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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 3067461" data-attributes="member: 3448">When Ilsbet was a teen, the time was finally right.  She had managed to avoid beatings long enough for her bruises and injuries to heal, and she arose quietly in the midst of the night.  Ilsbet first gathered the spellbooks and other most valuable books into a backpack, and then snuck back to the kitchen, where she normally slept on the hard stone floor.  She picked out the cook’s best knife, a long and heavy triangular blade, to take with her for defense.  She then built a high fire in the fireplace, using the less valuable books and her mistress’s financial records as kindling, and, with a smile on her face at the cook’s future wrath, threw the remainder of the cook’s knives into the fireplace.  Burning the house down completely appealed to her, but she concluded that the risk of recapture and torture would be too high.  And while she feared that her mistress would make the eunuch servant suffer for her escape, she had no wish to harm him directly, much as she would have like to harm her mistress and the cook.Traveling in the night and through the morning twilight, Ilsbet slipped out of the Seachen city.  Her readings had told her a smattering of the realms beyond the Seachen lands, and she concluded that her best choice was to head northwards-- south led mostly to her childhood homeland, now in the claws of the Skaven.  And so she followed the road northwest, hiding whenever fellow travelers passed by and finding hiding places in which to sleep.At the end of the third day of travel, a strange voice spoke to her from off the trail.  “Sssssee… a ssssmall one travelsssss alone.”Ilsbet could not see the speaker.  She could dimly see its glowing, red eyes from the bushes.  She considered drawing her knife, but decided that it might provoke whatever was speaking to her.  Instead, she cast Prestidigitation to create a circle of dancing lights about her.  “I travel alone, but I have power.”There was laughter in the voice’s words.  “Power, but no teeth.  And yet, sssspirit.  Are you a friend of the Seachen?”Ilsbet thought for a moment.  If she were truthful, and the voice was an ally of the Seachen, she would be doomed.  And yet, if that were the case, the odds were strongly against her already.  Best, then, to be truthful and hope.  “I am no friend of the people who have enslaved and beaten me.  If any try to return me to slavery, I will kill them or die trying.”“Yessss…” the voice replied.  “And the Seachen on the road behind you, they hunt you for your esssscape…”Ilsbet swallowed hard.  “I did not know they pursued me, but I am not surprised.  If I cannot elude them, I will kill them.”A strange form emerged from the bushes.  It had a comely human torso, but with a long tail in place of legs.  A powerful bow remained slung around its torso.  “Come, little one.  I am Seache.  As you are an enemy of the Seachen women, I will take you to a place where you will be ssssafe and can ressst and regain your sssstrength.  And then we will sssssee what can be done to dissstract your pursuersss.”The form turned and slithered through the jungle away from the road.  Having already committed herself, Ilsbet followed cautiously, wondering at Seache’s name with confusion.  After perhaps an hour’s travel, she arrived at a small log cabin.  Seache opened the door and gestured for her to enter.  Several others of his kind looked at Ilsbet with curiosity as she entered.“She isss an enemy of the humanssss who have ssstolen our landsss and our sssecretsss,” Seache explained.  “Thisss makesss her a friend of oursss.”  He placed his hand lightly upon Ilsbet’s forehead.One of the other creatures in the cabin picked up a bowl near the fireplace.  “Come, eat.”  It ladeled porridge from the cook pot into the bowl.  Ilsbet eagerly dug in to her first hot meal in days, since she hadn’t dared to light a fire-- the first respite from the jerky and now-stale bread of her backpack.  The porridge was nourishing, but very bland, especially by the standards of the Spice Lands.  While it had a pleasant consistency, as far as Ilsbet could tell, it had no taste at all.“You may ressst here for the night.” Seache said.  “I will go lead your pursuers off your trail.”  From the way that Seache carefully readied his bow and adjusted the arrows in his quiver, Ilsbet suspected that Seache intended to lead her pursuers into their graves.  That prospect suited her fine.Ilsbet fell asleep before Seache returned.  In the morning, she awoke and found him calmly sitting by the door.  “You may travel sssafely for a time.  But I would ussse hassste.  Thossse will not threaten you, but othersss may come in time.”“Thank you,” replied Ilsbet.  “I will always remember this aid.”Seache smiled.  “We know.  And we will always remember you and keep an eye on your progress as well.”</blockquote>

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