The Blessed Stones <Complete>

Unwanted Company

Evelyn stands at the top of a staircase that ascends to the front door of the cathedral.
“Wow, it looks so much bigger from the outside!”
The Cathedral itself is on a small island, the stairs acting as a bridge over the water. To her left stands a cliff-face, at its feet a lake. Ahead of her and to her right as well, is forest. The lake has a river flowing out of it and a waterfall flowing into it, the river swirls around at the foot of the forests. The whole area is filled with life, flowers, birds and insects, everything you can imagine.
“Beautiful, ain’t it?”
Evelyn hears an unfamiliar voice approaching her from behind.
“W-who are you?” stutters the startled Evelyn.
“Don’tcha think I’ve more right to ask you that question? You’re the one stood outside my cathedral after all!”
“Oh right… I’m… Evelyn,” she replied, apologetically. Evelyn analysed the woman in front of her for a moment, she was dressed like a pirate! She wore a navy blue overcoat with golden edges, much like the colour scheme inside. Under that, she wore a white shirt, and navy trousers. Her hair was long, and black with highlights of blue. The extremely weird thing though, is the staff she’s holding. At the end of the staff, it branches out to form a cage of sorts and inside it is a blue floating orb.
“Judging by how you’re so fascinated by my staff, I’m assuming your from Earth?”
“Was it that obvious? Yeah I’m from Earth, what I want to know is where I am now?”
“Welcome to, the extraordinary world of Straxand!”
“Right… What’s with that staff anyway? I thought pirates fought with cutlasses.”
“Ah, not all pirates dearie, we here at the Marine clan use water magic, well the mages do anyway…”
Evelyn looked at her for a moment. She thought that either the woman in front of her is delusional, or that she’s dreaming, but she quickly disregarded the second thought.
“What’s up? Let me guess, magic don’t exist huh?” guessed the pirate.
Evelyn didn’t even need to tell her she guessed right. She lifted her staff and tilted it to face the lake. She jabbed the air with it and a bolt of water shot from it.
“What the…” Evelyn begins asking, she had never seen anything so extraordinary.
“What ya got to say about magic now then, hmm?”
Evelyn just clasped her hands together behind her back and turned away, proven wrong.
“Anyways, ya can’t stay here, c’mon, I’ll take ya to find someone to take you to the city.
“Oh… that won’t be necces…” Evelyn begins saying, but she had already been left behind. “Great…”

To Evelyn’s amazement, she wasn’t the only one that could use this magic, there was an entire area full of people shooting water from their hands at targets, like their version of archery Evelyn thought.
“Ah Rayne, what brings you here?” Asks one of them, he seemed to be supervising the rest.
“This girl, she needs an escort to the city.”
“How about that Tyde fella? He seems to know his way around all of Straxand, he’ll get her there in no time!” he tells her.
“Look, I really don’t need a…” Evelyn tries to interrupt, but she’s ignored again.
“Tyde, get over here will-ya!”
A man scurries over quickly, the only one that’s not dressed as a pirate. He’s tall and has short and spiky brown hair. His clothes tell Evelyn that he too is a mage. He wears grey trousers and boots, but what really gives it away is his trench coat. She notices that his clothes are a different colour to everyone else’s. The trench coat has a base colour of purple and the edges of it are all red.
“Ah, one of the city wizards, makes sense I suppose,” Rayne acknowledges.
“Yeah, what’s wrong,” Asks Tyde.
“You’re going back to the city soon aren’t you?”
“I was actually about to set off now, why?”
“Perfect, would you mind taking this girl with you, she’s from Earth and needs to get to the city.”
Tyde turns his head to look at Evelyn, analyses her.
“Hmm, think ya can handle the wilderness of Straxand?”
It is obvious that he doesn’t think she looks strong enough to fight, and she doesn’t even have a weapon of any sort.
“Ah don’t worry about that, I’ll get her a bow and a quiver and a cutlass from the barracks,” Rayne assures.
“I can handle myself… I don’t need…”
“Right okay, let’s get off then, I’ll wait for you over by the bridge. Go and get your weapons.”
Evelyn lets out a slight grumble, beginning to get annoyed with everyone interrupting her.

At the barracks, Evelyn gets a quick demonstration of how to use her weapons correctly, despite her protest, and left. She straps the bow to her back, using the bowstring as a strap across her chest, and she does the same with the leather strap on the quiver. Her cutlass has a sheaf attached to a belt, also given to her. She meets Tyde, and they leave to go to the city.