"I see you have awakened."

Mirrah almost leapt out of her skin at the sudden voice. She whirled around, the sudden motion on her wobbly legs causing her to lose balance as her shoulder hit the edge of the doorway. Her hand swung out to catch the wall while swiping a few things off of a table that sat against the wall. The sound of things clattering to the floor seemed to heighten her alertness that gradually shifted into full-blown embarrassment for being caught like some sort of thief in another's home. She held that awkward position, clinging to the wall and the table for support as she stared at her captor.

It was a woman, garbed in robes and drapes that hadn't a spot of color on them. She was hunched over a round, wooden table that was covered in an assortment of bowls, jars, parchments and pens, her arms and shoulders moving in a constant motion; pushing forward then swiftly moving back. Her hands were wrapped along some handles attached to a wheel, her face covered by long locks of black hair streaked with a few strands of gray. Even from here Mirrah could see the woman's hands, weathered and bony. The sound of stone grating against stone was prominent in the air, repetitive and following each forward motion the woman made. It was so audible, so regular and on the border of annoying that Mirrah wondered why she hadn't noticed above the gentle blowing of the wind, of birds chirping in the distance.

"Who..." Mirrah let out a cough at her raspy voice, like she had been breathing in dust for the last few hours. One hand went around her throat, and she noticed for the first time how dry her mouth was. And how thirsty she felt.

The woman paused, placing something aside, and Mirrah noticed the stone slate sitting before her where strips of green lay crushed in the groove running down its center. The woman must've been grinding something up, Mirrah realized. The woman took up a pinch of the crushed green stuff and sprinkled it into a stone bowl of water next to her. Her bony hand wrapped around the bowl and lifted it up, holding it out toward Mirrah. The woman shook a lock of hair out of her face and locked eyes with Mirrah.

"Here."

Mirrah didn't say anything, only stared. The woman's lips parted into a wry grin and she put the bowl back down, rising to her feet. She was shorter than Mirrah by a few inches, but seemed to hold so much more presence in that small room. Her face and hands were a pale tan, as if they hadn't seem much sunlight, and stood out against her dark clothing and hair. A few wrinkles framed her eyes, a deep and unsettling amber, but her smile seemed matronly, even benevolent. She moved about, pulling up another chair before sliding back into her own.

"Is hospitality treated with suspicion now? If you want to recover, you should come over here, sit, and drink."

~~~(OOC: I'll leave the rest to you.)~~~

Wilhelm grunted as he slung his closet-suitcase over a ledge and hoisted himself up, sweat dripping off of his chin. He gulped in the air, already thinning from the altitude, and glanced back at Lorena several paces behind him. "How are you doing back there?" he called, his voice seeming to disappear from the vast amount of space that stretched behind him and below him. The woman let out a moan, and Wilhelm took that as a sign to take a few moment's rest. He planted himself on his suitcase, unbuttoning his coat and fanning his neck.

Even though they had found a decent inn with decent beds and could spend a decent number of hours for sleep, Wilhelm felt exhausted, which wasn't normal for the boy. Usually he could endure long hours of hiking armed with his suitcase without problem, but this time, it felt like his suitcase weighed a few pounds more than it used to. It didn't help that most of the hours of rest he spent tossing in his bed fraught with too many worries. And the few hours of sleep he did get were filled with visions of pirates swinging their bloody swords and screaming women and whistling knives. The fact that he was a light sleeper, sensitive to the rays of sun filling every inch of their room, didn't help much either. And now, the sun was already beginning to dip in the west, giving them another hour or two of adequate sunlight to walk by lest they wanted to make camp in the mountains that weren't notorious for peaceful nights.

He gulped down the last of the water in his canteen, taking in his surroundings before pulling out his map. They were lucky enough to find a footpath that led in the general direction of their destination, but not fortunate enough that the rest of the way lay in rocky up-hill slopes and areas that practically forced them onto their hands to climb to the next path. He was hoping that they'd be inside the hermitage now, sipping tea and chatting with the hermit while he could add a second Watcher's Horn to his pocket, but didn't account for his own exhaustion. Or for Lorena.

The woman must have spent her entire life in some sort of flat-planed environment with no trees, no slopes no sort of nature to exert herself on. Wilhelm's pace which he considered sluggish was still far too fast for her and she muttered and complained most of the way between pants and moans. They were practically crawling up the mountains at her pace. She staggered near enough to Wilhelm for words to be audible in her gasping voice, interspersed with pants.

"Are you... Are you positive that you're heading in the right direction?" She crawled the last stretch of distance and pushed herself up onto the ledge, almost sprawling herself on the fairly level ground. Her chest heaved up and down, sucking at the air.

"Yes I am," Wilhelm muttered, irritated. He kept his eyes fixed on the map, counting on his fingers.

"You said yourself that it was some years since you've last been here..." She paused, her hands groping for the canteen laying somewhere in the sparse grass beside her. Exhaustion had even worn at her nerves too. "Are you sure you remember? Are you sure it's supposed to be up this bloody hill... and not further along that footpath?"

"I remember," he snapped. "I marked it out on the map. It should be just past this slope. Did you not pay me to lead you here?"

"How can any woman who writes books and tinkers with potions all day live up here?" Another gasp of breath. "That's all I'm asking."

"Ikarvoi is a hermit. Why would she put her home where someone can just walk to it?"

"I can't... I can't imagine that anyone could be so isolated from society... that no one comes to see them. That they would hide in a mountain where a person has to be a mountain climber... just to be here." She sat up in order to pour water down her throat. "How did she become so famous without connections?"

Wilhelm rose to his feet, taking in a deep breath. "There's a reason that she doesn't want to be found. And just because she lives in a place where you can't get to easily doesn't mean that she doesn't have connections." He pocketed the map, his fingers brushing across the solid horn in his pocket. He took a breath, attempting to collect what was left of his composure. "C'mon, we're almost there."

"Almost where?" Lorena retorted. Her yellow eyes glared at the mountains that stretched upward, taunting. "There's gotta be miles more of uncultured rock up there. You'd think we'd see it if we were that close. Are you sure you didn't lead us up the wrong side of the mountain?"

"You're not supposed to be able to see it. If anyone could just see it, it wouldn't be much of a hermitage."

"So what? Are you telling me it's invisible?"

Wilhelm sighed, offering the woman a hand. "Look, just trust me on this one. If you'll come with me, I'll show you."

Lorena stared at Wilhelm for a second longer before letting out a sigh and taking his hand, pulling herself up. She took a second to stretch her aching muscles, watching as Wilhelm shouldered his suitcase again. They both started up the slope, grateful that at least it was level enough to walk on instead of climb. "So tell me. How did you come to meet her if she's so hard to find?"

Wilhelm let out a short laugh. She was extremely hard to find. It took him a year or more just find track down someone who knew, and too much money to bribe that information out of him. And then when he found her, she coerced him with threats into upholding an oath to secrecy. Threats that he knew she could hold. Not that he could share any of this. "It's a long story."

"Oh, it's not as if I'm feigning interest here."

Wilhelm glanced back at the woman. "And you. Tell me how you found these horns."

There was a short pause, masked by Lorena's panting. She grinned at Wilhelm, a faint laugh falling from her lips. "I told you already, haven't I?"

"Yes, well, you never told me how you knew they were their horns." Lorena laughed again, nervously, Wilhelm thought, and he decided to push the subject more. "Not many people know about the Watchers, let alone what one looks like." And even fewer people knew the value of the horns. A few rare item collectors like Wilhelm would've probably found them valuable as a piece of lost civilization, but to others, it would've been little more than a paperweight.

"It's a long story." A sly smile crept across her face as Wilhelm threw an annoyed glance back at her. "If you want, you can just tell me the rest of the way and I'll hand the other horn over right now and we can consider our business over. You can go off doing your little tests on the horns or whatever you people do. You'll find that they aren't like any other horns on Gaea."

Wilhelm turned his attention back on the road ahead and continued trudging forward. "That's quite alright. We've already made a contract, it's best if we uphold it without revealing all our secrets, yes?" He heard, much to his annoyance, Lorena's triumphant chuckle behind him.

The hill flattened into a level plane, room enough for six or seven people to stand comfortably, but from there, rocks stretched upward in a jagged slope that ended in a sheer cliff face that swamped the little clearing in its shadow. He let out a sigh of relief. "Alright, this is the gate."

Lorena came up beside him, frowning. "It's a dead end."

"Stay there." Wilhelm stepped forward two where two enormous boulders sat. As he neared it, he felt his eyes turning to the side, his feet wanting to turn around. His mind was suddenly interested in the other boulders along the cliff face or the scenery behind him, a sensation that would've made any unsuspecting person to head off in a different direction. But he ignored the sensation, saying instead, "Yeah, this is the entry way."

Lorena waved her arms in an exasperated gesture. "There's nothing there. You must've taken us the wrong way."

"No, this is it." He put his suitcase down on the ground next to him, flexing his shoulders. "It's a ward she's fashioned. It directions attention away from the pathway, strong enough to make any mountain hiker find something else of interest." He reached out a hand, placing it on the boulder and feeling nausea beginning to take root in his stomach. "It's a sort of hex. Those who are lucky enough to stumble past the wards are overcome with feelings of aversion to the place the closer they approach her home. Some have spread stories that this area is haunted by ghosts."

He looked back at Lorena. "Now, I would have you stay a few feet behind me while I undo the ward."

The woman cracked a smile. "Your secret, I presume?"

"Her secret. Information that we haven't bargained on, so if you'll please..." He waved his hand, gesturing her to step further back. Lorena raised her hands and moved away, out of ear shot, leaving Wilhelm to concentrate. He bit his lip, reaching back into his memory for the incantation as he drew the rune for the ward on the boulder with his fingertip, muttering under his breath before moving over to the second boulder and repeating the same thing.

There was a low hum in the air, almost inaudible if it hadn't made the very air vibrate with the sound. The shadows of the cliff seemed to shimmer and move with the sound, but both were so near undetectable that it seemed like nothing at all had happened after it had passed.

"...Was that it?"

Wilhelm glanced back at Lorena with a grin and stepped to the side, gesturing toward the narrow space between the two boulders. "Yes it was. This way."

Lorena frowned at the space as she stepped forward. "Really? A little anticlimactic for a hermit so obsessed with protecting her space, isn't it?"

Wilhelm shrugged as he picked up his suitcase and began to squeeze through the space. "The ward alerts her of visitors as well. She'd let us know if we weren't welcome here," he replied, his eyes fixed on the shadows.