Sorry for the delay, let us continue!
-LurkingWolf
___
The wave of dizziness struck Lucy with the suddenness of a flash of
lightning.She gasped and stumbled back, realizing as she did that her
clothing was suddenly very large on her.After nine years under Metamor's
Curse, Lucy was quick to identify the telltale signs of her apparent age
rapidly melting away.She had no idea why it was happening, but she
immediately began to fight the change with all of her willpower.She
refused to be reduced to a babe ever again!
And then it was gone.As quickly as the wave of magic overcame her it
disappeared, allowing her to immediately regain her customary stature,
even if that was only the apparent size of a ten-year-old girl.She
glanced over towards her companions, who returned her worried glance in
kind.
"You both felt that?" she asked, her voice barely restrained after the
shock of the change.
Alex nodded as Julian looked on wild-eyed.
"The Curse?" he gasped.While Lucy and Alex had been present for the
original casting, Julian had changed afterwards, and the frightening
sense of being forced into a foreign shape had never struck him with
such force as this before.
Lucy nodded."Something connected to the Curse.Ever heard of a fetish
stone?It turns the countercurse back somehow, forces the Curse to
completion.This seems to have been a failure of some kind, but a
disturbing attempt nonetheless."She stopped to catch her breath."And if
someone knew to attempt such a casting, that means that they know that
we're here.Where's Lois?"
The three turned back to the camp.In the brief moments that the three of
them had been distracted by the sudden resurgence of their Curse, the
situation within the camp had dramatically changed.First, despite the
darkness of the sky behind them, trails of black smoke were rising from
the direction of the shaman's tent, striking a contrast to the colorless
wisps of smoke that rose from the carefully chosen wood of the
campfires.The guards from the camp had noticed as well, and were showing
a remarkable lack of discipline, abandoning their posts almost to a
lutin to see what was going on.
"What did he do?" Alex hissed."He was supposed to collect information,
not burn the bloody camp down!"
"More to the point, where is he?" Lucy asked.
Before she had finished speaking, Julian spoke over her."There!"
He was pointing a bit further around the perimeter of the camp.It took a
few moments for Alex and Lucy to notice what the moondog was indicating,
but they knew he was right as soon as they saw it.A pile of cloth lay a
few paces from the tree line, one of Lois' daggers visible lying beside
it.Despite the presence of his clothing and his weapons, however, the
man himself was nowhere to be seen.
"Where did he go?" Alex asked.He had a sinking feeling that he knew the
answer.
"Maybe the spell was targeting him directly," Lucy replied.Even as she
was speaking, the mound of cloth on the ground began to shift.Out from
under the hood came an ermine.There was nothing to its form that
suggested that it had ever been a man, but the situation made the truth
obvious.It stood on its hind legs and began to sniff the air.
Lucy cursed, but Alex didn't waste time on such trivialities.He quickly
began to circle around the perimeter of the clearing, trying to get as
close to the fallen Keeper as possible.His two companions followed him
without question, keeping eyes on the ermine as they did.
It did not take long at all for the animal to drop back to four paws and
make for the trees, and Alex picked up the pace immediately, dropping
stealth entirely for the chance of catching the assassin before he
disappeared into the trees.In doing so, however, he alerted the creature
to his presence, and the feral ermine quickly dashed away from him,
disappearing into the undergrowth.
"No!"Alex took a few more steps, but he completely lost sight of Lois.He
pulled up, unsure where to go, or even what to do.Thankfully, Lucy was
still clearheaded enough to make suggestions.
"Alex, get Lois' equipment.Julian, do you think you could scent him out
in these woods?"
The moondog hesitated.He understood what she was asking, but it was not
something he had ever previously considered.Still, after some thought,
he nodded.
"I believe I could.I will prepare while Alex retrieves Lois' supplies."
Alex didn't argue, instead immediately following Lucy's instructions.The
watchmen about the camp had thankfully left their posts unmanned, and it
allowed him to have a few moments to collect the assassin's fallen
equipment.He threw most of it into his own pack before heading back to
his patrol.By the time he arrived, Julian had dropped to all fours and
now looked like nothing more than a natural hound, the lack of the aura
of fear making it difficult to tell that he was a moondog at all.In
contrast to Lois' mental change, however, the mage's eyes still held a
definite glint of intelligence.
"Here."Alex drew out a piece of cloth that had belonged to Lois and
presented it to Julian, who sniffed at it a few times, taking time to
appreciate the nuances of the scent before he turned his head and began
to sniff through the undergrowth.He looked back at the others and nodded
towards the trees, moving quietly and quickly after the retreating ermine.
The hunt was thankfully brief, and led them far enough away from the
lutin camp to make them a bit safer.Julian tracked the scent to a small
hole in the earth, just visible through the snow, and indicated silently
that the feral Keeper had gone to ground within its depths.Alex sighed
and looked to his companions.
"Now what?"
Lucy dropped her pack on the ground and began to sort through the
supplies within.She threw a pair of breeches to the moondog first, then
dug a little deeper into her supplies and pulled out an odd contraption
from within.
"Lucky for you, I happen to be a trapper's daughter," she commented.She
began to carefully set it at the end of the tunnel, taking pains to be
certain that everything was in order."There," she said finally."Now
hopefully, there are no other exits to this tunnel.If not, then he will
have to come out sometime, and this should catch him easily when he does."
"In good health?" the lynx inquired.
"Of course," Lucy said as though feeling insulted.
"Let's hope it's soon enough." Julian said, stepped back out from behind
a tree.Lucy tossed him his coat from within her pack, and he gladly
slipped it over his shoulders."If the lutins suspect a threat, they may
try to sweep through the woods looking for us.We must be cautious."
Alex nodded."Very well."He looked up into the canopy for a moment and
then back at his fellows."Let's get off the ground for now.If someone
does come, they may be a little less likely to find us if they have to
look up."
The three Keepers were soon in the branches above the burrow, unable to
do anything but wait for the ermine to show himself.The thought of being
forced in mind and body into the form of an animal haunted them, and
they hoped against hope that they would be able to rescue Lois somehow.
***
An older man sat in a dark room, writing strange symbols with a steady
hand, one by one on the surface of the parchment before him.His
surroundings were nearly silent, an eerie lack of sound contrasting the
usual bustle that such fortresses so often contained.The man's breaths
could be heard between every methodical scratch of quill on parchment,
those two sounds breaking the heavy silence in turn.
Suddenly, the heavy silence that choked the derelict structure was
broken by a series of desperate cries, a man's voice echoing up and down
the empty halls.The steady quill jumped across the page, eliciting a
subdued series of curses from the man.He sighed and stood from his
ruined project, pulling the hood of his dark robe up over his head and
exiting the small cell of a room, out into the halls.
He was met halfway by a younger man who had come running.The young man
sketched a messy bow to his senior before locking stride with him and
beginning to talk.
"It's Lois," he said in a hushed, hoarse tone.
"What?What do you mean, what happened?"
"We're trying to determine that right now. All we know is that his
Balance is the one that just lost contact."
The two men walked in silence, the older man's face set in a worried
expression.Soon they had arrived at a small cell, and the guard who
stood at the door let them in through a heavy, banded door of wood and
metal.Inside, the man who had been screaming sat, hands hanging limp at
his sides, weeping silently and looking about the room in confusion.
"What's wrong?" the older man asked.
"What is it?What happened?I was---Vincent was..."
"Calm yourself!" the man demanded.He raised his hand before him and
silently cast a spell on the sobbing man.His breathing calmed quickly
until finally he had been overtaken by an almost unnatural calm.
"I succeeded.The chieftain and her shaman were both killed, and I was
escaping.Then..."He began to grasp at the air with both hands, as though
doing so would allow him to understand what had happened."Nothing!Then I
was here.How am I here?Where have I been for so long?Who is Vincent
Lois?Who am I?"
The older man tried to calm him again, but whatever conflict was driving
him to such desperation would not give him enough peace for him to
remain calm.With no other option remaining, the older man switched the
spell he was using, and a moment later the desperate man fell into a
sudden stupor.
"Keep him under sleeping spells," the older mage instructed the younger
man."He is of no use to us until we determine what has happened."
"What has happened, sir?" the other inquired, following his senior out
from the room.
"Hopefully, Lois has died.Such a loss would neither be so unforeseen nor
so irreparable as to cripple us, and we could easily replace him."
"What if he has not died?What else could have severed the Balance?"
The older man stopped where he was standing outside of the cell, sighing
softly."Braving the curse of Metamor was always a risk," he
muttered."The Three Gates caused us to lose two valuable members, and we
made more of a mess cleaning up that mess than we have ever left
anywhere before.If the Curse is at fault here, then we need to be
careful."He turned and looked at the young man seriously."Keep all lines
of communication open, and tell them to find out what has happened to
Lois immediately.This is of utmost importance."
"Of course."The young man bowed and was gone before another word could
be spoken.The older man stared at the thick door before him.Lois had
been a valuable resource for many years, but now he could very well be
the end of them.They would have to be extremely careful to keep their
interests secure.
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