Maps

[Silence Sei]

((I am using the map I earned during the Adventurer’s Crown for this particular quest. This thread is open for anyone who wants to join it.))

Sei stood with his back towards Irrakam, both his hair and the parchment between his hands blowing with the harsh Fallien winds. He had been given the map after he was informed that he had somehow failed during the first round of the Adventurer’s Crown. At least, the mute kept telling himself that he had lost the round. In truth, the telepath realized that continuing down the dark and apathetic road he was taking alongside his brother was a costly mistake, and so he had opted to remove his team from the tournament, under the pretense that their position be given to another Ixian Knight’s group.

He knew that Ciato, and the other person in his team would be mad at his executive decision, so he had fled to Fallien. He had brought all of his weaponry, several canteens of water to battle the hot sun, and a map offered as a consolation prize to everyone who participated in the first round of the Adventurer’s Crown. Rather than actually write down instructions to find the ambiguous treasure that the map alluded to, the locations were all drawn. The largest outline on the map indicated the shape of Fallien, or more specifically, the one place in Fallien that few dared to go.

The place in question was simply known as ‘The Ruins’. Over six hundred years ago, many of Fallien’s great cities, which were at the forefront of technology at the time, where struck down by the country’s Goddess, Suravani. The remnants of the cities were mostly buried beneath the constantly shifting sands of Fallien’s desert, with hints of a large building or some ancient treasure peeking out for those who would dare venture towards it. Of course, heading through the ruins also meant that you would deal with the harsh Fallien environment, the blistering sun above, and the alleged ghosts and harpies that roamed the wasteland.

It was just the kind of challenge Sei needed.

He began walking, his feet crunching against the golden sand below. He could smell his body already starting to sweat, the downside of wearing gray in a desert. He could feel the grains of sand as they whipped around his exposed arms, snuck into the crevices of his gi. It was a welcome feeling to a man who believed he had lost his way. He was soon out of sight from the guards mounted atop the Fallien walls, taken by the shroud of desert that would lead him to a new purpose.

[Mordelain]

Mordelain was tired of being the subordinate in a lucrative, but ultimately one-sided business arrangement. Her mentor, the mercantile genius Suresh, was by far the greatest trader and haggler in Fallien, but she was tired of living in his shadow. After the first round of the tournament had ended, she instantly took the spoils of her hairsbreadth victory and clambered up the walls of the Outlander’s District to spy the wastes beyond. She had been given a map as a victory prize, a reward for conquest and conscience before the strange creatures of a phantasmal jungle realm.

She held it aloft to the skyline, trying to match the raised peaks and troughs with the landscape beyond the glistening waters of the Attireyi River. Her benefactor had winked at her when she identified the landscape as belonging to her newfound homeland, but he had been no more helpful than a wet fish in giving her a clue as to which region the map was referencing. The line, a scribbled epitaph to adventure in black ink could easily have been a bird’s eye view depiction of the dunes as it could be a ground level indication of some untold trinket of fancy.

Behind her, sweltering in the same sunlight that kept her moistened, even beneath her Bedouin garb, the Troubadour could hear the waking sounds of the midday markets. Soon, Irrakam citizens regardless of their birth right would gather in the district between the north and south quarters of the city to trade, barter, and enjoy the day’s offerings amongst the many hundreds of stalls. Nirakkal glass fruit bowels, stews from a thousand generations of cooks, and straw ware and saris from across the sands would be on offer to whoever deigned to buy them.

The il’Jhain runner sighed. It was a long, elongated expression of her reluctant dedication to pursuing the journey the map would instil on her. Still fazed by the ordeal with the creatural trainer and the duality of the aquatic and flame bound companions, she wondered when, if ever, she would find respite from her newfound responsibilities. She tucked the map roughly up her sleeve, checked her kukri was sheathed on her hip, and turned on a dusty heel to skitter down the bulwark staircase to the city gate.

No sooner than she turned the last curve in the descent, the guards clashed their partisans and barred the way through the small tunnel out onto the jagged outcrop. As a foreigner, she was not permitted passage through the main entrance, and had to take the detour down to the river banks, and take a small boat across the wide and rapid flow to the desert beyond. Only when she was on the business of the Abdos was she allowed being an honorary citizen. Such was the paradox of the island’s unspoken xenophobia.

“State your business,” they said in unison, in an accent strangely well placed between Bedouin tongue and Corone high common. They had, it seemed, practised speaking down to the beleaguered visitors to their city in their many years of service. Blue cloth and battered leather tunics covered their idle bodies, and long, whispery moustaches and thick beards hid their gruff, chiselled faces.

Mordelain rested her hands on her hips, cocked her head to the left, and tried to smile without coming across as displeased. “Gentlemen, I am Mordelain, of the Freerunner Guild. I wish to travel to the desert on private matters.” She produced her papers, “I have no qualm with you, and this document says you should have no qualm with me.” They snatched it the second she finished, scanned the contents, and handed it back with little in the way of decorum.

“Pass.” They stepped to one side, and Mordelain did not dally. She slipped through the sluiceway and broke into a run. She had no idea that another had passed out into the infinite bleakness on a similar quest. She had no idea who he was, or why he was foolish enough as she was to pursue a mad adventurer’s folly.

Soon, however, fate would burn the name Sei Orlouge into her sand mottled skull. The wings of a hero would carry them far across Fallien, and into the unknown. She stepped out into the sun, wavered on dancing heels, and then clambered down to the docks.