Chapter 625: Real Places, Lost & Found
Following Hauke’s success at the iron puzzle, Ashlynn’s coven moved on from one stall to the next, competing in everything from ring tosses to knife throwing and puzzles that challenged their ability to find matches among rows of face down cards.
There were dozens of games and hundreds of people clustered around cheering for successes and crying out in frustration at failures, but Ashlynn’s group seemed to consistently fair better than most. Though their talents differed, everyone played the games together, quickly accumulating enough prizes and treasures that Heila had to fetch a sack to carry it all, though Hauke insisted on being the one to do the heavy lifting as the bag began to bulge with their winnings.
"Thank you, everyone," Heila said, bowing deeply in gratitude to the other members of the coven. "I can’t wait to see Ignatious’s face when we surprise him with all of this. Do you think, do you think we could invite him up to the tower in a few days to surprise him?" Heila asked, turning to Ashlynn for permission to invite an outsider into their private tower.
"I think it’s fine to invite him in," Ashlynn giggled. "We’ll have to cook something special that night to help you sweep him off his feet."
"But, he’s the one sweeping me off mine," Heila said, blushing furiously. "And I’m too little to carry him," she said, looking dejected before her face broke into a wide grin at the expressions of the other witches.
"Joker," Virve said, giving Heila a playful shove. "I didn’t know you had it in you to be so coy."
"She’s using us to practice for Ignatious," Ashlynn teased. "But truly, I’m happy to see everyone having so much fun while doing something to help a friend. But we only have a few hours of daylight left," she said, noting the gathering gloom and the thickening mists rising up from the forest around the ancient fortress. "So, I think it’s time to head for the inner wall."
When Nyrielle rebuilt the defenses of the ancient fortress after the Vale of Mists fell to Cellach Lothian, she’d opted to build human-style defensive walls instead of the simpler walls that had been intended mostly to keep wandering beasts from entering the city and grazing on the resident’s gardens.
Each wall in the Vale of Mists stood at least thirty feet high and they were wide enough for soldiers to fight atop with small defensive towers spaced every hundred paces along the wall. During the festival, however, the tops of the walls became home to two distinct markets, each one bustling with people moving from shop to shop exploring wares that were both locally produced and carried from across the mountains.