The swirl of purple in the little ring's gem flashed lightly and went back to normal once again. The odd feeling of empty space in his head perplexed him. 'What did this ring do to me?' he asked himself in a whisper. Reacher had been walking for several hours. He hadn't been able to retrieve his horse during his disappearing act. He had been forced to leave it outside the inn,adding to the illusion of sorcery. Aside from the odd new spectrum of color and the spacious feeling in his head, the ring had done nothing else. Much to his own chagrin. The little show it put on in the clearing convinced him the ring wasn't cursed,But then why wasn't it allowing him to remove it? Finally he stopped worrying and allowed himself to believe that only time would be able to answer his questions. For now he had a goal,he still had to warn the other members of the guild of the threat from the empire. Unless they already knew, of course. However if they did know likely it was only because they found out the hard way. In that case he would have to free them and take them back to his guild home. From there he would wait for further orders. Focusing on the task at hand, he trudged onward. His trip had been hectic and had already seen him put into two near death situations. He sighed. At the very beginning Auraura had told him his life would likely be in danger most of the time, but the full implications of what she said only came crashing down now. During his training he could have died many times. His teachers made it very clear of that. Once he had spent an entire week in the infirmary due to his inability to block the blow from Serak's war hammer.However in training no one had ever attempted to take his life, if he had been killed, it would have been his incompetence that caused it. Now was much different. According to his mental checklist, he had fought and killed a frost giant,faced a crowd of angry and drunken bandits, and last but not least put on some kind of magical ring that he couldn't remove. All in a very short period of time. The most frightening part was the fact that,despite this whole quest having been very dangerous, it was but a speck compared to what was to come. There would be a war,no doubt of that. The black iris was much too strong to be stamped out without a good fight. There would be fake hits taken on people whom were not real, and ambushes leading to countless lives lost on both sides. The empire had hundreds of thousands of soldiers, the guild had only twenty five members. The only advantage that having small numbers gave the guild, was that every member had been trained much more thoroughly and intensely. The sheer number of soldiers in the empire made cause for mass drill instruction. Making them an elite force in mass, but as individual fighters they were nothing compared to what the guild members could do, and the guild members were extensively trained in subterfuge and the art of sabotage. This meant the empires numbers would play to the advantage of the Black Iris,but only slightly. Before the end of it all, Reacher knew there would be more than a fair share of blood on his hands. Looking down at his dust covered boots, he watched the tips of his talons sink into the dirt with each step.
Soon he saw the landmarks he had been told to look for. Six trees planted to create a perfect diamond. A large rock face to the west of the trees and a pond under the lip of the overhang created by years of erosion. The entrance was somewhere close, of that he was sure. Finding it was going to be slightly tricky however. He hadn't been told where the entrance was. This was in the event he was stopped or caught. Such information could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. He had an idea, and after inspecting an oddly raised patch of a bill, he noticed a small hatch under some brush. Drawing one of his swords, he lifted the hatch and jumped lightly to the bottom of the pit. It was dark,darker than even the blackest night. He dropped to a crouch and made his way down the corridor,using his hands to feel his way. This corridor had been lit by magic at one point, or so Azura had told him. Now nothing lit the area. Then he saw something. A faint blue glow came from the wall. It didn't produce any light, but it glowed of its own accord. He thought it was curious, but pushed it from his mind not long after. His ring flashed and briefly lit the room. Looking down, he scowled at the ring. It then flickered, and glowed. Filling the room with a purple light, the ring flickered like a magical candle. What else did this mysterious little piece of jewelry have in store for him? Either way he had a mission to accomplish,and he could be side tracked no longer. Feet had worn down the floor below him,stamping it into a rut rather than an actual path. This passage had been used for a very long time and he couldn't tell whether it had been used recently or not due to the compacted earth. He would find out nothing from this area. He moved off once more down the passage,taking lefts where rights were the obvious choice,and vice versa. The tunnel leading to the guild home was built like a labyrinth. The path it showed you would only lead you to a death among the worms and other flesh eating creatures. After crawling through a waist height tunnel of stone, he laid his hand on an insignia carved nearly into the rock face. The palm of his gloves bore the same insignia and flashed an iridescent blue, much like his armor. The pattern on the glove seemed to writhe and crawl on his hand. A faint clicking noise,sliding of a stone wall, and some slithering most snakes would envy, Reacher was standing in the storage room of the guild home.
The place was a total wreck. Pots of ingredients for spells and potions lay cracked and shattered on the floor. The guard familiar that Azura said would be there was nothing but a pile of ethereal dust. The overfull coffers of gold that this sect was known for possessing lay on their sides, emptied. Looking around Reacher realised he was too late. The empire had already been here. A smell drifted to his nose and he straightened, all sorrow for having not been able to warn them in time lost. He smelled smoke, and smoke meant a recent fire. A recent fire meant someone had to have lit it not too long before Reacher showed up. He rushed out of the room and into the first corridor Azura said he would find. Glancing both directions, Reacher chose left and stalked down. Truthfully the smell of smoke wasn't very intense and hard to pinpoint,even with Reacher's keen senses. From the smell he could determine two things. First,the fire wasn't caused by anything magical. If it had been the smoke would smell of sulfur rather than burning wood. Secondly he could determine that the flames had been out for at least two hours, meaning the fire could have been out nearly six hours before depending on the thing that was burning. So at the most whoever had done the damage had at most half a day on Reacher. That realization have him hope. He didn't smell any burnt flesh and hadn't seen any bodies, so the possibility of the guild members being held hostage instead of being killed on sight was high. Or perhaps they escaped! Reacher rushed out the entrance after carefully checking each room. No bodies. His guild mates were still alive. As soon as the sunlight touched the small gem on Reacher's finger,the rings glow diminished them faded to nothingness. Again he found himself perplexed by the little ring. What sort of enchantment did it hold? So far it had done nothing in a stable way. Almost as if the ring had a mind of its own. He sighed and began looking for any sign of tracks or anything at all the might help him follow the trail,but there was nothing. Whoever destroyed the guild home were professionals. Reacher looked down at the ring and searched its seemingly endless gem for answers, but none came. He sighed and absentmindedly tugged at the ring. To his amazement it came off easily. He stood there totally in awe at the little ring sitting neatly in the palm of his hand. He gingerly slipped it onto his finger again and pulled it back off just as easily a second time. Turning it over and over in his hand he searched for anything that might have caused it to release him. Perhaps a chip in the gem? Nothing so much as even a scratch. He looked closer and saw letters etched into the middle of the stone, on the only flat space available. Had that always been there? He was sure that it wasn't. Hours upon hours of pouring over the stone,searching for a way to make it release him showed him the well enough. Something inside him told him to throw that blasted thing away and be done with it, but something else told him to keep it. That same intuition that had saved his life on so many accounts again stayed his hand. He once again slipped on the ring, but this time so that the word etched into the stone faced him and was easily read. Reacher took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then spoke the word out loud. "Rhuevohn." A cloud of purple dust, not tangable but ethereal, blew from the letters on the rings gemstone. It was a thick veil that blinded Reacher momentarily. While waiting for his vision to clear he felt another presence in his mind. Calm,older than anything else Reacher had ever experienced, and somehow attached to his soul. He opened his eyes and looked down at the ring. The gemstone was now a flawless diamond, completely devoid of any color. All of the purple dust was gone from around him and none lay on the ground. Instead, where the purple dust should have been, sat a four foot tall midnight black fox, with silver eyes. He again mouthed the word he had spoken , this time realizing it was a name. "Rhuevohn" The fox dipped its head regally.
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