Solange smiled as the woman took the bait and snatched the glass of wine, downing some of the drink without even a sniff of the contents or a question of intent. She had no answer to the question of how Solange could be so sure things would run smoothly outside of knowing that it would be smooth if everyone were so eager to follow her lead like Y’vanna was eager to drink the shite wine. Fortunately, there was no need for her to find a way to word the thought in such a way that didn’t seem so desperately power hungry as Vargas joined them at the table and shifted all eyes on to him. Solange sat back and squared her shoulders as she watched him with one raised eyebrow and tried to get a read on how he reacted to Solange giving herself a promotion.
She was happy to see him play along with the act as she was happy for holding her tongue instead of burying herself alive or digging herself out right before hitting gold. Solange hid her smirk behind her fist as Maréngo did a number crunch. From what she could tell, Vargas wasn’t angry with her at all. In fact, she bet the sucker was so head-over-heels for her that he’d let the whole fake partnership thing become a reality. What an idiot! If only she dreamed so little that sharing success would satisfy her. Solange had no desires for a real partnership with anyone, let alone someone as small time as Vargas. She was much more interested in acquisitions. In due time…
"...unless of course you know someone else who can gather up all your gear and have you ready to leave harbor by the noon time tomorrow? Eh?"
“I know of one,” said Solange, narrowing her eyes and raising her head as she stared down her nose at Vargas. He would know that she was referencing Fontaine. She had said it only to make him squirm. Vargas might be good, but Fontaine was better—and so much more dangerous. Admirable, if she wasn’t the enemy. Solange chuckled ever so lightly and relaxed her stare, “But she’s sitting right here.”
“Honestly, dear, it’s a better deal than what I would’ve offered, and considering you already gave me the what and the where regarding this potential treasure horde you should really consider it a blessing that an offer is even being made at all,” said Solange, turning to Y’vanna. “A less honest and greedier man would’ve laughed you out of the room and then chartered a ship to keep the coin all to himself. Might’ve even gutted you to avoid any kind of competition on the way.”
Still could, she thought and smiled at Vargas, curious to see if he could read her thoughts.
“I would say we should raise a glass in toast for sealing the deal and getting rich in the future, but as you can see,” Solange gestured to the missing drink that should be in front of her. “I might have to get them myself if Percival takes much longer.”
There was a growing number of dead, but none of them appeared to be from the ranks of the would-be adventurers. Hazel appeared to struggle as she held up the weight of the large, dead man, turning ever so slightly to get a better view of the fight. Arrows were loosed, spears were thrusted, notes were taken, laughter was had, tiny constructs vivesecuted, and a rope was cut. Hazel twisted her partner to take the blast of sand that snuck up under the loosened part of the canvas and watched as more and more clansmen filed in through the hole in the side of the tent and attempted to push past the mountain blocking the entrance. It seemed as if the clansmen were as numerous as the sand itself, more appearing the moment a grain was discarded. Hazel doubted the desert would run low on sand before her companions exhausted.
The voice sounding like an avalanche crushed the sound of fighting, "We require a more robust defensive position. Who here has knowledge of battlefield tactics or the acquisition of defensive fortifications?"
Hazel frowned, but when even the creature with rocks for brains knew the situation was turning desperate then she really could no longer justify holding back. She continued to hold up the Bone Clansman as she spun with him towards the overturned table that had once held the ever-so-coveted map. When the dancing duo got there she yanked the dagger from free his chin, pooled blood cascading down her arm, as she gingerly crumpled to the ground with his body. Hazel nudged it up ever so slightly, hoping that both the corpse and the table would block her from the sightlines of any clansmen, and then sat on her knees. She’d seen how they had descended on Azariah for his magic, and feared the repercussions that’d come with her having to rush her spellcasting.
Uncertain of how hidden she truly was, Hazel planted the dagger into the ground next to her and unlatched her satchel. She wiped the blood on her hand on the cloth of her sash and then snaked her hand around the inside of her satchel to reach into the hidden compartment. She glanced up as she pulled the ancient leather tome out, drew her elbows into her knees, and cracked the book open. She heard the mad laughter of the preacher man still as a few men in bone armor stormed past to rush at Artur’s group, but none seemed to notice her yet. A gust of wind made it appear as if the pages flipped on their own as it opened up to about midway through the tome. Hazel pinned the book open with one hand as the other reached out from her balled-up body and began to claw at the earth below her.
Hazel dug deep so the blowing of the sand would not interrupt or transform her ritual. First, she laid out the blueprint for the barrier. It would be a round bastion of earth about fifteen feet high and just larger than the tent, with one entrance wide enough for Fourteen to squeeze through. The outer walls would be smooth and difficult to climb, while the inner walls would tiered like the seating at a coliseum to allow those inside to get to easily step-up to the top of the parapets and fire down from above. Then, she drew a circle around the design and began to write words of power around the border in an incomprehensible runic language. Almost finished with her ritual, Hazel lifted her head to shout a word of warning at the others.
“Everyone, fallback! Stay within the fire! It won’t harm you!”
Hazel rose her hand and slammed it down into the middle of the design. As the sandstorm continued to tear through the lacerated tent a bright beacon of white flame erupted around Hazel’s palm. The flame produced no heat, no smoke, and didn’t even bend with the wind as it spread from her hand towards the middle of the tent. From there the flame splintered off throughout the tent, diving into the sand and visibly traveling just below the surface before arriving at the outline of Hazel’s fortification. Jets of harmless magical flame began to emerge and burn a few inches out of the ground to denote the border of the fort and form a literal line in the sand of where their crew would want to be once the ritual was complete.
Hazel grabbed her spellbook and rose from the ground, hand outstretched. She raised her hand into the air and began mumbling in some otherworldly language. As she did, the flames surrounding the tent began to rise up as well—one foot, three feet, five. Wind began to wipe white flames around her feet and spiral around her up to her waist, her hair and clothes blowing in the tempest as it eradicated the ritual circle next to her once the spell began to truly form shape in reality. The others would feel the ground quake just below the surface as the earth shifted, the barriers ready to erupt once the flames had hit their peak.
It would only be a matter of seconds before Hazel finished fulfilling Fourteen’s request for defensive fortification beyond the scope they had called for and shifted the fight from a desperate assault to an easily-defended siege. However, seconds was more than enough time to absolutely slaughter someone, and Hazel had just turned herself into a bright, unarmed magical beacon begging to be fed a blade.
Solange managed to maintain the air of confident authority she’d set forth despite the telling stare from the other woman. It was a look that Solange was all too familiar with from working in the brothel. She still found herself annoyed by it even after realizing the power that look gave her, but she’d still take that card and tuck it up her sleeve to turn a losing hand into a winner anyway. Solange didn’t break eye contact from Y’vanna until she fumbled her words, and then instantly she looked away. She shifted her interest onto the sailor, both to drive a little spike of jealousy into the other woman’s heart and to get a sense of him. The sailor chuckled; he had clearly caught on too. Solange smiled at him, unable to resist sharing the moment of superiority.
Naturally the word “lucrative” drew both of them back in. She imagined greed was something all of them at that table shared in common. Solange’s shone eyes as bright as the oil lamps they reflected as the woman spoke of the job. She looked away just once to acknowledge the presence of a new arrival and give him a head nod, as if she was giving him permission to join them at her table. As she listened she idly traced her thumb along the bottom of her lip, her other hand resting over the top of her glass of wine. The thought of an untapped treasure horde was enticing, but there were a few things that concerned Solange. She held them for now and lifted an eyebrow as her latest admirer poured another horn and toppled the empty pitcher upon the table.
“Allow me to take care of that, love,” said Solange. She rose from her seat—Vargas’s seat—and leaned over the table to grab the pitcher and set it down gently.“Once we have come to terms my partner will provide funding for the ship and I will accompany the crew to represent our interest. Oh, my apologies. We haven’t had the pleasure yet. I’m Solange Belgard, Lord Vargas’s business partner,” she said to Neh’miah. The more times the lie was repeated the more comfortable it felt. “I believe what you said about being more valuable than any gods to be true,” said Solange with a smile and a once over. She’d always found value in stroking those with a big ego. Now if only the sailor would reveal himself to her. In due time, she supposed. She glanced through the partition, saw the Vargas was pretty much out of hot air and would have to wrap up shortly, and remained standing.
“We can burn all of the offerings and say all our prayers, but I rather make our own fortune by relying on talent than hoping for a miracle,”she said as she began to circle the table, leaving the chair for Vargas as if it had not been touched at all. She paused behind Maréngo. “Now, we have the captain and myself to get us there.” Solange moved on to the empty chairs, stared at them with a frown, and twisted her hair. “We’d definitely want some more muscle if that other crew pulls together.” Finally, she walked behind Neh’miah and traced a finger along his shoulder as she stared past him to Y’vanna. “And I have an idea as to what the two of you are capable of doing.”
“However, before that—!” Solange twisted around Neh’miah and gingerly slid into the seat opposite the head of the table. That knocked pitcher had given the redhead another theory, and she just couldn’t resist the temptation to toy with it. Solange’s brow darkened as she set her full glass of wine on the stained wood of the table and gently pushed it towards Y’vanna. Her eyes narrowed as she gave the woman a mischievous smile. “Your drink is low, dear. Have mine, it’s untouched." Her face lightened as she leaned back and glanced between the pair of thieves. “Now, I’d love for either of you to tell me that my hypothesis is correct.”
Most of the travelers were quick to agree to Tisa’s terms, some impatiently so. Only one of the strangers had the nerve to even question the delegate. Hazel imagined the shakiness in the young woman’s voice was caused by the rattling of her spine. Of course the person plastered with protective pieces of paper that were likely meant to be some kind of ward would be the one to bring voice to caution. Hazel gave her a soft smile accompanied by a look that balanced between sympathetic and pitying. Even if Tisa had given the girl a satisfying answer and a promising word it wasn’t like any of them would know if it had been wise to trust them until the moment for betrayal had passed. In a way, it would be much like the girl’s talismans—good for the ease of mind, but ultimately nothing more than a false comfort. Hazel found it funny how quick the woman was to rush to calling for the teleportation ritual after even a single voice had questioned their intent. A good omen, surely.
However, the ritual was never completed. Hazel drew in her breath and held it as a screaming person harmonized with the howl of the wind. She did not blink as she saw the body slump against the tent, nor did she avert her eyes as the tent was torn open and sand kicked around as the Bone Clans assaulted their gathering. Hazel watched, her eyes stinging, as a spear was shoved through Tisa’s gut, her only reaction being the slightest raise of an eyebrow. Hazel had thought an Exusian mage would be harder to take down. Turns out, they fell just like everyone else. She didn’t even have time to think about healing the emissary before a robed assailant slit Tisa’s throat. Well, at least their wouldbe killers were merciful. She’d never seen an Ember Maker make it quick.
Hazel stepped back towards the middle of the tent, hand on her sword but blade undrawn. She was a master swordswoman when it came to slaying untrained fieldhands and frail old medicine women, but against actual warriors it was basically a decoration anyway. She watched as Artur began issuing commands, thankful that someone was there to rally them. It gave her a second to observe as the others sprung into action.Hazel glanced over to see one of the clansmen try to take out the Golem. She couldn’t help but snort and shake her head as the stupid idiot got what was coming for him. The short man called forth some kind of mechanical monster to come to his aid, shredding apart the clansman that had attacked its master. It only spurred the fury of more clansmen. The questioning girl raised her crosswbow while another saw to hide, crawling out from under the tent and likely being eviscerated by the enemies outside—a karmic end for fleeing like a coward.
If Hazel had the option she would’ve continued to be an outside observer to all of the carnage and bloodshed, but the warriors of the Bone Clans didn’t respect her wishes. She sighed and rolled her eyes as she drew her sword and dagger as a clasnman rushed her. There wasn’t enough time to pull out her book and even if there was it would be a bad idea. At best casting a spell would make her a priority target for the raiders; at worst it would turn the whole tent against her, or at least what was left of it. The clansman lifted his axe, howling with the wind as he brought it down to split Hazel’s skull with a powerful blow that she caught with the crossguard of her sword and dagger.
Hazel locked the weapon in place as the clansman continued to wail at her, his spittle wetting her face. The axe slid and cut her hand but it did not break free from her guard. Hazel bit her lip as the larger man struggled with her. She backed up as he pushed and pulled against her, and didn’t even blink as one hand let go of the axe to wrap around her neck. She dove her chin down into the hand, a fruitless effort to stop the man from strangling her, and glared up at him as she choked. Her eyes watered as they met his murderous gaze. She grinned. The man was probably strong enough to snap a neck in half if given the opportunity. He didn’t get the chance.
With a surge of strength Hazel kept the axe held back with just her sword as her dagger hand freed itself from the guard. In a flash the blade bit through the inner wrist of the outstretched arm and sliced towards the elbow, cutting open the man like a letter. His howls shifted their tune ever so slightly as his grip around her throat fell. She stepped forward and flicked the dagger up, silencing the sound forever as the point of the blade pushed up under his chin and deep into his skull. Hazel twisted and put her shoulder into the heavy man to keep him propped up as he began to go limp and left her dagger in him to free up her hand so that she could keep his own from falling away from the axe.
Hazel grunted as she continued to tango with the dead dance partner, hoping that the illusion of her still being engaged in battle would give her a quick respite from any other raiders. Hazel turned her attention to the others as the blood dripped down the hilt of her dagger and splattered on the side of her cheek to sense the tide of the battle. Public spells were for desperate situations only, and so far the losses had been anywhere in the range of acceptable to cathartic. There was value in a culling every now and then. Were any more of their would-be adventuring party dead yet, or had the Queen been blessed with a better stock than her own?
A person is only ever as important as others believe them to be.
Solange seemed a paragon of patience as she lounged at the bar, her scientific note taking shifting into a rough, idle tracing of Percival the barkeep. The faintly sketched image was marked with the occasional heavy, dark line, brought upon by the brief moments when her actual frustration at being kept waiting seeped through to the surface. She was quick to cool her head with a sip of wine and a nibble of cheese. The cheese, like the wine, was an expected disappointment, but she felt obliged to attempt to eat it anyway.The food had been a collective gift from the girls, paid for by the coin of the sailors.
Solange hadn’t intended for her visit to the Faded Lantern to turn into a chance to expand her market, but it seemed that word had spread amongst the girls of the tavern. A few more of them had drifted over to her individually after the first one, all with different approaches to similar problems. The exchanges were more brief than the first, and by the time the fourth or fifth girl had sauntered over to drape an arm across her shoulder Solange already had a fold sheet of paper ready, the prescription sliding up from between her long fingers to quickly be plucked away by the other girl as she whispered into Solange’s ear.
Her wrist felt like it was cramping from all of the writing by the time Vargas finally entered the bar proper. She straightened her back and turned in her chair to smile at him, a look that wavered as he turned towards the door. Silently seething, she snatched her goblet and sauntered through the crowd to see what future dead man was keeping her payday away. She lingered behind Vargas, far enough to not be seen as eavesdropping but close enough to attempt to get a bead on the conversation. However, a swell of music and a rowdy cheer from the card table made the task a difficult one. By the time Solange made a move to close in, the other man was already gone.
“Miss Belgard! It has been too long,” said Vargas, stepping in to embrace her.
“My Lord Vargas! I was beginning to worry it would be longer still, darling,” said Solange, welcoming the hug and giving Vargas a quick peck on either cheek. She pulled away rather abruptly, keeping up the act that she was afraid Fontaine would do something if she saw them being friendly. In reality, she didn’t enjoy the company of Lord Vargas very much. Sure, he was a bit handsomer than a majority of the men she dealt with and certainly wealthier than a number of them, but there was just something about him that just annoyed her. She leaned back and looked towards the door. “What was all of that ruckus about?”
“Nothing to worry your pretty head about, my dear. I took care of it, as I always do. Let us talk in private,” he said.
Solange allowed Vargas to take her arm in his and lead her through the tavern. He started to hold a conversation with himself, interrupted by her occasional probe to continue his mindless prattling, as she began to iron out exactly what it was about Vargas that she did not like. Part of it was his condescending nature that he thought to be chivalrous in the way he’d protected her pretty little head from the dark details of something interesting. Part of it was how he had the pretense to call himself Lord, a title he’d bestowed upon himself instead of others giving it to him. A lot of it was how easy he had been to snare, proving to Solange that he didn’t deserve to be a pawn in the game, let alone a major player. Vargas was in love with her lie, and she loathed him for it. Solange motioned to Percival to bring them drinks, the thought of listening to Vargas fawn over her while sober beginning to prove to be a daunting task, as she was pulled upstairs to his personal table.
“...and, I must say, it was truly a marvelous letter, but why didn’t you just come and find me?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” asked Solange, pausing at the top of the balcony to look down at the crowd below. It always felt right. One of the working girls waved at her. She smirked, and turned to Vargas. “That reminds me. You know the woman who delivered the letter?”
“Yes?”
“She confided to me in secret, and while it pains me to betray her trust I couldn’t possibly allow for such a thing to go on behind your back and ruin the reputation of your fine business. You see, she’s got—oh, I’m too embarrassed to say,” said Solange with a choke, dramatically turning her face so that her hair hid her smile as she swallowed a laugh. “She’s got a gift that no man would want, and if they learn that present came from here then it’d be a disaster. I worry not only for your business, but her life as well. I’ve heard stories of men who kill women over less. If one of your girls was taken out for something like that it’d just be absolute ruin. I don’t want you to fire her, but it’s the best thing for her safety and the safety of your business”
“Oh you precious thing, I can see on your face how difficult it was for you to tell this to me. I will take care of it, as I always do,” said Vargas, biting into the bullshit sandwich Solange had fed him. The only thing difficult was to not guffaw at her own ingenuity—serves that woman right for bothering Solange when she was trying to have a nice evening.
“Could you make up some other excuse? I would die if she found out her trust was misplaced. She’s a bit advanced in age, perhaps you found a younger girl that would draw more of a crowd...”
“If I had that I would’ve fired her years ago,” said Vargas.
“I have a few I know. Can you from any lost profits.”
“Then consider it done.” As they continued towards the table Vargas said, “As always, I appreciate everything you do for me.”
“The appreciation can wait until after everything I do to you, love,” she said with a wink and a sing-song voice as she spun free of Vargas’ arm, grabbed the sliding partition to the private table and open it with her back to it, and then gestured towards the table where her business proposition would be agreed upon .“But first —” Solange’s voice fell flat as she looked into the room to notice a man and a woman in their spot “—ugh! Why are you here?”
It was precisely at this moment that Percival arrived with the drinks Solange had ordered, allowing for the situation to be explained briefly before Vargas grabbed him by the arm and escorted him out to the hall. She heard Vargas yell at Percival from the hall, asking him if he knew what the word “private” in “private table” meant. The corner of her lip twitched up. She liked Percival, but not as much as she liked hearing someone get belittled. From the lambasting that was happening outside, it seemed like it would be a moment before Vargas joined them.
Solange saw an opportunity and took it. She walked to the head of the table and took the seat that was normally reserved for Lord Vargas. She sat straight, shoulders back, her fingers bridged as she looked down the table at the two. She tilted her head up towards the sailor and gestured for him to take a seat, and then she turned her head to the woman. Solange lifted her nose ever so slightly and smiled at the woman as she acted as if she were a person of any sort of importance instead of just a frustrated prostitute looking for a new gig.
“I apologize for the uncomfortable moment there; Lord Vargas and I had this room reserved for our own private meeting. Seeing as how busy we always are it’s rare for the two of us to have a moment alone to consult one another on operations. My name is Solange Belgard, Lord Vargas’s business partner. Anything you want to say to him can be said to me,” lied Solange, her eyes twinkling with the slightest bit of amusement while sitting with an otherwise affirmed stance that portrayed the fabrication. “Don’t worry, dear, as a favor from one woman to another I will convince Lord Vargas to not give either of you the same treatment he is giving to poor Percival right now.”
“So!” Solange clapped her hands and rubbed them as she leaned back with a hungry grin. “What were the two of you discussing before we so rudely interrupted?”
Tisa snatched the map away from Hazel like an impudent child not wanting to share her dollie. The former witch hunter managed to stop her hand halfway as it shot out from behind her back to grab at the coveted map, noticing that yet another detail was off on the western shores of Lanced Lake. She let the look of surprise fall from her face as she politely smiled, the embarrassment clear but the bruised ego hidden, and stepped back from the table to make it obvious to the others that Hazel wasn’t in any position of power—and there were so many others here now than before when she’d started to mess with the map.
The hopefuls that wanted access to Exusia or the riches the Queen would provide were a motley bunch. As Hazel had been talking Tisa to tears about topography she’d watched from the corner of her eye as the new arrivals arrived one after the other. At first the lot of travellers seemed mundane enough as normal human after normal human crossed the threshold. Of course there was never anything normal about humans, especially not the kind who were stupid or desperate enough to seek out quest. Still, things shifted as an elf brought his horse into the tent, and the people that followed—a bug, a madman, the earth, and a mother of monsters— seemed like part of a long setup for a bad joke with an off-color punchline that was only told after two looks over the shoulder. At least the bug and the madman were aware enough to laugh at the gag they were taking part in.
Hazel felt her temple pulse as she stood back now and looked out over the others as Tisa talked, taking the time to study them. Hazel’s hand twitched and rested at her hip, a few inches away from her scabbard, as she watched the Kaimerian broodmother. An Ember Maker primary target was always witches, but that didn’t stop them from putting so-called monsters to the torch when there weren’t any “dangerous” midwives around. Hazel grimaced and tired to shake the thought away, but it’d already sparked. She felt a cloud of black smoke swallow and choke her mind as she looked around the room, seeing a monster and a heretic in every corner as the immaterial smoke began to blind her eyes.
Some devils were more obvious than the others, but any Ember Maker worth their salt could always create one from almost nothing. The Kaimerian and the Gi-Syn-Yi were abominations through and through, guilty simply for existing. The Golem was a creature created by magic and therefore a puppet of witches, best to be ground into sand before allowing them to pull a single string no matter how polite they seemed. While the Sun Elf had bizarre customs and treated a horse like an equal, the real problem was their fae blood meant they likely had a knack for magic or could pass on a knack for magic and should be best turned into a short lived star for safety’s sake. The Short Man skin seemed to have changed since he had first arrived, hinting that he was some kind of shifter and a danger to all of society. One Human had covered herself with the markings of strange arcane runes and writings, flimflam sold by charlatans and a sign of a corrupted mind.
The other Humans were guilty by association alone, if not for with these devils then for with the mages they had all sought out. The best thing to happen for all of Deadwood would be for this tent to catch ablaze this instant and turn all into ash, and if not that then perhaps she should pull out her sword and start lopping off heads until they overwhelmed her. Hazel winced and coughed, the ghost of old hatred taught to her by the Ember Makers escaping from her lips. Stupid thoughts implanted in her brain by stupid people, which made her all the more the idiot for ever believing in them. Destruction only led to more empty destruction, while understanding had actually been fulfilling and there was so much more she needed to know.
Hazel gave the ground an apologetic and guilty look, which might’ve been misread as a negative reaction to something Tisa had said as it lined up right when she mentioned relinquishing materials for magic. An accidental betrayal, enhanced by Hazel smoothing out her stachel and tightening the latch. She hadn’t expected them to actually be taken to Exusia and given an audience with the Queen, and while she understood the precaution she couldn’t imagine anyone being insane enough to attempt regicide. Assassinated rulers always served as rallying points, strengthening the resolve and the unity of a people. A better way to kill a ruler was to make their people hate them and those who had supported them. It’d been the go-to tactic for Ember Makers when a provincial mayor gave them pushback.
There was a moment of hesitation as Hazel considered that perhaps she should be the one worried about getting killed, going weaponless and magicless before a Queen that people declared to be insane. The thought that she could be killed was insane in its own right. She paused and huffed at the ridiculous idea as a few of the people agreed to the terms and conditions.
“The terms are fair, Lady Iruve,” said Hazel softly, tossing a glance towards the Gi-Syn-Yi. She didn’t have the heart to point out that they were, in fact, not fair, thanks to some of her compatriots having natural weapons like the Gi-Syn-Yi’s pincers. Instead, Hazel just linked her hands behind her back and hoped that by playing nicely the delegate would let her have one more look at that busted map.
Blue eyes glanced up over the top of an old, yellowing book at the sound of the tent flapping open, took account of the new arrivals with thankfully unfamiliar faces, and lingered as a hand swept a page back and forth to continue to the illusion of reading. Hazel had arrived early to Hope Passage and found herself a cozy corner of the tent to make herself at home in, her lumpy satchel serving as a makeshift ottoman for her to cross her legs upon. Her travel through the Bone Sea had been quick and without much peril despite her avoiding the path of pilgrims and future martyrs—Hazel understood the sense behind safety in numbers, but certain things were easier when she was alone. Once she’d lost the Ember Makers back at the bordering lands of the Bone Sea there had been next to no excitement with the notable exclusion of seeing Exusia for the first time and finally having a moment of respite to plow through a few chapters of her book.
However, the arrivals were distracting her from her the old Moon Elf piece of historical literature that was so chock-full of needless character development, flowery and overly-descriptive scene dressings, and extremely graphic and prolonged passages about undressings that it made the political and historical views from the author seem unreliable. She sat perfectly still and watched from her corner while mostly blocked from their sight thanks to the woman reading the map. The short man whispered something to the larger woman, but Hazel couldn’t make it out and nobody was paying her to be an eavesdropper anyway. Her eyes glanced back down at the faded novel, read the random paragraph she’d flipped to, and they widened. Oh no...
A plume of red rose to her cheeks as she snapped the book shut loud enough to alert the others of her half-obscured presence. Carefully, Hazel kept her hand over the title of the book as she slid in into her satchel, heaved the bag up onto her lap, and kept it there like it was cuffed to her wrist and filled with precious gems. She cleared her throat, took a swig from her waterskin, and felt the heat in her face die down. Now it made sense why she’d found the book hidden under a mattress. The title ought to be changed. The Trysts and Temptations of the Moonlit Kingdom? It was clearly referring to political affairs and the trade of consumer goods, not the smut found present in chapter three. Hazel felt more in danger of being judged for having such a book on her than her spell tome here that the thought of burning it crossed her mind.
She inhaled deep and collected herself. The idea of destroying something just because she didn’t like it or understand it were the thoughts belonging to an Ember Maker. She slung her satchel over her shoulder as she stood and stretched, her knuckles popping like a wet log in a flame. Just two years ago and she would’ve seen fit to turn this whole desert encampment into a burial mound of twisting glass and burnt bodies. The Ember Makers tolerated the Exusians solely because they stayed locked up in their city and because, secretly, they were terrified of their capabilities. Only Magistrates like Hazel would have the spine to dare stand up against them and their magic, and Magistrates like her were becoming a thankfully scarce resource these days. Despite their boasting of unity against evil they were little more than just another creature of destruction bent on keeping Deadwood from ever regrowing. There was no doubt in Hazel’s mind that this little request of the Queen would be deemed heretical for some reason or another. Not like it mattered; the Ember Makers couldn’t excommunicate her twice.
Hazel walked towards the table in the room. She acknowledged the other arrivals with a head nod but not a single word out of fear of interrupting their conversation—although she was deeply curious as to what they were saying. They seemed to be human like Hazel. She pretended not to notice the amusing nature of their extreme height difference and suppressed a smile as she approached the delegate. Here, she would be able to listen in on the conversation while still making herself appear to be of some use. Hazel freed her map case from its hook and set it down on the table, careful not to disturb any of the work the other woman had done.
“Excuse me. You’ve been studying this for awhile. Mind if I look?” asked Hazel to the delegate, her voice low and scratched. She didn’t wait for permission as she leaned over the table. After the briefest of beats Hazel sighed and shook her head. “I feared as much. This map is a little outdated.”
With a flick of her wrist Hazel unscrewed the cap to her map case and retrieved a stack of rolled papers. She undid the ties on a few that still looked a bit crisp and stuffed the rest back into the case. She pressed the maps flat out before herself and the delegate, knitted her brow, and bit her lip as she studied them. Slowly, she began to pinpoint with her finger the discrepancies between the map on the table and her own stockpile.
“Here. This mountain passage is now collapsed. Better to strike off back here and skirt around the rot grove, otherwise you waste a day or two’s travel before having to either turn around or cut right through it—not ideal. This crossing is still accessible but extremely dangerous to attempt due to one of the Bone Clans claiming it as some kind of holy land. There’s another shallow crossing to the east that they don’t watch right about...here. This town, this town, and this town have all been abandoned. The refugees have formed an outpost called Treloch here that might serve as a respite, assuming you have goods to offer.”
Her hand had grabbed a quill and was about to start marking the map when she finally looked over at the delegate and stopped, carefully setting the feathered inkpen back down. With a sheepish grin she said, “Sorry, I have overstepped my position. Mapmaking is a bit of a hobby of mine. Is this even the planned route for the excursion?” She took a step away, her arms folded behind her back as her thumbs wrestled with one another. “Feel free to consult these maps either way. I’ll, uh, just quietly observe, if you don’t mind and...”
Hazel felt her eyes get drawn back down to the map. She shifted her weight and grimaced before her hand struck out like a cobra, jabbing at the name of some salt lake before it retreated back to being clasped behind her back. “That’s dried up. Sorry,” she whispered and then looked away, aware of the nuisance she had already become.
"A fire can warm a house or turn it to ash. It all depends on who starts it."
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the Sacrilegious Turncoat the Sacrilegious Turncoat
"Seek out Evil. Destroy the Source. End the Suffering. Words I used to live by. Stupid, stupid words."
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What are you? What are you?
APPEARANCE ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I suppose most will only notice the cover of the book anyway."
The first thing most would notice about Hazel is that she looks practically untouched by the horrors of Deadwood. There is not a cress upon her face, a scar on her body, or a discoloration upon her light skin. Her lightning blue eyes have witnessed atrocities incited by the very words from her lips, but the weight and stress that it has brought upon her is only carried inside. Her straight, strawberry blonde hair is clean and cut just above the shoulder, framing her angular face. She wears golden earrings and a silver necklace that flashes in the sunlight, taunting brigands that watch from the shadows.
It’s easily assumed from looking at her that Hazel was born in a high station and it extends into her mannerisms. She ever so slightly holds her pointed chin up, yet avoids appearing condescending. She stands with her shoulder’s back and her hands clasped behind her back, making her appear taller and broader than her actual body. Her stride is confident and unrushed, her eyes shining as she engulfs the environment and people around her. Her voice is soothing like a warm blanket coupled and a cup of hot cider after weeks navigating through the wilds. Despite her aura of elegance, Hazel dresses in sensible traveller clothes that, while pristine, are more functional than fashionable.
CAPABILITIES ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Those things are still part of me, but now I can use them for something greater."
Hazel’s greatly shines when it comes to being an investigator of both mundane and arcane nature. After spending nearly a decade operating as a witch hunter for the Ember Makers, she excels at following leads and sussing out the truth. Although less pertinent now as an independent agent, the skillset she learned while hunting witches still has its uses. In civilized or manmade areas she knows how to command authority, spot when someone is bullshitting her, or notice oddities and traps. In the wilds she can easily track just about anything, find safe locations for shelter, or notice the telltale signs of a monster’s lair. Against magic users she claims to have a kind of sixth sense, able to intuit what sort of ritual they are attempting to cast or “detecting” residue magic surrounding them after recent spell casts.
While she has an abundance of stamina, she is not very skilled when it comes to fighting—typically Witchfinders hire muscle to work alongside them in the field. However, she has acquired an ancient arcane tome. While written in an ancient cipher based upon a dead language, Hazel has begun to work on cracking the code and has translated some of the spells. Her spells are largely supportive, serving to bolster her allies and hinder her enemies, but due to the rough translation are not perfect and can swell with rampant arcane energy. These Flares, as she has come to call them, are extremely rare but hint at a greater, more dangerous power to come. The obvious threat of being exposed as a mage and the potential for catastrophe with her Flares makes Hazel treat most of her spells as a final, desperate action instead of a go-to solution.
Healing Warmth: Hazel can cure most forms of light wounds by laying her hand upon the injury and performing a short ritual. Blood, either from the injured or from herself, is traced with her finger near the wound and then burned in the ritual to quickly cauterize and heal the injury. After the spell is cast the blood turns to ash and falls away. People who are healed by Hazel feel warmth as it is casted. While she can momentarily stabilize gravely injured people, her normal heal cannot pull them back from death’s door. The spell takes enough time to cast and requires a steady hand that it is difficult to perform while threatened. It doesn’t treat diseases, curses, or other abnormalities.
Flare - Purifying Ashes: The blood sigils run causing the ritual to go array, yet while it should it does not fail. The target of her spell feels agonizing pain as all of the blood inside their body begins to boil and their flesh begins to glow like a star about to go supernova. Their skin is briefly covered in an encasement of ash that quickly cracks and falls away. Hazel’s heal can now pull someone back from the brink of death, remove all their wounds, and cleanse most abnormalities. Unless they are especially hardy the sheer pain of the heal will knock out most individuals for a short time, making it even riskier for Hazel to heal others with under attack.
Natural Barrier: Hazel draws runes with dirt on the ground that allows her to terraform the earth around her. Veins of harmless flames streak from the runes to the targeted area, momentarily glow in the targeted area, and then melds the earth. She can cause rock barriers to jut up to form defensive walls, loosen and muddy the ground to make creatures get stuck, or create safer paths through treacherous areas. The time it takes to prepare the ritual depends on the form of the spell, with barriers being the quickest and paths being the longest. The earth shifts slowly enough that it doesn’t harm anyone caught on it, but is fast enough that it can be tricky to avoid and can be used to block obvious incoming attacks.
Flare - Natural Disaster: Something goes horribly wrong. The ground shifts and quakes, the harmless flames begin to leap like geysers and spew rocks and smoke, and then everyone better take cover or flee. Depending on the Natural Barrier she was going for, the intensity of the disaster shifts. The rock barriers now burst out of the earth as quick as a fatal spear thrust before erupting in a blast of hot magma in a small area around them. The muddied ground turns to tar and spews forth poisonous volcanic ash, slowly choking the life out of whatever is unfortunate to be stuck in it. The path causes a massive fissure, plowing through whatever stands in its way like a frenzied Beast of Suffering and permanently changing the environment til the end of days.
Bonfire: Hazel sprinkles a circle of ash around a piece of coal and creates a magical flame up to the size of a decent campfire. She cannot be burned by the flame, but others can. While useful in a utilitarian sense, Hazel is capable of controlling any flames she creates in this manner with directions from fingers coated in ash. She can smear the ash across the ground to create an opaque wall of fire, grab the coal to create a torch in her hand, or chuck the coal to throw a splash of fire at someone. Due to being magical, the fire does not behave like a normal fire would—it does burn enough to hurt, but it will not spread outside of the ash lines, cannot catch flammable objects on fire, and goes out quick once the coal is tossed away from the ash. In a fight a blade is more dangerous than her flame, but the sight of someone throwing fire is generally enough to keep the swords at bay.
Flare - Funeral Pyre: The ash lifts from the ground, encircles Hazel, and engulfs her like a witch being burned at the stake as she becomes a walking inferno. While the flames still do not harm her, the conflagration surrounding her acts like a wildfire and is capable of spreading. She can spray fire from her hands like a dragon’s breath and whip it around her like a deadly firestorm, but she has no control over the flames once they are produced. The spell burns quickly, but the destruction caused by it and the remaining fires continue to burn long after the ash has blown away from her form.
Burning Gaze: Hazel’s quickest and simplest spell. She streaks a smear of ash over her eyes and blinks it away. Her eyes appear like burning coals that strike fear into wild beasts and weak-willed, unintelligent monsters, prompting them to flee from her or freeze in place instead of fighting. While minorly unsettling, it is ineffective against humanoids and creatures at the top of the food chain. Since she must lock eyes with the target of the spell it is difficult to use against packs of animals, as the fear effect begins to fade as she turns the spell towards another.
Flare - Terrifying Gaze: Creatures see an unspeakable horror when look into Hazel’s eyes, capable of making even the most daring of adventurers stop in terror. She knows not what they see, for none who have witnessed it would ever dare to approach her after she looks away.
EQUIPMENT ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "My system is one of organized chaos verging on catastrophic destruction."
Her aforementioned satchel is stuffed with basic supplies, adventuring gear like rope and lanterns, and a journal. She wears three tiny pouches at her side, one for coin, one filled with coal, and the other filled with ash. Wrapped against her satchel is a map case stuffed with local maps, a spy glass, and cartography tools. Hung at her side in a brown scabbard is a shortsword for self-defense. The blade is beautifully crafted with nary a nick on it, and when drawn she holds it out like a rank amateur imitating a swashbuckler that they saw mock dueling at a harvest festival’s stage play. In a smaller scabbard behind her shortsword is a small curved dagger that has seen more use but is still regularly cleaned. The woman wears no armor, a questionable choice for any trying to survive in Deadwood.
Hidden in a false side of her satchel is an old, leather bound tome filled with ancient arcane secrets written in another language. The words are actually a cipher, and they appear to shift and move when the pages are open. A few of the pages are splotched with reddish-brown stains. Also inside of the secret compartment is a dark iron insignia of a torch with a spiral of smoke wrapped around it. This is Hazel’s badge that once showed she was a Magistrate of the Ember Makers, the title given to their high-ranking witch hunters. There are perhaps a dozen other similar looking badges mixed in with her own, soiled with ash and rust.
GOAL ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I thought I had it all figured out. Now all I am certain of is how little I truly know."
Repentance, knowledge, and security, in that order. She believes that she can find all of those things by helping the Queen and achieving residence in Exusia. A former witch hunter, Hazel has shedded her extremist beliefs after acquiring a mystical tome. She knows she can never undo the suffering that she has caused, but perhaps she can achieve some sort of karmic balance by doing something constructive. However, to ease the path to redemption she’d like to learn more about her spellbook and find a way to detour the hunters on her tracks.
PERSONALITY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I do not want forgiveness. I do not want a status. I only want to help. Why is that so impossible to believe?"
Hazel acts matronly, quick to lend a hand or offer an ear, hesitant to judge, and respectful to even the most repulsive of people. She views her past self as a vile monster that was cold, calculating, and quick to suspicion. She is trying her hardest to behave differently, falling into the role of a friendly but quiet caretaker. Hazel displays altruism and generosity where she can, traits that she somehow managed to survive with despite the harshness of reality. Hazel is an abomination amongst the defeated faces, cold shoulders, and broken spirits of the denizens of Deadwood, a naive woman who still believes in goodness and righteousness despite the obvious signs that such things are nothing more than a flight of fantasy.
Under her kind, unbroken exterior is a creature driven by little more than sorrow. While she doesn’t deny what she once was, thoughts of the past still tear at her heart. She rather keep the sadness to herself than be a burden on others who already have it so hard. There have been times where people travelling with Hazel have noticed her staring without blinking into fire or piles of ash for minutes, practically unresponsive, like her soul was ripped out of her body. She will be politely dismissive if questions about it are brought up about it later, uttering an excuse about just being tired.
It doesn’t take long for people who work alongside Hazel to realize that she is a deeply curious individual. While respectful of a person’s privacy, Hazel tries to learn as much as she can about different cultures and locales, always jotting down notes in her journal at the end of the day. Likewise, she’s the kind of person who checks out the strange noise at night instead of hunkering down in her bed, fearlessly walking into potential danger as if nothing could possibly harm her.
Hazel doesn't tell her story often, for it is a long and harrowing one, and all the world really needs to know is that she is no longer the monster she appeared to be. Still, she is not the kind of person that is so cowardly that they refuse to face their shade. She will spin the yarn while seated across the campfire if properly encouraged, be it by the urging of companions or the pulling of a lingering sorrow. It begins like all tales from Deadwood begin—with hope, death, and misery.
Her home was a small but strong community centered around a winery, governed and ran by her family and nestled in the valley next to Mt. Cassor. The von Brandts grew grapes in the fertile soil next to the mountain, yearly sacrificing a portion of their crops to the crater atop the smoking mountain to appease the beast they believed laid inside. When she was thirteen Hazel, whose father was on a business venture, joined her mother with their guards on the trek up the mountain to learn how to perform the sacrifice. The mountain rumbled and spewed forth smoke as Hazel approached the precipice to toss the fruit into the crater, slipping as it shook and tumbling over the edge. She was able to grab an outlet and once the rumbling stopped her screaming was heard and the guards lowered a rope. The sacrifice was finished without any further excitement and a shaking, terrified Hazel descended the mountain.
After the incident Hazel began to notice her mother acting differently. The woman had always been austere to the servants but had been kind to her own daughter, but now Hazel caught her own mother staring at her with suspicion, treating her like an outsider, and muttering under her breath. A year crept by at a glacier’s pace as Hazel found herself being followed by servants, discovered strange minerals and herbs in her meals, and found burnt effigies under her bed. A strange, older man named Augustine arrived at their homestead with a letter. The letter was written by her father, who said he would still be away for months to come and that Augustine had been hired to tutor Hazel, which he did. Yet he also probed her with strange, terrifying questions about herself and her parents that kept her up at night.
The tension that had been building for the past year erupted during the next trip up to the mountain. Hazel did not want to go, but her mother insisted. Augustine offered to accompany the women, but he was declined by Hazel’s mother—outsiders couldn’t take part in the sacrifice lest they irk the mountain. Struggling to hold the basket steady, Hazel approached the edge of the crater yet again. As it started to rumble she heard a shout come from behind her and she dropped the basket, grapes spilling into the crater as she turned to witness her mother, dagger drawn and hate in her eyes, crumple to the ground with a crossbow bolt in her chest.
Hazel watched in a numb daze as Augustine appeared on the summit and struck down the guards before they could even draw their steel. He then grabbed the petrified girl and descended the mountain. Hazel regained control of herself and attempted to struggle, but Augustine easily overpowered the girl. Her struggling stopped when she realized he would’ve harmed her already if that had been his intentions. As Hazel was loaded onto a wagon and driven away from the volcano that had begun to erupt, lava flowing down to destroy the small village, Augustine revealed himself to be a Magistrate of the Ember Makers, a hunter of witches—witches like her mother and father.
He explained everything to her. He told her that her parents ritually sacrificed people to the volcano to protect the regain and help grow their crops, that numerous girls had disappeared from neighboring villages, how her father had kidnapped them, and how her mother sacrificed them to the mountain. He had been tasked by the Ember Makers to completely purge the town, who all had been complicit with the ritual, but through his questioning had come to believe that Hazel was an innocent. As black ash darkened the horizon behind them, Augustine offered to continue Hazel’s tutelage—not as a student, but as a hunter. What was her other choice? Try to survive alone in the wilds of Deadwood when she used to have a lady help her get dressed in the morning?
Hazel accepted Augustine’s offer, and their training began. For years she served as his apprentice, faithfully at his side as he went from town to town drumming up support for witch hunts and setting the torch to husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. Hazel learned to hate witches. She saw how the presence of even one could spread poison through an entire community and turn neighbors against one another. Much to her surprise, she also began to enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the game of cat and mouse, the rush brought upon by the feeling of kill or be killed.
When Augustine died, his insides forced out by a few arcane words and a couple lines of chalk, Hazel didn’t even shed a single tear. The man who had killed her family and left her village to burn and the surrogate father who had raised her to become just as awful as he had clearly succeeded in his training. She picked up right where he left off, a bloodhound sniffing after the arcane, spreading fervor and fear wherever she went and ripping out the cancerous growths that were choking the stagnating societies that were struggling just to survive. She saw herself as a legendary hero, a knight errant, a champion of justice righting the wrongs in this world with a torch in one hand and the other waving on an angry mob.
And then came what would ultimately be her last hunt. It had turned sour once Hazel had realized some of the locals had banded together to protect a suspected witch, likely enthralled by her magic. So powerful was the spell that the only solution was to purge the village, level it completely like the lava from a flowing volcano and letting something better grow from the ashes. With a band of hired mercenaries by her side, Hazel led the wholesale slaughter of the town, sparing none, burning all. The town fought back valiantly. It was a bloodbath for both sides. Hazel pressed on even when the witch’s brother speared her through the ribs and just under her heart seconds before she drove her sword through his.
When she made it to where the witch was hiding she could barely walk and barely see, blood, smoke, and sweat mixing in her eyes. She saw the witch, a young girl perhaps in her late teens, not much older then when she had started traveling with Augustine, reach out towards her as Hazel’s world went black, the loss of blood finally getting to her. When Hazel awoke she saw the witch over her, spell book open, lips muttering. A warmth surged through her body and gave Hazel the strength needed to jam her sword through the girl’s belly. Hazel swears she saw the girl smile as the witch died, her tome falling open on the ground, the spell to heal Hazel having been barely finished.
The act of mercy towards an enemy shook Hazel deeply, and the vibrations broke Hazel free of the mold created by Augustine and the Ember Makers’ indoctrination. She grabbed the woman’s tome and took off before the remaining mercenaries could find her. Her mind raced as it saw the past witches she had hunted in a new light. If this woman had only been a healer, then what of the others? She began seeing inconsistencies in her past investigations, explanations she hand-waved, and vile actions she justified all for the fervor of the hunt.
Augustine had always repeated the motto of the Ember Makers to her: Seek out Evil. Destroy the Source. End the Suffering. They had been her mantra, but now she couldn’t remember a single time where a community had called for her to lead a witch hunt. She had always been the one to arrive in the town and declare one, as Augustine had done before her, and as she was certain the other Ember Makers did elsewhere. Before her arrival the communities had been fine, but upon her departure they were shattered, unlikely to ever regain a sense of normalcy. Hazel felt sick. End the suffering? Destroy the source? She might as well toss herself from a cliff then, because the only thing consistent in all of these awful witch hunts had been her leading the push.
She was there on the edge when she felt the book burn in her hand. Hazel looked down at it, flipping through the pages, and watched as the cipher danced and shifted. She landed on the page with the girl’s bloodstained on it, the last spell the woman had ever cast. Amazingly, she could understand some of the text. Hazel sat down on the ledge, her feet kicking the stone cliff as her finger drew and redrew the arcane symbol in the dirt. She must’ve been there for hours before the sigil finally glowed, fizzled, and died. She couldn’t reproduce it again, but it didn’t matter. Her curiosity was piqued. She couldn't bring back the people she'd massacred or the towns she had destroyed, but she could show others the kindness the nameless witch had shown her. She just needed to learn how.
Hazel stepped away from the ledge. She abandoned the Ember Makers and began wandering to discover how to become the kind of person who could heal a monster that was trying to kill them. It didn’t take her long to realize that the other Ember Makers were after her. She was excommunicated from the order, branded a heretic, and slander was spread denying she’d ever been a Magistrate in the first place. Augustine was eradicated from Ember Maker history, his pages ripped out of their documents to remove all of Hazel’s ties from the fanatical order. It bothered her little. She wanted nothing to do with the bastards.
However, their chase meant she couldn’t stay in one place too long without fear of unleashing another witch hunt in a town she had resided. For the past two years Hazel has been on the move, helping travelers and studying her tome all while avoiding her former order. Hazel jumped at the call when she saw the Queen of Exusia’s plea for adventurers. It would be impossible for the Ember Makers to follow her there, and if she was able to live in Exusia then Hazel could get proper training on the spells in her book. She could finally achieve her goal. End the suffering? That was impossible, crazy even. But balance it? Perhaps that too was impossible, but she still had to try.
"A fire can warm a house or turn it to ash. It all depends on who starts it."
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the Sacrilegious Turncoat the Sacrilegious Turncoat
"Seek out Evil. Destroy the Source. End the Suffering. Words I used to live by. Stupid, stupid words."
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What are you? What are you?
APPEARANCE ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I suppose most will only notice the cover of the book anyway."
The first thing most would notice about Hazel is that she looks practically untouched by the horrors of Deadwood. There is not a cress upon her face, a scar on her body, or a discoloration upon her light skin. Her lightning blue eyes have witnessed atrocities incited by the very words from her lips, but the weight and stress that it has brought upon her is only carried inside. Her straight, strawberry blonde hair is clean and cut just above the shoulder, framing her angular face. She wears golden earrings and a silver necklace that flashes in the sunlight, taunting brigands that watch from the shadows.
It’s easily assumed from looking at her that Hazel was born in a high station and it extends into her mannerisms. She ever so slightly holds her pointed chin up, yet avoids appearing condescending. She stands with her shoulder’s back and her hands clasped behind her back, making her appear taller and broader than her actual body. Her stride is confident and unrushed, her eyes shining as she engulfs the environment and people around her. Her voice is soothing like a warm blanket coupled and a cup of hot cider after weeks navigating through the wilds. Despite her aura of elegance, Hazel dresses in sensible traveller clothes that, while pristine, are more functional than fashionable.
CAPABILITIES ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Those things are still part of me, but now I can use them for something greater."
Hazel’s greatly shines when it comes to being an investigator of both mundane and arcane nature. After spending nearly a decade operating as a witch hunter for the Ember Makers, she excels at following leads and sussing out the truth. Although less pertinent now as an independent agent, the skillset she learned while hunting witches still has its uses. In civilized or manmade areas she knows how to command authority, spot when someone is bullshitting her, or notice oddities and traps. In the wilds she can easily track just about anything, find safe locations for shelter, or notice the telltale signs of a monster’s lair. Against magic users she claims to have a kind of sixth sense, able to intuit what sort of ritual they are attempting to cast or “detecting” residue magic surrounding them after recent spell casts.
While she has an abundance of stamina, she is not very skilled when it comes to fighting—typically Witchfinders hire muscle to work alongside them in the field. However, she has acquired an ancient arcane tome. While written in an ancient cipher based upon a dead language, Hazel has begun to work on cracking the code and has translated some of the spells. Her spells are largely supportive, serving to bolster her allies and hinder her enemies, but due to the rough translation are not perfect and can swell with rampant arcane energy. These Flares, as she has come to call them, are extremely rare but hint at a greater, more dangerous power to come. The obvious threat of being exposed as a mage and the potential for catastrophe with her Flares makes Hazel treat most of her spells as a final, desperate action instead of a go-to solution.
Healing Warmth: Hazel can cure most forms of light wounds by laying her hand upon the injury and performing a short ritual. Blood, either from the injured or from herself, is traced with her finger near the wound and then burned in the ritual to quickly cauterize and heal the injury. After the spell is cast the blood turns to ash and falls away. People who are healed by Hazel feel warmth as it is casted. While she can momentarily stabilize gravely injured people, her normal heal cannot pull them back from death’s door. The spell takes enough time to cast and requires a steady hand that it is difficult to perform while threatened. It doesn’t treat diseases, curses, or other abnormalities.
Flare - Purifying Ashes: The blood sigils run causing the ritual to go array, yet while it should it does not fail. The target of her spell feels agonizing pain as all of the blood inside their body begins to boil and their flesh begins to glow like a star about to go supernova. Their skin is briefly covered in an encasement of ash that quickly cracks and falls away. Hazel’s heal can now pull someone back from the brink of death, remove all their wounds, and cleanse most abnormalities. Unless they are especially hardy the sheer pain of the heal will knock out most individuals for a short time, making it even riskier for Hazel to heal others with under attack.
Natural Barrier: Hazel draws runes with dirt on the ground that allows her to terraform the earth around her. Veins of harmless flames streak from the runes to the targeted area, momentarily glow in the targeted area, and then melds the earth. She can cause rock barriers to jut up to form defensive walls, loosen and muddy the ground to make creatures get stuck, or create safer paths through treacherous areas. The time it takes to prepare the ritual depends on the form of the spell, with barriers being the quickest and paths being the longest. The earth shifts slowly enough that it doesn’t harm anyone caught on it, but is fast enough that it can be tricky to avoid and can be used to block obvious incoming attacks.
Flare - Natural Disaster: Something goes horribly wrong. The ground shifts and quakes, the harmless flames begin to leap like geysers and spew rocks and smoke, and then everyone better take cover or flee. Depending on the Natural Barrier she was going for, the intensity of the disaster shifts. The rock barriers now burst out of the earth as quick as a fatal spear thrust before erupting in a blast of hot magma in a small area around them. The muddied ground turns to tar and spews forth poisonous volcanic ash, slowly choking the life out of whatever is unfortunate to be stuck in it. The path causes a massive fissure, plowing through whatever stands in its way like a frenzied Beast of Suffering and permanently changing the environment til the end of days.
Bonfire: Hazel sprinkles a circle of ash around a piece of coal and creates a magical flame up to the size of a decent campfire. She cannot be burned by the flame, but others can. While useful in a utilitarian sense, Hazel is capable of controlling any flames she creates in this manner with directions from fingers coated in ash. She can smear the ash across the ground to create an opaque wall of fire, grab the coal to create a torch in her hand, or chuck the coal to throw a splash of fire at someone. Due to being magical, the fire does not behave like a normal fire would—it does burn enough to hurt, but it will not spread outside of the ash lines, cannot catch flammable objects on fire, and goes out quick once the coal is tossed away from the ash. In a fight a blade is more dangerous than her flame, but the sight of someone throwing fire is generally enough to keep the swords at bay.
Flare - Funeral Pyre: The ash lifts from the ground, encircles Hazel, and engulfs her like a witch being burned at the stake as she becomes a walking inferno. While the flames still do not harm her, the conflagration surrounding her acts like a wildfire and is capable of spreading. She can spray fire from her hands like a dragon’s breath and whip it around her like a deadly firestorm, but she has no control over the flames once they are produced. The spell burns quickly, but the destruction caused by it and the remaining fires continue to burn long after the ash has blown away from her form.
Burning Gaze: Hazel’s quickest and simplest spell. She streaks a smear of ash over her eyes and blinks it away. Her eyes appear like burning coals that strike fear into wild beasts and weak-willed, unintelligent monsters, prompting them to flee from her or freeze in place instead of fighting. While minorly unsettling, it is ineffective against humanoids and creatures at the top of the food chain. Since she must lock eyes with the target of the spell it is difficult to use against packs of animals, as the fear effect begins to fade as she turns the spell towards another.
Flare - Terrifying Gaze: Creatures see an unspeakable horror when look into Hazel’s eyes, capable of making even the most daring of adventurers stop in terror. She knows not what they see, for none who have witnessed it would ever dare to approach her after she looks away.
EQUIPMENT ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "My system is one of organized chaos verging on catastrophic destruction."
Her aforementioned satchel is stuffed with basic supplies, adventuring gear like rope and lanterns, and a journal. She wears three tiny pouches at her side, one for coin, one filled with coal, and the other filled with ash. Wrapped against her satchel is a map case stuffed with local maps, a spy glass, and cartography tools. Hung at her side in a brown scabbard is a shortsword for self-defense. The blade is beautifully crafted with nary a nick on it, and when drawn she holds it out like a rank amateur imitating a swashbuckler that they saw mock dueling at a harvest festival’s stage play. In a smaller scabbard behind her shortsword is a small curved dagger that has seen more use but is still regularly cleaned. The woman wears no armor, a questionable choice for any trying to survive in Deadwood.
Hidden in a false side of her satchel is an old, leather bound tome filled with ancient arcane secrets written in another language. The words are actually a cipher, and they appear to shift and move when the pages are open. A few of the pages are splotched with reddish-brown stains. Also inside of the secret compartment is a dark iron insignia of a torch with a spiral of smoke wrapped around it. This is Hazel’s badge that once showed she was a Magistrate of the Ember Makers, the title given to their high-ranking witch hunters. There are perhaps a dozen other similar looking badges mixed in with her own, soiled with ash and rust.
GOAL ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I thought I had it all figured out. Now all I am certain of is how little I truly know."
Repentance, knowledge, and security, in that order. She believes that she can find all of those things by helping the Queen and achieving residence in Exusia. A former witch hunter, Hazel has shedded her extremist beliefs after acquiring a mystical tome. She knows she can never undo the suffering that she has caused, but perhaps she can achieve some sort of karmic balance by doing something constructive. However, to ease the path to redemption she’d like to learn more about her spellbook and find a way to detour the hunters on her tracks.
PERSONALITY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I do not want forgiveness. I do not want a status. I only want to help. Why is that so impossible to believe?"
Hazel acts matronly, quick to lend a hand or offer an ear, hesitant to judge, and respectful to even the most repulsive of people. She views her past self as a vile monster that was cold, calculating, and quick to suspicion. She is trying her hardest to behave differently, falling into the role of a friendly but quiet caretaker. Hazel displays altruism and generosity where she can, traits that she somehow managed to survive with despite the harshness of reality. Hazel is an abomination amongst the defeated faces, cold shoulders, and broken spirits of the denizens of Deadwood, a naive woman who still believes in goodness and righteousness despite the obvious signs that such things are nothing more than a flight of fantasy.
Under her kind, unbroken exterior is a creature driven by little more than sorrow. While she doesn’t deny what she once was, thoughts of the past still tear at her heart. She rather keep the sadness to herself than be a burden on others who already have it so hard. There have been times where people travelling with Hazel have noticed her staring without blinking into fire or piles of ash for minutes, practically unresponsive, like her soul was ripped out of her body. She will be politely dismissive if questions about it are brought up about it later, uttering an excuse about just being tired.
It doesn’t take long for people who work alongside Hazel to realize that she is a deeply curious individual. While respectful of a person’s privacy, Hazel tries to learn as much as she can about different cultures and locales, always jotting down notes in her journal at the end of the day. Likewise, she’s the kind of person who checks out the strange noise at night instead of hunkering down in her bed, fearlessly walking into potential danger as if nothing could possibly harm her.
Hazel doesn't tell her story often, for it is a long and harrowing one, and all the world really needs to know is that she is no longer the monster she appeared to be. Still, she is not the kind of person that is so cowardly that they refuse to face their shade. She will spin the yarn while seated across the campfire if properly encouraged, be it by the urging of companions or the pulling of a lingering sorrow. It begins like all tales from Deadwood begin—with hope, death, and misery.
Her home was a small but strong community centered around a winery, governed and ran by her family and nestled in the valley next to Mt. Cassor. The von Brandts grew grapes in the fertile soil next to the mountain, yearly sacrificing a portion of their crops to the crater atop the smoking mountain to appease the beast they believed laid inside. When she was thirteen Hazel, whose father was on a business venture, joined her mother with their guards on the trek up the mountain to learn how to perform the sacrifice. The mountain rumbled and spewed forth smoke as Hazel approached the precipice to toss the fruit into the crater, slipping as it shook and tumbling over the edge. She was able to grab an outlet and once the rumbling stopped her screaming was heard and the guards lowered a rope. The sacrifice was finished without any further excitement and a shaking, terrified Hazel descended the mountain.
After the incident Hazel began to notice her mother acting differently. The woman had always been austere to the servants but had been kind to her own daughter, but now Hazel caught her own mother staring at her with suspicion, treating her like an outsider, and muttering under her breath. A year crept by at a glacier’s pace as Hazel found herself being followed by servants, discovered strange minerals and herbs in her meals, and found burnt effigies under her bed. A strange, older man named Augustine arrived at their homestead with a letter. The letter was written by her father, who said he would still be away for months to come and that Augustine had been hired to tutor Hazel, which he did. Yet he also probed her with strange, terrifying questions about herself and her parents that kept her up at night.
The tension that had been building for the past year erupted during the next trip up to the mountain. Hazel did not want to go, but her mother insisted. Augustine offered to accompany the women, but he was declined by Hazel’s mother—outsiders couldn’t take part in the sacrifice lest they irk the mountain. Struggling to hold the basket steady, Hazel approached the edge of the crater yet again. As it started to rumble she heard a shout come from behind her and she dropped the basket, grapes spilling into the crater as she turned to witness her mother, dagger drawn and hate in her eyes, crumple to the ground with a crossbow bolt in her chest.
Hazel watched in a numb daze as Augustine appeared on the summit and struck down the guards before they could even draw their steel. He then grabbed the petrified girl and descended the mountain. Hazel regained control of herself and attempted to struggle, but Augustine easily overpowered the girl. Her struggling stopped when she realized he would’ve harmed her already if that had been his intentions. As Hazel was loaded onto a wagon and driven away from the volcano that had begun to erupt, lava flowing down to destroy the small village, Augustine revealed himself to be a Magistrate of the Ember Makers, a hunter of witches—witches like her mother and father.
He explained everything to her. He told her that her parents ritually sacrificed people to the volcano to protect the regain and help grow their crops, that numerous girls had disappeared from neighboring villages, how her father had kidnapped them, and how her mother sacrificed them to the mountain. He had been tasked by the Ember Makers to completely purge the town, who all had been complicit with the ritual, but through his questioning had come to believe that Hazel was an innocent. As black ash darkened the horizon behind them, Augustine offered to continue Hazel’s tutelage—not as a student, but as a hunter. What was her other choice? Try to survive alone in the wilds of Deadwood when she used to have a lady help her get dressed in the morning?
Hazel accepted Augustine’s offer, and their training began. For years she served as his apprentice, faithfully at his side as he went from town to town drumming up support for witch hunts and setting the torch to husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. Hazel learned to hate witches. She saw how the presence of even one could spread poison through an entire community and turn neighbors against one another. Much to her surprise, she also began to enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the game of cat and mouse, the rush brought upon by the feeling of kill or be killed.
When Augustine died, his insides forced out by a few arcane words and a couple lines of chalk, Hazel didn’t even shed a single tear. The man who had killed her family and left her village to burn and the surrogate father who had raised her to become just as awful as he had clearly succeeded in his training. She picked up right where he left off, a bloodhound sniffing after the arcane, spreading fervor and fear wherever she went and ripping out the cancerous growths that were choking the stagnating societies that were struggling just to survive. She saw herself as a legendary hero, a knight errant, a champion of justice righting the wrongs in this world with a torch in one hand and the other waving on an angry mob.
And then came what would ultimately be her last hunt. It had turned sour once Hazel had realized some of the locals had banded together to protect a suspected witch, likely enthralled by her magic. So powerful was the spell that the only solution was to purge the village, level it completely like the lava from a flowing volcano and letting something better grow from the ashes. With a band of hired mercenaries by her side, Hazel led the wholesale slaughter of the town, sparing none, burning all. The town fought back valiantly. It was a bloodbath for both sides. Hazel pressed on even when the witch’s brother speared her through the ribs and just under her heart seconds before she drove her sword through his.
When she made it to where the witch was hiding she could barely walk and barely see, blood, smoke, and sweat mixing in her eyes. She saw the witch, a young girl perhaps in her late teens, not much older then when she had started traveling with Augustine, reach out towards her as Hazel’s world went black, the loss of blood finally getting to her. When Hazel awoke she saw the witch over her, spell book open, lips muttering. A warmth surged through her body and gave Hazel the strength needed to jam her sword through the girl’s belly. Hazel swears she saw the girl smile as the witch died, her tome falling open on the ground, the spell to heal Hazel having been barely finished.
The act of mercy towards an enemy shook Hazel deeply, and the vibrations broke Hazel free of the mold created by Augustine and the Ember Makers’ indoctrination. She grabbed the woman’s tome and took off before the remaining mercenaries could find her. Her mind raced as it saw the past witches she had hunted in a new light. If this woman had only been a healer, then what of the others? She began seeing inconsistencies in her past investigations, explanations she hand-waved, and vile actions she justified all for the fervor of the hunt.
Augustine had always repeated the motto of the Ember Makers to her: Seek out Evil. Destroy the Source. End the Suffering. They had been her mantra, but now she couldn’t remember a single time where a community had called for her to lead a witch hunt. She had always been the one to arrive in the town and declare one, as Augustine had done before her, and as she was certain the other Ember Makers did elsewhere. Before her arrival the communities had been fine, but upon her departure they were shattered, unlikely to ever regain a sense of normalcy. Hazel felt sick. End the suffering? Destroy the source? She might as well toss herself from a cliff then, because the only thing consistent in all of these awful witch hunts had been her leading the push.
She was there on the edge when she felt the book burn in her hand. Hazel looked down at it, flipping through the pages, and watched as the cipher danced and shifted. She landed on the page with the girl’s bloodstained on it, the last spell the woman had ever cast. Amazingly, she could understand some of the text. Hazel sat down on the ledge, her feet kicking the stone cliff as her finger drew and redrew the arcane symbol in the dirt. She must’ve been there for hours before the sigil finally glowed, fizzled, and died. She couldn’t reproduce it again, but it didn’t matter. Her curiosity was piqued. She couldn't bring back the people she'd massacred or the towns she had destroyed, but she could show others the kindness the nameless witch had shown her. She just needed to learn how.
Hazel stepped away from the ledge. She abandoned the Ember Makers and began wandering to discover how to become the kind of person who could heal a monster that was trying to kill them. It didn’t take her long to realize that the other Ember Makers were after her. She was excommunicated from the order, branded a heretic, and slander was spread denying she’d ever been a Magistrate in the first place. Augustine was eradicated from Ember Maker history, his pages ripped out of their documents to remove all of Hazel’s ties from the fanatical order. It bothered her little. She wanted nothing to do with the bastards.
However, their chase meant she couldn’t stay in one place too long without fear of unleashing another witch hunt in a town she had resided. For the past two years Hazel has been on the move, helping travelers and studying her tome all while avoiding her former order. Hazel jumped at the call when she saw the Queen of Exusia’s plea for adventurers. It would be impossible for the Ember Makers to follow her there, and if she was able to live in Exusia then Hazel could get proper training on the spells in her book. She could finally achieve her goal. End the suffering? That was impossible, crazy even. But balance it? Perhaps that too was impossible, but she still had to try.
They would settle for silver even when gold is just around the corner.
The pen slashed like a switchblade in the hands of a streetrat, bleeding out ink upon the page as a long finger idly traced the rim of her wine glass. Solange couldn’t remember when she had exactly picked up the habit that blocked other fingers from getting near the rim, but she imagined it had to be sometime after she’d spiked her first drink. She remembered standing next to the lavatory door with her ear cupped against the grain, holding back a smile as she heard the sobs and wretches from the otherside before giving away her position with a gentle knock. A few kind words, a hand to hold back the greasy locks of hair, and one embroidered handkerchief she never got back later and Solange had turned a rival into a lifelong friend. It was a shame that whatshername’s life didn’t end up being so long, but what could one expect from someone foolish enough to attempt to steal from Fontaine?
Solange never wanted to find herself in that girl’s spot, so desperate for the kindness of another person that she’d waste her life just because they offhandedly mentioned how they’d love to wear Fontaine’s necklace. She huffed dismissively and lifted the wine glass up to her mouth, nostrils flaring ever so slightly before she pressed her lips to the rim. Cautious, yes. Paranoid, perhaps. Safe, certainly. Solange took the smallest of sips, her face wrinkling ever the slightest at the swirl she had ordered. It was yet another thing the Red Sail had over the Faded Lantern. She set the glass down on the counter, twisting it ever so slightly so that the embellishment faced her, and returned to tracing the rim as she wrote.
“Whatcha writing?”
Solange closed her eyes, inhaled sharply, and smothered the sigh in its infancy. Another thing the Red Sail had over the Faded Lantern: the girls there knew when to not pester the customers. Solange opened her eyes, fixed a soft smile on her face, and looked up. The tavern had filled since she had sat down. Tables were crowded with sailors and dockhands drenched in a potent mixture of rain, sweat, and spilled grog. A game of cards was going. Solange smirked as one of the men slipped an ace out of his sleeve before her attention turned to the woman who had sidled up against the bar, her black hair chopped sloppily at her chin, her heavy makeup, the branding used by all of her peers, rivaling that of a court jester.
Solange shifted in her seat. Comradity wasn’t a common occurrence amongst the competition—the daggers the girls had first shot Solange when she’d entered the tavern made that clear. Perhaps the other prostitute had noticed the shift in the shoulder when a man had approached Solange earlier and made a show about dropping his coin purse on the counter to make the gold jingle. Perhaps she, like Solange, was trying to avoid work. Then again, the way she was marketing herself by folding her arms underneath her bosom and pushing up meant that perhaps she was the kind who didn’t limit her market. Perhaps it was just muscle memory. Solanged snapped her book shut.
“Why do you ask?” asked Solange, her hand completely cupping the top of her wine glass.
“No reason. Just don’t see whores writing much.”
“Careful, love. Imagine how insulted I would be if I were a lady,” said Solange, fully aware that no lady would drink alone or even desire to step foot through the doors of the Faded Lantern. “Things considered, I feel like you wouldn’t see many other kinds people writing in this place either.”
Solange gestured toward the card table as emphasis, where one man was now yelling and pointing at the card sharp. Seems like he noticed the color on the back of the card was off, too. The woman shrugged. She seemed to be waiting for Solange’s reply to her original question. Flipping the book back open, Solange twisted the page so that it was easier for the other woman to read as she began to explain her process of categorizing and budgeting medicinal herbs for a quick-acting muscle relaxer she was working on. She neglected to mention that the relaxer would, ideally, make it impossible for a man to stand upright or defend themselves, turning them into a pile of bones and flesh long enough for someone to ventilate a jugular.
She caught the woman’s eye as she continued to explain about her process and saw a familiar look. It wasn’t the usual look of confusion or distrust she received when gushing about the marvels of medicine, but rather the familiar look that Fontaine’s girls gave her when something was off. Solange snapped her book closed, drained her drink, and snatched the woman by the hand. “Oh you pretty thing, why didn’t you interrupt me?”“I wanted to be sure it was you. I—”“Shush, not where others can hear. Lead me to your private chamber.”
Solange allowed the woman to drag her out of the common room right as a crack cut through the chatter and was followed by cheers as the card sharp ate a right hook like a champ. Solange wrinkled her nose; something always came up just when things were getting good. She heard a surge of energy, a bellow, a pause in the music, and then several echoing shouts behind her as the fight was carried outside as the music picked back up without even missing a note. Solange cast a glance over her shoulder to make sure they were not being followed as the woman led her up three flights of stairs and into a dimly lit room.
Solange joined the woman who sat on the bed and gave her hand a squeeze. This close she could smell the alcohol on the woman. Even in the lowlight and with the makeup it was clear that the woman was much older than Solange, perhaps twice her age. Tears ruined her rouge. Something about all of this was crushing, as if a door had been laid on top of her and weighted down with stones. Would this be Solange’s future, drunk and seeking comfort from a stranger, if she did not get out of the trade? Thoughts of how she could exploit the woman surfaced in her head next; she pushed them to the side for now and wrapped an arm around the sobbing older woman.
“There, there. Seeking help is the hardest part and you have already climbed that mountain. What’s your name, dear?” asked Solange, her low like a lover’s whisper.
“Magarette.”
“Okay, Magarette, we’re going to get through this together. Now then,” she said, the warmth in her voice falling away as she produced her journal. Solange shifted on the side of the bed, pulled back from the other woman, brushed a wisp of red hair behind her ear, and tucked a leg under her knee. “Tell me everything and I will make it all right.
The sad truth is that most people enjoy being lied to if it makes them feel safe.
“Can you read? asked Solange, her voice punctuated with the sharp thunder of a sheet being torn from her journal. Scratched upon it in fine, flowing script was a detailed list of ingredients and instructions. Magarette shook her head no, to which Solange folded the sheet into a triangle and pressed it in the woman’s hand with a single gold piece.“Go to Thistleleaf Apothecary and give this to the man behind the counter. Don’t worry, he’s discrete, but do not give the letter to his wife unless you want the whole town to hear about your ailment. The gold will cover the components with enough bits to spare to get a scone from the bakery next door as he prepares the order. Just get the paper back once he is finished. If none of the girls here can read then ask for Renata at the Red Sail if I am not there. Garlic and acacia can be used to prevent it from happening again, although know that you know what to look for I imagine prevention will happen earlier.”
“Thank you, thank you. I have no clue how to repay you.”
Solange smiled. Fortunately she had a dozen methods already planned, but there was only one she could cull and knowing the woman could not read made it all the better. She reached into her bodice and plucked out the letter, sealed with wax to make it look official and spritzed with her perfume to entice interest. “Do you want to watch your boss polymorph into a giving man?” asked Solange, winking as Magarette took it from her. “Tell Lord Vargas it’s from his secret admirer and that she refuses to allow you to deliver that letter unless he gives you the night off. Mark my words, love, he’ll give you the week.”
Solange watched as Magarette carefully tucked the letter into her shirt and quickly left the room to do as she was told. A sweet woman, but a stupid one. Solange shifted down the bed until she sat next to the nightstand and tried the handle. It jiggled, but didn’t slide open. Solange smirked. The old hag was smarter than she had thought. Reaching back, she plucked a single pin from her red waves of hair, crouched down beside the bedside table, and slid the pin into the tiny keyhole. With a flick of the wrist and a light bump against the handle, Solange’s face fell as the hairpin snapped. A second and third attempt saw equal amounts of failure. Anymore she was risking not looking her best for Lord Vargas.
Frustrated, she slid the broken hairpins under the bed and returned to the bar. The music was still a lively jaunt, and the empty spot at the card table had been filled once more. Even her seat at the bar was still open, as if the world dared to not inconvenience her any further. Fine, she would forgive it for the day. Solange ordered another glass of red, which she guarded as dearly as the last, and flipped open her journal to review the notes on the men who had last slept with Magarette. Potential piggy banks each and every one of them, assuming she could ever find them based upon her largely useless descriptions to even try to crack open their porcine and porcelain bodies for the bounty hiding inside. Still, a girl could dream. She sipped her wine and schemed her schemes, humming quietly to the tune as she waited to hear word from her latest victim.
My Sweet Lord-
So long has it been since my last correspondence, my dear, that I am fearful that perchance you have forgotten all about your precious ruby. Know that I spent every night with your letter clutched to my bosom, your sweet words against my beating heart, wishing that I could run to you but knowing it impossible. F had noticed the glance we exchanged upon your last visit and has kept her horrid beast prowling around in my affairs ever since. She has only just grown lax, bored by the lack of bloodshed.
Know this. I have the same desires burning inside me as do you. I am an honest woman stuck in a dishonest line of work, and until that life is behind me I am undeserving of your generosity. If it be as unbearable as you say, then you know how you can find me and the price to pay. But you are a gentleman, and you know that nothing smothers passion more than having to count out bits. This understanding of yours, your sweetness, is what keeps me up at night, warming my face and heating my hips. I ask only that you wait a few grains of sand longer..
BUT— There is no reason we should not meet. We have much to discuss in the matters of business, although I admit that it is largely an excuse just to see your face once again. I am already in the tavern. I eagerly await your call.
Estylwen
Punished GN
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