First: A New World
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Kael allowed herself a small smile, even as she tried to puzzle that one out. Hospital? Hospes? Something about guests.
“Oh, that can’t be true, they wouldn’t open the place and have it be dangerous!”
So a hospital was somewhere for – people who had been hurt? Perhaps a place to rest after people had been taken by a sleeping potion. There had been quite a few sleeping potion traps in those lower levels. Continue reading
First: A New World
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She had almost finished the potion when the first “tourists” arrived. A “tourist”, it appeared, was a person with a flashing glass tablet held in their hand, clothing that did not seem appropriate for any time or era, and a habit of touching everything.
“It says here,” said the older woman, “that this is where Kael created her potions. And this woman here is represents Kael. She didn’t like visitors much,” she added in a stage whisper. “Hello, Kael.”
Didn’t like visitors much. That was an interesting way of putting it. But between the fact that she was playing a representation of herself and what Mr. Vibius had said, Kael knew how to act. “Shhh,” she hissed. “At this stage, you may disturb the potion, and if you do that, I may test the next potion on you, and I doubt you’d like that one.”
The younger daughter – not a woman yet, not even thinking about being a woman yet – stepped right up to the yellow line of tiles someone had installed. “Why aren’t you using the big cauldron? It’s got something boiling, too.” She spoke in a curious but quiet tone and ignore her parents’ attempts to pull her backwards.
“The big cauldron can wait. It is merely a distraction potion and will not be hurt by a little extra boiling. This one, though, this one requires careful attention, and for that I require a smaller cauldron. See, with this cauldron, I can see to the bottom. Careful, don’t breathe in the fumes.”
The girl stepped back another step and glanced over her mother as if looking for permission or reassurance.
“There won’t be anything here that’ll hurt you, honey, it’s a museum,” her mother tutted. “They’re not allowed to do anything dangerous.”
That was the sort of opinion that could get the girl hurt or maimed. “Actually, this is my potions-room, and in here, things could often be deadly, not just dangerous. Even a mild and curative potion could end up burning the nostrils and giving one visions or headaches.”
“Like hatters,” the older daughter put in. “Breathing in mercury fumes.”
Kael only followed a few of those words, but the meaning was clear enough. And the mother was tutting. “I can’t believe-”
“When this place opened,” the father put in, reading from a booklet, “several guests had to be hospitalized.”
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Next: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2017/09/05/a-new-world-artle/
First: A New World
Joaon. The letter shapes, the strange way he ended certain letters – she could not read this, not yet, but she could recognize his handwriting, even in a script that had changed immensely.
She needed. Well, she needed potions. She needed a whole bunch of potions.
It was time to see what this pretend-workroom had been stocked with.
And what this pretend-cauldron was going to do.
She started going through the cupboards, one through one. All of them were labelled in this strange script – not in her handwriting, or in Joaon’s – but they were also labelled right after that in her own language. There she was, tongue-of-the-maiden and kisses-on-eyebrows, her favorite flowers. They had grown in the rooftop gardens, once upon a time. But if she was “forbidden” to go up there, it was unlikely anyone had maintained them. She would have to find all the right ingredients again. Continue reading
First: A New World
The Kael-room. That was an interesting turn of phrase. Kael knew this tower like the back of her hand; she had been living her for nearly a century before – before she lived here for quite longer in some sort of suspended animation, she supposed. A hundred years. The tower came with a grant. Now that was interesting. Who had provided such a thing? How had the tower’s presence been explained? She was fairly certain much more than a hundred years had passed. Buildings she could see from the windows looked far beyond the current – the current-when-she-slept abilities of normal humans, and there hadn’t been enough wizards in the world to raise so many towers. And yet many of these buildings appeared to be well over a century old, if the aging signs had not changed utterly.
She paused to look out a window. The world around her tower was so much more crowded, and the people in so much more of a hurry, than anything she remembered from before. All those people. Were they heroes? Were they adventurers? Who would come to a seat of the muses that would need to see a Kael – a Kael, not the Kael, and even Kael could recognize the phrase Back Stage. Continue reading
First: A New World
Kael did not sit for long. It was not in her nature to just sit – or she probably would have had far less trouble with heroes and the like. Instead she stood again and brewed several potions in quick succession.
Her ingredient stores were a bit low. She was going to have to venture out into – into that – and see what she could do about it. But first, first she needed a few things.
A potion of Cloak of the Road coated her in clothing appropriate to her station in this place. She looked down at the sleek, snug clothing and approved. This world, whatever it was, had nice clothes. Better than robes, she thought, or the things that people had worn when she’d first reached adulthood.
Her stairs were covered with dust, too. The whole tower looked as if nobody had touched it in – no. No, there in the dust were footprints. They were covered with their own layer of dust – not new, but not all that old, either.
Interesting. Perhaps the spell had been weakening. Perhaps someone had wanted a potion.
She stepped out into the main foyer of her tower and was surprised to find velvet ropes and, even more surprising, a man in clothing not all that dissimilar from her own. He was wearing a placard over his heart that called his allegiance the Kaelingrade Torrent-Step Black Tower and his name Friedrich Vibius.
Well, Kaelingrade Torrent-Step was her, or close enough for the strange shapes of the letters. And this was her Black Tower. “Friedrich?”
“Mr. Vibius,” he corrected. “Are you the new Kael?”
“That would be me,” she agreed. “What, ah.” No, she didn’t want to ask what is this place. “And you are…?”
“I told you.” He frowned impatiently at her. “I’m Mr. Vibius. I run the museum here.”
Museum. That was interesting. A seat of the muses, here in her Tower? Well, she supposed it had slid itself out of time. “How long has the museum been here?”
“What, are you new to the city?”
“That’s a very good way of putting that, yes.” She lifted her chin and gave him her best You Lousy Person Stop Giving Me Trouble look.
He was completely unfazed. “Don’t try that Kael stuff on me. It might be great for the tourists, but it’s not going to do anything on me. I’ve seen seventeen of you girls come and go, and none of them had the ice to chill me. Nothing chills me, girl.”
Tourist. It couldn’t mean one who turned on a lathe, that was silly. Maybe one who – hrng, she was going to need a potion of languages, she supposed. Everything was close enough to be both comprehend-able and baffling. “I’m new to the city, Mr. Vibius. How long has the Museum been here?”
“A hundred years, give or take a week. It is dedicated to Kaelingrade Torrent-Step, I’m sure you knew that much, and our grant insists on certain things, one of those being that the room below the top of the Tower always have a Kael – that’s why we’ve hired you, not because we like the look – and that the very top of the tower always be off-limits. We don’t even clean it, and don’t even think of going in there. You catch kids trying it, you give them your best Why Are You Bothering Me Pesky Mortals act. Yeah, that look. Room, board, and appropriate robes, all back there back stage. Now get robed up and get up to the Kael-room; we’re about to open.”
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Kael drifted off in a haze of fumes.
It hadn’t been exactly what she’d intended to do, but the Blessed Mugwort and the Watery Cress together ought to create a long and dreamless, ageless and still sleep, even if she’d been aiming for more of a quiet watching throughout the ages. Something must have gotten in the mix – probably that last batch of adventurers.
Kael dreamed of a time when such idiots didn’t come traipsing through, just because her tower was black, or just because they’d heard that she was generous with the potions that they needed.
She closed her eyes. This hadn’t been meant to put her to sleep. It really ought to bother her, she thought.
But it was such a nice dreamy sleep. And she couldn’t hear the stupid adventurers anymore.
She woke. She felt stiff and hazy, a little bit lost. It had been a very nice dream, the sort of dream where people came and pounded on her door and couldn’t get in. It was the sort of dream where the elves who had scorned her needed her help yet again, and she wasn’t there, so she didn’t even need to say no. She could just… not help, no guilt, no problem.
She rubbed her eyes and found they were covered with a thick layer of dust. Dust. That had meant to be a nap, even if a long one, not-
Kael sat up. Her tower room was just the same, stones where they belonged, potions covered in a thick layer of dust and grime. Everything was exactly as she had left it, except…
Except the walls were covered in a haze. The window was covered in blue smoke. The doorway was completely obscured.
Well, then. She had done it, if even by accident. She had taken her tower out of time and out of space.
The problem was, she supposed, why had she woken up at all? She had put no end time into the spell, because she had expected to end it herself when she was ready to move on.
She stretched and stood. Her body felt the same. Her robes looked the same – they had not mouldered away, although the dust had worried her for a bit. Imagine sleeping on forever while everything rotted away from her! Imagine rotting away herself while she slept!
She wandered to the windows and door, but the haze wouldn’t clear. Well, she wasn’t a wizard for nothing; she was going to have to clear the spell herself and hope that an unknown-length nap had not rusted away her skills.
Seventeen bottles later, one lit flame, and an incantation that sounded right and felt a little like nails ripping through her throat, she had eliminated the fog. Pleased and yet worried, Kael walked to her window to look over the countryside. She pushed away the heavy, thickly-spelled curtains.
She was greeted with grey and silver, white and black, noise and more noise. Her tower overlooked dozens and dozens of other towers, some of them nearly as tall as her proud and wild Black Tower. There were people everywhere, dressed in strange fashion and moving quickly about.
Kael sat down in her favorite armchair. How long had she slept?
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