[color=#88C070][center][h2][b]Chapter 1: A Higher Calling[/b][/h2]

[h3]Rialza, several weeks ago[/h3][/center][/color]

Fayvre looked down impassively at the gaping, infected wound as she removed the maggots with tongs one by one. Even when her activities revealed bare bone, she did not flinch. The screams and protestations of the unanaesthetised soldier were only met with firm instruction to stop squirming, as it was making Fay’s job harder. Once, his convulsions caused her tongs to scrape the bone, and after waiting for the grown man’s tearful howling to be finished, she crossly chided him, telling him that it was his own fault for not staying still. 

She gave him a glass of whiskey, and a toothmark-ridden wooden bit, as she went to wash her hands. She returned with a knife to cut away the rotten flesh. The next hour was full of screaming and thrashing. Fay rolled her eyes and wished that surgeons were allowed shackles. That would make this so much easier. With all that done, Fay walked over to her shelves to choose an antiseptic, she chose not to apply lavender or St. John’s wort, but instead opted for lemon juice. [color=#88C070][i]’He deserves it for making it hard for me’[/i][/color] she thought. Or at least she believed it was her own thought.

[color=#88C070]”This will sting,”[/color] she warned with a subtle twist of a smile, as she squeezed the lemon juice into the infected wound and for the first time today, didn’t mind the exclamations  of pain so much this time. After that was done, she sewed the wound shut and applied leeches to aid with the clotting process, and fetched the soldier another whiskey.

[color=#88C070][i]’I’m not enjoying this,’ [/i][/color] she mused, or at least the musings entered her head, and she thought them to be her own. [color=#88C070][i]’This is nothing like the helping of the sick that used to happen at Wood’s Edge, where maladies were mysterious in nature and I had to use my brain. Now everybody wants wounds treated, but hollers and protests when I treat them. City folk are soft and hard to please. I can’t stay here and be happy.  I need to leave.’[/i][/color] Yes, she sighed. But where to go?

That night, while Fay was asleep, Quoris whispered to the girl all night, promises of a higher calling. Of opportunities to put her brain to the test and conduct research the likes of which has never been undertaken before. She promised these things would be found to the west, to Silverwick. She whispered promises of more morsels of forbidden knowledge than what Quoris had currently been slipping into her thoughts so subtly she had no idea she hadn’t thought of them herself. Eventually, Quoris would have to present herself to Fay before they reached their destination and hope that the Wrelmsman girl didn’t figure out that all the secrets in her head were Quoris’, or that her decision to poison her father and leave him crippled and abandoned, were both Quoris’.

Fay woke up the next morning, with an inexplicable desire to travel to the ruins of Silverewick. She did find this strange, but it was an excuse to leave behind this damned City and go somewhere new. The prospect of travelling was admittedly rather exciting. Without thinking too hard about why Silverwick in particular, she was already packed and her surgery closed by sunrise, and made her way to the stables.
 
[hr][hr]

[color=#88C070][center][h3]Silverwick, Today[/h3][/center][/color]

Turns out that riding on horseback for prolonged periods of time was very different to riding them for hours at the most whilst hunting. Several days in and she was so sore she could barely walk once she dismounted. Travelling was slow going, with many stops for no other reason than to rest. She also hunted game to eat, and whenever their route took them to a Town or City, to stop by to feed and water the horse, and eat a hot meal and sleep in a real bed for a night. Then, feeling completely reinvigorated, she would carry on the journey. The days she spent her life like this were grueling and seemingly endless, but she never once desired to return to Rialza, to her surgery. What she was doing right now was exciting, and like nothing she had ever done before. She was seeing and visiting places she'd only heard of in books, letters and stories, never imagining she would ever get to experience them herself. She really started to wonder if she'd ever return to Rialza. Even if it was her home, she knew that the answer was likely no. What was left for her there? A job she hates, and a family she's too ashamed to be around? No, Silverwick is her future now.

About a week into her journey, the whispering started. They felt like thoughts, but they were forceful, and alien, and seemed to be talking to her directly, like a voice whispering from over her shoulder. [color=#88C070][i]’My name is Quoris,’[/i][/color] the voice whispered. [color=#88C070][i]’I will be your guide and your mentor on this journey to Silverwick. All will be clearer when we arrive.’[/i][/color]

Fay was scared at first, and all her attempts to try and 'reply' to this voice were met with silence. But over time she learned to get used to this guiding voice. Quoris was a member of the Shadow Legion, and her spirit had chosen to help Fay, as in Quoris' eyes, they were both of a scientific mind. Fay was slightly scared upon hearing that Quoris was of the Shadow Legion, but liked to have some company, any company, during her solitary travel, besides the horse. Eventually when Fay asked about medicinal questions, Quoris started to answer, and she was incredibly wise and knowledgeable. Fay was elated that there was somebody she finally could talk to about her passion! After weeks of this, Fay would even go as far as to say she had a certain amount of trust in Quoris, though she never really forgot that the voice was of a Shadow Legion member.

She arrived at Silverwick some time in the evening, and after dismounting and tying up her horse, dropped straight to her knees and started to massage her legs. When she could walk, she entered the ruins proper to see a lone woman, tending to a fire. Fay approached tentatively. She didn't actually know what to expect when she got here, but even so was still confused and at a loss for what to say. 

[color=#88C070]"Hello? I'm...I'm Fayvre."[/color] she greeted weakly.