Faeria, the Illusionist's page

Earlier, back at Erastil's Lodge:

Following that, she'll head on over to Faeria:"Hi, I see you're helping out here? How are you feeling?"

"Oh? Hello. You're those women (Alia and Scarlet) from earlier today aren't you? Did you want to buy something? It's for the poor." She holds up a used peasant's outfit that looks suspiciously like a slightly less tailored version of something Alia found in the sewer earlier. Faeria blinks--which is new.

Faeria still seems not to remember you, but seems "more normal" though.

"Bandits? Died? Madness?!" At first she looks confused then distraught.

"Mites?" The woman looks confused, her whole body language seems completely different from the languid dreamer she was a moment before. Now she seems more like a small, frightened animal. She shies away from Scarlet. And then, looking down at herself, looks like she might have tried running from what she saw if it were possible.

"Again!" Faeria giggles.

"That's a lovely hue of crimson, don't you think?" Faeria says to no one in particular.

"Heehee. This is a queer dream."

"Really?" *Blink* "You're such a kind figment. And tall. When did I dream you?"

"Cave?" She starts, as if Scarlet suddenly appeared before her out of thin air. "Oh, that's just part of the story. I don't know where these mites came from. Heehee."

Faeria looks at Scarlet and Zokon both as if surprised to see them. Her glassy-eyed expression disappears and becomes one more resembling incredulity as if the word 'mites' was enough. As if its meaning were as obvious as the word 'nose.'

She straightens up, and would have dusted herself off had she not been bound. She looks them both over again--suspiciously. Then in a tone of voice that makes her seem not quite awake nor wholly sober she says: "Well hello there. Did I imagine you? I can't imagine that I imagined her. Then again I can't imagine anyone imagining someone as unimaginably handsome as you."

"What was the question? Mites? Is that a question? They were once creatures of the previous world, the world before this one, the first one. Creatures like those." She nods toward the gnomes. Then taking advantage of the momentary distraction she shuffle/hops closer to Zokon to admire him from a better angle.

"They were smaller, and finer of course, and had tiny wasp's wings back then. But then the their world went away and left them here. And here isn't the same as there, obviously. Over time, the cruel, hard, new world twisted them with its truth. They grew bigger and flabbier--their heads grew even bigger--like swamp melons, and their skin became the color of those bruises on my wrists--they're like drowned babies."

She pauses, musing over something terrible for a moment.

"As the light colors of the before world left the now world they dimmed as well. I can make colors! Have you seen them? I could show you. Anyway, their wings fell off and they grew malicious and wild--for now no one felt awe at their terrible beauty--it had all gone, all gone wrong. Only bugs would serve them now. They took to living in the earth with the wriggling things. And there, I think, in a cave somewhere they finally went mad...."

She pauses again. When she returns she seems a bit shaken but focused.

"They snuck into camp one night--it might have been a dream, but I think it was them by all giggling noises I heard after one of them stabbed Kressle's new boyfriend, Bruiser, in the thigh. They stole our bag of copper and cheap trinkets, I think I saw your wyrm ring in there."

Then looking into Zokon's eyes, in a voice that for the first time seems fully awake Faeria says: "It was those little, blue meanies that took it."

Zokon walks over to the bandit prisoners and asks "A ring a Tatzylworm shaped ring was taken from Svetlana of the outpost, first to give me good information on what happened to it gets to share my rations wherever we take you to."

"Mites."