Debuting Adaig.

***

The Sun set in the horizon, both in the real world and in the book Adaig added to her personal collection. The difference was even minimal: the orange-yellowish rays passed through dense branches, only that in the story they did so on a well forested garden, while there they went through an untamed, wild forest - which Adaig thought was more interesting, but the scene was too climatic to be ignored. She nonetheless stopped reading for a bit, marking the page with the wing of her quill, looking outside her chariot's window. I like when things are interconnected like this, she mused, as if stories shape reality back.

Her thoughts were interrupted when her chariot halted, stopping in its tracks.

"Why are we stopping?" she asked, slightly louder than she thought was proper.

There was no answer, so she opened the curtain, previously occluding an opening connecting the chariot's indies to the driver's seat. Peering through it, she saw that the driver's head was tilting to his right side and his body immobile. Passing her head through the opening, she had a clearer view that confirmed her thoughts: his throat was hit with an arrow, and from the looks of the wound and his pale flesh, it had been so rather recently. The horses only had stopped the moment they realised there was nothing steering them.

She quickly withrew herself back, and opened her book. She knew exactly what to choose, and wore her mask.

"Juniperre was the lark of the woods and the wind of the fells" she quoted, focusing mana through her rod, "and no one saw him again."

And so she was invisible, carrying an invisible dagger in her now ambidextrous left hand, while she carried the mask on her right. She opened the door, closed it and casted a glamour to make it seem unlockable, then jumped to the ground. She waited, as silent as the surrounding forest, for what felt like an eternity, before she heard footsteps. With her sight sharper than ever, she saw a figure amidst the trees, who fired an arrow at the window. She threw her knife in turn, hitting the shooter's knee faultlessly. He screamed and fell down, and once again Adaig waited, seeing if there were any other aggressors.

More arrows struck, this time offing all of the horses. She quickly made her way inside, and grabbed her book. She skimmed briefly, before placing it in her case, and walking outside.

"None of the king's men could kill him, none of the king's swords could cut through" she quoted faultlessly again, and she suddenly became a massive hydra, her beaked jaws snapping as she looked for the attackers.

Her necks darted like those of an heron, and she instantly caught all of the bandits, beaks painfully cutting through flesh and bone as she dragged them to her clearing. Some fought back, beating the beast and even trying to stab it, but the scales were impenetrable. She lastly grabbed the bandit shot in the knee, and laid all her eleven prey in a pile in front of her, some instantly incapacitated as the limbs caught by the beaks were cut clear, while others still fought bravely or tried to run away, to no avail as they were dragged back until they were exhausted. The sun finally set, and the bandits could not move away if they so wanted, so she willed herself back to normal.

"Why did you kill my driver and the horses?" she asked sternly, more as if she was a mother scolding her children rather than someone on the receiving end of an attack.

"Please have mercy on us"" begged a young man, whose left arm had been chopped off by the hydra's beak, "We're starving, we didn't mean to cause you harm!"

"Yet you killed those poor horses and their driver, and left me stranded in the woods at night. I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you to go unpunished."

She opened her book, and the bandits quickly reacted, either trying to crawl away with the last flimsy remnants of their strength, kept begging, or began to curse at her. She paid no mind, however, simply trying to figure which punishment was best for them. Then she thought of the story she was reading, and returned to it, reading from where she had left off. She gasped in surprise: that was exactly what she needed! She once again marvelled, before she quickly raised the mask again to her face.

"...and thus, the king's eleven sons gnashed their teeth, and they became the dogs they were inside, all along."

***

The sun rose in the horizon, and Adaig opened her eyes. She looked outside: the forest had given way to rolling meadows, and she saw the walls of the city in the distance. She opened the curtains, and indeed the eleven grey hounds still kept running, tirelessly and ever miserable. She took pity on them, and casted a small glamour, making them feel refreshed inside. Almost in a twisted sense of thankfulness, they sped up, running faster down the road.

She leaned back, and opened her book. She took her pen, and wrote a small narrative in one of the blank pages, before continuing her avid reading of a small book she had been saving for later, a tale about the exploits of a shadowy Aven.

Adaig reached the city half-an-hour later, her bizarre chariot drawing the attention of the townsfolk. She ordered her dogs to stop right past the gates, and read from her passage, converting them back into human beings again, exhausted and worn out but at least with their limbs regenerated. She nonchalantly walked out of her chariot, towards one of the puzzled guards.

"Please take these people to jail, they've been stealing from travellers and killing their horses and drivers."

The guard took a moment to absorb what was going on, before doing as she said, and ordering the arrest of the bandits. Adaig took out her belongings, and felt content with herself, before asking a bystander to carry her things, politely.

Edited slightly. Please inform me of grammar errors.

Alright, so, being more of "works-minded" than, say, "Dossier-minded," I opted to read this before I read the dossier you put up on Adaig. Mostly I did this because I like to know if stories can support their characters without external knowledge (admittedly, many of my own stories require previous knowledge of characters or settings, but usually not intro pieces.)

Anyway, my first comment would be that, in fact, I don't have a great view of Adaig just from this story. She seems to be someone who can do basically anything she wants, from shapeshifting to polymorphing others, as long as she has her mask and writes it in her book. While there are potential power issues here, I won't fault you for that. Power levels vary. Raiker Venn, my own character, can pretty much do the same thing. Actually, there seem to be numerous parallels between Adaig and Raiker, though at least from this story, Adaig seems to be a bit more of the "good guy" than Raiker does.

I do have several issues with the language in this piece, mostly typo issues (I probably didn't catch them all, I have a pretty bad headache right now.)



So overall, I thought this piece could have been stronger. I mean, it does provide a little bit of characterization for Adaig and a slight glimpse at her world and her powers, but there wasn't a great deal here by way of a story. Adaig was in no way challenged, and dealt with everything with a sort of nonchalant indifference that made it clear she was in no danger - and thus had no conflict. It's not bad for what it is, but it isn't much, in and of itself, if that makes sense.

Thanks for posting!

Thanks for reading!

Yes, I did mean "carriage", not "chariot". Silly me.



I was a bit worried about how it would come across, and indeed my worries were confirmed. Basically, I tried to suggest that her spell would bleed the character's traits into her, but not fully, so she became like a Lorwyn kithkin when channeling that character.


Thanks for pointing out the typos, I'll fix them.