Jillian sulked as she marched towards the pond and the elder dragon on dirty feet, not once deigning to look back. Her steps were determined and quick, uncaring of the weeds and grasses she unwittingly stomped into the ground. At one point on the way, she had to halt her single-minded advance to let out a painful cough, so violent it almost made her heave again, followed by a foul curse under her breath. She spat on the ground and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before resuming her journey, now less hasty and furiously.

She had gone too far, she thought, and now reaped the consequences of her exertion. Draining one’s reserves to their limit once was harsh enough an experience, one that made most mages wary of falling into the later phases of exhaustion again, but what Jillian had gone through trumped even that by a large margin; she had entered third phase twice in the span of less than twelve hours, enabled only by Gerald’s miraculous ability to replenish her quicker than should be naturally possible. Alas, the body is not as quickly replenished as the soul is, and with a body already as frail as hers, Jillian could consider herself very lucky that she would only suffer from painful coughs and what felt like she was about to catch a cold. Little did she suspect that the primal, nurturing energy of the Anaxim forest played their part more than luck did as far as her health was concerned.

Meanwhile, her approach, unsubtle as it had been, awoke the dormant dragon who slowly came to, certainly intrigued to learn who this woman was he was asked to rescue. In spite of his enormous size and fearsome appearance, it seemed that Jillian was either unafraid or simply ignorant to the danger that Renold posed, for she approached the creature almost casually. When the Green swung his head around to face her, she was standing by the lakeside between the water and the dragon’s flank, appearing a mere dwarf next to the majestic beast. Just as he was curious about the little red-haired woman, she too wanted to learn more about this dragon; ever since her encounter with Lailonsaire, she had felt oddly drawn towards their kind, as if feeling a kind of unusual kinship with them. Simply looking at Renold’s grand visage fascinated the witch, her viridian eyes eagerly studying every curvature and feature of the dragon’s face.

“Ah, you’re awake,” the Green remarked, his voice so deep and powerful that Jillian felt the vibrations of it in her body. In spite of the rumbling, earthen sound that his words made, she could not help but feel that there was an underlying harmony to them. Not quite a melody perhaps, but a rhythm and flow that was absent from a human’s words, one that she found pleasant to listen to, calming even. It helped to ease her mind of the distress that the insolent necromancer had caused her, and forget about her miserable condition at least for a moment.

As Renold spoke, he made an attempt at a smile, one which to most would have seemed friendly and warm, but to Jillian felt immediately off and empty. She knew this kind of smile well, the kind that one wears to obfuscate one’s true thoughts and feelings. Lords and ladies, magistrates and merchants, the rich and the famous; they all learned quickly to wear this smile as one would don a mask at a masquerade. Nobody should know that their lives are just as dirty as that of a peasant, if not worse; stained with sins, mired in worry and regret, weighed down by guilt. Smiles like Renold’s hid many ugly things, and Jillian had seen some of them, for she knew how to pry open sealed hearts. In this case, she did not have to guess what it was that stung Renold like a thorn – it was the demise of the dragon sisters, a tragedy that caused her grief as well, though doubtlessly not as much as it did to the Green. Thinking of it, she did not actually know his relation to Lailonsaire, and the other dragon that she had unfortunately not been able to witness. Were they his mates? Daughters? Distant relatives? Both he and Lailonsaire were Greens so, she assumed, it would not be unthinkable that they were related. No matter what kind of bond they shared, she could read the pain from his great yellow eyes like lines from a book.

“Well met, little one,” the elder dragon continued, not dwelling on his sorrow, “I am Renold. How-“

He suddenly interrupted his introduction, his eyes torn loose from the tiny witch to gaze leftwards, in the direction of Gerald. For a moment she wondered if that one had done something to catch the dragon’s attention so vividly, a suspicion that she believed almost confirmed when she began to sense magical energy emanating from the necromancer’s general direction. Wanting to see what was going on, she hushed past the great dragon’s side, stopping by his right paw to inquisitively peek past Renold’s enormous body. She was just in time to realize that it had, in fact, not been Gerald’s doing, but something else entirely, something far more powerful than even the seasoned necromancer. A blinding light spawned from nowhere, bathing the rocky meadow in its arcane luminance while a monotone noise seemed to penetrate everything. Shielding her eyes, Jillian had no idea what she was looking at; the only thing she knew for certain was that great magical energy was contained within this light. As for where this energy came from, and why, no answers were to be found yet.

Then, in a sudden twist of fate, the light instantly disappeared, only to be replaced by its polar opposite; a globe of immaculate darkness, so deep and hungering that it felt not only deeply unsettling, but also… familiar. A shiver ran down Jillian’s fragile spine as she thought about the darkness contained within Gerald’s own soul, the Withering. If she were to visualize what she had felt in their moment of spiritual unity, this would be it. This orb of devouring blackness was the perfect representation of what the Withering was. Instinctively, Jillian shuffled closer to Renold’s massive paw, putting a tiny hand on his wrist and feeling the rough surface of his ancient scales. Lacking the finer senses of a necromancer, Jillian could not feel the flow of energy from the orb out of it and back into it; she merely felt that energy was present, and in large quantities. With every second that she peered into the bottomless dark, she became more distressed, further until she thought she could no longer bear it and had to do something about it – scream, run, hide, or cast spells into the gaping maw of shadow. Alas, she did none of that, and was stumped when the black sphere vanished in the blink of an eye, as if it had never existed, along with the piercing noise that she had almost forgotten, and was only reminded of by its sudden absence.

It took a second or two for her to realize that, as certain as the arcane phenomenon was gone, something else was present that had previously not been. Where the spectacle had unfolded but a moment ago, there were now two persons! Before even inspecting the unexpected guests, Jillian came to a startling realization that filled her with awe and excitement: teleportation! She had just witnessed a spell of teleportation! It took an enormously powerful magus to successfully execute such a spell, not only because it required monstrous amounts of energy, but because so many things could go wrong in the process. Only very few individuals in Rodoria would be capable of such a feat; Jillian strongly doubted even Gerald could do such a thing. Yet here she was, a witness to the incredible miracles of magic once more - it seemed she was destined to encounter greater magics than her own ever since setting foot outside of Zerul. One thought echoed in her mind as if spoken aloud in a great cavern: [i]I want this. I need this.[/i]

So awe-inspired was she by the events before her that she did not notice her mouth standing agape, and it took a while before she caught herself enough to actually look at those responsible for this most mesmerizing of magical displays. The first person to catch her eyes was Crone, a person aptly named as she would find out, as it was the most withered and ancient-looking person Jillian had ever seen. Wrapped in gray, woolen tatters, she knelt beside a wounded individual whose features she could only vaguely make out from this angle, as he lay in the swaying grass. She could not quite put her finger on it yet, but his features seemed familiar. Maybe one of the defenders from Gariel Downs, whom she had caught a glimpse of? She would find out soon, certainly.

Jillian knew not who these people were, unlike her companions who both exclaimed the woman’s name in unison:

“Crone!”

[i]Crone?[/i] Jillian thought. [i]Who goes by such a name?[/i] Her eyes narrowed down, focusing on the elderly woman. [i]I guess it’s a descriptive name, but still… it’s awfully surreptitious. Someone who can teleport at will certainly has much to hide, I imagine. Just who are you, Crone?[/i]

The witch retracted her hand from Renold’s leg and cautiously approached the pair, still keeping a respectable distance to them.