A.D.w.D. Chater 2: Memories


  • Image from: http://orcz.com/ESO:_Wayrest_-_Alley

     

    Witch! That was his last thought! Not maybe I shouldn’t threaten to throw girls into a pit full of skeevers or maybe I should have rethought those life choices that led to drinking skooma in a dank bandit cove? Amari gazed into the darkness swallowing the bottom of the shaft. She couldn't see anything, but the frenzied squeaks of feasting skeevers echoed up. She felt oddly distanced from the whole matter; shouldn’t she be horrified or distraught or something? She just felt numb, like it hadn’t really happened. She shrugged the death off; there was still a task to do and not much time left.

     

    She collected the imp stool growing from the shaft’s walls and called the squirrel back with a ticking of her tongue. Two orbs of purple flame emerged from the darkness as the rune clad skeleton scaled the earthen walls.

     

    "Thank you Scuttles, but you have to go back to sleep now.”

     

    The squirrel tittered angrily at her.

     

    “I know, I know. I just woke you up, but I can’t risk you being seen. I’ll wake you again tonight and for longer.” That seemed to pacify the little scamp and he hopped on to her outstretched hand.

     

    She could feel the squirrel's life felt like an extension of her own, in fact it was. She didn't dare think about what would happen to her familiar, and through it her, if the bandits caught him. One thing she had learned quickly in Skyrim was to hide her aptitude for the arcane arts. Many couldn’t cast, much less sense, any spells in Skyrim and most tended to react to it like the skeever food below had.

     

    By tapping the link that bonded them, she began condensing the violet and indigo flames of its soul until into a small marble. With the squirrel hibernating, she poured the bones back into the sack around her neck and reflected on the day she found Scuttles:

     

    ***

     

    It was early fall in the coastal Highrock town of Wayrest. The leaves had begun to turn and the first bite of winter wind added a clarity to the air. She had taken the long way home from primary school through the forest and found him feebly trying to climb the trunk of a tree. Claw marks from a bird of prey had left deep gouges across his back and the squirrel was desperately trying to reach sanctuary with its last breaths. Only its injuries were too great and its grip slipped from the trunk with each attempt.


    Eager to put her lessons to use, she rushed forward preparing a healing spell. Its whiskers twitched as it saw her hand approach and looked up at her with big, wide, eyes - then bit down on the meat of her hand, the teeth almost meeting in the middle. Amari cried out and with a flail sent the squirrel soaring through the air.

     

    “I’m trying to help you nut brain!”

     

    She turned the healing spell on her hand with tears in her eyes and focused inward like she was taught. Find the magicka within yourself first, then feel how it courses through you and into the world, feel the connection to Aetherius, and through it the Sun and Stars, breathe it in deep and exhale. She repeated the exercise a few times before she felt in tune. When she opened her eyes, she saw the wound on her hand surrounded by red, chaotic energy and each drop of blood encased in violet flame. She surrounded the wound in the healing spell’s golden light and watched with pride as she directed the light to calm the chaos and knit the flesh. While she couldn’t remove all the chaos and her hand now had a deep ache, it was still much better than before.

     

    She scanned the forest, now lit in a beautiful display of hues ranging from a midnight blue to a blinding red, and quickly detected the squirrel’s form in the shrubberies ahead. The squirrel lay prone against the earth, unable to move anymore, but it hadn’t given up. Amari could see the purple haze of its soul trying to drift towards the sun, but was being held to its mortal coil by sheer willpower. A healing spell wouldn’t help this close to death, but if she could just help the squirrel hold its own soul…

     

    She bent over the creature’s form, too feeble now to attack, and began to will her energy over squirrel like a blanket, pressing the soul back towards the body. The creature greedily grasped for its life, but even with the help it was too weak. Just like with the tree, each grasp it made sent it slipping further away. She pulled at her braid, distraught that the squirrel’s life was still slipping away despite their efforts. Then in a flash of insight, she reformed the blanket into a cord and began to braid, one strand her soul, second the squirrel’s, and last the bones.

     

    When she finished, the sun was casting its last flames across the sky and she was drenched in sweat. She looked down at her work and it looked up at her in curiosity. Bright lines of power releasing gouts of flame crisscrossed its skeleton underneath the fur and the eyes now radiated a violet glow. They both sat for a while catching their breath, then without warning the squirrel burst into a leap, quickly scaling a tree and disappeared into the canopy.

     

    “Your welcome!”she shouted after it, then winced as the noise of her voice split through her temples like lighting.

     

    She relaxed her mind and let the luminescent colors of the forest fade back to her vision’s standard colors. She had never held detect life that long or attempted such a taxing spell before, but her head ache already began to ease as she closed her sight.

     

    It was Dark! The canopy blocked most of the setting sun’s rays, shrouding the forest in shadow. She had to get back home! She hurried down the path, her feet were sure on the familiar path, but her body shook like she’d been running all day. The whole time she could feel eyes following her.

     

    When she reached the forest edge, she faced the eyes; she could just feel were to look. The canopy rustled and the glowing eyed squirrel emerged from the branches above her and warily studied her.

     

    “So, are going to come down now? Come on, it’s okay.” She patted her shoulder and the squirrel dropped down, landing lightly on the spot.

     

    “There we go.” She beamed at the squirrel, then entered Wayrest proper. “Let’s go show you to Mother and Father!”

     

    Wayrest was always bustling with people from all around the world, especially at night. Amari liked to watch the men unload the boats along the Illiac Bay by lantern light, but her parents grounded her after they caught her last time. Now she had to come straight home after primary, which had already ended hours ago... She gulped and ran the rest of the way home.

     

    The paved roads and stone houses with sweeping roofs rushed by in a blur. Some houses had spiked towers extending another story, like her's, which had two, one for each of her parents’ studies. Her companion drew a few looks, but people here were accustomed to all manner of questionable things here.

     

    When she opened the door to her home she was immediately greeted by her mother with, “Shoes! Where have you been!”

     

    She kicked off her muddy boots in the foyer, then rushed into the living room hiding the squirrel behind her back. Both her parents had been reading in the living room,waiting for her. She hoped the squirrel would surprise them enough that they'd forget about grounding her even more.

     

    “Mother, Father, Guess what I saved today!” Both her parents arched their eyebrows in wary suspicion and set their tomes down.

     

    She revealed her companion with a flourish and set him on the coffee table. “A squirrel!”

     

    “What? Now you are bringing dirty, wild animals in the house?” her mother cried out.

     

    “Now, now, let’s just hear her story first,” mediated her father.

     

    Her mother cast an annoyed, but loving glare at her husband. He was always stuck acting as the peacekeeper between the two women. She leaned forward to look more closely at the animal. Feeling threatened, the squirrel raised its hackles and started to lower on its haunches. Her mother conjured a dark energy about her hand and pointed it at the squirrel. “Lie down.”

     

    The squirrel dropped, but started frantically vibrating as it tried to fight the spell. Amari patted its head while whispering sweet soothings and the creature calmed immediately.

     

    “Hmm, interesting,” her mother said, then took out her journal and quill and began writing notes.

     

    Amari beamed inside. She must have done something really well if her mother thought it was worth writing down, but more importantly neither mentioned her grounding. Her father was more interested in her hand at the moment.

     

    “You were injured today.” It wasn’t a question, but a concerned statement.

     

    “Oh, that. It was just a scratch.”

     

    “I can still sense the chaos in the wound; let me look at it.” He took her hand and began carefully examining it. “Ah yes, I see what happened here. This was a deep wound, a bite I would presume.”

     

    She withered under his glare. “Maybe…”

     

    “Anyway, you mended the skin very well, but the muscle is still torn. I imagine you’re probably only feeling a dull ache right now, yes?”

     

    She nodded.

     

    “That is because the majority of your nerves lie within the first few layers of skin. Your injury is actually in a more precarious state now, not only do you not feel the full extent of the damage anymore, but internal bleeding and infection are still a concern. We will need to reopen the wound, then heal it from the inside out.”

     

    “What!”

     

    In the time it took her to exclaim that, he had already formed an ice scalpel and opened the wound with two deft strokes. She cried out more in surprise than pain; the cold numbed and the blade was razor sharp.

     

    “Now open your sight and follow along.”

     

    She watched in awe as he broke apart an infection with a barrage of light beams then began at the base of the wound mending layer after layer of tissue without leaving any seams. When he finished, she flexed her hand. It felt as good as new, then he surprised her with a tight hug.

     

    “Please try not to get yourself killed, it would be a terrible inconvenience for us,” he said with a twinkle in his eye and Amari laughed.

     

    Behind them the clatter of a quill dropping on the coffee table whipped their attention back to her mother.

     

    “Oh, dear.” She ran other to Amari - she never ran anywhere! - and desperately hugged her daughter as well. “I will be ever grateful that you survived, but we must go to my study at once. Bring your… companion.”

     

    There was no twinkle in her eyes. Amari and her father exchanged confused looks. It was just a bite wound, but they followed her without question anyway.

     

    Her mother’s study was a meticulously clean octagonal room jutting from the third story. Every other wall had a long window stretching from waist high to the ceiling. The ones to the west overlooked the Illiac Bay and the spaces in between were shelved with books and containers that ran from floor to ceiling. The hardwood floor space was occupied by the standard mage set up: a rune covered enchanting table with a demonic skull and crystal ball overlooking it; a polished alchemy set; and a writing desk with all its papers neatly stacked. The contents of her father’s studio were similar, but had a more lived in cluttered feel and he had an Altar to Mara instead of an enchanting table. Everything was organized, but not neat, and numerous anatomy drawings were posted throughout his area.

     

    “Set the animal here,” her mother commanded, pointing at the enchanting table. Amari nervously obeyed, the squirrel looked poised to bolt in any direction. She pet it, trying to give it a calm she was quickly losing.

     

    Her mother exhaled. “Every second counts, so I’ll make this quick. I’m not sure what you did or how-” Amari was speechless, first her mother ran somewhere and now she was admitting she didn’t know something. She never, never, admitted she didn’t know something; this had to be serious. Her mother continued, “-but the result is this: One, you managed to anchor an animal’s soul to its own bones without a soul gem. Two, you should know that the body is still dead and will continue to decay. Three, part of your own soul was bound in the process, the backlash to you should the animal be unsummoned or killed can be fatal. Four, the binding is loose and is rupturing excessive energy, since you are tied to the animal, the energy is being drained from you. It is uncertain how long you can maintain this rate of loss or the permanent reduction to your lifespan it is causing.”

     

    Amari and her father were left gaping. Her mother was never one for breaking news gently.

     

    “Well, shit,” her father summed up eloquently.

     

    “There is no time to waste, we have to finish binding. It is the only path I see that will remedy our predicament without hurting our Amari… immediately. Amari, come here. I need you to remain calm and use your will to keep the animal still.”

     

    “Um, yeah, sure.” Remain calm, yeah, she could do that it was just her very life pouring out of the squirrel by the second. She reached out with her will and connected to the squirrel. “There, there, now, we’ll get through this.”

     

    Then her mother clasped her hands around the squirrel and focused. An intense inferno erupted from her hands that consumed the animal’s flesh in a flash. Amari cried out in horror and pain as it felt as if her own flesh was melting off. Her father caught her as she fell and placed a glowing hand on her forehead to scan her condition.

     

    “Amari! Daughter! What do you feel? Where does it hurt?”

     

    “Love, she will be fine. She is feeling the backlash of the squirrel’s pain through her connection, but will suffer no lasting harm. I am sorry Amari, but I need direct access to the bones.”

     

    “Scuttles, yes Scuttles I’ll name him. He’s… still alive… I can feel that… how, why… Ma.”

     

    Ma, Amari had not called her that since she could form full sentences. The sight of her daughter curled in her husband’s arms with tear stained cheeks and swollen eyes broke her heart, but they must press on, there was no turning back. She could not afford to show any weakness or fear now, she had to remain strong and in control for her family, despite how terrified she was. She lifted Amari up by the hand.

     

    “Amari dear, I need your help for the next part, we have to be strong now. You need to be strong for your familiar.”

     

    “Yes… yes, be strong, am strong.” Amari rose still in a daze, but she liked the sound of ‘familiar’.

     

    “Husband.”

     

    “Huh. Yes?” His eyes were puffy too. Events were tumbling down a hole he had little experience in and she couldn’t have him freeze up.

     

    “Will you retrieve the tomes, you know the ones. Volumes I, IV, and VII Part II.”

     

    “Part II?” He paled, “Is that necessary?”

     

    “I Will Take No Chances Where Our Daughter is Concerned!”

     

    She then turned gently to Amari who was trying to comfort the now charred black skeletal squirrel. Its legs were spread wide and she worried the claws might ruin the engravings on the table with how much it was rattling.

     

    “Can you have your familiar rest its head on the table? For the next phase we need to engrave binding runes to the bones, starting with the skull and working down the spine. Those are necessary, but we will bind all the bones for redundancy. I do hope you are prepared for a late night.”

     

    Her mother opened a chest on the enchanting table while she spoke and displayed an array of engraving tools. Meanwhile, her father took volumes I and IV on the shelves and set them on the writing desk, then went to the bookcase under the window facing the Illiac Bay and swept books off the bottom shelf. He removed a false bottom, pulled out a dusty chest, and then set it before her mother.

     

    She pressed her thumb against a tack on the top and the chest cracked open at the touch of blood in a puff of dust. She drew out a single tome bound in black leather emblazoned with a mass of tendrils. All the books were old, but the last one was timeless and a dark mist at the edge of perception poured off it.

     

    She immediately flipped open volume IV and started scanning the Daedric runes. “This one covers soul binding methods of the second era; from before soul gems were standardized.”

     

    Her mother set her hands on the enchanting table and activated the runes with a surge of power. Lines of turquoise energy spread out from her hands forming a pentagram around the squirrel. Amari cast detect life again to follow her mother’s actions with her sight. The violet flames escaping her familiar were caught within the pentagram and began to form a cloud as they swirled within the diagram’s confines. Her mother got to work quickly, channeling her power through the engraving tools and muttering in a guttural tongue from Oblivion that ebbed and flowed like the tides as she etched the ancient runes into the bones. With each rune she completed the swirling cloud of Amari’s and the squirrel’s joined life essence contracted towards the Daedric symbols. By time she reached the tail, the cloud had condensed into tight coils around the bones. She stepped back from the table and admired her work. The squirrel nervously eyed the room, a string of glowing violet runes now running from skull to tail.

     

    “The binding is complete now. Your energy will now cycle through a closed loop between the two of you. Your life will no longer be drained from the connection anymore, but you will need to know how to maintain the runes.” With that she passed the engraving tool to Amari and guided her through the process of enchanting the remaining bones. Once that was completed, she opened volume I and they started adding runes to protect the bindings from magical and physical damage.

     

    The night had stretched into the early hours of the morning by time they had finished with the enchantments from the first two volumes. Her mother reached for the last volume, but was stopped by her father.

     

    “Take a break first.” He placed a cup of steaming Canis root tea in both their hands and set down a small tray of sweets. Amari accepted hers gratefully and stifled a yawn. “You’re being very brave, we’re proud of you. Just hang in a little while longer; we’re almost done.”

     

    He picked up the squirrel, which was too tired to resist now. “Your mother never ceases to amaze me even after all these years. This is very fine craftsmanship and you’re learning quickly too. I dare say you now have the most powerful squirrel in the forest.” He cast restore fatigue over the creature and as soon as it felt the burst of renewed energy it bit down hard enough on his hand that Amari heard the teeth snap together, then it leapt from his grasp into Amari’s arms.

     

    She was horrified, but he just laughed. “You two are meant for each other. You will need to socialize him before you even dream about letting him in public though. Now, just drink your tea and take this time to familiarize yourself with your familiar, hah!”

     

    Amari rolled her eyes at his pun. He casually started healing his hand from the inside out and leaned close to his wife’s ear and whispered, “We need to talk.”

     

    She nodded, and they left the room.

     

    Scuttles curled up on Amari's lap and rested, it was an odd feeling to have a familiar, like they were one, yet still independent. Amari traced the engraved runes on the skeleton with her finger memorizing the shapes with her normal vision, then following the lattice work of energy with her mage's sight. To think this all started from just trying to heal a wounded animal.

     

    “…You know as well as I that she will need it!” Her parents’ voices had escalated and started to drift through the walls of the hallway. Amari crept towards the door to eavesdrop better.

     

    “I know no such thing! She’s just a girl and from a new generation! They would have had no ties to her,” her father responded.

     

    “I know what they are capable of. If they believe she can used to reach me, they will…”

     

    “Those days are in the past. Remember they were eradicated. There hasn’t even been a rumor of them since before she was born.”

     

    “I know, I know, I could never repay your family for their support. It is only that the events of this day have been too keen a reminder of those times. I still struggle to see how she wrapped herself if this predicament to begin with. I have always been so careful, but she must have found my old notes.”

     

    “You did see her binding, right? That had her touch all over it.”

     

    “True, I would have never been so reckless.”

     

    “Oh really?”

     

    “I may have pushed the boundaries a bit, but I was never reckless about it! Anyway, no one should feel the loss of a familiar, much less the sense of violation of having one stolen from you.” She finally broke down and could be heard sobbing into her husband’s shoulder, releasing years of pent up emotion she had walled even her love from. Amari didn’t know what to think, what sort of life did her parents have before her? She had always seen her mother as this unbreakable, unquestionable force of properly mannered nature. Hearing her vulnerable like this made her sound… human. It was weird.

     

    “I can still feel her, she is still out there just beyond my reach; lost, or in service to who knows what manner of beast. It pains me every day that I never even tried to rescue her.”

     

    “You couldn’t, it was a cruel bait and if you had returned, they would have known you were with child. We searched high and low, but could find no traces of her after we cleared the ruin.”

     

    “I know, but some wounds never fade, some you never want to... I had always hoped our little one would take more after you, it is too easy for one’s soul to be broken and consumed following this path.” The two lovers sat down on the top step of stairs for a long moment just holding each other. Amari leaned back against the wall holding her familiar with a new sense of protection.

     

    Eventually her mother spoke again with perfect clarity, “It is time.”

     

    “I suppose so.”

     

    Her mother strode through the door and the only clue to her inner turmoil was a slight redness to her eyes.

     

    “Amari, let us begin the last phase. Your bind is sealed and we added runes protecting against basic attacks, but there are still vulnerabilities a skilled practitioner could usurp to manipulate you through the bond.”

     

    Her hand hesitated over the tendril symbol of the last volume, then her voice dropped to an icy chill, “I will not let that happen to you. I trust you realize the importance that no knowledge of this book leaves the room.”

     

    Amari looked to her father, he was holding his Amulet of Mara in his hands when he looked up he returned a comforting smile. She nodded to her mother and nervously set Scuttles back on the enchanting table. Her mother opened the tome and quickly scrolled through the Daedric symbols that seemed lifelike in the way they shifted and distorted. She stopped at a symbol swirling into an ink vortex and plunged her engraving tool into the center. The tool passed through the book like it was water and when she pulled it out a trail green energy so dark it was like looking into the Void followed her blade. She began carving a similar vortex symbol on the squirrel’s skull, periodically dipping the engraver back into the book.

     

    She was nearly finished and went to refill the engraver one last time when a new presence filled the room. They all froze as the gases inside the enchanting table’s crystal ball began to swirl of their own accord and shift to a sickly green hue. A single golden eye opened within the swirling clouds and was soon followed by countless others, each smaller than the next until they were of infinitesimal size. Then it spoke in the Deadric language Amari’s mother was muttering earlier; the guttural sounds passed across the ear like a soothing poison.

     

    Her parents gripped her tightly against them with white knuckles and her mother started frantically yelling back in the same language while her father called on Mara with desperation clear in their voices. Amari couldn’t understand the words, but she understood the tones, her mother was pushed in a corner and vehemently fighting, emphasizing her words with jabs of the enchanter’s engraver; her father was in full mediator mode, urgently seeking some solution; and as for the mass of eyes, she could only tell the demon wanted something.

     

    It terrified her, but there was an intangible allure to it as well. Just how many eyes were in there? She peered closer as curiosity overrode her fear and the foreign argument faded into the background. An eye pushed itself from the midst of the mass and pressed against the crystal glass to gaze directly at her.

     

    “Do you.... know who I am...?” it spoke to her in the common tongue.

     

    She shook her head. “What’s happening? I’m scared.”

     

    “You... will know my name... in time. Your mother... thought she could hide... she was wrong. I see all that is... all that was... all that will be. That is all you need to know... for now.”

     

    With that the eye faded back into the mass. The foreign argument erupted back into the foreground. The first eye was glaring at her mother and spoke a final phrase before the mass began to slowly fade away.

     

    The sense of reprieve was short lived. An unnatural gust of wind blew across the tome, flipping it to a new page. Tendrils erupted from the sheet and coiled around the squirrel's soul. They all stared in horror as the tendrils attached to the binding and began following the link to Amari.

     

    “Ma, make it stop!” She tried to back away from the tendrils winding towards her, but there was no escaping the link to her familiar. “Please, please make it stop! Ma?”

     

    Conflicted her mother looked from her daughter to the few eyes still lingering within the crystal. The tendrils were nearly upon Amari when she slit her hand open with the engraver and raised it above the enchanting table.

     

    “Fine! I will give you what you seek!”

     

    The tendrils froze a hand’s span from Amari face. “On one condition, my daughter remains free of your influence.”

     

    The silence before its response seemed to stretch for an eternity.

     

    “Fair enough... I shall not impose my will on her,” the eye spoke also switching to the common tongue.

     

    Her mother slammed her hand down on the enchanting table and bright flash briefly consumed her hand. She cried out and collapsed backwards into her husband’s arms.

     

    “Our fates shall cross again...” the mass spoke with a smug chortle before receding to whence it came.

     

    Silence rang in the absence of the Daedra’s presence. A predawn glow filtered into the still room, breaking the dark spell.

     

    “Get off me!” Her mother pushed her father way, grabbed the engraver, and then hastily finished the last few lines of the final rune. She slammed the tome shut and flung it across the room before storming out the door.

     

    Her father caught up with her at the head of the stairwell. “Where do you think you are going?!”

     

    It was one of the few times Amari had ever heard him raise his voice.

     

    “I am leaving! It was a mistake settling down; I was foolish to think I could make a new life. All I have done is drag both of you into my past...”

     

    “Drag me?” He turned her to face him. “As I recall it, I dove after you in all my glorious stupidity.”

     

    She smiled at the memory, then he continued, “and Amari. I do not know what would of happened if you weren't here.”

     

    “Please, do not make this any harder. I am damned, he finally won!” She showed him her hand, a brand of the same shape as the tendril symbol on the tome had replaced the cut.

     

    “I will always love you, no matter how many realms separate us.”

     

    “I said not to make this harder,” she said hitting him on the chest.

     

    “You are not damned yet; you still have this life to live, with your family. Amari needs you now more than ever; I need you. There is always hope; if we need to leave, we will do so as a family.”

     

    Amari rushed out clutching Scuttles closely. “Are you leaving?”

     

    Her mother hesitated. “Oh Dear, I am sorry you had to hear that. No.” She looked to her husband with a smile. “No, I think it is time we took a family trip.”

     

    They all curled up where they were on the stairway, too tired to bother with beds.

     

    “Amari.”

     

    “Yes, mother?”

     

    “Was that a hair braid pattern you used to bind the soul?”

     

    “Maybe…”

     

    She laughed and ruffled her daughter’s hair. “Then, by the Divines, why did you use the Daggerfall style!?”

     

    “Because I like it! ... Are we going to be alright?”

     

    “Yes, everything is going to be alright.” With that Amari drifted off to sleep.

     

    ***

     

    Liars. It was just Scuttles and her now. She cast detect life - a spell that was second nature now - and saw that the trapdoor leading out of the hidden cove was clear. She snuck to the surface and took stock of her situation: her familiar was safely hibernating; the bandits hadn't gathered for lunch yet; and she had a skeever in one hand, and a cluster of imp stool in the other - the ingredients for a health poison.

     

    She had parents to avenge and a clan of bandits to evade. Although despite the anger she felt, she still couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt that her parents' fate was her fault.

     

     

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Comments

12 Comments   |   Felkros likes this.
  • Felkros
    Felkros   ·  September 12, 2017
    Love how you portrayed the healing spells/binding spell, it felt like something that could naturally exist in the ES world.
  • Exuro
    Exuro   ·  January 24, 2016
    Glad you're reading! This was a fun and important chapter to write. Always happy when I can make that connection to the reader.
  • SpottedFawn
    SpottedFawn   ·  January 24, 2016
    If I could like this twice, I would. This is so awesome! I am sorry I didn't get to it sooner. I loved the binding spells, you've really woven a lot of great storytelling into this chapter. I am so attached to Amari and her family. Scuttles is great! Ver...  more
  • Exuro
    Exuro   ·  November 22, 2015
    Its one of the great mysteries, pieces will slowly come together as the story progresses.
  • FishDout
    FishDout   ·  November 22, 2015
    Itching to know what kind of seedy, backalley daedric dealio this family was mixed up in!
  • Exuro
    Exuro   ·  July 12, 2015
    Thanks! Ya, I was listening to Hendrix as I wrote most of this, so it was my subconscious that added it, but my I'll still take credit for it
    I just have a few more chapters until the 1st arc is done, then I plan to edit it all at once before starti...  more
  • Idesto
    Idesto   ·  July 12, 2015
    The plot thickens! I love the in-depth descriptions of magic. Nice Hendrix reference too :)

    Just 1 thing though:there are quite a few typos so if you're got the time or the inclination it could do with some editing.

    Great story!
  • Exuro
    Exuro   ·  June 23, 2015
    Ha Ha, yes. Poor Sotek. True, both her parents were good teachers and became a bit more invested in her learning after a certain event.
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  June 23, 2015
    Oh hell Alchemy 101 lol. You remember Sotek's first Alchemy lesson in Arcadia's? She threw away a third of the plants Sotek collected 'cause they were useless.
    Amari will no doubt get better at it. I've a bit of a feeling that her mothers taught her...  more
  • Exuro
    Exuro   ·  June 23, 2015
    Finally have a chance to respond.
    Lissette: Thanks! Since a story isn't limited by game play or balancing,  I like to explore how the mechanics their world could work. And yes, Scuttles While Amari has jumped with both feet into some very grownup p...  more