Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[C S]

"They won't judge us too harshly for being... not?" Valeria asked. Chances were that she wasn't making a joke. Urlox had a silly grin on his face from Matthias' remark. "I think the drink-fixer over there and I share some blood, Morgan, heh," he had said, before their encounter with the undercover Royal Arms agents.

"They'll judge you for not being a dwarf, lass," Baaz replied. "Now if they hold it against you..."

Chandra pinched the bridge of her nose. "We've succeeded in political interference and subterfuge. If we can avoid sparking another incident with an entirely different faction, I can finally rest easy, Walgruuf."

"I'm not getting trodden upon by half-men," Baaz insisted, making no promises either which way, much to Chandra's chagrin.

Valeria coughed softly. "How do you know about this place, anyway?" she wondered.

[The Kingpin]

"My dear, before I was forced into the life I currently live, I was a trader," stated the Wanderer with a bitter chuckle. How things had changed. "Despite their image of isolation and dislike of outsiders, the dwarves rely on trade to get what they can't produce themselves. Certain kinds of wheat and grains, luxury goods, some forms of rubber that they use in their grand mechanisms." There was a reason he knew this was so. Speaking to Leonora about the kinds of materials needed in complex mechanics gave him an edge on the competition back when he was still trading, and for a good while, he was one of the most successful traders in Eastern Aster in regards to the dwarves.

[C S]

"'E used to get me these books that the dwarves 'ave. Like storybooks, but with pictures instead of paragraphs!" Urlox chuckled.

Baaz raised a brow and scratched her head. "So... a fighting manual, then?"

"With characters that talk to each other!"

"Enchanted fighting manual?"

"No lass, just speech bubbles."

"Speech... bubbles?"

While the two of them went on as they did, Chandra broached, "What do you intend to do while we're back east?"

[The Kingpin]

"Probably settle in Daaven for a while. Somewhere Valenhadians don't often go. It'll be easier to keep a low profile, avoid detection...Wait for a few months, maybe a year, and then go back. I'll see Thieryal's head rolling down his polished marble steps. He may have started this fight, but I will end it." It was a dark train of thought for the jovial atmosphere that had taken them mere moments before. "After that, if I live, I will go home...and pray that I can get to our Court Mage before the guards reach me. Some way to corroborate that I am Matthias Lyall."

[C S]

Chandra nodded and then looked over to Urlox, raising her palm to him.

"-- And Boolmir rode a fairy-magic unicorn, waving a 'alberd about..." Urlox cocked his head while Baaz stared at him blankly. Most of what he had described to her went into one ear and out the other. "Chandra?"

"If you can spare some time after a few months, perhaps even a year, I can as well," Chandra told him.

Urlox glanced between her and Matthias. "A few-- hmm. Yeah, I can agree with that," said the man, nodding. "I can 'elp get you through Valenhad when the time comes, no problem."

Baaz chose to stay with Valeria in being quiet. Did she really want to remain as one of Daaven's tools? Did she really want to be a personal lizard of war for Urlox in a year, or less?

[The Kingpin]

"That would be very kind of you, but I couldn't ask you to do that. You have already done so much to help me," said the Wanderer with a smile. He was thankful they weren't offering to do more, but the fact they were sticking their neck out at all, after all this, was another thing that he did not feel at ease with.

[C S]

"We've done so much already," Baaz found herself saying, "might as well be there with you at the end. The end-end."

It wasn't so bad, she figured. A few months off of duty, time she could spend back at that nameless village. When they needed her to make the final plunge, she would be there, just for the fact that rangers left nothing half-finished.

[The Kingpin]

"Stubborn Daavenians," said the Wanderer with a chuckle, amused despite himself. "Let's wait until the time comes and then decide, shall we? For now, we're burning daylight, and I would like to see what I can do about a warm meal and a bed that isn't an inch thick and sitting in snow." And just like that, he'd regained a bit of his gruff exterior, and was already making to head off.



It was another four hours before the City in the Sands appeared on the horizon. Rolling dunes and jagged ridges made up almost the entirety of the landscape, and that only thing that had managed to entertain the Thunderkin was the occasional sight of duneships drifting across the wastes.

It was no surprise then, that when the vast red walls of Thimeyra came into view, bristling with artillery of every shape and size, she was all but ecstatic. "Look, Septimus! At long last, we have reached! I never thought I would be so overjoyed to see a human city!"

"Elven," corrected the Scholar briefly.

"Elven city! In the middle of this wasteland! The very thought baffles me! How must they live in such a place? Surely they should expire from thirst or hunger, so far from life as they are?" she asked.

"Wait until we're closer, Ceridwen, and you will see. I'm sure you have the patience for that, don't you?" responded the Scholar with a smirk.

"Oh you-! Can you not indulge a lady's inquiries just this once?" she asked in a moment of frustration.

"You're not a lady, Ceridwen. Ladies are not massive fire-breathing beasts," retorted the Scholar, deciding that he would, for once, go ahead with teasing the dragoness.

"Beast?! How dare you?" she all but squawked. "How dare you?! I don't know how you are seen as such a paragon of virtue and goodness in dragonkind when you speak to a lady with such brutish manners!" she retorted.

"There is nothing brutish about it, dear. You are no more a lady than I am a gentleman. We are dragons. In the definition of the language we currently speak, we are therefore beasts. Firebreathing, regal, captivating beasts, but beasts all the same." He was having too much fun with this.

"Speak for yourself, good sir! You may see yourself as a beast, but I hold myself to be no lesser than those whose tongue I have adopted as my own. I'll not demean my lofty stature among the denizens of this world by placing myself below them!" She was getting quite worked up over it.

"Ceridwen, tell me; how do you eat?" asked the Scholar, barely restraining the urge to laugh when the insulted expression on the dragoness's beak-like muzzle flattened out.

"Just like everyone else does! How do you mean? What does that have to do with anything?" she asked, the confusion dripping off every word.

"I mean when you eat. How do you do it? What is the procedure?" he asked, clarifying, though no glimmer of understanding followed in the dragoness's expression.

"That....That-that depends on the food in question!" she spluttered. "A fish can be eaten whole, but something larger must be cut apart first. I still don't know how this has anything to do with-"

"So you eat fish whole, and you tear apart the carcasses of larger prey you kill, yes?"

"I suppose so but-"

"That is not lady-like behaviour by most courtly standards. That is what is defined as beastly."

"See here!" she actually did squawk. "I cannot be faulted for lacking the utensils to dine as they do! That does not make me any less of a lady than any of them!"

"The numerous etiquette books I have would disagree with your assessment, Ceridwen," Septimus deadpanned.

"You-! You-!...Agh!" exclaimed the dragoness furiously.

"That is not a lady-like sound, either. Also according to the etiquette books. You might stand to read one every now and again."

"You know I can't read!" she cried dramatically.

"'A lady should be soft spoken, well mannered, well dressed and well learned in the matters of the world. Literacy is the foundation of high society, and the ability to read, learn and teach is what separates a lady from the common women of the lesser classes'. Page three hundred and twenty two, the Courtier's Guide to Courtly Etiquette by Archibald Van Brunn, Freyr-Lunge Library. Written about thirty years ago," fired off the Scholar with a tone only a hair short of being outright condescending.

A snarling hiss escaped the dragoness at that, her beak snapping shut just shy of the Scholar's dorsal fin.

"Now now, I thought you were trying to be a lady? Can't be if you're biting people. I'm sure your soft-spoken-ness would be a much more convincing characteristic than that." It was the calm with which he spoke that aggravated her, even more so than what he said.

"Don't you patronise me, Son of Storms! We both know you don't believe a word of it!"

"Frankly, I don't believe any designation of us would warrant being called gentlemanly or lady-like, but then, I don't even try to see myself as anything other than what I am. I just put on respectable appearances so as not to offend my hosts. It doesn't mean I would not eat them if I had to."

[C S]

The intricate angular sides of the red die danced about on Syria's table, cleared of books. The numerals appeared in their random sequence until the enchantments of the satchel willed the die to sit still in the center of the table.

"Seven," Syria read off to Beshayir, sounding a little uncertain. She was following along with the rules of the game just as well as Beshayir was. She put her hand into the small box they had off to one side of the table and drew one of the finely detailed clay cards. The backs of the cards had numerous diamond-cuts in them to give them a rumpled texture, and the front of them had painted illustrations from another land, depicting otherworldly beings that very much were a part of Leyuna. Some were frightening demons, but others were what Septimus called "djinn".

Fittingly, each card had a block of text underneath the fantastic imagery to denote how they effected the game Syria and Beshayir played. Neither of them could reach it. The language of the Justicars, of Tyrbenetus, was a cipher that Septimus hadn't gotten around to translating. The game was a keepsake he took with him in leaving the Dawnmother's land.

"Um. That's a nice painting, isn't it, Beshayir?" Syria asked, deferring to the same question for some time now, oblivious to the happenings outside of the satchel.

[The Kingpin]

The girl looked at the carved clay card curiously. It was one of the several beautifully decorated cards in the deck that Septimus had brought. They were collectively rather heavy, but that was to be expected when one could not make cards out of paper or wood. "It is all I could really pay attention to. Neither of us can read what's on the cards," she noted with a shrug, looking more closely at the illustration. It depicted a yellow figure, a suit of armour, apparently, with dark shadows for eyes. In one hand, a gold and silver lance was held, or so she presumed from the colouration. Septimus had said that that lance was in Desrium's hands for a time, and that it had been beautiful. The way he described it, she had to take his word for it that it truly was a work of incredible beauty and craftsmanship. She couldn't remember the name of the figure on the card, but she did know it was a 'Justicar', a champion of the order to which Septimus belonged. The word lost some meaning to her in that she had never seen any of these Justicars, only heard tales of them. Septimus refused to show her, insisting that it was not a sight that was pleasant to see, however heroic they were. Another thing she had to take his word for.

The figure was cast on a background of red and orange; the bloody sky of Tyrbenetus. Rays of white extended out from the figure's back, and Septimus had said those were the wings of the Justicars; a grand and brilliant sight, a symbol of hope for those who called the Justicars their savours and protectors.

What struck the girl about them was their detail. They were finely painted, considering they were made in a place that was being choked by war at the time they were made.

Beyond the satchel's walls, Ceridwen had calmed down somewhat. After realising that Septimus was actively enjoying teasing her, she decided it was best to rob him of the satisfaction. And so they continued in silence until the lake for which Thimeyra was named came into view. Like a vast pool of mercury, the oasis reflected everything around it; the pristine blue of the sky, the reds and oranges of the walls, the whites of the minarets and the various colours of the fabric shades that spread across walkways all around it. This close, the city's defenses were even more impressive. Hundreds, possibly thousands of siege engines dotted the walls. Catapults, trebuchets, ballistae, above and behind the great barrier that kept the unwanted out and the cherished in.

"I still find it hard to believe that they have not sought to fell us. The tales I've heard told of humans and elves and dragons made it seem that any dragon was a terrible danger to be slain immediately."

"Some places do. If we were flying this close to the Elvish Cities of the West, we would most certainly be shot at with everything they had until we either died or left. Until recently, I had a keepsake of my last encounter with them. A Cloudburst Arrow," explained Septimus.

"Such things...I didn't know they even existed in this place. The only time I've ever heard that name was in relation to tales of our ancestors' ancestors beyond Aster." Her voice was thoughtful, perhaps awestruck.

"I'm afraid not. I caught one that had been shot at me. Melted it down for something more useful, but the fact stands, Cloudburst Arrows are very real. And I couldn't tell you if our old enemies found their way to Aster too, or if the people of Aster discovered it independently. As it stands, it doesn't really matter."


The duo steadily began to descend, the Scholar closing in on the entrance. The gates pulled open slowly, giving way to the two dragons as sand was kicked up in their wake. With little more than an exchange of decidedly Thimeyran pleasantries, the two Hueilin crossed the threshold of the city's entrance, two dragons becoming a dragon and an elf, the first time in a very long time that such a pair were seen here, if perhaps not in the same capacity as their predecessors.

[C S]

Syria hummed a wordless response to that. "I thought the die would add some dimension to all of this. I do suppose the novelty of rolling a die does wear off fairly quickly..."

"Seppy, dear, are we any where near Thimeyra?" Syria reached out with her mind.

[The Kingpin]

"Come out and take a look," responded the Scholar, his tone amused.

"Welcome back, friend! It has been a while since I last saw you! How are you? How have you been?" asked a cheerful voice almost the moment the Scholarly Elf walked through the gates.

"Greetings, Qutaiba! I am well. How have you fared?"

The elf smiled as he lifted off his helm. "As well as could be. My duties are as consistent as the rising and setting sun. My stomach is full, my family proud and happy. Life is good, Gods be thanked." He truly seemed cheerful. More so than the Scholar remembered.

"I sense there is more to it," he noted with a smile to match the Guardmaster.

"Astute. I have been told of that talent of yours. Indeed, there is more to it. I recently became a father. Twins. Shaheen and Shahad." It was clear he had a hard time reigning in his joy, his pride over the announcement.

"Oh my! That is a most excellent bit of news!" chirped Ceridwen excitedly.

"Indeed, congratulations, Qutaiba. May they bring you as much joy as young Beshayir has brought myself and Syria," stated the Scholar.

"Thank you kindly. But Beshayir... she is still with you?" asked the Guardmaster, his joy momentarily giving way to surprise. "I remember you saying she was to be with a family?"

"She chose to stay with us. To learn from us and share in our travels," stated the Scholar simply. "She's actually the reason we're here. She misses the food of Thimeyra, so we plan to try and learn it."

It was the most innocent thing, but if Qutaiba was smiling before, he was positively beaming now. "The finest food in central Aster. A blend of the best the East and West have to offer, with our own talents worked in. If I'm being honest, many of the major traders that come here from Valenhad leave with Thimeyran servants hoping that they can take our food with them," he said with no small bit of pride.

[C S]

It was then that Syria's head poked its way through the seam of the satchel and its cover. She was facing the interior wall of Thimeyra, her eyes widening at the sight of the scaffolding and the soldiers in their loosely bound clothes that traversed it. "Ah, I thought we'd still be in the air. I do think you've beaten your best flight time, Septimus," she was saying as she turned her head about. She saw the guard captain himself, though partially obscured by her vantage point and the Scholar himself.

"Oh. Mr. Faris! Good to see you again! Has Septimus introduced you to Ceridwen?" Syria lifted the flap up and started to pull herself out of the bag. From deeper within, her hat flew onto her head and fastened its straps underneath her chin. Her staff followed suit.

[The Kingpin]

"I was about to ask, actually," responded the Guardmaster.

"Indeed. Ceridwen of Clan Maelgwyn. Another of my own kind," explained the Scholar.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Ceri...den?" responded Qutaiba, getting a bit stuck on the name.

"Cerid-wen," corrected the dragoness with a polite smile. The Scholar was surprised she didn't snap at the Thimeyran for the mistake. At least this Ceridwen was friendlier.

"Ceridwen! Ceridwen Mael...gwynni. An interesting name, indeed. Exotic," stated the Guardmaster, repeating the name a few times quietly to try and get used to the feel of it on his lips. "I will be sure to remember it for next time," he promised, grinning once he was sure he'd gotten it right. It was then that he took note of Syria's staff. "Hm... Correct me if I am mistaken, but did you not use a different staff last time we spoke?"

It was about that moment that a second figure climbed out of the satchel, Beshayir standing beside the mage like some inverted mirror image, the light hue of her wirshah contrasting with the dark tones of Syria's, her dark skin contrasting with the Mage's own pale hue. "Ah," he responded.

Beshayir waved as she stood tall, proud for the first time in a long time to be standing before another of her own people. She stood as an actually capable mage, if perhaps far from the levels of those whose company she kept.

"Amazing. When she left she was so thin, so weak...so helpless. I hadn't thought she would ever become so... capable?"

"I was capable when I left Thimeyra. Not in magic, but capable nonetheless. Septimus and Syria helped me become strong." The dumbstruck expression Qutaiba's face took on after that was supremely satisfying to her.

"And she can speak your language, too! You two should open a school here!" exclaimed the Guardmaster. Septimus merely laughed.

"Perhaps something to consider whenever I decide to settle," he stated, the Guardmaster shrugging in mock disappointment.

"Well when you do, I will vouch for your capabilities as teachers, and Beshayir too, no doubt. In any case, I have spoken much, and have doubtlessly wasted your time with my ramblings. Welcome back to Thimeyra, and I pray your stay is a pleasant and rewarding one."

"Thank you, Qutaiba. Pass my regards to your family. Perhaps one day I will get to meet Shahad and Shaheen myself!" responded the Son of Storms jovially.

And with that, the Guardmaster gave them a wave that could have passed for a half-hearted salute, and made his way back to a table by the guardhouse, where a mug of something warm and steaming awaited him.

[C S]

"Never a waste of time," Syria said aloud to no one in particular after the guard captain took his leave. "Shahad and Shaheen, now?" she asked, looking to Septimus.

[The Kingpin]

"His children. Twins. They were born recently. You missed his little announcement by seconds," responded the Scholar simply.

Beshayir looked at the Scholar in surprise, before calling over to the Guardmaster with something in Thimeyran that caught even Septimus off-guard. Congratulations, she had said.

[C S]

Syria chose to express her congratulations mentally, wary after her contact with Vix to not startle the man with voices in his head. No more than what was inherent. "This is Syria, no need for alarm. All the best to you and your family."

"'Out of the grips of winter, springing forth into new life', as they say in Daaven," the mage went on to say as she took a seat upon her staff brought to a hover. "And now we're down the main street, off to the market. Ceridwen, you're going to just enjoy that district, so roomy and nice!" Syria came up along side the dragoness and hooked her arm around Ceridwen's foreleg.




The sun had moved high into the sky. Just past midday, everything underneath its incandescence was lit bright. Evisa and her dedicated team of snow-clearers roved the streets to clear up what they could not the day before, knowing that another storm may well be on its way. Elsewhere in the maze of stone and steel spires, Dahnae ran her deliveries, her body turning from girl to cat as needed to best the ice slick on the ground and hanging from the heights. Kenneth saw her speed by mid-bite into a toroid. He had to double-take, as he did not know stabbing victims to be so mobile so soon after their stabbing.

"They don't make 'em like they used to. Maybe we should get her on the force, then?" he pondered to himself, then bit into his pastry.

Just a stone's throw away was Melok, watching the rapidly departing cat-girl with a concealed disdain, and then looking to the man in the green coat with some distrust. It was no coincidence that the two would be so nearby to one another. The Daavenian snoop pestering his guards now seemed to have reason to pester him.

As long as he stayed his peace, anything the Green-Coat did out of turn would be an act of provocation. It would land him in the same cell that he would consign another to. There was some poetic justice in that, the law bringer general felt.

A shadow fell over him suddenly. That was odd. Last he saw of the sky, it was mostly clear. What kind of rogue cloud was moving so quickly, at such a scale as to blot out the sun--

And then he saw the black shape looming over Brodudika. Vast. A silvery halo surrounded its shining silhouette, a saintly blessing to his eyes.

"Oh Greshlynk. Are you with us, yet?"

All of Brodudika froze in time to regard that whose wings shunned the sun itself.



In his quarters high in city hall, Desrium put his mug down on the barrel of honey. "Unexpected."

He strode carefully, methodically, to his window. He looked up at the approaching blackness.

"What has the Interceptor done, Stormweaver?"

[Hopeflower]

Viho's reaction, much like his knee-jerk response to the dragon who had peered into his classroom window, was not one of awe. He tensed, bolted down what was left of his lunch, and stood so quickly that his chair scraped against the floor. The psychomancer stood poised to put as much distance between himself and the approaching beast - and, just as importantly, the glass of the windows - as possible. A dragon that big could only ever mean trouble. Trouble that he was not inclined to stick around for.

Some distance away, his son was already studying the approaching wings, trying to work out if he could tell who they belonged to by their size and shape. So far, they didn't seem familiar to him.

"Here we go," Rowan teased, resting her chin on Arsenic's shoulder. She seemed content to have him carry her around on his back the entire time they were out, and he had yet to complain. Despite being as slim as the average magic user tended to be, if not a little on the skinny side even for that thanks to occasionally altogether skipping meals, Arsenic's training with his bow had served him well.

'Here nothing goes,' the elf retorted absently. 'I'm not suicidal, thanks.'

Rowan snorted at that, but her grip on him tightened to the point of nearly choking him. Unlike Arsenic, there was nothing deceptive about her strength - her forearms were steel bands locked around his neck. "I would hope not," she said, a little too fiercely to be continuing the banter.

Arsenic's jaw moved in such a way that he might have been picking a bit of previously unnoticed food out of his teeth with his tongue, but he didn't say anything about her concern. Instead, as Vix returned from investigating a potential spot to have their lunch, he remarked, 'We should probably get inside. It might get...breezy out here.'

Vix, following his gaze, nodded and told them, "They've got hot soup in there."

"Works for me," Rowan said. For probably the hundredth time since that morning, she refrained from squeezing Arsenic's ribs with her knees and joking, giddyup!

For probably the hundredth time since he'd agreed to carry her, Arsenic loosening his grip in warning helped her keep her mouth shut.

[The Kingpin]

Looking up at the decorated spiralling pillars and the archway just past the main gate, the dragoness nodded. "I quite believe I will," she stated just as the animate falcon statue spread its wings, perched atop the globe of light that acted as the centre of the archway.



The Stormweaver's shimmering gaze flitted to and fro as he surveyed the city's details, taking note of everything from the architecture to the concentration and distribution of people in its streets. He had heard much of this place. To see it at last was...underwhelming, to be truthful. But he understood it was an ongoing mission. The fact that Desrium was committed to its completion was enough to make him cast aside his initial impression.

The Stormweaver's wings thumped powerfully as he circled around, heading back towards the entrance of the city's stone and wood walls. Walls that, on closer inspection, Arashi noted were lined, in places, with steel plates. Now that he had seen what made up its streets and structures from the air, it was time he traversed them from the ground. A wide arcing turn brought him back to the front of the city, a few hundred yards from its gates, the dragon descending with a rumbling roar as he glided mere feet off the ground, landing in a gallop that stopped mere moments later. His curiosity was drawn to the massive snow drifts in front of the walls. Improvised barriers to serve as additional protection from attackers? Or something else? He could not be certain. Only that they were tall and seemed to consist of more snow than should otherwise be there. Something to inquire about.



Andruil paused mid-step in the hallway just outside Viho's classroom, the call wrenching him from his thoughts. He had ignored the rattling of the windows as the results of some harsh winds, a turn in the weather perhaps. But that sound was beyond ignoring. That was most certainly not Septimus. It was too deep, too powerful; something that even at this distance from the presumed source somewhere beyond the city's walls, seemed to resonate within him. It wasn't truly such, of course. Not many things in Aster were quite that massive nor loud, but he could not deny that it spoke to some deep, primal part of him, warning of a predator he could not hope to overcome nor escape were it to find him. It was an oddly unsettling sensation. It had been a while since he last felt that way about anything. Glancing towards the door, he pulled it open, gaze settling on Viho. "Any idea what that might have been?" he asked.

[C S]

Swords were drawn. Bows were raised. Ballistae based turned with armored crews taking aim, even if some were reluctant to fire upon a hallowed creature. It was an inevitability that came with such an appearance. What shook the men at the gates was the indifference to that inevitability. After news of a supposed siege, spearheaded by a wyvern's rampage, the appearance of the Experimentalist was a discomforting development. Men and women in silvery plating stood upon battlements behind an incomplete wall, unsure of themselves, but they did not flee. Well, to be fair, some did. The ones not covered in the protection of a full suit of metal, or bearing blades long or sharp enough to be of use.


The gates of Brodudika were undoubtedly the strongest point in the wall thus far, the place where the reinforcement efforts were most complete. It was here that the most resolute held their places and faced the oncoming dragon through their fortifications, crenelations and small windows. It was also here where some representatives of Valenhad were located.

Their words went along the chain of guards, up the stairs and encampments, the ballistae stations, the swordsmen and bowmen.

Weaving through the tension the hearsay went until finally one armored knight shouted out to the aged drake, "Arashi? Herald of Mercutio?"