"It Really Is Shadowbane."
Chrystianna, Britiana, and Sariya stepped through the tear in the void into the sunshine on the other side. Raziel stepped in after them and the tear closed up behind him.
Little did they know, they weren't alone in that clearing. When the tear closed, a figure stepped out of the shadows. She was a woman draped in a dark cloak, and dressed in leather pants, boots, and a linen shirt. She walked to one of the arrows lying on the ground from where the Dragon Hunters pulled them out of their comrades' bodies and left them laying around. She bent down and picked up the arrow. She sniffed the tip and snorted due to the repugnant scent.
"It really is shadowbane," she murmured. She gathered the arrows and cleaned them off with a rag pulled from the pouch hanging on her hip. She put the arrows into the pouch. She then muttered a spell under her breath and the rag went up in flames.
She stood up and looked in the direction the Dragon Hunters retreated. She still wasn't sure what was going on. Delaney Crowley had been on Thelessia for a few days. It takes a lot of magical energy to travel through the Shadow Dimension and cross time-space. While she was resting and exploring Thelessia, she happened upon Tarrytown.
Delaney was looking for a new home for her family. Thelessia was unsuitable. They had nothing similar to modern technology, the state of magic was low level. A lot of society was backwards. It was similar to the state of the Middle Ages from her home world. It was a stagnated agrarian society.
Sure, if they moved here, they could become gods and move progress along. None of them wanted to do that.
However, there was something strange when she arrived in Tarrytown. The area was permeated with residual magic. She took a look around, and there was no practicing witch or wizard anywhere else. She found a small house in the woods but couldn't get too close because of the high-level wards in the surroundings. They were above anything else she found on this little rock of a planet.
She was intrigued. She decided to wait around until the owners returned. The house was well kept, obviously lived in. The owner expected to return soon. She loitered around Tarrytown, blending in with the travelers.
She'd seen the Eoduun before, but didn't pay much attention to her. Even though Dark Elves didn't exist in her home world, she'd seen them in other worlds she'd visited. That wasn't who she was looking for.
That night, things changed. It was pure coincidence when she saw the silver haired woman and the man come through the Void. Her heart sped up. The residual magic that escaped from the other side of that tear was purer than anything she'd ever felt before.
She was cautious. She decided to see the type of people they were before approaching to find out where they'd come from. She was the first to notice the strangers beginning to surround the Oxhead Tavern and Inn. She saw the girl in the glamor go into the Tavern and she followed. She sat at the bar for a long time observing everything.
She was beginning to believe the girl, the silver haired woman, and the dark-haired man were worthy of approaching when the Eoduun came in. Everything then happened so quickly, that even she was confused by the illusion of them chatting happily at the booth for a while. She had to admit, the girl was the highest level magic user she'd seen on this planet so far.
She quickly left the tavern, cloaking herself in shadows once more. She’d finally found their trace, only for the Dragon Hunters to begin the chase. She was cautious. She didn't want to get involved in the conflict when she didn't know what the conflict was.
Standing in the middle of the clearing, she cloaked herself in the shadows once more and headed toward the Hunters. That's what they'd called them, right? Dragon Hunters? Did that mean they were dragons? She'd come across a lot of creatures, but never dragons.
Interesting.
She came upon the temporary camp of the Hunters. It was no surprise; their wounded comrades died one by one. She watched as they stripped the dead of their armor and weapons. She could now see that most of the armor was made of scales. Dragon scales she presumed. After they stripped the dead, they uttered what must be some sort of farewell prayer.
They then pulled out what she could only guess was a plasma gun and blasted the bodies, burning them to ashes within minutes. They divided the loot among the remaining Hunters. The burly leader said something to the others. One of them took out a device and lit up a holographic screen and showed several concentrations of dots.
They laughed, obviously not worried their prey would get away because, like the voice on the other end of the rift said to the girl in the glamor, more Hunters were near him. That's what Delaney gathered from the shapes of the dots. Three dots and almost twenty dots were near each other.
Having seen enough, she returned to where the rift was opened. She closed her eyes and tried to sense the path of rift. She nodded to herself. She concentrated on the shadows in front of her then stepped into them.
Comments (2)
See all