Private Tales From the Shadows to the Light

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer

Kade Anvar

Ragashan
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73
Character Biography
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Kade's life had changed forever following his trip to Annuakat.

What a wild ride, right? What an absolutely wild ride. From the Tower of Tribulations, to meeting Empress Medja in person, to finally being inducted into the ranks of the Imperial Hands, one thing had led to another and here he was now. For years he had roamed the streets of Ragash as a petty thief, stealing food and coin to ensure that his younger siblings, Aisha and Tahir, didn't have to go hungry too often.

Now he actually had a grander purpose, something beyond the mere scope of wondering what was for dinner tonight. Now, as a Quartz Hand, he could put aside his thieving fingers (which could have easily gotten him into a heap of trouble, trying to pickpocket Fieravene of all people in Annuakat) and help his family more than ever before. Big brother. Good son. This was how he could do those even better.

This assignment was looking to be as simple and straightforward as his previous two. Deliver the sealed letter from Emir Usman Mellish of Ragash to Emir Hamad Feyid of Nymenur. Easy. Nothing like some of the things that the Sapphire Hands, Emerald Hands or, worst of all, the Onyx Hands had to deal with. Yeah, those Onyx Hands had it rough alright.

For Kade? All he really had to do was spend a little time looking for a suitably large and well-defended caravan or adventuring group heading out in the direction he was going and hop along with them. Pretty easy to do now, especially once he flashed his Quartz Hand insignia. Maybe it wasn't that way throughout the whole of the Empire, but in Ragash at least, nobody gave any of the Hands any lick of attitude. Which worked for Kade juuust fine. It was kinda nice to feel a bit like a king for once.

So here he was now. Stopping along with the caravan he was riding with in a small desert town (Kaluum, he thought the name was) halfway between Ragash and Nymenur as the sun dipped lower in the sky. Evening splashed all above in shades of orange and red.

Behind him, the sound of camels and their baggage rattling, the caravaneers working out how best to hitch them securely and efficiently to posts for the night. Kade, meanwhile, was entering Kaluum proper. One thing he learned traveling with caravans: make sure to get to the inn first if you were overnighting in a town. You got the best pick of rooms that way.

And so up the street of hard-packed sand he went.

Unaware of being watched.

Raena Mirrsyn
 
Raena had been sent on her first solo mission and she was far from home. She both loved it and hated it though. She loved being alone and the silence that came with it, but she hated being so far away from the Academy in case she needed backup. This mission rested on the sixteen-year-old chameleon's shoulders and she could not fail. She had goals and plans that needed to be completed and she could not complete them if she was dead. Simple logic.

She had been given her orders to intercept the sealed letter from Emir Usman Mellish of Ragash to Emir Hamad Feyid of Nymenur, a cipher to decode the message, and a basic description of the man that was carrying it. Easy.

She had found who she thought was the man relatively easily in the midst of a caravan. She, herself, had gone invisible before getting comfortable in the back of one of the wagons. Why should she walk when she could catch a ride? She certainly wasn't going to take the message with all these people around anyways. Her specialty was stealth so she would use stealth. The messenger had to sleep at some point and she would be ready to take the letter.

Raena followed the man in silence while cloaked in darkness.


Kade Anvar
 
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Yeah, Kaluum was the name of the town. Kade heard it right from one of the locals when he stopped to ask about an inn. The local Kaluum man, friendly enough, was still a bit surprised. Oh, travelers. Nah, caravaneers, heading south to Nymenur. Well, the man had said, either way Kaluum didn't see too many outsiders now, not like how it used to be decades ago. There was still an inn, a relic of the past that the current innkeep inherited from his father (and his father before him), and he sort of grudgingly took care of the place still.

It was basically a pretty longwinded way of the local man saying: Hey, Ragashan, go knock on the door of the ostensible innkeep's home and ask for a room. His name's Malik and tell him that Uhlpani sent ya.

Thanks for the tip, Uhlpani.

Kade went searching for Malik's house. Thankfully, Kaluum was a small town. Not thankfully, his buddy Uhlpani had just vaguely pointed in the general direction of Malik's abode and sent Kade on his way.

Well, thief's luck. Kade managed to find Malik's place without all that much struggle—the setting sun was still in the sky, and there was no way the rest of the caravaneers were gonna figure this out before him. The most spacious room was as good as his.

Malik seemed annoyed to even be bothered with having to do something inn-related, and, with a grumble, he retreated back into his house after cracking open his door and entertaining Kade's request for a room. After a minute though, he did come back with a key and a curt word and shooed Kade away.

Kaluum's inn was...dusty. And quiet. And kind of spooky. Jeez, seemed to Kade that every floorboard creaked and groaned no matter how gently he stepped. Hot sands, this was the sort of place that people could easily believe was haunted. He couldn't really say in one way or the other, but he liked to think that it wasn't, that this was just an old, barely maintained inn that hardly saw any patrons in more recent times.

Kade walked down the long hall. Toward his room that was at the end.

"Ah, come on."

He was trying the key, but having a hard time with it. So he was struggling for the moment to get it inserted.

Raena Mirrsyn