Chereads / Heartbeats of Magic / Chapter 3 - The Wrong Plan With the Right Intentions

Chapter 3 - The Wrong Plan With the Right Intentions

The sounds of breathing became sounds of "get off me," and this caused Prana to roll off Celifone. So far, the score was even between the two of them, and that made him smile. He rarely got the chance to be on even terms with another, in the matter of lives owed.

Prana owed a lot of people's lives, not because someone saved him. No, this was due to the amount of time he had almost killed those someones while saving them. A dreadful process, you know, always trying to help out and never being that successful at all.

Just then, the distinct sound of an angry less-drunk-then-he-was-when-he-went-to-sleep-and-now-is-quite-cranky-with-a fireball-in-his-hand kind of noise to his right. With this knowledge and the smell one can only get from sleeping in an alley becoming stronger, Prana reached down and grabbed Celifone yelling.

"Run left! FAST!" Prana cried out as he tried to drag the half-conscious Celifone.

As the partially drunk wizards stretched his hand towards the fleeing/dragging couple and were about to release his fireball when something happened. The wizard's eyes began to go in different directions, and his cheeks began to pucker. Instead of throwing the ball of fire, the wizards had to put his hand up to his mouth, but it was too late. The fireball was instantly doused by the projectile vomit that sprayed out between his fingers.

Finally, Celifone seemed more coherent, and they ran down the alley and onto another street. The two of them looked back, but the wizard had passed out in his vomit. This scene made prana gag but was able to keep his last meal down.

Speaking of the last meal, It had to be well into the afternoon by now, and he hadn't eaten much since the porridge this morning. Turning to ask his companion if she was hungry, but she had vanished. He proceeded to turn many more times, all yielding the same result, no matter how many revolutions he made.

Only being slightly worried about this, Celifone might get into more trouble considering the events over the last ten minutes. Prana decides that the best route was to continue his day and to get on with his project. Freshly graduated from Long-Hat-College-for-Wizards-and-the-ones-that-think-they-are, Prana life goal was to go on an adventure.

Prana had read many fantastical stories, such as tales of Snake-face. A man rumored to fight snakes only using his face. Well, there weren't that many stories about him, considering how well one might expect a fight like that to go.

There was also Grave-Borrower-Dave, a refined explorer, said to have discovered the lost city of Tu Ta Lu Tu. Though thinking about it, that one only had one story, and it was something about not taking the treasure or be devoured by a thousand screaming souls was in the information. One would have to assume they wouldn't take too kindly to a grave "borrower."

Regardless of the short stories he had heard, Prana still wanted to o one an adventure. His task was easy, find an adventurer, then ask him to tag along. It was a foolproof plan, and he might even need help, and as the story goes so far, this would be no problem for Prana. No, the real problem was not his skills that should always be put in question. It was where to find a courageous adventurer that would surely take him along.

With an average grip on what needed to be done, Prana turns back to the alley he had just left. He plugs his nose and carefully creeps around the drunken-passed-out-vomit-covered wizard. Finally, out of the passage again, on his original path again, Prana lets his nose go and turns towards the bar, "A Tenth as Good as Your Quarter."

Before running into Celifone, Prana had planned to go find an adventurer in one of the many so-called fine establishments referred to as a "Bar" or "Pub." The idea of meeting someone like Eric the Mighty Arm, said to arm wrestle five elephants and almost won, was almost more than Prana could handle. As Prana walked into the bar, he was hit with an almost tangible wave of pipe smoke, body odor, and an uncountable number of other offensive smells.

The Tenth Better Then Your Quater was not high on the list of "Fine Establishments." No, this place more or less sat on the floor below the list along with the other peanut shells, dog ends, and lost dreams. The patrons of this bar were the most elite among the lists of people you wouldn't want to turn you back on. These sorts are the type to steal everything you own, even the clothes off your back, and at that point is when they ask you to give them everything you own or you die.

Prana caught himself before the wave of smell physically battered him to the ground. Standing upright and giving a cough, he strolled forwards into the very darkly light bar. It was very quiet and tough to see, and Prana became worried that the place was closed, and he had stumbled into the wrong place. In this case, he wasn't entirely wrong.