A meeting in the City {Artemis~StormKatz}

Eliza ignored Leuan, and continued to flick through the pages. She wasn’t reading every word, just scanning for any key words, until a certain page caught her eye. The heading? Sylphs. It referred to every sort, from water sylphs all the way up to fiery salamanders, and she decided to give that page a miss. She doubted they had the full facts recorded across that two page spread, and there wasn’t anything she needed to know about them. Instead, she continued through the book, thinking carefully about what she was actually looking for.

However, she couldn’t stop her mind slipping back to the librarian. Of course, he had seen her every day for the first 20 years or so of her life, so he was sure to remember her, exactly as she had been then. He would be growing more and more suspicious, and since he worked with books; who was to say he wouldn’t know, or have some idea? She could only hope he was getting old enough to start forgetting things, but that had never been in his nature anyway.

Leuan leafed through the book slowly, looking at each picture, for some time, until eventually he became annoyed with the many pages and riffled through a huge chunk of the book all at once. It suddenly occured to him that things seemed like they were arranged alphabetically- hadn't it been A, B and C at the start, and then going on to things like E and H? He stopped, peered at the heading of the page he was on- U, for unicorn, and then began racking his brain for the alphabet.
'A, b, c, d, e, f, g,' he sang under his breath, hoping fervently that Eliza wouldn't notice. He rushed through to W, and then triumphantly turned a few pages until he reached the first entry for W- Worm.

Seeing that the picture was nothing like what he wanted, he began to turn the page, until he suddenly realised that the image looked terribly familiar. It showed a pretty young girl, with dark hair, standing by a pond. However, the thing which caught his attention was the fact that she, just like Eliza had been when he first met her, was covered in a thin sheet of water- and her clothes were also wet. Her clothes looked extremely outdated, likely at least a century old. Below was an image of what looked to be the same girl, but this time lurking in the pond. Her skin was blue, her hair ropy, and she was obviously a monster of some sort. Feeling apprehensive, Leuan looked over at the text on the opposite page.
'WATER SYLPHS', the heading announced.
'These pond-lurkers originate from humans, who must change into one. They do not age, and can be male or female, although the latter is more common.' Leuan read on as fast as he was able, a sort of horror building inside him.
'Appear in human form...'
'Lure their human prey back to their ponds to feed on them...'
'Frequently hunt the opposite gender...'

Worms forgotten, Leuan reached the page and then looked up at Eliza in mute horror and disgust. If she was a water sylph, it would explain all of the strange things about her- she could simply have lived here as a human and was now returning, far later. Still in the outdated clothes of her youth, which he did now recognise as being old fashion.

“Are you alright, Leuan? You look startled, that’s all. Have you found something?” Eliza asked, noticing that Leuan had looked up from his book. She had been reading bits of each page, and had only just reached the middle of the book, so she was nowhere near any ‘worm’ entries, but Leuan may well have been. She had no idea what he had actually seen on the page. In fact, she had quite forgotten that the book he was holding contained the article that had taught her everything she knew about water sylphs.

Flicking to the Ws quickly, so that she didn’t seem to be procrastinating, Eliza made herself look busy. However, after a moment she did raise her head to see Leuan. He still looked frightened, as if something had spooked him.

“Leuan? What is it?” she asked, suddenly worried. What could possibly have been that worrying in the book? He still just thought they were fairytales, didn’t he?

Leuan shook himself quickly as Eliza asked him again
'Um, yeah. I... I'm fine. I just thought I'd forgotten about something I need to do, but it's next week.' His lie was smooth- he'd had plenty of practice in the past, most frequently assuring girls that they were the only one or some such thing. Unfortunately, the excuse wasn't necessary adequate for his expression. He swiftly flipped past another few pages, staring intently at the book, and soon found something which looked promising: an illustration of something grey and wormy.
'Aha!' he said triumphantly, pushing the book straight over to Eliza to save himself the embarrassment of reading it aloud at his rather slow pace. 'Do you think that could be it?' He figured that if Eliza could help find whatever had destroyed the column, then it could only be good; it wasn't like he was about to go back to that pond with her now.

Eliza took the book and settled it on her lap. The illustration was of a small, greyish worm, which was a promising start.

“It says it’s called a slatewyrm. They can be up to a mile long though, or so the legends in here say. However this sort of book often exaggerates, so you never can tell. Apparently it leaves erratic, swirling patterns in whatever it eats, and lives on the mineral impurities in rocks. It sounds really promising. Great work!” she grinned, her eyes lighting up as the mystery started to unravel itself in her mind. However, if they were dealing with one of the slatewyrms, that would have to find it, and fast. The book said that they had enchantments laced into their very teeth, meaning they could eat through anything (not just stone), and that even the buildings protected by the mages’ wards would be at risk.

“Now we have a name, there must be a book somewhere on them. I’ll find one now. Can you finish reading that article? I’ll only be a minute or two.” She said, passing the book back and leaping towards the shelves, letting her skirts swirl. It was impossible to hide how happy she was when she was surrounded by the legends trapped in the books, and she sometimes wished she could pull her head out of the clouds for just a day or two. But what fun would that be, after all?

A smug feeling of triumph washed through Leuan as Eliza summarised the book's information on slatewyrms. However, it didn't exactly sound good- if it was a mile long and nobody had yet found it, then surely it must be pretty good at hiding? He sighed- probably better than trying to track down a normal earthworm, at any rate. He took the book as she shoved it at him again, and slowly read the rest of the page. Apparently the worms were capable of breaking any known enchantment or spell, and had destroyed entire villages or even towns in some stories, eating their way through the foundations and walls of buildings until they could not longer hold.

When he eventually finished all the information on slatewyrms, he glanced warily up in the direction that Eliza had disappeared in before jumping to his feet and beginning to scan the many titles on the shelves. Following the large letters which labelled each shelf alphabetically by subject, he soon found W and located a book titled 'Water Sylphs: Are you the next victim?' He didn't think it sounded like the best book in the world, but it was the only one there, and so he pulled it off the shelf and opened it to the introduction page. Curiously, he began to read, glancing up every few seconds to make sure that Eliza hadn't returned.

Eliza found a specialised section that seemed to have a lot of information about a selection of wyrms and dragons, and browsed around until she found something that sounded promising. She opened it and rested the book against her hip, skimming over it as she picked up a second book with a picture of a long, grey worm on the front. She tucked that under her other elbow, and made her way slowly back towards Leuan, reading as she went, and therefore not looking where she was going.

The book had lots of relevant information, really. The introduction told her that, while the wyrms were exceptionally long when fully grown, they could take up to a century to reach that size, so they would mostly be a few yards long, rather than the full mile.

“Found anything else?” she asked Leuan, not looking up for her book as she turned another page, soaking in the information like a sponge.

The book was certainly interesting. Leuan found himself immersed in deciphering a story about somebody who had been particularly gorily consumed by a water sylph, and the whole thing had been witnessed by his hiding wife. When Eliza spoke, Leuan jumped in shock and then quickly shoved the book out of sight.
'Um, nothing much,' he said hurriedly. 'Just that... Well, if it is one of these things, we need to get rid of it quickly. He crossed over to the open book on the floor, closed it, and then slotted it back into its place on the shelves.
'I guess that book is helpful, then?' he said, immensely relieved that she'd been too busy looking down at her find to see him engrossed in his. No doubt that would have raised some difficulties.

“Yeah, pretty much. There’s another here if you want to take a look, but this could be all we need. Apparently we aren’t looking for something a mile long, but more likely about fifty yards. Still long, but easier to misplace.” She explained, turning another page and extending her arm with the other book clamped in her hand. She had no idea what Leuan had been reading, and was too absorbed in her book to notice he had reacted oddly to her appearing again. Reading would get her into a lot of trouble one day at this rate.

“Apparently they like cheap rocks best, as they have more impurities. So… we start in the cheapest part of town?” Eliza reasoned, finally looking up from her book to raise an eyebrow at Leuan. This was her sort of day, all in all, and she was really enjoying it.

'Nah, I think I'm okay,' he said, eyeing the other book Eliza held. 'Glad to hear its only fifty yards. I mean, we wouldn't want to be dealing with an unnaturally long wormy thing... Oh, no...' He sighed somewhat self-pityingly for having picked up Eliza of all girls, and shoved his hands into his pockets.
'Sure thing. Let's go,' he said, hurrying ahead to the library's exit. When he reached the librarian's desk, he quickly muttered,
'I'm taking out a book called, erm... 'Water Sylphs: Are you the next victim?' My name is Leuan Cei Ellis.' The librarian nodded, apparently knowing every bok in the library by name, and wrote it out on a long roll of paper before returning to copying out his scroll. Leuan stepped away from the table and gave Eliza an innocent smile.
'If you're going to take those books with you, you'll need to tell the librarian,' he advised her.

“Oh, no, I think I’ve got all the information I need. I’ll join you in a second.” She called over, closing the book and sliding it back onto the shelf. With that, she pranced towards the exit, passing the librarian.

As she did, she noticed his gaze on her again. Darn it, why couldn’t he let it lie? She ignored him pointedly, and made her way to the exit slightly faster than she maybe needed to.

“Where do you think the stone will be the roughest in town then? Apparently it liked the victory column, but for all we know it could have gone anywhere.” She asked, too wrapped up in the mystery to notice Leuan was even taking out a book. She was feeling particularly kind, and almost dreamy that afternoon, which was strange. Ever since she had changed, she had found herself hardened and cruel, but the little bit of mystery and intrigue surrounding the destroyed column had brought her back to her almost human emotions. Now she certainly hadn’t expected that.

'Okay, sounds good,' Leuan called over his shoulder as he hurried over to the librarian. After checking out his book, he watched Eliza whizzing past the librarian, seeming to avoid his curious gaze. Once the girl- sylph?- had joined him, he walked out of the door and into the cool outside air.

Tilting his face upwards slightly and enjoying the sunlight after the relative gloom inside the library, the avian pondered over the answer to her question.
'I'm not sure, really,' he admitted. Architecture wasn't exactly his forte, and he definitely didn't know where the cheapest, roughest stone was. 'I guess we could try... erm... I don't know, maybe somewhere poorer?'

“So… the edges of town? That sounds reasonable. The book said these things can eat fast, so it could already be there.” She grinned, oblivious to Leuan’s doubt of her. However, she knew that she was safe around humans generally – it wasn’t like they could ever prove that she wasn’t human. Well, not without a lot of water, anyway, and throwing water on a woman in the streets didn’t earn you many favours anyway.

“I wonder how we’ll spot it – the wyrm will be the same colour as the stone.” She mused to herself, thinking through the weaknesses of the other legendary creatures she knew of. She didn’t know what they would do when they found it, and they were still just presuming that they knew what it was. It was jut the best guess they had. On a normal day Eliza would have gathered enough knowledge to fill a library before even setting out looking, but she had a feeling that would bore Leuan. Since he was the only person she had managed to find to lead her around town, it was probably best not to scare him off.

'Okay, if you think so.' Truthfully, Leuan was just relieved that Eliza had set a destination for them. He hadn't had any idea of where to go. He set off at a brisk pace, slipping his hands into his pockets and trying not to dwell on his thoughts of how Eliza was likely a murderer. He wasn't sure if she counted as a cannibal, having once been a human, but presumably not eating others at that time. Not that it mattered- she was the one who'd chosen to become a sylph.

'How about looking for a fifty foot long wormy thing eating its way through stone with magical teeth?' he suggested helpfully at the girl's murmur. He knew that she hadn't been asking him, but anything to get his mind off the disturbing thoughts of her lifestyle. He shivered slightly as they went down a narrower street and he had to walk closer to her, sidling away and closer to the wall as inconspicuously as he could.

“That’s not exactly going to be as easy as it sounds.” Eliza laughed at Leuan’s remark. However, as the streets started to narrow, she began to feel like something wasn’t right. She had been stuck in a land of mystery and excitement ever since visiting the library, but now she was starting to pick up on things again, including Leuan moving away from her in the small streets.

“Is something the matter, Leuan? You look a little wary.” She said, her face falling in concern. She was actually getting to like Leuan, and in this place so steeped with memories her human emotions were overruling the cruelty of her sylph mind. She hadn’t felt this real – this alive – since she had changed, and she was actually starting to miss it.

No! She couldn’t think like that. She had had to die for this way of life, so she couldn’t start doubting it. You made the right choice, she told herself, remember that.

'It can't be that hard. It's going to be pretty big, isn't it?' He grinned at her, but his smile faded away as he realised that she was picking up on his odd behaviour.
'It's nothing,' he replied, trying to brush it off. He made sure to move back to a normal distance from her as they rounded another corner, and gave her a reassuring smile. 'Just... thinking about some things.' It was technically true, and he now even called to mind a legitimate thing to have been thinking about.

'Um, right,' he said as they emerged onto the cheap outskirts of the city. 'Where do we start? How do we look inside stones?'

“Well, if either of us could use magic, it would be really easy. As it is, however, we’re stuck with sort of tapping rocks and hoping.” Eliza replied. Woodworm were easy to detect because the wood made a hollow noise when it was tapped. Stone didn’t really have a sound, though, which was another problem.

“The book also said that these wyrms can be dangerous – if they have enchanted teeth, we don’t want to be on the wrong end of them.” She pointed out. It was a bit of a weak plan, all in all. Maybe they should have asked for help instead of looking on their own. But, then again, that would be no fun at all.

Eliza's words were not what Leuan had wanted to hear.
'Tapping stones?' he echoed disbelievingly. 'You want us to go around tapping the rocks to see if they're hollow? How do you tell?' He wasn't at all keen on Eliza's plan, and he looked around the area for some way to get out of tapping every stone in the city. He was about to make the suggestion of finding a magic user when the girl spoke again, and he rolled his eyes. Great. Not only did they have to find a giant worm by tapping rocks, the worm could also probably kill them with its magical teeth.

He gave a sigh and ruffled his wings before beginning to walk in large, aimless circle, occasionally tapping a stone on the ground with a moody expression. The only sound they made- the sort of thing that a normal footstep sounded like- was identical on every stone he tried.

“There isn’t really anything else we can do, as far as I can see.” Eliza sighed, kicking a stone, and then realising she still had bare feet. Her toe throbbed, and she crouched down to knock on the stones instead. The stone felt hard, and hurt her knuckles, but didn’t make any real sound whatsoever.

“Right, this isn’t working. We need to find a way to scare the bugger out of the rock, if we can’t just find it this way.” She announced, giving up. That had been a disaster, really, and they needed a new plan fast.

“Maybe we could force something else through the rock to push the wyrm out?” she suggested, hoping they would be able to find a little hole once they started looking. That would be easy, but what was there that wouldn’t break the buildings? They couldn’t just push sticks in, because it wouldn’t work, but they couldn’t use a lit piece of rope or anything in case it damaged the buildings. They needed something liquid, really, and harmless, and even then it would only work if they found the hole.

Last edited by Artemis on Tue Jan 10, 2012 8:39 pm; edited 1 time in total

Unwilling though he was to admit it, Leuan couldn't think of many other ways to find the worm either. He was greatly relieved when Eliza stood, abandoning his pointless circling.

'I'm sure it'll be petrified of us with magically killing teeth,' he muttered darkly, finding it difficult to remain in a good mood while searching fruitlessly for this worm with a water sylph who was probably planning to take him off to her pond for a nice little snack. 'Maybe we could... I guess we could try to gas it out. If we could get into its tunnels. And if we had some gas.' He sighed. 'We could try, yeah. Do we just look for a hole where it went in? What if it came under the ground all the way?'

“If it did, we’d have to look for a hole under the column back in the square. It should be about six inches across, so we can’t miss it.” She said optimistically. However, she had no idea where they’d get gas from. Water yes, but she wasn’t sure she could risk suggesting it. A single drop would show her up, which would be a huge problem. She was starting to like Leuan, and didn’t really want to have to kill him. If all went well, she could walk away, and find someone else to prey on. That demanded her staying undetected, however, which was going to get increasingly difficult.

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad – the teeth are more for cutting rock, so they should actually be blunt, if you think about it.” She added reassuringly. She couldn’t wait to find the thing, just because it was something she had never seen before. She couldn’t possibly be worried about it while she was that interested.

A trek back to the main square. Excellent. Leuan was finding that his spirits were dropping rapidly, and Eliza's would-be reassurance didn't really help. Since when did blunt things cut rock? Perhaps they'd work fine... But he'd be substantially easier to bite through than rock. He sighed once again and gestured back the way they had come.
'Are we going to go back and look then, or keep searching round here? Or we could look for someone magical to help, I guess... I mean, it's no good finding gas if you don't have anywhere to put it.' He thought their best option would probably be to look for some sort of magic-user. They were unlikely to have much luck looking throughout the whole city for six-inch-wide worm holes. He'd almost rather taking his chances with it destroying the place. Not quite, though.

“Well, why don’t we try contacting the city mages then? I’m sure they’ll have at least one magic user to spare, since the city isn’t under any threat from the outside at the moment.” She said, despite the fact that it would leave her at risk of being discovered. The mages in the city had never actually been much good when she had lived there, and they used to take any excuse to shirk their work. Of course, by now things would have changed, but she could always hope that there was one willing to help them search.

“You don’t look too confident there, Leuan. Maybe we should give it a rest – after all, this thing will already be gorged after what it did to the column, so it can’t do too much harm right now. There is certain to be a hole under the column – otherwise it could never have eaten through it – so we have at least one possible entry site already.” She said brightly, still eager to continue searching herself, but knowing that he avian may well find the idea of systematically searching for it rather daunting. When she was bound to human timings, she would have too.

'Sounds like a good plan to me,' agreed Leuan, nodding. 'I think the nearest watch tower is the eastern one.' He gave Eliza an inquiring look, but at her next words he looked a little affronted. 'No, I'm fine,' he insisted. 'We should get this out of the way, really. It's not like it'll get any easier from now.' He sighed as she continued to talk about the entry point, before reluctantly offering, 'We can look back at the pillar first, and then try to find a mage if we don't have any luck there. I guess we shouldn't bother them if we don't need to.' He felt like rolling his eyes; this worm was exactly the sort of thing the mages should take care of umprompted. But no, they just sat around in their towers all day. They were about as much use as the Council.

Leuan was right – the eastern tower /was/ the closest, but if the mage system was anything like it was 50 years ago, the southern tower was their best bet. That was where they used to send the slackers – the ones they didn’t trust to genuinely uphold their duties, so they would have more luck prying them out of their tower than the others. And, if they headed for that, they should be able to go via the pillar, if she had remembered the way correctly.

“Well, if we head back to the pillar for a quick investigation, the southern tower should be quite close anyway, so we could take that route.” She said, just to voice her thoughts to Leuan. There was an edge to her voice that suggested she had already made up her mind, and she was itching to finish this hunt off. She wanted to add every scrap of knowledge about this bizarre creature into her vast collection of lore, and to so that, she needed the creature itself.

» Chance Meeting [Kor] - Completed
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