Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[Hopeflower]

The Oniare bobbed her head once. The other side of the ridge was steeper and perhaps even more unstable and covered in cacti. In spite of that, Lanira navigated it with surprising speed and even grace, making it look as easy as taking a stroll down a dirt road. The one time her shoulder brushed a segmented cactus, the ball of spines glanced off of her rough scales and fell away with hardly a scratch. She paused at the bottom, beside an easily-missed cleft in the sandstone.


A quick learner. Viho noted this from his position, hugging the shadows. His fingers twitched. Too quick. The attacker's moments of imbalance were too small and swiftly corrected for him to capitalize on. His first strike needed to count, then...and he wasn't going to get a better shot than this.

He glanced from the man's sword to his ill-fitting helmet, then to his left hand. If he miscalculated, Desrium would do well to reconsider his judgment in the knights of Brodudika.

As if suddenly gaining a life and will of its own, the loose and heavy helmet snapped back hard, smashing into the man's nose and lower jaw and taking him over backwards with its weight - and a little telekinetic help. He slammed to the sidewalk with all of the force Viho could put behind his throw. The racket was such as one could expect, and sure to draw attention.

And taking advantage of the damage he'd just done, Viho yanked at the sword, stepping to the side quickly in case it did come flying his way. If it landed near him, great - if not, it was simply one less advantage for the assailant.

[C S]

The sword clattered against the brick of the building and rebounded off with a vibration running through its constitution before finally crashing down onto the road, the sound of that mildly muffled by the scatterings of snow that remained on the ground after all the efforts to clear the streets. Not that it mattered. The racket battering at the edge of his unconsciousness roused the guard to lucidity, and his head ached.

"What was in that blasted concoction?" he rasped, then coughed hoarsely, his throat parched. It was as if he were deprived of water for days, no doubt the effect of the jester's alchemical weapon. However, without a broken nose and the ability to stand, albeit shakily, the guard was much better off than Chuckle.

Chuckle grasped fruitlessly at the dragon-maw visor. The joke had quickly lost all merit, and all he knew was pain. How were these things supposed to protect anybody!? They couldn't keep knockout powder out, and they didn't make getting hit in the head any easier to handle! And what the hell kind of magic was responsible for it!?

All sentiments that his groans and grunts would have conveyed, if he could find it in him to articulate words.


Scaled boots pounded the pavement, the sound reaching Viho's ears, and the viking appeared thereafter, skidding to a halt next to Viho. The first, and perhaps the speediest responder to the ruckus. Speed that did not leave potholes in the streets. She lurched forward and then pulled herself back, fists raised. "What the hell is all of this?" she asked with all of her northern eloquence.

[The Kingpin]

The Scholar made his way down to where the Oniare awaited, careful to step around the obstacles in his path more to avoid leaving a trail that could be followed than out of any actual aversion to them. Finally, he stood at the entrance, or what he presumed to be the entrance to the Oniare den. The scent he picked up from within certainly hinted at such, though he knew that most other creatures would be unable to detect it as easily as he.

[Hopeflower]

Lanira puffed in what might have been something close to approval. She slipped inside the den and led the dragon down a sloping, winding passageway that looked, in places, to have been widened with sharp claws. Out of the immediate reach of the sun, the cave cooled significantly just a short distance from the entrance. It was noteworthy that unlike the desert nights, it was not intolerably cold. The temperature seemed to stay just within the realms of livable for the Oniare. As the pair walked, they passed several branching passageways. From some, fresher air flowed, indicating that they eventually led back to the surface.

A few other Oniare, lingering in these passageways, turned to stare or uttered low hisses. Lanira silenced them all with a sharp look and continued on, until the tunnel widened out to a cavern with a low ceiling. This, too, looked in places to have been carved out to better suit the needs of the desert dwellers. And it was full of Oniare. There might have been fifteen of them, sprawled out on the stone, tending nests, or dividing up the extra prey the hunting parties had brought back for the hatchlings. All of them paused in what they were doing to study their visitor.

Lanira set her prey down and announced in a series of rasping hisses and rolling snarls, "The Elfskin has come to learn our ways. The first to try and harm him will face my fangs."

A few of those closest to them flinched and looked away. They were some of those who had witnessed the viciousness with which Lanira had fought for her rank, and so knew her words were less a threat than they were a promise.


Viho breathed a quiet sigh of relief to have some form of backup if the attacker regained his wits. He rolled his shoulder and straightened. That had drained him more than he would have liked to admit. He might have put more into it than he strictly needed to, but with the immediate problem taken care of, he supposed it didn't matter much.

"I'm not sure yet," he replied. "But I found him - " he flicked a hand at the attacker " - trying out the guard's armor and sword." Seeing as it seemed said guard was going to be alright for now, Viho drew a few of his throwing knives, took a few steps closer to the man on the ground, and prodded at his mind experimentally. He didn't expect to find much at the moment -the guy had been knocked a bit senseless - but he did try to chase down a name and a goal.

[C S]

"When did you start carrying knives?" Evisa inquired next, her one-track mind showing, as she had yet to comment on Viho's new glove. She had yet to notice it, moving to steady the guard and set him down against a nearby wall. She then barked a request to the few onlookers that had gathered to see what all the noise was for. "The man needs a drink, don't just stand there!"

It scattered the curious, and hopefully one of them would make good on the call. Evisa stepped away from the guard and looked to the writhing man in the ill-fitting helmet.

[Hopeflower]

The psychomancer cracked a tired smile. "When I lost my ability to use a sword." Mindful that he might have caused a neck injury in addition to...all of the head injuries he'd deliberately inflicted, he pulled the stolen helmet from the guard's attacker and took a good look at the man's gore-covered face.

And promptly uttered a low curse. "One of Natalie's friends," he muttered. "Isn't this my lucky night."

[C S]

"Natalie?" was Evisa's next question. She had been mostly out of the loop with the investigation and the suspects it had turned up. Making sure that a bunch of rambunctious elementals didn't get too out of line didn't lend much opportunities to keep up with the nitty-gritty. Lost as she was, she was right on point when she saw the man in black reaching for the jester's hat. He'd just gotten a bell in his palm when Evisa's helmet came off of her head, pale yellow light washing over him and Viho.

Seconds later, the side of the viking's helmet smashed against his forehead, sandwiching Chuckle's head with metal and cobblestone. The bladed helm rolled to a halt a foot or so away. The second assault with a helmet left the man in black unconscious, and he would be so for a lot longer than his victim behind the viking.

Evisa cleared her throat. "Natalie?" she asked again.

[The Kingpin]

Even as he entered the chamber, the Scholar reached out to the minds of all those around him. His gaze lingered only for a moment on each detail. The cavern walls, the elder Oniare, the nests, the young, the contemptuous gaze some regarded him with. He did not let his attention linger too long, making the most of his perfect memory to allow him to take in and ponder the details at a later date. What drew his attention more than the visible clues to their lives however were the memories and the knowledge that lay behind each Oniare's eyes. He could not salvage everything, perhaps not even half of it where he stood. Not in such a brief time since he'd arrived. But he got glimpses, shreds of thoughts that the serpentine humanoids were thinking in that one moment, and every thought linked to those thoughts.

Almost immediately, he found himself picking up the first tool he would need to make a connection with his hosts: their tongue. Thoughts came forth at the sight of him, reverent and otherwise, and with them came words and meaning, which he quickly adopted as his own. It was in this way that he swiftly found himself understanding the mentality that the Oniare themselves had. The only telling sign that any of this was happening was the dim purple hue that had overtaken his slitted sapphire gaze.

"I see your kin here have learned to recognise the danger you pose. How would you assure that a popular uprising does not strike you down?" he questioned. He spoke quietly as he was asked, his tone confident as he was aware that none in there who may have actually harboured such thoughts would understand him.

[Hopeflower]

To that, Lanira tilted her head toward a few less noticeable positions around the cavern. A ledge here, a nook there. From each, a pair of eyes gleamed. "My loyal," she replied simply. "Besides them, I am not an unfair leader. I simply took what was owed to me."

She paused, then added, "You may ask what you will of our way of life. Some things will be harder to explain in your tongue, however."


Viho's flinch at the second collision of metal and flesh was followed up with a clearing of his own throat and, "Thanks for that." He made a note that he needed to be more watchful with these people. Whatever this man had thought to try in his state, it couldn't have been anything pleasant. "Natalie is...was one of the group this man belongs to. She's the one who nearly killed Dahnae." He stood, brushing snow from his pants. With Natalie no longer a problem and this man caught, that left four of these people still out there.

It was progress, at least.

[The Kingpin]

The Scholar nodded, a moment of silence drawing out between them as he gathered his thoughts. "I have found most of the humanoid races tend to have a great deal of autonomy, mostly on account of the size of their settlements. How do Oniare communities compare? By what laws does this society operate?"

[C S]

"Ah ha," Evisa replied. Crossing her arms, she spied the beginnings of a mean welt and bruise on the man's head. "Not much of a 'group'," she commented internally. It was funny in a strange, and admittedly not-that-funny kind of way, how such a disorganized band of crazies could be so damaging. They were just normal people, not trained in any kind of formal combat, foiled so easily, yet possessing the capacity to do some truly heinous things. For this one here, she was glad that his last moment of wakefulness was a moment owned by Novarah. What happened next was up to Viho to decide. If he could fix him like he did this Natalie person...

She picked up the jester's hat, wondering what was so important about it. Immediately she saw the broken purse tucked away inside and the residue that coated the fabric. Thinking back to the knight, she thought it would be wise to keep it away from her face. Evisa then inspected the bells, and it did not take long for her to notice that, in addition to the metal balls inside, there were small glass vials. Just the right squeeze or shake would shatter them and release the contents contained within.

More knockout substances, probably. This one spent some time planning this whole thing out. Not as stupid as they seemed. Disturbing.

"Evidence," she said to Viho, before looking towards the one good samaritan who came back with a mug of water for the guard.

[Hopeflower]

"I am unsure if you would consider them true laws," Lanira replied. As she spoke, she settled into a crouch and, using only her claws, set about skinning her hare with quick, precise movements. "Crime as other races define and experience it is not something there is room for out here. If one cannot cooperate and pull their weight, they die. Instead, we follow what you might refer to as the way of the jungle. We keep to the balance and do not kill for sport, nor take more than we need to survive, and we waste as little as possible." She pulled the skin from the meat of her kill and glanced up. "All of that said, all Oniare have done as our leaders directed for many generations - done whatever was deemed necessary to stay hidden. That has meant what most would call mass murder."


The psychomancer hummed, low and thoughtful. He bent to retrieve Evisa's helmet, and carefully traded it for the jester's hat. "I'd better get it - and him - to the right people before he wakes up," he said. He sighed and scratched at the bridge of his nose with his free hand. Not how he'd hoped his night would go, admittedly, but he couldn't say it hadn't been productive.

[C S]

"I can carry him," Evisa offered. If she heard the clamor in the background about her features the helmet hid most of the time, she did nothing to acknowledge it as she put it back on. "I can carry him, too," she added in reference to the knight, looking over her shoulder. He raised his mug in appreciation at about the same time as his partner rounded the street corner. "I guess you can only haul so much *** when you're weighed down by all that stuff."

With the weight of the incident lifting, and a pause to take in the fine details, Evisa prodded Viho's padded shoulder, cocking her head.

[The Kingpin]

"Mass murder in what sense? Execution of any who compromise you, or destroying entire villages to preserve your secrecy? Or perhaps both?" asked Septimus curiously. "Or am I assuming things are more thorough than they actually are?" he added a moment later as he realised his tone had sounded a bit too judgemental for his own taste.

[Hopeflower]

The reptilian didn't seem disturbed by the dragon's tone. Her own voice, however, was carefully neutral when she answered, "If we had not been so thorough, we would already be a hunted race." And their thoroughness was to be a black spot on their history. Lanira would not pretend their secrecy had always been maintained through peaceful means.


"Thank - hm? Oh." Reminded of what he'd originally planned to do, Viho lifted his arm for inspection. It was good to know that even this long after his last round of painkillers, Evisa's poke hardly bothered the injury at all. "A bit fancier than rope, isn't it?"

[C S]

"If it works, it's fancy by viking standards, no matter how clunky or rope-y it may be." Evisa let that remain in the air between the two of them before saying, "Granted, it looks very nice by most standards as well." There was an amicable tinge to her otherwise rough and tough disposition, enough to imagine a smile underneath the metal cover over her face. "You can tell me more about it while get mister-bad here to a holding pen, and mister-put-on-your-helmet's report as to how this all happened." Evisa looked to the knight, and he took the signal to rise again, handing off the emptied mug.

He walked over to pick up his helmet, then went off to retrieve his sword.

Evisa tilted her head inquisitively. Now how in the hell did that get all the way over there? She must have missed that part, despite getting over here as fast as she could after those first echoes reached her.

[The Kingpin]

"Fair enough. Though I am sure you understand that such information will cast your kind in a light that will lead to such aggression if not tempered with other traits," explained the Scholar slowly. "I may not share Syria's optimistic, pacifistic outlook on the world, but I would rather avoid such an outcome if I can. Some people are unfortunately not so quick to accept such an excuse as an old regime as the reason that their friends and kin were eradicated over what they knew."

Lingering for some time in silence, he then moved on to ask, "So what of your culture? You have said that laws as humans know them do not exist here and that your communities operate on what one could call the law of the jungle. But as a society, what aside from survival drives you to stay together, to form communities? What practices, celebrations or customs do you hold?" he asked. He noted some similarities to the wilder populations of hominids that were said to roam Aster's most inhospitable regions, where large and modern communities were impossible and where primitive behaviour was still their natural state. It left him wondering whether they truly were so different to the primitive humans sometimes referred to as the Wildmen in the jungles of the south.

[Hopeflower]

This was where language was bound to fail the skinwalker. She cocked her head, considering her reply while she gutted the hare. "Survival would be the main reason. Some of us do not stay, for we do not bond the way warm-blooded races do, but hunting and raising young are often easier in a group and there is safety in numbers. It is also a good way to stay aware of what goes on in the world around us." She set the internal organs aside and started to strip the meat from bone. "Families exchange information frequently. If one claims no family, they are considered rogues and are not welcome at - "

And here she struggled, chittering and trying for a good way to end the sentence, for the closest she could come was meetings - but that implied order and simplicity. In truth, that was only the case when families of the same species met. A speedy affair, often accompanied by an exchange of youngsters in addition to news, to avoid the risk of inbreeding. It was usually much more chaotic when different families came together. Slightly different tongues, vastly different appearances. It had never come to blows, as far as Lanira was aware, but it was not unheard of for tempers to wear thin.

"At such things," Lanira settled on. "As for our practices and celebrations, they are simple. We respect the way of the jungle, for Sethis and his daughters have given us everything we need. We are sharp of tooth and swift of foot thanks to their gifts, and in return we must always remember that the life we are given will be taken away sooner or later. It is how things must be." She turned the rabbit over and began stripping the meat from the other side of the carcass. "Thus what few things we celebrate are related to the sun. We consider it the eye of Lord Sethis' eldest daughter, Rashin, watching over her father's world and giving life to the things that call it home."


"Of course," Viho said evenly. His first few steps were careful, to make sure his knees weren't about to give out on him without warning. He tried, and failed, to shake the thought that for someone who had planned so far ahead as the contents of the jester's hat implied, catching this man had gone...far too smoothly.

Granted, if the way these people had lain low after Natalie's capture and subsequent...interrogation was any indication, they might have learned something of what they were dealing with before the shift in his magic. With that thought, Viho noted that he may have gotten luckier than he'd initially thought.

The Green-Coats would probably want to know information was getting to the people they were looking for, somehow.

[C S]

"Up ye get," Evisa quipped as she all but scruffed Chuckle, lifting him up by his coat with what seemed to be the greatest of ease. He drooped in his clothes, limbs swaying about limply as she went with Viho. The knight, grateful that he could walk, followed a few steps behind, wondering whether or not the viking would have held him the same way if he wasn't able to carry on. The least he could ask for was the dignity of being carried like a soldier on a comrade's shoulders, though that one guard on Evisa's right did not seem too comfortable to lie on...

[Hopeflower]

The details of Viho's new arm were easy enough to fill in during the trek to the building the Green-Coats apparently used as their base. The explanation as to why their would-be criminal looked beaten half to death when they got there was a little trickier, and required Viho repeating himself when it came to the magical aspect of it. At least it got them all out of the wind for a while.

"So that's where we're at," Viho concluded, ruffling his bangs with a sigh. "He'll need to be cleaned up and dealt with when he wakes up." A thought went to asking how Natalie was recovering, and was dismissed for the moment. It could all be taken care of in the morning.