A Yet To Be Named Fantasy Novel (draft)

A Meeting of Maidens

Pheliara woke up, coughing up a fountain of water. Towering over her was a an enormous, broad shouldered, woman with a noticeably very long neck, easily the tallest woman she'd ever seen in her life, looking down at her with a concerned, oddly, in-human, lizard-like face, with unflinching eyes, with narrow black pupils; the colour orange covered the entire... well, eyes.

At the notice of those eyes, Pheliara panicked, and struggled to get up from the ground as fast as she could, the last thing in her racing mind she could remember was... was... oh right, drowning. she looked down at her wrists to only to freak out at the sight of the tendrils still grasping her, only after her moment of shock did she notice that they now were severed from... whatever they were attached to before. Pheliara tried to run, but the woman calmly, but firmly grasped 

Pheliara's shoulder with a large, warm, gloved hand and instructed Pheliara to, "Just breath, you're in shock." in a deep, but relaxed northern accent.

Pheliara looked back to the woman whom had been watching her, and now holding her, She had long red hair and wore a brown fur cloak over a set of armor, strapped with what seemed to be a quantity of scabbards enough for a small army.

Kadlin asked the now awakened peasant, "You must be Pheliara, the tavern girl, correct?"

"Yes, that's me, although I'd prefer musician to tavern girl." Pheliara responded, clearly still calming from the shock of nearly drowning.

"Wonderful, it would have been a shame if you had been eaten by that beast back there."

"And who might you be?"

"My name is Kadlin Valkarndottir, of the hous..." She cut herself off, nearly forgetting not to introduce herself as nobility to the peasantry! She started over "Kadlin, Kadlin of the northern mountains. Your family sent me to to find you, it was fortunate for all of us that I found you alive, eh?" "Now I just need to find that... err, orb creature thing!"

"My parents sent you? Is my mother okay?" Pheliara frantically asked.

"She's just fine, your father was fixing up her scars, as I dropped by the establishment." 

"Did anything happen to him?"

"He's also fine, though he was quite tired."

"That sounds just like him, always overworking himself." Pheliara ranted "You know, I worry about him sometimes, some day he's gonna really slip up, I just know it!"

"He seems a good fellow, a bit rude, but kind deep down, yeah?" Kadlin concluded.

"Yeah, that's him." agreed Pheliara.

Kadlin suddenly recalled the beast she had found earlier, Perhaps that was where the orb had gone. She turned to resume her approach towards it;  but something felt off, the scent was weaker than before, the snoring sound had stopped, but the heat remained.

Kadlin Pushed aside the surrounding bushed, only to see, that whatever was once there had vanished, but something was once there. She percieved a small clearing between the trees, lacking in plant life, at least living plant life, what was there was all dried up and dead, even the trees seemed unnaturally dry; large footprints covered the ground near another small pond and some sort of man-made metal structure, attached was a thick, broken metal chain... whatever was once chained to it, must have been dangerous, considering the aforementioned footprints and metal chain.

Pheliara cluelessly walked up to observe the chain, nearly stepping on something.

"Watch out!"

Pheliara stepped around it. Instinctually, Kadlin checked what Pheliara had almost stepped in, a liquid, supernatural, above it was the chain, it wasn't snapped as Kadlin had assumed, it was melted at the end, the substance was dripping down the metal chain, the point of first contact was still visible, a rune in a language Kadlin could not decipher, undoubtedly cast relatively recently considering it's intensity. This was absolutely a human spell, but cast by whom? This magic would be illegal for anyone living in this part of the country. Pheliara mentioned that it must have been the orb, since the only other person in the forest at that hour would be willow, and they, at least to Pheliara's knowledge, couldn't have done, well, that.