As the day concluded, the dog that was previously with Shireen had wandered off somewhere on her own. She prowled around the town for a bit, seemingly looking for something… until a small rock flew out of nowhere and hit her in the face. The dog snarled and looked around, and soon noticed Cloak standing on a rooftop above her.
"Now this is just pathetic." Cloak said tauntingly.
"An entity such as yourself, parading around in the form of a lowly dog, and doing… what, exactly? Making friends with some humans and barking at Ace every once in a while?"
The dog snarled angrily at Cloak. Cloak didn't seem to mind.
"You know, I guess I should be afraid of you, but it's hard to feel intimidated when you're so clearly afraid of breaking the rules — limiting yourself to such a weak form just to avoid stepping on anyone's toes. Or is that supposed to be a disguise? If it is, then, you need to think up a better one. Anyone with half a brain knows that that's you."
Her anger rising, the dog jumped at the side of the building that Cloak was standing on, clawing furiously at it.
"Ha! Looks like you don't even have the nerve to show me the brunt of your anger and put me in my place, even though I probably deserve it." Cloak jeered, hopping from one rooftop to the next. The dog, of course, followed after him.
"Honestly, seeing you bring yourself down to such a pitiful state? It's pathetic." he added, hopping across a few more rooftops as the dog continued to chase after him.
Having thoroughly captured her attention, Cloak kept up the insults long enough to lead the canine beyond the outskirts of town. She continued to chase him past some flat stretches of farmland, and towards a slightly wooded area…
-
That night, Corvus stayed at the Atvance Temple, where the priestess told him about Ace, and that he was one of the people chosen to travel to Tarocchi to stop him from carrying out his plans. She also told him about the lab that blew up yesterday, and that the party would be gathering there tomorrow morning.
-
Late that night, Ace cautiously approached Raymond's home, accompanied by Dagger. He was on the lookout for a certain someone who had tried to interrupt his dinner plans once before. But, if all was going according to plan, that someone should still be distracted right about now…
-
Around that same time, Darius attempted to use Cloak's feathers to set up a remote sensory spell. If Darius had ever used Avian feathers for such a purpose before, he would notice that the artifacts behaved rather abnormally. The spell was executed at least somewhat successfully, but it was unstable. The 'signal' that Darius received continuously faded in and out, and was often distorted, making it difficult to make sense of the sights and sounds that came through.
-
Meanwhile, past the outskirts of town, a certain Avian was being chased by a very angry wolf. Cloak led his pursuer into the woods, flying nimbly between the tree branches. The wolf leapt up at him with her claws outstretched, but Cloak always kept himself just barely beyond her reach. Eventually, the wolf began to slow down, her tiredness showing as she looked about ready to give up the chase.
"Aw, is that all?" Cloak jeered from a tree branch above her.
"Are you really going to give up that easily?"
The wolf glared at Cloak, growling as if she was about to try jumping at him again — and then, in a burst of rage, her body grew to a massive size, forcing trees to bend and break as her much larger body shoved them out of the way.
"Shit, I think I went too far." Cloak muttered, fearfully turning to get away from the beast. He leapt from his place in the tree as the wolf swung at it with an oversized paw, knocking down several branches.
"This was not the plan!" he exclaimed as he flew away, the enraged wolf still on his tail.
-
At this point, the sensory signal from Darius's spell began to rapidly deteriorate, until the spell stopped working completely. If anything remained of the feathers that were used for the spell, they quickly disintegrated.
-
In a clearing, on the opposite side of the forest past the edge of town, Ace and Dagger stood in front of what would at first appear to be a large bonfire. But any onlooker could easily see that this was no ordinary fire, as it flickered in bright, chaotic hues of green, purple, blue, pink — and really any other color besides red, orange, or yellow. Ace tossed a folded piece of paper into the fire, and began to recite a spell.
As that was happening, Cloak landed frantically next to Dagger and Ace, struggling to catch his breath as the oversized wolf followed behind him — but the wolf's footsteps slowed as she caught sight of Ace and the oddly-colored fire.
Ace gave a satisfied grin.
"That's right. You know you're not supposed to be here." he said.
"If I were you, I'd leave before I embarrass myself." he sneered.
"Oh, and maybe it would be wise of you to change into something a bit less conspicuous while you're at it."
The wolf gave a low growl, but grudgingly backed off, shrinking down in size as she turned around and walked away.
"I hope you're grateful for everything I do for you." Cloak hissed at Ace after the wolf was out of sight.
"She could've killed me!" he added, brushing the dirt off of his clothes.
"Oh, don't be so dramatic." Ace replied calmly.
"Death would only be a minor setback for you."
Ace plucked a hair from his own head and dropped it into the fire, as well. At that moment, the fames seemed to sink to the ground — flattening and widening out until the previously tall flame had transformed into a flat circle made of blazing earth. The rapidly-alternating colors then blended into each other and darkened into a deep, solid indigo.
"Ace? Why are you contacting me?" A deep, low voice asked, emanating from the fire.
"Is everything alright? Did something go wrong?"
"Did something go wrong? Ugh, where do I even begin?!" Ace exclaimed.
"The Avian twins made a fool of me today! Both Dagger's spells and Cloak's combat abilities were almost completely ineffective against a bunch of ordinary, mortal humans and Avians." Cloak and Dagger looked at each other awkwardly, then kept their gaze pointed at the ground.
"One human saw me eating, as if there was no invisibility spell around me at all, and he got away because Cloak couldn't even catch him. That man is now a witness to what happened." Ace ranted, stomping his foot on the ground.
"The whole thing was a disaster! I thought you said these were your best men!" Ace snapped.
"I didn't say they were my best men…" the voice from the pit replied.
"But, I would expect them to do better than this. I've worked with them since before you were born; I know what they're capable of and what their limitations are. And what you just described sounds very much unlike them."
"Well, that's what happened!" Ace exclaimed.
"And I need bodyguards who can do better than this! I'm still mortal, you know — the Avian who saw me was armed. And he had me cornered. If he didn't decide to let me off the hook, he could've killed me!" The twins raised their eyebrows in silent skepticism, glancing at each other in shared acknowledgement that Ace's story was a bit embellished. But they knew better than to interrupt him at a time like this.
"I want to see these two both reforged!" Ace demanded. Cloak and Dagger both tensed up at the very mention of the word.
"I don't think that will be necessary…" the voice replied. Cloak and Dagger both let out a sigh of relief.
"Besides, reforging them could take quite a while, and what are you supposed to do without them for all that time?" he asked.
"Weeeell… you could always send some replacements in the meantime~" Ace cooed.
"I'd prefer not to." the voice deadpanned.
"It sounds to me, that today's events were just a fluke. And I don't expect the same problems to come up again. Speaking of which, I assume whatever method of cloaking that they're using to hide you right now is more sophisticated than the apparently lackluster spell they attempted earlier today?
"Yes, sir." Dagger jumped in, stepping closer to the fire.
"The spell that I used earlier today was a relatively basic, crude spell — meant to hide Ace for only a moment. I only used it because Ace needed an invisibility spell right then and there, and there wasn't time to set up anything more sophisticated on short notice." Dagger explained, seizing the opportunity to present his side of the story.
"And even the basic spell worked adequately on all the other mortals in the area. The real trouble came when one specific human was apparently unaffected by it, and could easily see Ace through the invisibility barrier. I detected some magical abnormalities about him, so the most likely explanation is that he enhanced his senses somehow, allowing him to see what would ordinarily be hidden. As for the Avian, he also couldn't see Ace until he stepped inside the invisibility bubble, himself. And for the brief amount of time we were using it, it seemed reasonable to assume that no one would wander inside."
"And on the subject!" Cloak jumped in.
"You were never in any real danger with that blue-feathered Avian." he told Ace.
"If that guy did attack you, I could've been over there in a heartbeat, and he wouldn't have been able to lay a finger on you."
"Oh really? Because, at around the same time that Avian discovered me, I do believe you lost a fight against a mortal human and some glue." Ace deadpanned.
"I was caught off-guard!" Cloak shot back.
"And I dodged the glue the second time he threw it. I totally could've killed that guy if you didn't call us both off."
"Ok, I've heard enough." the voice from the pit interrupted.
"I see you've all learned from your mistakes today, and I don't think you'll repeat them in the future. You should all be fine from here on out. And since Atvance is a small town, I doubt that the few glimpses anyone caught of you will lead to much trouble." he told Ace.
"Now put this fire out and get going. You and the rest of your party should be on the road again before dawn."
- - -
Victarion's morning prowling was interrupted by the sound of a dog barking behind him. Were he to turn around, he would see a white dog standing on a nearby rooftop, looking at him attentively. Once she had Victarion's attention, she barked a few more times, then started to walk away, pausing every few steps to turn around and see if the Avian was following.
-
Clay awoke with a start as a rather painful weight dropped onto his chest. As he came to his senses, he found what appeared to be… a sack of coins?? There was a note attached, too — but Clay gave it only a passing glance before digging into the plain-looking pouch to see if its contents were actually what he thought they were. Sure enough, the pouch was filled with coins —
gold coins, specifically. Astonished, he dumped them out onto his bed and began to count them… only for his eyes to drift towards the note again. Did Tawny get all this money, somehow? Sure, Tawny had probably noticed that they were a bit tight on funds, and maybe even starting to get a bit desperate — but he grew very worried at the thought of the kind of trouble that Tawny had to have gotten into in order to find this kind of money…
Clay opened the note, and was relieved to see that the handwriting wasn't Tawny's. But that only made him all the more curious as to who
did write the note, especially since it was addressed to him — never mind the fact that it apparently materialized in his bedroom just now. The note read:
Clay Woodwick,
I know that you were feeling hesitant to leave Atvance despite what the priestess told you yesterday, and I know one reason for that is the cost. Even though you'd be traveling with a party of others who could help share the cost, I can see that you wouldn't have much money to contribute, yourself. So, I thought I'd offer some help. This money should be enough to provide for yourself and probably several others in the party, as well. And now that you have the money, there's really no reason for you to stay here — I know that you're jobless currently, so there's not much for you to gain in staying here.
Once you and Tawny have gathered everything you want to bring with you, head to the lab you visited yesterday, and you'll find the rest of the party there.
And remember, you're doing something important for all of Altera. I want you to be proud of that.
And most mysteriously of all, it was unsigned.
Clay was nearly trembling. He had never been a particularly spiritual man, and perhaps that's why the "quest from the gods" didn't seem so urgent, so real. He couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea that the gods had taken interest in his life specifically, much less that they wanted him to leave his life behind and go on some special mission. But this… this was real. He really
was being tasked with some sort of divine mission. Although, the thought briefly crossed his mind that he could just stay in Atvance and use the money to live a comfortable life here — but he shook his head and quickly tried to forget that idea. If this money truly came from a
god then it would probably be a bad idea to take advantage of their generosity.
He hurriedly ran to Tawny's room to tell her about all this.
-
Also that morning, the priestess was walking towards the lab when she noticed Kiri wandering around the town.
"Ah, good morning!" she greeted, waving to her.
"I was just on my way to the laboratory to see everyone else off. They should be gathering there right about now." she explained.
"Will you be joining them?"
-
Clay walked hurriedly towards the lab, his cloak looking a lot lumpier than usual as his inner pockets were stuffed with many of his belongings. He certainly didn't like walking around with this much stuff on him — it practically screamed "I have valuables! Rob me!" — but he wanted to make it to the lab as soon as possible, and he didn't have time to think of a more elegant solution.
Tawny followed behind Clay, breaking intermittently into a jog as she struggled to keep up with her brother's long strides. She supposed she should be grateful that Clay changed his mind about going on this journey, but she was still a bit surprised by his sudden change in attitude — as well as the sense of urgency that Clay seemed to be giving the situation.
Clay approached Darius's lab and knocked on the door.
"I'm here." he stated after the door was opened. Then he leaned into the doorway and, as if he was about to share a dangerous secret, he added in a hushed tone,
"And I have money."
