Here's another excerpt from Isen's Bane, taking place about a day later, in-world time from Coyote Folk Song.

At this point, raccoon monk and white mage Dusky has joined Baksrit and Kyrinn on their journey. While at a layover in Borderton, Baksrit notices a building across the street and remembers she wants to get something for herself. What she finds piques her interest and may prove useful in later chapters.

An earlier draft of this excerpt was uploaded onto my NaNoWriMo profile for 2008 and has been edited and added to for this version. Critiques are welcome.

Things to Note: In Baksrit's world, there are two sorts of geis (pronounced gaysh; the plural is geisa (pron. gay-sha)). The regular sort is something like a mystical prohibition upon a person (eg. never turn down an invitation, never eat the meat of a dog), a sort of rule of Fate that a person dare not disobey lest they invite tragedy. Most folk, including mages like Baksrit, consider those geisa to be only superstition.

The spell sort of geis is inspired by the superstition geis but resembles a hypnotic suggestion more than anything else. The target of the spell is told to do a particular and definite task before the spell can end. What that task is depends upon the person and their abilities as a properly done geis will use the target's own ego against them. This sort of geis can be resisted, but it can be very difficult. The geis encountered in this excerpt is unusual in that it's not targeting a specific person but a specific sort of person.

A groschen (grosh-en) is a real life coin once used in Europe. A Gloomhaven groschen equals 288 pfennig (fen-ig) and is 1/24 of a thaler (tal-er).

Story © 2010 Marvin E. Fuller