#vrae

It’s been 2 days now, it’s the 5th of Alcoranth. At around five in the morning, Jökull arrives in Phontore. ‘Such a small little town for something so monstrous to occur,’ he thought to himself. ‘Well whoever’s doing this I will bring them to justice, and they will serve their time.’ With that he starts to wonder how he should celebrate the Feast of Heroes in a month. Usually he buys some wolf meat, a specialty in the mountains. Maybe the famous Brandenberry wine, a snow elf specialty. It was important to celebrate all of the victorious heroes of Joraglon. And maybe one day Jökull would be one. Someone the creatures can look up to, and say he was a defender of the innocent. He was the best. That’s always been his goal. The carriage slows to a bumpy stop, and Jökull shakes himself from his thoughts. As he gets out of the carriage, he assesses the pain in his legs. ‘Not too bad, I should be able to walk without it today.’ With that, he gets all his stuff, mainly just his wheelchair, and the go bag he always has on him in case of any immediate cases like this one, out of the carriage. With that he checks his crystal. It’s around 5:05 now.

It’s been 2 days since the bard arrived. Now the 5th of Alcoranth. If Esmera remembers correctly, it should be planting season for some of the farmers who worship Rae soon. While this planting season is seen as the best time to start growing crops by most people, the ones who worship Rae tend to always have the best crops during the harvest season. While she doesn’t worship any one overseer, she does respect those who do. Anyways, it’s been 2 days since Izosul came to her shop, and she’s been working ever since. They were helpful for more than just songs. If anyone came in to threaten or misgender her, they’d take care of it. And it was a lot less stressful to have someone in her corner, that wasn’t part of her guild that was scattered throughout the land. It felt nice to have a friend. Currently Esmera is waiting for her friend to get to her shop, when she notices a snow elf, in full paladin armor, walking around pushing an empty wheelchair. ‘To each their own,’ she thinks to herself, then she notices one of the village kids start crying and pointing to the wheelchair. ‘There goes my peaceful day.’ 

“Mommy, I wanna ride in it!!!!” The child screams. As Esmera pays attention to that, she notices the kid is human, and if she’s correct, the son of the sheriff in this town. Knowing that, she also knows that the mother is probably going to demand that her son sit in the chair. And surely enough, the woman who goes to pick up the little kid is the sheriff’s wife. Putting up the will be back soon sign on her counter, she goes out of her shop to help this snow elf. After all, they're going to need all the help they can get with the sheriff’s wife.

“Good sir, surely you’d allow my kid to ride in the wheelchair, since no one is using it.” Her voice was dripping sweet as honey, with a poisonous underbite. Esmera could tell what was coming next, “after all, I am the sheriff’s wife.”

“I’m sorry, but this wheelchair is actually for me, I use it on especially bad days for my legs. And I don’t let anyone take a ride in it.” The paladin answered, Esmera was almost there. She had her ears down and her tail was swishing a bit. Ready to tell the sheriff’s wife off.

“Your hearing must be as unreliable as your legs, I’m Lorian Cladsone. The wife of Girfith Cladsone. I demand you let my child sit in that wheelchair!” 

“Well that was unnecessarily rude. And I get that you’re the sheriff’s wife, you’ve said that twice now. That has nothing to do with your child riding in my wheelchair, which the answer is still no.” Seeing the tense position that the snow elf was in, and hearing the shock and upset in their voice, made it clear to Esmera that they’ve probably never dealt with rudeness like this before. Before Lorian can say whatever it is that she opens her putrid mouth to say, Esmera speaks up, hissing a little as she speaks.

“Shut it Lorian, they said that they don’t want your grimy little Koluaok spawn. And honestly, no one likes to hear whatever it is you have to say. You’re an entitled, arrogant brat, and so is your son.” Esmera hears this woman gasp, and winces a bit when Lorian practically shrieks her next words.

“How dare you! How dare you call my son a Koluaok spawn! He is nothing of the sort, He is a little angel. If anything he’s the spawn of Joraglon-”

“No offense mrs, but if your son was the son of Joraglon, he’d be a lot more behaved. The principles of Joraglon would be more instilled to him at a young age. Not only that, but Joraglon is one of the gods who doesn’t lay with mortals. However, I also doubt that he’s the kid of Koluaok, because as much as your kid needs to learn respect, he is in no way evil.” Esmera looks at them confused, have they never heard of that saying before? Okay then. 

“Hey, snow elf, we should go.” Esmera states, wanting to be done with this. Although, if she has to deal with more of the sheriff’s wife, she would. They look at her, and just nod. 

“We’re done here.” They say turning around their wheelchair and following Esmera. “Ah, I should introduce myself, fair creature, for my name is Jökull, and I use he/him pronouns.” 

“Esmera, she/her. Sorry about them, I wish I could say that it wasn’t normal.” Esmera looks at the time on her crystal real quick, it’s 5:10. If only Izosul was a morning creature, but they aren’t for some weird reason. Leading Jökull back to her shop, she sighed a bit. Jökull looks around the shop a bit, before he notices the banner. 

“Are you part of Ashkoroth?”

“Yeah, I’m a member of the guild. Why?”

“I was just wondering if you could tell me a bit about them.”

“Sure.”

With that the two start talking about the guild for a few minutes. It takes about five minutes before Izosul shows up at the shop.

It’s about 5:00 and Izosul has barely woken up. Slightly annoyed that this whole town is up at around 4:30. But that’s how small towns work, especially more farm based ones. They know they’re from a small town like this, but they’ve lived in the city for so long that they aren’t used to waking up this early in the morning anymore. It takes ten minutes for Izosul to get ready, and they start to trudge up to Esmera’s shop. 

As they walk up there, they notice a new creature, what looks to be a blue elf, talking to her. Izosul notices that it starts out looking friendly, but then Esmera starts looking more and more stressed. They go over close enough to partially listen in.

 “This is starting to sound more like an interrogation than anything, ha ha.” Esmera states, with the look on her face saying she was not okay with where this was heading.

“Well it’s not an interrogation per se, but I am trying to figure out more about these people because of my investigation.” The blue elf-like creature says, obviously nervous, about what though, Izosul didn’t know.

“Investigation into what?! What could they possibly do? There is nothing suspicious about them!” Obviously upset, she was practically yelling at the creature.

“Murder.” And now would be a good time to make their presence known wouldn’t it. With that, Izosul purposefully steps on a twig.

“Hey Esmera, and whoever you are,” gesturing towards the blue creature, “what’s going on?”

“Well I’m Jökull, he/him-”

“He’s accusing my guild members of murder, Izosul, murder! Can you believe it, who does he think he is!” Esmera cuts him off, agitated with what this Jökull had been saying.

“Ah, I was hoping to keep the investigation on the downlow.” Jökull explains, a little annoyed. “Look, all signs point to them currently, obviously this is still under investigation and we could be looking in the completely wrong place-”

“You are definitely looking in the wrong place.” Esmera hisses, cutting him off again.

Before this goes any further, Izosul decides to do something about the fight that will happen if they both don’t stop.

“Hey, what if we went and investigated the murders, figuring out the culprit or culprits together. If it turns out to be a guild member, then we’ll deal with that then, same thing if not.” Izosul hopes they both agree to that. “Plus what murders are we even talking about?”

“I assume you’ve heard of the Mycelium Menace?” Jökull asks, seemingly unsure of what else to say.

Esmera pales a bit, and takes a minute before she says, “if you’re looking into something this dangerous, you’ll need back up, plus I need to prove my guild members aren’t responsible for this.” 

Jökull nods, understanding the commitment to prove someone you hold dear innocent, hoping it’s a misunderstanding. “Of course, however if I allow you two to tag along, I need to know that you won’t look into my case file, as it’s purely confidential.”

It’s early morning, and Vraefnael is just waking up. Fae are filled with content, just looking up at the fading stars in the sky. After surveying faer surroundings, Vraefnael starts faer walk around the place fae live in. It’s too bad faer wolf pack is gone, most had died years ago the rest had left to another part of the forest, but Vraefnael still lives in the cave that they had left behind.

After a while fae heard some footsteps, and the crunching of leaves. As Vraefnael goes to investigate, fae hear noises in different pitches. However, fae can’t understand what it means, and it’s annoying faer. As Vraefnael walks towards the noise cautiously, fae start seeing creatures. Fae notice as one of them, with ears and a tail, pulls back the one with two different colors of skin from falling in Vraefnaels giant mushroom friend’s footprint. And also one of them is blue. Wondering if they’re here to destroy Vraefnael’s home like the others, fae get closer watching them carefully as they all communicate with each other in a language Vraefnael doesn’t understand.

It takes a few minutes of all three of the creatures looking around, before it happens. Vraefnael feels something tackle faer, even though fae haven’t heard or seen anything other than these creatures. Giving a loud shout fae immediately regret everything, fae should’ve just killed these weird creatures, not giving them a chance. 

All three creatures venture towards faer, and then look at Vraefnael with confusion and a bit of fear in their eyes. As all of them draw their weapons, Vraefnael casts a spell, a spell that shakes everything around them. The one with ears and a tail and the person that they pulled are pushed away, taking a bit more damage than the blue one who braces themself and stays where they are. The blue one shouts something at faer, but Vraefnael can’t understand what they’re saying. However Vraefnael does try to repeat what is being said.

“What is adest?” All three creatures look at faer confused. Then the blue one speaks again, but again, Vraefnael doesn’t understand. Then all of them start speaking to faer again, but in obviously different languages. And again, Vraefnael doesn’t understand them. That’s when the one with two different colors of skin comes over and leans down and holds out a hand to faer. It takes a minute, but Vraefnael eventually understands that this creature isn’t trying to hurt faer. Taking the hand, Vraefnael is pulled up from faer position on the ground, and all of them start walking away from the forest. 

It takes a few minutes for Vraefnael to realize that fae are being led to the tiny civilization that fae got the tiny crystal from. Feeling a bit confused, fae look at the one whose hand fae are holding, and they offer a nice smile. All four of them walk towards this weird looking place, made of wood, and having a closed opening thing. Fae doesn’t understand why one would have an opening that can be closed, but then again, small civilization place is weird. Fae meet another two leg walking creature inside. This one is greenish-gray in color. The one who is holding faer hand, turn and gesture to Vraefnael, and it takes faer a minute to realize that this creature wants faer to talk. 

“Who are you?”

“I am Galroth, the village linguist.” Then Galroth turns to the other three and tells them something. Vraefnael on the other hand is confused.

“What is village and linguist?” 

“I will tell you more in the morning. If you stay the night, of course.” “Okay.”

Before we get into the chapter, bold means the character is speaking in draconic, italics means the character is speaking in sylvan, underlined means that they are speaking in elvish, bold italics means the character is speaking in celestial, underlined italics means the character is speaking in dwarvish and this means the character is speaking in common

CW’s: transphobia, deadnaming(deadname isn’t said, but it is implied), murder, death, killing, attempted theft, 

It is midday, around 12:13 pm in the month of Alcoranth, the third day. Jökull is out, hunting for the brubblefwig that he’d been looking for these past few days. A brubblefwig being a frog-like creature that can stand on two legs. Typically they stay in packs, but this one decided to be alone for some reason. That specific brubblefwig murdered three priests and an innocent child. He had looked into these claims, of course, he was diligent in his duties. Jökull spotted them, took an arrow out, and shot them with his crossbow, from 50 feet away. While the first shot doesn’t kill the creature, it does wound them. They tried to hide in the swampy area, but Jökull spotted them after a bit. Taking out another arrow, he hit and killed the brubblefwig. Going to collect his arrows, he takes out a crystal and turns it on. It is now 12:15.

It is midday, around 12:13 pm in the month of Alcoranth, the third day. Izosul has just finished their college lecture for the year. The way that the College of Lore does college is a bit weird. They do 3 lectures for the whole year, and then send the students on their yearly project. To collect gossip from a town, and write a song or a folktale about it. Izosul had chosen the town of Phontore, thinking it would be an easy town to work from. After all, small towns have the juiciest gossip. As they are walking to their carriage, that would take them to town, they don’t notice as someone sneaks up on them. However, they do notice as this creature tries to take their harp. Quickly pulling out their longsword, they point it at the creature. This creature is hooded, and Izosul can’t get a good look at them. “Halt fiend, don’t you do anything or this blade goes through your jugular vein.” Before Izosul can do anything, the creature disappears before their eyes. Thankfully their harp is still there. Glaring at the spot where the thief had been, Izosul slowly boards their carriage, to head to the town of Phontore. As they take out their crystal, they notice the time is now 12:15.

It is midday, 12:13 pm in the month of Alcoranth, the third day. Esmera is busy making a bow for a member of her guild. The member’s name being Lady Nobella, the guild being Ashkoroth. As she was minding her own business, she notices as three people come in, all of them being people who don’t accept her transition and 19-20 years old.

“[Redacted], you really went to the deep end huh, you should’ve just accepted that you are a guy.” The first one says, his name Azcoranth.

“Honestly, imagine thinking that you’re a girl.” Frathie, the second one, states.

“Freak.” The third one, Voriser, sneers at her. 

“Get out of my shop, now.” Esmera growls out, glaring at all three of them, reaching for her crossbow. Frathie and Voriser see this, and run out of there. The smart decision. 

“You think I’m scared of a monster like you.” As he goes to grab the bow she’d been working on all day, a pseudodragon pops out of nowhere, and starts growling. Azcoranth hesitates for a second, before trying to reach for the bow again. That’s when the pseudodragon lunges at him, he screams and runs out of the shop. In tears now, Esmera calls her pseudodragon to her.

“You did good Gerald, very good. Thank you.” The pseudodragon goes up to her and nuzzles her. She laughs a bit, feeling a bit better than when that interaction happened. “You know, if I’m going to be a noble one day, I need to stop crying and being afraid of so many things.” With that she pulls out her crystal, opens it up, and sees that it’s only 12:15.

It is around midday, in one of the colder times of year, and Vraefnael is walking around the woods, her home. As she surveys the land, she sees two creatures that walk on two legs, cutting down some of her trees in her home! Considering that that’s Vraefnael’s territory, she takes it as an act of aggression. She would not stand for this, so she cast a spell that has the plants move to get those two stuck, sneaking up behind them, before bringing out her thorn whip. However, as she goes to attack these two creatures, she accidentally trips herself with it. Brushing herself off, she gets up, walks closer to the two, who were now speaking gibberish. She understood one word that they said, “Help.” Well there would be no help for them. As she moves closer, she takes out her thornwhip again. Within one strike Vraefnael kills both of them, and their blood smells delicious. So naturally, she starts drinking it. When she’s done, she casts a spell that grows large mushrooms that feast on their bodies. After all those are her favorite plants, and she does draw her magical power from the mushroom crown on her head. Within a few minutes, one of her giant mushroom friends visits her, and they just end up hanging out for a while.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is now evening, around 7:00 pm, and Jökull just got back to his base, before he collapses. Three of his friends rush out to help him into his wheelchair, that he didn’t bring on his mission. All of them snow elves, about 90-95 years old, so about 18-19 years old, in human terms of course.

“Hey, don’t forget your wheelchair next time, you need that!” Ogleprolm, the first one, yells at him.

“Yeah, what happens if you collapse before you get to the base, or a safe spot? You could get killed!” The second one, Poignoreleum, says. The last one of them, Shagre, goes to grab the wheelchair. Carefully setting it up so that they could easily put Jökull in it. Making sure the foot pedals were locked in place, they all breathed a sigh of relief.

“Dude, don’t do that to us again!” Shagre looked really worried, and was clearly really upset by this. 

“I’m sorry, I should’ve brought it with, I just wanted to do one mission without feeling useless without it.” Jökull felt really guilty. He hadn’t meant to make them all worried, especially Shagre. He had just wanted to feel normal for once, and it’s not like he needs the wheelchair all the time. Just some of the time, but he should’ve been responsible and brought it with. “I promise I won’t leave without it again.”

“You’d better keep that promise.” Shagre said still slightly upset about what had happened. Not wanting anything to happen to her friend. “Either way, the boss is looking for you.”

Jökull groans, having been exhausted from just getting back. “Already, but I just got back.” 

“Yep, he sounded pretty impatient too. You might want to hurry, do you want one of us to push you up there?”

“No, I can get there myself, but thanks for offering Ogleprolm. I should get going now though.” With that Jökull rolled into the building and headed towards the ramp that led upstairs. It was pretty steep, but he’s moved up and down steeper with the wheelchair. As he made his way up, he was getting a bit nervous. What did the boss want to talk to him about? He’d just gotten back, did he do something wrong? Oh no, did he break one of his tenants? Which one did he break? He didn’t mean to. Feeling his chair lurch back a bit, he was thrown back into the real world. Right, he should pay more attention to what he’s doing. He could’ve fallen over if he wasn’t more careful. Breathing in and out, he rolled into the boss’s office. “You wanted to see me sir?” 

“Yes, due to your recent efforts, I want to trust you with our biggest case yet. You are to find the Mycelium Menace. Here’s the information.” With that the boss hands Jökull a package containing what he assumed to be the information that he needed.

“Alright sir, just wondering, where do I need to head to, and when should I leave?”

“You leave today, Jökull, right after you leave my office. And you’re heading to the town of Phontore.” 

“Alright sir.”

“You are dismissed.”

“Yes sir!” With that Jökull turns, puts the file on his lap, backs up slightly, and turns around his wheelchair.

“There is a carriage awaiting you at the back entrance, if it doesn’t have the right accommodations, just ring the bell at the bottom and I’ll call another one.”

“Yes sir, thank you!” Jökull says, and he starts to very slowly and carefully roll down the ramp. Once he gets downstairs he sees his three friends again.

“Yo, dude, what happened? You aren’t in trouble, are you?” Poignoreleum asks, all of them worried for their friend.

“No, I just got assigned the Mycelium Menace case. You know, whoever is killing those people in Phontore?”

“Oh really, that’s so cool, but stay safe.” Ogleprolm says, all of them now worry for a different reason. They had all heard rumors, none of them good. And if the case had reached their mountain, a 2 days trip away, that no one wants to travel to, it was certainly troubling.

“I will, I promise, now I have to go. Goodbye.” With that, he rolls to the carriage that awaits him and unlocks the foot pedals, ready to start getting into the carriage. Remembering to turn on the brakes, he moves the foot pedals, and stands up. Although a little wobbly, he folds the wheelchair, puts it in the back of the carriage and gets in. As the carriage starts traveling down the mountain side, Jökull takes a look through the information he’s been given. After reading, he sets everything down and looks at his crystal. It is now 8:45 pm. 

It’s about 7:00 pm in the evening, and Izosul is going to the only bar in Phontore, the Undying Harpy. Knowing this is a small town, they grimace before waking in. ‘I will probably have to flirt with a girl for information… sometimes it would be nice to look more fem so that way I would only have to flirt with guys,’ they thought to themselves. Slightly upset at the prospect of having to flirt with a girl, but small towns can be dangerously judgemental. They had found that out the hard way. As they go to open the door, they look around and see an objectively pretty feminine like figure. Resisting the urge to gag at flirting with someone who’s probably a girl, they walk towards the person with confidence. 

“Well hello there, I’m Izosul, what might your name be?” The person gives a small giggle before responding.

“Hello Izosul, I’m Samneria. Obviously the finest lady you’ve ever met.”

“Of course you are, why would you even need to specify, fair lady?” Izosul had gotten a bit used to flirting with women, so they were a natural at sounding like they wanted to. It however didn’t change the truth of the matter, that they’d rather be anywhere else but here. However if they wanted to get info on the town, they might as well start on the right side of these people. Izosul could correct how the town addressed them later. Especially if it was safe, or if they had a way to keep themself safe.

“Well I need to specify, because there’s this boy in town, who likes to pretend that he’s a girl. The only reason he hasn’t been run out of town is because he’s part of the guild Ashkoroth and brings in money.” So Izosul now knows that coming out is a bad idea. 

“Of course, hey, I’ve got to leave for an important meeting, but here’s 1 gold, it should cover your next drink, fair lady.” With that, Izosul left, to go find the transwoman who probably faced a lot of hurt in this town. She could use a friend, and honestly it’s nice to not be alone in a town like this. As they make their way through the town, they find a shop that says, ‘protected by the guild of Ashkoroth.’ Thinking that this is at least a start to finding her, Izosul walks inside. Seeing the trans flag in the back of the shop, they knew they were in the right place. They watch as this more feminine figure walks towards them. “Hello, I’m Izosul, they/them.” The creature laughs a little, smiling.

“I’m Esmera, she/her. Although most like to use my deadname and dead pronouns.”

“Well that’s not nice, and to such a pretty lady as yourself.” Izosul says, sounding flirty on instinct. They grimace, hopefully she lets it pass.

“Are you flirting with me? No offense but I’m not interested in any of that.”

“Sorry about that, I didn’t mean for it to sound flirty, tis just a force of habit at this point. I’m not interested in women.” Izosul states, hoping they haven’t just ruined a friendship that they barely started.

“Ah, alright, just wanted to make sure that a relationship isn’t the reason you started flirting with me,” Esmera glances at them, “as I’m not interested in any gender.” Izosul nods, thinking of something that they can say to spend more time with her. After all she’s the first friend they’ve had that actually gets what they’re going through to a degree. Also they felt kind of lonely too, it would be nice to hangout with someone else while doing this college assignment.

“I have a proposal for you, what if I played my instruments here, and had a tip jar, and potentially get you more customers? I’d of course do it for free for my friend here, since I’m usually paid to play anywhere.” Esmera snickers a bit.

“Sure.”

With that, Izosul checks their crystal, it’s now 8:45 pm.

It is evening time, the sun is going down, and it’s getting colder. Vraefnael is laying in a tree, and making sounds that almost sound like singing, but there’s not a tune. The tree he’s laying on is swaying gently, and so is every other tree within his line of sight. He’s looking at the sky with a smile on his fanged and slightly bloody face. He’d wash it in the stream later. Feeling very content and full from his snack earlier, he reaches one hand out towards the sky. Vraefnael is using his other hand to mess with his crystal, which he took from the small civilization without anyone knowing. Just smiling and enjoying nature for hours on end. Eventually falling asleep, they take one last glance at the crystal, moving it in such a way that a small screen pops up. It has weird symbols that look like 8:45.

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