Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[The Kingpin]

"Syria, dear, I am a Hueilin. Precarious footing is a mainstay of my life. Cliff faces, remember?" reminded the Scholar in a somewhat lighter tone to try and fend off the solemn mood the mage had taken on.

[C S]

"On a cliffside, you have six means of purchase, in addition to a clear understanding of where you will fall if all six should fail. Not that falling is of consequence to a winged giant -- that would be an unplanned gliding excursion. I have my doubts we're in an equivalent situation," the mage pointed out. Her concern for Septimus drew out a side of her that had withdrawn until that moment, argumentative and stubborn.

[The Kingpin]

"Cliff faces teach Hueilin to check what is underfoot before putting weight on it. To fail that is to pull rocks loose that may hurt others below. We are very astute in our ability to decide how and where to burden the earth with our motions," responded the Hueilin matter-of-factly, seeming for a fleeting second to be offended by the demeaning assessment of his kind's capability. "The rubble here is stable, I assure you," he continued, whipping his tail into the ground with a ground-shaking thump to demonstrate, allowing a few seconds of silence to illustrate his point. "But, if you truly insist..."

In a spectacular display of trivial change, he settled his curled wing knuckles against the ground as well, the massive hooked talons of what would otherwise constitute as thumbs grasping at the uneven ground.

[C S]

"I appreciate it," Syria said before her eyes went searching, vying to spot any indication of disturbance. In the foundation. In the form of something else. But nothing showed itself to her. Syria had to admit the floor was firm; firm enough to take a hit without riling up souls in unrest. It was a lukewarm acceptance.

[The Kingpin]

Seeing no further reason to delay, he took a deep breath, looking forward at the colossal ruins of the Two Cities as he closed his eyes. Reaching out out, the Son of Storms allowed his mind to touch the mana around him, to explore what had been imprinted upon it by the flow of time. Only once he felt the aether tingle behind his eyelids did he open them once more, casting his gaze upon that which was no more.

[C S]

The mage's trepidation persisted for a smidge longer. She bit her lips and the inside of her cheeks to excise her nerves while her more present faculties pulled up thoughts of Mesrafil and Yuraelia. The lady berated herself in her internal monologues, her features hardening into transient expressions of determination. "You were the one who came up with this magic, back when your credentials amounted to which library you went to, and which books you borrowed!"

Syria clenched her hands around her staff. Diana Aracino, Inquisitor turned staffsmith. She watched this flitter-brained redhead walk into her shop looking to build her own instrument and supported her naivete without a single comment about her Daavenian heritage. It was a point of contention in the past to minor extents. Raised brows and doubting looks from a handful of aides Syria went to in accumulating her research, enough to make her self-conscious about her pursuits. Maybe Diana had an inkling of her other side that those few did not. Maybe she earnestly believed that his ditzy Letant-child had what it took to be something in the magical sphere.

"You can't let Septimus go through this alone! You've braved repulsive histories before in the hopes of learning something worthwhile, and now it's time to use this knowledge to uncover the truth behind an atrocity!"

The bane of the Two Cities went this long without an identity. Who was to say this was its only crime? How many more innocents stood to be avenged?

"Justice for these victims is more than overdue."


The Daavenian mage uttered her incantation, dipping her essence into the flow of River Time. Her astral self, from behind the lens of her eyes, inspected the current. Was it muddy, or clear? The result was akin to a white-spraying rapid, crashing on the unfortunate stones in the way of the violent stream, running deep. This was as far back as she and Septimus were capable of viewing, and there was nothing to see but a nonsensical haze. The magic seen was so chaotic that the ingrained mana did not imprint itself in the usual shades of gray; the incoherent screen was comprised of the bizarre colors that met the particular eye of one attuned to magic's ebb and flow. These colors brought to plain view by the aethereopic spell, permeated on a hurricane's strength, a gaseous dispersion in what appeared to be weightless void. Billowing mana engulfed the pair.

Syria was astounded. What immediately came to her mind was the incident at the center of Aster. The inexplicable event that was felt far and wide. "That can't be right," she soon realized, "if my past-sight was overwhelmed in Yuraelia, then if I were seeing the aftermath of that I would be... blind? Temporarily or..."

That caveat also ruled out the possibility that she was witnessing the pillar of light that marked the end of an age across Leyuna. This was something that happened somewhere in between these two points in time: an event that involved extremely potent energies that radiated far from the epicenter, yet was not overtly divine in origin.

There was not much time left for the two to appreciate what context they were able to glean from this miasma that should have been a bustling city. They were given no reason to suspect that their vision would be altered, much less, any warning that it would be what they were assaulted with. The formless spectral mist collapsed back into raw, searing light. Syria yelped as her connection to the past was severed, sending her falling to the floor of the cushioned bag where she sank some ways into the fabric in a deflated impact.

Septimus, bearing the brunt of the sight, endured to see that white turn gray. The ghost of the Two Cities coalesced on the other side of the light, and tidings were already dire. Septimus' perspective was placed in the middle of street in the heart of the lower district and he experienced the odd sensation where he was aware that the bulk of his body was embedded in the walls and levels of a building behind him, slightly smaller than Syria's inn. He could not dwell on it. From one peripheral to the next across his vision, the image of the city distorted and warped, information obliterated into painful blank. A condensed mana beam of some kind, which had blossomed into a horrendous explosion that leveled buildings nearby.

Looking towards the direction it had come from was not especially forthcoming in revealing what was attacking the Two Cities. The vision was rended once more by the same intense beam panning across the roofs of buildings closer to the entrance, which were collateral in an attack targeting the entrance gate itself. At that moment, the Scholar's neck was curved back to the mouth of the cavern from whence he'd came. There, the figment was overlaid against the dim light shining in, its hand impaled on the reduced frame of the gate structure. A dragon unlike any of the species the Scholar knew to be recorded, a beast that defied belief and explanation.

The gray depiction tore its stricken limb free without regard of the ballista bolt that had impaled its palm. It took to the air and deftly avoided the second attempt on its life, then landed on the battlements of the launchers to breathe merciless flame upon the soldiers manning one the weapons. The other was smashed underneath its taloned paw, and the ones lucky enough to be spared the fire were slaughtered by those same claws. After the initial defense had been dispatched, the unknown dragon ascended on its callous wings. It began to shine for a tense period.

White.

[The Kingpin]

The Son of Storms winced at the painful bright of the magic involved in this vision, bearing it for the sake of learning more. Already the culprit responsible for this catastrophe bore grim tidings for what was to come in this investigation.

This is not Geezerbro. It was an upsetting realisation. He had thought that he had read all there was to read on Asterian dragons, and to be fair, perhaps he had. But whatever this was, it was unknown to the scholarly body, which meant he had no way of learning more. All he did know, was that it was something of incredible power.

[C S]

Gradually, information started to seep back into the erasure in mana's narrative. Disjointed semblances, stray splashes of auras wriggling about on the edges of the dragon's sight. The bands of color grew and conjoined, and blended into one another to create gamuts that pulsated to a silent, languid beat. Like a heartbeat growing weak from a terrible wound. Septimus knew what this looked like, what it felt like. And to think, this preceded the tear across Tyrbenetus. Much like the injury that stung Leyuna as a whole, the effects of the unknown dragon became a long lasting ache. It outlived the pantheon, and upon their sacrifice, the haze returned. The hallmark of the column that extended to the farthest heavens. After that, the vision remained much the same for whole seasons: a swirling mass of flashing colors, mixing in the aether, lethargic and stagnant.

The aethereopic spell allowed the Scholar to scour through the doldrum. He came across another momentous happening that scattered the patterns of mana, disrupting the bands of auras into spots and blotches that burned brightly. The brilliance of this agitation was conspired against by the white that crept into the vision, telling of the amazing power responsible. This was the great divide brought about by liberation.

Amazingly still, it was shortly after this cataclysm that sight returned to the view of the past. Those bright, angry colors stopped flashing, and then they joined together in a harmonious order before they finally faded into what would become the gray chamber. The sight that came about after the vision's recovery was much the same as the cavern in the present. Startling, considering the unbridled forces let loose before insight was lost. A quick glance around the layout of the past was all that was needed to reveal why this was so.

The elementals, no doubt lured by the ailing earth, and assuredly the ones that returned the Two Cities to balance. They were spread out across their domain, clustered into cliques of similar composition, uncertain among their elemental opposites. Fire, water, stone and ice, and those that incorporated combined traits of matter in their figures. Nature embodied.

No matter how different they were, all eyes -- even the eyes that did not look like eyes -- went to the mouth of the cave, when the wall they erected came crumbling down in one speedy chain reaction, rocks smashing and rolling over each other and throwing dust into the air. When the chaos settled, a shadow stretched out from the daylight, broken by two red orbs that radiated tendrils into the earthen dusk.

[The Kingpin]

"Intriguing," rumbled the Scholar as he tried to process all the information coming out of the chaotic imprint of the past upon this place. "It would appear that the elementals rebuilt this place. The cavern's roof was blown off completely before then," he explained, sensing Syria had lost her grasp on the vision. "They rebuilt it... and in doing so entombed themselves. This place... is quite literally a mass grave. But... why close themselves in here?"

It was a matter that confounded the drake, given the amount of death and destruction that existed here. The elementals, 'young' though they might have been, to take Desrium's description of them, were certainly not ignorant of what this could mean. But perhaps...

Perhaps that's exactly why they did what they did. Some underlying familiarity with the significance of such an occurrence. For all intents and purposes, it appeared as though the people here had been actively buried. It seemed unlikely, considering how densely packed the earth was, that this was just an accidental side effect of their machinations towards the cavern itself. He had no way of knowing if the world itself gave off any aura for how it should have been, to be duplicated by wayward elementals roaming the land. But given what he currently understood, it seemed that this was, indeed, a crypt.

It still begged the question: why?

[C S]

Syria rubbed the last of the sting from her eyes after a span of time that seemed much longer than it really was. This was what happened when the intangible became very, very tangible in the most unpleasant of ways. The mage revisited the address she made to herself before taking the plunge into the past, and had to share one last crumb of wisdom with herself before she continued her rapport with Septimus.

"You really need to figure out a way to protect yourself when time-vision doesn't like you very much... it doesn't look like it'll get any easier from here on out."

She picked herself off of the satchel-floor, taking subdued satisfaction that her legs were steady underneath her. How much was owed to her using her staff to aid with standing did not matter; Syria was standing by her own will and that was enough. Now, did she hear that correctly? The cavern roof was repaired, and the ones responsible cloistered themselves inside by choice?

"Ah... tricky," Syria replied. The combined effects of progress and the sobering jolt to her head had her thinking more clearly now, aware enough to speak with her mind. "I can't suggest it was an honest mistake. Inexperience with their... gifts. Proficiency to keep this place... er... standing... says otherwise. And even if it were a mistake; they wouldn't have needed to wait for Desrium to appear before deciding to leave."

Syria looked into the blue rose at the end of her staff, peering deeply into it in spite of the dusk-light inside the Scholar's bag. After some time to think, she said, "It has to be something more deliberate."

[The Kingpin]

"Deliberate, indeed," responded the Scholar, contemplative. It drew him back to memories he'd forged quite some time ago, of things he'd read in books, and things he had seen. In a way, what had transpired here harkened back to the tales of turuks and the departure of their elderly to die in what could only be described as graveyards. "I believe they may very knowingly have been turning this place into a massive cemetery. Less intelligent creatures than they have done as much. Usually only for their own kind, however."

[C S]

"And without the means afforded to the elementals, at that." Syria bit her lip as she attempted to imagine what Septimus could have seen. It was perplexing to her that newly born beings, without anyone to give them context of the matter, would take on behaviors more commonly attributed to expressions of spirituality. Especially when pertaining to mortality from the perspective of immortal creatures, and furthermore, as Septimus mentioned, for those that were unlike their kind. "Were you able to see the process from the beginning? Did they exhibit signs of planning?" Syria asked.

[The Kingpin]

"Not the entire process, no," responded the Hueilin thoughtfully, his scaly brows furrowing in concentration. "But I did see them forming groups. Clusters of them all around the cavern. The vision blurs in upon itself a bit, and it's unclear at what stage they were. But the roof, at least, had been raised around that time. I think they might have been working together to produce the correct composition for the cavern's surfaces. It's why the ceiling isn't just a cluster of self supporting boulders. They were forged. Fire, earth, water and ice, among other things."

[C S]

Forged rock. Another perplexing concept to emerge from this investigation. An act of malice that churned the stomach, and a mystery that twisted the mind. Syria placed a hand on her forehead and squeezed. "For definitive answers, I think we'll need to speak to them directly. Or, more likely, see if Evisa can learn anything from them. Why they chose to stay behind... and why they came here in the first place... do you have any clue from what you were able to see?"

[The Kingpin]

"None. The vision I did manage to see was very badly damaged. The cataclysm that unfolded here has all but stripped this place of any useful knowledge. It's just a cluster of colour and light; mana without structure," responded the Son of Storms, his tone disappointed. "Curiously, it brings up the question of how we regained a legible vision of things at all after that event. It's as though the elementals repaired the mana's fabric in this place as well as the actual walls and ceiling of the cave. Perhaps they managed to bring back order... balance, perhaps, like the Thunderbird and I did in Tyrbenetus?" he mused, trying to piece together what he had seen.

[C S]

"Fascinating... and titillating to consider," Syria replied. "It is a compelling evidence for... something, I'm sure. What that is..." The inflection of her mental voice conveyed her physical shrug. "It goes with the intuition of the sages and druids throughout history, though. Nature heals itself. And maybe we have proof that nature tends to lost souls, as well. When it's able to, that is." The story of Yuraelia and the once-haunted woods around the divine temple were tales of unique circumstances.

[The Kingpin]

"Maybe," responded the Hueilin, thoughtful. He liked the concept of a world that healed from the many scars inflicted upon it, physical and spiritual. But he could not let himself get too drawn into such a fantasy. Not without further data to corroborate the theory.

[C S]

"Though with this context, it strikes me that the sages and druids did not go far enough in their teachings. 'We breathe of the air, and so we are the air. We tread upon the soil, and so we are the soil. To them both is our destination.' From their perspective, nature is the tangible world, yet we know life started with ley," Syria extrapolated as she followed the tangents of her logic. "We also know that creation was the action of a pantheon fallen into obscurity over the ages at the whim of the rise and fall of their followers. Ley was their mark on this world. Wouldn't nature therefore be the intangible ley energy of the gods? Wouldn't that also mean that the origins of our soul and nature are one and the same?"

[The Kingpin]

"A compelling line of reasoning, to be sure," rumbled the Son of Storms as he traversed the densely packed, if uneven rubble, making his way towards the precipice of the ruins so he could get a better view of everything left in the enormous crypt. "The druids mis-attributed the source of life to a symptom, rather than a cause. Though it does beckon one to think about what we might be missing. Perhaps we are making the same mistake. Perhaps, there is another factor at play here. Something that exists as a prime driving force behind that which we have thusfar assumed to be a random happenstance born of the actions of the divines, and of the ley lines." Deciding he had seen enough of the destruction, and finding no further clues he could use to shed light on the blanks in the vision, he began his descent.

"After all, we know that the elementals were here before the divines appeared. And yet if they were the ones to set the ley lines in place, then what was there to bring the elementals that were already here into existence? And what if they are not the only ones? What logic drives their manifestation in the forms we see?" he questioned, his own questions driving him onwards into, as he would later come back to chastise himself for, rampant speculation.

[C S]

"If anything, this discussion only proves that a pillar of magical study has a lacking foundation. We can cite what the origin of everything was, but not all of the processes that came about as a result, be they its conscious or unconscious design. Until the mysteries of where we came from, both ley-born and elemental, are solved, our greatest minds will be treading in half-truths and almost-hunches," Syria retorted. "I would be happy to devote a portion of my life to illuminating the subject, while you search for exiles and uncover the other riddles this world has in ample store."