Returning Magic (Private)

[Maeve Valor]

"I'm glad one of us is optimistic. Burt, another one of those omelettes please," she said with a grumble obviously not a morning person. "Next is the Old District. If we aren't able to find the tome today at any of those shops we might need to take a different approach on finding it."

 

[Darkbloom]

"I have a pretty good feeling that we can find it today. In books I read in the past, which include all the books in the world's greatest libraries, magic items are found in places you least expect them to be. Someone's first thought would be such ancient tomes are sold in the most prestigious shops in popular areas. The thing is, if an ancient, magic tome doesn't want to be found, it won't be found. That's a guarantee." His hair was flowing with the light breeze of the wind, so he had to move part of it that fell between his eyesight back to where it was. "Sometimes long hair isn't so great..."

 

[Maeve Valor]

After she ate and they began walking with him, she listened as he explained his knowledge on ancient tomes. Once again, he made sense. Assuming that this tome was a magical item, then it would make sense that it would be so dangerous yet sought after. On the other hand, all this talk about magic was still just fairy tales to her. She had still yet to see any proof on the matter so she merely just nodded to him.

When the breeze blew some of his hair into his face she thought to herself, "sometimes he's a strange and quirky fellow isn't he?" She then teased aloud, "I suffer from the same problem sometimes... although I think your hair might actually be longer."

 

[Darkbloom]

"You could be right about that..." his hair length is probably because he never got a haircut while he was growing up. Also, he was inspired by drawings he saw of other elves. A lot of them had long hair. Some of them preferred short hair to not be weighed down so much during war time for maximum maneuverability and speed. Archers and wizards didn't really care about hair length, having both long hair and sometimes longer beards.

It was really easy to tell when they arrived to the lower district. It was less cared for, dirty, smelly, rubbish everywhere. As Lightbloom and Meara appeared now, they were certainly out of place and everyone who's lived in the lower district for their entire lives would be able to know this. They walked through alleys, seeing an occasional rat scurry by. Lightbloom tried covering his nose at first to stop the smell, but it was too overpowering. He'd just have yo get used to it until they found the book or something leading to the book. "Let's not waste much time here."

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara didn't feel like she was as much out of place as Lightbloom was. She had a dark hooded cloak that already made her look shady, yet still very different than the rest of the people in the district. But Lightbloom was what she would describe as pristine. She chuckled with a smirk at his comment showing that he was obviously uncomfortable being in the area. "Why? Afraid to get into a scuffle?" She then lightly nudged his arm with her elbow and walked confidently as she jokingly said, "Don't worry, I'll protect you." As a thief, Meara was all too accustomed with being in menacing places and how to act in them.

She then looked around the area they were currently in. "Where I least expect it to be huh?" She thought going over Lightbloom's previous words regarding where the tome might be. Her eyes landed on one place deciding to start there.

 

[Darkbloom]

"No, scuffles are fine. This smell from the general area of the lower district isn't..." Since the district was mostly alleys, Lightbloom kept a hand on his short sword. Anything longer would be troublesome. He walks with her to this certain area.

 

[Darkbloom]

Meara searches for the tome. She doesn't find it or anything else that could help them figure out who has it.

Lightbloom watches her search for a little bit, and moves to a different area. However, he is also unsuccessful in finding anything. He curses in... Draconic!

 

[Maeve Valor]

As they made their way to the next shop she whispered over to him so that no one else could possibly hear, "Be on the lookout for any peddlers. I have a feeling we might have to do some underground shopping to get what we need." She glanced over to the short sword he had his hand on hoping that he knew how to handle it and warned, "You said you didn't mind a scuffle... well we might end up being in one if does turn out we have to go to a black market."

 

[Darkbloom]

"Very well. After I check around here, we can go to one more place to look before the black market becomes our only option." He searches the area, not frantically, but thoroughly to find any trace of a note or a tome. Even after that search, Lightbloom finds nothing of value or a lead to the tome.

 

[Maeve Valor]

After doing a bit of sleuthing on her own trying to find it, she turned up empty as well and met back up with Lightbloom looking slightly irritated yet somehow adorable with the turn-out at this point. "Looks like another dead end. Did you see any peddlers or any suspicious people we can get more information from?"

 

[Darkbloom]

"I haven't seen any peddlers. Been too busy looking for anything about the tome. I'm going to look around one last time. Third time's the charm, as they say." He once more searches the area. If he doesn't find anything, he's going to suggest they go see his buddy. His researcher background is telling him that's the person to go see.

After five minutes, Lightbloom is about to give up. But then a breeze rolls through, blowing a small piece of paper out of hiding. He picks it up, thinking it to be odd how many times they searched until now for it to show up like that. It reads: pass this on to the boss: we found where to go for the tome. Send minions to...

As he reads the location, his expression falls.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara walked up to him and said, "I think that we should-" She then stopped in her tracks when she saw the look on Lightbloom's face seeming pretty perturbed by its contents as he looked down at a mysterious piece of paper. "Oi. what's wrong? What does that note say?" She asked trying to look over his shoulder since they are the same height.

 

[Darkbloom]

Shadows cover his face. "Thomas has the tome. That's... My buddy Thomas..." The non existent background music starts to intensify, slowly at first, but when it reaches the crescendo, Lightbloom comes to his senses, looking determined.

"No time to waste. Thomas might already be dead by now if they've reached him fast enough." He starts walking with urgency and purpose.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara only just nodded and walked along next him. "This must be the researcher friend he was talking about, I hope we can get to him in time cause if not, there goes my chance at a translation. I wonder if he is an Elf as well.," she thought as they walked.

 

[Darkbloom]

The only place they haven't been is the outskirts, which is also where it happens to rain the most out of all three areas of the city. No one knows why, that's just how it is. Lightbloom weaves through the small crowd and into the building. He doesn't need to focus his hearing to know that there's a scuffle going on upstairs. Once they reach Thomas' room, Lightbloom kicks the door open. There are two orcs in the room. Currently, Thomas is still alive, although he's being held up in the air by one of the orcs. Thomas knows he doesn't have much time, so he shouts "Lightbloom! Sunset!" That's all he gets to say before the orc holding him snaps his neck, dropping Thomas' body to the floor.

 

[Maeve Valor]

For the whole time they made their way over, Meara followed close behind as Lightbloom led them. Once they reached their destination, she didn't need to have super-hearing to know that they were upstairs and it didn't sound like a pleasant discussion was taking place. Lightbloom once again led on surprisingly kicking down the door. That was when she saw the person whom she assumed was Thomas yell out a cryptic message to Lightbloom right before his awful demise. Meara scowled at the Orc as she took off her hood unsheathing her Rapier with her other hand and yelled a battle cry as she charged after the two of them in the room.

 

[Darkbloom]

Lightbloom: 21
Meara: 19
Orc 1: 9
Orc 2: 6

 

[Darkbloom]

Lightbloom moves within striking distance of the closest orc. Although his strength gives him a disadvantage, he still manages to break through the orc's armor for a hit. (oopsy second d20 was mistake)

 

[Maeve Valor]

To Meara's surprise, Lightbloom was quicker on the draw attacking first; although she shouldn't have been too surprised because the poor guy saw a good friend get murdered right before his eyes. It was her guess that revenge burned through his veins at the moment. Regardless, Meara charged on the same Orc Lightbloom was attacking and took the chance while he was distracted to run around him to flank the Orc by surprise and then attack.

 

[Darkbloom]

12 is a hit!

 

[Maeve Valor]

After landing a successful she was able to maximize the output by using a sneak attack on top of that stabbing into him and then slashed at his chest swiftly.

 

[Darkbloom]

The first orc didn't see Meara until her knife was stabbed into him, then was slashed deep across his chest, making him flip over backward and fall dead on his face.

 

[Darkbloom]

The second orc watched his buddy die in a rather spectacular way. He charged at Meara with his great axe. "FOR GLORY!" He shouted in common.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara tried to deflect with her rapier, but her efforts were in vain as she lost her footing and the axe came down on her. As this was happening, she looked over at Lightbloom with everything seeming to be in slow motion as she looked like she was trying to reach out to him with her free hand before falling unconscious at the Orc's feet.

 

[Darkbloom]

"First my buddy. And now my partner. HOW MANY MORE LIVES ARE YOU GOING TO SNUFF OUT?" He goes to strike the orc down, but the short sword bounces off the orc's armor.