Chapter 3

Angelica felt like she was part of some cliche joke; a priest, a naturalist, and a mystic all walk into a tavern and order ale. She could see the others trying not to look and trying even harder not to make jokes at the strange collection of people sitting in the corner of the Fire Tree Inn’s common room. Angelica was the naturalist, her brother, Anton, was the priest, and the young woman swirling, sniffing, flicking, poking, and everything else that one could do to ale besides drink it was her younger sister Amie, the mystic. Angelica and Anton couldn’t help but watch their younger sister throughly inspect her already mediocre ale; she was so deeply interested in whatever she was doing, she always was growing up. Finally Angelica got tired of the scene. “Will you cut that out? You are embarrassing us here,” she said in an angry but hushed voice.

Amie replied as though she was having a normal conversation, “I’m checking to make sure there isn’t anything dangerous here.”

“This is not a dangerous place!” Angelica retorted. “This is a common of a very nice inn and I would say one of the more popular traveler’s tavern on the side of the road. Many merchants tend to stay here in there travels.” Amie paid no mind as she continued to examine her ale. “There are guards outside, how could this be a dangerous place?” If Angelica wasn’t in a crowded room full of strangers she would have been yelling by now. She was restraining herself as much as possible not to let her voice get much over a whisper.

“Save your breathe dear sister,” Anton said leaning back in his chair with all his various trinkets and gadgets hanging from his worn travelers cloak showing and a mostly emptied tankard of ale in his hand. “She won’t stop until she is satisfied. Besides, she does have a point. We have never been on this side of the Ring before, these people aren’t believers in the otherworld like they are at home.”

“You two may have not been this far away from home but I have. The honorable Sir Winston Battleborn’s keep is not far from here. This is his favorite place to rest and drink on his hunts.” The honorable Sir Winston also enjoyed the local prostitutes that frequented this tavern but Angelica wasn’t about to mention that out loud while they were on her lordship’s lands.

Angelica was in Sir Winston’s court, he was her patron. She wore her shirt and short jacket of red, green, and autumn gold with pride; her pants matched it all as well. She was given free reign to study the local flora and fauna on his sizable lands. Sir Winston’s lands were on the most pristine and untouched part of the Deep Green; he enjoyed nature almost as much as he enjoyed prostitutes. The forest was one that any naturalist worth their keep would have fought to have. Before she left the university, she practically did fight anyone to get her position. In the last weeks before her final exams in front of her teachers and masters, Sir Winston Battleborn came to the university with his wife and young daughter. They were in the market for a new tutor for their daughter who was old enough to start learning the ways of the world. Being from the Broken Lands herself Angelica knew of Sir Winston’s lands and knew they are a Naturalist’s dream. For a week, Angelica did everything and anything to get closer to Sir Winston. She almost missed one of her final exams because of a certain attempt to win the Merchant’s favor that may have involved a fish and the river that ran through the city but in the end Sir Winston picked her as his daughter’s teacher. Though she had to teach the wealthy merchant’s daughter everyday, it was worth it all just to be able to sit in the Deep Green, away from everyone and understand the world around her one day at a time. She was also able to get away from her family and their mystical ways.

The three siblings sat at their table, Angelica and Anton watching as Amie push some of her ale on the actual table and proceeded to then push it around with her finger. She still had yet to actually drink any of it while Anton and Angelica were waiting for their second ale and some bread with butter to arrive at the table. Amie’s spectacle had lost it’s appeal after awhile for everyone else in the common room. Angelica and Anton however, were becoming worried about it all.

“She seems to be going on much longer than normal,” Angelica said quizzically.

“She’s a long way from home, she is just more apprehensive about it all. The god’s know what they are doing and work differently through her.” Anton devoted his life to speaking to and learning more about the god’s people worship all while helping to heal people in the ‘old ways’, he was also very understanding of others and their beliefs. Angelica appreciated that about him. She had devoted her life to the sciences and learning about how the world worked through logic while some priest just accepted things as fact because they were. Anton and Angelica knew that each other was wrong about some things but also knew they, themselves, were wrong about everything else. And then were was Amie.

Mystics were witches, they were thieves, they were possessed by evil spirits that the gods sent into people for having less than polite thoughts about their neighbors, they are part animals, they are how nature communicates to us, they are unnatural, and the most common things said about them are that they are a little unusual. In realty, a mystic is someone who is a little more attuned to the world around them and use the energies that things give off to help discover how the world actually works; they are seers. The best mystics are well known in stories for warning brave knights of impending doom and monsters; the rest are considered to be a novelty or even the premise of a good tavern joke.

Amie stopped everything that she was doing and sat straight up on her side of the table looking at her elder siblings with a childish smile. She then took up her tankard of ale and raised it for a toast. Angelica and Anton raised their’s hesitantly and Amie smashed her own into her sibling’s tankards spilling even more ale onto the table. “To family!” Amie said proudly and drank what was left, if any, of her ale in two powerful swigs. She then motioned to the ever so patient serving woman and asked for another one for each of them. “Thank you Angie for inviting Anton and I to this part of the forest. I’ve seen so many new things in my traveling.” Amie was barely a woman grown and her long baggy robes hid most of her features but still overflowing with youth and a childish demeanor. She was definitely pretty to say the least.

“You are the one that sent the letter saying that you wanted to see me, Amie,” said Angelica. Amie’s young and curious mind made any awkwardness seem to melt away.

“Oh yes, I was the one to start this adventure,” Amie said of the side as if talking to someone who wasn’t really there. Just then, the serving woman placed the next round of drinks on the table but this time, Amie enjoyed her’s like anyone else. She was content with her initial findings. Anton was curious about these findings though.

“Did you see anything?” he asked.

“Like what?” Amie replied a bit puzzled.

“When you were looking, in your ale, did you see anything?” He was starting to get a mischievous grin on his face. He was going to prove a point, Angelica knew.

“I don’t look in my ale, I look through it. Everything is made out of something. Ale has water and hops and sugar and lemon…” She took a sip of her ale. She mulled it over for a second. “Sorry, bark root, and each of those elements have things to tell.” Anton was faking immense interest in his younger sister’s information, though he knew all about what she did. Angelica was passively paying attention but Amie loved to talk about her mysticism. “So, each of these elements gives off energy, like it’s own little wind or scent. These energies reach out and take hold of other energies in passing or if they sit next to each other for long periods of time. Using that, you can tell a lot about a place like who has come and gone, whether good things or bad things happened near them and which way someone went, bad things are more effective at leaving these energies. The older the thing and the longer it sat there, the more you can gain from looking through that object.”

“So what did the ale tell you?” Anton asked.

“Oh nothing, just that it’s from a casket” Amie said and enjoyed drinking her unexciting ale. Anton broke out into an uncontrollable laugh. Angelica looked mortified that it took Amie that long to tell her something that she already knew just by looking behind the bar. “We could have told you that, you idiot!” Angelica was trying so hard to not yell at her sister.

“I had to make sure,” Amie said innocently. “These are dangerous times you know.”

“You always say that.” Angelica was starting to get annoyed, again, with her sister. “It’s always dark and scary out there, Amie. Grow up!”

“But I had a terrible dream and…”

“Is that why you sent me a lengthy letter?” Angelica was now, officially, angry with her youngest sibling rather than being embarrassed. “You had a bad dream and thought ‘Oh no, i have to have my sister comfort me again because I’m a child.’ Well? Am I only here to comfort you again because I’m not at home like the rest of our family?” Angelica fought tooth and nail to get to where she was today, we wasn’t about to let anyone take that from her.

Amie had tears welling up in her eyes and didn’t know how to go on. Anton was not laughing anymore. He was getting angry at his elder sister’s anger. “We aren’t here to convince you to come home sister,” Anton barked back. “Amie has seen things in the night and has seen evil lurking through may things, she’s seen things that are truly terrifying. Tell her Amie, tell her about your dreams.” Amie was on the verge of tears. She wanted to tell her elder sister but now felt like a little girl for wasting everyone’s time with something that was probably trivial to everyone but herself. The best option was to just remain quiet in her mind, but Angelica had to know…

“I’ve seen her,” Amie squeaked out.

“Seen who?” Angelica demanded.

“I’ve…I’ve seen Her. The witch that lives in the stone. Her stone.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Angelica was confused and angry and finally seeing that her younger sister was really, truly, trouble by something out of her control.

“I don’t know her name, if she has one,” Amie continued in a very hushed voice that force her siblings to lean in to hear what she was saying. “But She has awoken again after life times of sleeping. She showed me all this death and chaos through out the world. There were this flying monsters as well. I only woke up when I thought I was being eaten by a flying monster. That same night I dreamt this, the Stone started to glow again. These are signs of dark times to come. She actually said that in my dreams.” Amie began to cry. Anton comforted his younger sister with an awkward hug from across the table.

Angelica was taken aback but her educated thoughts flooded her mind. The Stone seemingly started to shine again for no logical reason. Then again, no one really knew much about the stone only what everyone took as common knowledge. And why did Amie get this strange connection when it started to shine? “Did any of the other Mystics in the village share the dream?” Angelica asked.

“Only the most gifted ones,” Amie said after a few more sniffles and some of the tears being wiped away. She gave a faint smile through her tear laden face. “I guess I’m as good Old Mam.”

The siblings stopped their discussion because someone was standing by their table just staring at them. They turned their attention to a skinny, dirty girl wearing dirty farming clothes. She was out of breath as though she ran a great distance and a little scared about being in the inn all alone.

“Can we help you child?” Angelica asked politely. The girl took a giant breath and said, “You need to come with me immediately.”

“On what grounds?” Anton half demanded.

“The Sires’ sent me to get you,” she retorted.

“I don’t like this,” added Amy while wiping the last of her tears off her face. “But if there is anything I’ve learned, it’s to trust dirty people.” Angelica, Anton, and the girl all looked at Amie quizzically but didn’t have time to question her logic. She was a mystic after all and has seen the unknown first hand.