Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[C S]

The roamers set off to put some ground behind them before the worst of the coming night and their conditions bid them to stop. Rutgers was underneath his furs, lugging his carry-on over a shoulder as per usual. Morrelie marched behind him like a jail-yard warden walking her prisoner through grueling fields. All the while, she spoke.

"And so in summary, if you were to try to crack my skull open with one of your axes while I was sleeping, I would commend you for your initiative, you dog-dirty cheater. I would also laugh very hard as the wards do what the wards were designed to do. Do I need to explain that part again? How they will make your skin peel and boil away?"

"No," Rutgers replied. That had been his reply to every question asked of him thus far. From her place behind him, Morrelie walked with a wide grin underneath her cloth mask, and her hands were together behind her back in a gesture harkening back to her long lost youth. There was something so amusing about the progressive grit that crept into the man's voice whenever he uttered that syllable. A strange, special one, he was. One with much experience making a masquerade out of his emotions, but Morrelie could recognize the undertones in his stiff walk and demeanor. Her words, much like her chains had, were corralling the black-pelted stranger, cutting off the escape routes that his mind was gravitating to. It was visibly annoying him.

"Oh, how it must burn to learn the true extent of your mistake," Morrelie delighted silently. "In any case, I trust you already--" the mage yawned. The effects of that lulling powder were a bothersome sort. "-- You already realize our arrangement isn't eligible for voiding via another attempt on my life."

Rutgers hiked his shoulders up and tensed. "If I may, ma'am--"

"There is enough respect and formality in saying my name alone," Morrelie pointed out.

The axeman did not reply immediately. There was a silent deliberation as his thoughts contended with what his body was willing to comply with. After the moment had passed, Rutgers was able to coax the sound from his lips. "If I may, Morrelie... I was already under this impression from your previous demonstrations of power."

"Oh?" Morrelie responded with great intrigue. A ruse to save face, probably, but she was interested in seeing what kind of excuse the man would put forth. "Then why do you seem oh-so indignant when I point out all the various ways being untrue to your word will result in your painful demise?"

"I am not the fool you think I am, Morrelie. I need not be told what I can already reason out on my own. Even the most stubborn dunce can see that I am outclassed," Rutgers said. With this burden released, the man eased his posture some.

That took Morrelie off-guard. The eloquence! The mage raised a sly brow beneath her brow, and cupped her chin in a hand. The madman-stranger was a wry specimen to dissect. "Are you being genuine, or are you just telling me things that I'd like to hear? I bet you tell all the magnificently powerful mages who cross your path that," her voice echoed in his mind.

Whatever this woman was now, Rutgers knew for certain that psychomancy was not her strongest asset. The voice in his head came with a tangible, oppressing presence, peering where it had no business to. He recognized this for what it was, freezing his ruminations with visions of the snow he plodded through. He felt Morrelie retract her perception at the same time that she made a disappointed grumble. Apparently, she hadn't gone deep enough to see the things he had locked away.

"What peculiar talent, mister; how can someone be so articulate yet have such an incredibly banal mind? Do you have to concentrate so attentively on every step you take to avoid falling over? At least you're not like this one idiot playing as a mage I met a while ago. Her mind was filth."

Rutgers had a rebuttal he knew he could not voice, but knew he could think freely. He may not have been able to train his body with a predator of great pedigree, yet fate had given him training of the mind that he hadn't appreciated fully until this moment. "Peculiar talent, and how. Your magic is so formidable that even my uninformed Daavenian self can feel it in my core, but you lack the finesse of a shut-off mute."

And true to his honed acting skills, "Can you blame me? Any man can be made a dullard against a strong, motivated woman. You may as well be a god compared to me, and I am rendered but a dull mortal as a result."

"Hmmph," Morrelie crossed her arms. "How very astute, for a *******."

"Fools are simply scholars whose interests are adverse to matters relevant to the common folk," said the axeman.

Morrelie could not help her chuckle. "You're stupid, but an enlightened form of stupid. My goodness, you must be a thing to behold for the women of these backwoods."

Rutgers hesitated. There was much he could have said as a response, but perhaps it was the disillusionment that chased the most contrived story of a drifter from his consideration. That same wayward bent that had him showing his collection of deeds to Lilly came back to give a vague truth. "I haven't had much luck with women throughout my life. Took the time when I was young for granted, found myself in a heap of trouble in the years since. The kind of trouble that doesn't let you keep friends or loves."

"A stupid suit of armor destroyed my home and killed most everyone I knew who had a spine," Morrelie deadpanned. "Just putting that out there in case you felt now was a good time to feel sorry for yourself. Because it isn't."

"Extraordinary," Rutgers matched her tenor without fully understanding her meaning. It could have been a farce, it could have been sincere. When everyone wore a mask, reality blended into falsehoods swimmingly.

While he was at this fringe of sanity, Rutgers felt it appropriate to rid himself of burdens that would otherwise be anchored to the pages of his worn book. Morrelie already encountered the fiends and was unflappable in the face of this sordid knowledge. As someone so terribly twisted on the inside, she was the ideal conversation partner on the subject of humanity's misguided drive for domination. She already embodied it so well in her own horrible way.

"The time for feeling sorry for myself... that was years ago. After the first fight. What a wonderfully innocent time it was: even as a soldier who'd gone his tour steeped in the burning wastes left by barbarians pillaging the weak and defenseless. You think you've seen the worst there could be in others, and yourself, and then you find out there's a level even worse than that. It turns your whole world inside out, and the veneer of social constructs fades away--"

Morrelie yawned very loudly. It was not the powder's doing, that much was blatantly clear.

"Yeah... sorry I... when you're left alone to think as long as I've been..."

"You come up with the most melodramatic drivel I've ever had the displeasure of hearing. No wonder women stay away from you. I'd be right there with them if only our circumstances allowed," Morrelie admonished.

Rutgers' gaze fell from the shadowy branches and barks that defined their path, and he grew introspective. Not for his social life, but the implications of this hunt Morrelie was on. This Kristov, whoever he was -- it was telling that Morrelie hadn't even begun to explain anything about him -- was one who went with blood, but wasn't a victim of it. Morrelie's mention of demons made Rutgers inclined to believe Kristov was not like Copper. That was all he could be sure of, though. That did raise another question...

"About Kristov's friends--"

"Yeah," Morrelie waved a hand dismissively, "All that existential crap? Does not apply to me. At all."

"-- How did you... dispatch them, if you did... dispatch them?"

The millennial mage gave Rutgers a stare that he could feel boring into his back. "With magic. I used magic to kill them. Duh. ******* moron."

Rutgers stared blankly ahead. That was the only way that was going to end, in retrospect. Pressing on ahead, he continued, "There's a terrible malady that comes with slaying the burgeoning beast of man. It is a mark of blood, but only through relation. When you kill a fiend, your own beast is awakened, and through mechanisms I do not understand myself, its challenge reaches far and wide... drawing more and more from the hovels which they dwell. The only way I know of preventing this... is to sate the beast with the flesh and blood of the slaughtered."

"Nice."

Rutgers stopped without warning and spun to face Morrelie with a great deal of urgent concern darkening his features. "Did you really feel nothing after you killed them?"

"Not a thing."

Rutgers stepped back a few paces, his eyes darting about the woods high and low. "It could be that you're already so far gone... your beast has already awakened and it presents a challenge too overbearing for even the most mindless of fiends to confront..."

"Or maybe it's because I used magic. You ******* moron." Morrelie glanced up to the naked canopy. "Am I correct in concluding that you know absolutely nothing about it?"

"Fairly," Rutgers replied matter of factly.

Morrelie scoffed. Of course. "Okay listen up, my spectacular simpleton: a mage is able to detect mana in the various forms it takes up as magic. So if your bad blood magic was an actual thing that had an effect on me, I would have known about it and have gone and handled it. Follow?"

"I don't think--"

Morrelie raised a hand and stammered to cut the axeman off. The back of that same hand covered her mouth as she yawned once more. "Ah, nope. None of that. I've told you what is and anything else you can say will just waste time."

Rutgers opened his mouth to object, and Morrelie continued, "There was this idiotic dragon who I stuck with a reanimation ward. He didn't know what the hell it was, so the ******* flies back to me after he ran off the first time, to wonder what the hell I did to him. So if a dumb-as-actual-bricks dragon with a stupid mask on its stupid face can figure out when bad magic is latched to it, it goes without saying that I won't be caught unawares."

"Masked dragon? The one from the swamp...?" Rutgers tried again to speak, only for Morrelie to interject with, "On the subject of a misspent youth: maybe you should have learned some magic. Might have made the 'I am a stupid man with a stupid monster killing hobby' a little easier to cope with. Maybe you wouldn't be as much of a loon now."

"Morrelie--"

"HEY!" the mage barked suddenly. "Look what I can do with magic!" Her hand went to her side and the bone wand was relinquished to her by the white ribbons. Morrelie whipped it about, first pointing to Rutgers, then a branch high above him.

The next thing he knew, he was strung up by the neck by an uncomfortably warm noose of writhing energy. Rutgers' eyes were squinched tightly together, but the light of his bind had him seeing the red of his blood underneath his eyelids. He had dropped his carry-on, and was grasping futilely at the rope that was not there, while he kicked helplessly with his legs. The magic was material enough to hang him, but incorporeal in that he was able to feel a current split between his fingers as though he had dipped them in a stream. It was a disconcerting experience to compound choking to death.

The darkness was setting in from his peripheries when Morrelie dropped him from the treetops. She did not let Rutgers hit the ground. Not at full speed, anyway. Her telekinesis slowed him, but he still fell face-first into the cold. Shortly thereafter, he picked himself up on all fours to the hoarse tune of hacking coughs.

"Why?" he croaked without looking to Morrelie, voice strained. The noose had been metaphysical, however, the bruise around the axeman's neck was very much real.

"Had a point to prove," the mage replied simply. "Also, I thought it would be funny." The Zuppo mage leaned forward when she added, "It was."

Morrelie strode over to Rutgers and took a knee, patting him on the back. With disarming sweetness, she said, "Don't be too glum about it. While we may talk like we're all buddy-buddy, you still tried to kill me. It's only fair I get my fair share of the murder games here and there, no? But don't worry, you still have some use for me, so I won't finish you off for a little bit. But what you may want to do is start making peace with your craziness sooner than later, because your days are numbered, friend."

After a few moments where it was difficult for him to swallow, Rutgers responded, "I... believe it."

Morrelie yawned.

So this was the reckoning the axeman had foreseen for so long. More than any blood-tainted monster. More than any unknown vestige clinging to the furthest flung fringes of civilization. Reckoning began with a living hell. Fair enough, for a soul as stained as his. And if that was the case, then it was time for him to lay down his stake, and face the end with dignity. Axes in hand, until he could not longer hold them.

"My name is Rutgers."

"Hm?"

"So... I don't die nameless. I am Rutgers... Malganis."

"I don't care."

The mage stood up and twirled her wand, whisking the ex-ranger to his feet and then delivering a stern kick to his behind to get him walking -- staggering -- forward.

"What I do care about is whether or not you've learned your lesson. I won't entertain debate with someone so inconsolably imbecilic. You're better off as target practice if you are so insolent as to waste my time like that again."

With that, Morrelie took the lead, leaving Rutgers to shakily retrieve his bag. He must have taken too long doing so, too long for Morrelie's tastes, because he felt an invisible tether on his shoulders go taut before it yanked him forward. The axeman shambled after the mage to keep her appeased.

Appeased, and away from any others who would be made to endure such punishment.




The scarlet clad Stalwart exited the community house, the accommodations for his visitors arranged. As per request, he paid special care in asking for extra blankets to be provided up front this time, should the situation arise that the four would ever need them. Desrium had been told that they were for Ceridwen's benefit. He obliged without inquiring about the likelihood of Syria and Beshayir joining her and Septimus out at the rear plaza. It wasn't something he felt necessary to ask about, as much as he felt as though it was something to facilitate given what he knew of the bunch.

"These are a lot of blankets," Syria observed in levitating the bundles of quilts from the front desk of the guest housing. "Enough to bury Ceri, and then some! Are you certain that you can spare so much?"

"Yes."

To both counts. Desrium had paid special care making sure that his request was not a strain on the boarding house's regular affairs. He was assured by the attendant that it was not with the common flustered air one was prone to develop in talking to the monotone armored being. Desrium had grown to discern over his time dealing with myriad business figureheads, the difference between someone pressured to satisfy a favor asked by the city benefactor and someone who was not accustomed to being in close quarters to his more unique attributes. The former troupe were an overeager and enthusiastic sort, when in ordinary circumstances they would not be, and the latter operated with the baseline caginess of which Desrium was well used to.

He hadn't gotten far from the boarding house when the Daavenian mage came swooping down from up high on her staff. Syria swerved into a strafe as she dropped into Desrium's path, and she slowed to a stop a few feet away, where she got started undoing the straps of her tricorn.

Desrium stopped walking and wondered, "Has there been an issue?" He was half-turned should he have to return to the attendant's desk.

Syria chuckled and she slung her hat over the blue flower at the end of the staff. The past several days had been a rough patch in their own particular ways, from tracking down the Interceptor, confronting the hardships that Beshayir had suffered through and the eclipsing brand of adventure that Zuppoland turned out to be. It was nice that through life's great extremes there were always some constants to help keep one's bearings. What struck her as amusing was the idea of Desrium being an anchor, figuratively or not, but his inclination to be of assistance for even the smallest tasks was as dependable as the winds that sent ships across the oceans and the tides that rose along the beaches.

"No issue," Syria replied "We're building a tent for Ceridwen, since we have so many blankets. Beshayir wants to sleep underneath it too, so we're all spending the night outside tonight, it looks like. You think she would be tired of camping out... but I guess camping out without staying inside a bag of improbable space has its charms."

"Ah."

The mage continued, "I know the timing is a bit inconvenient for an extensive discussion of things, but there are some matters Septimus and I would like to talk to you about. The kind of things that don't really go with the cordial reunions such as these."

"I can imagine the topics at hand," Desrium responded. There were a few things he had to share as well. Septimus would have liked to know that Hex, and the one known as Grama, as well as Leyuna's premier Justicar, were taking residence in the city. More than that, though, Septimus would have wanted to know of the mystery surrounding the hydra the two of them had encountered so long ago, and the implications facing the city at large. Those were small matters compared to the nagging concern Desrium had been suppressing up until then. The kind of nagging concern that did not lend itself to cordial reunions with his traveling companions.

"Syria... are you and Septimus..." Desrium flexed his metal fingers, pensive. "Has Morrelie...?"

Not Desrium's most articulate moment. Syria cocked her head and set her lips and eyes with a focus to decode the Stalwart's meaning. Without any inflections in tone and an unchanging metal face, Desrium was a jigsaw puzzle that did not have a defined area to work in, and the pieces were equally abstract.

"I can attest that she can leave an impression on those she comes across."

Syria blinked, then her gaze widened as a few unpleasant visuals flashed before her mind's eye. All the gore strewn about that field. Syria nodded, understanding what Desrium was getting at. "I'd be a lot worse off if I didn't have Septimus with me." Her eyes shifted from one periphery to the next, and she leaned towards Desrium as her staff brought her closer to him. "Between you and me," she whispered, "he'd be a lot worse off if he didn't have me around, too."

"Mm," Desrium hummed. He did not mention how she needn't take such precautions to be secretive to him. She could have spoken as quietly as humans were physically capable of speaking and Desrium would have had no problem hearing her. And if Desrium could hear her, Septimus would have been able to hear her as well, if he were listening in at that moment. Given the mage's absence from the tent-crafting, this was very likely the case. Granted, his mind's configuration negated speech via the mind as an option, so the lady really had no choice.

"Save for a few instances, it's been fairly easy just not thinking about her. We had taken a bit over a day to ourselves, just to relax."

Desrium inclined his helm at that. Some time to relax. A countdown to when Septimus slipped into a spell of boredom. It was a tiny movement of metal that Syria picked up on, and she knew exactly what had gone through Desrium's mind then.

"It ended as well as you can expect. At least we're here, now, hmm?"

"Quite."

"Anyway, I should probably let you go back to do what you do... I've got a tent to help set up," Syria concluded. She bowed her head. "You have a good night."

"The same to you all," Desrium repeated. He had said something to similar ends before he took his leave from the boarding house.

Syria drifted out of the Stalwart's path and directed her staff through the side street that went back into the plaza. Desrium continued on his way into the quieted Brodudika. Quieted, but not without its pockets of activity, such as one street a whole district away.





"Ah... Evisa," Melok said with a gravelly voice that was more in line with an unpleasant realization than any greeting the viking was familiar with. She took a few more strides towards the silvery plated captain and puffed out her chest and shoulders when he placed her hands on her hips.

"I don't believe we've met before now," Evisa stated. She stood a good head taller than the guard captain, the extra measures to increase her physical stature were more of a formality than any lack of intimidation.

To his credit, Melok was civil and seemingly unfettered by the disparity between himself and Evisa. "I would attribute that to your sorry relegation to parts outside of the city," he said. "It's a crying shame, if you ask me. A woman like you on patrol on these empty streets would certainly keep them empty." He glanced upwards, and caught a glimpse of movement. A figure dipping out of sight past the edges of shingles. "Hrm..."

Evisa lowered her sights from where he was looking. She didn't spot what he did, but had a good guess. "Such is the need of a mother. Be thankful your babs don't shoot fire, or spikes of... whatever they happen to be made of at the time. Mine do." Evisa held a finger up before Melok could comment. "Oh, but there was this one time when I saw a tiny dragon scampering about an awning not far from here. If you can imagine... uh... okay -- there are these things called salamanders --"

"I am aware of what a salamander is," Melok growled.

"We don't get much of them up north. Cold. Heard they are a pretty slinky kind of critter, so imagine one of those that moved like a kitty. We have kitties up north, big fluffs to keep their tiny selves warm."

"Oh, but don't forget the wings. Not much of a dragon without those." Melok defeated the urge to scoff. He'd heard rumors that the woman before him had her more brutish moments when she was not regaling such trivial tangents.

Evisa crossed her arms. "Obviously. That goes without saying, you'd think."

"Yes," Melok replied with a imperious drawl. "Going back to the matter of security, I must carry on with my patrols. If you would like, I can escort you to the gates so that you may return to your elementals... a convenient distraction for your great strength, if I may. It's almost as if Desrium does not want to contend with you--"

"I'm more a matter of convenience for him, come to think about it," Evisa interjected without catching the conspiratorial nuance of Melok's tone. "Was off from Vanguard at the time, when I hear these stories that he's marching along with these babies. And then I'm all, 'Oh, that's unexpected of him. I guess Novarah has to go punch his face in'."

"Yes, this Novarah persona of yours."

"And then I go punch his face, but it doesn't go in." Evisa chortled heartily. "Anyway, long story short, Cantonborn born here gets to be a den mother because she can commune with the babies."

Melok shook his head. "Does it not bother you that he's so... unbeatable?"

"He's not a cocky showboat for it, so not really. Did you see the big guy that came in? He's carrying on a giant sword made by the Grace, so he's a pretty big deal. And Desrium's told me about Tyrbenetus, the land across the eastern water. There's supposed to be a whole band of badasses being badass around those parts. I guess giants are also common over there -- Desrium said the Justicar before him was huge too."

"How are you taking all of this in stride?" Melok inquired.

Evisa shrugged. "It just means I need to work harder to be like them. You said you need to get back on your patrols, yeah? Don't let me keep you! I don't need no damn escort, though."

"You are not going... home?"

"Not for a little while longer," Evisa replied. "Novarah is on these streets. Keeping them clear. Making your job a little easier."

Melok grumbled. He could have sworn Evisa had winked at him underneath her helmet. "Another pawn against the people." Melok bowed. "Insidious."

He went out on his way past the tall viking. She looked over a shoulder and saw him off until he rounded a corner. Evisa stood there in the vacant street for a little while longer, glancing about between the darkened windows, blinds draped down behind the windowsills, to the early stars, clouds and the rising moon. In the end, she mused, "Now there's a guy who could use a long sword to compensate for something."

Evisa pulled her helmet off and tussled with her braided hair. Even when pulled together into a single golden rope, it floated weightlessly about her head before Evisa wrangled it back into shape and penned it within the confines of her metal headwear. From there, she marched on, whistling a northern tune to keep her company.


Outside of the incomplete walls, the dwarven researcher and her collection of newly crafted rings, the vaun and her enigmatic feather, and the girl with a nose to protect, moved as an unlikely trio in an effort to discover more about the city's phantom adversaries.

[The Kingpin]

"I'm not really one with much to say, here. At least, not much that is of any more importance than anything Arsenic or Vix have to say," started Andruil as he found a spot in one of the chairs in the room, noting that it was creaky and had seen better days. "I suppose, to address your earlier hopes, an introduction is in order. Sir Andruil Lyall, or Liullwyn, I suppose, if you prefer the old names." A moment of contemplation to gather his thoughts and a steadying sigh later, he continued, "And I suppose, like Vix, I'm here to learn what I can about our history."


Ceridwen and Beshayir were a bundle of blankets and strings in their effort to put together their tent. The Scholar was curiously absent, but the two didn't let that bother them.

"Pull that string a bit tighter, the stilt is drooping," chirped the dragoness, Beshayir perched atop an awning with a leg hanging off either side of the corner of it, reaching out with the rope that was tied around a coiled wrought iron flowerpot hanger. She gripped the string firmly and pulled, causing more of the rope to pull away from the roof of the tent, pulling the blankets with it until it was stretched taut.

"Good. Now hold up the stick there so it doesn't fall, I'm going to fix the other knot," ordered Beshayir with an authority born of experience, hopping up and running across to another awning, then up the wall and onto a balcony, where the other rope was tied.

The camp was growing steadily more complete, the respectable roof of the tent high enough that even Septimus could get under it without changing, provided he was careful. The floor of the tent was layered with thatch and hay bales that made things considerably more comfortable. In the corner of it all, up against the wall, were Septimus's satchels.

So it went that the dynamic duo of a people-shy dragoness and an orphaned pyromancer built the grandest blanket tent anyone had ever seen, using nothing but team work and ingenuity.


The Scholar was not there to see it happen.

Instead, he was looking down a parallel street, on the other end of the plaza from which Syria had departed. He had yet to really speak to Desrium, so he was unaware of what had transpired in his absence. But whatever it was, it had been significant enough to make the Scholar restless. He did not know why he felt restless, but his instincts had never lied to him before, and so, he heeded them. He stepped out into the open, glancing back and forth down the empty street, and slipped away from his merry quartet. In the light of the moon on the quiet city of friends, the Son of Storms sought out any sign of that which had unsettled him.

[Hopeflower]

"A group of regular historians, are we?" Callie inquired, not unkindly. She sat, crossed one leg over the other, and turned her head toward where Rowan had settled. "And you'd be...their body guard?"

Rowan snorted. "They hardly need one," she noted. "Nah, I'm just a friend who wanted to help. Call me Rowan."

Callie's sightless gaze slid from her general vicinity to Arsenic's. "Neither of you sound like you were brought up in one of these kingdoms. What company the old families keep these days," she noted, almost to herself.

Vix cleared her throat. "I owe the village they came from my life," she said quietly. "But that's not the story you asked to hear."

"No," Callie agreed, "it isn't. One long story at a time, yes?"

"Of course." The innkeeper folded her hands in her lap and paused to gather her thoughts. "I'm trying to recreate a piece of my family's history," she started. "I've asked Arsenic to paint a replica of a carved mural, one that told the story of how the Adsilas came to be able to shapeshift into Iupan. The problem is - "

"That it was destroyed," Callie cut in. Her expression had darkened, her mouth threatening to twist into a scowl. "Yeah. Yeah, I get why Viho sent you here now." She took a deep breath and jammed her thumb against her eyebrow, closing her eyes as if she suddenly felt a headache coming on. "He wants me to tell you about our father."

Arsenic swallowed, hoping he didn't look as sick as he felt. That...sounded ominous, and in more than one way.


Night found Viho wandering the streets, wrapped in a strange sort of restless mood. His class had ended some time ago, leaving him with nowhere to go but the boarding house that served as home, but his feet refused to let him turn that way. Instead they started to lead him, again and again, towards either the place where Dahnae had been injured or where he'd caught Charles. The incidents, and those that had come before, had stirred his mind into a low buzz of frustrated, half-formed what-ifs.

As much as he tried not to let it, the thought that Desrium had chosen badly when he sought someone to help protect Brodudika was getting to him. He'd be pacing the streets all night at this rate, and it would do him no good. Viho gritted his teeth, huffed a low sigh, and decided that if he wasn't going home yet, he could stand to have a good stiff drink.

It would, at the very least, ensure that he got some sleep later.

[The Kingpin]

"I take it this was the part we would need the drinks for," quipped Andruil. It seemed father trouble ran in the family. It was terrible of him to think so, but there was no denying the fact he suspected that might be the case.

[Hopeflower]

"Yep." Callie didn't move for a minute, waiting for the dull pounding she could feel starting up behind her left eye to subside. Without complaining about the fact that she'd just sat down, she stood and said, "I'll keep it as brief as I can, because you don't need to know most of that story. Only what's relevant."

Vix glanced at Arsenic, started to open her mouth, then thought the better of it. You decide if you want to hear more, she thought at him. The only sign he gave of hearing her was tightening his grip on the arm rest of his chair until his knuckles whitened.

Callie was back shortly, with small glasses and a large bottle of clear liquid. "Sorry I haven't got something for everyone, but I figure we can all appreciate the good stuff," she said, pouring everyone a shot. She served herself last. "You're supposed to toast something before you drink this, but - " She knocked the shot back and poured another before she dropped back into her chair. "I don't really give a damn."

Rowan's eyebrows shot up at the lack of reaction to the alcohol, but she didn't comment. Instead, she went with, "Must be a hell of a story."

Callie's smile lacked humor. "Sort of. See, the Deimos family is a footnote as far as history is concerned, but my - our father, he and his siblings and their parents...they lived through some ****. Specifically, they were there in the fighting when Illyria fell. Our old man, well..." She tilted her glass as though contemplating downing her second shot already. "Let's just say he was already a damaged man by the time Viho was born, and leave it at that."

[The Kingpin]

"As man and elf alike tend to be after seeing the horrors of war," responded Andruil understandingly. It had him pondering his own state of mind that he didn't feel as though he had been affected by the coup as others had. But then, would anyone really know if they were?

[Hopeflower]

The expression that crossed Callie's face was torn between agreement and an old, long-lived bitterness. "Yeah. I don't know what he saw. I...never got an answer from him."

Not never asked, Vix noted. It made her pause and wonder just how broken this family had been. What had happened, to make Viho not want to come back even for a visit? What shaped him into the man he'd become?

Instead of jabbing that old wound with a sharp stick, Vix prompted, "But you did learn other things."

"Sure," Callie replied. "After studying the war on my own. Which, let me tell you, wasn't easy." She waved a hand in front of her own face. "On top of that, the old families do so love their secrets. But," she added before Vix had time to be disappointed, "I think I know what you're looking for."

Rowan leaned forward, recognizing a note of hesitation in the Callie's tone. "It's not going to be pretty, is it?"

The musician didn't reply right away. She knocked back her second shot, set the empty glass aside, and rested her elbows on her knees. "No," she finally answered. "I'm pretty sure that if you keep pursuing this, you're going to find bodies, too."

[The Kingpin]

That earned a glance from the Knight to the Innkeeper. With some hesitation, he admitted, "I suppose it was to be expected. Considering what we got from the books. For all their riddles and cryptic poetry, they did make that much quite clear." He noticed that Arsenic's weren't the only hands pale from their grip on the arms of the chair. Sipping his drink, he concluded, "I'm ready to hear whatever you have to tell us. Vix?"

[Hopeflower]

Vix made herself take a slow, steady breath, and then another. Hearing it put so frankly had shaken her a bit; she relaxed her hands and made herself sit straight. "I knew it wouldn't be a vacation," she reminded Andruil quietly. "I'm okay." She was more worried about Arsenic - he looked ill and uneasy, and maybe for that reason he hadn't even glanced at the alcohol in front of him.

Her answer didn't seem to satisfy Callie, because it was with a measure of reluctance that the musician elaborated, "I'd expect the entrances have collapsed by now, but naturally the old families had places to retreat to. In Lysanthir's case, the city was backed up against a mountain, which made for plenty of safety in digging back into the stone. I don't expect you'd find mention of it in any book, but it makes sense."

As though dragged from his thoughts by Vix's concern, Arsenic spoke. 'I suppose the question, then, is how safe it would be to explore even if we did find an entrance to one of these places.'

Callie spread her hands and gave a slight shrug. "Truthfully, I couldn't tell you. I can only give you my best guess, which is 'not at all'. You'd be dealing with potentially unstable walls and ceilings, not to mention the air inside might not be safe to breathe. And that's not counting what animals may have moved in."

The corner of Arsenic's mouth twitched, but his color didn't improve any even as he commented, 'Sounds like old times.'

[The Kingpin]

"Hmm," responded Andruil ponderously at that, tilting his glass in a circular motion, letting the liquid run along the walls of the glass before lifting it to his lips once more, taking another sip."There's also booby traps to take into consideration. If these are shelters for the old families during times of war, it stands to reason they would have means of discouraging those who may decide to follow them, yes?"

[Hopeflower]

"If the people who built them knew what they were doing," Callie agreed. "How many of those traps would still be armed, I can't say either. They might have been tripped already. All the same, best to be prepared."

"So," Rowan mused, picking up her glass and considering the liquid within, "the plan would be to venture into the ruins of an old Elven kingdom, looking for the entrance to what's essentially a mass grave, and try not to add our own bodies to it." She eyed Vix. "You sure you want to do this?"

Vix felt her resolve waver. She'd known it might be dangerous. They'd all known, when they decided to start digging for information. But confronted with the reality that they didn't know enough about what they were walking into, she started to wonder if it was worth risking all of their lives.

She caught Arsenic's eye. He sat quietly waiting, reading her hesitation without a hint of judgment. Neither of them would judge her if she changed her mind, Vix realized. She'd dragged them this far from home, they hadn't gotten what they'd come for yet, and they wouldn't question it if she decided that she couldn't go any farther down this road.

The innkeeper wet her lips and said softly, "I think we could do it. We've survived worse than a few traps, right?"

Rowan's answering smile was half affection, half pride. "Toward the death trap it is, then." And she downed her drink.

She promptly had to resist the urge to cough. Callie must have had a throat of steel if she could drink two shots of the stuff in quick succession.

[C S]

Solaurn inspected the dimly lit gems set in the bezels of their individual rings intently at the thick base of a tree, roots sprawling out from its base far and wide. They tangled with the roots of other trees, and it did not take much imagination to visualize a whole strip of the forest being connected beneath the hard soil. It made progress somewhat difficult for one of small body. The exact opposite of standard, uniform tunnels in stone, and standard, uniform walkways out on the open levels of her home fortress. That did not even cross her mind as she put her mind to work, reading the signals of her finger-worn contraptions.

The red gem was the most mana-reactive one, so it rested on her index finger. It held the most steady and bright tone, while the yellow gem on her middle finger flickered at a predictable pace, like the pulse of a heartbeat. The emerald on her ring finger was even more discerning in what it lit up to, and its light was unpredictable, and instead of a glow, fractals ran along the angles of its cut. The sapphire on Solaurn's pinky was completely dark.

The three of them were in a place where magic circulated, but it was not an especially noteworthy zone at all. In fact, it was underwhelming by Solaurn's measuring rings. Dahnae insisted that they needed to stop and search, and Solaurn trusted her gifted nose. She did not trust her experimental enchantments, which followed the same inspiration as her slab. If instead of drawing mana into a storage unit, what if the unit was able to pinpoint place of mana concentrations?

It was an experimental concept, one that needed to be pursued further in a lab, but Solaurn felt it best to get the most testing done in short order to get the quickest, and most useful turn around for the dark days ahead. If she could undercut some of the simple problems early, then the really tough stuff shouldn't be so tough. So the theory went.

"Did you find anything yet, little friend?" Solaurn called up into the branches overhead. Her response was signs of movement far above, a furry head looking off the side of a branch that shouldn't have held the weight of the vaun it belonged to.

Gwenviere knew better than to try to shout down to Solaurn. Her tiny, chittering voice would have been lost before it even got halfway to the dwarf. Her small hands and feet scrambled along the length of the branch to return to the trunk, where the vaun's understated but effective claws gripped the bark. Gwenviere turned her head towards the ground and deftly went across the surface, the tip of her feather swaying from side to side as her body wriggled.

The vaun stopped a few feet above Solaurn, and she gave her throat chirp and chitter. A tone that Solaurn found to be decidedly dejected. She did not need to read Gwenviere's mind to glean her disappointment.

"It's okay little friend, you're doing your best. They're not hiding things in the trees because they aren't as good at climbing as you are."

That earned the dwarf an affirmative chatter before Gwenviere reared and compressed her torso into her lower body, making her haunches appear to grow in size and musculature. A second later she was a bit over a yard away from the tree, holding herself on all fours while her snout darted this way and that. Gwenviere stood up and chittered an inquiry that Solaurn could only take to be the same thing she was wondering.

"I'm not sure where Dahnae is." It was so easy to lose track of the girl, but she couldn't have been too far away, and if she had gotten herself into trouble, she wouldn't be leaving her whereabouts to speculation.

Gwenviere pointed her snout vertical and her nostrils flared. She snuffled a number of times, paused, then sniffed one more time to make sure for herself that she was not mistaken. The vaun looked to the dwarf, and Solaurn could see in her face something that could have been incredulousness in a more humanoid face. Solaurn followed after Gwenviere as she clambered over the tangled roots, careful where she placed the soles of her boots, and parted the resolute shrubs that combated winter's chills night and day.

They found Dahnae lying prone with her back arched, the tips of her shoes dug into the dirt, legs tense. Her eyes were trained on a shadowy hollow dug into the thicket of roots before her.

"Dahnae," Solaurn broached to no avail.

"Dahnae," she attempted again.

"Dahnae, I don't think they put anything in that hole. I think that is just a burrow, and you don't know-- actually you might, but that's beside the point -- you might get hurt if you try anything."

Gwenviere offered a supporting argument in chattering form.

Dahnae's eyes flitted over to them from the edges of her vision, then they went right back to honing in on the burrow. With slow caution, she reached a hand out, which hovered a few inches off of the ground, before she pulled it back and shuffled her entire body in anticipation.

"You're going to get your clothes dirty if you go messing with the fauna, too. Then you'll have to do laundry before you go to bed, or before class, and you don't want that."

Gwenviere chittered her agreement. She then added a warning about how herbs would be hard to come by out in the woods should Dahnae get injured, but the context escaped both her and Solaurn completely.

Not wanting to do any sort of laundry, Dahnae pursed her lips and sprung back onto the balls of her heels.

Solaurn sighed a sigh of relief, then asked, "Did you make us stop because you were interested on what was inside the burrow?"

"Ya-huh," Dahnae replied with her usual style of honesty.

Solaurn hung her head. "Oh Well. At least I know my rings aren't completely busted." One glance down to the gems confirmed that the mana field hadn't changed substantially over the minor relocation. "I fear we haven't made much progress in tracking our yet-to-be-tracked foes, however."

Dahnae held a tone. "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm..."

"Do you have a lead?" Solaurn pondered, finding the wrinkle of serious focus in Dahnae's demeanor promising.

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..."

The dwarf and vaun exchanged a look and held their tongues, so as to not detract from whatever it was that had taken Dahnae.


They were led to the woods at the hour of streetlamps and hooting after spending their time after class combing through the city block by block, district by district. The afternoon passed as the three followed Dahnae's sense of smell in search of the group she and Solaurn had encountered. The problem with smells was that they faded quickly in a city as active as Brodudika, where new aromas came and went with the people who visited. The pitfall of even the most excellent pairs of nostrils on Aster, naturally.

Then there was the problem with Dahnae, specifically, which only exacerbated the setback. Focused and willing to lend her talents though she was, there was no working around her being a self-determined teenage girl.

"It's a wonder why these people keep coming back to this food stand," Solaurn had said upon the third time they passed Jiier's Corner.

"Maybe because they didn't have lunch like I did," Dahnae had suggested. Solaurn hummed a wordless response, her mind distant initially, but it did not take long for it to dawn on her that Dahnae was being guided by her stomach as much as she was her nose.

Solaurn did not lose her patience with the shapeshifter. It was with a gracious resignation that she simply covered her brow with a hand to check the sun's position through the spires of stone, took stock of the time they had inadvertently lost walking in circles, then nodded. "Well, let's get you a late lunch, then we'll get back to work."


"Um. Dahnae?"

"I was trying to keep my nose from falling off, through sheer force of will. Like how Vihomun told us to do."

"I don't remember that lesson being so... specific," Solaurn replied flatly.

"Is how I remember it," Dahnae insisted, then spun around to take in all of her environment. "Gimme a sec."

"Alright," Solaurn said, a little beside herself and not knowing what other option she had with the girl, who was just going to do what she felt like doing anyway.

Dahnae sprinted and ran up a tree, quite literally, at least for a few strides before having to throw herself at a branch to grapple. The girl swung herself about it for a couple of revolutions and kept springing higher and higher before she eventually came back down the tree on the opposite side, behind Solaurn and Gwenviere.

"Okay, I'm back."

Gwenviere wondered what that was about, not expecting an answer.

"What was that about?" Solaurn asked.

Dahnae hiked her legs up as she ran in place. "I had a cramp from lying down too long and getting up too fast."

"Oh."

"But I'm alright now."

"That's good." Solaurn looked up and cocked her head. It was hard to tell what time it was in the night when she couldn't see the moon through the barren canopy.

Gwenviere chattered about how they were never going to find what they were after if Dahnae kept being distracted and Solaurn kept being so trusting of the easily distracted girl.

"I don't see how we will be helping the nice detectives at this rate, however," Solaurn voiced the vaun's concerns in an infinitely more pleasant manner.

"How about I use me mind-mind thing?"

"I don't think Viho would be pleased with me if I let you use psychomancy when you're at a point in learning that you still don't call it 'psychomancy'," Solaurn responded.

"Sicky-poopy," Dahnae retorted valiantly.

"You are trying, and I appreciate that."

Dahnae walked back to the hollow and crouched. Solaurn ran her hand through her hair. "That burrow is really interesting, huh?"

"Ya-huh. It's where they dumped their stuff."

Solaurn nodded absently, resting her eyes, until it sunk in what Dahnae had said. Gwenviere was faster on the draw, scampering over to the hole to peer into it, eyes squinted.

"Why didn't you say that before?"

Dahnae replied, albeit with some impatience, "You asked me if I was interested in what was inside the thing, not what the thing inside the thing was! I'm just saying why the thing is interesting!" The girl pursed her lips and looked at Solaurn with a great deal of indignance, as though the dwarf had insulted her dearly.

Solaurn appraised the situation as such, and replied soothingly, "You're right. I'm sorry. Can you tell if they left anything of worth to the investigation?"

"I just smell their tacky coats. Furry Spooks don't know how to dress but they are such smarty-smart-pants. They would rather go cold than have my nose find them with their big bags of stuff." Dahnae stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry.

Solaurn blinked a handful of times. Dahnae was quite the detective, in her own strange way. "At least we did learn something from all this," Solaurn replied, ever the optimist.

"We learned that their butts are cold!" Dahnae proclaimed, and then her body began to morph before Solaurn's eyes. Gwenviere looked back and, taken by instinctual fright, went straight up the tree, nestling herself on a high branch by time the black and yellow cat darted into the den.

There were sounds of a one sided scuffle, and Dahnae tumbled out of the burrow with a coat that was considerably larger than her, teeth and claws doing what they did best to the fabric.

"Dahnae, no! That's evidence!" Solaurn cried, hands held out in desperation.

[The Kingpin]

"What's a couple of tripwires and pressure plates to a team that's fought a god?" was Andruil's input on the matter as he downed the last of his drink, as if to taunt Rowan for her reaction. He could not have spoken for the blind musician's tolerance for alcohol, but his experiences with other revolutionaries and other hardened warriors from various places had exposed him to the sort of drink best saved for cleaning wounds and preserving food. It wasn't an experience he quite remembered fondly, but it had steeled him for drinks the likes of what the musician had given them. Well, so long as I stop at one glass, he corrected mentally.

[Hopeflower]

Callie reached forward and set the bottle closer to her guests, inviting them to refill their drinks as they liked. "Sounds like yet another long story," she commented. "I'd ask, if I weren't more interested in finding my brother. Something tells me you don't plan to stick around to trade life stories."

'No,' Arsenic agreed. Maybe a little too quickly, as Callie gave him a curious look.

"So you've seen Viho," she said after a short pause. She sat back in her chair, running her hand through her hair. "I...where is he, first of all? I thought he was living with the pretty thing he ran off with. What was her name...Zera? Saiyana?"

Rowan winced and poured herself another shot. Vix went white.

Arsenic flinched. 'Zaltana,' he supplied quietly.

Callie snapped her fingers. "That was it! Do you know her?" she asked. "She loved the river, used to come up here to fish with her family from time to time. Viho was smitten with her."

Arsenic felt like he wasn't getting enough air. This was not what he needed right now. But Callie was waiting for an answer, so he forced himself to say, 'Yes, I knew her. Were you...a friend of hers?'

The blind musician frowned, picking up on the fact that something was wrong. "Knew her? What happened to her?"

If he'd still had a physical voice, the fact that it felt like something was constricting his throat would have made it impossible to answer her. Arsenic had never anticipated this - having to break the news to a family member that his mother had died. He couldn't have known that it would be this hard.

'She...was injured,' he managed to get out. 'While protecting me. She was pregnant at the time, and...the miscarriage...' Callie's face was losing color as he struggled. He couldn't look at her. 'After that, she was sick, and she wasn't strong enough to fight it. I'm sorry.'

Callie was quiet for a long moment. She buried her face in her hands, scrubbed at her eyes, and took a deep breath. "No, I'm the one who should be sorry. I understand. It...must have been awful, to lose your mother that way."

Arsenic reeled back. Aunt or not, he didn't want a near stranger's pity. 'I never said - '

"No, but you didn't need to." Callie didn't look up. She ground the heel of her palm into her brow bone, fighting the headache anew. "It all makes sense. I knew you seemed familiar."

[The Kingpin]

"To be fair, you don't exactly have the means to see their most striking similarity," offered Andruil with a shrug that he realised moments later would have similarly been missed. He eyed the bottle of clear liquid for a moment, pondering the wisdom of his consideration. To Hell with it all, he thought, reaching to pour himself another drink, before he added, "In the end, it is an honest mistake."

[Hopeflower]

Another thing that went unnoticed by Callie was the unreadable glance Arsenic flicked at Andruil. The mute shifted in his chair, restless. It was true that it was an honest mistake, but he couldn't get rid of the growing need to get away from this conversation.

"Got his father's looks, eh?" Callie eased up on her forehead. "I can't say I know what Viho looks like to begin with. But you have his gift, and you move like he does," she directed at Arsenic. "You hardly sound like you're there."

This was slightly more comfortable territory. 'It's what I was taught, growing up,' he told her, clearing his throat out of habit more than need. 'Give as little sign that I'm around as possible.'

Callie frowned. "Did he teach you that?"

Arsenic forced himself to be still, not to give in to the urge to let his knee start bouncing. Drawing more attention to his agitation wasn't something he wanted to do. They weren't here to talk about his issues. 'Not directly,' he answered. 'I had other, better teachers. In any case,' he added quickly, hoping to put an end to this line of questioning, 'This isn't what you wanted to know, surely.'

"Well, it's not what I asked, true," Callie said, her frown deepening with a hint of suspicion, "but I'm sure you can forgive a little curiosity. It's not every day that a woman finds out her brother has a grown son. What else has he been up to?" Her question was muted, half thought spoken aloud. The last time she'd heard anything from Viho, the letter had been brief and not at all informative. He'd said he was going to be busy for a while, and that he'd be in touch when he could.

And that had been twenty years ago. She'd been sure that he'd either died or planned on not contacting her again. Clearly, in the time since he'd left home, something had happened to turn Viho into someone who was determined to be a complete stranger to her. Callie resolved to try and talk to him soon. Nothing about this would add up until she heard his story.

[The Kingpin]

"Teaching," responded Andruil after noting the stony silence that followed the question. "His reasons aren't really mine to say, but he has taken up a place in a city that is trying to rebuild, as a psychomancy teacher." The tenseness he sensed in the room was uncomfortable; something he didn't like lingering over the conversation.

[Hopeflower]

At that revelation, some of the uncertainty in Callie's expression eased. "Yeah, that sounds like him," she said. "He always did believe that if someone had a gift for magic, they should be taught. But," she added a little uncertainly, turning her head toward Arsenic, "maybe that's enough about your parents. Are you alright?"

'Fine,' Arsenic replied, in that automatic way. He was shaken, unbalanced, but he would be alright. If he could just...clear his head. 'I just need some air,' he added when Vix and Rowan went on looking unconvinced. 'Excuse me.' He stood, making for the front door. It was bound to be freezing outside, but he'd only be a minute.

Or so he told himself. His footsteps slowed when he passed the kitchen doorway, and Arsenic ended up leaning against the wall across from it with his gaze fixed on the marks that tracked his father's growth through the years. Between actually talking to Viho civilly for the first time in years and trying to sort out where that whole mess fit into his life, and all of this...he didn't know how to untangle it all. Seventeen years spent burying his problems beneath the momentum of his career path had done absolutely nothing to prepare him for any of it.

Nothing in his experience, not even the long nights spent helping Vix come down from panic attacks and helping Rowan forget the itching of her healing burns, told him how to get his own heart rate and breathing to calm. So he did the only thing he could think of - he retreated into himself, seeking that quiet place where meditation came easily, and he tried not to think.

"What a mess," Callie commented softly into the silence he left behind. "I didn't expect...well." She went to pour herself a third shot. "None of you expected this, either. Are you all okay?" she asked the rest of the group.

"We've lived through worse," Rowan sighed, reaching for the bottle when Callie was done. Vix hummed her agreement.

[The Kingpin]

"Life's a peculiar thing. Lots of ups, lots of downs. Likes to eat your face off if the opportunity presents itself. It's sort of like riding an angry gryphon," said Andruil in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Sometimes other angry gryphons decide they want to eat your face off too," he added after a moment of thought, deciding the analogy wasn't quite fitting as it was. And with that, he took a sip of his drink, resisting the urge to cough as the drink burned its way down his throat. That was his fault for deciding to have another shot.

[Hopeflower]

Rowan arched a brow at Andruil and tilted her head slightly, with all of the air of mock concession that she could put into such small motions. Combined with the smallest of smirks, it turned out to be quite an impressive amount. In contrast, given that she knew to brace herself now, her second shot went down smoother than her first.

"Did your thought get away from you?" Vix cut in, scenting disaster and hoping to prevent it. She had to bite her cheek to curb a grin at the faintly bewildered expression on Callie's face.