

But Wallace perked back up when it appeared that Syvis wasn't actually interested in buying, only inquired about him having potentially sold some.

Which he had.

"Yeah. Shold shome to a man not even...two, three weeksh ago. Why ya ashk?"

Kara had come back out--they were on to something. Maybe ol' Brian had a fighting chance.

Syvis Kara Orin Adriel Withers

 

[Adriel Withers]

Adriel held his breath. He could, in theory, grow some wurmroot here. That said, it would require a lot of effort and the mage was already growing a bit bored with the whole conundrum. He said nothing, hoping that Syvis wasn't too familiar with his magical discipline.

Thankfully, Kara provided a brief distraction and gestured the group in the general direction of her tracking spell.

He grinned, turning to follow her. The back of his mind tugged at him for some reason or other, wurmroot didn't quite sit right with him and he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why.

He sighed, remembering why. Wurmroot - in certain compounds or states - was a banned substance. His eyes widened in alarm as he cast a glance between Syvis and Wallance - yet he remained silent.

 

[Syvis]

"To whom?" She didn't particularly care about the illegality of the ingredient, at least not right now.

She was not the authorities. As much as some liked to think Elbion College did not have any real legal authority. They were a College, they had professors but none of them should have been dealing with matters of the law.

Though perhaps she would report him if he wasn't cooperative. "It was used in the making of a potion."

Syvis decided to explain why she was asking.

"I believe it's connected to why the people here disappeared." She ground her teeth, glancing to where Kara had pointed. That was where they would go once she had her questions answered. "They're making a potion that might use blood magic."

 

[Wallace Grimley]

Ah hell, blood magic? Suppose that it did have to be something right nasty though. What else really, makin' a whole town up and disappear like this. Well, you know, that's how it went--bad folks doin' bad things. Woulda found that Wurmroot somewheres else if he hadn't found it from Wallace. See, all ol' Wallace did was sell fine goods--really the best goods you could find in Elbion--he didn't go struttin' around telling people what they could and couldn't do with 'em.

Wallace canted his head skyward and his eyes went searching in their sockets as he went about recalling the necessary facts. He said, "Well hell, I wish I had a name for ya there Shyvish, but if that man done told me then I done forgot in the intervenin' weeksh--he wasn't no regular. Tell ya what I do remember though: man was kinda pale lookin'. Not shickly like, but he sure ain't no desert dweller out in the Empire, heh heh. Shcraggly too--probably ate lessh than he talked, I reckon. Oh yeah, he did have shome robesh on. Not Elbion College robes, but Allirian. You know, one of them other mage academiesh. Heh, got another buddy o' mine calls 'em 'dishcount Collegesh,' ha haa haaaa! Ain't that a knee-shlapper? Damn dishcount College. Well yer man was wearin' shome of their robesh when I shaw him. Big ol' bushy black beard on him too."

He tried thinking of anything else, but no other details popped into his mind's eye.

"Tha'sh about it there, Shyvish. All I got on him. Think that Allirian ashhole is the culprit? Or shome kinda middle-man?"

Syvis Kara Orin Adriel Withers

 

[Kara Orin]

At first, Kara just listened to Syvis and Wallace talk. Her eyes remained pointing in the direction that her locating rune pointed to.

…

Even when Syvis mentioned blood magic, Kara waited. She clenched a first to crack her knuckles. When Walalce asked his question about whether his buyer was the culprit or accomplice, Kara turned back to Syvis and the group.

“If you have time, may I recommend journeying with us?” Kara suggested to Wallace with a glare.

“If their potion requires blood magic, the whole town will be bled dry if we wait too long,” Kara emphasized.

 

[Adriel Withers]

Adriel glanced back towards Kara, staring blankly at the spinning rune. He harumphed for a brief moment then turned his attention back at Wallace and Syvis. The waiting around made him bored and he was yet to provide anything useful to the group.

The young mage wandered away from the group for a brief moment, summoning some seeds from his pockets, he began to scatter them alongside one edge of the road parallel to the group.

A faint green pulse drifted from his hand, coating the seeds he had just dropped, and suddenly they erupted into beautiful and incandescent flowers. He grinned, plucking one of his creations and inhaling the beautiful scents it released.

Content at having eased some of the boredom, he returned to the group.

 

[Syvis]

Her frown deepened for a brief moment. Alliria?

Syvis did not know much about their sister College in the city of Merchants. She didn't even know what relations were like with them. Politics and the like most often passed entirely over her head, a fact that most of the Master's despised.

"Yes." She said quietly. "I think it would be best if you accompany us."

There was no anger to her tone now, nor accusation. "I suspect this will be something larger than originally thought."

The Maestar's had assumed it was some sort of magical misshap. The discovery of an artifact or something of the like, but this? This seemed entirely too strange. Her lips thinned for a brief moment and then she looked towards her two students.

"We set out at once, concealing spells." She didn't want whoever their foe was to see them coming.

 

[Wallace Grimley]

Kara spoke to him, recommending journeying with the trio. But godsdamn, what was with that glare? Come on now. Wasn't Wallace's best joke--wasn't even his joke to be frank--but it wasn't that bad, was it? Maybe Kara had a friend in one of those "discount Colleges" that Wallace had just slighted. Ah shit.

But she didn't linger on it. Had a point. Whatever the hell had happened here, if this ne'er-do-well had something to do with it and that something involved blood magic, then ol' Brian and the rest of Fallinol were up a creek of shit and boy they had lost their paddle way back.

Wallace puckered his mouth and curled down his bottom lip, nodding with quick little bobs of his head as he looked between Kara and Syvis--both of whom having suggested he come along. Hell, he wasn't no hero or nothin', but a friend in need and all. And maybe they'd require something that Wallace had on his person. For a discount price, of course, heh heh.

"Alright," Wallace said. "I'm come with ya then. Nothin' like havin' a favor in yer back pocket."

Wallace took a moment to go Clarence and Ameece and tell them to head back to the last town they were in prior to Fallinol. To wait there for a few days. Tough way o' thinking, but either he'd be back with Brian and the rest of 'em in Fallinol...or he wouldn't.

That done, Wallace rejoined the mage trio. Rejoined in time to hear Syvis mention them concealing spells. He said, "Heh heh, that ain't gonna tickle, is it?"

Syvis Kara Orin Adriel Withers

 

[Kara Orin]

Once Syvis agreed to move out, Kara began to move in the direction that the scrying rune pointed had pointed to. She remained silent.

For a moment, Kara quickly checked her equipment. She had several pouches lining her belt and her sword strapped just off her left hip.

Kara did not cast any concealing spell immediately. She waited for Syvis and Adriel to cast theirs first.

Syvis Wallace Grimley Adriel Withers