Spring 1, 125
An unassuming looking wolf darted between the buildings. It had noticed the disturbance – it was hard not to. It did a good job of acting like a real wolf even though it was little more than a thrall of sorts. Made entirely of wood without the ability to smell, though it did stick its nose up in the air from time to time as if it were honing in on some kind of scent. It smelled fire, smoke… blood.
People needed help. It couldn’t hear, but it could see life. Life that was barely hanging on by a thread. In the middle of a pile of rubble was a burning house. It quickly noticed a women and a man standing outside the building. It walked up next to them. "Are you guys all right?” he seemed to ask with a tilt of his head. It could tell by their worried stances that they were not all right.
The people tried to talk to him but a being without ears couldn’t do anything with that information. What interested him was a blip of life on the second floor of the building. Trouble was, it was made of wood and the building was on fire.
A gust of wind pushed against the house as a hero arrived on the scene. Signalled by his wooden pal, he slipped inside. Immune to the flames, he started looking around for the child he knew was inside. The woman and the man both pointed to the room facing them on the second floor. The hero quickly flew towards the room. The child in the room was crying furiously as the flames devoured what was left of the room.
The hero said to the boy, "shield your eyes everything is going to be ok." The boy quickly covered his eyes and the hero punched through the window’s glass and flew closer. He grabbed the boy and looked around the room. With the child is his arms he flew out the window and landed back next to the parents of the child. He did not say a word to the parents as he put the child in his mother's arms. He quickly flew up above the home. He clasped his hands together then thrust them into the sky, taking all the flames and forming them into a sphere that he forced into the sky where it could fizzle out.
Kage walked along the burned pathways, taking note of which way the fire was going and relaying that information to others far away. He wished he could be more helpful but his strengths weren’t in putting out fires. He was content to stay off to the side and try to find whatever or whoever was responsible. There was always the possibility that a firebug had gotten a little overzealous. In an area with such flammable buildings, it very well could have been an accident.
Kage made his way onwards for several more minutes. More help came, faster than he expected it to even. Flames were snuffed out and water sprayed overhead as if by magic. It made it incredibly difficult to see and breathe for a short while. The fires were being put out though.
“So many fire bugs nowadays,” he muttered as he waited for the mist to clear. He had one such fire bug chained up in his home. She was to serve a long sentence for starting fires. His experience with espionage made him immediately suspect that there might be some kind of cult forming. A troubling thought, but he needed proof.
He doubted he would find proof of anything. He would be surprised if they would be able to find out exactly how the fire started. The location would be trivial to figure out, but unless they had eyes on the cause… Ugh, he needed to clear his thoughts. A deep breath did wonders for this.
“Find anything?” asked someone who jogged up behind him.
“Hmm?” Kage asked, turning his head to see that it was an aeldnorai woman. “Oh, no, nothing yet.”
“Latest intel is that it might have been a changeling. They could have gotten caught and decided to torch their surroundings to prevent getting caught.”
“Oh? That’s unique,” Kage said as he ran his hand through his hair. “Doesn’t make our job any easier. They could be anywhere by now.” He let out a sigh but put a hand on his head to better focus on his birds that were flying around up ahead. He had them fan out away from the fire to look for anything suspicious. It was a vague command that was unlikely to yield any results, he knew this.
Kage and the other aelf pushed past evacuated humans until he got to a group of aelves who stood in a circle and were talking animatedly about what had just happened.
“I miss anything?” he asked.
“Fire only covered about an acre. Nobody died, as far as we can tell,” someone said. “The only structures that burned down were the ones that housed human staff. The ones that that lacked the proper protections.”
“I heard something about a changeling?” Kage asked.
“A working theory.”
There was a long silence then. Kage was technically the highest ranked person here, but everything had happened so fast that there was hardly any information to go off of. Plus he had only just moved to the area and natural disasters weren’t exactly his forte. Everyone here had just happened to be in the area, towards the edges of the aelven part of town.
“As much as it hurts to hear, we probably won’t have any answers for a while,” Kage said. “But we’ll figure it out one way or another. I should get moving, every minute counts.” He turned from the group and walked off briskly. His birds hadn’t had anything useful to tell him, as expected. But perhaps he could ask around and figure out if anyone had fled the scene.
He started by talking to the humans. Most of them were clueless, but one of them eagerly offered up that he had seen someone running away from the fire all by themselves. Someone else from another house offered up the same information. Nobody had recognized the fleeing man – strange.
Kage followed that lead. He went in the direction the man fled to and asked other people along the way but they didn’t have much more information to add. Either this guy was good at hiding or he really was some kind of changeling.
An unassuming looking wolf darted between the buildings. It had noticed the disturbance – it was hard not to. It did a good job of acting like a real wolf even though it was little more than a thrall of sorts. Made entirely of wood without the ability to smell, though it did stick its nose up in the air from time to time as if it were honing in on some kind of scent. It smelled fire, smoke… blood.
People needed help. It couldn’t hear, but it could see life. Life that was barely hanging on by a thread. In the middle of a pile of rubble was a burning house. It quickly noticed a women and a man standing outside the building. It walked up next to them. "Are you guys all right?” he seemed to ask with a tilt of his head. It could tell by their worried stances that they were not all right.
The people tried to talk to him but a being without ears couldn’t do anything with that information. What interested him was a blip of life on the second floor of the building. Trouble was, it was made of wood and the building was on fire.
A gust of wind pushed against the house as a hero arrived on the scene. Signalled by his wooden pal, he slipped inside. Immune to the flames, he started looking around for the child he knew was inside. The woman and the man both pointed to the room facing them on the second floor. The hero quickly flew towards the room. The child in the room was crying furiously as the flames devoured what was left of the room.
The hero said to the boy, "shield your eyes everything is going to be ok." The boy quickly covered his eyes and the hero punched through the window’s glass and flew closer. He grabbed the boy and looked around the room. With the child is his arms he flew out the window and landed back next to the parents of the child. He did not say a word to the parents as he put the child in his mother's arms. He quickly flew up above the home. He clasped his hands together then thrust them into the sky, taking all the flames and forming them into a sphere that he forced into the sky where it could fizzle out.
Kage walked along the burned pathways, taking note of which way the fire was going and relaying that information to others far away. He wished he could be more helpful but his strengths weren’t in putting out fires. He was content to stay off to the side and try to find whatever or whoever was responsible. There was always the possibility that a firebug had gotten a little overzealous. In an area with such flammable buildings, it very well could have been an accident.
Kage made his way onwards for several more minutes. More help came, faster than he expected it to even. Flames were snuffed out and water sprayed overhead as if by magic. It made it incredibly difficult to see and breathe for a short while. The fires were being put out though.
“So many fire bugs nowadays,” he muttered as he waited for the mist to clear. He had one such fire bug chained up in his home. She was to serve a long sentence for starting fires. His experience with espionage made him immediately suspect that there might be some kind of cult forming. A troubling thought, but he needed proof.
He doubted he would find proof of anything. He would be surprised if they would be able to find out exactly how the fire started. The location would be trivial to figure out, but unless they had eyes on the cause… Ugh, he needed to clear his thoughts. A deep breath did wonders for this.
“Find anything?” asked someone who jogged up behind him.
“Hmm?” Kage asked, turning his head to see that it was an aeldnorai woman. “Oh, no, nothing yet.”
“Latest intel is that it might have been a changeling. They could have gotten caught and decided to torch their surroundings to prevent getting caught.”
“Oh? That’s unique,” Kage said as he ran his hand through his hair. “Doesn’t make our job any easier. They could be anywhere by now.” He let out a sigh but put a hand on his head to better focus on his birds that were flying around up ahead. He had them fan out away from the fire to look for anything suspicious. It was a vague command that was unlikely to yield any results, he knew this.
Kage and the other aelf pushed past evacuated humans until he got to a group of aelves who stood in a circle and were talking animatedly about what had just happened.
“I miss anything?” he asked.
“Fire only covered about an acre. Nobody died, as far as we can tell,” someone said. “The only structures that burned down were the ones that housed human staff. The ones that that lacked the proper protections.”
“I heard something about a changeling?” Kage asked.
“A working theory.”
There was a long silence then. Kage was technically the highest ranked person here, but everything had happened so fast that there was hardly any information to go off of. Plus he had only just moved to the area and natural disasters weren’t exactly his forte. Everyone here had just happened to be in the area, towards the edges of the aelven part of town.
“As much as it hurts to hear, we probably won’t have any answers for a while,” Kage said. “But we’ll figure it out one way or another. I should get moving, every minute counts.” He turned from the group and walked off briskly. His birds hadn’t had anything useful to tell him, as expected. But perhaps he could ask around and figure out if anyone had fled the scene.
He started by talking to the humans. Most of them were clueless, but one of them eagerly offered up that he had seen someone running away from the fire all by themselves. Someone else from another house offered up the same information. Nobody had recognized the fleeing man – strange.
Kage followed that lead. He went in the direction the man fled to and asked other people along the way but they didn’t have much more information to add. Either this guy was good at hiding or he really was some kind of changeling.
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