Nykademous paced uneasily by the chamber door, her keen ears straining for the sound of approaching footfalls, while her own velvety paws made barely a whisper. She felt her mistress’ apprehension as her own… such was the nature of a wizard’s familiar. Across her bedchamber, Syntorri sat before her dressing table, solemnly stroking her long raven hair as she silently debated the extreme action she was about to take... an action that would change her life forever. With a heavy sigh, she steeled her resolve and picked up a pair of scissors, sheering her luscious locks and carefully securing the trimmings in a cloth bag, knowing they could be used to aid in an attempt to scry upon her; something she could ill afford if she was to succeed in her plan. By the time she finished, she had disposed of all her lingering doubts as well. Inspecting her work with pride and conviction; she barely recognized the woman that stared back at her from the mirror. With a new sense of purpose, she strapped her treasured moonblade, the cause of her tribulations, about her slender waist before tossing the bag of hair trimmings into the fire and assuring that they burned completely. Then she beckoned Nykademous from her post at the door and scooped the feline familiar into her enchanted backpack, to join everything else of value to her. Shouldering the pack, she made one last quick survey of the luxurious chamber she would likely never set foot in again, before silently slipped through the balcony door to leave behind the only life she had ever known and stride confidently into the one she had chosen for her-self. She was well into the fringes of the great High Forest by the time dawn had fully broken. Slipping out of Everlund unnoticed was no harder than sneaking off her family’s estate; a feat she’d accomplished innumerable times since her youth... for far more nefarious reasons. A lone traveler setting out on the Evermoor Way in the wee hours was not an uncommon enough sight to draw anyone’s attentions. After all, the city watch was far more concerned with those entering the city after dark than those who left it. She knew it would be a few more hours before her family took notice of her absence, but they would attribute it to yet another night of carousing in the lower quarters of the city. When she did not appear by noon they would dispatch servants to scour her favorite taverns, with orders to discreetly drag her from whatever bed she dallied in. It would be well into the afternoon, after they had completely rooted through the dark underbelly of the city that they would even consider the possibility that she had fled, and by then she would be deep into the trackless forest. The family mages would attempt to divine her location through magic; scrying for her with every tool and spell at their disposal. But she had prepared for that, making sure to leave nothing of personal value behind to aid them, and trading both a substantial amount of gold and her favors to acquire an amulet enchanted to defeat just such attempts. At some point they would have to inform their co-conspirators, the Ealoeths, of her absence, and accept that all their grand plans would come to naught. Her only regret was that she wouldn’t be there to see that! ****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Yes I'm back from the dead... well, almost. A combination of health issues, writer's block and general laziness interrupted my work on the last series and has kept me on the "side-lines" for the last couple of months. But I'm making a effort to get back to what passes as normal in my life... which includes trying another "revisit" of one of my old series. I "recast" some of the main characters and re-worked parts of the story-line from my last attempt. I do apologize to those loyal readers who were looking forward to the continuation of the series I had been working on... it's likely that I'll go back to it at some future point, as I frequently do.