Commotion

Ceriden Malkaan was starting to run out of ideas. He knew his quest to learn necromancy would be difficult, for necromancy was generally frowned upon if not illegal, but he had expected, or at least hoped, that the subject would not be prohibited in his homeland of Dalen, a notoriously lawless land that supported magic of all kinds.

Except necromancy apparently. Necromancy had of history of making monsters out of people, and was thus universally considered very dangerous magic, but Ceriden believed that the subject still needed to be understood. During his travels, Ceriden had learned that there was indeed a spirit realm, a realm that was intangible to most, but sufficient evidence existed to support the existance of such a realm. Ceriden hadn't been able to learn much more than that, except that apparently magic existed that could allow mortals to interact with the spirits of the dead.

What exactly this interaction looked like was not clear to Ceriden, although the picture history painted was one of necromancers turning themselves into undead abominations and using zombies to kill people. Unpleasant stuff to be sure, but Ceriden had no intention of killing anyone, and the implications of being able to interact, or better yet, communicate, with the spirits of the dead and maybe other spirit entities was staggering. To have access to the knowledge that the spirits had would be increadible, and... maybe Ceriden could talk to his mother once again.

Ceriden was walking down a street near the edge of the town of Ragodast, a town that was near the border of Verden. Due to the fairly uncomfortable relationship between the two nations, Ragodast had a rather large garrison. To make sure that the garrison's mages were ready for action in the event that hostilities broke out between the two nations, Ragodast had a fairly large collection of spellbooks. Ceriden was hoping to get access to that collection and see if there were any texts on necromancy, or at least counter-necromancy, in this collection, but so far he had not had any luck getting to know the right person.

Ceriden was broken out of his reverie some commotion to his right. He saw a figure burst from an alleyway, carrying a girl over his shoulder, flee across the street into the nearby forest that separated Verden and Dalen. A handful of guards ran after the figure.

It didn't take Ceriden long to realize who the figure was. He had heard of the attacks on the slavers the day before. Ceriden had actually made some coin patching up the survivors. Apparently the person behind the attacks had thought to hide in the town, and that clearly hadn't worked terribly well. No matter, this wasn't any of Ceriden's business.

The sun had started to set, and Ceriden thought it wise to get inside. Ragodast was not a safe place at night, even with the heavy military presense. The slavers were always looking for slaves, the bandits were always looking victims and their valuables, and the night patrol was notoriously corrupt. Ceriden found his way to the Inn he had called home for the past week and payed for dinner and another night. As he enjoyed his meal by himself, he tuned his ears to the sounds of the night life coming from the nearby forest. He wondered what that outlaw had been thinking, going into the forest at night. As dangerous as the city was, the forest was much, much worse. No matter, it wasn't really his problem.

Then again, he had dragged that girl out there too. The guards were after the fiend, but if the man had been able to take out several bands of slavers, then there was a good chance that the guards wouldn't be able to rescue her. Ceriden sighed. As much as he hated the loss of innocent life, there wasn't anything he could do about it now. He finished his meal, telekinetically sent his tray and utensils back to the kitchen, then retired to his room for the evening.

(OOC - I hope you guys don't mind, but I brought Jack, Lelu, and Oruvand to the same forest and time frame that Sabrina, Gareth, Artem, and Winnifred are in. Let me know if these assumptions are incorrect.)