Seekers of the Stone Maker

Leaf’s eyes opened. He could feel the heat of the ash and burning wood of the fire near him, and he shook off the cold he felt in the dream. The morning light cascaded through the trees and landed on his face, causing him to raise his hands to block it. Sitting up, he stared into the distance, imagining the cave in front of him just moments before in his mind. He turned to his left and watched as the group started to wake. Their eyes opened wide, some sitting up quickly, all breathing heavily as if waking from a nightmare.

He watched as Lyla and Myla looked at each other, and he assumed they were talking to themselves with their telepathy. After a moment, Lyla looked over and spoke.

“Aramore is a cold place, right?” She asked Ana.

“I don’t know much about the place, having not been there before, but yeah. That’s why we got the clothes we did,” Ana rubbed her eyes.

“Wait, did you all have a dream too?” Rhokhishi looked around at the rest of the party.

“Yes. Snowfall. The rest of you were there, and there was something inside a cave,” Leaf replied.

“Same,” Mr. Muffins stated as he sat up, blinking heavily against the sunlight on his face.

“Well, I’ll make breakfast.”

Ana got up and started rummaging through her cart. After a few minutes, she pulled out her food bag and some utensils and began working on growing the fire. Leaf moved a few feet over and leaned against a tree. He pulled his spellbook out and laid it on his lap. He wasn’t awake enough to start going through it, so he checked his surroundings.

The sky was bright and blue, with many white clouds drifting lazily above. Seladon, one of the two moons, was almost over the treeline to the West, and the sun had already started moving higher and higher. The trees kept them away from the main path, and the leaves had already begun turning the reds and oranges that came with autumn. It was cool this morning, but the fire was hot enough to keep him warm.

Lyla dove into her bag, pulled a book out, and crawled over to where Leaf was sitting. He stared at The Book of Io, its leather-bound pages, with a rainbow-esque dragon scale placed into the front like a jewel. She opened it and then handed it over to him.

“I can’t read all of this, but can we look back through a few things?”

“Sure. What are you looking for?” He placed the book onto his spellbook and looked at the page she stopped on.

On the left side was a map of Cecela, old and drawn in ink. While not perfect, it did a great job of placing the various towns, villages, and cities, and there were eight numbers placed in multiple spots across the map. On the right page, the chapter started with Asmodeus’ Hounds of War. Each one was put onto a list, numbered from one to eight.

“We all assumed these numbers on the map were placement markers for the eight Hounds of War,” Lyla pointed to the number one, placed just above Moonbright. “This is where Ramona was trying to summon Dubh Catha.”

“You’re right. The Dark Crow might have had an anchor point here, so she wanted to summon him there instead of doing it years before or somewhere else. It would also explain a lot of other things. The Annis Hag must have been holding onto Ramona’s sister’s corpses, which explains their alliance. Maybe she was offering Moonbright to the Annis Hag in return for holding her sisters?”

“And she couldn’t have made all those coins in one night. She had to have been making them for a few years, giving them out every time we went to Moonbright,” Lyla added.

“It didn’t make sense to me why she would do this near the capital, where the Queen’s Guard and the Archmage would be, but this would answer that.”

“So,” Lyla kept on. “If each number represents a place on the map, look up here.”

Lyla pointed Northwest of Aramore. Leaf assumed it would be roughly two weeks to travel north from the village, far away and deep into the icy tundra. Where she had pointed, there was the number eight.

“I don’t see any other numbers on the map that far North. Could our shared dream be about number eight? This… Zidingris the Great Icewing?”

“I’m not sure, but your theory is the only one we have right now.”

“None of these sound familiar to me, but do you think you might have studied something that might have mentioned one?”

Leaf thought back on all of his training and teachings. He remembered that Rosemita mentioned looking more into it and made a mental note that if they returned, he would stop there to see what she had found.

“The Dark Crow, Dubh Catha, is one we had to deal with. The Hag Countess sounds familiar in stories,” Leaf pointed to the number two in the middle of the Pluxver Wastes on the map.

“Yeah?” Myla asked.

Leaf looked up, lost in his thoughts, and realized everyone else was staring at them. He was surprised by it but kept on.

“Well, it is stated that hags have a network in which they communicate with each other. It is a magical sense that lets them speak and know what the others are doing. While they don’t have a leader, per se, they do have one in which hags typically speak of with fear and respect.”

“Who would that be?” Ana asked.

“Baba Yaga.”

Leaf felt ice crawl up his spine as the name escaped his lips. He knew her only of scary stories and fuel for nightmares, but if she was real…

“What about these others? Does any of this sound familiar?” Lyla asked the group.

Carefully, Leaf handed the book back, and Lyla walked from person to person, showing the page to them.

“This one!” Ana exclaimed and pointed at the number seven.

“Rilix the Corrupted Steelforge?” Lyla questioned.

“Yeah. When I was in… Erywood, I think? I stopped at an inn, and some people were drinking pretty heavily. We shared some songs and stories, and they told me about ghost tales in the Novularond Plains. Something about a place that even the centaurs won’t go to.”

“That’s where the number seven is, for Rilix,” Lyla showed Leaf as she sat beside him again.

On the map, the number seven was written on the Northern end of the Novularond Plains, almost against the treeline of the High Forest. It was about another two-week venture out from Erywood and Southwest of the number two, for the Hag Countess, easily a month or more away.

“Well, we have some information on three, then. I’m unsure if our shared dream was about this, though,” Leaf said.

“I don’t know, but it feels connected for some reason. I mean, Myla had her vision about the garlic and Ana, and then we all have a shared dream where Ana is handing us garlic? It’s gotta be connected somehow.”

Leaf tried his best to remember the details of the shared vision. The cold snowfall, the unmoving creature in the dark cave, the voice…

You should have joined me

It sent another shiver down his spine, but he did his best to hide it. Whatever was happening in that vision, it was clear that Helena still had a way to communicate with him. He opened his spellbook and started working but was surprised to see something else. On the last page, a new spell that wasn’t in his handwriting had been placed. Leaf scoured over it. The page was clean as if the ink had dried perfectly, and he realized that the spell must have been placed on the page magically. After a few moments, he realized it.

That’s the spell I asked Helena about! The one she used in the fight against the gnolls!

He closed the book quickly just as Ana walked over with a bowl of food, still steaming inside. Leaf smiled, trying to hide his panic, and accepted the breakfast she had made. He sat, quietly eating, and waited until everyone was ready to pack up and go before picking up his spellbook again.

When bags were packed and horses readied, Leaf attached his horse next to Ana’s on the cart and hopped into the back.

“Another day of studying?” Ana asked.

“I’d like to, if that’s okay.”

“Of course!” Ana smiled.

Mr. Muffins and Rhokhishi made their way to the front, and Lyla and Myla found themselves behind the cart as they made their way North. The morning moved into the afternoon quickly, and they found themselves the only ones on the road. Leaf was content with the quiet, which meant he could look more into the new spell in his book.

It was necrotic in nature and could be cast from quite a distance, from what it stated. It was less about targeting a creature and more focused on a broader array of space. Even further, a small section at the bottom gave a warning, stating that it did more than sap energy from creatures but also the plant life around the area. It fascinated him. Leaf had never seen a spell like this one before. An hour into the afternoon, Ana turned and looked over her shoulder at him.

“Leaf?”

“Yes, Ana?”

“I’m a bit curious about that book of yours.”

“My spellbook?”

“Yeah.”

“What about it?”

“Well, my magic doesn’t come from a book, ya know? I remember being young and learning how to use magic through things like music and stories, and when I did train, it stayed in that direction. How does your magic work, exactly? It seems so different.”

Leaf closed his spellbook and turned to Ana.

“Magic comes in many forms, Ana, as I’m sure you know. We have people like Mr. Muffins, who can create magic through technology. We have clergy who make magic through their deity. Then, we have people like me, who have magical abilities but need something to focus on. For me, I use my spellbook or my new staff.”

“So, your book is like my stories?”

“Exactly. Where I have to write things down in a more mathematical way, you can put magic into your stories. Doesn’t poetry have its math?”

“I guess. Different rhythmic styles and such.”

“It’s the same thing here. You have an innate gift that needs an arcane focus. I also have a gift, but my focus takes a little longer to learn.”

“Is it more helpful that way? Writing it down?”

“It can be, yes. I have studied a variety of spells, but it’s hard for me to memorize all of them. So, in the morning, I look through the ones I think would be the most useful. I gather the materials to cast the spells and place them in the front pouch of my belt, so that it is easier for me to get to.”

“So, you could learn about any spell then, huh?” Ana pondered.

“Technically, yes. I can’t learn something a deity gives, and there are a few others that I probably wouldn’t be interested in, but I can learn quite a lot.”

“That’s pretty great, Leaf.”

“I think so,” Leaf smiled.