[] The Sacrifice
In hindsight, you probably should've seen this one coming. If the job opportunities and pay in one area seem significantly better than everywhere else for little discernible reason, there's a pretty good chance you've failed to pick up on something important. Like, say, a demonic cult determined to kidnap random maidens and subsequently painfully kill them.
You'd been hoping to get caught up in as a minor actor in an Echo, but as a foreign magical prodigy instead of...
Well, this. If you'd actually succeeded, you would've gotten a pretty significant boost to your learning speed and power, albeit at the cost of having some of your social interactions revolve around a single individual for little visible reason. It might've only lasted until the Echo moved to its next act, but
that could've taken entire years.
Alas, it looks like plan A is well and throughly f
—messed up. As you'd hoped, you've gotten the role of a minor actor in an Echo. This would be nice if it weren't clearly one of the hostile ones; while there are a few Echoes which would involve your last-minute rescue, you're pretty sure most of those involve torture beforehand and possibly falling in love with your savior. Even more Echoes are more focused on a demon or demons terrorizing the city for an indeterminate amount of time prior to finally being slain by a hero, banished by a priest, or sealed by pretty much anybody. By that time, you'd be long dead.
Fortunately, the lack of terror indicates that either your fate is still in flux… or you've gone temporarily dead inside from shock. One of the two. Regardless, you don't intend to just sit back and wait to die. Although you certainly hadn't intended such in the first place, perhaps you could act like this was part of your plan all along and see if the Echo starts helping you somewhere in the middle? Depending on which variant you try to pursue, it may rely heavily upon whether or not the city guard is willing to believe the word of a foreigner, but you can at least
try. Searching your cell for anything useful may be a good way to determine whether or not the Echo is going to aid or oppose you...
- Significant knowledge of Echoes
- Large amounts of raw magical power
- Barely any training in magical usage
- Currently in danger
- Currently possessing no personal belongings
(Not sure if I should do this part ^ for every section or none of them)
[] Fairest in the land
Over the past few months, your life has taken a serious turn for the weird. Your stepmother, whom you were always on neutral terms with in the past, has become increasingly hostile for little discernible reason. At first, she looked slightly confused and often apologized after each incident, but those apologies became increasingly sarcastic as time went on.
The squires and knights you used to spar with abruptly started refusing any further attempts to do so, stating various things along the lines of "we couldn't hit a girl." They disguised it behind flowery speech regarding not wanting to marr beauty and other such nonsense, but really, that's what it boils down to.
The number of individuals seeking your hand in marriage has almost quintupled. Since you recently came of age, that part shouldn't be
too surprising, but the occasional duel being fought certainly is. You don't know why they're bothering, nor why they seem so surprised when you and your father refuse to grant their request just because they won some private wager.
Despite your best attempts to keep it cropped short, your hair keeps growing to ridiculous lengths within a few days. Once you finally gave up and started keeping it in a ponytail instead, its growth slowed down significantly and became easier to deal with. On the other hand, anything you use to hold it in that shape keeps slipping off or breaking whenever you enter an area with a large number of people.
Even your father seems to have noticed something has gone wrong. As such, he's planning on sending you to live with your aunt for a few months while he sends for a few friendly wizards he's helped out in the past. If there's a curse on the castle, they'll be able to remove it; if there's a curse on
you, they'll be by to visit and remove it in a few months.
You hope you can avoid strangling anyone in the meantime.
[] The Creditless Squire (WIP)
You don't quite understand why your mentor has slowly become more and more incompetent and moronic over the past few months. Yes, there was that
incident involving copious amounts of drink and a duke's daughter, but you'd expected him to recover from that relatively quickly.
