The Blue Pearl

Bedona tiredly sighed, sending ripples around her in the calm surface of the river. The cool mountain stream rejuvenated her and she felt her magic return in a slow rise. So much so that she had wondered if the waters itself were blessed. At times she forgot just how close to demigoddess Nirya they were, and having her effect on the rivers and lands wouldn't be very far-fetched. Nirya was known as the demigoddess of life itself and death had no meaning for her. Unlike a necromancer who revived the body devoid of its soul or with only a fragment of it, Nirya revived the soul, or that was how the story went.

It was that legend itself that had led Bedona here following the path of Cindamir. Who was rumored to be on a pilgrimage to Nirya's abode itself. A pilgrimage no one ever returned from. There was someone Cindamir had wanted to revive and was desperate enough to go to Nirya for it.

After years of hiding, rumor of his appearance finally surfaced. And Bedona and Rollo were sent after it for details by Aristeros. They stopped in R'qsar as neither of them wanted to follow Cindamir into Nirya's domain. So they decided to wait for him in the village with the faith that if someone was able to do the impossible it was Cindamir. And thus they had been waiting in R'qsar until the monster's attack.

Cindamir hadn't returned and Bedona doubted he ever would. The man had changed, in their trail they had found out that much of him was different than what the rumors suggested. He was no longer the legendary figure he once was. No longer a mountain split in his one sword strike, no longer the earth quaked with his each step or the sea parted before him. The legends surrounding him were one grand story over another, easily rivaling and at times surpassing that of their Pearl's. But the details they got in their travels was of a broken down man traveling with a large load on his. The large load on his back was the corpse he wanted revived. Bedona guessed it was his rumored dead lover. If so then everything would make sense. Only for love would a man like him become crazy enough to go on a suicide quest.

But that did not help her. Right now she was stranded without a partner and without a solid answer. Vilon did not forgive failures. One of the reasons she admired him for and the same reason that might end up becoming doom. Doomed to be his slave…

So stupid she was to accept that blood pact. But it was the only surefire way for her to enter the Blue Tower.

Again and again the same thoughts circled around in her mind. Her failure and her bleak future. She wanted to scream, to ravage something…

Bedona dipped down for another soak and this time didn't come up right away. She swam forward underwater until she felt the burning in her lungs as they struggled for air. She pushed and pushed, until she could go on any longer and burst out of the water with gasp. Not much of a solution but her mind did calm a little and she remembered something.

She hadn't shared about it Ava. Deciding to keep it entirely to herself. She actually did not even want to share it with her masters. But the medallion as useless in her hand. And excellence and a great discovery was always highly rewarded in Sharak.

Thinking of the object, she turned and her eyes found where she had left her clothes and her heart nearly stopped when she saw the creature there. A monster, a giant hairy man in dark robes sitting looking confused and in his hand was a small copper disk, her medallion.

Seeing it her mind stopped working for moments. Who or what he was, how he had gotten there without her noticing and despite her choosing the most open of the beaches that no one would be able to sneak at her, nothing registered in her mind. All she saw was the small metal disk in horror as the giant played with it, flipping and looking about it in his hand. Then his hands went to the clothes pile next to him. He lifted her shirt and raised it against his face as if seeing something unusual.

"Hey stop it, that's mine." She screamed and swam toward the shore as fast as she could.

The giant saw her for the first time, his eyes widening and he threw her clothes back on the ground like they had been on fire. But she did not care about it, she wanted what he had just put inside his clothes, the medallion, 'Her' medallion.

Bedona shrieked, beat the water with bother limbs in an attempt to shore faster. Half swimming half throwing she touched the sand below and ran without any regard for her own shame. All she could think about was that little disk and how to get it back. As soon as she was out of the water and it was only to her knees she kicked the sand with a foot and the man, the giant was flung far into the air as a ten feet pillar of sand just burst from under him.

Heavy! Bedona thought absentmindedly as the giant came down and fell on the beach in a small explosion of sand.

As the dust cleared there stood a monster, his harsh beady eyes under his messy hair glared at Bedona. She swallowed under the pressure of that gaze, of his humongous weight on the sand and felt n.a.k.e.d to her bones.

The giant monster charged and Bedona despite being so far away took a step back. And for the first time in her life, she felt the safer in water than she did in land.