Ashan 67, 718
The constant clitter and clack of talons accompanied the twilight hybrid as he maneuvered himself through the passageways of the cavern. He passed by a great deal of activity as he continued onwards towards his destination. There were a group of soldiers lowly in rank playing cards...

Timestamp: 8th of Saun - Arc 718

The stubby man stared up at Wismal. The neverchanging look of a wet pekingese mutt on his face revealed that he hadn't 'quite' understood what his friend was trying to say. Closing his eyes and gripping the bridge of his nose with both fingers, Wismal tried to...

75th of Ashan, 718

“Being a Tunawa in any city but Desnind was something of a curse and a blessing. Their tiny size made for good spying but that same size paid them no favors in a city filled with people who never looked at the dirt they scuffed across. If Ohua had been able to speak she would...

30th trial, Ashan, Arc 718
Foster's Landing
19th break

I-I-I-I didn't tell-tell them anything , I swear!

If Kasoria had his doubts before about the necessity of his task before, they vanished once he heard those words. Not just the panicked tone that spoke of a natural coward, which was bad...

10th trial of Ashan, Arc 718

Adruria stood at the edge of what was called The Citizens Market watching the foot traffic. She had wandered here from the Commercial District, where she had looked over some loose gemstones at some of the stalls. Most were of normal quality and all were common stones....

Ashan 8th, 718
Her nails tapped against her thigh repeatedly as she huffed quietly to herself, trying to force air into her lungs. If she didn’t actively try to remind herself to breathe she might end up forgetting. It tended to happen when she got into one of these moods. Her entire body would...

79th of Ymiden 718
At the edge of town, where the crowd dies down almost completely and people seem only to care about where they are headed, a noise can be heard, almost echoing along the road. Just a bit further away from town, a mid-sized bird of prey can be seen, picking at something on the...

20th Ashan, 718

What was that smell?

Ryder pondered the thought as he walked slowly down the road, head low and weapons at his side. It had been a few days since the horrific torture he had endured, and the man was yet to find a way to cover his face, leaving a moderately fresh brand in the...

21st Saun 704

7 arc old Fiona O’Connor would never have been able to articulate the things she was about to do.

Looking back as a very irritable, very miserable adult, it could be summed up in two words:

Playground rules.

Books and teachers had their place in shaping the psyche of the child,...

Inali had spent most of her free time in the past week leafing through the reference sheets and collected ciphers of the Old Guard. While studying the collected work of her faction, she had discovered many techniques and tools that aided her work and helped her decode ciphers at a rate faster than...

Timestamp: TBD

Inali glanced at the page, noting the cipher than Jonah had brought to class. The key face down on the desk next to the encoded letter. This cipher was rather old, and no one of any importance used it. As such the Old Guard allowed it to be used for lessons in Cryptography for...

Shalla was at the local tavern for her breakfast and after ordering for herself a hearty bowl of beef stew, she stared at the bowl of brown goodness, lifting it to smell the mouthwatering delicious aroma wafting from it before she sat the bowl back down onto the table, and spooned a healthy portion...

Ashan 1st 718; Late Evening
Location: The Underground

Stone hallways were illuminated with torches as the thief casually walked down the corridors of the Underground, it had been a full season's worth of time since he'd met with his good 'friend' Dallen. Nothing much has happened since then other...

704 Saun 19
from here

Spoons clattered and plinked against the wooden plates. Children of all shapes, sizes, and a handful of races, all sat upon long wooden benches facing long wooden tables. Though each child spoke relatively quietly, their combined voices were enough to create a steady din,...

704 Saun 19

Mister Barnelby’s office smelled live cloves and horseradish. On their own, they were pretty pungent aromas; together? They were Barnelby. Whatever produced the disharmonious mix of scents, it was as much a part of the room as the large oil portrait of Barnelby’s cat, Whiskatz, who...

703 Ashan 51

Hungry hungry hungry. He was always hungry.

He'd heard it said before that growing boys needed food - lots of food -, and he often wondered if that was part of the reason he was so small, so puny. His stomach was more of a perpetually growling alley cat than an organ that supposedly...

31st Ashan, 718

You seem nervous. Is something the matter? the seductive voice rasped in his ear, questioningly. Ryder's Diri never liked when the man showed fear, and usually he tried not to. But this was the first time he'd seen Noth in a while, and the brand on his cheek would raise...

704 Ashan 2

Mum? She was never there when he woke up. Mum're you okay?

In the dingy light of their drafty shack, his mother's face was pale - far paler than it should have been. Their one room home had space enough for their single bed, one they tended to share in shifts rather than together;...

What if I fall?

Oh but darling
What if you fly? 2nd of Cylus, 718

Truthfully, the training facilities we're hardly anything at all. Empty, spacious rooms, where the drones ran around and tossed boulders to strengthen their physique. It was a bit disheartening to the Naer who once upon a time,...

26th Cylus

Finally, Ryder found himself alone. Since his raid with the necromancer, and the meeting with the rest of the group, Ryder had been incredibly busy. Some recruits wanted him to teach them to fight, after seeing him take down a fair number of people on the battle. Others wanted to see...

Ymiden 1, 718
Early evening

Inali swore lightly in the Ancient Tongue, knowing that all the other members of the Old Guard were far enough that they wouldn’t hear her struggle with this particularly difficult cipher. While Lerrik Calloso was fair and beloved by many, he had not taken kindly to...

13th Trial, Zi'da, Arc 713
West Etzos, Underground
20th break

Continued from here

He was forty arcs old, and had become a creature of shadows, and secrets, and sinister reputation.

He waited in the tunnel where he knew his quarry would be coming. Forewarned was forearmed, they said. His...

703 Ashan 13
from here

Meat pies weren't worth this.

He had made the mistake of trying to squeeze through a small opening at the back of the rundown building. As he'd always been small for his age, the concept of being too big for something was rarely at the top of his list of things that might...

703 Ashan 13

He woke to pain all over his body and a grumbling stomach that was more void than a starless night sky. Grimacing, Jinu lay on the itchy straw mat he used for a bed, eyes closed and breathing slow but shallow. It hurt to lay still, and it hurt to move. In the relative quiet of the...

703 Ashan 12

He hated Thomas Wilkes more than he hated being hungry - and he hated being hungry more than just about everything else. Thomas, better known as Toad , was fat. He was fat and ugly and drooled out of the corner of his mouth when he talked for longer than a couple trills and Jinu...