Brynne

 

Brynne was surprised when she woke up the next morning. Only partially because she thought she might die during the night. Mostly, she was surprised because she didn’t think that she would be able to fall asleep, even after leaving The Wall. She must have been so exhausted that she had drifted off despite her constant fear.

Even though she had slept, it hadn’t been a pleasant experience. Her dreams had been plagued by nightmares full of darkness and death. Even so, the night’s rest would help her function today, and that was a small blessing.

Brynne sat up in her bedroll looking at the surrounding camp. She had been awakened by the sounds of the expedition rousing itself. The men were slowly rising, packing up their bedrolls, and preparing to enter the city. Brynne stood up and stretched her aching muscles, then she began to gather her things. While she prepared, she took the time to examine the different members of the company.

They were a strange group. The Expedition was made up of shapers, a conductor, soldiers, and even a couple of scholars. They had all been brought together for the singular purpose of investigating the city that lay before them.

Brynne’s family had been researching both Eloria and The Wall for quite some time. After a great deal of debate, their scholars had agreed that the great city of Eloria was located in the center of The Wall.

Unfortunately, no one had been able to travel more than one-hundred paces through The Wall and survive. It was only by chance and secret experimentation that her family had discovered the fact that Shapers had the ability to navigate The Wall without being killed.

After the discovery that Shapers were immune to the dangers of The Wall, the Deserrow arbiters had requested further experiments. They soon realized that Shapers had the ability to protect a small group of people from The Wall’s dangers.

When this final piece of information was discovered, the high court immediately created this expedition to determine if the city of Eloria was truly hidden within The Wall. If they were able to determine such a thing, the expedition’s next objective would be to recover valuable and powerful artifacts from within the city.

Her family was interested in riches of course, but the technology was what they truly desired. If the legends were true, the Ancients that had once inhabited this city could alter the very nature of the world around them. If her family could monopolize this technology, they would instantly become the most important and most prestigious of the great courts of Spectra.

They would have sent a more notable member of the family to oversee the expedition, but the greater arbiters were too important and too prudent to risk themselves on something that could easily become a deathtrap for every single member of the company.

Looking back on it now, Brynne realized that the family would have invested far more into the expedition if they weren’t so afraid that it would fail. Twenty-two people, now twenty-one, were not enough to search a city as massive as Eloria effectively.

Brynne had agreed to come because it had sounded like a good opportunity to escape both the eyes and expectations of her prying family members, though the idea of being the person to finally find the lost city of Eloria was also tempting. She hadn’t understood the very real danger until she had entered The Wall.

Brynne never would have agreed to come on this mission if she knew what awaited her.

We will find something to take back to my family today and that will be the end of it, she thought, determination coursing through her. I’ll never come back to this shadows begotten place!

Brynne finished her preparations and noticed that she was one of the last members of the company to do so. She walked up to Tieren as the last few men finished packing up their things. She tried unsuccessfully to ignore the strange sensations that increased as she approached him.

“What is the plan to explore the city?” Brynne asked as she stepped up beside the man.

“We will search on the main road running through the center of Eloria.” Tieren said examining the layout of the city as he spoke. “It is likely that we will have better success searching for objects of power on the greatest of the roadways.”

Brynne nodded in agreement. Then asked “What will be the most efficient way to search?”

Tieren stopped his study of Eloria to look at her. “We will begin by searching as a single group. If we don’t run into any danger by mid-day, we will split up into smaller teams to search more efficiently.”

Brynne grimaced at the thought of searching in a single group for so long.

The city was massive.

Searching in one large group would slow them down considerably, but Tieren was right. They needed to prioritize safety, no matter how much she wanted to find something as quickly as possible.

“I agree,” Brynne said. “Let’s search the buildings closer to the entrance-way before moving further into the city, I would rather find what we are looking for where it will be easy to escape if something happens. There’s no telling what’s in there.”

Tieren’s only response was a terse, “Let’s go.”

By that time the entire group had finished preparing. The scholars had taken the longest, but Brynne was impressed at how quickly the group had readied itself. It appeared that everyone in the expedition was just as anxious as she was to start the exploration of Eloria.

As they set out, a nervous excitement began to build within the company. Despite the terrors of The Wall, the opportunity to explore this almost mythological city was an exciting prospect. Even Brynne couldn’t help but get a little excited.

The expedition headed towards one of the grand entrances into Eloria that led to the main roadway through the city. They rounded a portion of Eloria before arriving at a massive archway that had once been carved intricately before many of the more delicate details had been weathered away.

The top of the arch contained a relief of a rising sun shooting out five rays of light to illuminate the world before it. Despite the weathering, the sunrise was still clearly visible. Whoever had carved the relief must have been a master of their craft.

Brynne stared open-mouthed at the massive archway as they passed through the wonder of stonework. The great arch could have easily fit ten wagons across its entryway. The scholars began to speak excitedly to one another about the archway and classical Anderelan architecture. They were obviously excited about the opportunity to study Eloria.

As Brynne passed through the archway she couldn’t help but feel impressed by everything that surrounded her. After nearly six hundred years of abandonment, the city was still beautiful. Some of the buildings were starting to fall apart, but many of their fine features were still noticeable.

Brynne was starting to realize why Martin had wanted to discover Eloria, and why he valued the opportunity to explore the city so highly.

They walked down the cobblestone road looking at wonder at the city around them. A great variety of buildings rose around them, many of which had beautiful granite pillars and columns to support them. Gold and silver trim could still be seen decorating the impressive structures.

Tieren led the group to a building that looked larger than the others surrounding it, and paused a moment as he took it in with his eyes. He eventually turned back to the group with a smile and said, “Let it begin.” And then he led the way into the building.

Brynne was almost startled by the smile. In the full month that they had travelled together she had never seen anything approaching a smile on the shaper’s face. He rarely showed any kind of emotion. Perhaps he was just as excited as the rest of them to start exploring the city.

As they entered the structure Brynne’s excitement peaked as she thought about all the things that it could possibly contain, but as the group fanned out to explore the building it quickly became apparent that there was nothing of great value to be found.

In fact, as the search progressed, their findings were surprisingly mundane. Brynne couldn’t help but feel disappointed when they didn’t find anything spectacular. The only things they found were every day tools that you could find in any home in Spectra.

As they continued down the main thoroughfare, they found all kinds of commercial buildings, from cobbler’s workshops to blacksmith’s forges. They even found a jewelry shop with both gold and jewelry. It had been a nice surprise, but it wasn’t what they were truly searching for.

In addition to the commercial buildings, they had searched through massive domed buildings that the scholars guessed might have had religious purposes. They had investigated buildings with towers that reached high into the heavens. They had even found one building that looked like some kind of indoor arena. Despite it all, they hadn’t found anything to make their search worth the effort. Almost everything they found was aged to the point that it was useless.

The scholars had been excited when they found some scrolls that had survived the centuries of abandonment. Unfortunately, the scrolls were written in a language that needed to be translated before any information could be gleaned from them.

Brynne was starting to feel anxious that the expedition wouldn’t find anything truly interesting in Eloria.

The objects of power that the Deserrow high court desired continued to elude the expedition. Even though they had found plenty of pedestrian tools, they couldn’t find anything like what was spoken of in the legends.

Brynne exited a bakery that the expedition had been exploring and started walking towards the next building thinking about what they had found. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she jumped at a shout of surprise. She was instantly on guard, but as she spun to look toward the disturbance, she quickly realized that there was no danger.

Martin had found a terelia tree with a soul stone hanging from each of its five branches. The tree was surprisingly short, its tallest point was only a head taller than Brynne. The terelia tree’s trunk split into the five branches that were equidistant from one another and each of them reached upwards at a slant.

The terelia tree was black with white swirling patterns running up and down its bark creating a mesmerizing pattern. Its white leaves fluttered in the breeze blowing through the city, only further adding to the mesmerizing effect.

Terelia trees were quite rare. Rare enough that a single soul stone could be sold for quite a large sum to the right person. When soul stones grew on terelia trees there were always five, one for each branch.

As Brynne stared at both the tree and its soul stones, she mused that the name soul stone was a bit disingenuous. Soul stones were actually some kind of seed, though attempts to grow terelia trees with soul stones always failed.

“It’s amazing,” Brynne breathed out. “My father described them to me, but they are far more beautiful than I had ever imagined.”

“Indeed.” Martin said staring open-mouthed at the tree.

Tieren walked up to them examining the tree for a moment. “Let’s harvest the soul stones and move onward, we can’t afford to lose time.”

Shaking herself out of her stupor Brynne reached up and plucked the soul stones from the tree one at a time. They came off easily. It seemed as if a strong breeze should have been able to blow them off the tree.

She placed the stones in her pack almost reverently before continuing on to the next building.

To Brynne’s great surprise, the expedition found another terelia tree in the plaza where they finally decided to take a break for their mid-day meal. Delighted, Brynne harvested the soul stones and stowed them in her pack before she sat down to eat her meal.

As Brynne sat on a stone bench she couldn’t but think about the amount of wealth that her pack now contained. The gold a jewelry they had found were secondary to the ten soul stones they had found.

She could probably turn back now with the soul stones and her family would welcome her back with open arms, but now that they had found this treasure, she couldn’t help but wonder if the legends were true. After finding two terelia trees in half a day’s exploration, she couldn’t help but wonder if this city truly did contain the objects of power that the legends claimed it did. The trees were certainly a sign that there was something more to find within the city.

After finishing their meal Tieren announced that they would split into teams to search the buildings more efficiently. They hadn’t seen anything remotely dangerous while they had explored so far, and their searching was painfully sluggish as a single group.

Tieren instructed each team to call for help at the first sign of danger, and he ensured that each team had a Shaper with them just in case. Even though there was no fog in the city it was better to be safe.

Tieren’s group went further up the main street towards the larger buildings closer to the center of the city while the other three groups continued to search the buildings closer to the gate.

Brynne found herself in a group with Martin, Larik the shaper, and a couple of soldiers.

After an entire month of travel Brynne was proud to say that she remembered the names of every single member of the expedition including the two soldiers in their team.

The shorter balding man’s name was Terk, while the taller man with a rather patchy mustache was named Ainsley.

As they walked towards a new building to search, Terk walked up to her, with a wide grin. “Do you suppose we’ll get some fancy ability from entering the city Lady Arbiter?”

“What?” Brynne said looking at the soldier, “Of course not.”

Ainsley laughed. “Yeah, you’re more likely to find a beautiful woman to love you despite that balding head of yours than you are to become some kind of powerful magician.”

Terk scowled at his fellow soldier, but his grin soon returned as he began to speak. “At least I can find a woman even if she isn’t beautiful. You can’t find a single one with that diseased rat that decided to live on your lip.

Brynne couldn’t help but smile at the look on Ainsley’s face.

“My mustache is dignified!” Ainsley said indignantly, a smile lighting up on his face to match Terk’s grin. “At least I can choose to have a mustache while you my friend, are stuck with that unfortunate face.”

Terk laughed at the jibe and Brynne couldn’t help but chuckle at the guards’ banter. It was good to laugh. It relieved some of the tension that had been building up over the course of the trip.

Brynne looked at Martin, and she saw him with his customary smile.

The only one in the group who didn’t look amused was Larik, but Shapers were rather strange people.

Their team arrived at the new building they had chosen and the search began anew.

While the searching grew faster in smaller groups, they continued to find more of the same kind of things that they had found throughout the morning hours of the day. While some of the objects were interesting, there was nothing that was truly of note.

After marking yet another building that they had searched through on the main road, Brynne decided that she wanted to go to one of the regular houses instead of the shops on the main street. Perhaps a normal home would have something different from what the shops contained.

Brynne told the other groups close by where they were going before heading down a side-street until they found a building that had the look of a house instead of a business.

A cursory look into the home showed Brynne that it was just as mundane as the other buildings that they had searched so far, but it couldn’t hurt to investigate a little more. There were a couple of doors that led further into the home and there was a staircase leading to the building’s second floor.

Ainsley entered first, leading the way into the building, while Terk stood watch at the doorway. After entering the home Brynne saw the signs of family life. Various tools filled shelves, an ancient spinning wheel that looked like it might fall apart under its weight stood in one corner, and most telling of all, Brynne saw a doll lying on the floor in the center of the room. The doll was almost hidden under the thick layer of dust that covered the floor, but she felt drawn to it as she surveyed the room.

When her eyes came to rest on the doll, she was struck by the question that had been lurking in the back of her mind ever since she had seen the city for the first time. What happened to the people of Eloria?

After staring at the doll for a few minutes she finally voiced her question. “What do you think happened to the little girl that owned this doll?”

Martin looked over from his examination of what seemed to be a wash basin. “I don’t know,” He said, “It’s almost like every single person in this city simply disappeared.” His face was troubled when he turned away to investigate the tools on one of the shelves.

His expression was so disturbed that Brynne decided to leave it at that. Maybe someone else in the expedition would know more. She would find the time to ask someone else about it later.

Brynne reached down and picked up the doll, then blew off some of the dust that coated it. She let her thoughts wander as she examined it.

Over their time searching through the city they hadn’t seen a single sign of what had happened to the people who had lived here. There were no skeletons, nor any other clues that pointed toward the fate of the people of Eloria. It was just as Martin had said. It was almost as if they had all simply disappeared one day without a trace.

Everything in the house seemed so normal. It contained the same types of things that you could find in any home in Spectra, or even any home in all of Aluvriel.

Despite her doubts about finding something in the city, she had still expected to find something more than simple tools. Eloria was the focus of countless myths and legends, surely there had to be something more here than some terelia trees.

Even though she hadn’t truly believed that they would find the incredible objects of power that the legends spoke of, she had expected to find some amazing things in the city. Instead, she had only found quest-

CRACK!

Brynne jumped as she heard the loud sound that was accompanied by a scream of agony.

Larik had attempted to climb the stairs to the second floor, but the rotting wood had given way under his weight.

He lay, rolling back and forth on the floor grimacing in pain.

Brynne looked on in shock as Ainsley came running from where he had been deeper in the home. He knelt by Larik and examined the injury. Larik screamed out in pain as the soldier gently prodded the Shaper’s ankle.

“It’s broken.” Ainsley declared, a matter of fact tone to his voice.

“Shadows take me!” Brynne cursed.

The other members of the team looked shocked at her vehemence, but this was a major setback for the expedition.

A Shaper with a broken leg would slow down their search significantly.

She thought for only a few more moments before saying, “Let’s meet up with the other teams. Once we’re all together we can have someone look at Larik’s ankle, and we can decide what to do now that one of our shapers has been incapacitated.”