@wishcast
Veszelya had never considered herself much of a pessimist. It took a person with at least some modicum of hope in her breast to peel herself off the floor of a crypt and stumble blinking out into an unfamiliar hillside, much less to then take that resurrection in stride enough to make it all the way from Limgrave to Liurnia. But it was getting a little difficult to hang onto that optimism, now that her laborious two-day trek from the lakebed to the cliffside had culminated in...this.
She had found the tower she sought, most certainly. A vertical stone structure very much like the other two she'd previously encountered, it jutted grey and weather-worn out of the hilltop. It matched perfectly the description Miriel, the great turtle at the Church of Vows, had given.
"That tower is the seat of the Sorceress of the Stars. No relation to the Carian Royal Family, you must understand. Indeed, she is rather something else entirely..."
The grassy approach to the tower was dappled with vibrant blue flowers and standing stones of crumbling granite. The few trees there were slender little things, allowing an unimpeded view of the bright blue sky beyond the cliffside. Zelya fancied it a seat that any mysterious sorceress might covet - only slightly marred by the fact that there was an enormous giant planted squarely in front of it.
He had his back turned for the moment, but that could change at any minute. Besides, his angle meant that once she snuck around the side of him, he was bound to notice her creeping past to the door, and then she would be stuck between him and the tower. Even if that funny helmet cut off his peripheral vision, the Tarnished doubted her ability to sneak ably on legs experiencing such a terrible bout of pins and needles. The sorceress gritted her teeth, and did her best to adjust her crouched position without making any noise. Miriel was a nice enough turtle, but not only had he failed to mention the giant, he had also failed to mention that this tower was, in fact, distinct from the other tower that had nearly set her brain alight. Perhaps his venerable age was making him forgetful.
Ten minutes of watching him from behind a rock, and the giant hadn’t moved. Zelya sighed. Forget it. She would make the break, and hopefully she could manage to hammer on the door a couple of times before being pulped against it. Sucking in a deep breath, she gripped her staff, rose, and began sprinting towards the tower as quietly as she could manage.
Her calculations hadn’t been off, and the roar that erupted from behind her was loud enough to threaten the safety of her eardrums. Zelya didn’t allow it to distract her forward momentum, and instead kept going until she could throw her weight up against the door. “Hello? HELLO! Please, please let me in!”















