THE CLINIC
The guard that questioned
Zeri Rekani and
Szesh silently listened to their answers. His eyes widened at the mention of
Neha by name.
“Neha? The priests are saying
Drakormir is awake so… I guess it makes sense She’s awake as well,” the guard replied.
Then the guard asked after a pause, “What happened with Neha and your city?! Why was She there?!”
THE COME RIGHT INN
The soldier closest to Tytus got up quickly and rushed to the masked man.
“Captain!” the soldier said as he helped Tytus up and on his feet.
In the meanwhile,
Tir'Coatl rushed forward to attempt to wrestle weapons from the guards. They all had swords in hand. As soon as claws touched the first guard’s blade, they gripped it with both arms and began to struggle to keep it in hand.
None of the guards were able to go after
Jane in her predicament and were still too disoriented to counter attack Tir’Coatl.
Meanwhile, Fryna – already confused by the noise and explosion she heard – panicked even more with suddenly being given thirty gold coins.
Tytus saw the soldier struggling against Tir’Coatl get cut down by
Nathanael McCallister and then the guard immediately next to him. As Nate charged at Tytus, the captain pushed the soldier that assisted him away with one arm.
With the other arm, Tytus removed his mask. It was obviously all metal – including the crest that stretched out from the forehead as almost like a two-pronged fork. Tytus would then grip the mask with both hands to use the forked crest as an improvised
weapon to redirect Nate’s blade away and towards a wall.
His face revealed, the foreigners would see Tytus as a human with fair skin and blue eyes with slit pupils. His black hair was shaven to a buzz. His face was nearly clean shaven – perhaps just having been shaved a day prior. A faint scar stretched from just to the right of his mouth to his sideburns.
With a glare full of rage, Tytus’s mouth moved to say the following words, “
And the ground quaked…”
The beginnings of a chant.
For Nate,
Jane, and Tir’Coatl, they could stand and fight. Yet their deaths or capture would be certain if they chose this. The city knew Jane and Tir’Coatl were here. If they spent their time fighting, enough soldiers would appear to overwhelm them and even cut off all streets and alleyways.
Fortunately, Nate already heard rumors of a way to escape without the
Portal Stone.
THYKLA PALACE
The door reacted with a buzzing noise as
Celestia touched the edges of it. Even after brainwashing herself, the door would zap
Celestia’s hand. It would be painful but bring no lasting harm. A simple warning in case the victim touched the door by accident.
The sigils’ hue shifted to a bright red, though.
Upon examination of the door itself, Celestia could have seen sigils all over the door. It would be similar to certain magical disciplines back on the two main continents – if Celestia could recognize it. On the main continents, these sigils were used for powerful lightning spells – the door’s deterrent – and for doors that required a specific spoken password to dispel the ward – the way in.
Celestia would be able to hear footsteps coming from one side of the hallway. The approaching figure remained unseen, for now. The clanging of metal came with each footstep. He came from the direction where Celestia would find the stairway down the palace.
The other stairways remained, as well as the bedrooms and other locked doors.
DRAGON THRONE’S ISLAND
As
Aivrid flew around Dragon’s Throne Island, he would be able to confirm that it is massive.
If he looked away from the island and out to the sea, he would be able to see a warship every once and a while patrolling not too far away from the island. To the north just at the horizon would be arid land. To the west and south would be endless sea. Then to the east,
Aivrid would once again see a bit of arid land that had formed the southern end of the gulf that Aivrid flew from.
Dragon’s Throne Island would be shaped almost like an elongated ellipse. Not perfectly, but it would be simple to draw on a map. The ellipse major axis stretched from west-southwest to north-northeast.
The entire island contained little life. Dirt and hills were all that greeted Aivrid. Only the base camp and temple displayed any signs of human activity. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary after Aivrid attempted to peer through any magical illusions that may exist on the island.
Once Aivrid moved to the center of the island, he would see that the hills quickly became a large valley. It could almost be described as a giant geological bowl.
Upon landing and attempting to dig at the earth, Aivrid would immediately find the soil after just a couple feet to be extremely compact. Almost as if a great weight sat upon the land for
ages.
The digging would be extremely difficult from then on. And it would take
days for Aivrid to find something, should he choose to continue. A risk as
Thagretis knows Aivrid went west, and at least one warship would have seen him and know he loomed near the island.