“Er…” Reed made the noise as her nose dipped toward the floor. “Is there… I mean.. if you don’t mind me asking… why… am I in this position?”

“Well,” Ayla said, smoothing her hand across Reed’s lower back. “The way this usually goes is the summoner throws a fit and I spank her until she sees sense, cries, or both.”

“Fascinating,” Reed murmured, staunching the flow of her nose with the back of her wrist. “The summoner, you say? That would be me?”
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In which Ayla gets up to her old tricks…

Reed opened her eyes. It was a small achievement, but she was proud of it. She looked at wooden beams above her head and she saw that they were good. As her mind became accustomed to the light, she slowly became aware of the noise of the world. She listened to the noise, and heard that it was good. Sounds of chatter and revelry were drifting up through floorboards below the bed she was very comfortably ensconced in. Deduction told her she was in an inn or tavern of some kind. Her body told her that she felt like hell. That was the problem with Blue Lady. The pure stuff was pretty good, but it was often cut with other substances to bulk it out. It was those substances that left her joints aching, her mouth dry, and her head pounding.

If the truth were to be told, and verily it would be told, Reed had no idea where she was. That did not overly concern her. These days it would have been stranger if she had woken up knowing where she was.

Her clothes were different. She noticed that when she pushed the coverlet back. Her clothes were different, and she saw that they were not good. The pale blue robe she was wearing was not at all her style. She couldn’t imagine her reason for having swapped her nice, neat leggings for the billowing dress thing that was tangling around her legs.

Just as Reed was about to seriously contemplate getting out of bed, the door opened. A tall blonde woman, the most striking example of femininity Reed had ever seen, entered the room. She cast a kindly smile in Reed’s direction. “Hello,” she said. It was good.

“Hello,” Reed replied. She sat on the bed, just staring at the lady. There was something very elfy about her. Something very magical and mysterious. Reed was quite transfixed. The woman was woman, but she was also something more than woman. Her presence was almost angelic – it was certainly ethereal. Pale strands of golden yellow hair ghosted about her face and shoulders, framing a face of wisdom and kinditude. Her body was curvaceous, bosom and buttock emphasized by the fall of silken violet robe. She dressed and comported herself with undeniable nobility, but not the sneering kind Reed was used to encountering in the High Lanes. It was more natural, more genteel, an organic sort of aristocratic bearing.
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The next day, Atrocious and Ayla set off for Clitera City. They rode in a little horse drawn trap which Ayla drove. Atrocious was content to sit next to the half-elf witch, wrapped in a blanket and making the occasional disparaging remark about potatoes.

“Remember,” Ayla said. “Rogette lives in Clitera City now. We are going to stay with her in her tavern.”

“Fancy fancy, Rogette and her tavern,” Atrocious said, glowering at the passing wildflowers. “Is there not somewhere else we can park ourselves?”

“You will be comfortable there,” Ayla replied. “She is eager to receive us. She sent word by carrier pigeon this morning.”

“Oh I bet she’s eager to receive something,” Atrocious muttered. “Did you pack your best carrot dildo for her?”

Ayla’s cheeks dimpled with a smile. “You are never going to let that go, are you?”

“You harvested her potato that day,” Atrocious said. “Her filthy potato juice.”
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Inside the little cottage Ayla and Atrocious shared, three cups of tea were being consumed. “The summoner is an addict and a criminal,” Ariadne explained, regarding her brew with suspicion. “There is a reason why we must always find the summoner before she has her twenty first birthday. Do you know how old this one is?”

“I do not.”

“Thirty one.” Ariadne said. “Practically ancient for a human.”
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Reed sat cross-legged on the thick wall overlooking Clitera City and rolled herself a lief. It was a process. One that took a little time, and involved a little ritual. First she set her little smoking pouch in front of her and drew out the rolling paper. It was three inches long and two inches wide, big enough to get a decent amount of plant matter into it. Reed’s choice of plant was referred to on the street as ‘Blue Lady’. She’d known the proper name for it once, but it didn’t come to mind as she picked purple tinged leaves out of the pouch and put them into her little hand grinder. For long minutes she turned the handle, round and round, round and round. When there was no more resistance against the sharp spinning blades, she tipped the resulting powder into the paper.

The sun was beginning to set behind Reed as she carefully rolled the paper up, put the cylinder to her lips, struck a match and inhaled. Thick blue smoke curled out her nostrils in slow coils as she held the load inside her lungs, letting it saturate her being.
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Far from Clitera City, a pleasant and rather spacious white cottage sat in the middle of a green field. A few brown cows grazed here and there, chewing their cuds with a peaceable demeanor. In the distance, snow capped mountains rose into purple pale heavens. The bucolic scene was as beautiful as it was idyllic.

The disruption began subtly. First, a cloud passed over the sun, casting a shadow. Then, over the course of a few minutes, clouds began to gather, dark clouds crackling with lightening. A wicked wind began to blow.
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“Jailer Hide!” Reed beamed as she was dragged through the maw of the portcullis of Deep Tower prison. It was a curved protuberance at the very head of Lake Lac, a building that went much further down than it went up.

Jailer Hide was waiting at the top of the ascending stairs. There were a lot of descending stairs in the prison. Most of the stairs went down, down, down into the depths. Hardly anybody went up the down stairs. Once you were down, you stayed down.

“Beautiful as ever,” Reed said, dipping into a bow between her captors. “A vision of loveliness to be sure. It’s a crying shame they keep you here with the dregs of society, Jailer Hide. A crying, crying shame.”
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