Dead?

~Asa and Eliza~

      "Do you think you're going to succeed?" Asa pulled up the white table cloth out of the window. They were both rather impressed at the cloth's strength as she finally made it through the window. With one last heave, she tumbled to the floor, Eliza dusted off her skirts. His cheeks turned scarlet as she pulled up her skirt retrieving the map. 

          "Aureolin got the message to Katrina, to get to Draugurinn before they finished the Run." Eliza spread open the papers, faint ink lines scrolled across the paper. A pathway in red, toward the "X" on th map -- the cave.

           The Run, was a way to pay for a dead persons or a runaways misdeeds. Often a debt due either from theft or gambling. In most cases the entire family is rounded up and taken to the capital, Labirin. It was held off the edge of the capital. . The money that came in from this punishmnet paid off the victim. It was archaic but the rich were hard to change, roots implanted in cement basically.

                She wasn't in Belyn when the family was taken from there. She had taken her first trips across the waters with her parents. It was only a month after had she found out that they were taken. Asa had sent a message to her, explaining his plans -- this would mean she would have to leave Belyn. THough she loved playing the adventerer card, going away from Belyn alone made her stomach twist into knots.

                   She disappeared as soon as she could. She left a note for her parents though she suspects that they knew what she had planned. They "accidentally" left one of the smaller boats on the shore -- which is never done. As a large family that travelled places she had some options left open for them to try to save Katrina and her family.

              As a mage of Libirin, he was not allowed anywhere near the Run. Especially since those who would be entering it now were his family members. He spent his time consumed with ways to get them out of paying for what their father did. He pleaded even trying to lie about the abilities of siblings but that did not turn out very well. Instead of punishing him for this lie -- they punised the siblings he lied about. They didn't make it.  Out of options -- he was only a lower leveled apprentice who was not allowed anywere and was watched heavily for the time being. He just assumed Eliza didn't get the message or was apart of the party coming to Libirin as well. When he saw Eliza fighting her way through a crowd she told him about Aureolin one of the prison guards who was a friend of the family.

                 They were too late  when they got to Aureolin. By chance Katrina was seperated away from her family. Those who ran the Run worried that the large family would spend too much fighting to survive than dying. So they broke them up into smaller groups.

              "Now with this map, we can guess where we may find Katrina." Eliza explained, "Draugurinn is a powerful place and if she made it --"

              "She made it." Asa interrupted slamming his hands against the desk. "Sorry, I should have done something more."

              "If you keep going through the what ifs you're not going to survive." She placed a book atop the map to prevent it from falling off the desk, "The first weeks she was gone I kept doing the what if game. What if I hadn't went on the boat with my parents. What if we didn't stay that extra day in Targien collecting strawberries. What if, what if, what if."

            "But I was here in the city with it all happening."

            "Focus. The Draugurinn covers a lot of land passed Labirin. It's a boring and your higher ups won't give a damn if we go through them. They are day long passages, some even along this wooded area."  Eliza put her hands in the pockets of her skirt, "Look see this emerald? It belongs to the necklace I gave your sister. I was saving up to buy  this -- "

          They both froze this time fighting away the tears. Eliza took a breath and placed the emerald on the map. She sat at one of the tables on the otherside of the room. She wanted to ask why he had so many tables in his room. A small fire place was built in the corner of the room, he walked over, placing his hands over it, starting a fire. Magic in real life, close up was rather disappointing -- she wasn't sure what she was expecting to have happened. Maybe rainbows flicking about, a loud woosh of golden dust fluttering about  -- not just the fire starting and the room slowly heat up.