"This place is still a dump," Ruby commented as she looked around. She wrinkled her small nose distastefully as she folded her arms across her chest. "Inns galore with no reason to stay here. You'd think people would get a clue after a few decades of this. At least there's no freak in a red cloak this time."
She and Nall stood at the entrance to the small town of Takkar. Almost three hundred years ago its hardy settlers had carved their home in the narrow valley between two mountain peaks. Takkar had weathered the century since Zophar's defeat rather well, considering that most towns of modest size tended to deteriorate with age. Certainly the shops and houses were a little more run down, the people were different, and a couple inns had new names, but otherwise not much else had changed. The situation of Takkar made it an ideal stop for people who were either coming from, or heading to, the Madoria plains.
Nall pondered the "freak in a red cloak" comment for a moment and finally decided to give up on it with a shrug. He glanced around, wondering where to start looking. Now that he was here, he realized he had no plan of action. Ruby, in her customary direct manner, solved the problem by walking up to the first person she saw and yanking him on the shoulder to turn him around.
"Hey, you heard of a sorceress about?" she asked.
The man blinked a few times at her candidness and the unusual content of the question. "Well uh..." he stammered.
Ruby clamped her hands on her hips, leaning forward and staring eye to eye with the townsperson. "Are you slow? I... am... looking... for... a... sorceress."
"Are you talking about the woman in the bar?"
Nall followed the man's gaze to see a pleasant establishment by the name of the "Drunken Dragon Tavern". He raised an eyebrow and could not help wondering if it had anything to do with Ruby's last visit here.
"You mean there's a sorceress here?" Ruby snapped her hand in a quick motion to indicate the ground on which the town stood while the man began to squirm beneath her gaze. "You're not trying to get rid of me, are you?"
The man glanced nervously to either side of him. "Of course not! I um, wouldn't to that to such a... err... lovely lady."
Ruby scowled. "Well, all right, but if you're lying to me... I'll find you."
The man scrambled away from the strange woman while he had the chance. Ruby ignored him and turned back towards Nall.
"Well, shall we then?" Without waiting for an answer, she started towards the tavern, giving Nall little choice but to follow her.
The white dragon hesitated a moment, then fell into step behind her. "Ruby, if this is the same woman it's dangerous here. A serious battle between the three of us could waste this town."
Ruby tossed back over her shoulder: "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
While Nall pondered how to make a comeback on an eon old saying, the two reached the swinging doors to the tavern. Ruby snickered and pointed to the sign holding the establishment's name.
"Looks like they saw you the last time you got into the catnip, Nall."
The white dragon frowned slightly, but came back with his own rejoinder and a smirk. "Oh really? And just who was it that nearly flattened that manor near here while sleepwalking?"
"At least I wasn't drunk!" Ruby hissed as Nall brushed past her into the main room.
He could spot nothing unusual about the crowd here, not in the least the absence of any drunken dragons. The customers huddled around the bar and at the tables appeared to be regulars from the size of their tankards and the relative silence in which they drank. A few of those at the tables spoke with each other in low tones, with an occasional guffaw emerging from a rare gem of raw wit. The customers also were all men, with one notable exception: A woman by the bar. Nall felt slightly relieved that it was not the one who had bested him. This woman had blond hair and wore a light blue cloak. Currently she was talking excitedly to the man next to her. Though she kept her voice mostly in hushed tones, she would build up volume and wave her arms loudly as she reached a high point in her story, which appeared to be quite often. Her reluctant audience seemed to be trying to ignore her and get his drinking done in peace.
The woman continued her tale, oblivious to the man's inattention. She swished her cloak around her as if by doing so she could conjure up the very images she spoke of.
"And then I zapped the monster with my powerful magic! Cool, huh?" The woman beamed, leaned close to her audience, and waved a finger near the corner of his eye. "But little did I know that..."
"It's not her," Nall muttered to Ruby.
Ruby nodded. "People with lots of power usually don't need to brag about it."
"The monster was, of course, incinerated by my might," the strange woman continued. "One would think its minions would have been smart enough to know when to back off. But I guess some people just don't know power when they see it."
Ruby, true to form, walked up and tapped the supposed mage on the shoulder, deftly avoiding being smacked in the face by one of her explosive gestures.
"So I prepared my next mighty spell... Huh?" The woman turned to look at Ruby.
The red dragon waved briskly. "Hi, we're looking for a sorceress..."
"Well, you found one!"
The woman hopped to her feet and struck what she must have thought was a dramatic pose. "I am Crystal, sorceress supreme!"
"Um... right..." Ruby felt as though a giant weight had been dropped on her person. "Look, we're looking for a sorceress who isn't you."
Crystal, the "sorceress supreme" deflated slightly. "Why, you need some big monster killed or something?"
Ruby dragged Nall over by the arm while he sputtered indignantly about his rough treatment.
"Just ask her, Nall," she said, shoving him forward.
Nall pulled his arm out of Ruby's grasp and tried to recapture his dignity. "Yes, Miss um... Crystal... we're looking for a woman with apparent control over all the elements. She has black hair and uh..."
Nall suddenly realized that was pretty much all he knew about her, other than she was extremely powerful. However, Crystal seemed to be already thinking about it.
"Does she wear a cloak all the time?" she asked. "Have a ponytail?"
Nall thought hard, recalled that she had worn a cloak the one time he saw her and she did have a ponytail. "Yeah," he said slowly.
Crystal bobbed her head. "Sounds like Twyla then. I bet she's almost as strong as I am!" The woman then proceeded to enter another dramatic pose.
Nall cleared his throat to try returning her attention to the current topic and off her ego. "Twyla?" he asked.
Crystal fell out of her pose and focused her thoughts again, taking on what he supposed was a studious appearance. "Oh, yeah! I met her a few years back. She said she was traveling the world to learn every kind of magic in existence. Of course, I told her she was nuts. What would anyone ever do with it all? Not even Magic Emperor Ghaleon--now there was a hunk!--knew everything about magic. But anyways, we traveled together for a few days and one morning, when I woke up, she was gone."
Nall could understand why, but he pressed her for more information. "How do you know we're talking about the same person?"
"Well, she was like... powerful! Anyone with any kind of talent could feel that."
Nall smirked. She did not seem to notice that two of Althena's dragons were in the room with her. Could what she said be correct though?
"So... who is she?" he asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" Crystal returned, throwing up an imperious hand. "She didn't talk about herself much. When I asked her why she wanted to know everything, she just said 'so I can put things right'. Freaky, huh?"
Nall had an unsettling feeling in his stomach. That sounded like her all right.
"Do you happen to know where she is?"
"Listen, Skunky," --Crystal pointed her finger at him-- "I told you she ditched me. How am I supposed to know?"
Nall clenched his hand into a fist, forgetting for the moment the reason he was speaking with her. "Skunky? What do you mean 'Skunky'!"
Crystal threw up her arms, lifting her gaze as though the answer was obvious. "Hey, you've got a stripe in your hair. Looks skunky to me."
Nall figured he had all the info he could get from the ditzy mage, if she even was a mage, and he did not need to find yet another person to argue with. Shaking his head, he turned away.
"C'mon Ruby, let's..."
Nall found himself talking to empty air. With a frustrated sigh he glanced around the room to find Ruby drinking at another part of the bar. He walked away from Crystal--producing a loud "How rude!" from her--and came beside the red dragon.
"We don't have time to sit around and drink wine." Nall folded his arms sternly across his chest. He took another look at the spit-colored drink in her hand. "Especially that stuff," he muttered under his breath.
"I'm not sitting," she replied casually.
"Don't be a smart ass. We've got-"
Nall cut himself off at a scathing glare from her. She would torch him if he went further, and since he valued his fur he decided not to finish the statement. He tried to regain his feeling of authority. "Look, we've got some info."
Ruby shrugged. "What? Her name? Big help there." She drank coolly of her tankard.
"It's more than we had before," Nall reminded her. "We can use her name to look up more information."
"And how do you propose to do that?" The red dragon arched an eyebrow.
"Twyla is, or at least was, exploring the world to learn magic. If she ever enrolled in Vane..."
"They'd have records of her," Ruby concluded, finishing off her glass of wine.
"Right."
"So why are you just standing around?"
Ruby brushed past him on the way towards the door. Nall muttered darkly and began to follow her. Ruby pushed open the door and looked back at him over her shoulder.
"Well, hurry up, Skunky."
Twyla held the red crest in her hands as she knelt before her simple stone altar. Head bowed and eyes closed, she chanted softly. A red glow spread from the crest to envelop her form as her cloak and hair stirred from a phantasmal wind. She felt the power flow through her, felt its origin, felt its form. Gathering the energies available to her, she tried to recreate the source. She cried out unconsciously from the exertion. Then a red light flashed before her.
She opened her eyes to see her results, and when she once felt disgust, only disappointment filled her. Perhaps she had moved too swiftly. Luck was a factor, but she felt she could control it better if only she could remain in concentration longer. Of course such intense states took their toll, especially when channeling magic as powerful as a dragon's, but the risks had to be worth it.
"Another failure," she sighed, brushing the perspiration from her forehead. She ran her fingers through her matted hair. Twyla wondered if she looked as haggard as she felt. "Even my success hasn't made it easier. But I am almost there. I just need to stay in control a little longer next time."
She pushed away the disappointment with the iron of her resolve. Clutching the crest to her chest, she began again.