Judgement

[the court] It must have been during her studies at Ashley's that Morgan fell asleep. She still feels more comfortable here than in Solomon's big empty house: maybe that's why. And for all intents and purposes, all it is, or seems to be, when her eyelids grow heavy, is a normal nap.

The first thing that wakes her is the smell of smoke. Not just smoke: burning wood, burning paper, and the more acrid smells of chemicals and plastics and leather (flesh?). When she wakes up she can barely see anything around her, so clogged is the air with smoke, and she can feel the heat pressing into her lungs, searing them.

She's not burning yet, but it's so hot it's hard to tell exactly where the flames are. Once in a while she can see a flicker through the haze, tongues licking their way up the walls or a cinder of paper fluttering its way from the shelves to the floor. Hot ash. She can hear no voices, can't hear a panicked dog trying to fight his way out. It's still in here.

Dimly she can remember her mother telling her as a child what she should do if there was a house fire. Crawl on her hands and knees to get down out of the smoke and find the nearest exit. To always feel a door with the back of her hand instead of her palm. To get a wet cloth and wrap it around her face if she could, but she isn't sure she could reach the kitchen and get the water unscathed with things as they are.

One thing Morgan knows for certain is this: she has to get out, and she is alone.

[Morgan Lake] She's alone. This is a good thing, because as much as Morgan loves Ashley, as fond as she is of Zane, she's no lifesaver. She's not even a caregiver, when all is said and done. There is, of course, the bit of panic licking at her that comes in this sort of situation (as if she's ever been in it, as if she'd know what happens in them, aside from what she's read). She has no idea where the flames are, what lit, and frankly?

It's the books she's worried about.
And the picture of Ashley's dad, but that's a distant, quiet thing.

Regardless, she's up. What she's been working with is gathered, cradled in one arm as she gets down as low as she can to make her way to the door - yes, to feel with the back of her hand, to test both wood and knob before trying to open it.

[the court] The door opens, and the outside is clouded with smoke. Smoke and heat swirls out of the apartment as she opens the door, as though sucked through a vacuum, and she can't see what's waiting for her outside. The hallway of Ashley's apartment, one would presume. Perhaps the entire building is on fire.

But it's not the rough berber carpet of the hallway she feels beneath her palm when she crawls outside. It's grass, partially withered from the heat within, the sort of crunchy brown texture it gets in the summer. Once or twice she places her hand flat on a strand that's lit up like tinder and it stings her skin, leaving a little patch that will probably blister later.

As she crawls farther, it becomes easier to breathe. Easier to see as the smoke begins to dissipate, because she's aware that there's a light breeze: something cool, like a wet cloth her mother would put against her skin when she had a fever as a child. A little farther.

A little farther, and there's broken stone beneath her hands. Crumbling flagstone, like a kingsroad. Like something laid down for thousands of travelers, thousands of carts and wagons and worn down by feet and hooves.

It clears, and she's in a forest. Behind her a tower burns.

[Morgan Lake] She's in a forest and behind her a tower burns - in theory, she has the books she'd been working from and her laptop, but if not? Well, this is sufficiently surreal (curiouser and curiouser) to have her all but forgetting what should be in her arm. She certainly hadn't expected to leave Ashley's apartment and find herself on a kingsroad, then in a forest.

There are stranger things on heaven and earth, Morgan, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

The tower is eyed for a moment, watched, and then her senses are turned to the forest around her - all of her senses, not just the mundane.

[Per + Aware]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[the court] Morgan can't sense any magic around her, save Ashley's resonance there behind her in the tower. It's the familiar, hungry sensation, and coupled with the tower it calls very much to mind medieval wizardry. Something that lords over the countryside and provides order and structure and reality: for a price.

Around her it does indeed just seem to be a simple wood. There's the kingsroad that goes to either side, and she can feel a push at the back of her mind, from the bottom of her soul, that wants to wander down the road. To either side, really.

She just wants to go somewhere. There is no one here to tell her what to do, no expectations to meet, and no sign of her mentor or many of the adults she would look to in her day to day life. For all she knows they're burning behind her.

[Morgan Lake] For all she knows, they're burning behind her, which is a disturbing thought - she's indifferent to the sleepers who live in Ashley's building for the most part (though there is that guy who winks at her sometimes, and that's an amusing thing), but the thought of Ashley or Zane burning (or asphyxiating) is not a pleasant one.

That this is taking more thought than it should, she knows.

Her arms wrap around her middle briefly and she chews her lip, looking back at the building (so many books, so many lives, and isn't it funny how her priorities have shifted?) as it burns. Water of some sort. Or a phone. Or a fire station. Any of these things would be good, but still, at the back of her mind, there's that push. When it comes to anything academic, Morgan is a thinker, a planner.

But this? Well, going back doesn't seem the thing to do. So, it's a right turn, and she's [off to see the wizard] heading down the kingsroad.

[the court] Morgan walks down the kingsroad, and behind her the tower burns. As she walks she becomes aware of small burns on her arms and legs, areas the fire didn't quite scorch but got too near to, kissed her skin. Her clothes are cinders in several places. They flake and fall away and threaten to rip, much like they did in that other night in the sewers when she was caught in some of Ashley's errant flames.

The laptop that was in her arms is not a laptop anymore; it's a book. A massive volume a little charred on the edge from the flames, but still full of writing. Most of it looks like Ashley's: notes on the workings of magic. Morgan can see a few places, however, where it looks as though she's penned in her own questions. Perhaps her arguments. And in the back there are blank pages where it looks as though she's beginning to make her own entries.

The smoke seems to follow her, and she realizes she's downwind from the burning tower. Perhaps she has further doubts, the longer she goes down the path. She's alone out here, and there could be any number of things hidden in those trees. Assuming it's a medieval wood, there are animals. Worse, there are men. Highwaymen, for certain. Perhaps others that would mean harm to a girl wandering alone.

She can't see any cities or signs of familiar architecture. No wooden posts or anything to mark her path, and it's getting to be late evening.

[Morgan Lake] Downwind means that, if the forest is dry enough and the wind strong enough, the fire could follow her; for all that she's been on at least one camping trip a year as long as she can remember, she hadn't taken this into consideration. And yes, there's the question of what might happen were she found alone on a kingsroad (is this really a medieval forest? This thought gives her pause, and causes her to look down at her clothes to see if what remains between singed places is appropriate for any particular time period of her own - she's a pop culture queen and has seen films like that, after all) as evening falls by someone with bad intent.

Highwaymen! Brigands! Some bit of her is quite distracted by this, by the romanticized versions found in books and similar sources. But really, Morgan has more sense about her than that.

Animals aren't that disturbing of a thought, perhaps oddly - her general thought is they'd have headed away from the smoke already, and probably in the other direction. Also, that she doesn't smell like food, so maybe the ones left will leave her alone. Just in case, though, she takes a few steps from the road to find a hefty branch to use as a torch as it gets darker, and a weapon (not that she has much idea what to do with such a thing other than use it as a bat, which requires two hands) if it becomes necessary.

[the court] Morgan easily finds a branch in the woods, one that is large and heavy and will probably burn for a long time, and is heavy enough to do some serious damage if she swings it besides. Then...it's there, and she has it in her hands, and it's unlit.

And the forest is still dark. There could be any number of things out there, watching and waiting, and even with the torch in hand she might not know until it was nearly upon her.

[Morgan Lake] The forest is still dark, but what Hermetic apprentice worth her salt doesn't carry at least one way of making fire, one of the more well known tricks of their trade? She may be studying under a Tytalus and have a disposition that may well land her in Quaesitor, but still. The book doesn't get set down but does get clenched between her knees, and she fumbles in her pocket for one of the two lighters there (cheap bics). Keeping in mind that the wood is probably green, she rips some fabric off of a convenient bit of clothes to wrap around the thicker end, tying it as best she can.

This is when all that fantasy she's read, all that immersion in Arthurian mythology, comes in handy.

The fabric gets lit carefully, and this gives her a start on something like normalcy. Morgan is used to the bright lights of the Mile, after all, to light and sound pollution amongst everything else. This is strange and a bit unnerving. And so she listens, while she's still, and then draws her wand from where it's been tucked away (she wears carpenter pants with extra pockets and loops more now than she ever has in her life) to trace in the dirt nearest her, a quick and clumsy map, and to reach out to see what she can find.

[Multiple rolls coming, Per + Aware first!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Morgan Lake] [Per + Alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Morgan Lake] [Corr 1 whereami, coincidental, -1 focus, -1 taking time, +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Success x 2 at target 3) [WP]

[the court] Morgan is able to use her Bics to get the branch to light. It smokes, and the smell coming away from her burning clothing is decidedly unpleasant, but the branch doesn't appear to have been as green as she'd feared. It was one of the older ones lying on the forest floor - there were many, after all.

It illuminates the part of the woods that are growing dark, and she leans down to sketch the map in the dust. From where she's been she can get a sense of where she's going, and that in turn helps her get a better idea of where she is.

What she knows is this: there is a tower behind her, the flames still lighting up the sky, and a road to either side, but beyond that she is not sure. This doesn't appear to be a world anywhere like Chicago, or anywhere she would have imagined finding herself before. It's a fantasy, or a dream, or maybe she's finding herself in one of those other worlds like Ashley described when she explained her odd little violin.

[Morgan Lake] Well then. The wand is tucked back in its handy pocket and the book collected from between her knees, and she continues - at a good clip, efficient. Were it not for the need to carry light with her, she'd run, but as it is? There's all this strangeness around her, and she's rather pleased to have the time to experience it.

It's quiet, from what she can tell - which is to say it's really a very different sort of loud than she's used to. There's no one on this road headed from one club to the next, but there are owl calls and crickets and goodness knows what else. It's more than a little odd for the city girl who found herself suddenly transported, with no time to prepare. There's no sound of water, yet, no sign of a city (or tavern, or . . . whatever it is that they have in medieval . . . fiefs. A glance back checks for the orange glow of the tower-on-fire (people falling out, lighting [change, for better or worse]), and then she's moving forward again at that efficient, ground-eating pace.

There are no turns, no doors, or anything!

[the court] Morgan is walking along at a good rate, and yet it isn't getting any darker. Just dim enough to be disconcerting: it's a land of constant twilight, of a dark threatening to come even though it never does. Still, she's probably grateful for the light of the torch anyway. There's no change in the tower behind her, though the flames are dying both with distance and as they lack things to feed them. There is one point when she looks back and it's nothing but a charred husk, still smoking and glowing in a few places.

Eventually it fades from sight too.

As she walks, she gradually becomes aware of a vein of smoke not too distant, as from a hearth or a bonfire. And, to her right, there's a field. There aren't any workers in it yet - perhaps they've gone home and gone to bed - but there don't seem to be any crops growing, either. Just withered plants.

Then, voices. They still sound like whispers, but she can hear people yelling, one or two voices raised and calling for attention. She still can't make out words.

[Morgan Lake] This is interesting; her torch is stubbed out in the dirt but saved, just in case, and she moves quietly closer so she can hear what's being said. It's not that she's a spy, of course, or a sneak - but she wants to be sure they're speaking English before she barges into the conversation, and she might hear something that will help her out in the process.

[the court] As she moves closer, the source of the racket becomes clear. There's a cluster of dwellings up ahead: what passes for a village. A hamlet, really, with all of the buildings one would expect a self-sufficient group of people to have. And, in front of those dwellings, closer to the field, there is a large group of people. It appears to be a meeting.

They are indeed speaking English. Many of them are already hefting stones, still covered in clumps of mud from the field they pulled them from. A bit apart from the rest is a young man a little older than Morgan, too thin and very dirty. No romantic medieval life here: most of these people look weary. Many of them are smudged with torn, dirty fingernails. Most of them are missing a few teeth. Their hair is not so much in strands as in tangled mats.

Morgan can hear what sounds like a laundry list of accusations, being given by a man standing with a heavy hand on the shoulder of the young woman. She can tell he's probably the village smith: one of his arms is markedly larger than the other.

"...strange words...touched her and made her sick...pissed out in the field and the wheat died..." are some of the words she can catch as she draws near.

[Morgan Lake] It doesn't take much for Morgan to realize they're talking about witches - how long it will be before someone mentions the evil eye or similar is anyone's guess. And if she remembers correctly, witches in the middle ages were burned, or stoned, or drowned, or other unpleasant things but for where they were revered as wise women, generally by pagan holdouts who were also scorned as witches by the ignorant and fearful.

It's a lot more difficult to explain things like drought when you don't have a way to measure the various things that contribute to weather, after all, and superstition and stupidity (or at least a lack of education) have ever gone hand in hand. It doesn't make her particularly keen to talk to these [gross, dirty] men, certainly, but Morgan's long been one to do what she has to do.

There are no pains taken to stay quiet - she's not trying to sneak up on the gathered workers, to scare them. She simply wants to know . . . "Pardon me," she says, clear of voice. "Is there an . . . um . . . an inn nearby?" Inns are good places to information-gather if the stories are to be believed.

[the court] The man stops talking, and then suddenly all eyes are on Morgan. They take her in: her odd appearance, her unbound hair, the book beneath her arm, that she's an unmarried girl traveling alone, and some of them are shifting uncomfortably even before she has finished her sentence.

The young man who they are accusing is looking at her too, and he seems to have some odd movements of his hands: he flaps them, he rubs his palms on his pants. A tic, perhaps, and a forgivable one given how frightened he must be. He doesn't speak. His adam's apple bobs in his throat and he looks from face to unfriendly face.

The man who was giving the list of the accusations gives the boy a look, as though he's summoned Morgan from nowhere. As though he's to blame for her appearance.

"Ain't one," one of the men finally says to Morgan. "Don't get a lot of people coming through here anymore."

[Morgan Lake] At first, she'd thought they were talking about someone else - now it occurs to her that they aren't, that they're accusing this strange young man (who is, to her, no more strange than the rest of them) of these things, of witchcraft. An eyebrow raises, and she is haughty - unmarried, clearly educated. This can hardly bode well, though her confidence? It tends to instill similar in others, or to wither it away.

"Well then. Might I borrow your friend? Someone to walk with would be nice."

In this particular case, she's hoping for the latter at least in the boy's attackers - and she's also testing again, feeling with other senses than just sight and sound and smell.

[Per + Aware]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 3, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[the court] [aaaand pause!]