Bridge

[Inkfinger]

Takes place between Napalm Artisana's trial and the Cabal's Welcome. Closed at this point, but feel more than free to read.

The green-blue light of the non-sun was bright and high in the sky by the time Cael Inkfinger had felt free enough to wander this strange place on his own, pack and naginata slung over his aching back.

It made next to no sense, the more he had thought about it. There was no reason that that…that should have happened. Portals traveled to portals, like a doorway to an otherwise door-less alley. When one traveled down an alley like that, the only way out was the other end. Portals did not – to the best of his admittedly sketchy knowledge, anyways – drop people in the middle of…well. People.

The realization of what had happened to make the trial area so gory had hit him about the same time as Aeraul’s fireball. It had, mercifully, blasted away any desire to try and puzzle it out on anything other than an academic level, at least until he felt a great deal closer to civilized.

...even with the chains still clanking from his wrist and his ankle.

He’d found a small pool in a secluded grove, one his grandmother would have called a fairy ring – tall thin trees, close together to the point of being almost intertwined, their foliage making as good a roof as any building, their pale trunks as good a set of walls. There was, he had to admit, remarkably advanced plumbing in the quarters he had been granted, but...

Somehow, he would have felt less secure between four walls than he did right now, surrounded by trees.

His matted hair still smelled of burning and blood, his eyebrows still stung, and the rest of him simply felt like a gigantic bruise. He stood waist-deep in the cool silver water now, stolen shirt and cuirass folded and discarded in a pile on the gravel shore. The water dripping off his bare shoulders and stomach left trails of deathly pale flesh in its wake, mottled here and there by purple-green-yellow bruises, angry red welts and the duller red of old cuts and scrapes. The crystalline water was clouding with the mixture of dirt, blood, sweat, ink and things best not mentioned.

Or, the ink mage thought dully, tracing his stained fingers over the edge of one finger-shaped bruise on his hip, even thought of. Best kept as far from thoughts as possible for as long as possible. He dunked his head under the stream, holding it there for a long moment, until his lungs protested and his bad ear rang.

You’re going to have to think about it sooner or later. You can’t always hide things away…

He ignored the thought when he surfaced in a jangle of iron, the water trickling from his hair gray-red with old dust and blood, gritty and tangled between his fingers. He grimaced. That would have to go.

But it was only once the water dripping from his body ran clear that he splashed back to shore to retrieve the filched pocket knife from his rucksack, flipping it open to really look at the knife for the first time. It had just been an impulse grab, made in the split seconds of elated terror in his escape: the handle was old and tarnished, but the blade bit into his fingernail easily enough, sheering off the filthy, jagged tip – and a sizable patch of his skin for good measure.

He stared at the welling blood for a second, then he shoved his hand into the water, rinsing it off to card it through his hair, wincing with distaste at the resistance his fingers met. He slid the blade through the dripping matted mess with a small pang of regret - he did like his hair, or had at some point. The hair parted before the keen steel with a sharp snick, and a handful of dirty blond strands fell to the gravel.

He lowered the knife for a moment, staring at the blade reflecting the leaves above his head, distorted and misshapen. When he turned the blade so he could see his face, the dead look in his eyes - behind the fading bruises of a broken nose – startled him, as did the low, insidious voice in the back of his mind.

You know, there is one way of making sure you don’t ever have to think of it… His fingers seemed to twirl the knife of their own accord, blade sparkling, cold and sharp. He’d barely felt when he’d cut his finger, there had been barely any resistance when he’d shorn off his hair… One very easy way. He had the briefest mental image of the metal pressed to the inside of his wrist, and a flash of a great deal more blood –

He let go of the knife, letting it splash into the water as he glared at his own reflection. That he thought back at the voice, angrily, is not an option. Ever. It took him a moment to gather the courage to pick the knife back up, tales of enchanted and cursed weapons dancing in his imagination. The voice didn’t return when his trembling fingers touched the hilt. He listened as he worked on the rest of his hair, listened hard, but he didn’t hear it again…

...through right now he was pretty sure he heard footsteps. He tilted his head to hear better, breathed out a silent, thankful prayer to anything listening, non-imaginary, holy and not Sway that he'd kept the shredded trousers on, and forced a nonchalant tone into his voice, eyes still on his reflection in the water.

"Sorry t'be a bother, but I don't s'ppose y'have any soap?"

[Wings of Endymion]

Wordlessly she rummaged through her ox-hide backpack and passed a small bar of scented soap to his waiting hand, assuring him of her presence at the same time as respecting his need for silence and understanding. She knew men could be overwhelmingly fragile creatures at times, and she took one step back from the edge of the gravel shore of the pond to give the pale stranger some breathing room.

The springy grass she now stood on felt soft and verdant beneath the soles of her shoes, a carpet of green so unlike the harsh crimson rock of Haidia. There were trees here, majestic and proud, and the sky above so azure and free. Like Cael, although for very different reasons, she found the thought of being cooped up between four walls to be almost unbearable at this point in time.

It’s been so long since I left the Academy and last saw the sky…

The thought slipped her mind unintentionally, almost escaping her mouth as well. Nearly a year of residency in the sky-less, stifled world of the underdark had turned even the most trifling of matters into dear memories, consequence of Thomas’s offer to take her there in search of power. Not for the first time in the few hours that had passed since she had been brought here by a dimensional anomaly, she felt the need to sing and dance with joy. But muted and motionless Yuka remained as she turned back to the young man, who was now vigorously attempting to cleanse his matted hair once again.

If it hadn’t been for her experiences as a battlefield medic, she would have choked and gagged upon the heavy metallic tang to the air, and the gory remnants of the kami knew what that was being swept away by the sparkling waters. Whoever lived downstream would have an unpleasant surprise in store when they went to collect water for their evening meal. As she watched, his poorly kempt hair began to settle from a rusty crimson to a vivid, faintly reddish blonde, more in line with his light blue eyes and his pasty skin tone. He was much taller than her, but just as skinny; older, but somehow more innocent.

In all truth, he brought to mind her old friend Ingwe. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t hesitated when, upon stumbling into this secluded grove but finding it already occupied, she had been compelled to offer a helping hand.

There was something else in the air, not yet swept away due to the lack of breeze penetrating the thickly clustered white bark. Cinder, she identified. Ash and cinder. The newly identified smell reminded her of her new companion Lask, who had been pressured by his companion – Nirvana, she remembered – into an exploratory shopping expedition of their new surroundings.

Stroking back a few strands of fine black hair and smiling fondly to herself, the young woman settled to the grass. Her white robes would probably be stained by the contact, she knew… but this place, wherever it was, even had proper laundry facilities! Soon enough they could join her cloak in fluttering from her second-floor window at the local inn.

She returned her attention to the stranger, noting critically the chains around his wrist, the bruises and scars on his body and the ugly old wound that dominated his bony stomach. Tortured, she realised, her heart sinking unfathomably. She didn’t know whether or not he was a denizen of this strange land, or if he had acquired his scars before or after he had been brought here, but it pained her to see anybody in such a tormented state.

Yuka waited until he had scrubbed himself clean at least three times. She waited until, finally satisfied with his state, the young stranger climbed out of the pond and walked to his belongings on the shore. He was barefoot on the harsh sharp rocks, but her eyes caught no sign of discomfort or hurt whatsoever. That, too, pained her greatly.

She waited, and then she waited a little more, until the man was ready.

[Inkfinger]

Other men in his position probably would have been embarrassed by the newcomer being a woman. Cael actually found it a relief. He wouldn’t really need to explain why he needed, so badly, to feel clean. Women, most of the time, knew when not to ask questions. At least in his experience.

He accepted the soap silently, not even caring about the scent. The smell was clean, and it was light, and it was a million leagues removed from the sharp lye-and-lard scents of the soap he’d been able to get once or twice in the cells, before the guards had simply left him chained all the times he wasn’t needed.

Which brought him back to the chains. He’d have to figure out how to get them off next, he supposed. He'd just become so accustomed to the iron around his wrist and ankle, the loud jangling whenever he moved - even the skin that the metal had rubbed raw.

His hair was easier to claw his fingers through now that he’d chopped most of it off. The flaking blood and dry skin seemed to dissolve with the soap, and the shorter locks were soon clean, sticking up in unruly spikes. He felt a pang of remorse about sullying the pool so badly, but the current through it was quick. It would be pure again before the day was out.

When he finally felt clean, he returned to his pack, digging through the pile of clothing shoved haphazardly into the rucksack. He’d just grabbed things that vaguely looked as if they’d fit, he hadn’t had the time to be picky. There was no way the ruined shreds of his old shirt would ever be wearable again. He tugged the new shirt, worn soft by whoever its previous owner had been, free of the other clothes and over his head before he finally really looked at the young woman.

She was quite pretty, in an unconventional way, her round face kind, open and gentle, her build toned. The shape of her dark eyes tugged at something in his memories, but the dynamic sparkle in their depths was all her own. The pure, clean white of her clothing almost made her glow in the green-tinged light.

Cael held out the severely shrunken bar of soap with a small, crooked smile, self-conscious of the way he'd left the imprints of his fingers on the bar.
“Thank y', m'lady.” The words still came hoarse, rough around the edges, but it would take speaking to strengthen his voice again, so he carried on. "Y' have no idea how much I really needed that."

[Gordie]

Nikolai trudged through the forest, unsure of how he got here, and also unsure of how to get home. The hard, metallic lines and curves of his Elemental-class battlesuit seemed out of place int the organic oblongs, and trapezoids of the forest. The warrior, looking down a path, saw a nice cool refreshing river, and started to walk toward it. 'It has been so long since I have bathed,' Nikolai thought, his mind refreshingly free of insults and arrogance. 'this river may suffice, for now.'

The moyomer-musculature of the suit that surrounded his body, started to move him toward the river. After what seemed like a couple minutes he finally reached the river bank. Powering down the suit, he unlocked the back latches mentally, and the whole suit folded forward revealing, for the first time, the true form of Nikolai Redmond. His six foot, six inch frame was bristling with muscles and his wide, broad shoulders made it seem like he could lift the world onto his shoulders.

Without paying any attention to the other two people there he ran foreward and did a shallow dive into the refreshing water, only coming up when he was close to the middle of the river. It was as he was turning around in the water that he spied the two people.

One, he noted, was an oriental looking woman, and seemed to be retrieving something from the other, a slightly shorter man to himself, who seemed to be nursing some wounds.

He quickly swam back addressed the man first. Nikolai's face looked very chiselled, with a strong jaw, and his eyes spaced equally apart. The only thing marring his 'near god-like' physique was the stylized falcon tattoo across his face that seemed to glitter with a power all it's own.

"You are wounded, Quiaff?"

Quiaff, a term used at the end of a rehtorical question that is supposed to be answered with a positive response.

[Wings of Endymion]

“My name’s Yuka,” she replied lightly, smiling a gentle and slightly crooked smile to try to smooth the weary lines from his gaunt face. She retrieved the soap from his calloused hands, wrapping it in its cloth before returning it to her pack. The dewy blades of grass upon the bank acted as a makeshift towel for her fingers as she wiped them clean of lathered suds.

Unnatural splashes and ripples in the pond drew her attention, and she almost reached for the staff that lay in the turf next to her. Catching herself in time, the young woman forced her jangled nerves to relax. The newcomer had a herculean figure that was almost frightening in its intensity, but there was no intent of malice in his expression as he espied and hailed them.

Although who would want to swim in those crimson-tinged waters in the first place, she did not know.

Yuka acknowledged him politely but allowed her eyes to slip away as he approached, focusing instead on the scarred figure of the emancipated man closer to her. The smell of her soap from his frame registered awkwardly to her mind, but she pushed that away, as well. She concentrated on the scars and fresh wounds, the injuries that her magic could heal. Yuka could only hope that the rest of his tortured soul would follow suit.

“Here,” she beckoned, indicating the manacles around his near arm, and the raw red underneath where the cold iron had worn the skin tender. “I can’t do anything to get it off, but if it’s hurting, I can try to ease the pain.”

Even to her own ears, her words sounded accented and strange. But then, so did his… thick, as if wading through honey, and troubled. Yuka thanked the experiences of her youth that she had experience in dealing with assorted different regional variants of the common tongue; she doubted that she would have understood him otherwise.

She paused a moment, cocking her head pensively to one side, then added, “That is, if you’d like me to.” The thought had just struck her that maybe he carried them with him on purpose, to remind him of a past failure.

Throughout this exchange, Yuka was judiciously ignoring the outlandish metallic construct she had just noticed amongst the trees at the edge of her vision. Perhaps, if she didn’t dwell upon it too much, her mind would not attempt to figure out just how it worked… or what exactly it did.

[Inkfinger]

Her voice matched her appearance, gentle and soft on his ear. It was, quite possibly, the first honestly kind voice he'd heard since Damyan died. Her words were soothing, which was fortunate, as the sudden appearance of the huge man had him shaking again, minuscule shivers that he fought with all his might to hide.

"Uhm. Yessir." He nodded at Yuka as he answered; taking a step further away from the water and turning so he could see the man, fighting the instinct to run. The man's appearance was close – not identical but close, between the build and the shaven head – to Lev, his main guard and tormentor. Your main violator, you mean the small voice from earlier whispered, sinuous and sinister against his exhausted thoughts. Or are you just not ever going to admit that he – that they – did that to you?

No, he thought back, pulling the manacle away from the flesh it had worn red and offering the arm to Yuka, because not everyone is like that. I'm not like that, Damyan and Kamen, Ingwe and Rasmus weren't like that; they'd never consider treating anyone like that. I don't have to admit to anything.

The mental conversation was over in the space of time it took him to take a breath; blink-and-gone, but leaving a sudden realization it its wake: Ingwe was who her eyes had reminded him of. And he hadn't thought about the young man much since they'd parted ways…He felt a pang of guilt at that, and a slight wash of remorse. Ingwe probably could have figured out a better way to help Salvar.

"Just...old stuff, mostly," he continued, trying to keep his voice light. He was telling the truth…mostly. There had been eleven slashes on the wall beyond the last one that he'd tinged red, eleven days (as near as he could count them) since he'd last been whipped when Lev had removed him from his cell last…

...had that really been just last night?

"…old wounds, y'know? Well, by old I mean a week an' a half an' they're just...just sore." It was nice to know that time hadn't changed that much, even if one of the signs was babbling. "They'll heal." Even, he thought viciously at the silenced voice, the ones people can't see. The voice stayed silent, but his forehead twanged once, a short burning...oh. Right.

"Er. There is that one, though." He waved a water-wrinkled hand at his reddened eyebrows and temple, where Aeraul's fireball had hit. At least the charred hair had been chopped off? "Tha' one, now, that's new." He forced himself to meet the man's blue eyes. He wasn't going to let the past, recent or not, control his present. "I'm Cael," he offered, for both the man and Yuka, throwing in a shallow bow. "An' I assure y', I'm not…" His voice trailed off weakly, caught in his throat behind a lump that hadn't been there a moment before. "I-I'm not usually such a m-mess."

[Gordie]

Nikolai paused a moment, looking over the whipping marks on his body. How could someone be that dezgra, that dishonorable, as to beat someone when they were unable to fight back. He cast a glance back to his suit before meeting up with the smaller man's eyes as he introduced himself. "I am," he started to say in the most aggressive tone possible, before seeing the man flinch and softening his tone slightly, "that is, I mean to say, My name is Nikolai Redmond. I am a Trueborn Warrior of the Clan Jade Falcon. I see that your wounds, while old, are not at the hands of a warrior who knows Zellbrigen.* I should find that we need to dispatch of the Dezgra Surat before the week is out, quiaff?"

The Clanner moved over to the suit that gave he and his sub-caste of warrior thier name. The Elemental-class battlesuit lay like a behemoth even compared to him, at rest a mere one and a half meters tall at the tallest point. Once activated though, and encasing him, the suit reached its full hight of two meters without the missile pack on his back. Inside that suit was a special material that adhered to and accellerated his healing and immune systems. It was that, and the fact that the Steel/Titanium composite armour that was nearly three inches thick at the thinnest points that let to the suit's immense survivability in combat situations.

Completely ignoring the woman, Nikolai spoke in a manner that, hopefully, appeared non threateningly. "My liege" he said softly to Cael, who had just bowed, and so bowed himself in respect. "I have placed it upon myself that my rede* shall be to protect you from further harm of these dezgra cowards."

He bowed once again, and walked off towards the Battlesuit, the jade circuitry in his tattoo glinting in the sunlight. He stepped into the open boots in the suit, and watched as the black lining encompassed his feet and lower legs, while the armour that enclosed his upper legs began to seal itself. The Elemental Warrior shoved his arms into thier respective slots and the claw and flamer came to life as the front of the suit started to stand upright. His vision went black for a moment as the last links along the back of his suit sealed themselves and he aligned his head with the neurotransmitters in the suit, and the visor's screen retracted itself. There was a momentary buzz and a small headache as the neurotransmitters in the suit started "talking" with the circuitry in his facial tattoo and vice verse. The whole process took about half a minute and as he turned back to face the pair, his external speakers came online. "By your leave, Trothkin*"

Trothkin is the highest sign of respect a clan warrior can give. It means he considers you an equal, having proven yourself in some way.

Rede is an honour bound promis that must be adhered to. Breaking a rede is punishable by death.

Zellbrigen is the battlefield Code of Conduct of the Clan Warriors: can explain further IC if necessary.

[Wings of Endymion]

“Cael,” she repeated, trying to match his pronunciation. “That’s a nice name.”

And so it was, simple and poetic. So unlike the clunky syllables of her own. For a moment Yuka thought she realised why Ingwe preferred his pseudonym to his real name, until she remembered that his real name wasn’t wholly Nipponese anyways and…

Stop it! A stern voice from within her firmly cut off that particular train of thought. It was neither bidden nor welcome at this point in time.

“Here, hold still,” the young woman spoke, extending a slender hand towards Cael’s forehead. Dark hair spilled over her forehead and into her eyes before she shook it away; her brow creased prettily as she concentrated. She’d kept company with her fair share of budding pyromancers in her youth, and it was not the first time she’d been called upon to deal with the consequences of their magic. At least it’s not deep and it’s not blistering, she observed, as the soft skin of her palm began to glow with arcane warmth.

Yuka remained silent as the giant introduced himself, throwing in a great number of unfamiliar words in the process. His general appearance, combined with his unfamiliar mannerisms and that gargantuan hulk of metal – a mobile suit of armour? she questioned a moment later as the man clambered in and activated it – only served to confirm her suspicion that they had all been brought here from different worlds, by different means, for some as-yet-unknown purpose. The hypothesis made Nikolai’s words of vengeance rather hollow for the time being.

“I wouldn’t be so sure that retaliation is possible at the moment…” she spoke as she withdrew her hand a fraction, cocking her head to one side again to examine her handiwork. It was an almost perverse fact that most light burns were actually easier for her to heal than even the simplest of cuts, a combination of her experience with them and the fact that there was usually only one layer of injury to deal with. Not to mention that Cael had already done the smart thing in cooling and cleansing the wound with fresh water. “… or if your protection is actually even necessary here.”

She meant no disrespect to Nikolai, although her voice was distinctly distant as she sought to dampen his hotheaded thoughts. Neither did she mean to imply that Cael could just forget whatever had happened to him. But her instincts were impressing upon her that whatever had caused the scars upon his body was quite separate from how he had come to be covered in fresh blood and gore, and something within her hesitated to ask “how” of him directly. The situation seemed to be far more delicate than something a simple blunt question could resolve.

Would Cael want her to coax it from him, little by little? Did he even want to speak about said matters? Would you like to tell me what happened? her body language seemed to ask of him, telepathically casting the gentle words into his mind as she lowered her hovering hand from his furrowed temple.

Satisfied that she had healed the burns as best she could – and hopefully some of the fears that still seemed to cloud the mind beneath – Yuka stepped away from Cael and towards the edge of the pond. Leather-clad feet trod lightly over the sharp rocks, her arcane robes parting faintly to reveal the blue leggings she wore underneath. When she reached the waters she knelt down gracefully and dipped her hand into their crystal depths, murmuring a word of power under her breath. Almost imperceptibly they responded, and what evidence remained amongst them of Cael’s pain was swiftly swept downstream.

Yuka watched the waters go, her expression carefully neutral… her eyes curiously far away.

[Inkfinger]

The large man - Nikolai - wasn't a magician, it would seem. If the magic armor (Cael didn't know what else to call it, honestly. It reminded him of a golem) hadn't been enough of a clue, he'd given his full name -and clan name, though it was no clan Cael had ever heard of- to strangers. That was, at the very least, a dangerous thing in the world he was used to, whether or not this was even a part of it, or somewhere else entirely.

You're assuming that's his true name. You need to stop assuming things. It gets you into trouble.

Cael stood still while Yuka's touch brushed across his forehead, easing the hot sting there, listening to Nikolai's words as the soldier continued. They were full of strange terms, but he thought he had the basic gist of it. He shook his head slightly -not enough to jolt Yuka's fingers from their work- looking up at the man out of the corners of his eyes.

"I dunno exactly what all y'just said means, sir, but Miss Yuka is right on the first count. Wherever we are, t'men who did this t'me...I wouldn't even know how t'get to them. An' for the moment, that's alright by me, yanno? I'm out. I'm free, an' I'm goin' t'be tryin' my damnedest t'stay that way."

Would you like to tell me what happened? ghosted across his mind, feeling different than his own thoughts, different than the small voice that had been taunting him since he excited the Cabal's judgment room. He blinked at Yuka past her hand, eyes slightly startled. He didn't say no -didn't really say anything- but he did hold up one scraped, inkstained finger.

Oh. Er. One moment? he thought back, hesitantly, not even sure the words would get through. His eyes flickered in Nikolai's direction. Talking things over with a healer was worlds separate from talking about things with a soldier. He might -might- be able to speak about this to Yuka. He would not be able to talk to Nikolai. Somethings were just not done.

His smile towards the other man was honest, if slightly crooked, when Yuka lowered her hand. "Though I thank you wholeheartedly for y'offers, and would gladly return them..." He spread his hands, indicating the simple linen he wore, not yet having had a chance to change from the sopping, shredded trousers and into the slightly-sturdier denim he had stolen. "But I fear that if it came t'that we would both be in trouble..."

He watched Nikolai climb into the armor suit. Seeing how (slightly) it worked really only made the thing that much more unnerving, though he managed to contain the urge to step further away rather admirably, he thought. The armor whirred and clunked and hummed in a truly alien way, but the voice that issued from the head was -if somewhat tinny- certainly Nikolai's. Cael gave another careful bow, feeling the insane urge to laugh.

No one had ever offered him their protection before. He was a scribe, a half-rate magician, a simple son of a fish monger. He wasn't used to being called things like "My liege," or that last one, "Trothkin." The way Nikolai pronounced it -syllables dripping with respect - sent shivers running up his spine. Never one to take things too serious -at least things relating to soldiers- Cael give a sloppy salute, though he returned the respect in his voice. "You have my leave, sir..."

His leave to do...what, exactly, Cael wasn't sure, but his eyes were drawn to Yuka's work, the way the waters churned and glittered and soon looked the way they had before he'd washed Aeraul's original partner's remains away...

He shivered at that thought, turning his gaze back to the golem-like armor. "...or Trothkin," He made sure to pronounce it as close as he could to the way Nikolai had, with one last bow that made his sore muscles protest slightly. "Whatever that means."

[Gordie]

At this point, Nikolai concentrated on what Cael's female companion was doing. 'Yuka, was her name?' The clan warrior thought to himself. He also found their lack of surnames somewhat refreshing with their introductions. It immediately improved their reputation in his eyes. In the clans, using a surname, referred to as a bloodname*, was a grievous offence if one did not earn it.

He was practically bowled over when he looked up at the pair of his companions and he saw the man's wounds regenerate at the woman's touch. Nikolai just stood there stunned as the two of them just looked at each other and Ceal held up his finger.

He did not snap to until the other man said "or Trothkin,whatever that means." shaking his head caused the mechanical construct outside to twist at the hip. He momentarily forgot that these freebirths didnt know all the clan terminology that had developed since the Exodus*.

"Trothkin is the highest term of respect one can give to another who is not of his Clan" The subtle machinations in his voice could well convey that he was a little annoyed at having to explain yet another clan term.

He clomped slowly over to where the pair were, and extended his battle claw. "Your Manacles" He flicked his fingers inside the suit and a set of small diamond-cutter blades extended from the inside of the claw's fingers, this is what allowed the suit of armour, as well as the warrior within, to cut through even the thickest Ferro Fibrous armour with ease.

Bloodname refers to the surname of each of the 800 warriors who stood with Nicholas Kerensky during the Exodus Civil War. The right to use one of these surnames has been the ambition of every Clan warrior since the system was established. Only 25 warriors, which corresponds to 25 Bloodrights, are allowed to use any one surname at one time. When one of the 25 Bloodnamed warriors dies, a Trial is held to determine who will assume that Bloodname. A contender must prove his Bloodname lineage, then win a series of duels against other competitors. Most BloodNames have gradually become confined to one or two warrior classes, but certain prestigious names, such as Kerensky, have shown their genetic value by producing excellent warriors in all three classes.