"If you enter Ewald Vale and your first reaction to what you see is relief, leave at once. You are not ready for that place." 

- Djebanu Kori, the Keen Summoner

The Road was, as usual, pristine in its tidiness. Wide and paved with flagstone, flat and perfectly straight, it promised an easy journey to any traveler who happened upon it. There were even street lamps lining its sides at precise intervals, elegantly designed wrought iron things that glowed with warm light. The newest streets in the heart of Coine did not look nearly as safe to navigate.

Nemira ignored its temptation to walk upon it. Instead, she sat on her levitating torch as if it were a bench not too far from the fog gate behind her, and swung her feet as she waited. The Road itself did not interest her. It was a patently false thing, and she refused to give it the time of day. Instead, she swept her eyes over the forest of conifer trees filling up space on each side of the Road that seemed to go on with the same endlessness as the dome of fog that surrounded it.

The forest was dense, and dark, and very much alive. The branches swayed to and fro despite the still air, the perpetual motion a constant distraction to the senses. It was quite noisy, too. Invisible creatures growled and croaked and rustled between the trees. Every now and then she caught glimpses of strange points of light flashing at her. Perhaps the eyes of nocturnal beasts reflecting the illumination of the street lamps, perhaps not. But every strange and sinister entity that lurked between the trees seemed penned into the forest by the spacious and even Road and the endless procession of lampposts, unable to cross it. And so to the untrained traveler, the choice was obvious. No one in their right mind would forsake the safety of the Road and explore whatever dangers awaited in the forest. 

It was the first trial of the Vale, as her master had once described it to her. One that Claude of House Black was failing miserably.

Shrill giggling filled the air, full of sharp and mean humor. Stumbling on the Road toward her was a man of slender build and blanched skin, sporting a thick chestnut mustache that curled at the tips in the latest Vittoran facial hair trend. He wore a suit that might have once been fashionable but was now torn and stained beyond recognition, and his rather thin hair looked as though he had torn at it on multiple occasions. He had a large bag slung over his shoulder, and every now and then he would stop and drop it onto the Road, panting and shaking his head in distress as he tried to rub out whatever pain he felt in his limbs. Nemira watched him approach in pitying silence. She knew a ruined man when she saw one.

"No, no, no. No going back now, old chum. No going back at all!" His muttering sounded feverish. "Mother, forgive me, I do not know if you will ever see your only son ever again..."

More giggling resounded. The doomed Vittoran nobleman clearly did not hear or see the birds that circled around his head. They were pale, pretty little things that glowed with an inner light, their tails and wingtips dipped in lovely pastel colors. Nemira found their tricks entirely unnecessary. Lord Black, even without their influence, did not look like the type of person brave enough to walk away from the Road.

He was quite close to her now. She could smell his filthy body strongly. After some observation, she had realized the aerials were playing a game of inching him closer toward the fog gate — and the freedom beyond it — before spinning him around and making him march back up the Road. This was his second lap since she arrived. It had taken him twenty minutes to show up again. She did not care to wonder how long the aerials had been forcing him to walk back and forth. His violently trembling legs were a clear enough answer for her.

"Ah, but the money we could have earned from this blasted ring," he sighed to himself. He clutched at the strap of his bag with white-knuckled tightness. She eyed the ring on his index finger. The plain gold band emanated the type of force that would draw goosebumps along the skin of any arcane practitioner in its proximity. Lord Black seemed entirely unaffected by it. "So many buyers, we were spoiled for choice. Aimeric, if you can hear me, I only hope you know I wasn't trying to pull a fast one on you. Ask God about my heart when you meet Him..."

The birds above him flew in a quicker circle. He began to turn again with strange, jerky movements of his much-abused legs. She saw him wince in pain. Terror flickered across his face.

"Good evening, sir." She said it with her tongue bathed in pneuma. The aerials, delicate sprites that they were, shot off in every direction when the force of her suggestion hit them, shrieking with dismay. Lord Black promptly dropped his bag and collapsed onto his knees with a groan of relief. Nemira did not get up to help him. "I did not expect to meet anyone else in the Vale tonight."

"My word," Claude exclaimed, flinching like something rabid had snapped at him before staring up at her with cloudy eyes. He had fallen near her feet and through the grime streaking his face did not look much older than she was. "Young lady, you gave me quite a fright! I didn’t even notice you there. Why the devil are you in here all on your own?”

“I am a scholar of Saint Melantha’s University,” she told him, keeping her tone very calm. His pneuma sputtered from him in blushing pink hues, hesitant and low like all others who did not follow any arcane path of study or the regimen of a warrior. Painfully bright white fire mixed in with it, the lingering effects of the aerials that had been yanking him around the Road. Nemira estimated he’d need a few more minutes to recover from their addling influence enough for him to understand what she was there to do. Which gave her enough time to gauge his level of remorse in the meanwhile. “Here to study the flora and fauna of the Vale.”

“A scholar?” Lord Black gave a doubtful tilt of his head. It took quite a long moment for realization to hit him. “Ah, yes! The city-state does allow women to attend its colleges, does it? Forgive me, my good lady, that’s quite the novel concept to a man of enduring Vittoran lineage such as myself! Novel indeed, yes.”

Nemira raised her eyebrows and said nothing. Oblivious, the nobleman began rummaging through his pack with surprising energy, chattering amicably as he did so. “Now, my lord uncle has always been quite irate by the idea. According to him, a true lady should not be distracted from matters of the home by such frivolous pursuits. But in my humble opinion, gentlewomen need a diversion as much as any man! Better they amuse themselves by studying the arcane than, say, a develop a love of alcohol or—"

"A bad blackjack habit?" Nemira offered.

Lord Black froze, arms up to the elbows in his traveling bag. He stared at her with unblinking, fuzzy gray eyes for a long, silent moment before he returned to his rummaging. Nervousness emanated from him as sharply as his stench.

"Terrible business, just terrible business," muttered the noble, more to himself than her. "My cousin Aimeric was quite the entrepreneur but always a little reckless, you know? He swore up and down this artifact he found was worth half the Alliance, but I tried to caution him against haste. 'My man,' I told him, 'get whatever's in that fine jewelry box of yours appraised by an arithmancer before you go opening it!' But did he listen? No, not at all. And now here we are..."

As he spoke, he pulled out and unwrapped several parcels of food. A block of cheese, some crackers, a bunch of grapes and a few strawberries already starting to turn from the looks of it. He spread it all out on the flagstone and beckoned to her with a trembling smile. "Forgive this meager fare and my dishevelment, my dear lady, but it would be remiss of me not to share."

Nemira slipped off her torch and crouched down next to him. It was only then that Lord Black noticed what it was she had been sitting on. "Now that is a remarkable flying apparatus you have! Those wings look astonishingly real."

"Thank you," she replied, taking a cracker and giving it a nibble. It was quite stale. "It's the only reason I was given permission to come here alone for my survey project. I can go quite far with it, and many aberrants would not be able to reach me in the air."

"Is that so?" His glance darted from her to her now free-standing torch. Nemira affected not to notice the calculation behind it. "Well! Handy, indeed. But even without that, isn't this pathway marvelously convenient? The travelog I read warned time and again that this road here is an adventurer-killer, but if you ask me, the writer quite overestimated the potential dangers. I've been traveling upon it for days now and haven't run into so much as a stray cat."

Nemira wiped a few crumbs off her lip and gazed up at the sky. It was a beautiful twilight of deep velvety blue and the most delicate light colors fading into the horizon down the Road, and had been frozen that way for well over an hour. As far as she knew, it was always twilight there. "Where are you headed, sir? Are you lost?"

"No, no!" He shoved a thin slice of cheese into his frowning mouth, agitation swinging back up. "I know exactly where I'm going. This path should lead me right to Adalia's Necropolis! There's quite a bit of treasure to be found within it, or so I've heard. I aim to make my fortune there."

Nemira looked back at him. His eyes were a little less blurry, their regard of her more askance. "My advisor told me to never follow the Road. Aetherians have warped space-time here so badly that it isn’t actually a straight path through the Vale. Much faster and safer to trek through the forest if you want to make any progress toward the Necropolis."

"What nonsense!" Bits of cheese sprayed out of his mouth. "I refuse to believe I've been walking all this time for nothing."

"Maybe you should go back to Coine," she suggested gently. "Someone from the Supernatural Public Guard might be able to help you get a proper guide through here."

Lord Black gave a vehement shake of his head. "It is imperative I reach the Necropolis as soon as possible, as quietly as possible. Those damnable guardsmen would never listen to my…would never so much as give me the time of day! My life depends on this quest." He shifted closer to her, a sickly gleam in his eyes. "However, I cannot in good consciousness leave you here to fend for yourself. Why not join me, my good lady? Surely whatever we find there will be of far greater academic value for you than whatever's around here. We could look out for each other."

He reached for her shoulder with a dirty hand. Nemira leaned away before he could touch her and stood up, carefully stepping over the morsels of poor quality food. For a while, she looked out at the endless Road in silence, her back to Lord Black. A long, foreboding howl echoed from somewhere deep in the forest.

"Young lady?" The noble's voice sounded cautious, and more lucid than ever before. Finally. She was tired of keeping up the farce.

"I am the Grim Summoner, representative of the Council and a stand-in of the Supernatural Public Guard," said Nemira at last. She lifted her hand. Her torch launched itself into the air and then landed neatly into her grasp. "Lord Claude of House Black, please give up your ring. You have caused enough damage with it."

She turned around. Lord Black had risen to his feet as well. And though his knees still shook terribly, his exhausted face was set.

"Three people have died to the ring of Anima Rex," he told her, matter-of-fact. "What's one more, really?"

He lifted his hand and twisted the plain gold band on his index finger. Nemira closed her eyes, and let the violent flash of light wash over her.