“Those absolute numbskulls!” Nova thought. “I mean, honestly, I warned them. Don’t go near the shiny blue thing that probably ate Webster. Did they listen? NO! They NEVER LISTEN!” Nova screamed her frustrations at no-one in particular; although she was overheard by a now very scared family of meerkats nearby, who promptly retreated into their den. Nova looked around to see if she could maybe get her bearings, she quickly found that to be impossible, considering that she was almost completely surrounded by grass.
“I swear on all that is holy, if there’s a snake in this grass, I’m going to kill all four of those boys.”
With no easily noticeable landmarks in her field of view, Nova figured that her best option was to try to head east. At least if she was heading east the sun wouldn’t be shining in her eyes as it set; as long as wherever she was had a similar orbit to Earth. She stood there for a second going through the methods she knew for determining cardinal directions.
“Well there’s not any trees to check for moss, as if that’s a reliable method anyway. There’s no stars out; and I doubt Polaris would even be in the sky. I guess realistically that just leaves tracking the sun for a minute to see which way it’s moving.”
Nova stood there for a moment; not staring directly at the sun, and temporarily blinding herself, that’s something Claymore would do. Rather she stared at a point close enough to it that she could see it clearly, but not so close that the sunspot it left would be impeding her vision. After a moment she felt like the sun was clearly moving to her left, therefore she promptly turned to the right and started walking.
After what felt like an eternity of walking, but Nova knew was probably closer to half an hour, she finally saw something. Well truth be told she didn’t really ‘see’ it but she heard it and that’s basically the same thing.
“Cobre Wright, I am telling you, WE ARE LOST! Turn this wagon around and we’ll find somebody in that last town we came through that knows how to get to Velma from here.”
“Betty I am telling You. We are not lost, Velma is straight ahead woman. We don’t need any directions.”
“You better stop this wagon RIGHT NOW OR I’LL—”
Nova decided to interrupt the couple before one of them said something they’d regret. “Excuse me, I’m lost do you know where exactly HERE is?”
As soon as Nova stepped out from the grass onto what seemed to be a well-trod path, she looked up to see a wagon hitched to what she thought at first was just a regular horse, but then it registered that this particular horse had a horn. She did a double-take to get a better look at the horse, only to do a double-take at the couple when she noticed that they weren’t human. After a few back-and-forths between the unicorn and the couple, the insanity of it seemed to overwhelm her, and the last thing she saw was the couple jumping from their seats as the ground somehow rose up to smack her in the face.
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As Nova found her way back to consciousness she heard a feminine voice speaking.
“Oh dear, I hope the poor things ok. I’ve told you before, Cobre, stop startling the humans!”
“Dear I didn’t startle her, I didn’t do anything. You were there, she just fainted out of nowhere.” A more masculine voice stated, sounding exasperated.
Nova opened her eyes to see two dwarves looking at her worriedly. As she looked around she noticed that she wasn’t lying on the ground as she expected to be when she woke up but rather she seemed to be in… a house?
“Excuse me, I know I asked this before, but where am I?”
The decidedly more feminine dwarf (due to the lack of a beard) looked at her with an expression that was definitely more nurturing and caring than the look on the male dwarf’s face. “Dear, you fainted so we took you into our wagon. You took quite the tumble, can you tell us your name?” The dwarven woman said looking concerned.
“My name’s Nova, I remember the fall and all that. I just don’t know where I am, I got separated from my friends. You wouldn’t happen to have seen four guys around here, would you? One of them’s kinda tall with blonde hair, and blue eyes, his names Will. Clay’s a little taller than him with reddish hair, and hazel eyes. Webster’s the short one, he’s got black hair and green eyes, though you can’t really tell cause his glasses are so thick. And then Alex has dark brown hair and eyes that are kinda green kinda blue. Have you seen them?”
“No dear, we haven’t seen anyone since we left the village of Malach.” The dwarven woman turned to the dwarf who Nova presumed was her husband.” Which is why I keep telling this coalshover that we’re lost!”
“And I keep telling you, I know where we’re going.” The dwarven man, Cobra?, said, sounding even more exasperated than before.
The dwarven woman tsked and said “Well that has yet to be seen; Irregardless young lady we haven’t seen your friends. In regards to your question from earlier, before you passed out, we’re just east of the city of Henderson, which itself is east of The Dragon Plains. Now, we’re headed to the city of Velma, and you are welcome to come with us to look for your friends. As long as you can carry your weight, at least a little bit.”
“Well, I mean I know how to make a mean casserole. Assuming you guys have an actual oven. I could clean up some stuff too, I guess?” Nova secretly hoped that they had something at least a little more exciting in mind.
“Oh dear, we wouldn’t need you to do those things. I take care of all that, I’m meaning help in a magical sense. What are your affinities dear? That’s what we really need, you see Cobre here does all the work by himself. My affinities are too low to be of any use.”
“…Affinities? I don’t know what that it is. I also definitely don’t know what mine are, if I even have any.”
“How do you not know what your affinities are at your age? Nevermind, it’s none of our business, would you like to find out what your affinities are? I can tell you have some, we dwarves can always tell this sort of thing. Got a real nose for it, ever since Anville defeated the old god of magic anyway.” The dwarven woman said, nodding her head in a way that said she was as confident in that as she was that the sky was blue.
“Anville, God of Magic? I… yeah that’d be great if you could help me find out what my… Affinities are.” Nova said, still a little confused about all this, but not wanting to sound too ignorant.
The dwarven woman smiled, got up to her feet, and started rummaging around grabbing seemingly random things. (including a potted plant and a piece of copper pipe) The whole time she was doing this she kept muttering nonsense. “Something for Allomancy, let’s see a copper pipe and these old coins will have to do, and a nail. Oh a plant in case she’s a Floramancer, let’s see… a glass of water and….” Suddenly looking up she shouted at her husband, even though he couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away. “Cobre, go get some dirt from outside in case she’s a Geomancer!” Cobre stood up without a word as if this was just par for the course and walked through the back of the wagon.
Nova noticed at this point that for them being in the back of a wagon, it sure was roomy. The exit to the outside had another seven or eight feet to either side of it, which didn’t add up at all. She just tossed it up to being in a fantastical land at this point, and figured she’d ask later.
After a few minutes the dwarven woman came back, and at this point Nova realized that she still didn’t know her name. “Excuse me, before we start, I never got your name?”
“Oh! Yes dear, where are my manners, my name is Betty Wright and you’ve already heard me yell my husband’s name, Cobre Wright.” She said as she dumped what looked like a random assortment of items onto a table. After taking a second to organize the items into seemingly arbitrary groups she finally raised up her head and looked over at Nova expectantly.
“Alright dear if you’ll just come over to the table, and take a seat, we’ll get started.”
