Dust

# Steady Footing (Fern)

The first thing Fern hears when she wakes is the savage howl of the wind outside. She sits up in the pre-dawn gloom and peers out the window next to her bed; even with her magically-aided eyesight, she can see nothing but darkness and driving snow outside. Shivering, she extracts herself from under her many layers of blankets and quilts, pulls on a thick woolen dress and socks, and kneels down to revive the embers of her fireplace. It takes a couple of tries, as it often does, but gradually she manages to put together a merry little fire. Once it's alight, casting dancing shadows around her cottage in the darkness, she carefully decants some water from a keg into a kettle and hangs it over the fire to start her morning tea. She pulls her favorite chair over in front of the hearth and sits down, watching and waiting for the kettle to start whistling. While she does, she opens her mind slightly and looks through her familiar's eyes.

Lof, her pagefinder, has been with her longer than she cares to remember. At the moment he's curled up inside one of her bookcases, resting inside the little nest Fern built for him out of spare sheets of parchment. She sees herself from above - a disorienting sensation she still isn't quite used to - and gives Lof a gentle nudge. Obediently, he unfurls his wings, stretching, then takes flight in a slow circle around her. She sees herself smile up at him, then walks to one of the cottage's windows and opens it for just long enough to allow Lof to wing outside into the howling gale. The wind buffets him, tossing him almost into the side of the cottage, but he redoubles his efforts and gradually manages to fight through the storm.

As she pours hot water into a stone mug for herself and starts preparing the tea, she watches as the rest of the village slowly comes into view for Lof. Fern lives a quarter-mile or so from the tiny mountain town of Steady Footing, which is a hardscrabble little place, with a couple of dozen houses clustered around an inn, a blacksmith, a chapel, and a provisioner. It's hopelessly remote from anything of importance and practically exists only to serve as an overnight stop for the merchant caravans making use of the mountain pass. One would be hard put to choose a less likely place for a wizard to make their home, and Fern loves it with all her heart.

Lof swoops low over the Surly Goat, Steady Footing's only inn, and briefly alights on a wall before crawling inside through a tiny chink in the building's attic. He flutters down into the common room, circles, and settles at one end of the bar, where Mac, the innkeeper, smiles indulgently and sets a small dish of water for him, crumbling a few grains of sugar into it.

"Mornin', Miss Fern," he says, addressing Lof, who flutters his wings happily in response. He looks out one of the windows, frowns, then goes to tend his own hearth. "Nasty weather out there," he grouses, "so I doubt we'll be getting much custom today. Ah well. At least we're all warm and dry." He pokes at the fireplace, seeming turning something over in his mind, but says little else. Lof takes a few more sips of water, then Fern sends him back out into the storm.

He circles low over the cluster of houses, looking for anything amiss, then lands again on the steps outside the stone chapel. Here, the snow is only an inch or two deep - clearly Sabine's been hard at work, she thinks to herself with a smile. Fern takes her first sip of floral tea, letting the flavors play across her tastebuds, while Lof scuttles through the ajar door. Sabine is a woman of firm principles, and one of those is that her chapel's door is never closed to a traveller in need. As a concession to the temperature being far below freezing, she's at least pulled them somewhat more closed than they usually would be, but a chill draft follows Fern's familiar inside.

Sabine is sweeping up and doesn't immediately notice Lof. Fern feels a spark of warm joy through her telepathic link with her familiar as the pagefinder flutters silently into the air, circles, and comes in smoothly to alight atop the crown of Sabine's head. Sabine jumps, letting out a squeak of surprise, and flails at her own hair; Lof leaps into the air and flies in a slow circle around her. After a couple of confused moments, she spots the circling pagefinder, and her irritation abruptly melts into a grin.

"Morning to you too, Lof - and I'm guessing to Fern as well, yes?"

Lof dips his wings in answer, and Sabine straightens up, leaning on her broom. Behind her, firelight catches the chapel's only ornamentation: a wooden emblem of Fharlanghn the Wanderer, god of travellers. Sabine is unusual among Fahrlanghn's acolytes in that she's lived in one place - in fact, in Steady Footing, in this very chapel - for many years now, longer than most of the town's residents, but there are certainly no end of passing travelers for her to minister to. Fern likes her a great deal, and has spent more than one happy evening sitting on the floor of Sabine's chapel and chatting with her, or sharing cups of tea in Fern's own cottage. She's thought about revealing her true self to Sabine more than once, but... well, something always stops her. Fern's happy to have Sabine think she's just a hedge-witch, like the rest of her little village does.

"Nasty weather out there today," Sabine murmurs, pulling her robes tighter around herself and casting an annoyed glance at tiny drift of snow accumulating in the doorway. "And more to come, I'd think. We'll be lucky if we're not buried to the shoulders by this time next week."

Lof flutters, expressing Fern's agreement, and Sabine sighs. "I hope nobody's out there in this. Even with the sun coming up you can't really see a thing. Could you... just make sure? I would think nobody'd have tried to dare the pass, but I - I just can't help worrying, I guess. Besides," she says brightening up slightly. "With my advanced age, I can't really be tromping around outside in this, can I?" Fern giggles to herself; Sabine is in her early fifties, well on in years for a human, and she seems to find endless amusement in the fact that Fern, despite being almost twice her age, is still far "younger" than she. Sabine's bunned hair is shot through with grey, and her face is already well-lined, with the ruddy, leathery look all the mountain folk seem to have, while Fern looks to most of the humans like a particularly short young woman with a taste for oversized hats.

In answer to Sabine's plea, Lof dips his wings once more, and Fern nudges him back out of the chapel and into the storm. Dropping her focus on her familiar for a moment, she digs out her spell component pouch and weaves a quick spell. This isn't magic that she'd ever show anyone else these days, but - well, nobody will know, will they? She takes a deep breath and lets her consciousness expand, encompassing the world for miles around; it's like looking down from above from a great height, with every living creature, great and small, blazing with its own life-energy. The villagers are almost all safely at home, bar one or two of the sturdiest men making valiant efforts to keep the snow at bay. Sabine is a bonfire within her small chapel, overflowing with joy and light. Old Mac, the innkeeper, is a calmer, gentle golden-red, warm and inviting. The snow-foxes and hares that live nearby, as well as the few local wolves and bears, are all bedded down in their burrows, mostly asleep, and...

She abruptly stops, blood running cold. Higher up the mountain, towards the pass, are two dozen life-signs, already dimming in the brutal cold. Two dozen humans, out in weather like this - Gods, she thinks, it must be a merchant caravan with the most rotten luck in the world. She curses under her breath, hurries to pull on her winter cloak, and sends Lof winging desperately towards them through the storm.

Fern pushes herself through the deepening snow, hiking steadily towards the town; the struggling merchant caravan is more than a mile further up the mountain, and she'll need all the help she can get unless she wants to resort to magic real. She does consider it, and if she absolutely has to she will, but - well, she doesn't know why she doesn't want to. She slogs through snowdrifts taller than herself, pushing on through sheer determination, and arrives at the center of town, panting. Her first port of call is Sabine's chapel. She bursts through the doors and gasps out:

"There's a caravan up toward the pass, Sabine. More than twenty of them. They're in big trouble. We'll need everyone."

Sabine goes white. "Of course," she says, and darts into the back of the sanctuary. She hauls on a hanging rope, and Fern hears the loud, clear tolling of the bells, summoning the villagers to help. Who knows how many of them will be able to come - hopefully enough. It's a few agonizing minutes before the first man arrives; less than five later, she has fifteen stout men and women. Egon, the blacksmith, starts gathering people together and checking their gear. Everyone who lives up here in the mountains is familiar enough with cold and snow, but still... best not to have anyone get frostbite on the way. The odds are good that there'll already be plenty of cases go to around, she thinks grimly.

Sabine and a couple of the most elderly folks head to the inn, where they'll help Mac prepare tea and stew for the strangers, and make up rooms for all of them. It'll be snug quarters but Fern thinks the struggling merchants will probably be extremely grateful anyway. Egon makes a circling hand motion, and she and the other villagers set out. If anyone's concerned about their diminuitive hedge-witch keeping up with them, they don't show it; like most mountain people they're tough and don't complain and they've come to accept Fern as one of them. She does decide to follow near the back, though - she's stubborn but not stupid, and the humans, especially the men, are twice her height and five times her weight and far better suited for breaking a trail through deep snow than she is. She grits her teeth against the icy wind as she trudges forward and looks through Lof's eyes again.

Her familiar is struggling against the howling gale, and even with magic augmenting his vision, can hardly see a thing. He wings his way north, pushing through the blizzard, and soon manages to catch a glimpse of what might be the light of a lantern. He homes in on it, and as he closes in, a few other lights come into view - and then the dark shape of a wagon, hauled by a pair of miserable horses struggling against the snow. Lof circles, assessing things, and Fern can immediately tell that the merchants are doomed unless they can affect a rescue; their horses are exhausted and the people surrounding them are no better off, and it doesn't look like they can go on any further.

Fern whispers a command to Lof to check whether anyone has gotten separated from the merchant caravan, then breaks the telepathic link to focus on not falling in the snow. It takes nearly two hours to reach the stranded merchants through the snow, and by the time they do, most of the villagers are tiring themselves. The flickering lanterns reach through the pre-dawn gloom, and Fern hastens towards the front, where Egon is gesturing to the woman at the head of the caravan. Her face is drawn and tight with worry, and there's a sparkling rim of frost around the edge of her fur-lined hood. Egon shouts something Fern can't hear, and the woman gives a choppy nod, then gestures back towards the wagons with one arm. A moment later, a grizzled-looking old man with a patch over one eye stumbles out of the snow, leaning heavily on a staff. He says something to Egon, and Egon shakes his head in reply.

Fern manages to struggle forward far enough to hear what's going on, as the rest of the villagers fan out along the caravan, gathering the merchants and their escorting guards.

"I'll stay here with the wagons," Fern hears the old man rasp. "A couple of the other lads will stay with me. We'll be alright."

"Like hell you will," Egon replies. "You'll be dead by nightfall. Leave the goods and come with us. 'Sides, not like anyone's going to be stealing them, are they?"

The old man frowns but says nothing. The younger woman, breath fogging, gives him a meaningful look. A tense silence passes, and then she says, quietly: "We should bring them with us."

"Finally someone with some sense," Egon growls, readjusting his own heavy cloak. "Gather your people and let's get a move on."

"No, I mean the -" she starts, and the old man shoots her a one-eyed glare that snaps her mouth shut instantly. Fern frowns, and she steps into view around Egon. Both the elderly caravan leader and the young woman look down at her in surprise.

"You mean what?", she says, pitching her voice with innocent curiosity. Humans should know better, but some of them just can't resist treating her like a child. The young woman stares at her, eyes wide, and shakes her head. Fern draws herself up slightly, casts a quick silent spell, and tries again:

"I said, you mean what?"

"The slaves," the woman blurts, then abruptly claps a hand over her own mouth, as though shocked by her own words - as she ought to be, since Fern's magic just drew the truth out of her against her will. Egon glances down at Fern, then back at the two merchants, and his gaze hardens.

"Is that right?", he growls.

The old man looks distinctly nervous, but says nothing. The young woman won't meet Egon's gaze, but she nods. "Yes."

"Well," Egon says. "Slave traders. I'd as soon let you freeze to death up here, to be honest with you, but I think if I did Sabine might have something to say about it, so I'll tell you what. You - all of you, slaves included, come back to the village with us, we'll get you fed and warm, and then you'll head onward... without your merchandise. Better deal 'n you're likely to get anywhere else on this mountain," he says, with a harsh, cold smile.

The old man winces, glances back at the caravan, then looks at Egon. He grimaces, then slowly nods his assent.

# Steady Footing (Fern)

Fern makes immediately for the first of the four wagons, leaving Egon to gather together the remaining merchants. The wagon is a heavy wooden box on wheels, bound with thick straps of iron, and Fern wastes no time asking for someone to unlock it. She makes a quick hand gesture and the heavy metal padlock holding the door closed flares abruptly red, then yellow, then explodes in a spray of superheated metal. Fern yanks the door open, and a foul stench assails her nostrils. She peers inside, confirming her fears - the slaves have been harshly treated, aren't sufficiently clothed, and probably haven't been fed enough. It looks like all four in this wagon are close to death. She whirls and grabs the nearest guard.

"You. You have keys for their shackles?"

The man - who looks like he might still be a teenager, on further inspection - nods jerkily.

"Go free the others. Now!"

The man swallows convulsively and darts off into the night. Fern hops up into the stinking wagon and casts another quick spell; all four slaves' iron shackles and collars pop free in an instant and clatter to the ground with a ringing of metal. Fern takes a deep breath, the snaps her fingers, bringing a flare of light into the confined space. Four gaunt, terrified faces - three humans and a half-elf, she thinks, all young and all female - look up at her. Disgust churns in her gut; one of them is wearing little more than rags and Fern can see old bruises mottling her skin all too well.

She commands herself to relax, and she's surprised by how gentle her own voice is when she speaks: "You're all free now. We're going to take you back to our village, get you warmed up and fed, and... well, I don't know what happens after that, but you'll be free to go your own way."

None of the slaves react, except that the half-elf woman shrinks back away from her. Fern sighs and looks over her shoulder, out into the night. The slaves in this wagon are in pretty bad shape, and if there are more... she's not quite sure what to do. She hops back down out of the wagon and finds the youthful guard, who's just finishing freeing the slaves in the third wagon. He spots her coming, turns to her, and gives her a sloppy salute.

"All done, ma'am."

Fern frowns at him. "Nobody in the fourth wagon back there?"

"Ah..." the guard hesitates. "Just the, ah, special one back there, but I don't - I mean, only Barnabas has the keys for her, 'cause of... well... yeah."

Fern gives him a cold look. "Never mind, I'll handle it."

She pushes her way through the deep snow towards the back of the caravan; it's quiet here, apart from the howling of the wind, as all the merchants and their guards have congregated at the front to start the trip back to the village. Fern tamps her rage down and blasts the lock to fragments with cold precision, then pulls the door to the wagon open and steps inside.

The pale glow from her raised hand reveals a single figure - a half-orc, female again, bound heavily in double sets of shackles and gagged. She looks to be asleep, or at least unconscious. Fern frowns, wondering if the woman's violent, but then it's hardly likely that anyone here could actually hurt Fern through her magical defenses, so it's not like she has much to worry about. Still, something feels... there's a chill in the air, she realizes, that has nothing to do with the blizzard howling behind her. Almost by reflex, she casts True Seeing again, and -

She stumbles backwards in surprise, almost losing her footing. The woman's aura blazes with dazzling brightness, but there's something wrong with it, a distortion. She blinks, her eyes clear, and she realizes that it's not distorted, it's polluted. Amidst the golden glow of her own aura, there's a dark, oily streak, like a coil of smoke wrapped around the woman's neck. Fern draws a little bit closer, and the smoke resolves itself into a sinister, pulsating band of darkness, an extrusion of raw negative energy into the Material Plane. She gasps in shock, drops the True Seeing effect, and leans down to inspect the woman more closely.

She's tall, strong and well-built, as half-orcs often are, although it looks like she's been fed no better than any of the other slaves Fern saw earlier. She's dressed in nothing but a rough tunic, and barefoot. Around her neck is what appears to be a collar of plain black iron; Fern peers at it, and its surface is perfectly smooth and unblemished. At this distance she can feel the negative energy pouring from it. It's a wonder the woman is still alive with so much negative energy so close, Fern thinks. Gingerly, she reaches for the woman's shoulder, then shakes her gently.

The woman grunts and stirs slightly, causing her shackles to rattle. She slowly blinks her eyes open and looks up at Fern. Fern gives her her best smile while she weaves another spell. The woman's shackles all pop open under the influence of her magic, but the collar stays put - hardly surprising, Fern thinks. The woman jerks abruptly in surprise when freed, but she doesn't make a move, even to remove the gag tied behind her head. Fern leans down, finds the knot behind the woman's head, and pulls it free with a few moments' effort. She tugs the gag gently from the woman's mouth and tosses it aside. The half-orc lies still, an apprehensive look on her face.

"Can you understand me?", Fern tries. The woman blinks, then gives her a slow nod.

"I'm Fern. You're near my village. You're free now. We're going to get you back to the village and get you warmed up and fed, and you can figure out where to go from there."

The woman blinks at her again and says nothing, but also makes no motion to stand.

"Can you speak?"

"Yes, Mistress."

Fern recoils. "I'm not - no. You're not a slave any more. Do you understand? I'm freeing you."

The half-orc shakes her head. Fern wrestles her frustration under control. People are probably freezing to death right this second and she doesn't have time to argue about it, so she'll have to sort it out later. Survival is a more pressing concern.

"Alright, fine," she says. "Can you walk?"

That gets a nod.

"Great. Come with me. We're going to gather the others and make our way back to the village, and once we're all back there alive and unfrozen, everything will seem a lot clearer."

The woman finally hauls herself to her feet with a pained grunt, and Fern is momentarily taken aback by how large she actually is. She has to stoop to stand inside the wagon, and even with her hands folded behind her back, she seems to take up a great deal of space.

Fern summons her best, warmest smile. "Alright. I know you don't have much in the way of clothing, but we'll... well, hopefully it won't take us too long to get back, and I can use a little magic to keep you warm if you need. Just ask me, okay?"

"Yes, Mistress."

Fern sighs. "I suppose so," she mutters as she hops down from the wagon and starts back towards the head of the caravan.