28th Cancer, 1645
Amelie gasps when Lynn pushes her against the wall, though more from the thrill of the other woman’s touch against her skin than the impact. Lynn’s mouth is softer than she remembers from all those years ago, her scent and taste sweeter, yet the affections of her hands and lips are just as gentle and caring as before. Amelie stopped doubting that this is the same woman she fell in love with once weeks ago, but if any doubts had remained they would have been erased, just now, by the love present in every little movement Lynn takes.
“Miss Isra.”
Lynn pulls away and Amelie tries to follow her, desperate not to let her go again, desperate to hold her as close as she can, but Lynn only pushes her back again, gentle but insistent, as she kisses her cheek, down along her jaw, at her throat. Amelie bites her lips, trying to muffle the indecent sounds threatening to escape her – even now, some part of her lust-addled mind refuses to let go of the image of the prim and proper Madame Minister she works so hard to project, to keep her guard up around the one person who would never exploit such a crack in her armor. It is a losing battle, and-
“Miss Isra,” Da Chief repeats, more insistently, and with a sigh and roll of her eyes Isra lets her book fall on her chest and looks to the oh-so-rude older woman interrupting her.
“Yes, Miss Zhuan? Did you need something?”
“Just got word of a big job. Meeting in ten.”
“Oh my god, finally,” Isra groans, “I was really starting to get tired of running packages and finding lost pets.”
“All part of the business, I’m afraid,” Da Chief says with a small smile, “Especially in sleepy towns like Wurzelort.”
“Yeahhhuehyhyye,” Isra gives a limp-wristed, dismissive flap of her hand as she picks her book back up.
“Don’t be late,” Zhuan tells her as she walks away, and Isra rolls her eyes again. Not like Zhuan has to tell her, ten minutes is plenty of time to squeeze a bit more reading in before she heads to the meeting. The compound isn’t even that big anyway.
Unfortunately, the prospect of doing something interesting again after such a long break – especially for her, still sore over missing out on the Colburgh job – is far too distracting to Isra. A dozen possibilities of what they’ll be called on to do flash through her mind as she tries in vain to read the same paragraph in between each one. Eventually she gives up, throwing her head back into an overdramatic groan for an audience of none, and swings into a sitting position, tossing the little paperback onto the couch where her legs were a moment ago. Alani looks up at the soft thud it makes, humming inquisitively towards her master with a quiet, gentle harmonica sound.
“C’mon girl,” she sighs, a double-click of her tongue punctuating the command, “Less’ go see what the job is.”
Frustratingly, Isra is only the third person to arrive to the little conference room where the Unioknights! conduct their meetings – second excluding Da Chief. The old woman leans heavily on the large-but-simple roundtable in the center of the space, poring over a small array of documents. Her cane rests against the table next to her, leaning at a steep angle that would seem impossible if Isra didn’t know about the little deposit of faer dust within the wolf’s-head carving keeping it aloft.
Across from Zhuan is Vetr, chair leaned dangerously back as she manages to lounge in the simple, high-backed seat with her long, slender legs stretched casually out onto the tabletop before her, taking up a truly impressive amount of space. Lazily, she toys with a yo-yo, spinning it back and forth along the tabletop, repeatedly bringing it precariously close to the edge before it reverses course and rolls back towards the center, all the while with her typical - only? - blank expression on her face. The quiet scratching, scraping noise of the little toy against the table, wood on wood, grinds obnoxiously into Isra’s ears. Unbidden, her jaw clenches, just for a moment, as she goes to take a seat of her own, before she tamps her annoyance down and tunes it out.
Each of the three women ignores the other two, not so much out of any sort of dislike of one another as a disinclination towards small talk, at least in Vetr and Isra’s cases. Da Chief is quite talkative with most other people, but she picked up quickly on Isra’s own aversion to small talk and has made no attempts to bother her with it since. Isra likes that about her. So, for the moment, Da Chief keeps studying her papers, Vetr keeps yo-ing her yo, and Isra takes out a small, oblong block of wood and starts carving a sigil into it – might as well use this spare moment to get something done.
The rest of the union trickles in: first Andromeda and Peekie, then Krisha, Lucy, and Winnifred. Isra notes with an idle sort of surprise, once she flicks her eyes up at the motion of Winnifred walking in, that the normally unfailingly punctual Veracity has yet to arrive. Zhuan notices too, but merely raises an eyebrow, glances at the door, and carries on.
When Veracity does finally arrive, a full ten minutes late, she arrives flushed and out of breath. Sweat sticks a few strands of hair to her forehead, little wavy black tendrils snaking their way across the sheening red of her skin, and her bun is looser than usual, bound up rather haphazardly. Her blouse sticks out a little from her pants, and rather than a flawless bow around her neck as per usual, that little bit of flair is uneven, and obviously so. Even as she clacks with rapid footsteps into the room, she fusses with an armful of folders, sorting and shuffling papers between them, quite literally juggling it all with the aid of a bit of levitation magic. She avoids looking anyone in the eye as she takes her seat next to Da Chief, and then she clears her throat.
“Apologies for my tardiness, everyone! I ah… lost track of time doing a bit of clerical work. I had to organize my papers on the way here, as you saw!” she chuckles unconvincingly.
Hoyden arrives last a couple minutes later, equally flushed and sweaty and casually pulling a shirt on as she strolls into the room. Isra averts her eyes, not out of bashfulness but rather to watch Veracity’s flustered reaction – and sure enough, the prim and proper caprican’s already flushed features turn an even deeper shade of red. Upon seeing this, Hoyden chuckles, winks at her, and waggles her eyebrows.
“Miss Hoyden! You are quite late, what could have possibly delayed you so long?” Veracity demands, trying to deflect away from the very obvious reason for their shared tardiness.
“Oh, you know,” Hoyden shrugs and takes her own seat, expression the picture of smug satisfaction, “Stuff.”
Before Veracity can continue to “interrogate” her and further draw out the embarrassing spectacle of attempting to make it seem like she and Hoyden were not just late for the same exact reason – get it, ladies – Da Chief clears her throat.
“Well, everyone, seems our dry spell is over. I received a letter by crow this morning from the Ocuran region – more specifically, from the town of Ossan.”
Veracity perks right up, “Ossan? For true?!” Da Chief nods. “Oh, but that’s so exciting! I’ve always wanted to visit, ever since I was a girl! Doctor Yusuf’s experiments with taraforming are absolutely fascinating, to get the chance to see them in person – oh, I simply must partake in this assignment, Miss Zhuan!”
Zhuan quirks an eyebrow amusedly, “Without knowing what it is?”
“…Ah… right,” Veracity glances sheepishly around the table, clears her throat, and, having shot up out of her seat in her excitement, seats herself again. “Well. What, ah… what do the good people of Ossan require of us?”
“As it happens, it has to do with the good doctor’s work,” Zhuan picks up the letter from the table and adjusts her spectacles on her nose, reconfirming the details contained within. “Seems there was some sort of accident in his laboratory – the letter was light on details, either he’s not sure what happened or isn’t telling – and it sent much of the growth throughout town out of control. He wants our help escorting him through the overgrowth so he can get to his lab and try to fix the situation.”
Veracity’s eyes twinkle with anticipation, “We… We’d be working directly alongside Dr. Yusuf?”
“Indeed we would. I don’t expect much danger on this job, so I’ll be sending a small team of four, and-“
A loud tip-tapping sounds through the room at that moment, cutting Da Chief off as a crow knocks against a window, impatiently demanding entry to the meeting. The Unioknights! stare caught off guard for a moment before Peekie dashes out of her seat to let it in. Despite its apparent urgency, the little messenger pauses to craw indignantly at her after she does, as though an ornery ‘took you long enough!’ in its avian tongue. It hops inside, flits over to Da Chief, and puffs its chest out at her, shoving the attached missive in her direction and tapping a talon against the table for the entirety of the ten ticks of a timepiece it takes her to untie and take it. The mail thus delivered, the crow flutters back to the window, yells at Peekie once more for good measure, and takes off.
The entire room turns their attention back to Da Chief – save, of course, for Miss Zhuan herself, whose attention is instead diverted to the letter in her hands.
“…Bad news Veracity, you’re not going to Ossan,” Da Chief says, waving the letter in her second-in-command’s direction, “Letter’s from Bluhallow. They want your help dealing with an apiform infestation.”
“…Again?!”
“Again.”
“Nines and-“ Veracity cuts off with an animated huff, “They really need to learn to protect themselves, or-or hire some resident adventurers, or SOMETHING so I don’t have to keep warping back every other month! I moved out two years ago for god’s sake!”
Zhuan gives Veracity a second before responding, “…Be that as it may, this is paying work until such time arrives, and since Bluhallow is your hometown it makes sense to send you along to deal with them.”
“You just don’t want to deal with my grandmother again…” mutters Veracity.
“Be that also as it may, we both know how bad an idea it would be for you to not go, no matter who else accompanies you.”
“Yes, yes…” the beleaguered administrator waves her hand dismissively, an utterly defeated expression on her face. “I suppose I’ll have to pick an accompaniment… Miss Hoyden, Miss Rajatali, would you care to join me?”
Hoyden grins shit-eatingly, “Damn Frills, still calling me ‘Miss’ but already bringing me home to meet the ‘rents? Gettin’ some real mixed messages over here.”
A round of laughter as the red of Veracity’s face deepens once again – even Andromeda hides her face behind a hand, which Isra supposes she can’t know for certain conceals a smile at Veracity’s expense, but like… what else could it be?
“If you’re done teasing poor Miss Strent,” Da Chief gently demands the attention of the room once again, though her eyes twinkle with amusement, “I’ll be heading up the Ossan mission personally, in light of this development. A dedicated caster is an absolute must for something like this.”
“Begging pardon, Miss Zhuan,” Winnifred interjects, “Not to question your decision, but why not send me? Am more than happy to go.”
“While I appreciate the initiative, Doctor Winterfin, sending someone with your… incendiary propensity to a town built into an artificial jungle would be unwise.”
Winnifred makes an expression conceding the point.
“Miss Isra, Miss Starr, Miss Vetr – you’re with me.”
“cool,” in one smooth motion, Vetr pulls her yo-yo back into her hand and pushes herself away from the table, tipping her chair over and rolling backwards as it hits the ground, a perfect picture of grace as she springs directly up to standing as if it were the least interesting thing to happen to her all week. Everyone else get out of their chairs like normal people.
Da Chief pushes herself from leaning to standing, grabbing her cane as she straightens her back, proud and imperious. “Right then. You have your assignments, so get prepared and make your way to the fast travel hub. Let’s get it done, Unioknights!!”
*********
The Grobal Fast-Travel Network of Nearth is one of very few issues – indeed, possibly the only one – that nearly every major political power on the planet was able to reach a consensus on. Despite the ease and swiftness it lends to travel both across and between the continents, its use is restricted only to small-scale military operations and official business of licensed adventurers, and in the latter case only to travel to the site of a mission; adventurers travelling back home are not deemed to have sufficient urgency for return trips. The specifics of the magics which facilitate the fast-travel process are convoluted and honestly not very interesting, which is exactly why the powers that be are able to sell the line that these restrictions are a consequence of both expensive material requirements and a need to keep the airwaves clear so that the people and things transported don’t get all tangled up in one another.
This is, of course, complete horseshit. In reality, the limitations are a result of pressure from a number of prominent shipping and handling interests who felt the advent of fast-travel threatened their business. But for some, these draconian regulations do at least provide a small silver lining.
The moment The Unioknights!’s boots touch down on the sand-covered bricks of Ossan’s streets, Andromeda’s legs give out and she tumbles to the ground.
“Gods I hate grobe-hopping,” she grumbles.
“Well, we’re here now, at least,” Isra says.
Alani pads over and nudges at Andromeda with her bony snout, an offer of assistance in her canine way as Isra looks on passively.
“Urrrrrccchhhhh,” comes Andromeda’s groaned reply as she uses the noise-hound’s back to push herself upright.
“you okay there starchild” Vetr asks, and Isra is fairly certain the question is genuine despite that she uses Hoyden’s teasing nickname for Andi. She’s not sure what leads her to believe this, given Vetr’s customary lack of any and all inflection – a gut feeling, perhaps, helped along by the fact that Vetr may very well believe Starchild is actually her name.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Andromeda waves the question away casually. “My disability makes fast-travel rough, is all.”
Vetr nods somewhat absently as she and Isra both turn their attention to the nearby treeline.
Even in its currently beleaguered state, Ossan stands a beautiful monument to human resilience and ingenuity. The region surrounding the town is a vast and inhospitable desert, featureless save for the curvaceous undulations of its dunes. The outskirts of the town in which the union members stand now is no less sweltering than the lands beyond, though the buildings do serve to break the arid and gritty wind somewhat. Brick roads, neatly paved yet disorderly in their greater layout, weave between small greenhouses and open-faced stores. Beyond the arrival platform crowds of nearthkin and capricae mill about those roads in throngs, as well as the far more occasional merfolk, and all garbed in a rainbow's ransom of light, loosely-flowing fabrics. Isra wonders if the outskirts of town would be so densely packed were the inner city not a bit fucked at the moment. Business does at least seem to be, if not exactly all-as-usual amidst the current crisis, fairly close to.
Much as the glittering sand has a certain beauty to it, Isra’s already drying out gums and the gritty feeling of sand slipping between her scarred lips make her grateful they’ll be going in the opposite direction.
On the other side of this sandy outer ring from the desert, the town’s famed artificial jungle stands verdant and variegated. Many more buildings lie within, some sitting on the branches of larger trees, their roofs brushing up against the canopy, while others find their foundations amidst the roots and artificed soil. Some structures even use trunks and branches as parts of walls and roofs and floors. Despite this, the way the new, anomalous growths puncture through walls and roofs and windows, even some of the other foliage, marks them quite obviously. In a few places reach vines and the abnormal, claw-like extremes of exposed roots past the boundary of the soil, encroaching upon the structures beyond. It doesn’t look so bad to Isra, but she supposes it must be worse, more out of control, closer to the epicenter of the problem.
“Ah! Chirita! You’re here!” a man’s voice calls out from nearby, followed shortly by the man himself. He is a short, fat caprican with a small pair of spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose and dressed in a loose thawb with a colorful, viney pattern adorning the edges. He wears a smile as wide as his outstretched arms on his round, expressive, mustached face, open and welcoming despite an undercurrent of anxiety.
“Yusuf,” Zhuan responds, a smile spreading across her own features as she clasps a hand on the squat man’s shoulder, “It’s been too long.”
“Yes, far too long, far too long. It pains me that it took such circumstances, but…” he trails off with a grimace as he steps away from her.
Zhuan turns to the rest of the group, falling back into a businesslike manner. “Everyone, this is Dr. Yusuf ibn-Hakim al-Ossan, our client… and an old friend.”
“Andromeda Starr,” she extends a hand to him, which he energetically shakes with both of his own.
“Isra bint-Nasim al-Qarai,” Isra says, to which Yusuf responds with a hand over his heart and a polite nod.
“vetr” Vetr intones in the general direction of the artificial jungle off to their collective left, eliciting a confused, slightly uncomfortable smile and nod.
“You didn’t mention you know the professor, Chief,” Isra voices the obvious thought running through the younger adventurers’ minds.
“…Didn’t I? Hm. suppose not.”
Andromeda sighs. “You really oughta stop being so mean to poor Veracity, Chief.”
“I’ve no idea what you mean, Miss Star,” Zhuan says.
“Uh-huh,” she rolls her eyes, “Anyway, Doctor, Miss Zhuan gave us the basics about what we’re doing for you – what else can you tell us?”
“Sadly very little. When the incident occurred I was… well, I was at lunch,” Doctor Yusuf smiles sheepishly, only the slightest hint of his blush visible through his already dark red complexion. “Everything was stable when I left, and then an hour later vines were exploding out of my laboratory and rushing through the town, wreaking havoc on anything that happened to be in their way. I hate to think one of my associates made an error which somehow destabilized everything so disastrously, but…”
Everyone looks rather pointedly at a nearby growth, which as they watch pushes up the corner of a potter’s store. Isra gets the impression of spindly fingers spidering exploratively along, laying claim to the sun-bleached brick.
“And this was… two days ago?” Zhuan asks.
“Yes,” Yusuf confirms, jowls wobbling slightly as he nods, “I’ve had no word from anyone who was at the lab at the time, either, which is why a pair of adventurers volunteered to scout inside, make sure it was safe for me to go in and see what I can do. When we didn’t hear back from them the next day, we sent the crow for you.”
“Hmm,” Zhuan drums her fingers across the wolfs-head of her cane thoughtfully, scanning the tree line and the parts visible beyond. “Are you ready to depart now, Yusuf? Excellent. Then-“ she cuts off abruptly, looking around in confusion. “…Where did Miss Vetr go?”
During the doctor’s explanation, Vetr slipped unnoticed away from the main group to gods-only-know where. In the short time since she joined the ranks of the Unioknights! it has already become apparent to other members of the union that this is a habit of hers – one which they foolishly assumed would not manifest during important business. At being proven wrong, Isra feels a wave of anger boil up in her chest, hot, fast, vicious, yet not nearly fast enough that she lets it show across her features. Instead, she seethes, outwardly impassive even as her frustration with her co-worker’s unreliability threatens to spill up through her throat and out her lips. At her side, Alani growls quietly, but the others pay her no mind.
“Doctor, how urgent is it that we get underway?” Andromeda asks hopefully.
“Er… urgent, I should say. I’m not certain how much so, really, but…” he points again to the potter’s store, where the exposed root continues to slide steadily up towards the roof, “the growth may be slow, but this is a good deal faster than it was yesterday. I should like to take no chances.”
“Ugh, of all the inconsiderate…” she drags a palm down her face, “No, it’s fine. We can handle this without her.”
“I’m sure Vetr will find us again in time,” Da Chief assures. “Miss Isra, can you take point? You and your hound’s senses belong at the vanguard, should danger lurk along our path.”
“Works for me,” Isra says, spitting out a gritty, sand-filled glob of saliva and leading the way into Ossan’s man-made oasis.
*********
Some might say of Isra bint-Nasim al-Qarai that she is lazy and apathetic, but this would be uncharitable and untrue; unmotivated, perhaps, and inexpressive, even cold, at times – but with sufficient incentive she is an active and deeply passionate individual. It cannot be overstated, however, just how difficult it can be to find such incentive, to the degree that unless it is absolutely necessary for her to act directly she will find a way to delegate.
So Alani scouts ahead of the group, sniffing at overgrown roots and punctured structures, occasionally pausing to quirk her head to the side and listen for any signs of trouble. The hound’s mistress all the while keeps a watchful eye on her companion but does nothing to actively facilitate the trek herself.
Just beside Isra, Andromeda marches along with a hand on the inactive hilt of Weapon, unconsciously tapping out a slow rhythm against the little metal cylinder. To Isra, each tap feels like an obnoxious child poking her in the ear, no matter how much she tries to focus on her labored breathing as she tries not to trip over the wild and entangling plant matter or how quickly the air turned humid inside the jungle. Even the amiable chatter between Professor Yusuf and Miss Zhuan shortly behind cannot distract her. Only stubborn refusal to snap at Andromeda keeps her from doing so.
The upside to this is that her already tensed up shoulders keep her from jumping in alarm when the Doctor suddenly cries out in delight – it does not, however, keep Isra from being pissed off even more.
“Oh! Oh my word!”
Inside what used to be a building, visible through a collapsed wall, a tangled plant mass curls into the corner between two walls in an impression of some sleeping beast. Bright tropical flowers whose petals bloom and curve outward into a dome like a jellyfish head adorn the green flesh of the coiled mass in perfectly equal intervals from one another. Yusuf clambers, slightly clumsily, through the hole in the wall made by their tributary, recklessly eager to examine the discovery. Zhuan is not far behind, although she opted to enter the ruin through its doorway two feet over, and Isra and Andromeda share a bemused glance before they follow.
By the time they reach him, the professor is on his knees, scribbling furiously in a notebook, occasionally stopping to prod at the flowers with his pen and mutter observations to himself.
“Everything alright, my friend?” Zhuan asks, a slight touch of fondness tinting her tone.
“Mm? Oh, yes! Yes, more than alright, fantastic, really!” he looks up at her, back at the flowers, then up at her again before standing and gesticulating enthustiastically, “This plant – these flowers, they are of a fruit vine known as sylbolzoa – or ‘crone’s jellys’. Normally this plant, it does not grow so far north, only near the equator and even then mostly only on the Wild Island – where they’re from originally, you see.”
“…Wait, but… ain’t the whole point of Ossan growing things where they normally wouldn’t? So…?” Andromeda lets her question hang, unspoken, in the air. Yusuf shakes his head enthusiastically, delighted by the follow-up.
“Ah, but you must understand, even getting them to grow in the tropics on Eurasica and Merka has been difficult! My team and I, we have been trying for years to grow them here, to no success, but now this-” he spreads his hands towards the flowers, “Whatever anomaly occurred at the greenhouse allowed for this, and so quickly too! This is…” his face falls suddenly and he shakes his head, excitement draining from his voice. “Oh, but we have no time. We must press on towards the center.”
“Couldn’t you just come back later, study this after you fix… whatever is going on?”
Yusuf shakes his head. “I cannot be sure I will find this place again, certainly not before the clearing efforts to come destroy this specimen. If only we had more time…”
Isra rolls her eyes and pulls a piece of charcoal out of her belt. Motioning for the professor to step aside, she uses her boot to brush clear the dirt carried inside by the vine from a patch of the wooden floor before crouching down to etch a circular sigil into it – neither large nor complicated, but it will do what she needs.
“May I see your journal and pen for a moment?” The professor looks at her quizzically but obliges, observing with great curiosity as she flips to the nearest blank page and scribbles an exact copy of the sigil down. Stepping back, she places three fingers at different points around the edge and draws them up and together, seeming to pull a small arrow of light off the page that points towards the sigil’s twin, which itself is glowing, faintly, yet enough to stand out in the half-light of the shaded forest. She walks around it in a quarter circle, then back again, and as she does the arrow rotates to remain pointed at its anchor.
“For the next forty five hours, the sigil in your notebook should lead you back here,” Isra explains, pushing the arrow back down into the page and closing the notebook as she hands it back to its owner.
“Oh, thank you very much, Miss Isra!” He inclines his head graciously before opening his notebook back up and testing the same gestures he watched her perform.
“Mhm,” Isra grunts as she turns on a heel and start marching back towards her hound, patiently waiting outside the ruined house, “hurry and get moving again.”
Just then, Alani lets out a noise like a single short and sharp note from a violin, and the static in her eye sockets takes on a fevered quality such that its crackling ambience is audible even at a distance. Barking like a brass horn, she points her snout insistently in the direction of an enormous tree with a heavily gnarled trunk, twisting all over and around itself like vines made into rough bark. Without a glance at her other companions Isra rushes to kneel at her hound’s side, one hand automatically coming to rest on the beast’s back, quieting her instantly. When she tries to urge Alani forward to investigate more closely, the hound does not move.
Isra slowly pans her gaze across the patch of Ossan jungle before her, then again in the opposite direction. Vaguely she is aware of Andromeda and Zhuan watching silently at a distance as she stands and creeps slowly towards the tree. At its base, it becomes clear to her that it looks like vines made into rough bark because that is exactly what it seems to be; many thick strands of wood, waved and woven together like fabric, solidified into something more rigid by some strange process of taraforming. Doubtless another product of the out of control energies following the incident at Yusuf’s lab, Isra thinks, and definitely concealing something worthwhile.
Isra places a hand against one of the thick strands of wood, running her calloused fingertips across the smooth bark. Briefly, she considers calling Falafel forth from his perch between planes, but when she looks up at the darkness beyond which lies the canopy, surely too thick for a falcon to penetrate, she dismisses the notion. She glances over her should and Da Chief gives her an affirming nod, silent permission to investigate further, not that Isra sees it – the glance lasts but a moment, and then her eyes are fixed again on the mass of hardened vines. Whether Zhuan approves or not, she is going to investigate further.
She trods slowly around the pseudo-trunk, her padded shoes falling breath-quiet on the soil and detritus of the forest floor, weaving with a methodical dexterity between the parts of the vines that could pass for exposed roots. She supposes, in a less active part of her mind, that they could be roots, but something instinctual tells her otherwise, tells her that they are the outbound ends of the shell. Around she winds, ‘til at length she comes upon a gaping tunnel leading inside the mass, a twisting of vines low to the ground which resembles a knot of a more traditional tree.
Pulling a piece of charcoal from her belt again, she scribbles a simple sigil into a vine and swipes her finger outward from its center, sending a ray of soft white light racing around the rim of the not-tree back towards the group. Then she pulls her short-bow – currently in its collapsed baton form – and a pre-carved sigil of paralytic shock from within the folds of her sleeves and crawls inside.
The tunnel is deceptively long, not a straight line from the outer edge to the inside but rather a curving tube through the circumference. Isra cannot say how much of the wall of vines it carves through, as for a time she can see neither end of it, clumsily feeling along the sides and ground to find her way; as best she can while holding her defenses, at any rate. When she eventually emerges, it is into a bright clearing dotted by clear flasks of glowing liquid, some nestled between the curvatures of vines burrowing into the nearth, others hanging from a long bit of rope pinned all around the outer wall.
It is thanks to the light of these flasks that she can see the enormous, onion-colored bulb suspended off the ground in the center of the clearing, hundreds of vines protruding from its top and disappearing into the dark, high “ceiling” far above. The bulb’s appendages are the fresh green of saplings and just as thin where they first emerge and writhe slightly amidst the mass of their siblings, causing the bulb to sway ever-so-gently.
But Isra does not have time to study the particulars of the not-tree’s heart at length, for there is someone else in the clearing, reclining sideways against the wall.
She is a young woman, a caprican no more than twenty – perhaps not even that, though it is difficult to gauge her age beneath the markings of stress and hard living. Her face is gaunt and pale, a light, sickly pink covered in a layer of dirt and dust that makes the solid lilac of her eyes stand starkly out from their sunken hollows. Short, stubby horns barely poke out through the curly black mass of her unkempt bangs, such that were it not for the tail wrapped protectively around her ankles Isra might not notice them at all. The clothes she wears are barely better than rags, though they may have been nice at one time.
Isra locks eyes with the girl, and they are filled with desperate terror. The girl tries to push herself to her feet but stumbles and falls backwards, scrambling away, path herded awkwardly by the mass of petrous vines. When her left arm gives out she raises her right, which is, curiously, made of glass; cracked in places and filthy, but unmistakably the mark of an alchemist. Her trembling palm is outstretched in a clear threat – no, a warning not to come closer, and Isra knows better than to discount the danger therein based on the arm’s state of disrepair.
Isra quickly stows her weapons back in her sleeves, showing the girl her empty hands as she takes a step forward, then another, but as she goes to take a third the tip of a dagger presses against the flesh of her throat.
