Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[Hopeflower]

"Dragon." The answer came quiet and clipped, and Viho hesitated to straighten from his flight-ready stance. He rolled his good shoulder and rubbed at the back of his neck as he did. He knew he was probably imagining the way the scar tissue left the last time a dragon had shouted thunder prickled, but it still didn't calm him any. So instead of focusing on his discomfort and the fact that he could have done with a warning that there would be so many dragons flying through, Viho turned his attention to his student. "You're back early. Is there a problem?" he asked.

[The Kingpin]

"Indeed. My son was here recently. He may have mentioned me." The dragon's brilliant white eyes seemed to stare at them all, and yet at none of them at once. It was impossible to tell where his gaze was settled at any point in time, as to look at them directly was a pain akin to staring at the sun above. "Tell me, what purpose do those snowdrifts serve?" he questioned, nodding towards the massive mounds of snow and slush just beyond the walls. It was out of place, random and in all likelihood confusing to the guards at the gates.

"Soldier. We're trained to eat fast. Old habits, as the saying goes," responded Andruil with a shrug. "I could tell it was probably a dragon, and one a lot bigger than Septimus...But beyond that, I am unsure. Is it out of your reach?" he asked as he leaned against the door-frame.

[C S]

"They... are what became of recent snowfall in the city. They were put there by an elemental," said the brave speaker. "Why do you ask?"

[The Kingpin]

"Hmm. So close to the wall it could become a threat to your security. It could use a bit of adjustment...Something to make it genuinely useful," he rumbled, as his gaze shifted to his side, settling on the snowdrifts. "If they were to be moved away and spread out, you may be able to turn them into a secondary wall. With the weather as it is, it could serve to bolster your defences until improvements on the walls are complete," he suggested.

[C S]

"They could indeed. We cannot spare the hands to do so. It is something to ask their keep- er... caregiver when she comes around here again," said the soldier.

[Hopeflower]

"Yes. But we're not out of its reach," was Viho's assessment after a moment of consideration. Considerable as his range might have been, it wasn't within his ability to reach out and connect with the dragon's mind, but he could almost taste foreign magic on the back of his tongue. That, he might be able to follow to its source, if he wanted to present himself as an easy target. At the very least, he could make a guess at the type of magic he was sensing. "A weather manipulator and psychomancer wrapped in a dragon's hide, at Brodudika's doorstep," he mused half to himself. "Quite the nasty combination."

[The Kingpin]

Arashi blinked at that. "I see." With that, he reached one of his arms out, the limb bathed in an aura of light that made the already pristine snow almost blinding in its intensity. Moments later the entire snowdrift began to move outwards, putting some space between it and the wall before spreading out into a rise, a second wall made of snow forming before the first. The resulting gap between the two walls served as a trench that would prove dangerous to attacking cavalry, and a potential trap for attacking infantry, creating a chokepoint around the gates themselves that would further fortify the city's defences. "Your caregiver can continue tending to her duties undisturbed now, I believe," rumbled the dragon as the runes along his arms faded back to something closer to their usual glow. "Now, if you would be so kind, I would like to enter the city. I have urgent matters to attend to with your Guardian."

"Weather manip-...No." Andruil couldn't believe his ears. "The Stormweaver? Here?" It had been two years since he last laid eyes on the illusive drake. He had started to wonder if he would ever see him again. The odds were so small that the fulfilment of that consideration seemed impossible.

[C S]

"Benefactor," the guard corrected on impulse. The ranks on the walls looked to each other, puzzled. "With all appreciation for your assistance, we beckon you welcome to our city, however you wish to enter. You need me not to mention how much larger you are than our gate."

[Hopeflower]

The outburst got Andruil a blank look, edged with the kind of faint irritation that surfaced when one's train of thought had been interrupted. The title, it seemed, meant as little to Viho as the name Desrium did. He was more concerned with the fact that the dragon was powerful enough for him to identify its magic from here.

"I can only tell you what I sense," he pointed out with a half shrug. "Dragons are not my area of expertise."

[The Kingpin]

"That will not be a problem," growled the dragon. Almost as he spoke, wisps of black engulfed his form, arcs of electricity crackling around the cloud as it seemed to implode, collapsing in on itself until finally it burst outwards, wafting over the figure that knelt in its midst.

Where once a mighty wyrm stood, now an imposing figure unlike anything anyone present had ever seen could be seen in a kneel, hands wrapped around a staff as it stood, smoke wafting off its figure as electricity leapt and jumped across its hide. The figure rose to tower over what would have been the normal height for a man. At seven feet tall at the shoulder, the lithe creature was certainly not one to be missed in the crowds of the city. A long but muscular neck held a head that seemed at once to be horse-like and leonine, a curved blade of a horn rising from his forehead, two other sets of horns emerging from the back of his skull. One set curved around and under his long, backwards swept ears, similar to a ram's, while the other spiralled and branched off like exotic antlers, the collective result being a crown no less impressive than the Stormweaver's natural one. Silken black hair hung and flowed around the horns, and a dense, bristly, angular beard much like his draconic one completed the effect of the beastly mage. His hide seemed covered in short but dense fur, and clawed hands wrapped around a staff as tall as he himself, the instrument tipped with a simple bulb of copper, surrounded by silver prongs akin to talons. From the waist down, his legs were very much those of a beast, digitigrade appendages that ended in five massive talons. Behind him, a tail covered in thick but surprisingly light hair lashed absently. Pauldrons and a silken jacket of a decidedly oriental sort wrapped over his shoulders, the outfit completed by a similar fabric that hung from his waist, seemed to be a sash, a sort of trousers and a loincloth in one, the attire hued grey, strips of white criss crossing the front to frame a buckle of gold and turquoise.

The Stormweaver's eyes opened after he assumed his ascended form, sapphire gems taking the place of the blinding beacons that once stared at the soldiers atop the walls. He gripped his staff tightly as he brought it to his side, looking up at the speaker. "This should suffice," he stated, his voice still surprisingly deep, if lacking the volume and power to shake the very depths of their beings. With a grace that seemed as divine as that which he was believed to be, he began to walk towards the gates. The guards around the capstans meant to operate them found themselves pushed aside by an unseen force, the wheels spinning as gates and portculli gave way to the Stormweaver's will, allowing him through with no further aid from those on and around the walls.


"The Stormweaver is something of a...how to put it," started Andruil, running his fingers through his hair as he racked his brain for a fitting description. "Well, to a number of people, he's something of a lesser deity, particularly in Mercutio where his influence is strongest. The story goes that over a millennium ago, he saved much of Aster from some incredibly powerful demon. The mages that witnessed it went on to dedicate their lives to mastering his teachings, eventually becoming what we now call the Mecutian Magus Assembly. Rumour has it he may have been the inspiration for the Draxon deity Greshlynk, and I hear he also had a hand in Desrium's past, but what, exactly, I cannot say." But what was he doing here? That was the question that stumped the Knight.

[Hopeflower]

If Andruil expected to see a spark of recognition, or at least interest, he was going to be disappointed. Viho took all of that in with the same unimpressed stare. "Fascinating," he deadpanned. Unspoken but buried within his tone was the implication that he had little patience for stories that had no doubt gone through many variations, and he wasn't here to listen to rumors of deities walking among them.

[The Kingpin]

Viho's expectations of disappointment were denied by the Knight. Instead, Andruil seemed completely consumed with his thoughts, pacing back and forth as he entered the classroom proper, slowly thinking over the possible reasons the illusive dragon could be here of all places. It was after a moment that he stopped mid-step, for the second time that day, the potential of what had happened dawning on him. "Vix told me Septimus was going after a mage...Morrelie, I think she was called. An old nemesis of Desrium's...One intending to destroy him at any cost. For the Stormweaver to be here, now of all times...No...Septimus sent his season's greetings along...He spoke to Vix only yesterday." The momentary scare faded almost as swiftly as it came, but it still left the Knight puzzled. Why, if not for that, was the Stormweaver here of all places?

[Hopeflower]

In a glimpse of the snark that Arsenic so often displayed, Viho commented, "Interesting as it is to hear you have a conversation with yourself, you do no one any good by jumping to conclusions. You still have time to go and ask your questions." He clasped his hands behind his back and returned his gaze to the windows, apparently dismissing the knight.

[The Kingpin]

There was a moment of silence as Andruil recovered from the irony of Arsenic's once arch-nemesis displaying such a characteristically Arsenic trait. "I doubt it, but if I have your leave," he eventually said, accepting the dismissal all the same, turning towards the door and departing. He wondered if he could get to the city hall before the Stormweaver did. Time to take a leaf out of Dahnae's book, it seemed.

[C S]

It was easy to see how Arashi inspired visions of divine intervention where he went.

If it was not his immensity, behind which sunlight was turned dark, it was the power he carried in his very being. That remained where the shadow over Brodudika did not. Many exotic figures had passed through the steel-plated gate, but none quite left an impression as the Stormweaver did. It reflected badly on the guards to have no effect on whether or not he stepped foot into the city, but the demonstration made one thing very clear: there was no one among them who could stop him one way or the other. This was something the benefactor himself would have to face, should it ever come to that.

Despite whatever his wishes were, Arashi inadvertently fed his myth of godliness as he strode through the city, so unfamiliar he was. To those who looked upon him, it was no stretch to think he had stepped out from elsewhere. Be that elsewhere a heaven or hell, that was for the beholder to decide. None stood in his way, though. In crossing the streets, the bustling traffic stopped and gave the ascended Arashi a wide berth.

[The Kingpin]

While the aura of the Stormweaver approached closer and closer to the school, Andruil was bolting from rooftop to rooftop away from it. After stepping out of a hallway and across one of the bridges linking the many buildings of the Upper District to one another, he made his way through the next hallway and through a door. This next bridge took him a ways off from his destination, and so, the logical conclusion was that it could not be followed. Instead, he gripped the stone bannister alongside the pathway, swinging himself over it and down to a rooftop a dozen feet below.

Landing in a roll, he let himself slide down the slope, kicking off at the last second and catching onto a balcony, before leaping from that, latching onto a lamp post and swinging himself round a corner, sending him down an alleyway and onto the main road in front of the city hall. He was little more than a blur of movement for those who were lingering in the little nooks and crannies the the alley, bolting past and out the other end, skidding to a halt as he spotted the Stalwart. "Ah! Just the Champion of the Downtrodden I wanted to see," he stated, just slightly out of breath from the flat out sprint he'd gone through to cross the multiple blocks between the school and city hall.


Outside the Upper District, the Stormweaver walked with a casual ease, the silence that accompanied his passing broken only by the clack of his staff on the cobblestone street and the carved steps that led to the heart of the city. If he noticed the sudden stop of everything, he did nothing to show it. More likely, he was simply used to it at this point.

[C S]

In an unintentional mirror of the Stormweaver that could not be helped, Desrium's leaving of city hall had been a mellow affair. He had only stepped out of the courtyard area, through the compound's gates, when Andruil sped up to him. The meeting came on better terms than their first encounter near the black building, and for that Desrium took the shortest of instances to be grateful.

"I do not mean to make myself scarce," he said to the knight. Champion of the Downtrodden. So he was still someone's champion, after all.

[The Kingpin]

"I did not mean to imply you did. But misunderstandings to settle another time," responded Andruil somewhat light-heartedly, though it was clear that something troubled him enough that he couldn't commit to it as he normally would have. The reason became clear only a moment later. "It appears that the Stormweaver has arrived in the city. Or at least, Viho has stated as much," he explained, falling into step beside the Stalwart.



Up the steps the Experimentalist went, passing through the archway that marked the entrance to the city's upper classmen; the traders and Draxonian aristocracy. Or at least, that was what he presumed presided over this place. A quick check to confirm provided him with an interesting revelation. The population of this part of the city was, at least to an extent, made up of some of the same people that occupied the outermost reaches of the city. An attempt to equalise the classes, perhaps? The Stormweaver hummed thoughtfully. Interesting. The Stalwart was ambitious in his endeavour. Perhaps too much so, if the general feel of those that wandered the streets of this place was anything to go by. A few seemed more embittered towards the Armoured Being than others, a few in particular actively drawing the Stormweaver's attention.

[Hopeflower]

Viho did his best not to twitch as that magic drew closer and saturated the air of his classroom, a thick blanket of power that hung in the air much like moisture on a humid summer day - suffocating and inescapable. Instinctively, Viho drew his own magic around himself and breathed deeply, forcing himself to be still. Whether or not this dragon was the one Andruil spoke of, and regardless of whether he believed this Stormweaver was a deity, he couldn't deny that this was not a beast to be tangled with. Not physically, and certainly not on the mental plane. And so instead of following Andruil or giving in to the urge to run, Viho waited. He stood back from the windows, skin tingling with the sensation of a storm about to break, and waited for the smell and taste of heavy rain to fade from his senses.

[C S]

"I am aware," said Desrium in response. Andruil was not well versed with his more peculiar abilities where magic was concerned, it seemed.


One was bolder than the others. Fittingly so, being the face of the formerly Draxonian corps. Melok approached the figure that seemed so beyond Aster with a monk's humility, head bowed and hands folded. "Glory be the day a dragon's wings cover all under its domain," the guard captain recited. Draxonian scripture, more likely than not.