Firing quickfire rounds of bad literature here... I'll stop cluttering the boards for a while now, I promise! Just posted this so the last piece made a little more sense; make sure you read the prologue by the way, for maximum enjoyment! Hope you have fun reading, comments would be welcome.
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Theron gasped as he shot upright in his bed, wide awake. For a moment he frantically scanned the familiar shapes of his bedchamber, half expecting to see robed figures at the end of his bed, chanting an arcane spell that would incarcerate him forever.
Yet everything was as it had been when he had gone to sleep: still, quiet and orderly. If somewhat dusty. The oaken door remained shut with the iron bolt still in place, the glass jars, books, animal skulls, vials, and other sub-mystical paraphernalia remained meticulously organized in the sturdy wooden shelves that dominated most of the walls. Further away various substances bubbled away merrily in glass tubes of all shapes and sizes, dripping from one vial into another, changing in color, thickness, clarity, odor and often every other attribute imaginable during their journey until they found their way into neatly labeled bottles set on a wooden workbench strewn with quills, dry ink bottles, and coarse paper. The labels would read “Sunberry extract”, “Seaweed, Lejanis coast variety, elixir (Waterbreathing)”, “Thorntail tonic (EXPERIMENTAL)”, and so forth. A bucket of water was set beside the table, just in case. A sliver of pale moonlight shone in through a single window set above the bench, casting multicolored shadows on the rough woodwork of the floor as it passed through the plethora of glass pipes and vials. The beam also illuminated the constant, fine mist floating in the room; few visitors could stand the fumes Theron had grown so accustomed to over the years.
He sighed, catching his breath, and slowly rose to sit on the side of the bed. He was drenched in cold sweat.
The dream had felt so real, and for him having any dreams he could remember at all was rare enough. This one had been crystal clear like his own reflection in a still pond, and it had left him with a strange, tingling feeling; like an itch inside his skin, running up and down his body.
He let out another sigh and slowly stood, the prickling sensation slowly beginning to fade. The prospect of further sleep was dim, but he’d meant to wake up early today anyway; he would be out and about in the wild in a matter of hours, and he had to be prepared.
Yet Theron found it hard to concentrate on the upcoming chores. He felt edgy, as if the nightmare had been something more. It was less than a feeling, an instinct, but it was there; like the high-pitched buzz of a mosquito, barely audible yet enough to make one restless and lose sleep. The abyssal creature in it had seemed strangely familiar as well.
He shook his head and grinned as he brushed his shaggy hair from his face; these dreams were the stuff of ancient legends and his instincts the ramblings of old shamen, nothing to be taken seriously, he assured himself. He then rubbed the sleep from his eyes and let the dream fade from his mind with one final sigh.
Maybe I should move the lab outside or something, could be the vapors giving me crazy nightmares.
He grinned, greatly amused by the thought of the look on the other villagers’ faces if they ever caught him brewing his concoctions outside the house. He was already considered strange, and he had little desire to put emphasis on his profession.
Yawning, he stretched and casually strolled to the single window that let the last beams of the moonset in. Outside the dark silhouettes of birch and fir swayed in a gentle wind. Inside the palisade the village seemed still and lifeless, all the windows were dark and the doors shut. It was only a couple of hours before dawn; he’d have to start getting ready.
It only took him fifteen minutes or so to get his usual chores out of the way: he’d inspected the various fungi, algae and other plants that grew in the glass jars he kept on his shelf (no improvement or drastic changes to speak of), made sure none of the potions he was brewing in the small laboratory he kept had grown volatile in the night (the thorntail tonic had boiled over, he would need to see the carpenter about patching the hole in the table) and saw to it that everything was in it’s place; he knew from experience that he wouldn’t have much time to search for the things he needed when something did go badly wrong. He threw a few choice pouches, vials and tools into his brown leather traveling backpack as he went - He left the books in their shelves; by now he knew them by heart, forwards and backwards. The titles promised mostly herbal and alchemical subjects, their spines slightly weathered by age and the somewhat inhospitable climate of his room.
There were few items in his room that weren’t related to his line of work, and the giant mirror leaning on a wall beside his bed was one of them. He stopped to examine his reflection for a moment.
A boy of sixteen years of age looked back at him from the mirror. He was slim, not exactly bulky and barely reaching five and-a-half feet. His unkempt dark brown hair reached down to his shoulders, framing an almost delicate face from which two azure, almost white eyes gave a cold stare. One of the girls he’d almost made friends with, before her parents told her to stay away from him, told him that his eyes gave her shivers. They made him look harsh, cold, she had said.
With a blink he forced himself back into the present, and realized that the figure in the mirror was wearing only woolen long trousers. He gave the mirror a meek half-smile like he had given the girl before turning to find his tunic.
Theron liked his tunic. It was either red or forest-green, depending which way you wore it on, loose, comfortable and never got in his way. It also seemed to stay dry in any weather, since water seemed to just slide off the cloth. It had been a present from his mother. He’d asked her about it a few times, how the fabric had been treated, whether it was magical or not, had she bought it or made it herself – She’d only said something about having a few tricks up her sleeve, and the source of the tunic seemed to change with each asking. One time it was from a passing trader last year, the next it was a family heirloom she was passing on. Then she’d remind him of a chore that supposedly needed doing and shooed him off with a glimmer in her eye. It was one of his favorite mysteries that he had sworn he’d get out of her someday.
Mother’s full of those, mysteries, he thought to himself as he tightened his belt – another gift, from his brother. He liked the belt as well – it was quality leather, embellished with patterns depicting different trees and noble animals and lined with small pouches and handles, all worn from use. He picked a few more pouches from the shelves and tied them to his waist. After pulling his boots on there was only one thing left to get, and he would be ready.
His sickle hung on a leather hoop, set aside from the rest of his tools on the wall facing the door like a trophy. It was flawlessly balanced, the blade forged from an unusual alloy of steel with a hint of silver and engraved with runes he did not fully understand. The markings adorned the lacquered handle as well, and Theron knew that father had made the tool to the exact specifications of his mother. Along with his tunic it was his most prized possession, a gift “to complete the set”, like his father had said as he slowly handed it over on the eve of his thirteenth birthday. The item must have cost a fortune, and the lavish present had been beyond all his expectations.
The tunic, the belt and the sickle had been given as per a northern custom: sons reaching the age of thirteen are to be supported by their family as they chose to enter apprenticeship in whichever profession they thought suited them best. Most became trappers, woodcutters, blacksmiths, carpenters and the like.
Theron had followed in his mother’s footsteps, and instead of signing under any craftsmen in the village had let his mother teach him her profession: herbalism and alchemy.
For him it had been a natural choice. His mother had told him he possessed a cool intellect, that he was smart and perceptive beyond his years. She never told him exactly what he was perceptive to, she only made vague comments about subtle things that flowed in the family and told him he’d understand when he was older; after several years he still didn’t.
