Witness
Bread sizzled on the cast iron pan as Mind shifted it above a crackling fire. The sun was beginning to crest the horizon, desperately trying to push its radiance through the Veil across the sky to little avail. Wind shifted and smoke filled her nostrils before she could scoot to the other side of her seat on a moldering log. Her free hand pushed dark hair from her face as she squinted in the flickering light, inspecting the cooking dough.
“Hmm... good enough for me,” Mind said, lifting the screaming hot pan from the fire with her bare hand. Infernals, despite the stigma surrounding them, certainly had their share of blessings. Her dark red skin, for instance, was quite resilient to heat. Jewelry jingled from up-turned, slightly curled back horns on either side of her head when she leaned away from the pillar of smoke. She set the pan down on the moss-coated log next to her and began to dig through a large travel pack at her feet.
“Aha, there it is!” she exclaimed, letting her tail swish through the air behind her. From the bulky bag she produced a small, glass vial filled with a golden, viscous liquid. Small flecks of impurities floated within, and air bubbles slowly rose to the top. Honey was a rare delicacy outside of Bastions, and Mind never traveled without. With a swift motion, she uncorked the vial and poured it over the mostly-cooked pan-fried bread next to her. The sweet, sticky substance popped and melted around the pan on contact, making a mess of the surrounding moss. With a flick of her fingers, a spectral hand appeared in the air next to her.
“Hans, be a dear and pick up the bread for me. I don't want honey on my hands while I study Keeper's scrolls. Don't think he'd be happy about that, no sir!” Mind said as the hand pinched its whispy fingers together to resemble a head. It nodded at her words.
Mind picked up the bag, heaving it over the log to the other side as she turned to face the sprawling pond behind her. With a more scenic view ahead of her she made a flourishing gesture in the air. Her fingers trailed thin blue lines and a vertical swath of blue broke the early morning in front of her. She reached past it, her arm disappearing into the rift. Moments passed as she rummaged through the contents of the pocket dimension and she finally removed a tightly bound scroll clenched in a skull's jaw.
Hans lifted the glazed bread from the pan and hovered next to her as the skull's jaw popped open, letting the scroll's end unravel in front of her. Mind tapped the temple of the skull moments after and the aged paper stopped spilling from the scroll, its bulk visually unchanged in the white vice of human teeth. Her yellow eyes scanned the ancient text as she slowly leaned to the side, taking a bite of the sweetened treat. The bottom was crisp with caramelized honey and its center was still slightly raw, giving it a texture similar to that of an over-baked bread pudding. A soft, nearly inaudible squeal of joy emanated from Mind as she savored the flavors she so often associated with camping while traveling.
* * *
Halfway through her early morning's dessert and a chunk of the way through Keeper's scroll, Mind's ears pricked up at the sound of approaching footfalls. The jangling of metal pots clanging against wooden cutlery slung on a pack rang through the trees behind her. She tapped the skull's temple twice and the length of parchment rolled back into its maw, snapping shut. She reached through the rift, placing the skull within it, before retracting her hand and sealing the enchantment. Light poked through the foliage soon after and a short, stocky man broke through.
He wore a black tabbard with gray trim over a set of half-plate armor, all of which was hidden beneath a massive and braided white beard with a steel weight at the end. An overburdened travel pack dropped a shadow over his visage as it swayed above his head. In the flickering fire light, Mind saw embers reflect their gleam within a pair of spectacles sitting upon a nose slightly too large for the man's face. He wasn't immediately hostile to her, instead opting to drop the heavy pack where he stood in the treeline.
“Pardon my intrusion, madame. I have been traveling for quite some time, and would like to humbly request a place next to your exuberant pyre,” the man said, giving her a tired head bow from where he stood. Mind studied him intently from her perch on the old log, taking a tentative bite of the honey cake still in Hans' care while she scanned him over. He was an old dwarf, and didn't seem to have any immediate weapons or ill intent about him. She shrugged, swallowing the sweet treat.
“Sure, don't see why not. What's your name, stranger?”
“I am Alforbulim Stenbower but, please, just call me Alfor,” he looked up at her, his blue eyes shimmering in the firelight. Alfor stooped down, kneeling on the soft ground beside his massive pack. He unlatched an ornate leather satchel from its side and stood, bringing it with him to the fireside. As he reached in and retrieved items, Mind watched the man pull out several things, all of which had no business being in a satchel that size. The first thing he removed was an ancient wooden chair which he set down opposite of Mind's log, the next being a sack of similar size to the satchel itself, and finally a several-foot-long metal spike ending in a wooden handle.
Mind blinked. “Huh. You mus' be one of those reclusive Duskwalker types, aren't you?” she asked, taking another bite of the quickly cooling camp cake.
“Used to be, perhaps. Not been a proper one in the last...” Alfor trailed off as he sat down, pulling large hunks of cured meat and cheeses from the sack, “hundred or so years, I think,” he said, skewering the food.
“Oh, you're old old, I get it. Well, I'm Mind!” she said through a full mouth. She reached a hand through the fire towards him, offering a handshake in the most Infernal way possible. Alfor, not skipping a beat despite his fatigue, reached a gauntleted hand through the flames to meet her's. Red runic patterns exploded across its surface as it came into contact with the fire, and he showed no pain in his face as he shook her hand. Mind grinned as she withdrew her hand, thoughts now running through her head. I like this one!
* * *
Mind lost track of time after she offered the old dwarf wine and their conversations continued. The fire between them was slowly dying, and the sun crept towards the horizon as dusk began to set in. Both Sister Moons peeked over the distance, beginning their nightly reign of white light. With a hiccup and a not-so-subtle burp, Mind traced a familiar pattern through the air and the rift once again split the space. Her jewelry jingled against her horns as she moved, drawing Alfor's attention to the trinkets. Twin, pearl skulls bit down on brass scrolls hanging from the tips of her horns; a common icon of the Aspect of Lore.
“You did not mention you were a proficient mage, Mind. What is this?”
“D'ya wan' to see the past,” Mind asked, her cheeks warm from her favorite fortified wine. She reached into the blue tear in reality and retrieved a different skull than the one she was reading from before. Its empty eye sockets regarded Alfor as she held it in front of her and small cracks rippled across its structure. She put a finger in the left socket and stooped next to Alfor, swaying gently as if the breeze moved her. She tapped the jaw and the scroll held tight in its maw unraveled, though not to the extent of her previous study. Words and symbols swam across the parchment and Alfor couldn't make out a single, coherent thought.
“Ah, I should have recognized what you were earlier, I appologize,” Alfor said, looking into Mind's yellow eyes. “You're a favored mortal, correct?”
“Yep! Tha's me! Benny is a good god, we talk a lot,” she fidgeted the skull in her hands, proffering it to the dwarf. “So, d'ya—hic—wan' t' see the pass'?”
“It would be an honor to witness an event before my time, of course.” Alfor placed an armored finger in the right socket and a blinding blue light errupted from the skull. The scroll spun in the jaw, reeling the parchment back into it. The same light crawled up both Mind's and Alfor's connected arm, spreading through their veins. Like a beacon in the night, both of their eyes blossomed with azure radiance. The two of them found themselves standing in a large, circular stone-hewn chamber lit with green flame when the light finally faded.
Both of them were translucent, immaterial, and each had a thin, golden tether attached to their heads. Alfor noted that all characteristics of Mind's drunkenness were gone in this place, replaced with a stoic sense of duty. Here, she wore a simple, dark brown robe and was carrying the skull from a moment earlier. Alfor looked about and saw a man strapped to a table stained in blood in the center of the chamber. Aside from him, the room was completely barren save for torturer's implements scattered about the dais. He cringed at the sight, though Mind showed no emotion.
“This man died here, Alfor. He was beaten, cut, poisoned, and only I know what else before his captors got what they wanted from him. Do you know what they wanted?” she asked, looking at him expectantly.
“I wouldn't have the faintest idea, Mind,” Alfor said.
“They, an order of Liches, wanted to know where a fragment of the past rested. Of course, he only knew rumors,” Mind said, glancing at the man gasping for air on the alter as his blood trickled around him.
“A friend of mine wants to do that very same thing. I told him I'd help, hell, I made a pact two hundred years ago to do so based on nothing more than damn rumors...” Alfor looked back up at Mind with a dark expression, peering through her translucent form. “I doubt Keeper knows how my story will end, does he?”
“I am but His Witness with no clairvoyance of my own, so I can't say for certain. But, He did ask me to show you this during our time together, grim as it may be, so that it may not be your fate.”
Alfor grimmaced, his typical jovial features twisting at the thought. The vision around them began to melt away and the gasps of the dying man became distant. Verdant hues shifted to bright white as the Sister Moon's light washed over them at the campsite once more. Mind's already red cheeks filled in further with the blush of wine and she was much closer than she had been in the vision. She blinked, smiling up at him from where she still stooped, a single finger lingering in the eye socket of the skull.
“S'not so bad, righ'?” she asked, grinning as if she had just spilled a long-held secret to a childhood friend.
* * *
Alforbulim Stenbower had left her campsite several hours ago, yet his kind face lingered in Mind's memory. She couldn't help but wonder what he meant by saying he was ‘helping a friend’ earlier when they stood witnessing the end of an unfortunate man's life. The vision lingered in her mind and she closed her eyes, taking another pull from her third bottle of fortified cherry wine of the day. The creeping warmth of alcohol washed over her, searing her cheeks a rosy red as she leaned back.
“What do you see in him, Mind?” a dry whisp of a voice asked from behind her. Before turning to acknowledge it, Mind tipped the bottle up and drained the final few drops of fruity ambrosia. She grinned, swinging her legs up and across the log to face Him. A tall, thin form stood in the ashes of her fire, cloaked in a simple, brown robe with no details. A skull rested at the top, glistening white in the bright light of Miccaro, and it smiled at her.
“A good man on a bad path,” Mind said, grinning back at Bheniin.
“Indeed, it appears so. I have witnessed this tale unfold in the annals of time, Mind. Its conclusion was most calamitous,” Bheniin said. His two, red pinpoints of lights for eyes glared at her from their perch deep in his skull, seemingly weighing her worth in that moment.
“Well, he seems... different. Can't you get Onyx or Other to pick him as this century's favored? Maybe even Old Hat, he seems to know his way around enchantments,” she said softly. Despite the amount she drank, she did not slur her words at all around Bheniin. Mind, of course, was putting on an act for the stranger thrust upon her by her God. She still enjoyed the warmth of it all, though, and anything sweet was a welcome addition to her travels.
“Perhaps. You know they are unable to venture from Spark like I and my counterpart are able to. I shall discuss the matter with them upon my return,” Bheniin said, conjuring a large tome from the air. He opened it to a page several hundred sheets deep and studied it for a moment. He placed a bony finger upon the page and, suddenly, he was gone. Mind blinked, letting out a relieved sigh now that he left. Her gaze drifted over to her mess of a frying pan and she smiled. One more for the road?
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