Chapter 1: Flamefade

Beric is going to prepare to help anyone that Gaelan and Thea rescue (or Gaelan and Thea themselves if they get badly hurt).

Now that the fire and the animals seem under control, Ophira turns to Beric and says, "Call if anyone is injured and needs my help, OK? I'm going to look around. Something is not right here..." She walks toward the center of town, scanning the area for anyone else in need of help--or causing trouble.

Lirann initially reaches for her dagger as she sees the figure approaching, but quickly relents once it becomes clear what is happening.
She rushes towards Charina and tires to steady her as best as possible. "What happened? Where are you hurt?" She asks frantically while looking around, spotting Thalen in the process.

"Quick! Get some help!" She shouts to him.

It’s difficult to tell in the din, in the roar of flames and shouts of both those in need and those trying to help, but Kayleigh might yelp as Gaelan lifts her as though she weighs nothing, throwing her across his shoulder. Turning to race back down those burning steps, he says to both her and the young man she was with, "Is there anyone else up here?!"

Then, when Thea calls impatiently from below, he tells the man, "Jump! She will catch you! Now, man, go!"

Ophira sees Thalen and can tell immediately that something is wrong. When he calls for her, she breaks into a run. She follows him back until she sees the injured woman, Charina.

As she runs up, Ophira says, "She’s badly injured! Lay her down, gently!"

She kneels before the injured woman and begins to chant in a strange tongue, invoking the four directions, the four elements, and the three fold goddess. Finally, her hands begin to glow with a warm radiance. She touches the woman’s injuries and heals them!

Inside the inn

Gaelan feels more than sees as Kayleigh shakes her head fervently, slung over his shoulder as she is. "Just us! There was another—Mr. Birkner, I think—but I heard him rushing past before. Did he get out?" Her voice is shrill and high-pitched with fear, and her hands grip Gaelan's shoulders like a vice.

At Gaelan's command, the young man's face goes white. "Are you crazy? I'm gonna break both my legs if... why don't you help her down first, and then come back up and-?"
"Jonah!" At Kayleigh's bark he takes a nervous step forward. "Just do as he says and jump, we don't have time!"

Jonah leans hesitantly over the hole, judging his chances. Just as he is about to step backwards, the flame-singed planks under his feet creak and give way, and he crashes, headfirst, towards the floor below!Further away

Charina winces as Ophira examines her, each shallow breath a painful struggle. Yet as the young witch-in-learning sweeps her hand across the wound, the flow of blood slows, then halts, and then finally reverses. It pulls back into the wound, leaving only a clotted membrane on top. The skin along the edges stretches, knitting itself together. In moments, the only traces left are a white scar, and a blot of dark crimson on the dress.
It takes Charina a moment to even realize what just happened. Stunned, she lifts her blood-wetted fingers and simply stares at them. "What...?" Looking back at Ophira, she seems to put two and two together.


She gets to her feet, unsteadily at first, but with far more strength than before. "Thana... my Thana!" Her eyes grow wide as panic seeps into her voice. "They need help. Norn, Evelyn... we have to warn the others..."

Thalen kneels down next to Charina. "We can help, we just need to know where? Are you from one of the outlying farms?"

Charina shakes her head. "Dathana, she... the ciders ran out, she went to fetch more. It took so long. I... I got worried so I went to check on her."

"There were so many of them. Norn, he told me to run, warn everyone. He stayed behind, to hold them off." She winces, feels at the remnants of her wound again, as if to make sure it's really gone. "But one of them caught up with me."

Ophira stands as Charina does, though it is clear that the magical healing was draining for her. She wobbles for a moment but regains her balance and listens. She raises a hand and touches the distraught woman's arm and asks, "So many of whom, Charina?"

Wanting to curse when the floor gives way and this Jonah disappears in a shower of sparks and flames, Gaelan instead squints against the heat and says, "He'll be alright! Better down below with Thea than up here with the fire! If he's hurt, she'll help him out!"

He's taking the steps two at a time, then, trying to hurry the girl to safety!

"Right, we should probably get back to the others first." Lirann says, a bit frustrated with Charinas unhelpful explanation. "If there are attackers around we ought not to stray from the crowd."

Thalen walks a few steps in the direction Charina stumbled in from. He squints and searches in the distance and cocks an ear to see if he can see or hear anything or anyone.

"I got you!" Thea says, grunting with effort as she catches Jonah in her muscular arms. She sets him down gently as Gaelan comes down the stairs with Kayleigh. "Is that everybody? If so, let's get out of here before the fire gets worse!"

"I think this is everyone!" Gaelan says to Thea as he reaches the ground floor, soot-stained and flame-singed as he heads for the door.

Beric waits outside the into see if anyone is wounded to the point of needing help.

Seeing Thalen straining his eyes to look off in the direction from which Charina came, Ophira stands and looks as well. She also listens.

At the inn

From outside, the people of Arras look on in horror. Rafters wreathed in flames quake and break apart as a sizeable chunk of the roof caves in, crashes through the second floor and slams into the ground floor. Scalding heat and smoke billows out, momentarily obscuring all vision.

When the clouds of ash finally clear, the villagers look on in mute shock. The walls of the inn still stand, if only barely, and the fire has spread nowhere else. But Galthic's is a gutted, hollowed-out ruin, a pyre still crackling at its center and tendrils of smoke curling into the darkening sky.

And silhouetted against its glow, five figures can be made out in front of the ruined doorway. Thea and Gaelan, winded but standing strong, while Beric checks over the young couple with practiced eyes and a steady hand, taking the measure of their injuries. Though weary and soot-streaked, somehow, almost miraculously, everyone seems to have gotten out in one piece.

For a lengthy moment, nobody moves. Then, a soft sob breaks through the silence. A woman rushes from the crowd to embrace Jonah, then a man follows. Kayleigh's sister sweeps her into a hug. Holt Birkner's children are both at his side, gently dabbing at his wounds with a wet cloth. An uncertain cheer rises from somewhere in the crowd. Followed by another. And more. While some keep their heads enough to still tend to the flames ravaging what remains of the inn, others flood forward to embrace and cheer the brave youth who risked their lives.


The moment only gets to last for so long though. Charina pushes her way forward, her hoarse voice at struggling to make itself heard to all but those closest to her. Yet as her words are gradually picked up, the cheer dies in her wake, replaced by looks of realization, despair, and finally panic.

"Raiders, here?"
"Oh gods, who has been taken?"
"Did they set the fire? They must have, right?"
"Has anyone seen my children?"



Away from the crowd

Thalen and Ophira gaze out across the fields surrounding the village. They notice some signs of a struggle, farming implements now knocked over and left on the ground, a door left ajar, signs of someone getting dragged through the soft dirt. Whatever happened, it happened quickly and remarkably quietly.

In the faint light, Ophira spots something else. The outline of a man, slouched against the tanner's house on the edge of the village proper, and two more figures, lying motionless on the ground just beside.

Ophira points toward the figures and says to Thalen, "I’m going to see if I can help them. I’d appreciate some backup…"

Then she turns to Charina and says, in a commanding tone, "I healed you, now help me. Go into town and call for help out at the tanner’s farm. Go!"

She turns and runs toward the slumping figures.

Thalen nods, pulling his cloak close around his body. He runs beside Ophira. As they near the tanner's house, Thalen peals off and moves towards the signs of struggle, searching the dark night around him again.