World Walk

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Demi's thought was useless, as organic beings weren't affected by dimensional malleäbility. In this scenario, it was not the thought that counted.

-

Skye awoke first, some hours later. She had a splitting headache and at least one broken rib. She was confused slightly when she came to laying in a cushion in a multicolored room, instead of a frozen street in Cygnus. She instinctually panicked at first, sitting up quickly. Her fear was immediately overwhelmed by pain as she jostled her rib, sending a searing bolt of pain through her abdomen. She carefully lay back down again, her eyes dirting about and observing the circular room. It was built out of multicolored stone, and the furniture was laid in a rather haphazard pattern. Taras lay a few feet from her, still unconscious. He, like herself, lay on a mattress of white cushions. She eyed stairs in the corner. Tower, maybe? Laurelle mentioned a Spire once...we must be in her dimension, Prismsphere I think she said it was called.

She sat up again, slowly this time, a hand on her stomach. Succeeding, she got a better look around her. She spotted Demi and Laurelle laying on the floor, loosely entangled with each other. She allowed herself a giggle, guessing that they had both passed out while Demi was supporting the light mage. They looked quite peaceful, laying together. Taras, on the other hand, didn't. His features were scrunched up in a grimace. She wondered if he was dreaming. Skye hadn't had a dream, or at least she didn't remember it. Standing up carefully, she removed her armor, laying it to the side of the cushion in as neat a stack as possible. How long has it been on the material plane, I wonder?... She unstrapped her sword and put it next to her armor, but kept her Focus on, of course. She had a policy of never taking it off if she was in someone else's dimension. She sat down on the couch and wracked her brain for some kind of healing spell that would help her rib (or Laurelle's leg) but could think of nothing. Guess I'll just wait for them to wake up...and watch them sleep...
 
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Taras awoke with a jolt, lurching upward to sit up. A gasp and a curse escaped him at the same time, and he held his sword tightly before relaxing, realising that he must be in the dimension of one of Demi's comrades. He cleared his throat awkwardly after noticing that Skye was awake and observing things, and he got up himself, slowly. It turned out that it wasn't a good idea to sleep in full armor, cushion or no.

Soon Taras was also sitting on the couch trying to think of what to do after removing his own armor. His sword still rested at his side, leaning against the couch on the ground with a hand on its pommel. He made to get up when he saw Demi move— but no, she was only shifting in her sleep. Taras couldn't help but feel jealousy well up in him, seeing Demi's arms clamped around someone else.
Then he realised how awkward it was that he was watching his friend sleep.
Averting his eyes, Taras looked for something else to do... only to see Skye looking at the soundly-sleeping pair as well. After testing the dimension's malleability, he materialised a cup of tea into his free hand and sipped it. "So... This place hers or yours?" he asked Skye, hoping that this situation would somehow become less awkward.
 
"Hers." Skye responded with amusement at Taras' reäction. "Mine is this kind of...windy place. It's not very exciting." She looked at Taras, trying to find something to say that could make the situation more bearable. They were both knights, raised and trained for combat. That was common ground. She grinned as she thought of what to say. "So. How many did you break? I've at least a couple. Probably an achievement that I'm not just dead, at that. Helluvan ordeal, getting smacked around like that."

After a couple more minutes, Laurelle woke up. She groggily raised her head, realization gradually dawning on her. She half-scrambled to her feet (foot, really), twisting her leg as she did so. It amazed Skye, that girl's capacity for pain. Does she even feel it at all? Is that like...a condition that exists? Maybe she uses magic.
Laurelle looked warily at Skye and Taras. "...How long have you two been up?"
 
"Hell if I know," Taras replied with grim mirth. "Hurts like nothing else, though." The thief was starting to get up. Judging from how little of a care she gave about the horrifying sight that was her leg, all bent and twisted around, Taras was glad that he didn't have to fight her after all. "Five, ten minutes," he guessed in reply to her question.

A few moments later, Demi was finally waking up, sitting up slowly and letting out a little groan as she stretched her arms. Contrary to the battered rest of the group, Demi looked more like she was waking up from a restful sleep rather than a blackout. She looked at the other three people in the room, slightly embarrassed, before standing. "Your leg, Laurelle," she murmured to remind her pain-tolerant friend of what had happened during the fight with the elemental last... night? How long had it really been? Whatever the case, Demi felt rested, much more rested than she would've felt after sleeping for just a few hours.
"Guess we're going to take turns casting healing spells, huh?" Taras asked, aware of the breakage inside his own chest.
 
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"No." Laurelle said, leaning against a wall. "I'm the one with the expertise, so I'll handle all of it." She sat down, stretching her broken leg out and leaning against the wall. She examined the bone, straightening it out until it was in a mostly normal position. Then she whispered an incantation, running her fingers along her leg. After several minutes and several spells, she stood, experimentally testing her weight on her bad leg. "Good enough. Not completely healed, but that'll come in time." Despite just resting, she looked visibly tired. "Skye, come over here." The knight obediently stood and walked up to Laurelle. "Pull up your shirt, the spell doesn't work through your clothes." The light mage said in a flat, clinical voice. Sheepishly, the wind mage obeyed. Casting a couple spells, Laurelle set a hand on her friend's stomach. "Doesn't look too bad. I think your ward protected you from most of it. By the way, this will hurt, I think. Theoretically. It'll be over quickly, though." She spoke the words of a spell, and Skye immediately cried out, resisting the urge to lurch backward. After about ten seconds of consistent chanting to maintain the healing process, Laurelle stopped. Skye uneasily stepped away from her.
"It should be fine now. Not totally healed, so don't go flying into any walls again."
"R-right..." The knight said. She was feeling greatly sobered by the whole ordeal, despite her joke with Taras. She was ready to just get the whole thing done with and drink the night away.
"Taras. You're next."

After the medic had performed a similar operation on the knight-turned-mercenary, she looked almost as exhausted as last night. She paid it no mind, however. Soon, she carried the group out of Prismsphere. She recommended the knights don their armor again, due to the potentially dangerous nature of Cygnus. She also changed from her tight, practical outfit back to her gray traveling dress and rainbow cloak.
They reäppeared standing near the building, not very far away from the giant hole in the street that the earth elemental had risen from. The sun was high in the sky, shining the light of midday. Most of the ice was thawed, but the debris had been left where it lay. It seemed noöne in the city cared enough to clean it up. Skye wondered just how long the remains of the elemental would lay there.

When they arrived at Hawke's office, he opened the door almost immediately when Laurelle knocked. She wearily held up the sheaf of papers they had gone through so much trouble to get. "Excellent, excellent!" The scholar exclaimed. "Come in, come in. I have your reward ready, although it will be tomorrow before I'll have copied my notes, so you can claim that reward too if you linger in the city just a little longer."
He led the group to a back room, unlocking the magically-locked door with a command word. Inside were three large wooden chests. He opened each one, displaying the Alixien gold Talents that filled them to the brim. "All of this is yours. It's a fairly large portion of my payment, but the research that Fen is offering me is far more valuable anyway. Go ahead and take it, divide it among yourselves as you wish." It seems Hawke had not noticed the addition of Taras, in his haste. Or he chose not to comment. "I do believe our contract is fulfilled, then, as soon as I get a copy of my research to you."
 
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Demi's entertainment at watching Taras's embarrassment in the face of a simple healing spell was probably worth the whole ordeal. He said little as they made their way to Hawke, though he stifled laughter as Demi's eyes practically glittered at the sight of all the money. She certainly hasn't changed, he thought. "Seems like changing sides really paid off this time," he said nonchalantly in Hawke's presence, the researcher seeming too excited about getting his papers back to care how it had been done.
"Just one question, Hawke," Demi said. "Where's the finest drink in this city sold?"
Taras, unable to restrain his laughter any more, excused himself to the back of the party.
 
"Hmm." Hawke thought for a moment. "There's a bar, a few blocks away from here. Doesn't really have a name, but the sign is a picture of a horse, so that's what most folks call it. I don't drink, personally, but I've heard that place has the best alcohol in town."
While he talked, Laurelle warped the chests to Prismsphere. When she returned, she was carrying a small sack bulging with the coins. "I put the rest of them on the first floor of the Spire. We can divvy them up later, but this should be enough to pay for your...expenses, Demi." She grinned at her friend.
 
"So I'm buying, is that it?" Demi said with a giggle. "Fine by me." She turned to Hawke and bowed. "Been a pleasure working with you, Sir Hawke!"
Taras met up with the group outside when he had finally gotten his own giggling under control. He and Demi were soon face-to-face with each other, their faces blank and sober. Guessing correctly that she didn't want him around for the celebration, he spoke. "I've got some stuff to take care of in Iceflow. Mind if I excuse myself for now?"
"Not at all," Demi replied, shaking her head. He really was giving her space. She pressed some of the money into his free hand, knowing that he needed it. It was enough to buy a few meals.
"Then I'll meet you three when we're ready to leave town. You know how to reach me if you need me." The etching on his sword glowed, and he began to add "And if you're gonna black out, for the love of all that's good make sure someone's got your bac—" He winked out of existence as he warped.
"Well, that's that," Demi said, pleased that Taras was gone for now. "Now then, we've got a horse to find."
 
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It took them only a few minutes to find the bar Hawke spoke of. It didn't look like much, but a sample confirmed the scholar's words: This was, very definitely, good booze. After Skye and Demi purchased ample amounts of alcohol, contained in several jugs and bottles, they warped to Vada, appearing outside of the pool that Demi had bathed in, during her last visit. Skye looked around, sweating in her armor. "You have a good place to go sit down and get drunk?" She asked. She was feeling more cheerful at the prospect of drinking Demi under the table. Laurelle smiled, although she didn't plan to drink very much. "That cave we were in last time?" She suggested.
 
"Better idea," Demi replied. She led Skye and Laurelle into the cave that they had been in before, but up a scarcely-noticeable tunnel, which sloped upward and whose floor eventually gained a stair-like feel. They eventually ended up higher in the wall-like structure, in a large room which was obviously decorated ro resemble a dining hall, the floor covered by a patchwork of rugs of many different colors and a table in the middle. Several items of food and drink lay around, and although a few razards could be spotted basking on the ledges of the holes in the wall that so eerily resembled windows, they didn't seem interested. A gust of wind blew momentarily, the magical mist of Vada dispersing from the dewy haze it had collected into on the ceiling. With this, the razards giggled and threw themselves off the ledges to the rocks below, in search of a greater patch of mist. It seemed that they did not concern themselves with the pain of falling from this height.

"I bid you welcome to the banquet hall," Demi said proudly, lighting the large candles that were most proximate to the table after depositing the large amount of drink that she'd been carrying, not nearly as heavy in this dimension as it was in the material plane. The fact that she had put a lot of time into this room in the past showed on her beaming face. "Also, Laurelle..." She raised a finger with one hand while holding what would be her first drink with the other. "I kind of promised Skye that we'd do this as a group, sooooo..." She chuckled mischievously as she poured the bottle of ale into one of several mugs that already rested on the table, holding the mug up. "Cheers!"
 
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Laurelle laughed. "Just don't expect me to drink as much as you two do." She said. "I could drink you under the table, though." She grinned, sitting down at the table and taking a small sip.
Skye, on the other hand, drained much of her mug in one gulp. "Cheers!" She said, well, cheerfully, taking another drink.
"So," She said, wanting to get her companions talking so she could see how their speech and mannerisms changed as they got drunk. "How much do you guys know about this Magus guy?"
 
"I'd like to see you try," Demi said to Laurelle, re-filling her glass to take another drink. Having such a helping in a small amount of time was already affecting her slightly. "Well, he's a guy," Demi started about Magus, chuckling. "And a magus! ... Er, a really good sage. The original one, in fact. Maybe." She shrugged. "Dunno much else about him. Prob'ly has a huge beard... Oh, Laurelle! If you're not gonna join in the competition... can you keep score?" She looked at Skye, who also seemed to be working on her mug. "We're both at about one so far, righ—" She shoved an arm into her face as she burped, a consequence of drinking so quickly.
 
"I saw him once, almost eleven years ago now." Laurelle said. "When I was still getting into larceny in Kosma, he visited the city I was in. That was right after a new High Archmage had been crowned, I think." She leaned back, taking another sip. "He said something I didn't really understand about Arcane theory and the connection between Focus and mage, and then he left. As far as I know, that was the last time anyone saw him in public. Right afterwards he went into seclusion. He's a pretty average looking guy, actually. If he wasn't so famous I wouldn't be able to remember what he looked like. He's a little tall and has plain facial features and messy black hair and a short black beard. Probably tinged with gray, by now. He's getting up there in years. He always wore this blue robe and cloak with the symbol of an unfurling scroll on it. It wasn't even that fancy. For the most powerful man in the world, he certainly doesn't look it."
Skye listened intently, drinking all the while. "Sounds like...a pretty weird dude." Her speech was beginning to slur together, ever so subtly. "I mean, blue robes?" She giggled. "Whooo wears blue robes anymore?"
 
"What's this, a fashion-aware knight?" Demi asked Skye, following with a drink so she wouldn't fall behind. Blue robes were indeed not in vogue, even in the academies of Estillia. The ale was a lot stronger than she had bargained for, and she suspected that it would take even less time than she expected for her to metamorphose into a giggling mess. "You ride a unicorn into battle too?" She poured herself another drink, an unfettered smile of determination letting itself onto her face. "Hope you like bein' called 'lightweight', 'cause that's gonna be yer nickname by the time we're done here! Both o' you, in fact!" She tossed her robe flying across the room, not wanting to spill on it as she continued drinking in her shirt and shorts.
 
Skye grinned, draining her third mug. "A unicorn?" She said. "What an...intrashting idea!" She chuckled. "If ya could be sho kind as to find me one, I'd ride around on tha damn thing all day! Ya think unicorns can fly? I've aaalways wanted to fly. Do ya wanna fly with me, Demi?" She giggled. She clumsily filled another mug, spilling ale on the table. "I'll outdrink ya sho hard you'll be..." She wracked her brain, trying to think of a good flying pun. Her alcohol riddled mind came up with nothing. "Uh, that you'll be shleepin' in those fancy spriiings 'round here..." Save!

Laurelle took another sip, still on her first cup. She preferred wine to ale, but no matter what she drank she didn't have much at a time. A life of crime was a dangerous one, and you always needed to be high strung and have all your wits about you. She enjoyed seeing her friends having fun with it, however.
 
"'Course I do, Skye!" Demi said, filling her mug again. Skye was going at a faster pace than Demi had guessed she would. Nonetheless, she was determined not to be left in the dust. "We're gonna fly so 'igh, we... wait f'r it..." She took a drink before slamming her mug down. "We're gonna go righ' through the SKYE!" She pointed at Skye, leaning on the table, now constantly giggling. "Oh, what's 'a matter, already spillin' a li'l bit?" She re-filled the mug again, spilling a substantial amount herself. "Heeeey L'reeee~lle, you better pick up the pace 'fore we drink all th' aaale!" Laurelle... Ale... Laur-ale... Kinda rhymes, right? she thought to herself, only aware that now she thought that this was downright hilarious rather than just silly. "We're gonna drink e'ry drop, right Skye? Think you c'n 'andle that?"
 
Skye threw her head back and laughed for several seconds at Demi's pun. Why didn't I think of that?
"Hah!" She said out loud. "Ye didn' buy enough if we're drinkin' it all righ' now! I'll drink ya under the table!" She repeated her threat, giggling a little more. She took another gulp and leaned over the table, propping her head on her folded arms as she watched her companions. For the first time, she realized, she was closely studying the tattoos on Laurelle's face. She wondered what other tattoos she had, not managing to remember in her current state. "Heeeey Lorrrrry-elle! Why doncha show us yer tat--" She stumbled over the word. "Tattooies? Er, colorrful marksh!" Does she have those things ALL over her body...? Skye thought.

Laurelle just laughed, sipping from her mug. She was almost halfway through it, now.
 
"Yeeeaahhh, what's th'coolest one ya got?" Demi added, leaning in on the table similarly, tilting her mug upward to drink more after burping again. "Oh, Skyyyskyskyskyskye!" She pointed at Skye again. "Yer face is reeally rrrred... Still up f'r more?" Her own face was blushing madly, warm from all the sudden drinking. "'r mayyybe it's 'cause o' L'rellle?" She asked, giggling more often than not at this point.
 
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Skye blushed even redder, staring at the table. "Don't be shtupid! I'm...only curious!" She took another drink. "Beshides! Yer the one sleepin' with 'er!" She giggled outrageously. "Aaaall curled up on the floor..."

Even Laurelle blushed at that one. She thought of interjecting with a quick "I didn't have much a choice in my condition" but decided the pair would probably ignore it.

Skye had emptied another mug and was sloshing alcohol over the table trying to refill it. She succeeded eventually, though. "Soo whaddya shay to that, Demi?" She said, laughing. "Ya got feelin's...?"
 
Demi gasped, her face somehow getting even more red. "I— she— um, no, uh, but..." She shook her head, still laughing for some reason. "She's th' one who does it!" she said, gesturing toward Laurelle. "Admit it! Yer a cuddle-bug, L'rell!" Seeing Laurelle blush, Demi interpreted that as a triumph. "In th' nighttime when it's allll dark 'n' cooold... You jus' snuggle riiight up, don' ya..." Already mostly on top of the table by now, she leaned toward Laurelle. "So why'r y' askin' me if I got feelings, Skye? You got some feelings o' yer ooowwn?" She giggled even more when she saw Laurelle's hair behaving as hair was wont to do in Vada. "'n' take a look a' that 'air! Yer jus' like a li'l kitty-cat, Skye!"
 
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