-Chapter 2- A Meeting (pages 6 - 12)

Chapter 2 A Meeting

Graven made his way through the busy housing district, walking down the beaten dirt paths until he finally made it to the semi cobble stoned trade district. Though it wasn't as extravagant as he had imagined, it would make for a perfect starting point for his research and gathering. He began to look around at some of the stall and merchants and began to talk to himself under his breath. "Alright, the first thing I am going to need to do is to try and find some of the books that were lost to me. Hopefully they all haven't been burned in a pile with others. If not, then I will just have to keep on searching. Surely someone would have them here. I can work on the lack of reagents later when I know what all I require." Graven looked around some more to see if he could find any specialty magic shops in the area. Even though it was a simple market district, it didn't take him long before he located a rustic looking magic shop. The sign read “Griff's Emporium. A local dealer of the arcane, divine and everything in between, perhaps a little more.”

Graven raised his eyebrow for a moment and wandered into Griff's shop just to see if it was even worth the effort and before he could get both of his feet inside the establishment, a loud voice came from the front of the store "Welcome to Griff's Emporium! I'll be right with ya in just a sec!" Graven glanced around the rather sizable shop and looked down its aisles and shelves full of arcane wonder. To his right, he saw many different alchemical substances that were for sale while others remained priceless. Some ranging from mundane, to the very rare and exotic. He looked down the middle of the shop and could see different staves and rods that had been imbued with magic. There were a few other imbued weapons but those did not appeal to Graven. Most of the time, these types of items were generally expensive in the first place but the ones on the racks were priced rather well for what they had been imbued with or what they were crafted for. Graven looked to his left and he could see rows of scrolls and books that lined the shelves of the store. These tomes and scrolls ranged from the well kept to the ones covered with layers of dust. Graven thought to himself "That would be my first place to look." Graven needed to find a special book that his master had kept at his side until his untimely departure from this world.. He knew this wasn't going to be an easy task. "My former master told me he had that book for at least 100 years and that he took it from his master when he perished. I never even had so much as chance to read a single page in that blasted book. He kept it to himself and was always so secretive about it." Graven started to look through the the mounds of scrolls and books, remembering some of them that he had read through when he was at the Magic Academy. "Beginner's Manual for the Applications of the Elemental Arts. Ha ha. This book was easy to master. Hmmm...Spirit Pacts and the Origin of the Eidolon's. They never did let us study spirit pacts. They said it was too dangerous for children to learn the ways of summoning. Ha! They were all just cowards who couldn't handle raw talent." Graven kept browsing through the collection but could only find basic manuals for aspiring students in magic and was beginning to loose his patience. By this time the shop owner had finally finished with whatever it was he had to do and made his way over to see his new customer. 

"How ya doin sir? The name's Griff Ellis at your service." He smiled at Graven, extended his hand in friendship and Graven obliged. "It is nice to meet you Griff, my name is Graven and I'm looking for a specific book." Griff smiled at him "Well I see that you've already done some searching of your own but perhaps I can help. Whatcha lookin for?" Graven was reluctant to explain just exactly the type of book he was looking for so he tried to paint a more tolerable picture for Griff. "I'm looking for a book that contains insight into the dark arts. Probably something that you wouldn't keep on your shelves in a town like this." Griff raised an eyebrow for a moment. "Now why would you want to go and read up on something as crazy as the dark arts son? Well, that's no business of mine. I just sell young mages what they need to further their studies but I don't sell the illegal stuff. Come with me for a sec. I know I've got a few books on the dark arts that I've kept stuffed around here somewhere. No one seemed to want them so I took them off the shelf for the longest time." Griff and Graven went around an “Employee's Only” sign and headed to the back room of the shop where many other items that weren't on display were kept. Exotic familiars that many people of Morhurst would never see due to the climate changes. Strange potions and tools used for all manner of arcane workings were also being held there. Some of these items had already been spoken since they had tags with names and the amount that had been paid for them but others were still for sale if you had the coin on hand. Graven caught himself looking at a few items but there was no way that he could be able to afford them right now.

"You have a very interesting stock back here." Griff looked back at Graven and thanked him. "It is nice but I'm afraid that it might not be here much longer if things keep up." Graven seemed slightly intrigued. "Why is that, if you don't mind me asking?" Griff continued to talk while he was searching through a small hill of tomes. "Well, lately a lot of people haven't taken too kindly to the arcane side of things. I mostly deal in that area along with the elemental things but it seems as though the Holy Empire is cracking down on the studies of the arcane for some reason. I don't really know why those were my biggest sellers and now it feels like no one is brave enough to buy them. The Empire hasn't outright outlawed the sale or usage of such teachings but they are trying to force laws through that banish the dark arts first before the rest follow." Graven chimed in with his feelings on the situation. "I wonder why the Holy Empire would want to do something like that? They have already outlawed Necromancy, Beast Magic and Shiran. Seems like the Empire has some motive for this. Then again I wouldn't know what the God Emperor's motives are." "Well let's hope they don't pass those laws. Like I was saying, since they've been looking down on the teaching so much, I've lost business because of it and if I don't come up with the money soon, I may loose everything here- Ah!" Griff pulled out three dusty tomes from the pile and blew them off. "Here we go. Hopefully these books will help you." Griff handed the books over to Graven and he began to flip through the glossaries. Many of the chapters included meditations and rituals for the dark arts while others contained information on the mastering of new incantations and enriching others. Something that Graven could definitely use. He looked through the other books and scanned through their glossaries too. The second book held some useful information but when Graven looked through the third, he stopped at one notable chapter. "Advanced Arts. The teachings of Jhalivus Klay and.." Graven stood silent for a moment as he read the words in his mind. "The Origination and Similarities of Necromancy and Dark Arts."

Graven thought that surely this would give him the information that he would need for his research. "I think these will do just fine sir. How much do I owe you for them?" Griff waved his hand with a smile. "Go ahead and take'em. You're the first person whose asked for'em in the past ten years. For some reason I don't think anyone else is gonna want'em and they look better off in your hands anyway. All these new kids want to learn about is conjuring balls of fire nowadays. Now, is there anything else I can help ya find while were back here?" Graven thought to himself for a moment and then spoke his mind. "I could use some alchemical ingredients and if you happen to have a book on advanced alchemical designs I would be grateful." Griff showed him to his back stock of alchemy ingredients which seemed slightly lackluster. "Well this and the stuff up front is all I've got right now and as for the book, I'm out of that. Someone came by not too long ago and bought the last copy I had, along with most of the reagents." Graven looked through the ingredients and began to pick and choose what he needed and could use. "Felbane and Gnellcaps huh? You're no novice if you're picking out those things." "My mast..my former master, was a superb alchemist but an even better mage. He passed away before he could teach me all of his workings. I plan on following in his footsteps to become a master mage and alchemist just like he was."

Graven had quickly finished picking through the reagents he wanted and Griff gathered up the supplies for him and put them in a small leather pouch. Before Griff sealed the pouch, he decided to throw in a couple of hardened glass vials for free. "Alright, let's see here. The total comes out to...200 koriya." Graven reached into one of his many pockets and relinquished the money for the goods. "Thanks for your patronage. Sorry the prices are so high but you already know the reasons for that." Just as soon as Griff had finished sealing the pouch for Graven, another person entered the shop and Griff greeted them with a hearty "Hello! Welcome to Griff's Emporium! I'll be with you in just a sec."

Graven looked behind him to see just who would be stepping into the shop this early in the morning and what he saw took his breath away. A young woman, who looked no more than twenty came waltzing into the emporium with a gnarled rod that bore a blade made of glistening obsidian. She was a woman of smaller stature and her clothes resembled that of some of the Druid and Shaman students that Graven remembered seeing at the Academy. He clothes were also adorned with trinkets in the design of leaves, symbols of animals and old sigils that Graven was not able to understand for some reason. She was slightly pale and had two eyes that shined just like emeralds and a smile that made Graven's heart skip a beat.

When Griff had finished with Graven he walked over to the young lady and greeted her with a smile. "Well hello there miss, what can I do ya for?" "I'm just browsing right now sir." said the young woman. "Alright miss, if ya can think of anything you need, you just holler." Griff went back down one of the aisles and began doing all of the odd little chores that needed to be done with the shop to keep it nice and tidy. Graven looked over the girl one more time and could not get the feeling that he had seen her somewhere before. As he kept looking over the girl, his eyes eventually met with hers and Graven noticed that she was staring straight at him with a slight smile on her face, possibly as a gesture of friendliness. Graven grabbed his books and ingredients he had bought and calmly approached the young woman who had been looking at a scroll. "Pardon me miss but have we met before?" The young woman turned to Graven and smiled. "This is the first time I've been in this town stranger. It's highly unlikely that we've met each other before, unless you've studied at a school for shamans and druids." Graven's memory took off like lightning as he began to dig through the recesses of his mind and brought back a faded image of his days at the academy when he was younger. He knew a small girl who was gifted with the ways of nature. Not the uses of fireballs and lightning bolts that mages were always throwing around but the ability to draw the roots up from the ground or to sway the tides and push them back into the sea. They were both friends but she soon had to leave the academy. No one at the academy could teach her the skills she needed to harness the raw forces of nature but this was her decision alone to make. "Is your name Talya by any chance?" Graven asked. The woman's face turned to a sour expression for a moment as if she had been threatened "And if I answered yes?" Graven went out on a limb and asked his final question "Does the name Graven Drassun ring any bells?" The girl's eyes lit up and then she looked over Graven for a minute and an old memory of hers came back into sight of a small boy who was her friend at the academy. "Graven!" She yelled as she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around him for a moment and then let go. "I haven't seen hide nor hair of you since I left. How have you been? How's your folks? Wait, did you graduate from the academy?" Graven had just been bombarded with questions from a proverbial bottle of lightning. This young woman was in fact Talya, a childhood friend of Graven's. "Things have taken a very interesting turn now" he thought to himself. "Talya, it has been such a long time since we've seen each other. Why don't we go catch up on things past, over a drink perhaps? No, you're probably out doing your shopping. I shouldn't bother you while you're running errands." Talya smirked slightly. "Well, how about you come help me with my shopping, then we go get a drink or two and see what one another has been up to now?" Graven was stunned for a moment as this wasn't the sweet, innocent little girl he knew back from his childhood. She had matured both in mind and body. Graven looked at Talya and gave his quick reply "That works too." Talya smiled "Good, because I've got a pretty extensive list of things that I need." She grabbed his hand and pulled him out the door of the magic shop and drug him through the early morning crowds down to another part of the market. Graven had no idea what kind of trouble he was getting himself into.