A low hum rose steadily, echoing through the alleyways as its source sauntered down an open lane. She had been pointedly avoiding the narrower, darker, and more suspicious corners and alleys for a while now, but was beginning to suspect that she might have...misplaced herself.
"Lost," she mumbled aloud, correcting herself. She glanced from corner to corner and from every opening readily available to her, counting in her head and holding one hand out to remind her of her left side, as if she were afraid all possible knowledge of navigation could flee from her at any second. She continued to hum the lullaby tune, a bit louder now to block out any negative droning that might lead her thoughts down a path that would only make her paranoid.
A heavy leather satchel was slung over her back, jingling slightly as the vast number of tiny, oddly colored glass bottles and tubes inside shuffled against one another. Inside the bag was also her uncle's list, which he had given to her rolled up and sealed to be delivered to a familiar friend of his who dealt in the arts himself.
'Be careful, will you, Isy,' her uncle's words echoed in her mind, as if off the walls. Her humming grew a little louder as the young woman approached a rather seedy looking series of alleyway openings connected to the street - to her left, she reminded herself. Her uncle's warnings, when he remembered to give them, were usually moot, considering that they were usually following a request like this one. After all, he was the one sending her out for so-called 'emergency' errands during mildly obscene hours of the night while he feverishly worked on his new cast and studied himself to death in the rat's nest of a workroom that was tucked away in the back of their home. Isolde was evidently not as sure of the way back to said new home than she had previously thought, especially when the directions to the dealer's home had been lost in a disastrous puddle incident. Her clothes were still slightly damp.
The short stave strapped securely to the bag seemed to grow heavier as she paused and twisted a bit to open up the bag, then rifling through it curiously before taking out one of the little bottles. She twirled it in between her fingers as she resumed her trek. She mentally mapped out her next course, though it was unfortunate that she couldn't judge the direction of any main streets due to the severe silence of the night. It was a particular brand of silence that churned the mage's stomach, so one navigationally-challenged Isolde Caden was diverting her own attention so that she wouldn't have to dwell on her admitted 'misplacement' and focus on taking action and keeping movement instead.
Isolde held the bottle up on its side, its stained glass form casting a thin, crimson shadow over the young woman's dark blue eyes. It was one of the larger bottles, tube-like but fairly tall and thick, filled with a dark red liquid which Isolde couldn't identify by her knowledge of magical elements and ingredients' properties.
As she admired the peculiar contents, Isolde rounded a corner and, shortly after, tripped over a lumpy mass of something-or-other, then gracelessly falling forward and ramming into the back of some one. The bottle slipped from her hand and shattered on the ground, the dark liquid spattering about and making blood-like flecks on her clothing. Isolde cursed under her breath and scrambled to her feet, re-situating the luckily unharmed bag across her shoulder. She took a look over her shoulder at what she had tripped over, but was unable to make out the shadowed mass because her eyes were not completely adjusted to the profound darkness of this particular alleyway, created by the thin void between two buildings which seemed to shrug toward one another, blocking the trickle of moonlight which might otherwise have illuminated her path.
Isolde brushed the thought off quickly and turned toward the stranger she had crashed so tactlessly into. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. Oh..." She squinted and allowed her sight to adjust, then catching sight of the blood on the other's clothing. Fortunately, her uncle hadn't been foolish enough to entrust any reactionary destructive items to her. If he had, it would have been apparent by now.
"It looks like some of the elixir got on you, too. Lucky it wasn't reactive," she laughed briefly with little mirth, reaching back to take her staff in hand. Isolde waved her hand over the large crystal at the staff's head which was held in place by what appeared to be a few roots coiling around it as well as the length of the staff. The crystal glowed dimly in response, illuminating her face as well as the stranger's.
"I think I can help you with it if I can find my way ba- gods, it's all over your face, too. You may have to come with me just in case it has some effect - I'm not sure of its magical properties. Oh, sorry, I'm Isolde," she apologized for about the third time, extending her hand before pausing and retracting it, laughing airily once more as she noticed that even more of what she assumed to be the tonic had gotten on the stranger's hands.
