Avalon Academy #1, Outsider, Abigail

What could be waiting behind the door?

Abby peeked around the corner of the old Greyson Mill building just outside of the city. Two figures, a young man and a young woman stood in front of a doorway that stood alone from the rubble that surrounded it. They were chatting excitedly, though she couldn’t quite hear what they were saying.

The two were strangely dressed, especially for this end of town. The girl wore a yellow silk… robe, or coat, with intricate embroidery, over a fine white blouse, and brown vest and skirt. When the girl had passed Abby before, she could make out some strange, unrecognizable markings along the hemline. The boy, who seemed a bit younger, had a similar royal blue silk coat, but with trousers instead of a skirt.

Take away the silk coat, and perhaps they might look somewhat normal, if a bit finely dressed for such a dilapidated area. But, add the coat... She’d never seen anyone dressed in such a way. Abby just had to know what they were up to. Of course, perhaps the most puzzling thing is that no one else seemed to share her curiosity. Even Carl the Knife left them alone. Fine clothes like that were just asking to be robbed by any number of desperate dregs in this town. Yet, these two walked right past without a care in the world for the past week, and no one but her even lifted an eyebrow.

The girl took out a long, thin, metal rod from her purse, showing it off to the boy, who marveled at it. The girl smirked and shrugged, obviously trying to play as if it were nothing so grand, but Abby could see from even as far away as she was that how the girl smiled, and held the rod, told how she really felt. This was something precious. The boy’s reaction was more than enough to confirm that.

Suddenly, they drew out their pocket watches, gold casings glinting in the slowly growing sunlight from above, and the two locked eyes. The boy reached into his pockets and pulled out something. Then he turned to the door, opened it, and the two walked through. The door closed briskly behind them.

Abby cautiously stepped over to the door from her hiding place. Like some kind of forlorn monument to the what she heard used to be the office building that used to stand there, the door stood alone. She looked behind the door and saw only rubble, dust, and the occasional patch of moss. The pair were nowhere to be seen. She grinned. They had been going somewhere, just like she had thought. The real question was where.

She placed her hand on the old door knob and tried to turn it. However, the knob was stuck fast and wouldn’t budge. Abby looked over the door closely. There was a keyhole in the knob. Perhaps that was what the young man had taken out of his pocket, a key. She crouched down so that the door knob was level with her eyes and considered it for a moment. Something told her that even if she could pick the lock, it wouldn’t make a difference. Forcing the lock open seemed a bad choice as well. The door frame looked to stand precariously as it was, robbed of a wall to hold it.

Abigail sighed, standing back up straight. She had seen the pair coming here for the past week, talking about wild, magnificent things. She thought it strange that she couldn’t find them again until they left at night. Now she understood why. It should feel bizarre to find out that they were stepping through a door to, well, she couldn’t say where. Wherever it went, it wasn’t where it should be going, the other side of a ruined building. Wherever it went, it was anywhere but here.

Perhaps she could sneak in when they came tomorrow. She wasn’t sure how, short of some sort of confrontation. Something inside her told her to try the door again. It was a silly thought. The doorknob wouldn’t budge at all. Still, she decided to indulge the thought.

Her thin fingers wrapped around the cold, corroded brass knob, and she tried to turn it. But, unlike before, the knob twisted, slid the bolt out of the frame, and the door swung open. A cool, earthy breeze breathed out as the door opened.

Through the threshold, she could see a smooth stone corridor with a bright light at the end. With the door still open, she looked around the door from the outside again. There was nothing behind the door but open air and a pile of rubble. She came back to the opening, checking to make sure she hadn’t imagined what she saw before. Yet, there was the stone corridor that shouldn’t exist. It was impossible, nonsensical, and surely meant she was just seeing things. Somehow it felt… right, familiar even.

Abby grinned, and eagerly stepped through the threshold.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the relative gloom of the corridor. She looked back just in time to see the door slam itself shut, and then fade into the stone wall that held it on this side. She couldn’t help but chuckle. It would seem she was well past the point of no return.

Carefully, she walked towards the bright light at the end of the corridor. A cool breeze kissed her cheeks as she came closer. Then, she could finally see a field of green through the glare of the light beyond.

Abigail took her first step into the new land and was overcome with wonder at the sight before her. She stood in a vast rolling grassland dotted with what looked to be old stone buildings or ruins littered about the territory. A thick forest bordered to her left, and a single impressively tall mountain stood to her right. She thought she could see a lake, or some other body of water just at the edge of what she could make out across the grassland. She turned around and was confronted with an imposing cliff face. Various cutouts and reliefs could be seen in the grey stone. Hers was not the only tunnel, it seemed, that dug into the cliff. There were perhaps a dozen stone archways that were carved from the rippling stone to her left and right.

As she marveled at the sight, Abby heard the sound of a throat clearing behind her. She whipped around to see the slender figure of a beautiful middle-aged woman with long, curly, orangey-red hair that undulated in the breeze. The woman frowned, looking at a stone tablet in her hand, and spoke in a husky British accent. “Not in uniform, unbathed, and late to boot, I see. Your name, child?”

Abby blushed profusely, and took a step back towards the stone corridor. “I, uh…”

The woman raised an eyebrow, the look all the more menacing on her sharp, aquiline features. “I Uh. My, what intriguing names parents think of these days.”

“It’s not, um,” Abigail stammered. “Ill just be leaving!” At that, she broke into a sprint down the corridor. When she reached the stone wall, she cursed to herself, having forgotten that the door had disappeared behind her. She hastily looked and probed about the wall, trying to find some hint of the door, or way to get back.

“Why not use your key, child, if you are so intent on escape?” Came the woman’s voice from behind her again.

Defeated, Abigail turned around, and lowered her head. “I… don’t have one.”

She could see the woman’s posture shift, putting more weight on her right side. “Really? Forgot that as well, did you? Leaving artifacts like that unattended can be quite dangerous, you know?”

“No, Ma’am… I – I don’t have one at all.” She looked back up to meet the woman’s eyes, embarrassment flushing hot over her face till she felt close to bursting into flames.

“But how co…” the woman started, then her sharp green eyes narrowed. She lowered the tablet. “An outsider… But how… how did you get here?”

“I followed a boy and a girl talking about amazing things who I noticed coming to the same place around this time every day, and watched to see where they went. I was curious, you see? I – I saw them go through the door of a ruined office building next to the old Greyson mill, and just disappear.” Abigail looked down at her feet. “Once they left, I tried to open the door and it… it just opened.”

“Impossible…” the older woman said. She shifted her weight again to the other side. “Your name, young lady?”

Abby looked back up to meet the woman’s piercing gaze. “Abigail Scot. I’m sorry for intruding. Truly. I’ll j—." The woman raised her hand and shook her head. Her instincts, and something in the woman’s eyes told Abby it was unwise to say anything further. She never ignored her instincts.

She grabbed Abby’s hand, and marched out of the corridor. It was difficult for her to keep up with the older woman’s longer legs, and purposeful stride. But, she managed to without tripping or lagging too far behind. Just what had she gotten herself into? It was far from the first time she had slipped in somewhere she didn’t belong. Strangely enough, something told her she was exactly where she should be. She felt an uncanny sense that she had been in this place before. A sense that, somehow, this was her home. The very notion of feeling at home anywhere was foreign to her, but she couldn’t shake impression.

They strode through the grassy hills, around the forest’s edge, till they came to the marvelous sight of a network of buildings huddled to the side of a crystal clear lake. There were a dozen or so structures, a tall, crisp modern brick tower stood near the middle and was the tallest of them, but she could see buildings of various styles and apparent age mixed together. Some resembled drawings she had seen of old Roman or Greek temples. Others were more Gothic, like old cathedrals. She had never seen anything like the collection, even in her dreams.

The two pressed on, the older woman never breaking her brisk, unrelenting pace, till they entered what looked to be the oldest structure she had seen so far. Well, less a structure than what seemed to be a cave carved into a large rocky outcrop that framed the cluster of buildings opposite of the lake. Strange incense mixed with an ever-present sting of earth filled her nose. Unfamiliar markings and paintings lined the hewn stone walls, spun into a blur by how fast the woman pulled her along.

Abigail’s legs were on fire, nearly on the verge of giving out by the time they blessedly came to a stop in a wide open chamber. Motes of light drifted between stalactites, illuminating what had to be a natural cavern. A still pool of water, like a sheet of glass sat at the far side of the chamber.

The woman looked back to her, those piercing eyes digging into her again. But, there was something different in them this time that Abby couldn’t read. That terrified her. She prided herself on being able to understand what people were thinking. It had been a kind of gift of hers that had kept her safe all those years since…

A man with thick spectacles, and the thickest salt and pepper beard Abby had ever seen walked up from behind the woman. He was somewhat shorter than the woman was, but still taller than Abby by a head and a half. He had an accent that sounded somewhat vaguely European, but she couldn’t put her finger on where. “Now, Lauren, who do you have in your talons today? Not often that we bring students in for being out of uniform.”

“She is not a student, Ferrus.” The woman said, looking to the man.

He adjusted his spectacles, and looked at Abby again. “Are you quite sure? She looks like one to me. Her aura is fierce, unbridled. Like so many her age.”

“Quite. I thought the same. But she isn’t a student. She followed some students in.”

“How could she do that without a key?” the man said. His dark cloud of a beard completely obscured his mouth, making it seem as though the wiggling of the beard itself was what produced his words.

“Exactly my question, Ferrus.” The woman, whom the man had called Lauren, said.

Another voice came from behind in an unidentifiable accent, “unless she was let in by the three?” Abigail whipped her head around to see a clean-shaven man with coppery skin that had a metallic sheen to it.

“Nonsense, Something like that hasn’t happened in centuries. There’s no need. They've directed us to enroll likely prospects since, what. The first crusade?” Ferrus remarked.

Lauren didn’t seem to share the same thought, but said nothing. That unreadable look was in her eyes as she looked back to Abby. Then she smiled? After seeing nothing but what seemed to be the woman’s naturally stern, almost predatory visage, the sight of a smile curl on her aquiline features seemed almost incongruous.

The man stepped closer. He was a mountain of a man, impressively tall, easily the tallest of the group, and probably double Abby’s height. Even through his simple suit, she could see that he might have been the most well-muscled men she had ever seen. “Your name, young lady?”

“It is Abigail Scot,” she said, shifting uneasily. She never liked being the center of attention. The strangeness of the situation, and really everything since she had decided to follow the two, apparently, students, did not help set her at ease.

He smirked. “Could you tell me of your family, Ms. Scot?”

“I’m alone. My…they.” Abby shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t… don’t remember much about them.”

Lauren and the strange man shared a look as Abby lowered her eyes in embarrassment.

The older woman spoke again, “I’d like you to try something for me. Let’s call it a test.”

Abigail’s eyes shot back up as Lauren held out a small glass sphere. “What do…”

“Take this in both hands, close your eyes, and try to clear your mind,” The older woman said softly.

She did as instructed, the last step, of course, much more difficult than it sounded. She had never been particularly great at “clearing her mind” of anything, especially not in this moment.

“Now, I want you to open your eyes, and focus on the sphere in your hands. I want you to think about the most important thing in the world to you, the thing that gets you out of bed every morning, or keeps you striving even when you want to give up.” Lauren cleared her throat, and then continued. “Dig deep, really find that spark. It usually boils down to a single word, idea, or phrase. Once you find that thing, I want you to put it into that sphere”

“Put it in how?” Abby asked, raising an eyebrow.

Lauren smiled warmly in a way that seemed to instantly ease her anxiety. “You will know how, or you won’t. It is as simple as that.”

“How will I know if it worked?”

“Oh, that.” Lauren grinned. “Believe me, there will be no doubt.”

Abby looked back at the sphere, confused, but intrigued. What was the most important thing to her? Survival? Wouldn’t that be the most important thing for anyone? No, people did things every day that was contrary to their survival, she had seen it herself sleeping on the streets of Old Town. No, Survival was just an easy answer. If Survival was the most important thing to her, why would she waste her time following those students when she could have been trying to give enough money to eat?

What was the most important thing to her? Why would she do something that would run against her survival? What did she want from that? What did she hope for in stepping through that door?

Change. The word ripped through her like a gust of wind blasting away stale air. That was what she desired more than anything else, to change. To get away from the life she had been living. To be something more.

Suddenly she could feel the thought coursing through her veins, pushing her forward. But forward to where? Her eyes locked onto the sphere, and in that moment she understood. Abigail pushed the idea into the sphere with her raw desire and hopes, and before her eyes, the sphere sparked into life. A roiling, surging cloud filled the inside of the sphere, twisting and contorting into a cyclone that somehow, she knew, represented Change.

She looked up to the older woman, and Lauren smiled. “Congratulations, my newest Elementalist. I’d like to be the first to invite you to study at Avalon Academy of the Arcane.” She extended her hand out to Abigail. “How would you like to learn how to use magic?”

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