Eldritch Guidance

Chapter 16: Cornered Researcher

-Twelve years ago-

A year and half had gone by since Scarlett was betrayed. In that time she had been unable to undo the aging, and was also unable to completely recover her magic. Whatever was done to her, had done more than damage her aether veins. Even when she had healed them, she was only able to manifest a twelfth of her former power. She was weak, and was currently in hiding.

Scarlett would now constantly wear a disguise and went by the name Lunarch in public. Her disguise looked nothing like she once did. Her appearance was that of an older blonde haired woman with green eyes, donning a simple gray midi shirtdress. Not too pretty, or ugly, just enough for her to appear average in every aspect to the unassuming.

Currently, Scarlett was reading a large tome while disguised in a corner of a library. She was in the great library of Graheel, known as the Arcanium Archives. It was a repository for some of the oldest documentation on magic and arcane theory on the western continent. It was here that she was trying to research what had been done to her during her expedition to the Wildlands.

The more noticeable aged features she had been cursed with were currently hidden under an illusion called a glamor. It was a type of powder that one could apply to the face to make oneself appear different. It was a very superficial and simple type of magic. Used commonly amongst many older mages to hide unwanted blemishes in the face. A little water was all it took to dispel the illusion, and anyone who was even moderately trained in the arcane arts could tell from a glance she was wearing a glamor.

Scarlett: “Damn it.” She muttered to herself. “There is nothing useful in this either.” She said as she slammed the tome closed.

Scarlett was scouring old tomes. In the years since that tragic event, she was searching for a way to repair the damage that was done to her. She was going through old records and documentation about ancient magic. She was looking for anything that could help her with condition, something that could restore her magic and youth.

Librarian: “Um, excuse me Miss, but the library is closing soon.” Said the older looking gentleman who worked here.

Scarlet didn’t turn to face the librarian as she spoke.

Scarlett: “Ok. I’ll be leaving right now then.” She said before she stood up and packed up her things.

Scarlett collected the papers she brought and put them into her messenger bag that she carried around everywhere. She left the tome on the table to be collected by the librarians as she got up and made her way to the entrance.

The interior of the library was extravagant. Pictures and busts of famous scholars adorned the walls. The floor was polished stone and intrigued stone pillars held up the roof. Between the pillars were shelves that were at least thirty feet high, so high they were that it required special ladders to reach the books on the higher shelves. Flameless arcane orbs of light floated gently throughout space to illuminate every dark corner. The size and scale of the library was only matched by the one on the Graheel campus, or the Illumination archive in Lavall.

Scarlett stopped by the receptionist's desk on her way out.

Scarlett: “Hello. I would like to return this book.” She said as she pulled the book out of her bag and handed it to the receptionist.

The receptionist took the book and adjusted her glasses before looking at the cover.

Receptionist: “Let’s see here. This is ‘Phonk Therium of Spectrum Shifting’.” She said as she began to start typing away at the computer on her desk. “Ok then. I’ve marked it as returned for you Ms Lunarch. You should be good to borrow any other books in the future.”

Scarlett just nodded and took her leave of the library.

She exited through the front of the building and walked down a series of stairs before she turned and looked at the grand library. It was not only large and extravagant in its design, it was also a testament, a monument to generation of collected knowledge. It was to be a beacon for scholars, a metaphor they made more literal by shooting a beam of light from the roof into the sky.

This was a place she had visited countless times before for her research. Scarlett had never thought of it before now, but the place used to always feel so welcoming to her. Something she took for granted before, but now it was different. This place felt ominous now. If she made one wrong move and her identity was revealed, her chance to undo what was done to her would be lost.

The story her traitorous disciples made up about her had already spread throughout Graheel and all the other union countries. If she was to reveal herself now, she wasn't entirely sure she wouldn’t be branded as a criminal and hunted down then jailed.

One day she hoped that she could return to this place with her real name.

She then quickly left the area and made her way towards the east side of Graheel. She did so by taking erratic paths and going through alleys. She did this to avoid being followed. She didn’t want to have any run-ins with any unsavory people like she did in the past.

She continued to make her way through the grimy streets of the east side. The place was still a complete mess like it always was. There was trash on the street and most of the buildings were boarded up or looked like they would soon collapse. It was the definition of a slum, but that was just fine for Scarlett. This place made it hard for people to find her.

Eventually she made it to Eld street. For whatever reason, the conditions on Eld street were better than anywhere else on the east side. It wasn't covered with as much trash as other streets on the east side, and had functioning businesses.

Walking through the empty street, she eventually made it to her small apartment. The apartment was old and looked like it was in need of some renovations. It wasn't the nicest place to live, but the building didn’t look like it was going to collapse anytime soon. She quickly pulled out her key and unlocked the front door and entered.

Her apartment was a single room with a tiny bathroom on the side. Other than a bed, table and chair, fridge, and oven, it was completely bare. It wasn’t great, but it was enough for Scarlett to get by.

Scarlett threw her bag to the side and went straight to the sink in the bathroom. She ran the water for a few seconds before grabbing a towel and wetting it under the tap. She then began to slowly wash her face with it, as she did, the glamor she applied was undone. Her appearance shifted from that of a middle aged woman with blond hair, to that of an old hag with gray hair.

She looked deeply at the reflection into the mirror over the sink. The deep sunken eyes that looked back at her were sad and lost. There was severe dissociation from Scarlett. She didn’t see the person in the mirror as herself, even as the realities of her situation would constantly reinforce itself. It was not that she simply appeared old, she was actually old. All the aches and pains one experienced with aging, she was experiencing. She had developed arthritis in her knees and it was painful some days for her to walk to the archive.

Scarlett didn’t want to look at her reflection and decided to head to bed and take her mind off things for a while. As she sat in her bed, there was loud banging on the door to her apartment.

Stranger: “Hey, is anyone there!” Yelled out the voice of a gruff man.

She didn’t recognize the voice. Scarlett was just going to ignore and wait for the person at her door to leave, until she heard the voice of another man.

Grunt: "We know you're in there Scarlett! Come out! Our employer wants a word with you!" the man yelled out.

Scarlett: “Shit,” she muttered under her breath.

She grabbed her bag and things, then ran into the bathroom. She put everything off to the side and then closed the bathroom door. Scarlett then sat down on the ground with her back against the door. The door on the bathroom didn’t have a lock, but the room was small enough that Scarlett could press her feet against the wall and pushed herself into the door to keep it shut.

She sat there with a heavy breath. Waiting to see what the people outside her apartment would do. They continued to bang the door and called for her. Eventually, they stopped and Scarlett was about to give a sigh of relief, until she could hear the sound of smashing and wood splintering. They were breaking in.

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After several loud banging sounds Scarlett could hear the sound of one final bang and a door swinging violently open. She held her breath as she heard the footsteps of half a dozen people enter her apartment.

Grunt: “Where is she?”

Grunt2: “Was she not here?”

Grunt3: “Don’t be stupid. I just saw her enter this apartment a few minutes ago.”

Grunt: “She must be hiding then. Look around. There’s only so many places she could hide in this dump.”

Scarlett could hear the footsteps moving all around her apartment. She could hear the searching and flipping of the few pieces of furniture that was in her apartment.

Eventually she heard footsteps approach the bathroom. When she heard this, she pushed herself against the door to keep it closed. The door knob above her head turned and she could feel someone trying to push the door open.

Grunt2: “Hey. This door ain’t opening.” He yelled to the others.

Grunt: “Must be hiding in there then.”

She could hear more footsteps approach the bathroom. Once they got close enough, Scarlett muttered “infernus” and arcane runes started to glow around the frame of the bathroom door.

Grunt: “Whoa. What's with the…aaaaaahha,” he screamed out in pain.

More screams followed after the first person wailed out. The door behind her started to feel warm and an orange glow emanated from the small gap at the bottom of the bathroom door. She could hear sizzling and the sound of someone running around erratically. A burnt chemical smell along with the smell of burnt flesh started to waft into the bathroom Scarlett was in.

After a few minutes it started to quiet down. Once the bathroom door was no longer warm to Scarlett's touch, she slowly cracked the door open to look.

Her apartment was now completely ruined. There was debris everywhere. Anything that was wooden in the apartment was now black and covered in soot. There were six charred corpses laid around the room. They were so disfigured that Scarlett wouldn't have been able to identify them even if she knew who they were.

The damage she had managed with her current power was impressive.

Scarlett had lost most of her powers due to the events in the Wildlands, but she was still a master enchantress. Even if it was now impossible for her to fight someone head on, she could still set very powerful traps.

There were only three problems with these traps in her mind. The first problem was that she couldn’t adjust or set up traps on the fly, she needed time. The second was to ensure that anybody that came after her would be taken out by the trap, so she had to set it up for maximum lethality, but in doing so, it would cause a massive amount of damage to the surrounding area. The third was that she risked killing herself with her own trap. If she did not isolate herself in the bathroom before activating it, she would look like one of the many burnt corpses in her apartment right now.

Scarlett was distraught at her current circumstance. This was the third time that this had happened to her, and the third time she ruined her apartment, forcing her to relocate. And this was particularly one of the nicer apartments that she would now have to vacate.

She didn’t know how they were finding her, or even who these people were.

For the last year and a half since she had returned to Graheel, she had been stalked and hounded by random people. When she noticed that she was being followed, she was able to hide and relocate herself pretty easily before she could get into any altercation. It was only on rare occasions that it ended up in conflicts, forcing her to use her traps.

There was a point when she thought it was just some petty criminals looking to find an easy mark and exploit her for money, but this has happened many times now. Also, the fact that these brutes knew her real name meant it was something much more.

“How did they know my name?” She thought to herself.

At this point, everyone thought that Scarlett was dead. The lie of her trying and failing to murder her disciples, ending with her death, had spread far and wide. No one thought she was alive anymore. Yet, these grunts called out her name.

It was all very troubling for Scarlett.

She immediately headed back into her bathroom and collected her things. She was preparing to move, even though she didn’t really want to. This part of the east end was more livable than anywhere else, but the landlord she was renting from would not be impressed by the destruction she had caused to the building, so she now needed to find somewhere else to stay. It also wouldn’t be smart to stay here. Whoever was after her seemed to be working as a group, which meant they would likely send more goons here.

Just as she was about to leave, she decided to quickly search the bodies. She was looking for anything useful that managed to not burn up.

Searching through the charred remains of her former pursuers, she managed to get a few coins that she could still use to buy some things. She did, however, manage to find the remains of a slightly singed piece of folded paper on one of them.

This caught her attention. The blast trap she prepared had such an intense fire to it, it didn’t make sense that something like paper would still remain mostly intact. She suspected that it must be enchanted in some way. Only paper with an enchantment would survive such a blast. Scarlett had no other explanation on how else that paper didn’t burn up.

She carefully took the paper and unfolded it. The contents were blank, but Scarlett partly expected that. If there was an enchantment on this paper, it likely was one that prevented anyone, but certain people from seeing what was written on it. Such enchantments were also not easy to remove. Scarlet knew that if she tried to undo the enchantment so she could see the writing, it would likely destroy itself. A type of self destruct feature to prevent unwanted people from seeing what was written. It was the kind of thing that was perfect for passing secret letters.

Discovering the contents of this letter would be impossible, but this was Scarlett. A former archmage of enchantments.

Even with her limited powers, she could still use her eyes of truth to see through the enchantment and view exactly what was written on it.

Like she had done so many times in the past, she focused what little aether she still had into her eyes. Everything turned slightly red in her vision and she could now see glowing floating runes around the paper in her hands. Scarlett's knowledge of enchantments combined with her unique eye ability allowed her to quickly identify the nature of the enchantment. It was everything that she expected it to be. An enchantment that hid what was written and would destroy itself if tampered.

It was a good thing she didn’t need to tamper with it. Her eye ability would not trigger it.

Looking through the enchantment, the letter read: “Go to Eld street. Somewhere there you’ll find an old hag named Scarlett. She may be using illusions to hide her appearance. Her aether veins should be damaged, making it easy to handle her when found. Once she is eliminated, you’ll receive your full payment. - Signed L.”

Scarlett was shocked at what was written. Someone knew she was alive, and whoever it was wanted her dead.

She thought It had to be somebody she knew. She considered if her former disciples knew she was alive and was sending people after her, but how would they know? They left her for dead in the Wildlands, so she wasn't sure they entirely knew her current situation with her weakened aether.

“Who else could be after me?” She thought as she racked her brain for who it possibly could be.

She looked closer at the writing and started to notice the unique handwriting. She had seen this type of writing before.

Scarlett: “Lazarus…” she mumbled to herself.

She was sure it was him. The hand writing and the letter initials pointed to Lazarus, dean of the Arcane Eye college.

She recalled that he was one of the few she went to when she got back to Graheel over a year ago, trying to explain what had happened in the Wildlands. He dismissed her at the time, calling her a crazy hag deluding herself and pretending to be Scarlett. He threw her out of his office before she could fully explain herself.

She didn’t entirely blame him. She looked nothing like what she did before and didn’t possess any of her formidable magic ability. If some random person came out of nowhere claiming to be someone you knew and they didn’t look like them, she might do the same. However, she wouldn't have gone out her way to eliminate such an imposter like Lazurus was trying to do to her.

“Unless, he doesn't think I'm an imposter!” She thought as shock filled her face.

She started putting pieces together in her head.

“The letter mentioned my damaged aether veins. I'm sure I brought that up briefly before he kicked me out of his office. He also mentioned my name in the letter. If he really thought that I was crazy, I don't think he would have mentioned any of those things in his writing. This means he knows who I really am.” She thought while in disbelief.

The shock caused Scarlett to drop the scorched letter in her hand.

“If you know, then why Lazarus? Why are you trying to kill me? I thought we were friends.” She sadly thought to herself.

She stood there for a while lost in thought before she came back to reality.

She then grabbed her things and applied the last of her glamor and left her apartment. She was not about to explain to her landlord how the place ended up that way. She walked through the ruined door of her apartment onto Eld street.

She was going to go into hiding, but didn’t know what she was going to do or where to go after. Scarlett wouldn’t be able to stay on Eld street anymore, even though she wanted to. Now that her pursuers knew she was living here, it would be too dangerous to stay. With the exception of Eld street, most of the east end of Graheel was a dump. So, it was unlikely that she would find a place that was as half decent as the place she was just staying.

She carefully made her way down Eld street. The street was devoid of any people at this hour. She continued to pass by the familiar shops and restaurants, all while making sure there was no one suspicious following her.

A shiver went through her spine, followed by a feeling of being watched. Scarlett quickly looked around to see if anyone was looking at her, but there was nobody around this evening. Thinking that it was just her imagination she was about to leave, but something caught the corner of her eye.

It was an establishment she had never seen before. The sign on the front read: “Mystic Emporium.”