Ilvasio Sorrand - Future's Arrival

Future's Arrival.

Ilvasio Sorrand woke with a start.

Something was amiss.

It was the third time in a week he had dreamed of that day.

The old mage rose from his sleeping chambers and murmured his brief morning prayers to Milil for his muse.

Maybe the vision – and he knew it to be a vision and no ordinary dream – had something to do with the rogues' guild he knew was causing trouble and seemed to have their eye on him after he had tipped off a guard.

Surely though, this was not that same guild as his dream? It must be something else. Something significant.

He bathed and dressed before sitting down at his desk and lighting a candle to see within the dark room of his quarters, then he picked up his quill and unrolled a blank scroll.

He saw the day in his dream as a curse. Something he'd never been given the opportunity or the inspiration to pen... The day his muse escaped him.

He never considered himself one to suffer from what some of the minstrels and storytellers referred to as 'mute pen'... and yet that one day was the ever blank page he had never filled.

It was quite likely this scroll would end up crumpled and discarded just like every other attempt he had made.
Still, refusing to be deterred, he began to write.

“My days as a bard ended the day the impressive looking vessel docked in the harbours of Velen.
The crew looked smart. Being direly in need of coin at the time, I approached them asking if they had need of enchanting music on their travels.
Alas, or so I thought, a bard was already amongst them. They did, however, require a mage for the favourable winds and some repairs of magical nature as required.
Basic enough work from my formal studies in the arcane, I agreed.

It was only when it was too late that I realised what I had gotten myself into.
The jobs they had me assist with, more directly than I had first thought... were of a less than savoury nature. Often involving deceptions, bitter deaths and other miseries.
I played my part. I had the captain's word he would pay me and send me on my way when my contract had ended and quite honestly, I feared too much for my life to escape. Safe parting was offered if I kept true to my work.
Yes, I was a hostage. Though I was a well kept hostage used as a tool for fell deeds for the most of it.
I didn't fail them, though I am sure my lack of spellcraft disappointed the captain at times.

At last the day came for my contract to end. I was to receive my payment.
I woke that morning to find the cold tip of a dagger under my chin.
A most surprising and fearful way to wake, to be sure.
The voice that spoke to me was that of the sun elf's – Rofez, they called him, a swordsman and a stealth specialist. I caught a last name once or twice but could not recall, something very common to his people. Ellin, or Ellen, something to that description.

“Don't make a sound.” He said to me. An odd thing to say, I thought, considering here was a man with a blade to my throat, seemingly having blundered an attempt to kill me as I slept.
Nevertheless, I was shocked and silent. Never before had I been so certain I had met my death.
The elf watched me in such a way that I could have sworn he knew more about why I reacted that way than I did. The killing strike did not come, nor did the dagger move an inch.
Indeed, it seemed he had more to say. Oh-so-calmly he said it.
Meanwhile I had almost soiled myself in fear.

“They are going to kill you today if you take the payment. Offer instead your services as a bard.”
Finally I brought myself to speak in a voice so tiny I barely recognised it as my own.
“But I thought you already had a ba-”
I was interrupted smoothly as though he had read my mind a hundred times over.

“Trust me, or die. Say one word of this and I will deny it so flawlessly you will wish in your grave your tongue were not buried with you.”
With that the blade and the elf were gone. Like watching a mirage disappear on the horizon.
I slept not at all for the rest of the night, and I freely confess I considered the appeal of jumping overboard several times when the cold sweat of my own anxiety became too much.

The next day came along, however, and the captain approached me for payment I refused, offering my services – indeed, as a bard, for another full term contract.
The look on the captain's face made my stomach churn with fear as he looked me over as though I'd just stolen his coin purse.

“Strange, or lucky, that you should make such an offer today, as our bard has been found dead in his chamber.”
I paled and gulped. I am sure the captain knew something was going on, but he let it slide at this point, probably with the intention of looking into it once he had me yet again under his thumb.

“...But very well. Our new bard you shall be. We will be docking in Luskan in two days if the winds remain sweet. Three days there and we'll be heading to the Isles. Stretch your legs and enjoy the solid ground beneath you while you can, song-mage.”
I was very much left to my own devices after that, wondering how close I had come to a brush with death – or if what the elf had told me was just some scheme to keep me on board.
I stepped off the ship in Luskan along with everyone else while she went into her usual maintenance and the captain haggled prices.
I found Luskan quite chilly for my tastes and was considering heading off to purchase a jacket, when the sun elf was beside me.

“A drink?” He asked me casually – though I felt his arm steering me towards the nearby tavern before I had the chance to reply.
He swung the door open and stepped inside with me in tow.
No sooner had I stepped through the door than he threw his cloak about me – we both vanished, an unusual experience, into the shadows – and he yanked me abruptly back out the door by the arm before it closed, unseen by any save the rowdy drunks who may have glimpsed us disappearing.
He was stronger than I, so I followed.. feeling it less dangerous than to resist.
He took me down a side alley, removed his cloak and gestured for me to be silent. He didn't look like he'd accept any argument.

I noted the shadowy figures pass some moments later, weapons drawn as though they were looking for something. Or more particularly, someone.
I stared at the elf, long after they had passed, he stared back at me, seeming more relaxed.
“.. You can speak. They're gone.”
“You killed the bard!” I blurted at him.

He never confirmed or denied it. But he didn't have to. He just regarded me with something akin to curiosity.
“They broke their word.” He said. “They're going to kill you. You have to leave. Go far enough and perhaps they won't follow.”
He pressed something papery into my hand. I took it, not yet realising it was a boat ticket for a vessel back to Velen.
Something struck me at that moment. A vision... my first.
In that moment I knew that this elf was being truthful. I could see the words he spoke striking the air like notes of music in perfect harmony. Not the discordanant melody of a lie, but the simple truth.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked him, breathless.
“Because it's my word they are breaking, too.” He replied.
“...I owe you my life.”
“Yes, you do.” An unexpected reply... before he slipped into the shadows.

I met him again months later in Velen. Where we spoke.
I had come so close to death, and this strange elf had spared my life. Not just spared, but worked to save me. Gone against his own crew to do so and even killed for my sake.
I truly did owe him my life.
Still, I met him again in Velen.
We shared a drink and I asked him for his story, what could lead one of his kind to such a life amongst pirates and murdering rogues. Why, if involved in such a life as he seemed to play his part quite well in, would he spare the life of an insignificant young song-mage?

To this day I have not the answers, the story was personal and it has affected me my entire life like no other since.
Now, I am old, and I fear my time is drawing to an end as my visions seem to be trying to tell me. Of late I have felt daggers slid ruthlessly between my ribs to sickening pain, death in the dark, pain, blood, blades and poisons. Something is coming. I feel death creeping upon me like winter stalks the fall.
But why I dream now of these things, of that day? The future will tell.”

He didn't even bother reading over what he had written. He took up the scrolls and scrunched them roughly, frowning in dissatisfaction as he turned and tossed them into the waste bin.

But something caught his eye at that moment by his doorway.

A hooded figure, watching him. Leaning up against the door frame with arms folded.

Many years had passed, but with the two familiar blades sheathed at his hip, the posture of pure confidence,the air of an 'elf' about him and those sharply intent eyes that glinted in the candlelight beneath the hood, there was no mistaking who it was.

And this was no vision.

"So that's why." The old mage said to Rofez, softly.