Erlem & Daisy
The little hut was cozy, the feeling washed over them as candles were lit and curtains drawn. It felt safe there, like they were back in the gnob. Erlem pulled a few books from his magical bag and began to read about magical theories on advanced pyromancy, his favorite subject of late. It had been useful against the goblins and he was curious about that living black-fire spell Daisy had mentioned earlier. He read the long winded explanations and instructions on advanced pyromancer spells. There were no black-fire spells in the book, but he did come across a couple of spells he wanted to try. One covered his body in blue flames and allowed him to transform into a blue-fire elemental. Erlem wanted to be able to use that spell more than any other spell in that book. He pulled out some parchment and a quill and began to jot some notes. " Daisy, when can i learn living black-fire?" He said off handedly, " it sounds like a powerful spell, living black-fire. It must have something to do with the lightning magic you were using." Daisy smiled, " don't worry about that spell, its far too advanced for you right now, besides you should be working on some of your other magics. Focusing on just one type will leave you weak against other magics in future, why don't you work on learning some ice or earth magics. You could even work on your arcane magics if your so eager to learn some new spells." Daisy reached in her bag and pulled out a large stack of books, five or six large volumes she piled in front of Erlem. " when youve read all of these i want a six foot parchment on the basics of technomancy and the art of summoning." Erlem groaned, Daisy had just made sure he would be studying at every stop from here to the citadel, nose stuck in one of those large books agonizing over the text. "Seriously! Six feet! Daisy thats too much!" Erlem whined. " we can make it eight if you'de rather." Daisy snapped " now i would get to reading before the candle burns out, i would rather have that parchment before we reach the citadel." Erlem groaned again and quietly began to read about theory of arcane animation and summoning. Daisy wanted to keep Erlem's private studies going as best he could his talents were precious and his mind would need challenges to grow. She only hoped she was far enough beyond his skillset that he wouldn't get to a point she couldn't teach him anything new. She hoped that the citadel would still be standing strong on the shore of denizens bay ready to take him in when his time came. She had a little less than a year and a half before Erlem would be able to go and she hoped to be able to keep up his studies to progress him where the old magus had planned for him to be.
Daisy pulled out her long pipe and filled it with her favorite herbal mixture and began to take long pulls and release large violet plumes of smoke that smelled like southern spices and cherry blossoms, she blew a couple of large smoke rings that floated to the ceiling before fading away. Erlem loved to watch Daisy smoke her pipe, and often Daisy would make pirate ships and krakens do battle in the smoke, often changing the victor according to her mood. There was no pirate ships or krakens today it was late in the day and she wished to leave the hut by dawn.
Erlem began to doze off, his eyes were heavy and his mind crammed full of adventure and arcane nonsense. Daisy waved her hand and floated the boy to his pallet. She decided to lay next to him for her own piece of mind for even in his dreams he was in constant danger.
The two rested without incident, no nightmares or surprise attacks, just the sound of the birds above and the chattering of spider squirrels in the trees. The wind was harsher on the titan tree road thanks to the altitude, being many miles higher than the tallest tree in the plague swamp, once or twice Daisy could have swore she heard knocking at the door only to find it was the wind pounding hard against the door of the hut.
The sun began to fade from view and the light that came through the curtains grew dimmer;the birds became quiet and the two sleeping mages began to stir.
Daisy first then Erlem, they stretched and wiped the sleep from their eyes. They laced up their boots and put on their leather gloves, the morning winds were rigid and nipped at their exposed skin so it was safe to assume the night winds atop the road would be harsher. They packed up their belongings and headed to the front door. Once again they noticed there was no door knob on the door. They tried to push it open and noticed that it somehow the hinges had changed, the door now had to be pushed from that side. Daisy found this phenomenon interesting, she could have sworn there was a door knob there she had even opened the door previously. She looked out the windows to see the road lamps lit and the moon hung bright in the sky. She paced around the room murmuring to herself, she pulled her pipe from her pocket and began to play with it in her hands, rubbing the bowl end in her palms and poking her thumb in the area the herbs went.
Erlem placed his hands on the door and closed his eyes, he was going to check for runes. Calling cards of mages, on magic like this he thought for sure someone would claim it. His eyes glowed blue like ice and his red hair began to flow like fire. A blue aura began to flow around him and envelope his body, lightly at first but it grew brighter as the seconds passed. Daisy noticed Erlem and just watched, she wasn't exactly sure what spell he attempting but it seemed rather advanced. The aura moved to his hands and then it began to spread like veins across the walls. Erlem pulled his hands away and stepped back from the wall.
Electricity moved through the veins cause more veins to appear and spread, then the veins seemed to retract and move along the door frame before disappearing. Large blue symbols appeared over the door a language he wasn't familiar with, he quickly scribbled the symbols down on some parchment before they faded away.
" Daisy, do you recognize these symbols?" Daisy was trying to understand what she just saw, had Erlem rune called, he couldn't have been rune calling that was a very difficult and advanced piece of magic that sent arcane energy into an area to find magic fingerprints so-to-speak, or rather tell you the magical name of the caster. Daisy put her amazement to the side and looked at the symbols, they looked unlike any symbol she had seen among the texts of the citadel but they were oddly familiar.
Erlem said a few more incantations and the glowing runes changed into common tongue, and shining across the wall above the door was not a name as Erlem had thought, instead it read "the rules of the house".
" 1. None may enter while occupied
2. None may leave in the middle of the night
3. Clean up after yourself, leaving the house dirty will leave you cursed and unable to enjoy the other rest houses. "
"Pretty simple, the door won't appear at night. We have to leave here when the sun is up. Messes with our walking at night plans, but from what I can tell there's probably rest houses all down the titan tree road." Daisy was disappointed, even a little mad. They had to lose a whole day on an already treacherous journey. " I guess we try to get some more sleep and leave at first light." Daisy opened her bag once again to retrieve her pipe and herbs. She stoke the pipe sending large plumes of purple and pink smoke to the ceiling.
"Do you really think thats good for you?" Erlem asked, " it helps me think." Daisy responded as she blew a large smoke ring into the air, she then acted as if she was holding a bow and began to pull back an invisible arrow, she let go and hit the circle with an arrow made of smoke. Erlem smiled as she did it again and again. Erlem laughed as Daisy started creating smoke monsters and smoke knights, she had them doing battle creating small smoke armies and having them fall to great beasts. This went on For a few hours before the pair had finally fallen asleep.
"Elvish!" Daisy popped up from her deep sleep, " its elvish! No wonder i didn't recognize it at first! Its so old it's practically a dead language." The citadel kept ancient elvish texts locked away for preservation. She had seen just one of the texts, not even the pages, just the front cover leather bound with runes that constantly had a golden glow to them. She remembered she was probably eleven or twelve when the history master spoke about the great races of Thre'a. The elves were the eldest and most magical of races, predating man entirely but disappeared from Thre'a with time leaving just a few scraps of their civilization on the continent.
Erlem jolted awake slightly dazed but had his hands ready to use some magic if he needed, they had blue fire lightly encasing his hands. " what is it! Are we being attacked!" Daisy put her hands on his shoulders to show him it was ok, " i just remembered what language that was. It was elvish, i should have known it was elves, this is a titan tree after all." Elves were great harborists, and cultivated titan trees and Fey trees all over the world, including the fey tree of Autumnveil.
" I think this was built by the ancient elves!" Daisy exclaimed.