章 735: Lost Soul

The duo finally reach the summit of the large hill just as the sun was setting in the distance and bathing everything in an orange glow... Atop it, they spot what was causing the light and are almost baffled by it. Some kind of turquoise shield is covering an area under a huge spatial rift that was producing the White Frost...

Ciri "What... Is that." she mutters as they approach it... The Quen shield covering them getting beaten up even more the closure to the rift they get.

Reima channels more magic into it to makesure they reach the turquoise shield, dispelling it as they step inside... The wind and freezing temperature outside didn't seem to affect the things within the shield, which would explain why the ancient marble ruins weren't completely buried in snow.

Ciri frowns, "This isn't what I was expecting." she mutters...

Reima looks around at the marble ruins and sees a number of strange things... It looks like someone had been camping here, a small pile of ash where a fire had previously been with a cast-iron pot hanging atop it sits in the middle of the ruins.

He bends down and touches the ash, feeling that it'd not been lit in many, many years... To emphasize that fact the food within the pot seemed to be petrified?

Reima "Whoever was here seems to have abandoned this place..." he mutters, spotting a nearby rucksack and examining it. "Doesn't look like they intended to leave though, this is still filled with clothes, what's left of the rations, and other supplies. They seem to be female from what I can tell though." he mutters at the female clothing.

Ciri "There doesn't seem to be anything over here." she says as he looks around the outskirts of the ruins, spotting some kind of sleeping bag sitting on a raised stone platform. "Hang on, what's this?"

She hops up to the platform and look at the sleeping bag, not expecting to find anything but doing so anyway... She opens it up and shakes it out, hearing a *Thud* as something falls out and hits the stone. Looking down she spots a book, and from the looks of it, it seems to be a journal. "Rei, over here... I've found something."

She opens the book as Reima looks over her shoulder and squints as she sees what seems to be an old version of their common language... She'd been expecting ancient elvish or something similar, but this? This was unexpected.

Reima "Can you read it? Just looks like unintelligible "Ye ole' English" to me..."

Ciri "I can... I might get some things wrong though so bear with me..." she mutters as she begins reading it. "This owner of this was named... Nalenthi? Strange, they've left a note for people who read this... "Greetings stranger, if you've stumbled across this, then I am presumably dead. I wish to detail my experiences in hope someone can learn from them, and perhaps not repeat my mistakes...

I, was an orphan who was forced to fend for myself during my childhood... I have no idea how I made it out of infancy, but the god's seem to have granted me the chance of survival. I made enough coin to eat my fill by picking the pockets of travelers, making sure to move from town to town so the locals couldn't catch me in the act... Life was, rough.

One day I was particularly hungry, having not eaten for a few days and desperately looking for "prey" if you could call them that. It was stupid and reckless, and I was obviously caught... It'd become apparent that I'd attempted to rob someone of high status, I was young with white hair which seemed to appeal to the man, and he attempted to enslave me... Looking back on it, I was lucky to escape, I'd have likely be abused, used, and killed after they got bored of me.

Fortunately, it was when the man attempted to force himself upon me that something awoke inside me... A power that allowed me to vanish from that place entirely. Once I was free I left for a different country, not wishing to give those vile people another chance to capture me. During these travels I trained myself to use these new powers effectively, finding them to not just allow me to disappear and reappear at will, but also move things with my mind...

It was when I turned eleven years old that I met him... A strange man with pointy ears, pale skin, piercing aquamarine eyes, and lavish robes. He called himself Avallac'h, and said he wished to train me for something greater than a common thief. At first, I was resistant to his attempts to persuade me, but after a year of him doing nothing but assisting me, I agreed.

He taught me many things, magic, combat, diplomacy, history of the world, different cultures, languages and so much more... But, most importantly, he taught me about my abilities. Elder Blood he called it, something I'd never heard of before. Apparently I was a descendant of an elf named Lara Dorren, someone who was obviously important to him, I never broached the topic with him, but I could tell his mind was almost always on it, especially with the familiar glances he'd send at me... Apparently I resembled the elf somewhat.

When I turned eighteen he suddenly left, telling me to experiment with my abilities and to live life to the fullest. To be honest, it felt like he'd abandoned me... Avallac'h was the only parental figure I'd known, and him leaving had left a void I needed to fill."