Roue Windmere was as normal as any other wizard in the magical city of Geffen, a town home to its myriads of mage and wizard guilds.? Its center was punctuated by a looming giant, aptly named, Geffen Tower, a host to Rune Midgard's largest collection of magical tomes and scrolls; a location on every budding mage's to-do list as it also housed the magic academy.? Despite being built on an island in the midst of a giant lake as a measure of safety, it was open to any and all visitors who wished to be surrounded by ancient knowledge and powerful magic.? But Geffen was not the focus of this story.? In fact, it's been 5 years and then some since Roue had stepped foot in the same town that was his birthplace.
Normal as he may have seemed, Roue was an elf and he was on the run for his life ever since he left.? Relentlessly pursued by his maddened parents, there was not a moment where he stayed in one place for too long.? A week or two at the most, always paranoid and looking over his shoulders.? This time was no different.? Yet again, the knights and assassins were hot on his heels as he ran through the streets of Einbroch, the famed city of steel and home to a populous blacksmiths guild.? The Kafra warp brought him here but as soon as his feet touched the cobblestone, he took off like a bat out of hell.? The air was rife with the chocking smog created by the mixture of steel exhaust and the nearby coal plants, so much so that Roue was coughing with every leap he took.? Try as he might to cover his mouth with the fringes of his wizard's cape, it was not enough to mask the smell nor the smoke that filled his lungs.? His eyes wildly looked for a corner, some corner or an alley that he could dive into but where?? He's never been to Einbroch and so wasn't familiar with the layout at all.? So how was he, a wizard who wasn't build for all this running, and heavily wheezing to boot, meant to escape his would-be captors?
"Crap, crap, crap! *cough cough*" he coughed out, sliding to a halt in the middle of the city square.? He turned around as his eyes widened as the sight of his unwelcome entourage, like a pack of wild beasts, heading straight for him.? There was no time to think, no time to make a plan and an ice wall was only going to hold them back so long.? Roue was running out of time.? He raised his hand and chanted a quick spell, waving his hand over the area in a horizontal arc in front of him.? A mere second later, the ground rumbled as a water main exploded below the cobbled stone and shot out of the ground in a highly pressured spurt.? Just as quickly, the water began to coalesce into an ice wall, but before it even had a chance to grow tall enough to hide him out of sight, an assassin threw a well targeted kunai at Roue.? The wizard dodged, or at least attempted to, as the sharpened piece of diamond shaped steel wizzed by his side in bullet time.? Luckily, he only felt it scrape his side, but no pain, cutting off a chunk of his cape.? Frowning, but wasting no more time and with the wall hiding him at least temporarily, he turned around and ran into a brown colored cloud of smog that was sliding across the ground.
There!? An alley!? He peeked over his shoulders, hearing but not yet seeing his pursuers.? He dipped into the narrow pathway, coughing up a storm, his lungs crying out for mercy.? No, be silent!? For crissakes, stop coughing Roue! he screamed in his head.? He tried to jam some of his cape into his mouth, diminishing the sound of his coughing but not stopping any of it.? He was not just running out of time, he was running out of energy.? Stopping for a second to try and catch his breath, Roue then half stumbled, half ran through the dimly lit pathway, using his arm to hold onto the wall as his eyes tried to adjust to the sudden darkness.? The loosely strewn garbage didn't help any either, threatening to stumble him and that it accomplished as he came upon a stray piece of pipe jutting out of a suspicious looking pile.? Before he could even react, his left leg collided with and caught onto the pipe, and for that brief moment, he quite literally flew forward as there was nothing else to stop his momentum.? Except the nice brick wall which he tackled head on.
"Argh!...that *cough* really, really *coughcough* smarts," he winced, nearly every word punctuated by his cough.? Disoriented and now in pain, Roue's hand flew up to try and get himself up when it alighted to the dead end's wall.? His eyes widened as his heart sank faster than an anchor in the ocean.? "No, no...no no no no no no!" he half whispered, sitting up as slid his hands over the wall.? As much as he didn't want to believe it, it was as solid as the ground that he was occupying.? In his disbelief, he didn't realize that he stopped breathing and as his lungs forced him to inhale, he started coughing up a storm just as he heard a quite loud "I hear him!? He must in this alley!? This way!"
Wasting no time in standing up, Roue pinned his back against the dead end wall, gasping as he tried to think of something, anything.? He was trapped, like a mouse being advanced upon by a pack of rabid cats.? He could hear the vicious assassin's hoarse laugh as they hastened to reach this narrow alleyway.? There was no way out, so he started preparing for a fight he knew would end with either his capture or his last breath.? Just then, he felt the wall behind him recede a bit, an action which caused him to jump back in surprise, turning around to see no longer just a wall, but an ornately carved door where there was only brick.? His eyes, now more adjusted to the dim light could make out some minute details, the carvings of unfamiliar words softly glowing in the darkness.? Was the door always there or was he imagining things?? Was he already dead and this was his purgatory?? Perhaps he was hallucinating now.? His hand automatically moved down, his fingers alighting on a rounded, brass-colored knob that he tried turning, his heart quickening in response.? No movement, so he desperately tried again.? A single hand too weak, he now used both and tightly gripping the knob, turned it further to the left and pushed.? The door groaned and creaked, but it opened and with it came a scented, but fresh breath of air.? Turning his head to inhale, Roue was broken out of his stupor as the narrow path darkened even more as a pack of towering knights entered the alley.
"There he is!? Get 'im!"? Time seemed to slow down as the towering giants broke into a run.? Not wasting this chance, Roue turned towards the door, it giving way much easier now and slipped inside, immediately shutting it it behind him, immediately bracing both hands as he prepared to push back.? He felt the door violently vibrate as the knights slammed their armored fists against the frame, shouting something loud but muffled, but the more they did it, the quieter it got and the less and less he felt the door twitch until it all just stopped.? Not one to question his inanimate savior, Roue placed his head against the cool material, taking quite a few deep breaths in an effort to calm himself when the sounds of distant, pleasing music and the loud tinkling of glasses being shuffled filled his ears.? Wait a minute...he turned around and at once received a shock at the sight before him.
He stood at the far end of a darkened corner of a bar.? The rest of the space was filled with rounded tabled and equally ornate chairs, some filled with patrons and some with naught but air.? There was light for sure, but it was soft and dim, so as to keep a soothing, sort of muted environment.? Various torches lined the walls which were not wood as he expected but metal worked and stuck into supporting beams? There was no fire inside but within the yellow glass was a shining round orb.? All sorts of smells filled his nose, delicate scents of different types of wines, succulent meats, punctuated by the atmospheric scents of what he thought was pine intermixed with tones of primrose and lilac.? Overwhelmed by where he was, Roue didn't even notice how all the patrons stopped their conversation to turn and look at this new visitor, their conversation changing from previously lively tones to a more hushed discussion.? Suddenly he felt a sharp twinge on his left side, wrapping his right hand around to try and soothe the pain.? It must've been from all the running he did, he reasoned, having been on his feet since the morning.? He stooped a bit more forward, closer to the light of the candles as he spoke to the barhand who was curiously eyeing him as he kept wiping the myriad of glasses in front of his person.
"<Wh-where am I?? What is this place?>" he asked the man, but only received a look of confusion and a brief sniff in Roue's general direction.? He was starting to feel slightly light-headed and gripped the bar's edge even harder, his breathing becoming a bit ragged.
(Tag Rabbit)
P.S. the <> around Roue's words are to indicate he's speaking in a language unknown to the inhabitants of this place.
Luukasama