[closed]

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria, Cassius, Flint & Various
WHAT: Catch-all for fantasy August....which is just August
WHEN: August
WHERE: Kirkwall/The Surrounding Free Marches/misc
NOTES: Content warnings in subject lines; holler at me if you want a bespoke starter, otherwise feel free to drop me a start for whatever your heart desires.

Comments

beth

[heirring]

It's a tricky prospect these days to slip out into the Free Marches. Even the roads of Wildervale, which seems like it ought to somehow be immune to the presence of marauding bands of Venatori, aren't completely reliable. At least once since crossing the border into the sleepy, predominantly pastoral march they'd had to steer their horses off the road and wait for a long time amidst copses of trees—patiently out of sight until strangers traveling in the opposite direction had passed lest they turn out to be some enemy in disguise.

"For I have been kidnapped quite enough for one lifetime, you see," Wysteria had explained in a sotto voce whisper behind the fruiting hedgerow of blackberry bushes, idly nibbling on the ripe berries until the coast was clear and they might proceed on their way.

Otherwise, it is an uneventful excursion to the V.A.N.E.. The arcane clocktower like device is comically out of place in the old abandoned farmhouse where it has been erected, and it takes only a cursory review of its records and the positioning of its fadeiation vane before they are off again—on foot this time, for the energy registered by the recent opening of a rift is far too close to bother with remounting the horses. Instead Wysteria leads the way, cheerfully crashing through various brambles and underbrush until they find themselves at a low stone wall bordering a large grazing field over which hangs the sickly green crackle of a rift. Wysteria produces the little spyglass from her belt.

She consults the otherworldly slash for a moment, says, "How odd," and then passes the glass to Beth. "It seems to be fairly inert presently, yes? I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to close it without too much trouble. But it is strange that it would be such a minor disturbance. The Vane's records reflected quite the spike of arcane energy."

[littlemissfutility]

"So have I," Beth had answered, and then spent the next hour failing to explain herself. (On the upside, she'd picked a little bagful of blackberries while they stood around, waiting for the other travelers to pass. She's started carrying little flour-sack-like bags, empty, in case of finding interesting things on the road. Most of the time, it's nothing this delicious - and some tired part of her is soothed by the knowledge of extra food.) It makes for slow traveling, hiding from everything on the road, but it's not so bad. They don't run into anything that actually knows to try and kill them.

The V.A.N.E. turns out to be kind of cool - all the technology is, here. She can imagine it existing at home, if any of them happened to know enough about making mechanical stuff work. (And if there was magic to bother measuring, of course.) So far, aside from hiding from possible Venatori, the whole thing feels like something out of a storybook, especially the stone-fenced fields; even with a war on, it feels safer than home by a long shot.

She takes the spyglass from Wysteria and squints through it, but the rift doesn't look that much more detailed. It's just slightly closer, slightly greener. "No demons. Should we just...go look?"

It feels like there should be some kind of protocol. It also feels like Wysteria probably would've spent the last five minutes telling her about it if there was.

[heirring]

Beside her, Wysteria drums her fingers on the top of the low stone wall.

"It's possible that when we near it, the rift will activate and demons will manifest. But I see no reason why we shouldn't take a closer look. Between the two of us, we ought to be able to knit it closed before anything truly terrible passes through."

How reassuring! Wysteria is already clambering up over the wall in her calf length skirts and field boots.