Marnis saw them off with curse-laden praise. Though grateful for a quick job, she grumbled over needing to immediately walk back to ensure it was done satisfactorily. Luther offered to teleport her, but she insisted she wasn’t ‘weak’ and would send word to the guild in an hour for them to receive their stamps. Lyall and Luther piled into the wagon, Naedryn swung them around for the ascent, and Lyall looked forward to the sensation of the living world that’d fallen away to trickle back in. 

It was rather if Naedryn rammed the wagon into him at full speed instead. 

Lyall hunched forward with a dropped head and sweat on his brow. Growing up, Lyall latched onto any rumors about what his patrilineal heritage entailed, and he’d heard of elves being wary to descend deep. No one said why they were wary though. Lyall had a good guess now. The strangest thing was the lack of true feeling surrounding the overwhelming stimulation causing him distress, for it wasn’t as if someone shouted in his ear or lights flashed in his eyes. His body simply knew something was wrong. 

Luther rubbed his back with a hand iced by magic, which helped, and took responsibility to explain the issue to Naedryn. Thankfully, Lyall was able to depart the wagon and step outside the gate on his own legs, and the crisp, cool mountainside wind reinvigorated his core. 

“I have a spare bed in my room. Would you like to rest? I can teleport us there as well,” Luther proposed. 

“Slower is better,” Lyall grinned wryly. “I will otherwise accept.” 

“Elbow?” Luther smirked. 

“Elbow,” Lyall laughed. 

Linking his arm around his companion’s for balance, the pair successfully reached Stoneshadow’s and Luther’s large room on the top floor. Tall windows overlooking the street bathed a sitting area in mid-afternoon sun, intricate chiseling of the stone molding detailed a story Lyall didn’t have the coordination to squat and see, and two beds of alluringly plump bedding beckoned on the right. 

“May I interest you in a convenient trick?” Luther flourished his hand, pale blue magic swirling around his glossed nails. 

“I am interested,” Lyall nodded. With one finger wiggle, the spell completed, and Lyall swayed subtly finding his armor and weapons gently clamoring into a pile at the end of the second bed. “Most convenient indeed. I hope you save enough energy for yourself though.” 

A pulse of silence. Lyall wondered why it existed...until he caught Luther’s raised brow and expression of surprised curiosity. This time, the blush wasn’t polite enough to stick to Lyall’s ears. 

“You’re awaiting my undressing?” Luther wondered before Lyall could fluster a response, which came far too late. 

“No, no! I-I merely meant I don’t want you to overexert yourself on trivial chores!” 

“Really?” 

“Really!” Lyall hid as much of his red face as possible behind one hand while awkwardly flailing his other as if the dismissing motion made a difference. Unable to see, Lyall flinched at Luther’s hand upon his shoulder. 

“I assumed that’s what you meant, but I wanted to tease,” Luther laughed. 

“What a thing to tease,” Lyall expunged the static air in his lungs, and, thankfully, the tension in his core quickly faded. 

“I’ll treat you to dinner to make up for it. In the meantime, go ahead and rest.” 

With no other option—and the blankets providing an excellent barrier to cool his cheeks behind—Lyall took to the bed. Sleep claimed him quickly despite the fast thrum of his heart, and two hours passed before consciousness returned. Luther sat on the couch burying his attention into a book and didn’t notice Lyall’s awakening until he was tapped on the forehead. The pair sought the guild to receive their marks of success and searched out a restaurant of traditional dwarven cuisine for an early dinner. They sat on seats of stone, had the force of the horn and drum band tickle their feet through the reverberations in the floor, and couldn’t find a single item on the menu not somehow touched by alcohol. Lyall chose beer-glazed steak chunks topped upon pasta while Luther decided on a broccoli cheese soup that came swirled with amber streaks of ale. Lyall explained how he’d caught Lady Sabine’s attention while Luther was halfway through his explanation of completing a job that’d been secretly posted by the Anthurium estate when Luther’s brows twisted. 

“Alcohol hit you—” Lyall tried, but Luther put up a finger. Lyall snuck a dab of his bread into Luther’s soup as the wizard’s face continued to inexplicably contort over the course of two minutes. It settled. “Was that Lady Sabine contacting you through the communication stone you mentioned?” 

“Yes. Forgive the acrobatics of my expression. Lady Sabine wished to know if you had arrived, which was the obvious question to expect, but she has given us a new objective I find odd.” 

“Which is?” 

“Apparently, we must head down to Idellum to meet Aurae where she is instead of her coming to us.” 

“Lady Sabine told me our job is to investigate a location along the Ironhold mountains. Why would she send us south away from them?” Lyall frowned. 

“That information was deemed confidential. However, I suspect we might actually be after a person instead of a location and they decided to go on the move.” 

“Yet isn’t the pace of our group’s joining too lax for us to be tracking an outlaw or the sort? Lady Sabine was willing to wait several days before I first went to see her, and we were to wait more days still for Aurae.” 

“That is true,” Luther rubbed his chin. “However, I suppose there’s no point stressing ourselves over the matter. Let’s schedule seats on a travelers’ caravan and head out in the morning.” 

“I take it that means you’re unable to teleport us there?” 

“I am missing components for that long of a teleport. Idellum is also one of the cities requiring all incoming teleports to be done through their designated circles, and I don’t have a license there.” Luther grumbled, “Most cities require a license, and they all wish for a separate ongoing fee—none of which are cheap.” 

“Hopefully this job makes that fee more manageable,” Lyall encouraged. 

“I do hope so,” Luther scooped a hefty spoonful of soup into his mouth. 

Both ordered a large slice of spiced rum cake for dessert and then a second. They thought that would be the end of their imbibing of alcohol, but they returned to their inn at the same time Marnis came searching them out. Unable to grant them access to Cendrukor’s taverns, she goaded them to one of Perrine’s where Naedryn and several other miners gathered to hear how the pair had defeated the spiders so easily, what Lyall’s experience with the creation lines was like, and to demand more tales of past adventures. All sat wide-eyed and awed, including Luther, when it came time for Lyall to recount his fight with the death mouths. The pair didn’t end up heading to bed until after two in the morning. 

Not that the late night and steady sipping of libations meant much for their next day. The travelers’ caravan left shortly after breakfast, yes, but the seats on the covered wagon keeping them dry from another misty, chilly rain were comfortable enough for a light nap until their sore temples eased off the ache. Two breaks were made before the first long stop for lunch. Luther plucked a stone from the ground each time. 

“A novice geologist, or do you think they’re pretty?” Lyall asked, biting a strip of jerky. 

“I teleport them into the shoes of my most vile enemies!” Luther dramatized, then chuckled. “They’re anchors for my teleportation spells. The precision increases if I have a physical object instead of relying on my memory, or I can make it to a place I’ve never been before.” 

“So, you could bring us to my house—when you have the components to go that far—if I give you something from my room?” 

“Yes. Are you offering?” 

“Not just yet, but my mother would be delighted with a surprise visit.” 

“I could be tempted with a nice homecooked meal.” 

“My mother’s cooking is...” Lyall cringed. 

“We can discuss another bribe later,” Luther decided amusedly. “Since we’re on the topic, I can also teleport to a person or teleport them to me. Each becomes easier if, as you may guess, I have a piece of that person.” 

“Toenail? Vial of sweat?” 

“A lock of hair,” Luther clicked his tongue, but his smile didn’t fade. “Although, the other options will work as well.” 

“Is it worth my while to trust you with such a piece of myself?” 

“The determination of worth would rest with you. My skill with divination spells is not nearly as practiced as my teleportation focus, but I don’t want to understate the risk me having your hair could entail, should I wake one day and decide to be evil, in not only being able to manipulate your physical location but spy in on you and track you as well.” 

Lyall set his jerky on his knee and didn’t flinch tugging a small pinch of auburn strands free. He dropped them into Luther’s slowly uncurling palm. “For the chip on your shoulder.” 

“I will ensure to honor this trust,” Luther dipped his head solemnly. 

The mood lightened as Luther revealed the small bag attached to his hip. It was an enchanted void space made for the express purpose of holding teleportation anchors. Luther squeezed his newest stone for several minutes, unclenched his fingers to show a magical imprint of their location circled the stone, and let Lyall watch it vanish into an inky black pit. Luther tied Lyall’s strands with a string and did the same. 

“You said you taught a two-week introductory class to magic?” Lyall wondered as the time came to pack up into the wagons. 

“Yes. At the Zaphreal Arcane Academy in the capital.” 

“So at Evaritia’s most renowned school for magic,” Lyall noted, for Luther provided that information casually. “What is the chance you’d be willing to give me some beginner’s tips?” 

“I’d be glad to start you on your way—no tuition required,” Luther beamed. 

Unsurprisingly, the others in their wagon latched onto the lesson as well the moment Luther began explaining the basics of Astralis’s formation, how its energy filtered into every aspect of existence, and the foundation for weaving that power into will and shape. Half turned to other matters after an hour of pure lecture, but Lyall listened intently until dinner. He purchased a spare notebook from a fellow traveler to fill with notes before writing in his usual journal before bed. The caravan ended the day between locations, so Lyall and Luther unrolled their sleeping gear underneath the shelter of a provided tent. Nothing disturbed their rest, and Luther woke first with a tall stretch and gasping yawn to nudge Lyall from the remnants of his fading sleep. 

“Apologies,” Luther yawned harder, blinking back natural slickness from his tan eyes. “My mother always told me I—buh?” 

The inelegant sound came from Lyall abruptly shoving his nose a mere inch from Luther’s, stare intently locked on him. After a moment, Luther grinned, proud. 

“You noticed far faster than most.” 

“Your eyes have been dark brown the past two days. Why are they suddenly a different color?” 

“Recall how I was explaining magic exists in all things?” Luther began, and Lyall nodded, pulling back and sitting on his heels. “My eyes are different because of an ill-informed experiment testing the plausibility of producing magic from color. Whatever I see when I first wake—my eyes now take on that shade.” 

Lyall glanced at the matching tan of their tent. “Then your eyes from the past days were of the brown inn room ceiling?” 

“Yes. I play around with it occasionally, putting a blindfold over my eyes to have them be a certain color or even multiple colors like your own.” 

“What were they originally?” 

“Brown.” Luther shrugged playfully. “I’ve found it liberating to be able to choose, which is why I have not bothered attempting to ‘fix’ myself.” 

“It is incredibly interesting.” 

“We have another two days of traveling, so we can go through my notes on the topic.” 

In those two days, Lyall and Luther entertained themselves and the rest of their wagon discussing magic, the risks of overeager experimentation, and the possibilities that still awaited discovery even after thousands of years of the world’s collective research into arcane matters. They reached Idellum on their third full morning, bludgeoned by the damp tang hanging in the air from the large lake nestled upon the city’s southwestern border. Mist collected in the lines of the brick roads guiding their feet inward as the narrow streets came alive with early bustle. Lyall and Luther stopped at a bakery for fresh rolls after having subsisted several days on rations and stew before beating most of the morning chaos to reach a grand courtyard centering the even grander seven temples surrounding it. Lyall searched for the one with lioness statues outside it, for they were Caxtune’s symbol. 

Before he could take one step forward, the doors of the temple burst open, a figure bound from them, and Lyall and Luther found themselves on the end of a tackling embrace from a woman with crimson skin and horns on her head.

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Until the next chapter is available, these other Action Fantasy entries are sure to entertain you. Links to each are in the description below.

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