old friends and new - echoes of wishes
The magic curled between them, its unconscious power shaped by their wills. Each were struck by a sudden, powerful emotion, similar but from very different origins--and each were given a trinket of a gift.
The knowledge imparted to Master Vargas was a full, complete experience of the emotions that Zoey was feeling. For a creature who genuinely felt little, it was likely overwhelming. A web of connections he was not privy to now unfurled before him, links reaching out to all the Forge. At the tip of his left ocular horn, as though it had always been there, a piercing appeared: a small, dark purple metal serpent with chrysoberyl eyes and tail. It was tiny, compared to the Leviathan, hooped through hide and seeming to consume itself. Vargas would know that it held the power to magnify and focus a magic he did not yet know: the ability to gain insight into the emotions of others. Feelings toward him, in particular, he would feel as if they were his own.
Zoey was granted emotion, and knowledge, of another sort.
Fear, first and foremost--but it wasn't hers. And a strange knowledge, a certainty, that her trust in Vargas was not misplaced: despite his harshness, at times, he was struggling, half-blind and walking a deadly balancing act, in an attempt to reach some unseen but
just goal. He was trying to do right, and the slightest misstep could kill them all. And to that end: a key.
A small, black skeleton key, simple but enchanted--and nearly unbreakable--wrought iron on a little chain, like a necklace, clinked around Zoey's neck. A new whisper of knowledge came with it, threefold: first, that this was a place that she could safely place her memories, hiding them from sight, to protect this tightrope walk or for any other reason. Second, that the key was to a place, as well: and she was granted a vision of an alcove against the northwest fall of Pegasus, perhaps half an hour's travel from the farm up along a forested hill, hidden as an overgrown hole among thick underbrush. It delved into the wall of the cave, and within was a simple room someone had once dug out as a personal quarters: a den, hidden from the outside world. It held a few once-baubled stones on silver chains from the ceiling, now defunct; and a small thread of running water curled around one edge. A strange, blue crystal was held in silver metal at the center of the room, firmly attached to the floor.
Memories could be placed in this, as well. Taken from her, to the crystal; the crystal, to the key; the key, to the crystal... and so on. And third: this key, this crystal, they were now attuned to Zoey. No one else could use them, or read them; not by force, and not by magic.
The magic lingered for a moment before it faded, wisping away beyond this cave.
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Vargas has received a small earring (and a free piercing) that allows a special, focused use of the spell Lesser Empathy. Casts will allow him to experience the emotions of the spell's target as directed toward him, allowing him to feel how others feel about him.
Zoey has received an enchanted key that allows her to store chosen memories, and also unlocks a safe haven that holds a crystal with similar magic. Others cannot enter her haven without her truly desiring them to be there. Memories may be moved freely between Zoey, the crystal, and the key, but while stored, she cannot access them or even know what is missing. She can, however, make mental notes of the contents of the stored memories, so that she knows when (or when not) to retrieve them, or what category of memory they might be.
