|| The Chaos Mage ||

Chapter 9 - Perspective

Zarek, Affiliation: Edotaria

Blindfell City, Affiliation: Edotaria

Image above: Vala

It didn't take long for Zarek to meet Soren's mysterious ally. High above the city-chaos inside the ruined clocktower, they met the covert being who went by the name of Vala. 

She was a young woman, appearing a very similar age to himself. With her shock of silvery white hair, rather lethal looking broadsword and much-larger-up-close bird of prey loyally perched on her shoulder, she appeared quite intimidating. She almost immediately joined the few people on Zarek's mental list of individuals not to mess with. As the pair awkwardly clamber through the entrance, she fixes Zarek with her hard cerulean gaze, wariness abating as Soren comes into her field of vision.

"Soren." She greets softly, clearly electing to ignore the soldier in the building. The blonde in question doesn't register her chilliness, instead smiling and moving forward to embrace his childhood friend. She reaches him first and drags him into a tight hug. "You fool," She sighs into his hair, "where have you been?".

Zarek can't help but shift uncomfortably, feeling quite out of place with the other two's closeness. (Along with another nasty little pang of emotion he doesn't have the energy to decipher right now.) He takes this as an opportunity to survey their surroundings. The room is quite large, though not as large as he would be used to in the palace. It takes up the entirety of the top floor of the clocktower. The only current light  drifts through the frosted window of the clock face, cracks in the glass spiderwebbing upward cast gossamer strips of cool sunlight over worn furniture. There are various papers and knick-knacks strewn everywhere, most noticeably a huge assortment of crystals. He can think of no logical reason to explain the sheer amount of differing shiny rocks, so his eyes move on. Ah, a small armoury in the darker corner, best to take note of that. The clocktower clearly hasn't served as that for some time, instead repurposed as Vala's base of operations, he guesses. 

He's about to take a closer look at what seems to be a sketchy diagram of a warehouse when a hand elegantly sweeps over the paper and unceremoniously dumps them into a locked drawer. "Just paperwork. Apologies, I would have cleared up a bit I knew you were coming." Vala speaks, continuing to avoid Zarek's gaze, as if he'd ceased to exist. 

Lie.

Secret rooms, mysterious documents, heavily armed. The silver badge in his pocket grew in weight. Zarek was no stranger to revolts against the control of Edotaria. Vala was obviously planning something, something big. She simply refused to bring it up while in his presence. The real question was, what was he going to do about it? 

He couldn't seek out Edotarian authorities, if his father were to discover his whereabouts, he'd demand Zarek return to Sinistrum Palace after dealing with the threat, and it would quickly be detected by his father's personal sorcerer that his son was under the influence of chaos magic. Zarek still recalled the last time a member of the royal court was declared to be under the effects of a spell. The poor man had been executed not a day afterwards. It was unlikely even as a prince he would receive any favour from the king.