Steel Magic

"Alright, if you just sit over at one of those tables I will bring you your meals," the man turns and goes through a door behind the bar.

Artellen sits at the table closest to the window. The bartender returns with two plates of fish, bread, and vegetables that look similar to asparagus.

Whit practically inhales the food. She was starving and just wanted to sleep.

((I'm super curious as to the title!))

Artellen doesn't say anything as they eat, and when he's done he goes and retrieves the key from the bartender and returns to the table.

"It's upstairs," is all that Artellen can manage.

The room is two located three doors to the right. Inside carpet covers the floor, there is a bed, a small dresser with a mirror, and curtains are drawn over the windows. A door on the left side of the room lead to a small bathroom. The bathroom has a small bath and toilet as well as indoor plumbing. A small cabinet in the bathroom includes what looks like a bar of soap, towels, and wash cloths.

"Carpet!" Whit exclaims happily.

She felt super drained and while the bath and indoor plumbing was very tempting, it would have to wait until tomorrow. She grabs a pillow and blanket off the bed and curls up on the floor. She falls asleep quickly.

Anticipating that Artellen will probably try to get her to take the bed she will insist that she wants to sleep on the floor and she is too tired to move.

When Whitney wakes up the sun is already up. Artellen is still sound asleep on the bed, curled up under the sheets. The comforter that was on the bed is now covering Whitney.

Whit does her best to be quiet as she rises. She stifled a groan. It feels like I've been hit by a bus! She creeps over to the bathroom, closes the door and locks it. She'd never been so happy to see a real toilet before and the bathtub was definitely a plus!!!

She filled the tub and soaked her achy muscles. When she was clean, she did her best to spot clean some of the dirtier parts of her clothes. When she was finished, she returned to the room and folded up the comforter she had slept with.

The water comes out cold.

Artellen is sitting at the edge of the bed, still looking a little groggy.

"Good morning," Artellen mumbled, "I think there is breakfast downstairs if you want some."

Noting that the water was cold. Whit did not soak she washed quickly and sat shivering as she dried off.

"Morning," Whit replied "Ya I think I will go get some breakfast. You hungry?"

Whit will go for breakfast with or without Artellen depending on his reply.

"Yeah, but I'll be down in a minute."

"Good morning miss, I'll be right back with your breakfast," the bartender greets Whitney.

The man brings out a couple slices of bread smothered in what looks like a blue jam. Steam is rising from the bread. He sets it down at the table Whitney is sitting at.

"You probably noticed the cold water this morning, and I apologize. We are just starting to use this...technology and are still working out a few kinks," he says before returning to his work at the bar.

About ten minutes later Artellen comes down and sits down with his food.

"Did you sleep well?" he said after swallowing a bite.

"Like a rock but I still feel like I could sleep for another week," Whit replied between bites of bread and jam. "You?"

Whit licked jam from her fingers, "So now that we're in Inthe, what's the plan? Where do we go from here?"

"This town looks less than adequate so I say we head to a city, or at least a sizable town. We will see what kind of supplies we can get with our money, then we look for Tray."

Artellen finished off the bread and then stood up, "Shall we be off?"

If Whitney is ready to leave they will start heading north towards the town they saw yesterday. There is a dirt road and fields of tall grass can be seen for miles. Small houses and buildings are clustered near the beach but become fewer farther from the ocean.

After the last few days, Whit felt really jumpy about walking around in the open like this. That shopkeeper had sold them out. A paranoia was settling in her. Each person that glanced at them, did they glance because they were idle onlookers or, were they watching? She ducked her head and walked quickly trying not to draw attention.

After they had walked for a few minutes Whit asked, "Have you been to Inthe before? Do you know where we're supposed to go to find Artellen?"

She hears no answer. Whitney's surroundings have changed. She is still in on the road in the field, but the buildings and people, including Artellen, have disappeared. Something is flying towards Whitney. As it gets closer she will be able to tell that it is a white barn owl. It is coming straight at her. Like the previous owl before it flies right through her, though this one doesn't stop to chat.



Again the pounding headache. Whitney remembers the doppelganger that Jessica created by mistake. How she had to kill the mirror image of herself before it killed her. She remembers the powers that her three friends were gifted with, but can't quite remember her own except that she had had more than just healing powers. And she remembers the first time she met Tray.



Whitney blacks out again. When she wakes up she is lying face up on the road, her head in Artellen's lap.

"Whit! Are you alright? You just collapsed suddenly."

((lol! So I just realized Gnale Whit said she is looking for Artellen who happens to be right next to her...that should be Tray...))

Whit throws her arms up in defense as the owl swoops towards her. She felt the same terrible headache she had before.

A few more pieces of her puzzle of memories came back. The four of them had powers. Chuck could use any weapon with the same degree of skill as its previous owner; Jessica could draw things and make them real. Alyssa could control temperature, fire and ice; and she could heal but there were things she was still missing.

Whit could remember Jessica drawing a picture of her to try to get Whit to appear where Jessica was but it hadn't worked correctly. A doppelganger had appeared and Whit had had to fight and kill that version of herself to get ride of it.

She remembered being on board a sky ship and the first time she had seen Prince Tray. She couldn't remember how they had gotten on the sky ship or what had happened between then and the muppets...but it did seem she had at one point known Tray.

Whitney blacks out again. When she wakes up she is lying face up on the road, her head in Artellen's lap.

"Whit! Are you alright? You just collapsed suddenly."

Whit woke up and realized she was laying on Artellen's lap. Awkward! She sat up quickly and put a head to her head.

"I'll be fine...I think I'm starting to remember some of the things that happened the last time I was here..." she trailed off.

<<Aw, I was hoping she'd get a fizzy warm-water pill lol.>>

Artellen helps Whitney to her feet. When it looks like she won't fall over he lets go, though now he his watching Whitney more carefully in case she faints again.

"Well, if you're fine then to answer your question no I haven't been to Inthe. I've never been outside of Minst my whole life. But Tray, he's the prince of Inthe, so I think the best place to look would be the capital."

"This town that we're heading to, is it near the capital?" she asked trying to walk confidently so he would stop watching her so closely.

"How long will it take us to get there?"

(They would of had them except that they thought they had figured out how to get hot running water, so they stopped making them/buying them.)

"It should only take a couple of hours, but the capital is much farther I think. Once we get there we'll figure out a plan," Tray looked confused for a second then asked, "Didn't Lola tell you something about Tray?"

"Not much," Whit replied "Mostly just that he's here and that he's in danger. Something about a forest I think..."

She wished she had a better memory for that kind of detail. It was hard to remember places that she wasn't familiar with.

"Alright, we'll start out with the capital then."

They have been walking for an hour when they come across a woman sitting in the grass holding a device that looks similar to a spyglass. At first she doesn't notice Whitney or Artellen, but when they walk into her line of view she cries out in surprise. The woman takes off the spyglass device and stands up, stumbling a few steps backward.

"Who are you?" she asks startled.

"Sorry," Whit said after realizing that they had walked in between her and whatever she was looking at.

"I'm Whitney and this is Artellen. What's your name?"

"Sorry but what's that?" she pointed at the spy glass.

She looked them over, "You're not from around here, are you? My name is Heloise. And this is a farsight. Made it myself. I am by no means the original inventor but I'm trying to make improvements on it."

"A far sight, is that like a telescope?" she asked though it sounded stupid even in her own ears.

"And you're right. We're not from here. We're from Minst. Can you tell us what the name of this town is?"

"A telescope? Um...I'm not sure but it allows you to see things that are far away up close. Though, if you're thinking of buying one, don't. They don't work very well for how much they cost, but I'm going to fix that. Do you want to try this one out? I'm always looking for opinions on how I can improve it," Heloise holds the contraption out to Whitney, "Minst, huh? I don't think I've ever met anyone from there before. I hear its pretty primitive in terms of technology, no offense."

"None taken," Artellen says, "Our queen holds great respect for magic, so I guess the people of Minst have never really thought about technology."

"Magic...don't mention that here, or anywhere in Inthe. Even though you're not from around here it's dangerous. Many people don't really understand it and think it's dangerous, but I..." Heloise sighed, "Anyway, this here is Penbrove. Not the biggest city in Inthe, but I like it well enough. What brings you here? Minst isn't exactly next door."

Whit takes the telescope and looks through it in a couple different directions.

From the sounds of things, people here didn't like magic about as much as Tanira didn't like technology. Helloise seemed to disagree with the popular opinion however.

"What brings you here? Minst isn't exactly next door."

Whit played around with the farsight some more hoping that Artellen would answer her question. Whit wasn't very good at lying and she wasn't sure how it would sound if they told her they were looking for Inthe's prince.