Patricia Smith
Stories
8
Chapters
5,309
Words
3.0 M
Comments
0
Reading
10 d, 6 h
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There was a chair for me to sit on. Again, that same folding chair that I suspected belonged to Sir Aberrforth's friends. I looked around the darkened room. The core was actually glowing a little now, but that same glow was fading away. I could imagine it being much brighter a few moments ago, and now it was returning to dormancy. Was it the kind of thing that only used up magic while it was active? Actually, that would make a lot of sense. Aside from my shadowy companion, this core probably almost never…-
42 •
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I was expecting my new... not-a-friend-yet to lead me to my friends. I didn't expect it to take as long as it did. Orange's light lit up more of the tunnels as we dove deeper in. Stairs led us down, down far more than a single floor, thin, narrow steps, the middle of which were ground down by time and constant steps. I followed the shadow of the figure ahead of me until we came to a small landing. There was an open door here, thick wooden boards held together by cold iron straps as wide as my handspan.…
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42 •
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"Guys?" I asked the darkness. I turned, nearly stumbling over ... nothing? Even with my eyes wide open, all I could see was utter blackness. "Amaryllis? Awen?" I called out, a little louder this time. Raising a hand, I created a lightball... or I tried to. Instead, no light appeared, but I felt an unnerving tugging sensation, like pulling at a hangnail across my entire body. Not quite as painful, but it wasn't nice. "Calamity? Desiree?" I shouted. The next thing I tried was Cleaning magic. A wave of…
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42 •
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The mine tunnel was spooky. It was a long, darkened passage, supported by regular wooden trusses. Wooden rails for the minecarts dove into the darkness until they couldn't be seen at all. There were cobwebs along the ceiling, to add to the ambiance, and the regular tip-tap noise of water dripping down into a puddle. The long passage groaned, wind blowing past my bun ears and deeper into the shaft as if the darkness was an inhaling giant. Of course, there were ways to mitigate spookiness. The first, of…
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42 •
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I held my light ball higher over my head once the first of my friends had squeezed through the entrance. It was Calamity, who - appropriately - had the flexibility of a cat. He had managed to twist himself through the entrance tunnel with his bow and quiver and all. "I'll get started on the entrance," he said. "We'll want it wider if we need to make an escape. Watch my back?" "Sure thing," I said as I turned to stare deeper into the cave. Or was it the mine? I wasn't exactly sure where one definition…
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42 •
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Laine didn't have to lead us too far before we emerged from the forest. This was still close to the base of the mountain, though I had to really squint to make out anything of Port Royal in the distance. The only other sign that the city was there were a few big airships coming and going towards the mountain side. The area was grassy, with a few tough bushes along the forest's edge. As we walked, I noticed that there was only a thin layer of dirt atop some porous rock, so there probably wasn't enough…
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42 •
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Awen and I looked at each other, then turned towards Sir Aberrforth. "So, uh, how are your wrists?" The older gentleman laughed and shook his hands out. "Well enough! It's nice to have blood in my hands once more, I worried that they might fall off, sooner or later." "That's kind of concerning," I said. "Bah! I'd show my dear Laine my devotion, hands or no!" "Uh, alrighty then," I said. Awen shared a small, clueless shrug with me. She didn't know what was going on with this guy any more than I did, it…
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42 •
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I really wasn't sure what to do. Our mission was to save Mister Aberrforth, but that mostly hinged on him being in the sort of trouble that someone needed saving from. There were a lot of scenarios we'd considered on the walk over. Maybe we'd discover that he was just too busy to report in, maybe he was injured and couldn't move, maybe he was stuck? But none of us had considered that Mister Aberrforth might just be madly in love. With a very heavy emphasis on the madly part. This behaviour didn't seem...…
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42 •
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"We need to save him, right?" I whispered to the others. "It's the right thing to do... probably?" "Probably?" Desiree asked. "Why would saving this poor soul be improbable? TThis is a man bound to a pole, all alone -- save for this mysterious summer cottage, curiously isolated entirely from polite civilization. A more suspicious setup I could not devise. Even putting aside the obviously unsavory nature of his captivity, recall that we were sent here specifically to save this man. So I say again: why…
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"Can you lift me up?" I asked as I gestured to Calamity. One of his eyebrows perked up. "Are you just asking me because I'm the only man around?" he asked. I blinked, then shrugged a little. "You're also the tallest?" "Alright, I'm okay with that," he said before making a stirrup with his hands together, fingers woven. I put my foot in it, and then stood up. There was a bit of a wobble as Calamity raised me. "Careful with the hair. And the ears." "Yup!" I said as I tried to stay balanced on one leg. I…
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