Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[The Kingpin]

"He would behave, for the most part. He'd just get... well, bored, frequently. And that would be when he'd pester Pyranex. Nipping at his tail, landing on his head and peaking through the eyehole of his helm...among other things," explained Andruil. Almost as if in pride, a chirp came from the raptor at exactly that moment.




Beshayir smiled, taking her wand by the grip and pointing it forward, beginning to concentrate while the two dragons above continued their play, the smaller of the two flitting in and out as she continued to poke and prod the Scholar. For the first time in too long, she felt genuinely...happy. At peace. Comfortable in the knowledge that she was safe. It was far from home, and she was satisfied with that, but it may as well have been as safe as home. She had heard enough about Septimus that she knew he was not at risk from most of the dangers this land had to offer; those who had the power were allies, or at the least, did not want to invoke the wrath of them. And those that didn't care were nothing for him to fear.

She could finally relax.

[C S]

After a few more progressively strengthening projections into the water, Syria decided she was ready for something a bit more advanced than just walls of mana. She scooted her feet underneath herself and stood up with the help of her staff, her other hand flipping down her hat's goggles into position to block the wind and snow from besetting her eyes.

It wasn't too long ago that Beshayir was taken with the idea of frost falling from the sky, something that seemed to her then as unlikely as a dragon sounding like a cat. Which was still very unlikely, in all reality, but still. Syria would give her something else to marvel at, now that the girl had some experience in her first winter. Ice drifting down from the sky was a normal thing to Beshayir after being to mountaintops and frozen caves.

Syria put some space between herself and the child, drew in a cold breath, and turned her staff end over end. Faster and faster it went in her hands, the jewel leaving a streak of aquamarine light in the air as Syria twirled the staff, which grew brighter with each accelerated revolution. Another take on her snaring spell, revised for this staff's apparent specialty. The mage threw her arms up and locked her hands on the handle of the staff, pointing its flowered end to the sky.

A flash of light and deep warbling announced the formation of a huge shield around herself and Beshayir. A thin tether, a cyclone of light, shot into the air a few feet past the staff's jewel before expanding outwards into a cascading green dome where magic flowed like water down a solid surface. Syria made a concentrated effort to maintain it, and sure enough, little by little, snow began to accumulate on the umbrella of mana.

[The Kingpin]

It was a couple of hours before the band of misfits had brought an end to their antics. The Scholar managed, with some effort, to calm Ceridwen down enough to get her to land. With that difficulty out of the way, it wasn't hard to rally the trio to join him on a trip to take a look at Zuppoland, while there was still light.

As the dragon undulated beneath the surface of the water, Beshayir and Syria rode atop his back. Around them, a bubble of shimmering cyan energy warbled and shone, casting a glow on the surroundings. The mage's staff seemed to be standing completely vertical on the dragon's back of its own volition, the blue rose atop its shaft glowing a brilliant cerulean hue. The Scholar's runes, especially those closest to the orb, also shone brightly, as the two contributed to the sphere's strength. Beshayir noted, interestedly, that streaks of blue and green seemed to zip across the surface of the bubble, branches trailing off in their wake like reverse lightning; the means through which the globe was fed.

The experience was surreal. "Is water always so...blue?" she asked as she looked up at Syria, her head tilted to one side.


"Are you sure we'll be able to see anything where we're going? Aren't we going to be too deep to see clearly? Or at least, for Syria and Beshi to see clearly?" inquired Ceridwen, her voice surprisingly sharp despite speaking through the water, coming through as a series of whines and clicks, like some cross between a bird and a dolphin.

"Trust me, we won't have to worry about darkness where we're going," rumbled the Scholar, his voice, by contrast, a deep, low growl that seemed to ignore the influence of water entirely, coming through almost as clear as if he were on the surface.

"If you say so..." sighed the dragoness, relenting.

[C S]

"Not all of it, no," Syria answered Beshayir as she herself looked about with childlike wonder, stepping about on Septimus' back as she spotted shapes of strange fish in the inverted twilight of the ocean. It was brighter at the surface, and shadow below, and everything against the light were flat silhouettes that darted about in wide open space. "Some water, like in the jungle, can be brown and really hard to see in. I've also seen red water, and water that was as dark as tea in some cases."

Syria spun about and hurried along the length of the dragon, all but throwing herself against the base of his neck, where the edge of the bubble extended to furthest. "How far away would Zuppoland be from us?" she asked.

[The Kingpin]

"Not far," rumbled the dragon in response as he pressed on. Above them, a massive shark, easily thrice as long as a grown man is tall, drifted through the blue. Eyes as dark as coal stared at nothing and everything at once, a maw lined with dozens upon dozens of razor sharp teeth held partially open. "What is that!?" Beshayir all but screamed, falling back onto her back after an attempt to stand was interrupted by the sight.

[C S]

"That is something that's more afraid of the dragons than you are afraid of it," Syria replied after rolling over. She put her arms behind her head as she watched the idling fish. More afraid of their company, sure, but it certainly did not do a good job at showing it. "I think I read about these creatures in a book, a long time ago. Er... hmm. Squalidions. They have a secondary pair of jaws inside their mouths, and a frilly body on the inside of their gills that no one really knows what it's for. That's about as much as I remember," the mage said.

From the corners of her eyes she spotted rises in the deep. Not rock. Coral. Lots and lots of brightly colored, and otherworldly textured life that plants clung to, tall weeds wriggling around in the current. Small fish darted in and out of pockets and in between columns of coral along the reef, which looked as if a mana well had all but exploded all over it. Which begged the question: if this was how the natural world looked underneath the surface of the ocean, how would Zuppoland look?

[The Kingpin]

"They mostly feed on fish, and dolphins. The occasional fishing boat gets attacked when they're mistaken for something edible," added Septimus. That did little to reassure the Elf. "I had one earlier while I was swimming. They're surprisingly tasty, if a bit chewy," he added, taking the elf by surprise.

"Was that what I saw you eat earlier?" she asked, to which the Dragon responded with a simple Mhm.

[C S]

"Egh," Syria stuck her tongue out in distaste. "The chewy thing might just be the frilly body... maybe it goes a bit farther than just the gills." There was no accounting for a dragon's palette, though. As she was shrugging the topic off, she spied a few rays of light that seemed astray. With the sunlight diffused by the snowstorm topside, there really was no explanation for them. Or there wouldn't have been, if they weren't already in search of something audacious.

Syria rolled over again to look out from behind Septimus' neck. The ridges of sealife parted underneath them as he swam, eventually offering a drowned vista that dipped into darkness, only to billow into spectacular visions of a nation underneath a shimmering dome. That certainly put the barrier she and Beshayir were under to shame. The glow from the magic revealed vast beds of clams and kelp outside of the city limits, what could have well been the submarine city's equivalent of farmland.

Seeing what was on the other side of the bubble from a distance was difficult. What wasn't distorted by the nature of the shield itself, was distorted by the manner in which light bent underneath the waves. What was unmistakable, if a bit blurred, was the incredible centerpiece of the city. Some kind of conch, though on a ridiculous scale, rising from the heart of Zuppoland itself.

[The Kingpin]

Shades of beige and pink and orange decorated the majority of the conch's surface, speckled with brown and black blotches. The long spines along its top faded from the peach of the shell to into a brilliant blue hue that put even the surrounding sea to shame. Patrolling above and around the massive dome were schools of what would otherwise be named merfolk, their forms looking like very long sharks with relatively straight tails. Their armour was a blend of greens and golds, looking vaguely similar to Desrium's, which was replaced with overlapping, scale like plating from the waist down, where the piscine part of their shifted anatomies began. Out of the back of the armour, triangular dorsal fins kept them stable.

"Zuppolandians," rumbled the Scholar, answering a question not yet asked.

"They look like fish," commented Beshayir, curious as she leaned in.

"They need to. They live here," responded the dragon simply.

[C S]

"Do they all... um..." Syria fumbled with her words, not sure what constituted as tactless when asking about a culture relegated to the ocean. It seemed in bad taste to just ask if they all had tails and fins, or why they needed the shield over their city if that was the case. "Uh..." she drawled, at a complete loss.

[The Kingpin]

"What you're seeing is a shapeshifting ability that all Zuppolandians have. When in the water, their legs are replaced with a tail and fins. On land, they regain the legs," explained the dragon, remembering the first time he was escorted into the City of the Conch by those same patrols.

[C S]

"... Ah," Syria said finally, grateful for Septimus' intervention. Her look of relief grew ponderous again not a moment later. "Do they have to worry about it... do they need to be wary of water when on land, then?" asked the mage with a raised brow.

[The Kingpin]

"Maybe they're like frogs? They swim and walk on land but can't do either alone," suggested Ceridwen.

"That's right. Technically speaking, the sinking of Zuppoland in the sea was accompanied by a mana blast that turned the people into the closest thing we know of to humanoid amphibians," explained the Scholar, enjoying the little questionnaire he was being given over this. Was this what it was like to teach? Perhaps it would be wise to take it up as a profession...One day, perhaps. After he'd had his fill of exploring.

"Inside the conch, water flows down the walls and from the ceiling, so the people inside are constantly within reach of water. At the same time, it's dry enough that they can choose paths where water is not present," he added.

"And the ones outside?" asked Beshayir curiously.

"Outside, they're only a few minutes away from the ocean," rumbled the dragon.

"Oh," responded the elf, feeling somewhat silly at the inquiry now.

[C S]

Syria nodded in understanding as a somberness crept upon her. She crossed her arms under her chin and laid her head down on them, saying, "So this is what Desrium did, huh?"

[The Kingpin]

"I'm afraid so," rumbled the dragon. "Zuppoland had been an island state with several cities once. This one is the only one to survive; the capital. And that was because it was directly over the mana well when it was destroyed," he explained, the Hueilin beginning to circle the underwater city at a distance.

"Who is this Desrium?" chittered the dragoness beside Septimus. By now, she'd heard the name a few times, but had no reference for it. It was around the moment she wondered this that she also realised the Scholar had changed course, arcing through the water as she changed her path, her wings, legs and tail doing their best to keep up With the smooth, powerful sweeps of the Scholar's tail.

"A friend of mine. A hero of Aster and the distant continent of Tyrbenetus. I don't think you were there when my friend Buruq and I told the Elders of my father's deeds. Desrium was briefly brought up. He was my companion for quite a long time," explained the Scholar.

"And he sank an island!?" chittered the dragoness incredulously, her head turning to face the Scholar with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Have you not considered he might be dangerous? He could kill you!"

"I don't doubt he could. But this story is very old, Indeed. It happened a long time ago. Before either of us were conceived. I learned fairly early on that he had lost his memory of that time, and I believe it was a time when he had been unable to think rationally...A time pre-dating the Desrium Aster knows now. Unfortunately, there are those that still think very poorly of him, in Zuppoland, and elsewhere," explained the drake.

"I'm not surprised. Thousands of lives must have died to him that day. I can imagine their relatives are bitter over that...I'm surprised you're not more concerned over your trust of him," clicked the dragoness.

"It is that trust and that friendship that arguably brought him back from that track," snarled the Scholar, a powerful, guttural sound that made the water around his form resonate, the barrier around Beshayir and Syria flickering and flashing with the rapid departure and connection of the water being forced around it. Ceridwen shrunk away at that, frightened at the sudden outburst.

A sigh followed, the Scholar regaining his composure. "When I found him, he had been a wandering, aimless creature, starved to the point where his mind was at the brink of folding to his basest instincts; his hunger for Mana. He had spent centuries being treated as a monster, feared by all. He was rejected wherever he went. That was very much the same as how I had been treated, ironically until I was exiled," he explained. The dragoness's expression drooped even further. Now things made more sense.

"It was after we began to travel Aster together that that beastly side of Desrium, the side I dare say he may have begun to believe was his true nature, started to recede. It was after the Dawnmother entrusted him with the duty of Champion that he became who he is today. But I digress. To return to the matter we were speaking of, the hatred aimed at him did not start with the destruction of Zuppoland. He was loathed since his inception, first and foremost because his creation stems from a branch of demonology. Demonic magic had a hand in his creation...And those who are my father's disciples, particularly those in Zuppoland, considered him an abomination to be destroyed," rumbled the Scholar.

[C S]

"I still find it so hard to believe," Syria stated. "I met him... we met him when he had no memories to speak of. If there was ever a time to see how genuine Desrium is, it was then. If there was any evil in his... well I don't suppose he has a heart... but if he did... I can't imagine he just... sprung a mind, and a sense of compassion, over the years." They had talked about this once before. It just did not make sense to her how anything spawned of the demonic could result in Desrium.

Yet here laid Zuppoland, undeniable proof of some travesty.

There were pieces of this puzzle missing, and Desrium had them... wherever he was now.

Even if they did find him, would he share his story?

Syria supposed it all depended on who was brave enough to ask.

[The Kingpin]

"He certainly didn't just sprout a mind. But I do not think that Desrium, as we know him, would have been able to have done what apparently happened to Zuppoland. But at the same time, I can't think of anything else capable of such a thing. That is more power than any person is capable of manipulating, arguably even more than any group of people could manipulate," rumbled the Scholar.

"But why?" asked Beshayir, confused.

"I don't know. I have seen Desrium starved of mana, and I have seen him with too much mana. Both sights are terrifying things. I don't like the thought that he is responsible for this, but for now at least, it is the only reasonably logical explanation," concluded the dragon. He noted, with some interest, that the patrols had seen him, and were currently patrolling the city parallel to his path, keeping an eye on him. Curious...

[C S]

That decided things for Syria.

She pushed herself up onto her knees and patted Septimus on the back. "The only way we'll get our answers is to track him down and ask," she told him, and then glanced to the small signs of movement off to their flanks. Trails of bubbles, glints of light against armor. "Maybe it's something you'd write a book about, one day. For me, I just want to know what he has to say about all this."

[The Kingpin]

"I did say once that I intended to write a book about his story so that the world would know the truth behind the so-called 'Blood Omen'. This would be an opportunity to...I believe the term is 'consolidate my sources'," rumbled the drake as he ascended gradually.

"Where is he?" asked Ceridwen, curiously cocking her head.

"If I had to guess, I would say Brodudika," responded Septimus, smirking at the confused look on the dragoness's muzzle. "It's a city in Draxon. Well, what was once Draxon," explained the dragon, though the Thunderkin's confusion didn't fade with that revelation. She assumed it was something she would have to see to understand.

[C S]

"We went there before, only to learn that he was off somewhere else. He was with Andruil recently -- Andruil is another friend of ours -- but I don't think..." Syria pursed her lips and then shrugged. "He can't have gotten far from Brodudika in a few days. Septimus, this is our chance!"