87th day.
In the Engelwald County, there was an insignificant village. So small that only a few hundred people heard of it, and that was counting the inhabitants. Ortenz found out that this small village had a pastry, one run by competent peoples. He was delighted and immediately bought a Black-Forest; a cake made of several layers of chocolate, whipped cream, cherries, and many other ingredients, all harvested here, in the village of Yegelbrook.
A young man was sitting on a wall. He was observing the golden valley with a cake in his hand, bought at the local pastry. It was an expensive purchase, but a necessary one.
A gentle wind blew over the fields as the sun set, giving way to an orange sky, illuminating the few clouds from below and stretching the numerous shadows of houses and trees. The young man finished his cake and wiped away the cream at the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. "What a depressing day..." he murmured.
He was Ortenz, a tall, blond-haired, and green-eyed young man, dressed in a traveler's attire; a resistant, easy to wear set of clothes that had seen better days.
The village was peaceful. Some farmers returned from the fields and went to the tavern; mothers told their child to stop playing and go home; an old man was painting the clouds with an impressive level of detail, and Ortenz saw a young girl running in his direction.
A few seconds after, it was clear that she was running toward him.
"Mr. Mage! Mr. Mage, I found the girl!" she yelled from afar, making some people look in her direction, then his.
Upon hearing those words, Ortenz's eyes flickered with a mix of curiosity and hope. The girl finally arrived and drew his sleeve. "I saw her! On the hill, there!" She pointed at a hill on the other side of the valley. How she had run such a distance without losing her breath was a mystery, though.
He cleared his throat and stood up. "Are you absolutely sure it's her?" It wasn't the first time he had asked someone to help him in his research, and it wouldn't be the first time this same someone would report the wrong person, making everyone waste time.
"Yes, I'm sure!" There was absolutely no trace of doubt in her eyes, "She had that necklace you described!" This time, Ortenz smiled. Like every time, he would go, but the mere fact the person had a necklace was sufficient to give him more hope.
"A golden necklace—" He began, making sure the girl had understood his description, but she interrupted him "—adorned with gems. Yes! That was it!"
"Perfect then. Here, take your reward." He handed out twelve copper coins—enough to buy food for a week, smiled, and went down the valley in the direction of the other hill. He passed through the fields and got the glare of some old farmers still there, surely making preparations for the oncoming summer festivities.
Soon enough, the top was in sight, but suddenly, a bright blue pillar of light rose from the hill and into the sky; it bathed the valley in a blue hue and reflected in Ortenz's glasses. The pillar was slowly disintegrating into hundreds of little glittering stars.
The young mage recoiled from the bright sight. “W-What the heck is that?!” he asked in disbelief; never had he seen such coruscate light.
The pillar wavered, and entire chunks of it began dissipating in the air. Ortenz walked faster and faster. When he finally arrived at the top, he saw the last remnants of the pillar—mere glitters, scattering in the wind.
On the ground, amid the grass, and floating slightly above the dirt, Ortenz saw a magic circle composed of three distinct runes. He cautiously approached and examined them.
The moment he laid his eyes on the runes, he recognized them; they were teleportation runes.
His mood had already taken a toll with the pillar of light, but this sight made it drop even lower. He muttered a curse under his breath and sat on the fresh grass.
"What am I going to do now?" He weakly smiled in the direction of the village as farmers were running down their hill towards his. Once again, the girl he was pursuing had fled, and all of his efforts had just been thrown away.
Ortenz stood up, memorized the magic circle, and went to the other side of the hill to avoid the farmers.
There wasn't any path on this rocky side of the hill, but avoiding the farmers was necessary; he had no proof that the circle wasn't his doing, and they probably wouldn't believe it was harmless, especially after seeing this beam of light.
He didn't want to upset them nor fight, so he chose to flee to the forests behind the hill; he would hide there for a few days and decipher the runes. The only thing that truly pained him was that he had paid in advance for his chamber at the inn, two copper coins for a room he would never use.
He heard the farmers on the hill yelling and looking down in his direction, surely trying to flush out the culprit. Unfortunately for them, he was probably already in another country, drinking a cocktail in a luxuriant garden or near a beach.
Ortenz carefully climbed down and walked for a few minutes until the vegetation was dense enough to hide him. "Aaaah...." He sighed and sat against a tree. "What I am going to do now...."
He opened up his satchel, took a quill, a piece of paper, and drew the magic circle in its entirety and all its details. As he drew, he ruminated, "So, a teleportation circle... I guess it means I'm going to spend even MORE months of my life trying to accomplish this damned mission..."
"Why do I have to do this goddamn mission, huh? Why can't those fucking nobles hire a company of mercenaries?!" 87 days had passed since the day this mission was given to him by his academy.
At the behest of a nobleman, Ortenz was tasked with finding a runaway girl. ‘A simple mission’, he thought at first.
Her parents—the nobles, even gave him a device showing her location, a portrait, and a list of all the runes on her necklace; there was no way he could fail. Except for one detail... The runaway girl was traveling more than forty kilometers per day. A ridiculous pace for a person walking, even more, if kept for multiple days.
Ortenz suspected that he hadn't been told everything back then and that this runaway affair was more complex than the parents wanted to show.
Day after day, week after week, Ortenz chased this girl. He only managed to follow her because of the strange detours she took from time to time: instead of using the roads, she traversed forests, but not always. She didn't cross a bridge and made a two days detour to a city.
Every time he traversed a village or a town they had been in, he asked the inhabitants if they saw anyone weird recently; the response was nearly always no. In grand cities, a response like this wouldn't be strange as thousands of people visited each day, but for small villages where the only point of interest was the windmill, it was definitely dubious.
At long last, he finished the drawing and gazed at it, proud of his memorization skill. Ortenz put away the quill but kept the paper in hand. "So, let's see where she went..." He analyzed the circle as he walked through the forest slowly.
He still looked in front of him every few seconds to not trip on roots or rocks.
Back on the hill, he hadn't had the time to properly decipher the circle before the villagers came running and yelling, but now he took his time. "A teleportation circle towards the east, huh?"
Even though Ortenz denied it, all of his teachers agreed that his deciphering skill and understanding of runes were beyond the norm. In his 7 years of apprenticeship, Ortenz had always been the number one in those two categories.
Magic circles were delicate constructions full of meaning. The structure itself revealed the motivation of the creator. The runes showed the goal of the circle. The details, the flourishes, they indicated the more precise adjustments and settings. Everything needed to be understood to comprehend the true and exact effects of a circle.
Minutes passed as Ortenz rummaged through his knowledge, searching the meaning of certain details he had never seen before. The direction East was too vague for him; he needed more detailed coordinates as east could mean one kilometer or a thousand.
It could even be under the ground or high up in the air; all those indications were in the details, and without them, he would have to rely on luck: something that he perceived as an insult to his intelligence.
"Hmm... It's the far east, fuck." The magic circle had apparently teleported the girl approximately five thousand kilometers eastward, or 46 days of travel by Ortenz's estimation. A distance whose mention would make even experienced travelers turn pale.
As for Ortenz, he was dejected. Out of the eighty-seven days spent on this mission, at least seventy had been spent walking between villages, towns, and forests; he was tired.
He couldn't—didn't want to walk anymore.
The village of Yegelbrook...
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