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In the middle of reading a chapter about the history of chronomancy wizards, Adaine pauses as a Sending spell hits her head. The words zip into her mind with a jolt of electricity, setting the hair on her arms on end like a static shock.
Fucked up bad. Magic spell went wrong. Lights in the hoard are out. Didn’t bring my crystal with me. Please help. Love you.
Adaine can’t help it; she laughs. “Oh my god,” she breathes as she puts her book aside, getting up from her arm chair. She had noticed that Oisin had been gone for longer than usual, but Adaine hadn’t thought much of it. At most, she had chalked it up to him spending more time indulging in his draconic instincts, of cutting loose by draping himself over a pile of treasure. She hadn’t expected him to be stuck.
With a brief stop by her room to grab her components pouch, Adaine heads over to the door to the hoard room, pushing it open.
Stepping in, Adaine takes a deep breath, inhaling the musty air. Oisin’s hoard has always been located somewhere else — a cave somewhere in the Red Wastes, if Adaine recalls right. For each place he’s lived in, going from his childhood manor to the apartment he now lives in with Adaine in Bastion City, he’s hooked up a spell connecting a door to the hoard, allowing him access to it whenever he pleases.
If Adaine’s being entirely honest, though, no matter how many times she steps into the hoard, she always finds it a bit jarring. To go from a tiny, cramped apartment hallway to a massive, sprawling cave— well, it’s a disconnect her mind always struggles to follow, a disconnect made even worse by the sight of far too much treasure for her mind to comprehend.
For once, though, Adaine doesn’t see glittering piles of gold and jewels refracting the dim lights hung around the hoard as she enters. Instead, her darkvision kicks in, revealing the expanse of the cavern in a dim monochrome. It’s relieving, in a way; there’s something about seeing the hoard in shades of grey that makes it feel a little less real. For as much as Adaine has gotten over most of her anxieties surrounding Oisin and his wealth, sometimes the reminder of it will still make her chest tighten and her breath catch in her throat.
“Oisin?” she calls, raising her voice as much as she can. “Where are you?”
Her ears prick as she hears a faint shout from somewhere afar. “Here!”
It takes a lot of careful maneuvering, a bit of climbing, and a couple of Misty Steps, but eventually, Adaine finds him. Towards the back of the cave, curled up in a small dip of treasure, is Oisin.
“Move over, I’m coming down,” Adaine orders, balancing herself on the edge. As Oisin startles — and she can see his reaction in the darkness, the way his head snaps up in search for her, his tail perking up behind him — Adaine gives him all but a few seconds to move over quickly as she skids down into the small dip with him.
“Hi,” she tells him, reaching out to touch his shoulder. She’s a little breathless from climbing so much so fast. Going into academic research has left her with less time to adventure nowadays, and compared to her teenage years, her stamina is definitely worse for wear. She smiles at him. “Don’t you know Light?”
A grumble. “Didn’t bring the materials for it.”
“Awful foresight there, dear,” she teases. Oisin rolls his eyes, but leans in anyways as Adaine takes a moment to peck a kiss against the ridges of his cheek. “Just give me a moment.”
As she surveys the treasure around them, she can hear Oisin ask, “Can’t you just Dimension Door us out?”
“You got yourself in this mess,” Adaine points out, with a snort. Grabbing a small, golden staff from a nearby pile of treasure, Adaine reaches into her components pouch and pulls out a firefly, crushing it between her fingers as she murmurs the words for Light. As the staff lights up with a bright glow, Adaine turns around, holding it out to Oisin. “As far as I’m concerned, you can take the effort to go clamber out.”
“You’re horrible,” Oisin mutters, taking the lit staff.
Adaine only smiles. “You love me.”
“I do,” he sighs, “which is why I’m letting you do this.”
As the two of them get up, Adaine takes a moment to survey her boyfriend. He looks a little exhausted, his clothes a bit crumpled, but beyond that, he seems fine. Something nips at her mind, though, and before long, she asks, “Don’t you know Dimension Door? And— if you were in here casting a spell, why didn’t you bring the materials for Light?”
His scales flush purple. “That’s not important—”
“Oisin!”
“Okay, fine.” With a weary sigh, he slumps against a mound of treasure, “I forgot to prepare Dimension Door and Teleport today— don’t give me that look! And—” Breaking off with a hiss, Oisin looks defeated. “Didn’t bring all my materials. Just the ones I wanted.”
“What were you even trying to do in here?”
“Um.” He averts his gaze. Adaine stares harder. “Air elemental stuff. Because you keep complaining about how stuffy it is in here, and— yeah, it is pretty bad, so I tried doing something, but I guess I just… mucked it up. So all the lanterns went out.”
Adaine softens. It’s hard not to when faced with the knowledge that Oisin’s mistake was for her.
Stepping forward, she presses a kiss against his mouth before pulling back. “We’ll figure that out another time, okay? Together.”
Staring at her, Oisin eventually smiles.
“I’d like that.”