A very damp, very muddy goblin crept along the forest undergrowth toward the farm, moving quietly from tree to tree and clutching a dagger in her right hand. Every few moments she paused, her oversized ears listening for sounds, small eyes squinting toward the open field ahead.
Rivka paused again at the edge of the treeline. Not noticing anyone around, she hurried toward the barn. A rat picked that unfortunate moment to scramble out of the building. The goblin pounced, thrusting her dagger and skewering the rat in the haunches. It squeaked, squirming desperatly on the blade as Rivka picked it up, grinning triumphantly at her prize.
About to put the squirming rat out of it's misery, Rivka seemed to forget it momentarily as the figure (oog: human?) stepped out of the portal. Her eyes widened and she took a nervous step backwards, so that her back was against the wall of the barn, defensively.
"Rivka don't know!" she said anxiously, eyeing the sword in the man's hand, then looking left and right as she searched for the best escape route. "Rivka just hunting rats! " she explained quickly, as if caught somewhere that she wasn't supposed to be.
Then, as she suddenly remembered the rat slowly bleeding to death on the end of her short blade, she held it out tentatively to Thalenir as a peace offering.
Thalenir smiles politely and holds up a hand to the rat. "No, but... thank you." He sheaths his sword and scratches his white, empyrean hair. Finally he looks up at the barn. "Well, I doubt I'm off the shard, at least, and by the look of things, this is a farm, so I'd say it's a reasonable assumption."
He kneels in the dirt for a moment and begins drawing strange sigils with his finger, muttering in arcane terminology that might as well be a foreign language to Rivka. Meanwhile, the portal behind him remains open, glowing with an eerie light along its edges. Beyond its boundary, Rivka can see what appears to be Thalenir's private study.
The goblin relaxed considerably as Thalenir put away his blade. And as he was muttering to the dirt, Rivka looked with curiosity into the portal beyond, then to the figure before her. He looked somewhat familiar, she thought. Perhaps she had seen him around Jastrey, but she couldn't quite place her finger on where.
"Can spirit window take you anywhere?" she asked when the muttering seemed to pause.
Thalenir scribbles idly in the dirt, muttering to himself as he scratches out and corrects symbols. At last, he looks up at Rivka. "It seems there's no way to do it without a proper resonance." He chuckles and shakes his head. "There's no telling where I might end up."
He stands and shrugs. "I should've known better. This magic has existed for ages, after all. Live and learn. It's not a waste of time if you learn something, right?"
He seems about to step back through the portal into his study when Thalenir stops and regards Rivka curiously. "A goblin? On Jeb and Abigail's farm? And here I thought we drove off the last of you. What was your name?"
The goblin's ears drooped a little as the empyrean finally gave her his full attention, worried again that something unpleasant was bound to begin. "Rivka," she replied. Then hesitantly, she follows up with "Sheriff says Rivka allowed to stay as long as Rivka promise to follow all laws."
"Nice to meet you, Rivka. My name is Thalenir Lestral." He considers for a moment, raising an eyebrow in an expression of incredulity. "The Sheriff, you say? I wish I could say that were more encouraging, but the law remains as it ever was: Corrupt and ineffective."
He waves his hand nonchalantly. "Worry not; you have nothing to fear from me. I've killed my fair share of your kind, but a good friend of mine would be troubled to see more goblin blood staining these fields. Just mind your behavior around town and you shan't hear any protest from me."
With that, Thalenir turns to leave, striding back through his portal. As it closes behind him, his voice trails back out. "Oh, and take care that you don't attract more of your kind here. We wouldn't want anything like last year to happen again..."
Rivka worried over his last statement for a short while after Thalenir left. Of course, she had already sent word to many of her siblings, cousins, and friends about how nice everyone was to her in Jastrey and had told them all that they should come. Whatever Thalenir was referring to must have had to do with a different goblin tribe.
The thought was pushed from her mind by a rumble in her stomach and she looked at her rat that had ceased squirming and was hanging limply from the dagger. She licked her tongue over her pointed teeth in anticipation. And before long the goblin had the rat roasting over a small campfire in the woods not far from the farm...
A pinpoint of blue light appears a few feet away from Rivka, hovering in midair. The tip of a sword seems to protrude out of it momentarily, and a voice can be heard echoing in the air around her. "The way is open," comes a voice, muffled and indistinct, just before the pinpoint widens into a magical portal.
Thalenir steps out into the field, not seeming to notice Rivka or the rat skewered on her dagger. He looks around. "Odd," he says to nobody in particular. "That should've taken me to the mine. Blast it all..." He rubs his chin and considers possible mistakes in his formula.
His head turns toward Rivka as he finally notices her presence. "Hello there," he says cautiously. "I don't believe we've met. This is the Baumgarten farm, isn't it?"