As Malvick examines these strange prints, plaster dust from above settles on his shoulder, and every instinct in his body screams at him to MOVE!
He rolls aside as the stone wall behind where his head just was is pulverized by a ropey fist. Malvick regains his feet and looks up to see a red, rubbery faceless stalker on the stairs above winding up for another swing. His bow is already in hand, but before he can reach back to grab an arrow, something grabs his hair from behind. Something big. Malvick is lifted off his feet and launched across the room. Pain lances through his body as hits the opposite wall. He struggles to take a breath and manages to get to one knee. Then he sees a fist the size of a feast day ham descending and everything after that is black.
***
"Get up boy, you're going to sleep the whole day away... worthless nephew!"
The hammock swayed violently as Malvick tumbled to floor.
"What the hell!?" gasped Malvick. He attempted to drag himself up and was suddenly overcome by a terrible migraine. He dropped back down to one knee as a wave of nausea took over him.
The man in the room walked over, handing Malvick a dirty glass with dirtier water. "Here, that will take the taste out of your mouth."
"What do you mean, the taste out of..." Malvick lost control of his stomach and just barely hit the bucket under the hammock he had been thrown off of. All he could see were colours.
He sat up against the wall, feeling his balance and composure come back. His eyes started working again and he oriented himself within the room. He went to drain the water and immediately spat it out. It was some sort of whiskey. That`s all he wanted to remember of that.
"I told you it would take the taste out of your mouth, but don't waste it!"
The man walked over and grabbed the glass from Malvick's hand, promptly returning to the desk in the room. Malvick almost did a double take. "Uncle Elrick? What the hell are you..." Malvick looked around the room again. "...what the hell am I doing here?" He corrected.
Malvick's senses were finally able to scan the room. He was in what looked like a small cottage, complete with hammock, desk, two chairs, a large fireplace and a bear skin rug that covered the dirty wooden floor. Somehow Malvick had arrived at his Uncle's run down cottage on the outskirts of Korvosa. Travellers sometimes scoffed at Malvick`s attire, but his uncle was worse. All the man wore were leather pants. His bare feet and back were covered with dirt. His arms, back and chest covered by terrible scars. Elrick sat back down in his desk chair with his back to the Ranger.
Malvick stood up, approaching the hunched figure. "So somehow I show up here and you're not going to talk to me at least. I didn't get on your bad side that much last time did I?" He looked over Elrick's shoulder to see his uncle digging a blade into his forearm. Malvick doubled back in disgust. "Great Mielikki! Are you still doing this?!"
"Shut your mouth, boy," Elrick snapped back. "You and your father still don't understand."
"No, we don't. And for good reason."
Malvick's uncle Elrick was a curious man by the family's standards. Overshadowed by Malvick's father, Elrick had always looked for his own calling. Elrick believed it was fortunate for him that society, and military and politics didn't suit him. Distancing himself he had taught himself wizardry. How, the family never knew.Through some close encounters with death, partly his own experimentation and partly through getting involved with the wrong mage circles, Elrick had lost his mind and was shunned to this small run down cottage by the family. Malvick always supported his father and thought nothing of his uncle, except the few times a decade he would visit out of what he believed was courtesy. The last time he saw Elrick things hadn't ended so well and the cottage was left half standing. How had it been rebuilt exactly he wondered? The last straw for Malvick was when he discovered uncle Elrick had started experimenting with blood magic, giving up his spell book for etched glyphs and incantations cut and stored within his own flesh. Who knows where or with whom Elrick had started practicing it, but the blood stains Malvick now noticed on the floor and desk, dark reds and browns, showed the ranger that his uncle was deep into practicing his new faith, whatever that was.
"I let you sleep it off in my place and that's the first thing you say? Times like these I wish for a better nephew."
"Kind of like how I wish for a better Uncle"
"Don't start now boy. I think you're a little worse for wear."
"And that's because...?"
Elrick snapped around, intrigued "So you don't quite remember?! That's interesting, most remember their last moments. I've been experimenting a bit with people's dreams on the edge of... well... In any case, I'm surprised I ended up talking to you. And also surprised that you picked my cottage of all places for your own vision. Maybe I didn't quite get that last incantation right. Alas, you have nothing I need so we're almost done here."
"Done? What are you talking about?"
Elrick looked away, smiling to himself. "No, I'll leave it at that. Too much information. If you die it won't matter. But if you live I'd hate you tracking me down like your righteous father would. Either way... I wish you the best of luck."
He gave Malvick a sarcastic half bow, and with a flick of the wrist a concealed piece of flint he had in his left hand created a brilliant spark and Malvick was engulfed in white light, and then darkness again.
***
