i spent the last few days sculpting mind-shielding jewelry and playing board games and learning more dhakaani from kaba
that was mostly to quiet my growing panic about how our compass was acting strangely and nothing we saw matched zer's maps and medya felt increasingly ill and we might be trapped in the world's greyest place until we became yet more sobering landmarks for the next group passing through
thanks to today's events i now have a completely different set of worries!
we heard fast-paced music that morran recognized as "tago" – cyre's proud dance tradition – and saw a red flame atop a mast on a large ornate wagon pulled by a stunning forged-like bull and driven by a human with too wide a grin
that's how we met "obain gezell"
i've never seen that much magic flowing around and through someone while casting ... and he wasn't even casting
when he invited us to chat with him for a bit about cyre – "the jewel of khorvaire" – it seemed wise to oblige
only 4 of us were keen to step outside and somehow that included me
he shared his enthusiasm for cyran history and culture and when we mentioned whitehearth he gushed about "old merrix's playground"
but then
"i've never seen a unicorn like that – how much for it?"
"i'm not for sale – i'm a person!"
"everything has a price"
"you can't afford me"
... he could have turned us all into pinecones with as much effort as a sneeze so of course that was the perfect time to speak boldly
i'm glad that all he did was laugh and invite us to browse his wares
despite my objections bell peered into the part of the wagon that served as obain's personal space ... and she spotted a framed windowpaper from his military academy days showing him alongside his classmates
it included emmer sykes and several others that morran recognized as possessing similar levels of national pride and ethical integrity
great time to be on our way
but what's when we heard distorted mewling
the part of the wagon we'd actually been invited to look in was full of scavenged parts and broken artifacts ... and a beautiful but wounded forged-like animal that looked something between a puma and a wolf with flame ports very much like spark's but only barely active
when i saw their injuries i almost wept – part of one foreleg had been bitten off!
spark calmed them with flute music while obain watched bell and i work to stabilize them and craft a very simple temporary foreleg
it turns out aaren crafted 4 of these "chasers" as pets and morran grew up around them ... so he was very emotional when "amaranth" joined us in the hardback
"ammy" knew where their 3 siblings were and pointed the way for us to steer while obain followed
in not too long we hardly needed their directions because the land distortions drew us to a huge spherical pit with an aura of heavy darkness and many dead soldiers and 3 more like ammy but in worse condition
also hungry shadows
the shadows seemed to have a taste for forged and similar – they'd taken bites out of the chasers and the fallen forged soldiers
spark and bell and i rushed to get the injured chasers out of the pit while being chomped at and the shadows bit me twice before i could get through!
but we did get them all safely to the hardback
they were so weak and i wasn't sure how much more i had in me to cast renew with ... then i felt a sort of nudge from the brooch lady illmorrow left as a gift
it seemed to whisper "bear their burden" and i had the sense that it could help if i asked so i sat next to the most injured of them and said those words
the good news is that it completely healed the chaser except for parts that were missing but that's to be expected and morran will fix them up from there
the bad news is that it did this by siphoning an awful lot of my vital force very quickly ... as in i nearly passed out from shock and most of the porcelain in my legs crumbled
fortunately with the shadows dispelled the distortions stopped so medya felt well enough to help bell replace my porcelain
i'm fine now but that hurt!
... though not nearly so much as that chaser was hurting so it was worth doing
the're such sweeties
the one i healed with the brooch is "mugwort" – usually "muggy" – and their paws shine with lavender crystals
"daisy" has a tail made of flowing water
"yarrow" doesn't fly but has wings of smoke
and ammy's fire is much brighter now
to everyone's relief obain didn't stay but he left a note saying it was a "good show" and "nice seeing you again" even though he hadn't met us before?
and "we'll settle up later"?
just thinking about him makes me nervous
anyhow the hardback is travelling at full speed now which is good because we ended up a week's travel in the wrong direction
i do not like the mournland