The Lower City Mage Market

Nkiru's Shack

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Though Nkiru's shack may look ordinary from the outside, this could not be farthest away from the truth when one enters it. From the outside, it looks like a one room home built from adobe and wood, the same as any other Majai dwelling in the lower city. Once inside, however, one notices the building serves only as an entrance. In the one room, Nkiru has placed several magical wards, curses and symbols which would be too hard to count or counter to the uninitiated and uninvited and in the middle there is a single stone staircase leading down. Somehow, the young Kkala has managed to carve herself an entire underground temple to Ighina, spirit of change and destruction. The temple itself was a long rectangular room with stone rough stone columns every 6 feet or so, both the columns and the walls looked very rough, as if they had been carved but never polished. There were several totems and fetishes on the walls, symbols similar to Nkiru's tattoos, complete with an altar on the front. Opposite to the altar, Nkiru had set up a set of spartan living quarters.

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Nkiru walked into the shack from the WoW - Alchemist's Row and briskly walked downstairs, once there, she turned around and crossed her arms as she waited for the two men to follow inside.


Brant's breath left him as he entered and gazed at the charms and wards that adorned the entry room. They seemed to threaten that if he took a step wrong he'd know it. His feet carried him downstairs to the underground temple and he stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Nkiru, standing as she was in these surroundings, had the appearance of an angry goddess. He bowed his head low in respect, the movement near involuntary.

The air in the entrance room felt thick and heavy to Paki as he passed the wards and symbols--some he recognized, but most were beyond his class. He had to resist the urge to pause and inspect the unfamiliar markings and continue following Brant and Nkiru down the stairs. When they reached the underground temple, though, his childlike curiosity was tempered with an intense feeling of awe and deference. "Ighina..." he confirmed to himself under his breath. It made so much sense in hindsight, that a woman of impartial turmoil like a typhoon would serve the spirit.

"Indeed" replied Nkiru with a small smile as Paki identified the spirit she worshipped. The woman's tattoos seemed to almost glow in the red light that flooded the room, the heat had made her sweat a bit and one could tell how toned her body was, glistening under the effect of the dancing lights. Looking at her, Paki felt a somewhat unsettling idea pop into his head. "What do you know of Magic, Brandt? What kind of power does Ighina confer to her followers?" she asked as she crossed her arms and lifted her chin up, as if challenging the young man.

"I...," Brant began before lowering his head. "I confess to not knowing Ighina. I was introduced to magic through Nosu." He raised his head again and looked into Nkiru's eyes. "But my instincts tell me that she would gift her subjects with strength and power. I feel it around you."

It seemed impossible to Paki that a person could perform magic without a focus, but the intensity of the atmosphere and Nkiru herself made him break out into a cold sweat. And the glow in those tattoos...could ink be a focus? He almost opened his mouth to advise Brant to be careful, but the thought of offending the sorceress sealed his lips.

"Strength, of sorts, and power, of sorts." replied simply Nkiru as she turned around, heading to her small altar and grabbing several things. One of the candles she kept lit, a small clay plate and a long bone needle. "Ighina is sometimes linked with fire, but she's not a fire spirit." she said simply as she walked towards Paki and Brant. "Sit." she commanded, it was as if the room itself amplified her words. The stiffing, moist heat, the dancing lights caused by a hundred flames, the shimmering tattoos and the sweat making Nkiru's body shine and glisten, it all collaborated to make it seem the spirit spoke through the Kkala woman. "Ighina is transmutation and transformation. She is destruction which leads to new life. Ighina is change, the only constant." she reached out to Brant, holding her hand out for Brant to put his arm forward. "Ighina is fire in the sense she becomes the blaze in which her followers are reforged." as she said that, she placed the sharpened bone needle on the flame, until it began to heat up and glow red. "Tell me, Brant McFain.." she began to say, almost in a whisper, "... who is Nosu?", she then turned and echoed her question; "Tell me, Paki Egwu... who is Tara?" she asked, her brown eyes looked red and her tattoos blazed and glowed like the heated bone did. Everything felt intimate and secret, but it also felt like a test.

Brant followed Nkiru's instructions, first by sitting on the dirt floor and then by holding his arm out to her. The burning needle intimidated him, and he expected it to be used on him, but he would endure. What had been his father's old saying? Pain leads to gain? Nevertheless, he had already learnt something. Now he had to answer a question, one that made him look deep within. "For me, Nosu is the companion to those who walk in the light and the dark. In the light, she shadows us, watches over us. In the dark, she envelopes us in her embrace. She is the mother watching over her children. She leads us to explore, whether we see or not." He hoped his response was good enough.

Paki sat almost reflexively once Nkiru gave the order. Everything about the room and the woman within it was simply too overwhelming to defy. And then he began to recite what his mother always taught him: "Tara is earth. The ground beneath our feet. The trees from which we...well, we used to eat from trees... But the stone and tile and clay and metals and all other things that we use to make walls and tools. That is all given from Tara. She is mountains and caverns, shelters and roads. And all shall return to Tara, in one way or another."


"Nosu is a cloak, and Tara is a shield, that is who these spirits are." replied Nkiru with her eyes closed, her expression as impassive as ever, as if a storm was barely contained within her. "Keep in mind that, their true nature will define the gifts or punishments they will give you, regardless of what you ask of them." Nkiru dipped the hot needle onto the ink and, bringing it to Brant's arm, she pierced his skin. Brant felt the needle burn into his skin, leaving behind a black, bleedy spot of ink. Then came another prick, and another, and soon Nkiru's hand moved at high speed, deftly lacing Brant's forearm with ink, writing something in Kkala. "You know what this is, Brant McFain?" she said.


This wasn't Brant's first tattoo, but it still hurt like hell. He gritted his teeth as he tried to give a sensible answer. "It's a tattoo, but I don't know what it's for. I would guess it has more meaning than my others." His eyes went to Nkiru's own sweat-sheened skin and her tattoos. "I would wager that all of yours are seeped in power."

Paki bowed his head slightly as Nkiru spoke. Were shields really all Tara has given him? He looked up when she asked Brant a question and his eyes widened at the needle piercing the other man's skin. "The ink..." Recalling his earlier thoughts, he voiced them before the sense of danger could clamp his mouth shut: "Is the ink your focus?"

"They are not tattoos, Brant McFain, they are spells. These here are words of power in drawn shape, it is a gift and a curse for my first student. You will learn this word, but are also now under a spell. Disobey my commands and you will be reminded of Ighina's power to destroy and rebuild." said the woman before she was suddenly interrupted by Paki. "... Good, Paki Egwu... but not just ink. She said, a focus cannot be something so simple, it needs to be precious to the mage in one way or the other. Its significance is tied directly to its power... the ink I make is made of two precious ingredients, which I will not share with you yet." then, the woman stood, Brant's tattoo finished, a black crescent shape, interrupted in the middle by a perpendicular cut, sideways on his arm. "What does it say, Brant McFain?" she asked.

"Sylin," Brant responded almost immediately. How did he know that? Somehow the spell conferred some level of understanding with it. He shivered slightly, despite the heat. Nkiru's words frightened him slightly - though he wouldn't have gone back on his word, he was now bound to the kkala through magic. "Are all of your markings spells?" he asked his new mistress.

Paki mouthed the word "ingredients" silently as his brow crinkled in thought. Only two ingredients, yet that ink is so powerful as to bind master to student and be a focus to great destructive and creative power. Surely, at least one of them has to be a material he has heard of. He began mentally listing all the powerful herbs and minerals his mother had introduced to him over the years, hoping one or two would seem appropriate (Memory).

"Most are, others are words of power, like yours." replied the woman as she stood up and walked to the altar, the intensity she had before slowly waned, as if making Brant's tattoo had drained her somehow. The flames flickered for a minute, as Nkiru turned around and crossed her arms. Brant could recognize the word he had just learned tattooed on the back of Nkiru's hand as well. "All words of power are both a blessing and a curse." said the woman. "I will need to rest. You can come tomorrow and I will have something for you to do then." continued the mage. "In the meantime, you are indebted to this Paki Egwu. Kkala are traders, one thing is given for another, you can repay your debt so you may come here tomorrow, unstrung and unburdened."

Brant was surprised at the dismissal, but he still had the sense to show his teacher respect. He bowed low to her before standing and doing so again. "As you wish. I will return unfettered by debt. May the Gods watch over you, my mistress," he intoned in a low voice. As he raised himself up from his bow, he smiled at Paki. "A debt must now be paid, friend. Let us depart and clear it."

A debt? Oh...Paki had not thought of what he might get in return--not since Brant associated himself with the powerful and intimidating Nkiru, at least. But now that he thought about it, the power that Brant will achieve is--indirectly at least--due to Paki's guidance through Malak's hand. Now the only question is, what could he ask for that might be accomplished in one night? "Ah, yes..." Distracted with his thoughts, Paki mumbled a response and started to head back upstairs.

"Until tomorrow, mistress," Brant said quietly before following Paki. His robes felt sodden with sweat as he trod the steps upstairs. "Well, master Egwu, what do you have in mind? Any business you wanted to take care of I'd be more than happy to help with." Including giving you a bath, he thought as he eyed the sheen of sweat on Paki.

"Ah...I have a few things to accomplish...but none that I can guarantee can be completed in time for your return." Paki's face contorted in thought, going through a mental checklist of what needed to be done. Perhaps... "Would you know anyone from the Royal School?"

Brant considered the question for a moment, thinking about whether he'd ever met someone with such a connection (Memory) as he led the way out to WoW - Alchemist's Row.

Paki quite easily followed Brant out to WoW - Alchemist's Row like a child eagerly awaiting their companion to tell them a story.










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