Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[Hopeflower]

'Most of the kids aren't old enough to be rebellious yet.' Given time, that would change. It was something to look forward to and dread in equal measure. That independence led to disobedience just as often as it surfaced in the kind of jobs the kids would start to take an interest in. 'Maybe Rowan,' Arsenic suggested after giving it some thought. 'I know for a fact she drags her students into trouble with the excuse of teaching them to be prepared for anything.' Other names nudged at him, people who were troublemakers years ago. He dismissed most of them, having seen them mature over time.

[C S]

"Would explain Lily," Rutgers realized. It was a slip he caught after it was too late, and, he reminded himself, even if he kept it as a thought, Arsenic would have gotten wind of it. He made a mental note, looking right at the elf while doing so, to work on barring off his mind. Another necessary adaption to his lifestyle.

[The Kingpin]

"Perhaps. But everything in due time, my dear," said the Scholar with a smirk.

It was just about then that Ceridwen closed the gap, craning her neck as she looked at the two, head cocked curiously. "What were you doing?" she chirped, blinking in bewilderment.

[C S]

After patting Septimus' shoulders and tapping one of his cheeks affectionately, Syria leaned over to one side to look at Ceridwen. "That was a dance," she replied with a warm smile. "I am not sure how it compares to a Hueilin dance," Syria thought back to a very colorful species of jungle bird and their lovely rituals of song and movement, noting Ceridwen's likeness to theirs, "they happen a few times in a few of my books, though."

[Hopeflower]

Happy to help teach you, Arsenic offered offhandedly. He toyed with the idea of charging people for the lessons, since it seemed his skills were in demand lately, but dismissed it. It wasn't likely that all that many people had the time or patience to learn, especially in winter. 'Lily will find her way of dealing with everything.' He stepped around a half-buried branch with care. 'This might actually teach her caution. She's been a little too sure of her skills since she passed initiation.'

[C S]

Rutgers grunted. Being as set in his ways as he was, he all but paid no mind to the promise of aid, ironically enough. At the forefront of his concern for the time being was the young assassin. "As long as she never sees one for herself, I will rest easy." As easily as he could. Arsenic could feel the tenseness radiating off of the axeman at the notion of someone, anyone, needing to pass such a trial blind as he had once done.

[Hopeflower]

The mute assassin didn't point out that that was something no one could guarantee. Instead, he commented quietly, 'She made the decision to fight monsters when she joined our guild.' Rutgers could make of that what he would.

[C S]

"Monsters familiar that wear the bodies of men and walk in the daytime. Leave what they are prone to become to the ones who can walk that dark path without straying," Rutgers responded with the maxim of his dedication. As such, it was clean and almost rehearsed in its eloquence. It was bound to be, serving as the man's only line between himself and the beasts to be slain by his axes.

[The Kingpin]

"I see...Was it a kind of courting display?" asked the dragoness, cocking her head.

"Not quite," responded Septimus with a smile. "I'm sure Syria will be able to show you with her books...Perhaps another time, however. Shall we see ourselves out of this place before we disturb the peace too much?" he asked, his focus shifting from the Maelgwyn dragoness to the Thunderbird's Chosen.

[C S]

Syria held up her hand in protest and turned a cheek towards the heart of the village. After a short moment of directing her senses, she made a ruminating sound. "Huh," she mused, "I guess Andruil is out." Another moment of appraisal. "And Vixen as well." Syria crossed her arms and looked back at Septimus. "Is it something in our habits that makes it so difficult to run into old friends?" she quipped.

[The Kingpin]

"It is the curse of the wandering scholar to be forever separated from your friends. Even when fate ordains your return to a place, it does not necessarily mean returning to those you know. The world moves on," said Septimus reflectively. It was almost literally the story of his life. "On the bright side, you don't have to be apart from them as long when you can travel as fast as a dragon," he added with a smug smirk. It was true. The travelling they had done in the past three months would have taken years were they to do it on foot.

[C S]

"Or when you have one of those," the mage pointed out with a nod to the medallion around Septimus' neck. "Oh well. They probably wouldn't appreciate us popping up in their heads like we do with Gregori." As if Gregori ever looked forward to their long-distance conversations. "For now," Syria thought with the same smugness as her dragon companion. "Anywho, we've got some backtracking to do and some ice caves to see, isn't that right, Ceridwen?"

[The Kingpin]

Almost as if Syria had cast a spell, the dragoness perked up. The short, dense plumage on her head puffed up and her eyes were alight with excitement. "Yes! Come on, let's go!" she chirped, hopping excitedly before springing into the air, beating her wings a few times to gain altitude.

[C S]

With childlike wonder, Syria gazed up at Ceridwen's diminishing figure. There was a split-second decision made to channel the sight to Beshayir's mind, a psychic equivalent to the all too human reaction of pulling someone close and pointing to the object of fascination. She had pulled Septimus close to her, if only for a brace against the sudden downforce created by the dragoness' wings. Letting the Scholar go, Syria commented simply, "She's fast."

[The Kingpin]

"Very. And more agile than I am. If it came to it, she could fly circles around me in anything but a straight line," he responded as the dragoness shot up vertically. Without magic, probably that too, he thought to himself. Khulruud were not usually fast fliers. They soared. If he was the eagle, she was the falcon. "Now, shall we join her?" he asked with a smile.

[C S]

"If I've learned anything from my years in basic schooling, it's that circles aren't straight," Syria replied, apparently fixating on that sentence in particular in a slip of her ditzy personality. She stopped pursing her lips and looked down to Septimus. "Uh... ready when you are, as they say... somewhere."

[The Kingpin]

The Scholar's expression drooped into what could only be described as disappointment. Looking at her for a moment, he snapped his fingers, a wave of flowers erupting across the mage's clothing in a vast range of colours. A moment later, she was airborne, pulled into the satchel as he took on his draconic form, leaping clear of the village before beating his wings powerfully, shooting up into the sky as snow was blown out in all directions, revealing the soil underneath in a large circle just outside Gregori's house. The old man would later curse the drake for having snowed him in.

[C S]

The flight back to the mountains near Mercutio spanned another few hours, bringing the day to the late afternoon at the time of their arrival before the mouth of the cave. It was more of a chasm near the foot of a tall peak than any ordinary cave entrance. Part of the mountain had broken away in another age due to the very ice it now coveted all year. That massive weight dug up the landscape that healed in the stretches of time since, leaving a basin below the break that would have been covered in grass had there not been so much snowfall in recent days. Remnants of that mountain-shard dotted the landscape as boulders that seemed almost out of place. The rock face around the cavernous breach was sheared, bearing the crinkled texture across the darkly colored surface save for the void that led deeper into the stone.

In the cave, runoff from the mountain's heights was solidified into beautiful abstract sculptures, following the pattern dictated by nature. The pattern birthed columns of ice with branches that clung to the ceiling and walls, wrapping around every contour of rock and extending onwards into the cold depths. Icicles hung from the branches above like frozen thorns. As the sun began to set, its rays filtered into the jagged opening, and the ice saw to it that the cave was alight with colors far beyond blues and white. Even the snowbeds inside the cave sparkled with prismatic light.



Quite a bit farther south, the knight, gryphon and armored being walked along a long stone path that cut across land thinning of vegetation. The big trees were left some distance behind them and now, the largest plants they could see were clusters of bushes and shrubs that gradually lost their green pigmentation in favor of a color that resembled straw. The path was made of smooth-cut blocks set edge to edge on a tangent heading towards sandy ground. They were cut from a quarry far away from this place, that much was certain. This region was flatland, and offered little, if any, opportunities for gathering such resources. The blocks formed a road wide enough for supplies to be carted to the settlement that dominated the horizon ahead of them. Farther in the distance, a tan haze wafted.

Large triangular sails were full in the breeze sweeping over the area. They drew the eye to the the minaret at the center of the establishment, easily the tallest structure in the whole hub. Several lines of rope extended from it at various places, leading to many anchor points arranged in the circular hub. Though they could not see them just yet, there were nine piers on the other side of the port, each one servicing vessels that went into the desert regularly. One of them was theirs.

[The Kingpin]

The Scholar stood at the centre of this icy cavern in awe. The light reflected off the floor, the ceiling and the walls, and hues of blue and pink and orange intermingled as light refracted off large icicles extending from the top of the cave's mouth. He stared at his surroundings with intrigue, and Beshayir, usually keeping to herself in the satchel, reading books, drawing and practising her magic, was for once, out and about, and eager to do so.

"Wooow...It's very colourful," she said, stretching her syllables a bit, though for effect or through simple distraction was unclear. The Scholar had noted her tendency to do that.

"This is nothing. Wait until I take you deeper. There's a hollowed out part of the mountain exposed to the sky, but it's filled in with a glacier. It's the most magical thing you'll see outside of a Mana Well," chirped Ceridwen eagerly.

"Oh, I'll bet," rumbled the Scholar, impressed by the beauty of this place. It wasn't the first ice cave he had seen, but it was definitely the most deserving of the name. Previous ones were more like regular caves with melting icicles extending from the ceiling's stalactites. He remembered they reminded him of the mouth of some monstrous beast, and one of the icicles had fallen from the ceiling and shattered against his scales. He was thankful it had been a relatively small one. He was smaller then, and his scales relatively supple. That being said, even now, he did not like the idea of a large icicle or stalactite falling from the ceiling on him. Dragon or not, those things could be deadly if they were large enough.


Andruil glanced around at the sandy expanse stretching before him with discomfort. He had never been to the desert before. Only heard of its terrible heat and dryness. His instincts told him this was not a place they were meant to go; that only death could await in a land where water was almost impossible to find and where the heat forced soldiers to forsake steel armour for cloth and chainmail. The men and women serving in the desert corps were a hardy, grizzled kind. Many of the toughest soldiers he had ever known served out here, because the average soldier could not handle these conditions.

The stone path leading to the Syrakina Outpost was sparsely populated, with only one sizeable convoy presently visible. It was a long line of tall reptilian creatures, their legs almost stilt like aside from the wide, flat feet. Thick, thorny tails swayed back and forth behind them, heavy with reserves of fat and water and serving as a defensive weapon. On their backs were broad platforms piled with goods of all kinds. Hanging from either side of the platforms were Valenhadian banners with the crest of Crestvale. Business as usual, thought the Knight. It was a reassuring thought, knowing that the gold earned by this trader would go to helping rebuild the capital. He had heard news of The Crestvale Traders' Consortium issuing an agreement to pledge nearly half of their annual earnings towards rebuilding the city. The city's vast trade network meant that this would cut the reconstruction time by several months. It was no longer the singular task of the kingdom's government to rebuild, but the people as well.

Far above, Shiryaz could be seen swooping out of the sky and attacking a small bird, hunting to sate his hunger in the late afternoon. Pyranex snorted enviously at the sight of the smaller avian's ventures. He had not eaten since dawn, and his hunger had soured his mood. Andruil did not try to strike up a conversation with him right now. It would only break down into seethingly sarcastic remarks from the gryphon.

Up ahead, the Outpost's minaret could be seen alight with the torches of those who governed the vessels' arrival and departure. Distant calls and waving flames signalled to coming and departing ships, ensuring that business flowed smoothly. All around the opposite side of the outpost, tall masts and fluttering flags occupied the skyline. It was difficult to tell the difference between the various ships at this distance, in part due to the fact the fading light and the outpost's broad shades obscured the view. But the Knight did note there were at least two, or possibly three, different ship sizes there.

[C S]

Seemingly sharing the sentiment, Syria had chosen a place relatively clear of the icy spikes to sit under. It was a formerly snow covered ledge a short walk away from one of the translucent pillars, a byproduct of years upon years of erosion acting upon the walls of the cave. The lady made a conscious effort to brush away the snow before sitting down. Only then did she fully appreciate the length of her wirshah, providing a layer of soft padding in addition to sparing her bottom from a wet and chilly surface.

She had her journal in her lap, legs crossed, and left her impressions with the quill she moved across the page in her writing and drawings. The capped inkwell filled with tarry ink poked out of one of her pockets, waiting to wet the tip when the time came. Between her and Beshayir, one of them was bound to be spotted with a book. Syria was not absent from the moment, though. Quite the opposite, really. She looked away from her journal to take in the sights of ice and light and likened the scattered colors to a piece of a rainbow that had been taken from the sky and shattered like stained glass. When she felt there was a stronger poetic connection between stained glass and the ice, Syria hastily wrote down her thoughts and smirked with some self-assured satisfaction that it hadn't escaped her.

Nature's own decorative sense: a magic all its own that happens over lifetimes on top of lifetimes without any will but that of the world itself. This art that depicts no figure in the way that icons on the windows of a church or palace do, but still displays the splendor of the natural order. A masterpiece that can only be seen when the time of year is right, when the mountain faces the setting sun, letting light into a shade.

Something Septimus would appreciate, Syria thought. It was more of a joy to write than her entry for Yuraelia, for sure. She pressed a fingertip against her rendition of the icy hollow, and smiled at the burst of magical sparks that scattered cross the drawing before disappearing in the next instant. It was one way to preserve the memory.

"Ceridwen, how did you find this wonderful place?" she asked the dragoness as she rested the quill in the middle of her book.





Time was drawing close for their departure, Desrium knew. He saw their shadows stretching out to one side of the path and across the drying soil, telling of how long they had left in the day. The sledder they were to board would chase the sun west and see it dip behind mountain rises, witnessing firsthand why they were called "Razors".

Their window of opportunity was steadily closing, but that did not stop Desrium from realizing a certain irony in his arrangements. Valenhad's officials feared the worst of his actions, but it was Valenhad's infrastructure in the desert that he depended on to fulfill his promise to Andruil. To compound this, Desrium had inferred that it was due to Andruil's involvement in this endeavor that he was able to secure the ship at all.

He carried this curious tidbit with him all the way to the gates of the outpost. Watchtowers stood high on either side of it. Their battlements were angled outwards to deflect any ranged weaponry aimed at the archers on post at the fortifications. At their base were barricades of spiked logs, where swordsmen stood next to those that rest supported their huge polearms on the crux of the crossed spikes. A guardhouse stood at the end of the path past the many guards, where the convoy verified their shipment earlier and had the entrance opened for them. The gates had swung apart and a secondary entrance, a portcullis, was raised to allow the traders and their hauling reptiles through.

"Papers?" drawled the attendant sitting behind the window when Desrium walked up to the guardhouse. Dulled by routine, his eyes had drooped low, and it was only when he noticed that the one he was speaking to was outfitted in full plate did he look up and was given quite the start. The attendant, unlike the leather and mail garbed soldiers, wore formal clothing more fitting for a secretary.

The armored being did not linger on the concept of a military secretary, or his shocked expression, and replied, "I am escorting Sir Andruil Lyall on a pilgrimage to Thimeyra. I believe the permissions were sent here ahead of time to allow our entry."

"Uh... yes." The man cleared his throat and put on a more professional demeanor, sitting up straight in his chair and ruffling a few papers on the counter he sat at. There was no mistaking the armored being's distinct presence, nor that of the knight in his company, but in keeping with appearances the secretary read out the notification with an air of authority, as if to inform the visitors of what they already knew quite well.

"And with that, you have your clearance. Your ship, VMSS Dunefox is moored at pier ten."