Hale Cress

Before You Leave

There is something in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

With resolve, Hale stepped forward to the twisted tree. While the tree itself held no familiarity in the strange woods, it was the very door to the tree that had given her worry. For a split second Hale wondered what hallucinations she might have been experiencing – perhaps a dream though she felt very awake. The shadow at her shoulder, Creature, he was silent now. Perhaps the most silent it had been in just about  two years and with his absence her mind was no longer a buzz with his murmurs.

The wooden handle of the door was cold when Hale touched it. Her heart skipped a beat and on the second prance of it she turned the knob and stepped through the threshold of the door into the hollowed out center of the large tree, unknown on what she would find on the other side.

There in the center of the dirt ground was a pedestal that held a book nestled in twine and warped pieces of twigs and brush. Nothing cluttered the room save for the book before her and her own body. Not a soul followed her in and not a soul resided within the amalgamation of tree and abode. It was dry and the only light source came from above where, somehow, the bright moon’s face shone down through the tree top opening and canopy.

She had to be hallucinating at this point.

Her heart quickened and with a fire’s boil within her blood Hale walked to the book. It was ordinary with no title and the bindings were sewn masterfully in soft animal hide. Curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, there were pages and pages of unfamiliar text slew along the pages, some written in black, some in red and a deep purple. Crude pictures of flora and fauna, animals and the Drust were heavily preserved within. There was no doubt about it that this book was old; very old.

Page upon page was flipped and scanned until the very end where Hale then saw nothing but a break in the last remaining pages which on the very last, dead center in the page was a old worn drawing of a unmistakable ‘C’ etched in to a moon.

Was this some terrible joke her Aunt Elisia was playing? She knew the woman well enough that she was someone to be feared but Elisia was never without her purpose in everything she did. Every ounce of magic is what made her who she was. That Harvest Witch who favored Gilnean territory. That yellowed eye batty bitch who always scared the ever living shit out of the Twins growing up?

Yeah.

Hale furrowed her brow and she looked over her shoulders to find nothing. Still the old gnarled door was at her back and still no visitors.

Perhaps this old book held old magic like the page of the map she carried. She had not expected the old thing to require her blood to show her where she had to travel to find clues. Her mother always spoke about how far back the Cress lineage went but they never truly knew just how far. Names were lost to the infinite time and space around them – until now.

Looking back to the open book, Hale did what she had done only a week prior. A blade found the meaty portion of her palm and with determination sprinkled with a touch of hope, she squeezed her hand over the page watching the droplets stream in a thin line along the center of the written C and its drawn counterpart.

Hale waited, hand still clutched over the pedestal and book hoping that something was bound to happen. And nothing. She was a fool to stand there nearly bleeding herself dry, hoping for the impossible – but was it really impossible?

A puff of frustration left her when she exhaled and she placed her bleeding hand along the page, defeated. Blood magic was never her strong suit. Not like her sister who relished in the very rituals of it. How it spoke to her on so many levels – 

Without warning Hale’s head jerked back like some malevolent force had grabbed her by the hair and skull to crane her neck to the gods, presenting herself as if one were to cut her from ear to ear in a crimson smile and a hollow scream left her when her eyes bled into a milky black. Firmly her hand was still pinned to the book and a course of pain surged through her feet and up through her core and shoulders before leaving her. She felt her breath enter and in one fell swoop….it left her entirely.

The Priest blinked.

And the moment her eyes reopened she found herself in the thick of darkness.

“Where the fuck am I?” Hale muttered, turning on her heel.

“Neither in the past, present or future.” a voice answered.

“A memory?”

“Not quite. A spell that has been ingrained into the book for several hundred years or more. Eternity is all restless souls know. We have no time nor a compass.”

Hale turned again to look around. The book and pedestal were gone and she could no longer feel the dirt beneath her boots, “I came searching for answers of my family. We intended to search for our roots.”

“And you have found them.”

A furrow of her brow came and Hale walked the darkness a few steps, “Kul Tiran nobility? I know we had roots in Gilneas but I didn’t think it would be this far out.”

“Life starts all over and everywhere. It expands.” the voice explained, “Kul Tiran? Not quite. We were first women of the woods, wives to the harvest and bringers of magic. We were settlers and we were witches of the wilds who came to learn of deeper magic. We are what is left of the wayward coven.”

“Coven?”

“We did not ascend. We learn the ways of the Heartsbane but we found peace through journey and travel. Those of us who did not ascend we were chased from our sisters and our lands, some of us died here for our breaking of the sisterhood.”

Hale lifted a hand, “Let me get this straight, you broke from the Coven. For such insolence towards your sisters you were hunted and killed and those of you who survived lived out your years abroad and lived normal lives?”

“Correct. Some of us remained in the furthest reaches of Kul Tiras to remain steadfast to our craft. Others sought out more realistic pursuits with families and even travels to Gilneas. There was so little of us left.”

“Our family name now is Cress, was it always so?”

“Yes and no, child of the Void. Variations of it has changed over the centuries. It was never the men of the family that built the legacy among a name but the wayward sisters that remained. It was the women in which the foundation was built.”

“And here I thought we were just enough to get a mention in some scroll or two of noble families within the area.” Hale scoffed lightly.

“Your ancestry is tried to us and the very magic we practiced only lives on in very few now.” the voice answered once more and several visions played within Hale’s mind that caused her to clutch the side of her head in pain whilst a woman walked from the shadows. Bones and twigs hung from her bodice and along her neck was a long wave of beads and twine that barely covered her naked chest. Everything happened so quickly that Hale could see very little aside from the entire white pools of her eyes, “Druidism is not beyond humans if they only sought to connect a little deeper. Ancient magic and the simple way of life is easy to obtain if one ever chose to do so but other temptations are powerful”

“That explains Elisia…” Hale muttered through her teeth and she caressed the side of her head.

“She understands old magic. It follows her just as your Void follows you.”

“Creature.” Hale remembered and she looked over her shoulder in the darkness once more when the very mention of its name caused a swelling screech to echo through the darkness. In what seemed like a breath of air the vision of the woman disappeared and Hale braced herself against the wave, covering her ears from the terrifying darkness and the screams that carried with it. The ground beneath her shook and with a forceful push to her front, the Priest flew back in to the dirt.

It was like a dream though she awoke to see the world upside down. The dirt and trees, the sky was open and the mist was gone. It was the surging pain to her ribs and hip that reminded Hale that what had happened wasn’t a simple figment of her imagination. The dim sun danced along the ground in the brown leaves and she had to wonder,  had she been unconscious the whole night?

A wince left her when she clutched her torso and slowly rose from her knees only to find the book under her and half covered in earth.

“Certainly not a dream…” her shaken voice came and she gazed around her location. The tall twisted tree with the gnarled door was gone as was the night and mist, somewhere off in the distance she could see the very edge of where the clearing began and she knew she had left her tent.

“Great. Descendants of deserters who had a knack for rubbing sticks together and shouting ooga-boogas at people…” Hale spoke to herself as she snatched the book from the forest floor, be it with a sigh of pain in the process, “Plus one for creativity I suppose though I can’t imagine anyone finding any ounce of interest in this aside from Elisia.” with a shake of her head Hale held the book close and made her way back to camp. Hopefully the pages within the book itself could be deciphered at a later date, leaving more to desired in the future.

With nature’s help, humankind can set into creation all that is necessary and life sustaining.