Ilyana ducked her head back behind the bush that seperated her from the patroling guards beyond. The recent months had been hard on the young mage, as one could tell by how filthy her outfit had become and how her once bright blue hair had been drowned out by splotches of brown and green. As the war against the forces of the godess Ashera had finally been brought to a close with her defeat at the Tower of Guidance, the soldiers returned to the fields and a massive reconstruction effort had begun. Since trade caravans were in such high demand as overland transports, a wealthy Baron in Begnion had bought out the caravan that she had relied upon as her primary source of food for a while now; and, being the ruthless cost-cutter that he was, had kicked the freeloading mage out of the wagon train. Now alone, Ilyana had been forcing herself to try and work up the courage to ask random strangers either for a job or a small handout, and since niether of those options provided her with the unprecedented ammount of food she required to ease her hunger pains, the mage had recently taken up stealing her breakfast. And her other breakfast. And her pre-lunch. And her post-lunch...
A sharp pain shot through her midesection, reminding Ilyana that she hadn't eaten anything for atleast five hours. Five hours! That was an ungodly long time for the poor mage, and the reason why she was currently trying to infiltrate this military base she had spotted a few hundred feet from the coastline. Although judging from the dark gray armor the passing soldiers wore, they weren't apart of any army she had seen before. No matter, soldiers required food; and Ilyana needed that food even more than they did.
As soon as the latern light carried by a trio of soldiers passed suffeciently far enough and had once again left her alone in the darkness, the thunder mage made a break for the wooden palistide infront of her. After a few frantic moments of searching, she managed to find a gap in the hastily constructed wall that was wide enough for her to shove her tiny frame through. It took some effort, but Ilyana managed to push her way past the constricting logs before anyone took notice, before creeping over to the nearest building and pushing her back against the wall. She really hadn't gotten a really good picture of what the layout of the base looked like- in fact, she hadn't given this little mission of hers much thought at all; somehow believing that the food would just fall into her lap if she made it this far. No such luck as it turned out, forcing the blue-haired mage to try and figure everything out on the go as she crept past a series of sentries while making her way towards the opposite side of the base.
That's when the smell hit her. Bread. Ilyana shivered slightly with excitement as her nose directed her onwards towards a small, one room building where two escorted men were storing bags of freshly made rolls. Just as she made her approach, one of the men started to speak, causing her to slam herself against the nearest wall in terror.
"You hear something?" One of the unloaders mentioned to the group.
"Nothing," one of the escorting soldiers said with a nod, before slaming the door closed as the last bag was placed inside the storeroom.
"There. That should be enough to last us a week or two. Atleast until the next shipment comes in."
"I'm sure commander Vivian would be pleased to here that." One of the other soldiers said with a nod as the group began to disperse.
Ilyana remained standing stock still until the sound of metal boots clanking against the ground beneath faded off into the distance. Taking a moment to calm herself down, the mage poked her head around the wall to notice that the storeroom was no completely unguarded.
"Oh, what luck!" llyana cheered in her head. Feeling all fear of being caught melt away by her wonderous good fortune, Ilyana practically sprinted over to the storeroom and quickly made her way in.
Ilyana couldn't believe her eyes. There was easily enough bags and boxes of foodstuffs in here to field a force five times as big as the one Ilyana had roughly guessed was stationed here. She was practically overwhelmed by the shear volume of food that she didn't no where to begin. Instinct took over quickly, however, and the young mage found herself reaching into the nearest bag and shoving whatever it was into her mouth without even noticing what had been in her hand. As soon as the balled up dough made contact with her tongue, all abstract thought the mage entertained was immediately quashed by a tidal wave of desire. She needed to have more. More to quell the horrible pain that wracked her midsection. And more to insure that it didn't return for as long as possible.
The first roll was immediately followed by another, and another, until the blue-haired mage had emptied the sizeable bag. Despite this, the pain still persisted, driving her to begin grabbing chunks of salted meat from a nearby barrel and shoving said chunks down her throat. After the first pound or so of meat that the ravenous mage had consumed, it suddenly dawned upon her that salted meat made one rather thirsty. Breaking herself away from her feast, Ilyana loked around the storeroom for any sort of drink. As luck would have it, against the opposite wall was a keg of some sort of liquor; fixed with a convienient spout. Normally, Ilyana wasn't a big fan of alcohol, but she really needed somthing to wet her mouth enough to continue eating, so she walked over to the barrel and formed a cup with one of her hands as she turned the spout with the other. Almost instantly, a small stream of strong smelling liquid began to flow, easily overflowing the boundries formed by the mage's small hands in a matter of moments. Slightly panicing over the mess she was making, Ilyana quickly brought the handful of booze up to her lips as she tried to flip the spout off with her free hand. Her grip slipped, forcing her to try and pool more and more of the liquor in her hands to avoid it spilling everywhere. After two or three more handfuls than she had probably intended to drink, she managed to clumsily shut the valve off.
"... I really hope no one notices..." Ilyana thought nervously to herself as she returned to the plethora of food infront of her. Opting to try to find something other than meat, the thunder mage pulled a small wodden box open to find a selection of candied fruit. After wolfing the sugary morsels down by the handful, and proceeding to do the same with the contents of two or three similar containers, Ilyana noticed that her vision was starting to blur.
"Oh... guess I drank too much..." The blue-haired mage thought through a minor headache that was forming. "I should sit down and rest my eyes for a moment..."
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