(Writer: Tyric) Tyric Aristides was bored. Here he was, having just gone through the initiation ceremony -the crowning achievement for his four years of study. Afterwards, students of the renowned Star Crest Arcane Academy were sent to continue studies in traveling. Four long years, and now all he was doing was sitting on a bench. Suddenly, a shadow fell over him. He whirled around, only to find his advisor and friend, Randal, standing over him.
"A little tightly wound, aren’t we?" Tyric blushed a little. "Never mind that. It always helps to be prepared anyway. Here, I brought you a... parting gift, if you will." Randal made a few short gestures, and in several short seconds, was holding a finely wrought coat of mail. "I know it’s not much, but it will help you early on. As will this." Using the same process, Randal then handed Tyric a staff with a blade mounted on it. "Not everything in this world is as friendly as you think."
After more small talk, Tyric began his journey. He had decided to travel to the city of Aurelia, located along the coast. The distance there was considerable, but he didn’t mind. Just as long is it wasn’t too boring.
The first few days of his travels were a little bit dull for his taste -travel, eat, sleep, repeat. Finally, he had traveled far enough that a broad stretch of trees towered a small distance from him, a drastic change from the mountainous terrain he had previously gone through.
"This place ought to have something interesting," he thought. As he walked through, carefully stepping over tree roots, Tyric noticed that the deeper in the woods he went, the darker, and more foreboding it was. He also noticed the magical feel to the forest, as it permeated the trees and the air.
Suddenly, Tyric heard a pattern of clicks... 8 in each group. He whirled around, to find himself facing a pair of overgrown spiders. "Uh oh..." he thought to himself, at the same time chiding himself for not noticing sooner the tangled strands in the trees.
Tyric hastily took out his bladestaff, slowly backing away. Invoking the power of frost, he chilled the air around the beasts, but they continued to advance. One of the spiders vomited, a nasty sight that he narrowly dodged. The small jet hit a tree behind him, and began to lightly smoke as it slid to the ground. With a swing of his bladestaff, one of them was killed, but just as he stepped back, he was tripped by one of the roots. With a final desperate swing, he landed a lucky strike that beheaded the spider. He sighed, and tried not to look at the corpses as he kicked them in a doubtful search of a reward. To his surprise and horror, his foot knocked open a woven sack with some gold pieces. As he bent to get it, he was knocked down by a long, spindly leg. Tyric froze.
(writer: Ani) "Aaaaaaaaah!" something rained from above and landed on the spider. "Yaah!" the person screamed again when she realized what she had landed on. She beat at it with the staff she was holding. The spider’s head fell off. The girl stopped screaming. She lept off the body and gave a little curtsy to Tyric.
"Hello, my name is Hopp. I’m sorry about that. I just can’t stand those things." She helped Tyric to his feet. "I’ve never seen you before. Welcome to the forest of Sifune." Hopp curtsied again.
"You just fell from the sky…." Tyric gaped at her. Hopp giggled, embarrassed.
"I didn’t mean to, though. There was a really strong wind that knocked me off balance."
"Where’s your broom?" Tyric asked.
"I ride my staff. It’s more useful." Hopp straightened her hat over her pointed ears and pushed it back.
"So what’s a city boy like you doing in the great and creepy forest of Sifune?"
(Writer: Tyric) "Well, um, I’m just passing through...or trying to anyway. What are you doing here?"
"I live here."
"You live here?! With those..." He gestured to the messy piles on the floor.
"Well... Yeah. They only started showing up about a month ago. They’re strangely intelligent." With that, she gave the beheaded corpse a vengeful kick, yielding another pouch, Tyric did the same, and then followed Hopp down the path.
After walking a short distance, Hopp swung around and slammed her staff into a tree trunk. The force of the blow caused a section of the tree to swing open, which Tyric saw led to a staircase.
"Welcome to my home."
The staircase opened into a moderately sized room, where upon further viewing was a den of sorts, with doors leading to other rooms as well as another staircase.
"It didn’t seem that big from the outside."
"Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving." Hopp said as she came back from a room with a book. "I’ll try to see if I can give you any information on those things...Weavers, I believe. During the time, feel free to look around."
Tyric nodded and decided to go up the staircase, deciding to try to find the highest point of the building. After a few fruitless openings into other rooms, including a kitchen, another den, and apparently a bedroom, a door finally had shown another flight of stars leading into a small room with glass windows on all sides. Tyric was in awe. From that room, he could view all the way to the mountains, as well as the small spire of the Academy a little distance in front. He then continued his sweeping scan, seeing nothing else but greenery, until an unnatural darkness caught the corner of his eye. He turned so that he was looking directly at it.
Tyric and Hopp both called "Found something" at the same time.
