Signet

For the first time in many, many weeks; Alice was woken up by the sun shining past her eyelids, its light turning a warm red as it moved through those thin layers of skin and blood before painfully flooding her retinas with far too much sensory information for such an early hour.

Or, at least, so thought the young woman as she turned on her side with a groan, using one arm to block the pesky photons and get a few more minutes of restful slumber.

That bold plan, however, was soon dashed by the nature of her current bed; the hard, stone surface soon pushing painfully against her shoulder and hip bone and growing more uncomfortable by the minute despite Alice’s attempt to use her new pillow as a very small mattress.

When she finally accepted that her bedtime was over, the groggy biomancer pushed away the soft bag of moss and feathers and slowly forced herself up on her feet.

After a few long moments, where she sadly thought back to the beautiful silken futon she had forgotten to have replaced, the young woman started doing her daily stretching ritual, groaning every time her sore muscles twitched and her stiff joints refused to move smoothly.

As her body slowly warmed up, Alice proceeded to clean herself up with a handful of Lumen that she had decided to keep outside of her body for that exact purpose, using them on her skin and clothes before hiding them back underneath her dress once she was done.

Her morning routine finally over, the girl collected her sparse belongings, making sure to grab from the cold ashes of the fire the useful stick she had used the previous night before sticking everything in her pillow-sack and heading out of the room.

Her movements were confident as she stepped down the steep stairs, sparing only a brief glance to the ransacked remains of the nest in the other chamber before walking through the ruined living room, out of the entrance and into the silent square.

The moment she was out in the open, Alice’s movements changed, becoming more careful and guarded as she stepped onto the mossy ground, making sure not to make any sound as she moved towards the two narrow streets that led out of the plaza.

Stopping between them, she instantly felt the pleasant breeze that, channeled in her direction by the buildings themselves, seemed to come from the street to the right, gently moving her hair and bringing to her nose a gentle smell of moss, grasses, leaves and, surprisingly, flowers; their sweet scent almost luring her forward.

She followed her instincts and started walking in that direction.

The moment she stepped past the first two buildings, the warm rays of the morning sun were immediately replaced by a fresh and humid shade that reminded her of a forest’s undergrowth and she soon found herself surrounded by tall walls completely covered in plump moss and verdant leaves that hid the many openings leading to the moist and silent inside of the ruins.

Whenever she spotted an entrance, Alice would make sure to check it out, wary of possible ambushes from behind and, more than anything, hoping to find some ancient artefact or at least some remains that could tell her more of the previous inhabitants of the city.

The girl took her time in each house, sometimes even digging through the moss if she thought something interesting could be lying in wait underneath it.

To her dismay, however, she didn’t seem to be particularly lucky, the few objects she found too rusted or decayed to even be recognizable.

On top of that, she was also prevented from really exploring the upper floors of the buildings by the numerous tiny birds that seemed to nestle there, their frantic, shrill calls ringing in her ears whenever they spotted her lurking up the stairs, hungrily eying their fluffy feathers and the small eggs they were brooding.

If I don’t find anything better, I’m definitely going to come back for them but, until then, I guess that I’ll let them be. I’d feel bad eating so many birds for a meal when I’m fairly sure there is going to be something more filling and less cute hiding somewhere nearby. She told herself the first time, her mind bringing her back to the plump monkey of the previous night.

I’ll try to get that damned thing before risking the birds’ anger. They aren’t going anywhere after all.

Despite that, she couldn’t help her curiosity and still took her time to at least check the upper floor of every house, retreating whenever she caught sight of the characteristic yellow plumage of the creatures.

Just as she was stepping down the umpteenth set of stairs, her thighs and calves asking for a break after the continuous up and down, Alice’s left foot suddenly slipped on something round and hard that was hiding underneath the moss.

Feeling herself falling, she frantically grasped at the wall for support and, instead, only managed to rip away a good portion of the green layer that was covering it while her body continued on its downward slide, her butt and lower back hitting painfully against each step as she slipped to the bottom of the stairs, carrying with her an entire curtain of the wet and spongy plant.

Groaning, she tossed the moss to the side and got up on her feet, gingerly touching her rear and finding it sore and scraped despite the protective plates sewn into the back of her dress.

After a few more seconds of pained hisses and general wincing, however, the girl turned around and started thoroughly searching the ground for the culprit, only stopping her relentless hunt when the remarkable shine of gold peeked through the pile of dirt and roots.

“What the heck,” she murmured as she picked up the object which, encrusted with dirt as it was, didn’t really reveal much of its nature.

Her eyes wide, she hurriedly started prying away the biggest pieces of detritus with her fingers before using the glimmers for the final clean up.

Less than a minute later, Alice was left staring at a golden signet ring which, somehow unmarred by age or damage, still showed a crisp engraving on its flat, top face.

Formed by two concentrical circles crossed by a single, horizontal line and three smaller circles surrounding it in a pattern, the design was accompanied by a line of beautifully engraved glyphs that ran around the rest of the ring, giving it a very strange texture under her digits.

When she focused on those symbols, the girl immediately recognized their squiggly and confusing design, the same she had seen on the rubble in the fungal forest and on the walls of the tall shaft deep into the system of caves.

She was sure now; the signs were a language and the makers of that ring had also explored the caves.

“Wow,” she whispered to herself as she marveled at the jewel, bouncing it up and down in her palm and feeling its weight, surprisingly heavy for something that could have very well fit onto her index finger.

She was close to trying it on when a sudden thought popped in her mind, causing her to stop on her tracks and eye the object with distrust.

I’ve had my share of cursed items in DnD… let me at least check if it’s magical, she told herself as she accessed her well of power, slowly extending a tendril towards the ring and waiting for some kind of feedback, relenting only when it remained completely inert.

“Mhhh.. this is stupid but what the heck,” she said as she slowly moved it down the index finger of her left hand, her eyes closed as she prepared for the flash of pain, the mad voices or the deadly, twisting mist that was sure to come, eyeing it with even more doubt when nothing of the sort happened and the only difference was in the cold sensation of metal against skin, soon growing muted as her body heat passed to the jewel.

“Oh well,” she said after a few more failed attempts at awakening the signet, “If I ever find civilization I’m sure I’ll be able to sell it for a bit if I really need to and, on top of that, it’s a pretty cool thingie. I feel like Biggie right now.”

With a chuckle, Alice got up on her feet, brushed herself off and was just getting ready to head out when her eyes were suddenly lured in by a strange relief in the blanket of moss that she had torn off the wall.

A shiver ran down her spine when, after focusing on the thick system of tiny roots of the plant, the girl realized that there was yet another set of squiggly symbols made of raised radicles, their design unequivocable.

Okay, this is getting stranger by the minute, she told herself, a shiver running down her spine as her mind started thinking of plant people staring at her from the walls.

It took her far too long to realize what had actually happened and to climb back up the stairs, soon finding the three short lines whose indentations had become the perfect molds for the mosses growing over them.

She sighed in relief, her heartbeat turning normal as she took a good look at the three lines, immediately noticing that of the three, the upper two had been carved on it with some kind of sharp tool, so different from the smooth and regular divots of the bottom one.

For many long minutes she wracked her brain, trying her best to find a sense in the squiggly symbols before finally surrendering to the lack of a dictionary.

“I wonder what they wanted to say so badly.” She muttered as she stepped out of the building and continued on her path.

Time passed and, after roughly one more hour of exploration, the young woman finally left the buildings behind and found herself standing on the wide upper platform of a much larger stairway that led further down, able to once again stare at the landscape extending below her feet.

She, however, didn’t even spare a glance to the massive expanse, her eyes completely glued to the gargantuan wisteria tree which, after sprouting from the shattered roof of a large, domed building of metal and glass many meters below, had somehow managed to envelop dozens of stairways and buildings on its rush towards the sun, covering them in a sea of lush, verdant leaves and long tails of perfumed purple flowers that gently swayed in the breeze, invaded by countless small insects feasting on their nectar.

It was beautiful.

Not an exception to the rule, the stairway she was standing upon had also become one of the many pathways that the plant took in its effort to grow and was invaded by a rippling forest of soft leaves and thin tendrils that snaked between the railings, coiling around them like tiny vipers searching for food.

The main branches, which ran on the ground, had taken the shape of the stairs themselves, basically forming a layer of living wood over the stone steps and feeling like the world’s strangest parquet under Alice’s feet when she shook herself away from her daze and started slowly descending the uneven steps, careful not to stumble on the coiling branches and straining her ears to catch any strange sound over the constant rustling of leaves and the calls of the countless insects living on them.

In the meanwhile, the girl found herself getting gradually enveloped by the foliage, soon finding herself in a cluttered tunnel of fronds whose huge palette of vibrant greens assaulted her eyes with their hues, her nose slowly adjusting to the sweet perfume of flowers that was constantly filling her lungs, the buzzing of the insects all-encompassing under the leaves.

Hidden away from the rest of the world, slowly moving forward towards the unknown, Alice found herself at peace.

At least until her ears caught the same hooting sounds she had heard the previous night, her mind immediately filled with the ugly puckered lips of the monkey creature she had so unpleasantly met.

Popping her head out of the rustling fronds, Alice’s eyes briefly caught sight of a couple of furry shadows that, from a cluster of buildings above, suddenly launched themselves down, grappling at the last second one of the larger branches and soon starting to dart in and out of the leaves, two dark brown shapes that soon disappeared into a large, ruined building that protruded from the leaves like an iceberg, its caved roof promising a good spot for a silent observer.

A wry smile appeared on her lips, her hand instinctually moving to the mace at her side.

She had finally found her targets; it was only a matter of catching them.

*****

This chapter is officially sponsored by Formless Chimera! Thank you for your support!