Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[C S]

Melok made his rounds as he usually did. He walked the streets of Brodudika alone and nodded his head to a few citizens as he passed, looking for all the world the spitting image of benevolent authority. He was their general, and he upheld his duty entrusted to him by the city's benefactor truthfully. The charade ate at him. The call to oust the interlopers that now infested the city of Grymhaven ate at his very being. The vagabond adventurers pretending to be heroes for coin. The elves. Greshlynk's rejects.

It took much of the man's will to walk out of his door everyday. The notion that he walked with the unclean and traitorous on every street, even the ones meant to be hallowed by the dragon-god, filled him with much vitriol that bubbled and simmered underneath the gallantry.

"General," one of his guards addressed him from a street corner. The armored man beckoned Melok close to confer with him, but his matter was one of a deeply secretive nature. They exchanged quiet words and were off together.

"Our underlings reported a loss on their investment," the guard said in Melok's ear as they walked their rounds. Melok only drew a deep, resigned breath.

It was by fortune's whims that the armored being was absent from Brodudika when the pieces of the plan were falling into place. The damage would have been extensive, and without that particular thorn to deal with, the wyvern's warpath would have been costly indeed. Many of the outsiders would have thrown away their lives in the effort to repel or slay it. Under the veil of fire, a few wrongs could have been made right. Small steps.

But fortune saw it fit that Greshlynk's image remained a mockery, his principles discarded so frivolously.

"Only a setback," Melok said after a great pause. He stopped and saluted his guard in casual formality, even as he shared with him, "It is not Greshlynk's will to use the mark of dragons to bring justice to this hive. Patience and perseverance will show us his favor."

"May the dragon protect," said the guard before he marched off.

"May the dragon protect," Melok muttered to himself before going off on his own way.



At the same time, a meeting was underway in the side room of city hall's lobby.

A collection of people in fine suits sat at the conference table. They were all representatives that would have been giving out assignments at the long table outside of the private room, but due to the nature of the matter at hand, their assistants had to be the faces greeting Brodudika's unofficial "angels". And for the best, as the atmosphere in the room was not something one wanted to represent their organization. Things were uneasy as some less than fortunate elements came to light.

At the center of the table, the wyvern's tooth brought back by Pamela. Next to the terrifying fang were a few manifests, crumpled and torn in some places, obviously weathered in the time since they were issued. The pieces of evidence pointed to a situation that had all present in the meeting far less than enthused.

"We've got a disparity in our little 'city of friends'," the burly man who issued the red woman's assignment observed gravely.

The head of the magic division pinched the bridge of her nose. "Byron... this isn't just a disparity. This is an undermining presence, more than likely part of a much larger chain of command. This is a nightmare."

"I'd say," said a woman in a shadowy outfit. Grays and blacks blended with one another on her dress, seeming to constantly mingle across her thin figure. She kept the point of her large, triangular hat pulled over her eyes and sat with her head bowed so only a sliver of her face was visible at a time. "They're so committed to their cause, they hired some hunters to capture a wyvern to let loose on the populace."

"The timing of it is worrisome, as well. Desrium was out of the city at the time these orders went through, wasn't he? Was that a deliberate decision? If so, it implies our enemies have a tactical mind." The point was brought up by a man in blue complimented by long, white, puffy sleeves. He looked to his neighbor, the woman in dark, and pulled her hat off her head. She glared daggers at him as he cooly set it down on the table in front of her. "Manners, friend. Take your hat off indoors."

Byron scoffed. "It takes a lot of work fighting giant creatures. Trust me, I know. We'd be dealing with a lot who could see the future, if they arranged for a wyvern to be caught just as Desrium was due to leave the city." He crossed his huge arms. "If you ask me, we just dodged an arrow."

"So these names... we know them for a fact to belong to citizens of the city?" was the next question asked by a representative across the table. He looked troubled, to say the least.

"I'm afraid so," another confirmed.

"We'll need a task force to look into that lead," Byron said. "Find out who they are, and what they'd gain from doing this. Don't let them know they've been incriminated, though. Might set off something worse in their organization."

"Do we elevate security measures across the city?"

The magic research head sighed. "We don't know who we can tell about this. Anyone could be in league with this... society. We'd need a way to somehow parse who is and who isn't tied to them if we hope to counter it effectively."

All eyes turned to her at that point. "Aren't you privy to psychomancers now?"



Not a moment after Andruil left, another entered the guard commander's station. Ninotae. She walked up to Thorald and offered a salute. "Well sir, it looks like your hunch was correct," she reported. "Patrols have turned up no signs of the axeman for a few days now. No new markings on trees. No signs of a settlement. The man's either got himself killed, or he's gone off again."

[The Kingpin]

"Blast the devil!" snarled the guard captain under his breath. That man was more trouble than he was worth sometimes. He had no idea why the Sir Lyall had taken a liking to him. How was he supposed to keep track of the goings on in this little spit of civilisation in the wilderness when people like that could come and go as they pleased without anyone noticing?

"At ease, Ninotae. If any trace turns up, I want to be informed immediately," he said with a tired sigh, falling heavily into his seat as he resumed his watch towards the wilderness beyond the gate. He would resume his rounds later. He needed time to think.

[C S]

"Of course, sir," Maven responded, and then bowed. She then left her superior to his contemplation. She had her own thoughts on the matter, but knew of course not to speak out of turn. Really, though, the solution seemed simple to her. All they had to do was pin that slippery ******* down and send word to Daaven that they'd misplaced one of their insufferable brats.

Oh well. At least he was gone for now. Maybe he'd stay away this time.


The wind rustled the map, old and worn. Rutgers sniffled.

It crossed his mind that this faded, wrinkled piece of paper was as functional as a map as a compass that had its screen smashed so that the cracked glass completely obscured the reading. And that was so, because he was right and fully convinced that he'd gotten himself utterly lost somehow. Maybe he was wrong to think that the smudge of ink on the map was the road he had to turn onto some ways back.

Was it really ink, in hindsight? He held the paper close to his eyes and hummed. It probably wasn't ink. "We've been together a long time, dear friend," said the former ranger. "Alas, it's time I let you rest. Wherever the wind takes you." He held up the aged piece of paper, heard it rustle and crinkle in his fingers, and then sent it on its way. It flew wide spirals around him before slipping through the bare, snowy canopy of dead trees.

Maybe he was wrong to assume that the other smudge was supposed to be this forest he found himself in. If there was any place for him to draw out any eyes in the dark, it was this lonesome road through this lonesome quiet. He'd found tracks around the village again. The fiends were unperturbed by the winter, unlike the ones in slumber. It was only a matter of time before the taint he carried drew more from far off lands.

Rutgers looked behind him, and saw the sun shining through the barrens. Nothing out of place yet. Except...

He squinted his eyes. What was that thing? Not a fiend. Something that caught the sunlight and glimmered like glass, completely motionless in the distance. A statue? A glassy -- metal? -- statue? In the middle of nowhere? Rutgers scratched his head. Maybe he inadvertently found himself near some ancient shrine. Putting his hands over his eyes to lessen the glare, Rutgers ascertained that the shape of the... thing was somewhat canine in shape. A large, glassy dog.

And then the realization set in that he didn't recall passing anything of the sort on the way into the forest.

"That's unsettling," he mumbled to himself before pulling in a breath and turning back the way he was headed. He picked up his carry-on from the snow blanketed ground and started walking. Best to leave such things behind, if they permitted it.

But when aleady followed by fiends, what more was another mysterious figure in the distance?

[Hopeflower]

"Good, good. Keep your breathing steady."

Firel gritted his teeth against the strain of holding up against the continual pressure Viho was putting on his mind. The young psychomancer had been disappointed to learn, after Viho had pronounced him ready to start using magic again, that they would not be going out and reading minds right away.

"First you'll learn to block out stray thoughts and deliberate attacks," Viho had said. "Then we'll worry about breaking into a mind."

And damn it, Viho didn't even seem to be trying to crack Firel's defenses. Viho wasn't attacking and wasting energy needlessly - he was just pushing, simply letting the sheer amount of power he commanded crush down on Firel's mind. Eventually, Firel wouldn't be able to hold out any longer. It was an efficient tactic. Even the most well-shielded minds must have a limit.

The sweat sliding down the younger elf's temple gave away that Firel was reaching his. When his defenses failed, accompanied by a sharp intake of breath as though Firel expected a lot of pain to follow, Viho immediately pulled back to avoid hurting his student.

"Very good," he praised. Viho offered Firel a glass of water, poured from a jug he'd had brought up here for just such occasions, and went on, "Don't be discouraged. The more you practice, the better you'll do."

Firel chugged his water in a few gulps and sighed, moving to pour another glass. "I know. I just wish I was better than this."

Viho perched on his desk, folding his legs comfortably. "Learning any new skill takes time. One day soon, you'll look back and marvel at how far you've come."


The days are beyond counting now, and the landscape has become more and more treacherous as we push inward. We could have already passed Lysanthir without realizing it. The forest is all green, as far as the eye can see, and there are no obvious landmarks that I've found. One mossy rock looks much like the next, an

Wait. These markings here, on the sketch I've included, seem far too deliberate to be anything less than carvings. Is this what we've been searching for?

Have we finally found the long-lost center of Illyria?

Arsenic cocked his head and considered the sketch that Vix was so excited about again. With Vix leaning over his shoulder, he studied, he reread the passage that accompanied the sketch, and he wondered. His fingers drummed absently on the journal's worn pages. The sketch looked like it could have been part of the carvings they'd seen in Lusio's memories, but a handful of memories and one piece of a puzzle weren't enough for him to accurately reproduce a whole story. And if there was one thing he wanted to be in this piece, it was accurate.

He needed more pieces.

He expected Vix to be disappointed when he told her, but instead she frowned thoughtfully. "Well we'll have to find them, then, won't we," she stated more than asked.

'As if it's that easy,' Arsenic muttered. He closed the journal and looked up at the innkeeper. 'We'll need to start with tracking down any and all mentions of people looking for Lysanthir. Septimus would be a huge help, no doubt, but we have no way to contact him. So.' He stood and stretched, cracking several stiff joints.

"So...we're doing it the old-fashioned way." If anything, the prospect of scouring through what could amount to hundreds of books and scrolls only seemed to make Vix more determined. "Okay."

'It could take a very long time before we find anything,' warned Arsenic.

"So be it."

'You'd be leaving the inn for a while. Longer than just a few days,' he told her, watching her reaction carefully. Her expression twitched, but her resolve didn't waver. 'You're okay with leaving it in Brionna's hands?'

"Yes," Vix answered. "When do we leave?"

Arsenic couldn't help but smile. 'Not now. We'll need to plan - and get Rowan to come along. She was with you when you found this, yes?' He waggled the journal at Vix.

"Right."

'Then she'll want to see how this plays out. I'll talk to her about it the next time I see her.'

That got the innkeeper to pause and ask, "Where is she, by the way? I haven't seen her since we got back."

Arsenic offered a shrug and told her, 'She's had a hard few days. My guess is she wants to be alone for a while.'


And Rowan was indeed quite alone. Up to her ankles in snow, throwing daggers at targets over and over again. The fact that she'd tracked several nearly-smooth walkways between her position and the targets was a reminder of how long she'd been at it, but she wasn't ready to go inside yet. She huffed into her scarf when her shots turned up scattered around the center, pulled the fabric farther up her nose with numb fingers, and started forward to retrieve her blades and try again.

She hadn't practiced for so many years only to accept results that were close enough.

[The Kingpin]

It was a few more minutes before the Knight reached the porch of the inn. Pyranex was happy to have the Knight off his back, and was quick to begin making his way out of the village once more. It had been a while since he'd last eaten, and he intended to catch something decent. It was a daunting task here, at the beginnings of winter, with a pair of dragons near the village. Nothing with half a brain would live so close. He would have to explore quite a distance away if he hoped to find a deer or some other animal he could reasonably satisfy himself with.


The thumping of boots on wood announced the new arrival a couple of moments before the door swung open. Andruil was a tall figure normally, and his silhouette in his hooded wirshah made him no less imposing. His face was half covered in a black and red scarf, and his shoulder served as a perch for Shiryaz, ducking low to avoid knocking into the top of the door frame.

The Knight was inside in a moment, the door being closed behind him the moment he wasn't at risk of getting his coat caught between it and the frame. A soft sigh escaped him. Home at last.

"Anything left over from breakfast?" he asked as he headed for the counter, to no one in particular.

[C S]

"You've given them a home."

That was what Desrium said to Evisa when he came across the newest addition to Brodudika. Rather, the newest addition to the landscape very near to Brodudika. On the surface it looked no different from a hole in the ground dug by a bored youngster who had gotten ahold of a shovel. The appraisal wasn't so far off, considering the one mostly responsible for it.

The interior was something that made the paladin think of Cleotaire's chamber. Not as extravagant or enchanting, not by a long shot, but perhaps it was just in the nature of earth elementals to enjoy their cavernous expanses, supported by pillars. These were still very rough, but not sharp. It was clear the big stone had taken his time in carving the supports from the surrounding earth before expanding outwards.

The end result was a hole in the ground that led to a gentle slope, which in turn led to the enormous cave that was not there before. Fiery beings kept the rocky hollow lit with their very presence. Crystalline figures climbed the walls and columns, some hanging upside-down like alien bats. Those comprised of water took to making pools and puddles to spend their time.

They finally had a home, and one far from curious eyes and away from the weather. Evisa herself seemed so overjoyed being with them. She never saw herself being anything but a warrior, Desrium figured. He could relate. She must have put all of that into their first encounter. A duel to the death was what she intended. Now she was a provider and teacher, and far from a battlefield.

There was so much left to do.

And in this moment, he could at least reflect fondly on what he managed to accomplish so far.

[Hopeflower]

Just like that, Vix had tugged the journal from Arsenic's fingers and turned to greet their friend. She hadn't expected Andruil to come running in so soon after being called away on urgent business.

Arsenic blinked at her, having been about to tuck the little book into his jacket to keep it safe, but shrugged and didn't kick up a fuss about it. Letting Andruil know about their tentative plans or not was her call.

"Of course." The innkeeper's tone was relaxed and as friendly as ever, as far removed from the noble Andruil had come to know in another life as it was possible to be. The way she cocked her head was exactly the same, however, when she asked, "Everything alright?"

[The Kingpin]

It was a similarity that had not been missed, the Knight's eyes widening in a brief moment of surprise, before he returned to his usual confident smirk. A chirp came from the bird of prey on his shoulder as Shiryaz leapt off and landed on a nearby table.

"Why of course, dear. Why ever would it not be?" he asked as he leaned in to plant a brief peck on the innkeeper's cheek. It was almost strange, after his interactions with the Princess in his Trial, to speak to her so warmly. To get so close. In the trial, decorum forbade it, and the life he had been convinced he lived was one where such a thing would be a scandal. That was one thing he certainly did not miss.

[Hopeflower]

The smallest of concerned frowns crossed Vix's face even as something in her chest gave an almost painful squeeze. Now wasn't the time to lose her focus. "You kind of left in a hurry," she prompted gently. Something was definitely off, but she couldn't put her finger on what.

'Left Rowan unsupervised at that,' Arsenic added dryly. His throat scar stood out against his skin as ever, a familiar reminder that the man would never speak a word again. Familiar, but jarring in the wake of a reality in which he could speak. The assassin was watching Andruil with the kind of attentiveness that meant he'd noticed something that had roused his curiosity.

[The Kingpin]

"My father has a way with words. This time those words were 'Do this, now'. I couldn't exactly refuse. I do like to think I left you and Rowan in the best of company. My family may be a bit odd at times, but they're nothing if not hospitable," he stated with a shrug, this detail addressed to Vix, but answering Arsenic's observation. At that particular moment, the Knight took note of the scar on the Assassin's throat. This detail did not quite linger in his mind as the previous reflection did. After all, Arsenic had only appeared once in the Trial; he was not quite the mainstay of his experience that Vix was. For better, or worse.

[Hopeflower]

The redheads exchanged a glance. At Arsenic's raised eyebrow, Vix looked back at Andruil and admitted, "We didn't see much of them, in truth. We spent a while exploring." She turned to set the journal on the counter with more care than she probably needed to, even fragile as it was. "It's too cold to go without a mug of tea to accompany stories, so why don't I get us some?"

When she'd disappeared into the kitchen, Arsenic relaxed into his chair slowly. He was quiet, turning over questions in his mind and deciding against asking them one by one. Clearly quite a few things had happened, but he was sure Rowan wouldn't appreciate him asking about some of them right now. At the same time, Andruil's distraction was itching at his senses, practically begging the psychomancer to have a closer look. Even so, Arsenic hesitated. It wasn't just Andruil acting slightly off. It was Vix, too, and that wasn't something he wanted to get in the way of. Not unless she got hurt.

[The Kingpin]

The Knight smiled after the Innkeeper, before making his way to one of the chairs, sighing as he let himself drop into his seat. "I suppose a strongly worded letter to my brother is in order. I told him to make sure Vix and Rowan were taken care of while I was off on his little errand," grumbled Andruil.

The seat was comfortable, at least. As it always was. Shiryaz, as was his habit, had already hopped off the table and walked over to the fireplace, and was currently sitting comfortably on the hearth.

[Hopeflower]

'They would have done their own thing regardless,' Arsenic told the knight, reaching out to scratch Ohanzee's ears when the cat jumped into his lap and demanded attention. 'You can expect to hear about all of the trouble Rowan caused while you were gone, I'm sure.'

[The Kingpin]

"Probably," said Andruil off-handedly. "That armour's weighed him down. He used to be able to keep up with me, and I was notoriously difficult to track down in Riverdale," he mused, entertained by the memory.

"But that's a story for another time. Tell me, how have you been in my absence?" he asked, glancing over to the Mute Assassin.

[Hopeflower]

'Not as busy as I'd like.' Arsenic made an effort not to roll his eyes. With the other assassins out more often than not, he was reminded every day that Akando was concerned enough to pull him from working jobs indefinitely. While a nice thought, it still meant Arsenic had little to do until the solstice rolled around. 'Even so, it's been an informative few days.'

[The Kingpin]

"Oh?" inquired the Knight. Informative? What was there to learn here? Had Rowan mentioned the fiasco with Beckett? Very likely...But that didn't seem like something the Assassin would bring up. It had already been settled. Could it have been...? No, that couldn't be it. They were hibernating. The 'Bloodfiends', perhaps? Rutgers had mentioned he was tracking their activity. Had they found the village?

[Hopeflower]

Arsenic glanced up to make sure Vix wasn't on her way back from the kitchen yet and spoke directly to Andruil. We have a group of Oniare hibernating near the village. From what Sami said about them, it seems likely they won't bother us if we don't go and kick the hornet's nest.

[The Kingpin]

A silent Ah was the Knight's first reaction to that, growing concerned. "I see. Any contingencies in place in case they do? Or haven't we thought that far ahead yet?" he asked quietly, watching the doorway to the kitchen out of the corner of his eye.

[Hopeflower]

Arsenic shook his head, some frustration in the movement. I don't know how many there are. There's no way to count them without going into their den. And they're not all as asleep as I thought they'd be. They have sentries. He resumed petting Ohanzee when an impatient meow informed him that he'd stopped. We could ask Sami for her best guess, but she's sure nothing will happen if we just leave it alone.

[The Kingpin]

"Not like you to trust her. But if you're certain, then I will trust your judgement. The last thing we want is to risk even more trouble," he said as he leaned back, pressing himself into the plush cushions of the chair even as he noticed a very careful Shiryaz trying to sneak up on the distracted Ohanzee. He was very careful to take a close look at where he set his feet down, using the thick skin rug to muffle what would otherwise have been a noisy, clattering approach on account of his talons. Clever.