In the City, 406 days after a wizard cursed the REALM…
Current Version:
“I was so sorry to hear what’s happened to Wordler Village. It must be so hard for you, Elaine.”
Elaine froze for a moment, her teacup just inches from her mouth, and silently thanked the gods for small mercies. A few seconds more and she’d likely have spit out a mouthful of jasmine-hibiscus tea all over Lady Farthington’s placemat.
She gently placed the cup back onto its saucer. “I’m sorry. Hard for me in what way?”
“Well, aren’t you from Wordler Village, originally? I’d always assumed, from your accent.”
Elaine felt as if all other dinner party chatter had been cut short and all eyes were on her. “Me? A Villager? Don’t be absurd,” she heard herself say, as if at a distance. The world around her resumed, the string quartet went back to their sonata, and a dozen conversations started up again around the long table.
“My mistake,” said Lady Farthington. “Still, it’s a dreadful shame what those people are going through.”
“Indeed,” Elaine agreed. She brought the teacup to her lips and took a long sip.
That night, Elaine dreamt of her mother and grandmother, who had both passed on before she’d left the village. It was a strange dream, in which Elaine spent her day as usual, but with the ghosts of her mother and grandmother following along wordlessly. Her relatives kept a respectful distance and said nothing, but their reproving eyes sent chills down Elaine’s spine. They followed her to another party at Lady Farthington’s and watched her from a corner of the dining room, apparently unseen by anyone else.
“Aren’t you from Wordler Village?” Lady Farthington asked. “Originally?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Elaine looked over at her mother and grandmother, steeled for their disappointment in her, but the ghosts had vanished.
She awoke in a panic and shook her head to clear away the vision. “Only a dream, meaningless and unimportant.”
Something in her room was out of place.
It took a moment for Elaine to spot the small square of blue paper tucked into the frame of her vanity mirror. A breath caught in her throat as she approached it. Her heart beat double-time as she plucked it from its place. Her eyes went wide as she read it.
“You are cordially invited to a high-stakes game of jan-pow in support of Duke Worthingshire.” Elaine felt faint. The duke was a leading candidate to become the next Lord Mayor. He was favored by the social elites, and Lady Farthington had been fawning over him for years. Of course Elaine would have to RSVP for—she checked the date—today? There was no time to RSVP. She’d have to hurry to even make it to the event on time!
An hour later, Elaine presented herself and her invitation at the gate to Duke Worthingshire’s club. She was led through the grounds to the lodge, guided to the parlor, and was asked to wait a moment while the footman announced her to the host.
While she waited alone, she thought she saw a flicker in one of the corners of the room. A ghost, perhaps? “Well, Mother, aren’t you proud of me?” Elaine asked. “Do you see how far I’ve come from cottage at the outskirts of the village?”
But of course, she was only talking to herself. There was no ghost, she chided herself. The flicker had most likely been nothing but a fly.
“You may enter,” said the footman.
Elaine strode into the room and froze in shock. The bookshelf-lined parlor had a small table at its center with four chairs arranged around an elaborately carved jan-pow board. An empty chair had been prepared for her at the table. A scarecrow had been propped up in the chair on Elaine’s right. A man in wizard robes sat in the chair on her left. And across the table from the empty chair, in the adversarial position, sat the a woman in a glamorous all-gray outfit.
“The Gray Lady,” Elaine whispered.
“And me,” said the man, “the Word Wizard, the one who cursed Wordler Village in the first place.”
“And…an empty suit stuffed with straw,” Elaine noded.
“That was supposed to be Wordler 388,” said the Word Wizard. “She couldn’t make it.”
“Sit down and play with us,” said the Gray Lady, and Elaine felt herself compelled to follow the woman’s directions, even knowing her to be the enemy of her people.
“I thought this was a political fund-raiser,” said Elaine, as she adjusted her seat.
“The Duke has my endorsement,” said the Gray Lady, “and I have his. And now we have you, Wordler 406.”
“I’m not a Villager anymore,” said Elaine. “I left the REALM years ago. I wasn’t there when you cursed the village. No offense, but your schemes have nothing to do with me.”
The Gray Lady shrugged. “I’m not the one who made the rules of this curse.”
“Once a Villager, always a Villager,” the Word Wizard stated, definitively. “You look pale,” the Gray Lady noted. “But you needn’t worry, my dear 406. If you succeed in this game, you’ll have proven yourself a useful ally, and aligning with me comes with a considerable boost to your station.”
“What if I fail?”
The Gray Lady glanced over at the scarecrow. “A vacancy has recently opened in my organization. There's a use for everyone, 406, even the failures.”
Web3 Draft:
- Listed on OpenSea
- Listed on Rarible
- Pinned to IPFS
Revision Notes:
To be added.
