>>5827309If the materials in the Tower’s library are not enough, nor the insights gleaned from its most venerable and respectable experts, then the secret must have laid beyond the Tower. That was your thinking, anyway. You thus packed your things and prepared to make a journey which you had not made now for several years: the trek to ‘Old Maple Hill’, the sacred place home to the nearest fairy court, where you had learned the art of <Faerie Fire> in your early adolescence. The True Fey there had also taken in your first ‘great experiment’, the artificial jackalope which had been your chimeric masterwork before rejuvenating Hershy.
You whistled softly, and Muffins’ three heads rose as one; the goat-aspect bleated excitedly as the lion-head chuffed and south to return to sleep; nipped at by the viper, it rose begrudgingly and joined the other two in waking, and your three-headed companion stepped over to your chamber door. You donned your robe and hat, but as you did so, your eyes lingered upon a particular drawer of your nightstand. After a moment, you stepped back towards your bed, slid it open, and extracted the paper envelope within. Within was the green shirin—the last of the substance that you had neither taken nor traded away. You still hadn’t used it, and wondered idly if it was any good… But it was a powdered, refined substance, kept in a cool, dry place, so it might be. And if it wasn’t… Well, you weren’t yet sure if you’d have need of it, anyway.
You pocketed the powder, and departed.
The journey was as arduous as ever-maybe moreso as, in the years since your trip the Goblin Wastes, you had devoted yourself far more rigorously to the intellectual sphere of your life than the physical. You idly eyed Muffins, wondering if you might ride upon the great beast… But he wasn’t THAT great in size, yet, nor built like a horse, and you strongly suspected that to attempt this would incur the snake-head’s wrath. You’d just have to bear it.
Bear it you did, eventually arriving at the base of the hill. You brought as offering a small tin of candies—remembering their affinity for sweet things—and you ascended the hill. Beneath the Old Maple, though, you found not fairies; not yet, ahead of dusk. Neither were you alone, though. There, atop the hill, sat…
“Izzy?!”
She waved, a small and self-conscious smile upon her lips.
“What are you DOING here?” you demanded.
“The Archmage detected your absence,” she noted. “Someone had to be sent to follow you… And I recognized where you were going, from the stories you told me, so… I volunteered.”
