Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[The Kingpin]

"Agreed," replied the Scholar as he began to pace towards the source of the magic, his movements seeming uncharacteristically light and elegant for what he was at that moment. A closer look at him would have revealed that he was actually drifting over the rubble rather than walking on it. His limbs only seemed to make a cursory effort to walk and hold him up, as though his body was afloat.

In moments, he was across the courtyard, examining a large gate. To the casual eye, there was nothing particularly unusual about it. Just a stone door frame, a thick oaken door with a loop of wrought iron for a handle.

It was those last two details that were strange, symbolising that magic was afoot here. Where most of the castle was rotting away, iron rusting to red dust and wood dissolving to nothing, here, the door was pristine.

The Scholar himself could see why. All across the door and the doorway around it, the equivalent of an entire volume's worth of runic wards could be seen, positively riddling every visible surface. Whatever lay beyond the door was obviously important, a closely guarded secret of the place here. But it was, interestingly enough, this very seal that was giving off the attractive aura. Why, Septimus could not say. Nor, he realised, could he see a clear way to disable it. The runes were unfamiliar to him.

Hmm.


Ceridwen, by this point, had found herself once more under the sway of magic she did not understand, drawn, like many before her, towards the gate. She had taken flight without even realising her wings had spread, and was flying over to the Scholar before her mind had even left the mages' sides.

[C S]

"Cerid... wen?" Syria arched a brow when she saw the speedy dragon take the lead, thinking it was unlike her to be so bold. It was shortly after that Syria deduced that it wasn't a surge of hidden bravery that motivated Ceridwen. "Now she's taken by the allure! I guess it isn't something she can do at will!" Syria leaned forwards and harnessed her energies to accelerate, drawing closer to the feathered drake's tail.

[The Kingpin]

Beshayir's eyes widened as she saw Syria and the dragoness fly off, pursuing almost immediately.

Ceridwen however was fully taken by the draw of the wards, only slowing when she was a few yards away, landing on the ground and hopping from shard to sundered rocky shard, traversing the broken terrain until she stood beside the Scholar, eyes wide and glassy as she looked up at the door.

Septimus, meanwhile, was reading the runes symbol by symbol, trying to draw some meaning from them that would help him figure out what its exact purpose was, with the hope of then learning how to unravel the wards. "They appear to be a blend of djinn and Hueilin runes. A peculiar combination. I have only ever seen that in Tyrbenetus, and even then, we didn't have many uses for wards such as these. Or at least, nothing that would have this effect," he explained. It seemed as though he was totally unaware of Ceridwen's condition, though closer observation would have revealed a white glow beneath all four of her grounded limbs, rooting her to the spot.

[C S]

"Great," Syria replied as she slowed to a hover next to Ceridwen, both to Septimus' assessment and the realization that their peculiarly impressionable friend couldn't go zipping off after inexplicable magic anymore. "She really is too fast for her own good. Something could have hit her on the head because she didn't stay put under my protection spell!"

The mage patted the entranced dragon on the head sympathetically. "More on topic; do you have any idea how Hueilin runes were learned by people hundreds of years ago? And if you do, do you know how runes from another continent are here, too?"

[The Kingpin]

"The answer to both questions is the same," responded Septimus simply as he held a clawed paw out, a finger tracing in the air to his side, symbols being torn into existence as if the air itself were a canvas. "Arashi. The Stormweaver. Founder of the Order." Even as he spoke, his other hand flicked in the direction of the mage, an aura of light engulfing her head and filling her gaze for a brief moment, before fading. It had not been a blinding or unpleasant light, but more like the glow of the sun through a dense canopy. At the culmination of the spell, she was seeing the runes as the Scholar saw them, shimmering with an aura of blue, reaching out of the stone and wood like shafts of light through fog.

[C S]

The mage blinked her eyes to get accustomed to her new sight. Bizarre, but not something she could fixate on. The time for that would come when she had to write about the day's events.

"Ah, of course. I suppose it would have been apt in arming nations with the ability to fight demons to teach them such advanced charms. Dezeriah. The idea of self-determinism would also encourage young mages to dedicate their life hunting the malevolently supernatural," Syria mused out loud as she eyed the lines of glowing, foreign letters. "I'm not sure how I feel about this... sealing magic... sealing the fates of people who had nothing to do with this castle's past."

[The Kingpin]

"Probably not intentional. After all, they could not have predicted that the castle would be overwhelmed with mould, much less that the entire island would have been sundered. The real question is not so much that as why this particular room was sealed," continued the Scholar, his gaze shifting from the door when he heard the irritated struggling of the dragoness, who was now squirming in an attempt to reach the door. Beshayir drifted to one side, putting the Scholar between herself and Ceridwen after the dragoness's tail nearly swatted her out of the air. As the dragoness turned and tried to snap at him, he shifted a clawed hand, avoiding the motion before reaching forward, pressing his broad, taloned palm against her forehead. A wave of blue and purple washed over her head as his hand slipped down and around her muzzle, brushing against her chin briefly as she was freed from her trance.

"Wha-...What happened? When did I get down here? Why can't I move? Septimus? What's going on, I don't underst-" she chirped and twittered frantically, a long, gentle shhh bringing her questions to an end.

"Calm yourself, Ceridwen. All is well. You are fine. You were drawn by the wards on the gate. I restrained you to keep you from touching it before we understood what it was for and what it could do," he explained calmly.

"Oh... Right. Sorry," responded the dragoness sheepishly.

The Scholar waved a hand dismissively as he growled, "Don't be. It's what the ward was designed to do." As he resumed reading, he hummed thoughtfully. "The real question is, 'why draw others to something presumably meant to be a secret? Why make a ward, a barrier against intruders, draw in outsiders?"

[C S]

Syria patted Ceridwen on the back of the neck. "It is quite a riddle. I'm glad we're able to ponder it now, though. Having to restrain Ceridwen while you were destroying a tower and turning into... this," the Mage-Maiden gestured wildly to all of Septimus' celestial form, "would have been a bit much." Syria looked to the Thunderkin. "Do you have any ideas, Ceri?"

[The Kingpin]

"Perhaps. But I have faith you would have managed. As you always do," assured the Scholar, gesturing for a moment at Ceridwen's feet, which were once again free of their bindings. His other hand had not stopped tracing runes into the air throughout their conversation, at this point forming a vast incorporeal tablet of symbols.

"I think," started Ceridwen as she looked across the gate from top to bottom with uncertainty, "If it was meant to draw things in...Maybe it wants to be opened? Why else would the ward be designed to attract others?"

[C S]

"Fair point." Syria joined Ceridwen in gazing at the gate with intent. She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, squinted her eyes, and after some intense deliberation, she stated, "If it wants to be opened, and doesn't appear too discerning in who it calls out to, then it should be easy to undo. That's what my logic is, at least."

[The Kingpin]

The Scholar hummed thoughtfully at that assessment, his rune drawing suddenly ceasing as he brought a clawed paw over to the gate. "I suppose there is only one way to find out, hm?" he asked, reaching forward to touch the gate's handle.

[C S]

Syria concentrated her will and mana. Pooled together, they accomplished the small and menial task of sliding the gate's latch to one side, effectively unlocking the way forward. The mage did not think much of it as she went about doing this, but immediately after the lock was unlocked, the runes that were scrawled all over the gate dimmed, and then fizzled away into dust to be blown away on a breeze that could not be felt.

"... Huh." Easy, indeed. A solution that an entranced Ceridwen could have stumbled across already.

[The Kingpin]

"Interesting," rumbled the Celestial Scholar as he curled his fist, the runes he had drawn dissolving much like those on the gate a moment later. He stepped back, giving the others a chance to approach. Ceridwen leaned forward, nudging the gate with her muzzle. A low, heavy creak filled the air as the gate swung inwards slowly, revealing the darkness beyond. Beshayir stood by Syria as the looked in at what mystery lay within.

The light around the Celestial Scholar seemed to pull in on itself, the darkness of his wings engulfing his form in a cosmic haze as he shifted forms, standing moments later as an elf, but not the one they were all accustomed to seeing.

"Well...This is a peculiar form," he noted thoughtfully as he examined his body.

His normally platinum blonde hair had taken on the same midnight effect as his wings, the mane of hair flowing around his head like a silken veil dancing in a non-existent breeze. The edges of his outline faded and wavered, proving that even in this form, the mirage effect persisted. His skin was fair, but surprisingly was still within the realm of what could have been deemed normal for some breeds of elf.

Beshayir turned to look at him, having a double-take at what she was greeted with.

As if the inversion of his skin tone was not enough, his runes themselves were different, too. Unlike the normal version of his elven form, the runes in this state stood out blatantly, impossible to hide, a starscape seeming to spill from them with every movement, leaving a trail of night in his wake, as though he were, by his very nature, a tear in the cosmos. That same celestial image seemed to translate itself to his wirshah, the inside of it slowly drifting and churning with the motions of celestial bodies none present could have had any knowledge of.

There was surprisingly little change in the wirshah otherwise. The leather of the exterior was still white with the exception of the sleeves and ends of it, where the dark blackish grey hue had given way to a smoky extension of the cosmic motif not unlike his runes had, though in this case it fell to the ground like a heavy mist, trailing in his wake as he began his walk into the room beyond the gate.

[C S]

"A bit late for that," Syria responded internally. The entire day had taken a drastic twist in her case, and with the revelation of a hidden alcove nestled somewhere in space and time, recording the day's discoveries was more in line with writing about a surreal, vivid dream. Surreal and lucid, with impossible insight to the heavens.

"Oh, it sounds like lunacy in my own mind!" The mage pressed on with the spirit of exploration that her late father possessed, simultaneously wrangling with the implications. "I'm still sane," she told herself as she crossed over the gateway, stepping into a place that was not visible past the stone posts. "It's everything else that confronts the notion of sanity, here!"

After a few steps into this warped pocket of reality that called into question the true oddity of Septimus' satchel, light began to emanate from the shadows. Rays of white shining from all directions, revealing the contents of the room in a truly disconnected fashion. Without a place for shadows to fall, all the objects that had become visible looked like flat, intensely realistic paintings. Syria needed a moment to ground herself in a realm that provided no ground to stand on. For as enclosed as everything was, the benign, featureless light that was shining gave the illusion of infinity in all axes.

The objects in question were also commonplace items for the extraordinary lengths that went into preserving and hiding them. Chests. A few simple desks, flimsy chairs. A few books were piled up without ceremony. Pages were stacked, along with quills and inkwells that, amazingly, still had usable ink in the bottles.

"It's like some kind of scholarly hovel," Syria observed. "Perhaps one of the students was especially persnickety about privacy?"

[The Kingpin]

The Scholar edged his way into the room slowly, taking in the details, Beshayir following behind him and noting that when they entered the shadows, the trailing cosmic mist of his wirshah turning rich blue in contrast.

Septimus examined the various details decorating the study, overjoyed at the discovery of so many tomes, in pristine condition, no less! Literature thusfar lost to Aster was sitting here, forgotten, abandoned. If ever there was a moment in the Scholar's lifetime when his eyes glimmered with a dragon's lust for treasure, this was undoubtedly it.

"Considering the amount of knowledge stored in this room, the intensity of the study that must have been at work...I would chance a guess that this was not some mere student's study room," said the Son of Storms thoughtfully as he walked up to the desk, taking a look at the writing. It would take a bit of time to unravel the script, as it was Zuppo of a kind that was no longer used.

[C S]

"You aren't implying that this is...?" Syria asked, eyes widening for reasons entirely different to Septimus' own. It was too outlandish to be true, wasn't it? Surely this construct of magic, time and space was for some other purpose. "I thought Arashi said he knew all there was to know about this subject. Is that not how he was able to make his own creations?"

[The Kingpin]

"He knew all the Order knew. He never said the Order knew everything. Much of what he has done based on that was by piecing it together using his own knowledge. After all, he taught them everything they knew," he explained as he began leafing through a journal carefully, trying to figure out what it was this person had been working on. "But then, why else would a mundane study like this be so heavily warded, if not that it was the study of one working against the Order's will?"

[C S]

"Maybe someone else decided to break away?" Syria suggested, the trepidation in her voice clear to the others. As was her reluctance to investigate the chests and other books. "What are the chances that we are looking at the work that went into making Desrium, Septimus?"

[The Kingpin]

There was a moment of silence after that question as Septimus continued to read the journal, halting on a particularly interesting page and reading it. "I suppose that depends...Would you call him, or rather, what he aspires to become, an angel?" he asked in response, looking over his shoulder at her for a moment.

[C S]

"What does that have to do with anything?" Syria retorted. Finding impetus to move again, the mage walked over to Septimus' side and peered at the writings. Shells, fish and winding characters evocative of kelp and seaweed. It was a source of some frustration that she had to rely on the Celestial Elf's translation, and another source of puzzlement that somewhere in this script, he saw angel.