>>5917704Nicolette’s eyes go wide, and she flinches at the sound of a woman’s voice from the floor below.
“Oh shi—crap!”
“WHY ARE MY WALLS ONLY HALF-PAINTED, APPRENTICE?!”
“Go, go!” Nicolette Testa says, waving her wand to sweep away the candles and chalk as quickly as she can. “I’m not allowed any boys up here, and I need to make an excuse AND hope Mistress Gartner doesn’t figure out where her deep-opals and sun-topaz went before I can replace them!”
Testa shoves you into a nearby closet before you can protest—better than out the tower window, you suppose, though our <Free Movement> can serve as well as <Slowfall> in a pinch. If you’d needed to cast THAT, though, you wouldn’t have had the mana necessary to activate your envelope, though—a new one, enchanted like the last, and good for one quick return-trip to Old Maple Hill.
“Oh, and take this,” she says, shoving something into your hand. “Now hurry! She always checks the closet first.”
(So she’s done this… or something like it… Before, huh? Hm. Mayeb she’s NOT still holding out hope for Pearce…)
You just about hear the beginning of your old friend exclaiming “I can expl—” when you activate the envelope. Your business here is conclude and, until you need to make good on your bargain, you suppose the least you can do is avoid getting her in trouble with her master.
When you reappear at old Maple Hill, you find the sun a little lower in the sky than on the Southland’s mountainous border. Veloz, your lunar hummingbird companion, is quickly upon you, humming an thrumming about in excitement at your return. Izzy is there, too, though her own excitement and relief are more subdued… But still present in her eyes.
“What have you got there?” she asks.
You look down and see in your hand a new band—velvet rather than leather, and thinner than your old hatband, with a small, stylized owl’s face in place of the classic, simple buckle of your old one. You squint at it, considering your opinion of it, but ultimately you place it upon your hat. As Nicolette Testa must have recognized, a wizard’s cap looks naked without its band…
And the old belt which served as your band these last few years now serves a new purpose, as the tool by which you will bind the illusory and shapeshifting abilities of your reptilian adversary, if it comes to it.
>Magic item acquired: Belt of Binding, capable of being attached to an opponent and restricting their ability to hide or shift their shape or form; removing it, too, requires an Arcana check or a keyword.