RP:At the Start

Part of the The God of Undeath Arc

Part of the Laugh Now, Cry Later Arc

This is a Mage's Guild RP.

Summary: Valrae looks to Lanlan for advice on how to make progress in ending the cursed wind that still plagues Cenril.

Mage Tower

Dressed against the chill that seemed to linger in the stones of the Mage’s tower no matter the season, Valrae shuffled around the loose paperwork on her desk. She’d fully settled into her newer, larger room as evident by the amount of clutter she’d managed to fill it with. She’d hung vibrantly colored tapestries across the bare stone walls, each of them a depiction of the realms various Goddesses. A forest of thriving plants flourished in every available inch of space surrounding the three wide windows to the west. Firelight and warmth came from the wide hearth that dominated the easternmost wall of the room. There was a cauldron hanging above the flames, in typical witch fashion, and it filled the room with the sweet aroma of vanilla and spice. Candles floated above her dark oak desk and cast the room in moody, dancing shadows. The witch had dispatched an apprentice to summon the Sublime Master, unwilling to make the short walk to his office and leave behind her own work.

"Ah! So this is your office," says Lanlan, leaning on his staff before the threshold. Perhaps after pushing the door open. "It's ideal, isn't it? Spacious, not a lot of traffic this side of the tower. The same reasons I was going to put Odhranos in it while he continues his recovery." A lie, but it could've been true, and that's why they should go through leadership when selecting their offices. Despite the obvious affront to his authority however, Lanlan remained unemotional. Part of him wanted to venture inside, absorb the parts of Valrae that were expressed through home decor. But there was no room for him in there with all the baggage they've yet to unpack. "This is about Cenril," he says knowingly, hoping to make it so if it wasn't. Of the issues they were facing, Cenril's were far simpler to overcome. "Have you made any progress?"

Without looking up from the paper her quill scrawled over, Valrae scoffs. “Sure, if you wanted him to be discovered you could keep him here. Actually…” She looks up through her lashes and points the feathered end of her quill toward a corner behind the colorful seating arrangement in front of her desk. “Prop him on his side there, I’ll put a sheet over his container and turn it into a bar.” It’s several tense heartbeats before she finally looks up from her writing and leans back in her chair with a soft sigh. “It’s about Cenril, yes.” Reaching up, the witch removes a single pin that had held the mass of golden curls atop her head and frees them. She sighs again, pressing her fingers into her temples. “Progress? No. But I had an idea…” She stands, crossing over to a small table near the fire. It was crowded with maps, crystals and a pendulum of clear quartz. Tossing her cloak aside on a nearby chair, Valrae looks back toward the door where Lanlan continued to loom and winged a golden brow. “Well come in. I don’t bite.”

Instead of using one of the many cutting retorts he has prepared, he shows his surprise on his face, and then softens. Gradually, he accepts her invitation and makes his way over to the table, sitting in front of it with his cane between his legs. "Please don't be callous, it's too sad when you do it," he says resting his hands on his cane, and his chin on his hands. Whether she knew it or not, Odhranos was someone he cared deeply about. Trusted. He knew she did too, and using him to punish her made him tired. From across the table he looked curiously at her, and then at the spread. He hoped once he saw what was laid out, it would be clear to him. It wasn't. "What is your idea? Then I can tell you mine." He tried to look optimistic.

With her back turned to him, Valrae frowns. She’d been waiting for some smart retort from Lanlan and felt off center when it never came. The familiar ache of loss returned to its home in her chest, unwelcome company to the guilt that seemed a permanent resident. She’d thought, or hoped, that the relative closeness she’d once shared with Lanlan might return one day. With everything between them now, she didn’t know if the ocean between them could be crossed. The witch hesitates a moment before turning. “I’m sorry.” The words tumbled from her lips before she could stop them. She doesn’t elaborate. Instead, Valrae waves a hand at the map of Cenril behind her. “I thought we could do something about the wind while we wait on Kanna’s research. What, I don’t know. But it’s keeping trade on the coast at a standstill. The sea is nearly impossible to travel safely and it’s crippling Cenril. Something has to be done.” She pauses, pulling her lower lip between her teeth out of nervous habit. “So, it’s not so much an idea as it is a… General direction.” Embarrassment bloomed pink on her cheeks. Usually, she would have followed this trail of thought toward an idea on her own before bringing it to anyone.

Lanlan must not have heard her right, because it sounded like she apologized. His eyes widen at her and his mouth opens to speak…But he doesn’t. Instead, he becomes extremely interested in what else she has to say. “Oh! A map of Cenril, I’d know it anywhere. Of course the wind has been a plague on that city.” Poor choice of words. “Nono, it’s valid, because even if we somehow heal the citizens who’ve been cursed, more will succumb until we find the cause. We have to do this first. Prudent as always!” Who is he right now? When was she ever prudent? He stood up from his seat and got a closer look at the map, an extremely close look. He couldn’t even see her looking abashed from this angle. “The wind blows from the sea doesn’t it? I don’t know if there’s a source. But if there was one, I bet it’s somewhere out there.” He was looking very intently at a wide open space on the map.

The ghost of a smile tilts the corners of her red painted lips. This was clearly just as painful for him as it was her. “I had no idea I was known for my prudence. In fact, I’m fairly certain I’ve been accused of being impulsive and quick tempered on more than one occasion.” She could have accepted the compliment and continued whatever strange play they’d been performing, but where was the fun in that? Valrae taps a pink polished nail on the sea toward the edge of the map. “Yes, from here.” She turns to face the map with him, leaning close enough that their shoulders brush. Her awareness of their shared awkwardness fades to background music as she focuses on the issue at hand. “But I don’t know how we could find the source of the wind? I know it’s supernatural, so maybe there is a starting point somewhere but I wouldn’t know where to begin and it’s not like we could search the entire channel between Cenril and Rynvale’s ports. The waters are too unpredictable now.” Her nail taps repetitively as she turns the problem over in her mind. “I don’t remember enough about the night on the boat… If I could have noticed the direction of the wind or something. I just remember screaming, the blood…” Valrae takes a step back as a tremble runs through her.

Lanlan’s tongue stumbles as she corrects him with a jab…at herself? “Impulsive? Quick tempered?” As he sifted quickly through memories of her, he realized: the words summarized almost every experience with her. And now he was taking too long to follow up with something convincing. “Maybe uhh sometimes.” Now he looks back at her, expecting…what? Not what could be the twinkle of a grin. Okay. Some tension subsides. “Where am I on here,” he wonders aloud as their shoulders touch. Some breath he’d been holding frees itself. “If I’m here…” He points to a spot on the coast, not quite where he lives, but close. “That boat,” he says. And he shudders as well. He spins away from the map, as if that haunted wreck was floating on its paper and not miles and miles away from them. “Sometimes when its not shrouded in mist I can see it from my window. Sometimes,” he goes on, “I imagine I can hear it breathing, whispering about the doom we all face. I keep my shades drawn, now,” he says with a bashful laugh. He’s reluctant to admit to the terror it inspires with its visage alone.

Valrae corrects him quickly, pointing her finger just next to where he’d landed. “There… Making the boat somewhere over here.” She watches his face as Lanlan continues, echoing her own haunted feelings toward the damned ruins of the ship. No one had wanted to go anywhere near it after the night it had burned. Truthfully, it was some sort of twisted joke of fate that the fire Kasyr had started hadn’t sent it to the bottom of the sea. Now it only loomed off of Cenril’s shores as an ominous reminder of the disaster that the night had turned into and the curse that still shambled on the streets of the lower end. The witch gives him a sympathetic smile as he admits to keeping the curtains closed. She imagined she’d do the same. But something about the ship and its refusal to sink plucked a cord in her mind. There was a moment of hesitation written on her face, as if she didn’t truly want to offer what idea that had suddenly taken root. “Lan…” She breathes his name first, her tone dark. “We have to go back to that ship.”

His shy smile quickly became a look of dread as he saw the truth in her darkening demeanor. “No Valrae,” he warns when she last utters his name. She continues anyway, of course, exposing the fresh and inevitable truth. He breathes in as slowly and as deeply as he possibly can. Then lets it out. “Then really the only reasonable place to accommodate the Archmage…is in the Archmage’s chambers!” He says as if the sour revelation never happened. “I’ll trust you to keep him alive, he’s already stable as it is…What an honor! No, I know it’s a big responsibility but if those unsavory cannibals in Vailkrin can do it…” he continues to ramble on, fueling his own tangent endlessly and would continue to blather on until he died or was stopped.

Valrae’s golden brows arch. Her arms cross as she leans against the table, dark eyes firmly locked on Lanlan as he quickly changes the subject and follows that path. She didn’t say anything for a long moment, content to let him ride that train of thought on his own. In truth, she was a little curious to see how far he would go without any help. Eventually though, the witch clears her throat and interrupts him. “You can’t keep him in the Archmage’s chambers, Lanlan.” She rolls her eyes for punctuation. “Where is the first place anyone will go to look for the Archmage? Are you really prepared to keep up whatever wards and safeguards you would need to place to keep out a tower full of clever and resourceful mages?” Val shakes her head. “We need a cellar or a room that no one ever cares to go into. Somewhere boring and not interesting to the apprentices.” Now her eyes narrow. “And that isn’t what we were talking about. We have to go back to the boat. If we’re going to stop the wind, we’re going back to the boat.” She didn’t stop to consider why she’d automatically included Lan in her royal ‘we’. The truth was, if she was going to trust anyone enough to help her with the mess that Cenril had become, Lan was somehow the first person she thought to turn to. She didn’t want to examine that, so she wouldn’t look too closely. “You know I’m right.”

Lanlan was very interested in Valrae's input regarding Odhranos. He hooked her in! "Really you think they'd just barge into the arch mages quarters without permission?" He smiled mischievously at the thought. "Those devious little mages, it's because we taught them so well! Obviously the first rule of controlling magic is to break all the rules isn't it? Or find out how. What a puzzle. Then yes we'd have to prepare sufficient wards, illusions to displace them, and redundancies! I suppose it would be wrong to use pain as a deterrent and simply saying "No" would only inspire curiosity." He didn't stop "But a cellar? Absolutely not I hated seeing him wasting away in there. Humans need sunlight to thrive, didn't you know that?" But she was done indulging his distraction. And he couldn't mask the worry, it was seeping through his thoughts and showing on his face, in his antsy hands as he fiddled with more of her superstitious junk. "Valrae we can't go back there. Something is telling me we can't. Intuition maybe." She may have taken for granted that he would accompany her, after all they were in this together, but he thought of uninviting himself. Unfortunately he couldn't voice that. What if she went anyway and found something lying in wait among the undead barnacles? He was cornered. "You might be right but... You aren't ready for this. You just died!” but let's move past that as quickly as possible. "And think of how cold it will be! And who's rowing? Are you rowing? I'm not rowing. And..." What if what happened to Kanna happens to them? This is why he has to go. "We leave at the first sign of danger." He leaves before she gets a chance to argue, cutting short whatever else they had to talk about.