Aetheria

Mira did not sleep.

Harven eventually stopped asking whether she intended to try.

The temple had given her a narrow room with a bed, a wash basin, a stool and a shuttered window overlooking the eastern side of Eastmere. Mira sat on the bed until sometime after midnight, then moved to the stool because balancing there was easier with one foot missing. Later, she moved to the window and watched the last of the streetlamps burn low while the town settled into silence.

Her mind felt tired, and her body hurt in enough places that she had stopped counting them individually.

None of it became sleep.

That was another problem for later.

At dawn, a temple boy returned her spear, goblin knives, belt pouch and a small cloth bundle tied with blue cord.

"The road patrol found these near the bridge," he said.

Mira untied the cloth.

Inside were three rounded slime cores roughly the size of walnuts. One was pale blue and intact, another green and intact, while the third had cracked almost through the middle. Several smaller fragments rested at the bottom beside a flattened strip of translucent membrane that resembled wet skin after drying.

Mira touched the intact blue core.

It was cool and faintly slick without leaving anything on her fingers.

For a moment she remembered another blue body disappearing beneath the river with a boot and a skeletal foot suspended inside it.

This core was too small to belong to that one.

She put it back.

The boy glanced at her left leg and then very deliberately found somewhere else to look.

"Master Harven said to come downstairs when you're ready."

Mira nodded.

He left quickly enough that she suspected he had been waiting for permission to escape.

Harven rewrapped her missing ankle with padded cloth and leather ties. The dressing protected the exposed joint and gave the lower leg a cleaner shape, but it did nothing to change what was absent. He also checked the splint on her forearm, pronounced the alignment acceptable for now, and told her not to hit anything with it.

"That seems optimistic," Mira said.

Harven finished tying the knot. "It is a request, not a prophecy."

Elaine arrived while he was still adjusting the wrap. She carried bread, cheese and a cup of watered tea.

Mira looked at the food, then at Elaine.

Elaine set the tray down.

Mira ate because she saw no reason not to. The bread tasted considerably better than the dried fruit from her starting pouch. Eating without any of the anatomy normally required for eating remained strange, but the novelty had lost some of its ability to disturb her.

When she finished, Harven returned the borrowed robe and temple scarf.

Mira wrapped the scarf carefully, crossing it higher along the side of her skull before bringing the fabric down around her neck. It still lacked enough material to fall the way she wanted, but the result was close enough to improve her mood.

Elaine noticed.

"Better?"

"Much."

Harven looked from the scarf to the bundle of monster parts.

"If you're thinking about going out, stay near the centre of town."

Mira tied the bundle shut.

"I want to see the tailors."

Elaine smiled as though she had expected that.

"Eastmere also has a tanner, a leatherworker, two general merchants and one clothier who thinks he's too important to be called a tailor."

Mira looked up.

"Where?"

Elaine drew a simple map on a scrap of paper. "Temple square, then left at the well. Market Street runs toward the east gate. You'll find most of what you want there."

Harven added, "Come back if the wrapping loosens or the arm shifts."

Mira took her spear and hooked the bundle to her belt.

She stopped beside the doorway.

"How much should slime cores sell for?"

Harven's brows rose.

Elaine answered first. "Depends on condition and size. Intact ones will do better than cracked ones. Are those from yesterday?"

Mira nodded.

"You should let Gerrin weigh them. He buys from hunters and crafters. Don't take his first price if he starts looking wounded."

Mira remembered that.

Harven folded his arms.

"She is thirteen."

Elaine looked at him.

"And?"

Mira left before they could continue.

The morning air outside was cooler than she expected.

Eastmere had fully awakened while she was inside the temple. People crossed the square carrying baskets and crates. Two women argued amiably beside the well. A cart filled with cabbages rolled past while its driver called for everyone blocking the road to move.

Mira travelled more slowly than anyone around her.

The spear took part of her weight whenever the road became uneven, while she kept the bandaged left ankle lifted far enough that it would not strike the ground. The pattern was awkward, but considerably less difficult than it had been the night before.

She placed the spear.

Shifted her weight.

Moved the right foot.

Brought the left leg through.

After enough repetitions, she no longer needed to devote as much attention to each part individually.

By the time she reached Market Street, the movement was still ugly, but it worked.

The market was exactly the sort of place Mira had hoped a fantasy town would have.

Canopies stretched above narrow shopfronts in faded red, cream and blue. Bundles of herbs hung outside one door. Fresh fish lay on packed ice outside another. A blacksmith farther along the road had already begun hammering, and the steady ringing carried between the buildings.

Mira slowed.

There were scarves displayed outside one shop and boots outside another. Belts and mantles hung from wooden racks. Above the street, lengths of dyed cloth moved gently in the breeze in deep green, charcoal, gold and ivory.

She wanted to inspect all of it.

Instead, she found the sign Elaine had described.

Gerrin's Tradehouse

The building smelled of rope, leather, dried herbs and old wood. Shelves crowded every wall with cookware, lamp oil, cheap knives, rolled blankets, fishing hooks, boots, bundles of arrows, thread, sacks of grain and several objects Mira could not identify without examining them properly.

A thickset man stood behind the counter sorting polished stones into trays.

He looked up.

His eyes went to her face, down to the missing foot, across to the spear and then back to her face.

Mira was becoming very familiar with that sequence.

"Morning," he said carefully.

"Elaine told me to sell these to Gerrin."

"That would be me."

Mira placed the bundle on the counter and untied it.

Gerrin leaned forward.

The blue slime core drew his attention first.

"River slimes?"

"Yes."

He picked up the intact blue core and rolled it between his fingers, then examined the green one. The cracked core received considerably less affection.

"What else?"

Mira emptied the items she was willing to sell onto the counter.

The spare goblin knife joined several rough leather pouches and the pieces recovered by the road patrol. Someone had also placed two small yellow teeth inside one of the pouches.

Mira had not known those were there.

She kept the broken iron awl.

It was bent now after the bridge, but she had already discovered that a small piece of metal with a sharp end could become useful very quickly.

Gerrin separated the goods into several piles.

"You fought all this yourself?"

"Not all of it."

He gave her a sideways look.

"I killed some goblins. Corin helped with one slime. The guards gathered some things afterward."

Gerrin grunted.

That seemed acceptable to him.

He weighed the cores on a brass scale. The blue one was heavier. The green earned a thoughtful click of his tongue. He tapped the cracked core once with a fingernail before dropping it into a lesser tray.

"The blue and green are decent. Not large, but clean. Membrane's useful. Cracked one's worth less. Goblin knife is poor. Pouches are poor. Teeth are goblin teeth."

The disappointment in the final statement seemed personal.

Mira rested one gloved hand on the counter.

"How much?"

Gerrin named a number.

Mira thought about Elaine's warning.

"Elaine said not to take your first price if you looked pained."

Gerrin stared at her.

Then he laughed.

"Did she?"

"Yes."

"Elaine remains a menace to honest business."

Mira looked at him.

"You don't look honest."

His laughter became louder.

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The second offer was better.

Gerrin counted out copper pieces and several small silver coins while explaining the denominations.

One hundred copper made one small silver.

One hundred small silver made one gold.

The amount was more money than Mira had owned since entering Aetheria and still far less than the clothing she wanted was likely to require.

Gerrin swept the purchased materials away.

"You buying anything?"

Mira looked around.

A dozen things deserved attention.

Not here.

"I need gloves."

"Leatherworker two doors down. Tessa does better work than I do. If you want pretty gloves instead of useful ones, try Lorne's cloth shop farther along."

"I want both."

Gerrin pointed toward her scarf.

"Then you'll be disappointed a lot in life."

"I've already noticed."

Mira gathered her money.

Tessa's shop was narrower than Gerrin's and much brighter.

Strips of treated hide hung from the rafters, while belts, wrist guards, satchels and gloves filled the front displays.

Mira stopped beside the glove rack.

There were wool-lined winter gloves, riding gloves, fingerless leather wraps, reinforced work gloves and several slender pairs clearly intended more for appearance than protection.

She picked up a dark pair with padded knuckles and flexible seams across the fingers.

A woman in a heavy apron emerged from the back room, wiping her hands against a cloth.

"Try them."

Mira did.

The left glove required some care around the splint, but the right settled comfortably over her skeletal fingers. The leather immediately improved her grip.

"Training gloves," the woman said. "Good for a staff or short blade. Less good for punching walls."

Mira flexed her hand.

"I don't plan to punch walls."

"Good. Walls usually win."

Mira looked at the price and then at another pair hanging slightly higher.

Those were darker, cleaner and edged at the wrist with a narrow ivory stitch.

"What's the difference?"

"The cheap pair protects your hands. The expensive pair protects your hands and flatters you while doing it."

Mira held both.

The first pair was sensible.

The second pair looked much better.

The woman watched her expression.

"You can buy the sensible pair now and come back for the vain pair later."

Mira returned the expensive gloves to the display with considerable reluctance.

"I'll take these."

"Wise."

Mira paid and put them on immediately.

She tapped the padded knuckles lightly against the counter.

The leather felt good around her hands.

Secure.

If she eventually had to keep fighting things at close range, she wanted something between bone and whatever was trying to break it.

Then she noticed the scarves hanging from a brass rail across the far wall.

Mira moved toward them.

Wide scarves.

Layered ones.

Cream, black, charcoal and warm gold.

One black-and-ivory travelling mantle had a broad wrapped collar that rose high enough to cross the side of the head before widening across the shoulders. Delicate gold stitching repeated along the border.

Mira touched the edge carefully.

Tessa noticed.

"That came in from Arvenfall three days ago."

The cloth was heavier than her temple scarf and considerably smoother.

"How much?"

Tessa named the price.

Mira's hand stopped moving.

The woman shrugged. "Good cloth, proper work, fine stitching."

Mira reluctantly released it.

"I'll come back."

"That's how most good clothes begin."

Mira stepped into Market Street wearing her new gloves and thinking about how many slimes she would apparently need to kill before she could afford proper clothing.

The first scream interrupted that calculation.

It came from farther down the market, sharp enough to cut through conversation, hammering and wagon wheels.

People turned.

Another shout followed.

Wood broke somewhere ahead.

Mira saw the movement above the awnings first.

A grey shape landed on the roof of a butcher's stall, sent hooks and pans scattering, then sprang again before anyone around it fully understood what they were seeing.

The creature hit the street in a blur of muscle, tufted ears and long fur.

A level appeared above it.

Whispertail

Level 5

It was larger than any house cat had any reasonable right to be and leaner than a lynx, with long forelegs, tufted ears, a short muzzle and a coat patterned in broken ash-grey spots.

Its tail looked almost entirely like a fox's, full and expressive, a pale plume ending in black.

A second whispertail came over the awning beside it.

This one had two tails.

Both snapped behind it as the creature jumped onto a hanging rack of smoked meat.

The rack tore free.

Meat, hooks and an unfortunate cloth banner came down together.

People scattered.

One of the market guards ran forward with a spear and immediately had to throw himself aside when the first whispertail launched at his face.

Mira planted her own spear and moved toward the nearest doorway as quickly as one foot allowed.

Tessa was already pulling the shop shutter down from inside.

"Mira!"

It took her a moment to realise the woman was calling her.

Mira crossed the remaining distance and helped drag the shutter lower with her good hand while keeping her spear wedged beneath the other arm.

A small boy darted between two overturned baskets in the centre of the street.

His mother screamed his name.

The two-tailed whispertail saw him.

It crouched.

Mira had already started reaching for Blessing of Shelter.

The normal spell enclosed a target.

The boy did not need protection around every part of his body equally.

The animal was coming from his left.

Mira's attention settled on the side that would take the impact.

Essence gathered.

She released the blessing.

Golden light wrapped around the boy just as the whispertail struck him, but the glow was denser across his shoulder and upper torso where the creature landed.

He went down hard.

The protection flared.

The boy rolled across the packed dirt, crying, but the whispertail's claws failed to tear through him.

The market guard reached them a moment later and drove his spear toward the animal's side.

It twisted with extraordinary speed and ripped away before the point sank deeply.

Blood scattered across the road.

The child scrambled toward his mother.

Mira felt the expenditure through her Essence.

Less than a full Blessing.

She barely registered the difference before the first whispertail shot beneath a produce cart and came out the other side carrying a hen in its jaws.

A hunter near the well loosed an arrow.

The shaft struck the beast's flank and lodged shallowly.

The creature continued running.

Then something small and white flashed between its legs.

Mira caught the movement only because her attention was already low to the ground.

It vanished beneath a collapsed bolt of cloth beside the clothier's doorway.

Another crash sounded farther along the street.

A third whispertail had entered from an alley behind the butcher. This one was darker and heavier, with one ragged tail and a torn ear.

It lunged onto a fish stall and scattered scales, baskets and fish across the street.

Tessa shoved a short cudgel into Mira's good hand.

"Stay inside if you can."

Mira looked at the cudgel, her spear and the market full of enormous angry animals.

"That seems difficult."

Tessa gave her a sharp look before running toward the entrance with a hook-bladed skinning knife.

The first whispertail streaked past the shop and nearly clipped Mira's shoulder.

Mira struck at it with the spear shaft more from instinct than skill.

The blow glanced off its back.

The creature spun.

Its tufted ears flattened.

Gold eyes fixed on her.

Its mouth opened in a hiss far deeper than anything Mira expected from a cat.

Mira had one useful arm, one useful foot and a spear that currently served as both weapon and support.

The whispertail launched.

She drove the spear forward and braced herself on her right leg.

The creature hit the shaft halfway down its length and twisted around it.

Claws scraped wood.

Its weight nearly tore the spear from her grip.

Mira released the shaft with the injured arm and held on with the right.

The beast rode the weapon closer.

The spear was keeping its mouth away from her.

Mira dropped the cudgel.

Radiant Spark gathered in her free palm.

The skill wanted to release as a short-ranged burst.

At this distance, a wide burst was unnecessary.

Mira concentrated it toward the creature's face.

The light tightened.

She fired.

Radiant Spark struck across the whispertail's eyes.

The flash was smaller than the bursts she had used against the goblins.

The animal reacted far more violently.

It shrieked and hit the ground sideways, clawing at its face.

Mira saw the opening.

She stabbed.

The spearhead entered behind its shoulder.

The whispertail lashed its tail around the shaft and yanked.

Mira stumbled forward.

She caught herself against the spear and stayed upright only because her right foot dug into the shop threshold.

Tessa came from the side.

Her skinning knife slashed across the animal's muzzle.

It recoiled.

Mira shifted the spear lower and drove it forward again.

The point sank farther.

The whispertail thrashed, claws carving furrows into the dirt.

Mira tried to withdraw before it reached her.

It caught the bottom of her robe anyway.

Fabric tore.

Another claw struck the padded wrist of her new glove and skidded across the leather instead of meeting bone.

The purchase had already justified itself.

A second market guard drove his spear into the animal's ribs.

The whispertail convulsed.

Then its body went still.

Mira stepped back.

Her hands shook around the spear.

The guard looked at her, then at the animal, and finally toward Tessa.

Tessa wiped her knife against the edge of the stall.

"She hit its eyes. That's why you got close."

Mira was still blinking away the remains of her own Radiant Spark.

Shouting continued elsewhere in the market.

The two-tailed whispertail had reached the clothier's awning and raced along its top while two hunters tried to corner it from opposite sides.

The darker animal near the fish stall had acquired a butcher's cleaver in one flank and remained very much alive.

Mira heard another sound.

A thin, strained cry came from near the clothier's doorway.

It did not sound human.

It did not resemble the calls of the adult whispertails either.

Mira turned toward the collapsed fabric.

The sound came again, weaker this time.

Tessa was helping pull the injured boy fully inside her shop. Guards and hunters had taken over most of the street.

Mira moved toward the fabric and crouched awkwardly beside it.

She lifted one corner.

Two pale eyes stared back at her.

The creature underneath was tiny compared with the adults. It could have fit within both her hands if she trusted it enough to try.

Its fur was marble white, bright against the dark fabric, without the grey spotting of the adults.

Five tails were wrapped tightly around its body.

Each ended in a soft pink gradient that deepened toward the tips as though colour had been brushed through the fur.

Mira stared.

The little animal bared needle-like teeth and produced a sound that was trying very hard to be threatening.

A level hovered over it.

Whispertail Cub

Level 3

Five tails.

The adults attacking the market had one or two.

Mira looked more carefully.

Blood stained one foreleg.

The cub attempted to lunge at her, made it halfway forward and collapsed back into the cloth with obvious fury.

Tessa looked over from the doorway.

"What is it?"

Mira lowered the fabric enough to partly conceal the cub.

"Nothing."

Tessa stared at her.

"That sounded like something."

Before Mira could answer, one of the hunters shouted from the centre of the street.

"There's another one! Check the stalls!"

Mira's attention snapped toward him.

The hunter pointed toward the butcher's roof and then toward the alley behind the clothier.

Several people began looking beneath carts, crates and awnings for whatever animals remained after the attack.

Mira looked down.

The cub tried to bite the fabric covering it and lacked enough strength to move it.

If someone else found it, they were unlikely to see an injured animal that needed help.

A Level 3 whispertail was still a monster.

Five tails might make it more valuable rather than safer.

Mira slid the cloth farther aside and hooked one gloved hand beneath its chest.

The cub twisted immediately.

She lifted it anyway.

It fit against her surprisingly well, all fur, rigid little bones and furious tension. Its five tails struck once against her robe.

One hind claw caught on the fabric.

Then the cub bit her glove.

The leather held.

Mira looked down at it.

"That was expensive."

The cub did not appear sorry.

Mira tucked its body into the fold of the borrowed robe beneath her scarf, arranging the cloth so it supported the cub against her ribs.

It squirmed once before going still, ears flattened against its head.

Tessa saw enough.

Her eyebrows rose.

Mira met her eyes.

Tessa looked toward the market.

Then back at Mira.

She said nothing.

A moment later the darker whispertail gave a final screech near the fish stall and disappeared beneath several attackers.

The two-tailed one escaped across the rooftops with an arrow lodged in its flank.

More guards poured into the market from the east end after most of the danger had already passed.

The noise faded gradually as people stopped screaming, weapons lowered and conversation returned in overlapping bursts.

Mira kept one hand lightly over the hidden cub as though she were merely holding the damaged robe closed.

The small heartbeat beneath the cloth raced against her palm.

Tessa wiped blood from her knife.

"You planning to show anyone what you've got there?"

Mira glanced down.

"No."

"Good."

The answer made Mira look at her properly.

Tessa shrugged.

"If the wardens see a whispertail cub, they'll take it. If the wrong trader sees a five-tailed one, they'll do worse."

Mira remembered that immediately.

The cub shifted beneath the scarf and pressed its head farther into the folds.

Tessa noticed.

"It's hurt?"

"Foreleg."

"Can you heal it?"

Mira checked her Essence.

Blessing of Shelter and Radiant Spark had both cost less than their listed amounts.

She noticed that now.

The boy's protection had only needed to stop one impact from one direction.

The whispertail's eyes had only required enough light to overwhelm its vision.

Mira had not intended to modify either spell.

She had simply used as much of each as the problem seemed to require.

There was still enough Essence for the wound hidden beneath her scarf.

"I think so."

Tessa jerked her head toward the back room.

"Then go before someone starts asking questions."

Mira moved through the shop as quickly as she could without jostling the cub.

The workroom behind the storefront smelled of dye, oil and warm leather.

Tessa shut the door and pulled a curtain across the inner window.

Mira lowered herself onto a stool.

She carefully opened the robe.

The cub stared up at her.

Up close, the fur was even more remarkable. Its white coat showed no visible spotting, while the pink at the ends of the tails appeared faintly around the ear tufts and nose as well.

Its left foreleg carried a shallow slice along the outside, probably caused by broken wood or a stray blade during the attack.

Mira offered her gloved hand.

The cub bit it again.

There was less conviction behind this attempt.

Mira moved the hand away.

"You're going to ruin these before I've had them for a day."

Tessa crouched nearby.

"I've seen whispertails all my life. Never one like that."

Mira nodded.

She gathered Minor Heal.

The spell formed easily now.

Mira did not spread it through the entire foreleg.

The wound was small.

A narrow line of damaged skin and tissue was all that needed healing.

Golden light condensed around two fingers.

She touched it to the cut.

The glow was barely larger than the injury.

The cub stiffened.

The wound drew together.

The light disappeared.

Mira did not need to inspect the status immediately to know the cost had been small. The difference in the pull against her Essence was becoming easier to feel.

The cub cautiously placed weight on the leg.

Then again.

It looked up at Mira as though this medical assistance had changed absolutely nothing about their relationship.

Its five tails loosened slightly around its body.

Tessa exhaled.

"Now what?"

Mira slid one finger carefully beneath the cub's chin.

The animal watched it approach.

This time it did not bite.

"I don't know."

That was true.

She knew the cub was injured.

She knew people outside might take it.

She knew she had nowhere appropriate to keep a wild animal and very little money after buying gloves.

Those were all problems she could deal with once the market stopped being full of dead whispertails.

Mira adjusted the scarf around the cub.

For now, she was keeping it.

Status

Mira

Species: Human

Class: Cleric

Level: 2

Experience: 58 / 140

Strength: 4

Agility: 6

Endurance: 5

Perception: 8

Intelligence: 10

Spirit: 9

Essence: 17 / 45

Unassigned Attribute Points: 0

Individual Abilities

Simplification — Common

Improves the ability to reduce complex problems into their most relevant components using available information.

Skills

Minor Heal — Common

Radiant Spark — Common

Blessing of Shelter — Common

Equipment

Temple Spare Robe — Common — Damaged

Temple Cleric Scarf — Common

Training Gloves — Common

Beginner Boot — Common — Right Foot Only

Goblin Knife — Common — 9 / 21 Durability

Goblin Spear — Common — 14 / 28 Durability

Novice Cleric Token — Common

Inventory

Copper Coins ×18

Small Silver Coins ×2

Dried Fruit Strip ×1

Folded Cloth ×1

Low-Grade Flint ×1

Cord ×2

Bent Iron Buckle ×1

Broken Iron Awl — Common — Bent

Leather Strap ×1

Crude Whetstone ×1

Condition

Left Foot — Missing

Left Radius — Fractured, Properly Splinted

Left Ulna — Cracked

Rib Damage — Moderate

Back and Shoulder — Recovering

Right Leg — Strained

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