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The wagon trundles along, every bump along the way bouncing the head of the student on the rough boards. She had tried to sleep and tried to plan, but being bound, gagged and blindfolded was more than a little hindrance to sleep and thought. Her body still ached from the ‘interrogation’, and she counted herself lucky it had been nothing worse than being thrown against a wall and kicked to the floor. They had paraded her through town, a symbol of the law, a warning to heretics luckier than her. A thrown rock had left an ugly cut on her right eye, if she survived this it would certainly leave a scar.
“Is it safe this close to the fog?” A tremble in the voice of the guard. She must be close.
A grunt. “As long as we’re quick. Just need to be faster than her.”
“Uh…right. Do we take off the ropes now?”
“If we do, she might be faster than us. Wouldn’t want that, would we?”
“Oh.”
“Alright, we’re here. Get her down and get that gag out of her, but watch your fingers. They bite sometimes.”
“Right sir.”
The student felt someone pull her upright, then drag her out of the cart. There was a vibration near her wrists and ankles for a few moments, then a whisper in her ear.
“Ropes should snap off easy, figure you deserve a chance, right?”
The student smiled and hummed. Small mercies were the best she could hope for. Clumsy trembling fingers untied the gag and blindfold, blinding sun lashing her eyes. Her voice croaked, it had been days since she had spoken.
“Uh, I’m supposed to ask if you have any last words before we send you…down there.”
The student forced her eyes open against the daylight. In front of her was the Fog, a mile high wall of rolling clouds that cordoned off a place called the Spellwild. Rumors told that on the other side was a vast land where magic roamed rampant, where magical beasts stalked and dark wizards waged war. A thousand cults had lived and died inside, and more tomes of magic had been lost than had existed on the outside. A heretic’s dream, if she could survive. They said the fog could rip off your skin, that monsters hunted in it, that only a vast desert waited on the other side.
Any last words?
> Stay silent
> It’s not important now.
> One day I will return, and you will fear me.
> Write in
