Something Precious

[Ixzo]

The lioness was not paying attention to the conversation in the room when she noticed the couple approaching. She had been carefully watching each figure pass at the end of the street, her weaker human eyes unable to recognize the faces of the couple, and also questioning her memory of the face. So when she saw two people break off from the ground and start deliberately walking down the strangely empty street, Ixzo stood up, no longer sitting and waiting. She had no doubts these were the two, and with how straight their path to the exact building they were in was unsettling. Whatever was happening did not seem natural.

She took a minute to size up her pursuers. The woman had nothing on hand but a few throwing daggers. Useful for range, but would be nearly useless in melee combat. The brunette light skinned human was thoroughly unprepared, that was fine. The man was far more muscular, and had a curious selection on his waste; a dagger, everyone had one of those, one single hand axe, and a long sword. She knew these easterners did not fight with the small axes nearly as much as they liked their long blades, but if she could get ahold of it… As she got a more focused look on it, it sat on the back of his hip, not a priority like the sword was. That was also fine.

When Ixzo turned back to the events in the room to try and warn the girl and the stranger, she watched the man pull up the shirt of the girl’s back. At first she was entirely confused as to where the conversation went, when she saw the mark. It was not quite a tattoo, but a vivid picture embedded into the girl’s skin, and it shimmered and radiated with the innate magic that was the divine gnosis. Whoever had blessed this girl, perhaps it explained the uneasily knowledgeable feeling the girl had given her. Ixzo watched the girl sob one last thing out, and in a last ditch effort to save herself, she scurried into the other room. Slightly worried about her, Ixzo pushed her shoulder against the door, shifting it over the frame. There were gaps, and it was not perfect, but it would stand.

The thunk of a body slumped to the floor turned her back, and she narrowed her eyes at the man. Why keep the thing alive if he wasn’t to be questioned any longer? Just kill him and get over with it. Ixzo had half a mind to rip the head from the body just now, but the stranger had seen the couple coming, or had been warned in the way of one of the strange extra senses he seemed to have. He muttered a word at her, and it sounded similar to the common word for magic, but she wasn’t certain and didn’t have the ability or time to ask. It was a warning, they were here.

He positioned himself behind the door, and Ixzo rolled her eyes, her heart already picking up with the anticipation of a fight. She strolled back to the back of the room, sinking her weight into her feet. It would look as if she had just lain down, but her feet remained poised under her, ready to launch the full force of her body weight forward at any moment. Ears remained perked as she listened to them on the outside of the door. Only the tip of her tail twitched in anticipation, and she assumed the impossibly still stance she used when she tracked too close to her prey. In the past few ticks the small building had become completely silent. She could hear the ragged and nervous breathing of the girl behind the wall, but the stone did not transfer the vibrations of shivering that the Kelvic was sure the girl was doing. The man on the floor let out the loose even breathing of the sleeping, and he didn’t seem prone to waking up immediately, although it would be unlucky if he came to during the fight, not that he would be in a state to do anything useful. The stranger was posed by the door, and although his breath was a little tighter with anticipation, she smelled little fear from him. Good, at least he wasn’t a coward.

On the other side of the door, she heard the couple pause. There was a smooth sheen of metal being drawn, and lioness flicked her tail, smoothing her whiskers back with her tongue, and slowed her breath considerably more to hear better. The others knew that she and the stranger were waiting for them. She did not hear anyone place a hand on the door, like she was expecting, instead it simply flung open. Whoever had done it had done it too quick for her to pick up on. A whiz of metal flew past her ears, and if she had been standing it would have hit her directly, instead the throwing dagger clattered against the wall and dropped below. Satisfied with this failed expectation, the lion launched herself forward in a very familiar fashion, bowling the woman down outside of the door. She felt her claws dig into the front of the woman’s chest, and knew that even without effort she was too massive to not have done damage. But she was no idiot, and would not follow up on the tackle now. Instead the lion jumped lightly to her feet, turning quickly to face the man while the woman attempted to recapture her breath, not yet attempting her feet. The obvious fighter of the pair had his sworn drawn, and she was just out of his reach. Had she stayed to finish her kill, he surely would have pricked her.

She didn’t expect to come out of an encounter with him unscathed, and let out a low guttural growl that quick morphed into a hiss. Pulling her whiskers back and warning him away. The man didn’t lunge, but he did hesitate. He likely never had a lion hiss at him before, and although the word had been tainted by the soft mews of the house cat, such an event could be thoroughly terrifying. His hesitation was exactly as much time as she needed, and she batted one claw out towards the woman. The satisfying entrance of her talons into the flesh of the woman gave the hunter a sick satisfaction, and a craving for more. Heartlessly, she dragged the woman down the cobbled road nearly five feet, giving her slightly more distance from the man. The scream that erupted from her red lips started in a chorus of agony and morphed into a furious rage. All the better.

Except the woman did not stab her with the mere throwing dagger, like the lioness thought she would. Instead she felt the impact of rock on her shoulder, and caved to the surreal pain. Her eyes picked up on the woman making a sweeping motion with her fist, and then felt the impact of rock on her shoulder. It effectively threw the beast off her balance, and off the woman. But she was already in the fight, and did not acknowledge the pain, quickly suppressing the sharp ping in her shoulder. She could move her arm, and so she would continue to fight.

But now she was aware this woman was a reimancer. Petching mages. Blood seeped quickly into the woman’s thighs, and the right of her shirt where Ixzo had clawed her last, but was not nearly enough to suggest a fatal wound. Shock would easily help the woman ignore this pain, and she needed to wound her further to incapacitate her. This time the lion hissed out of frustration, batting a claw in the air to warn the woman away. She wasn’t expecting the small human to fight back so well, and so she shrunk back into her hind legs, not quite creeping away, but flicking her tail in irritation, and flattering her ears at the woman. She couldn’t help but glance to each side for the onslaught of stone that might attack her. She had the woman’s attention now, but not the man’s. The man had turned to enter the building, now that he thought that Ixzo was distracted with the woman. Please be a reasonable fighter. She hoped towards the stranger, as if her personal thoughts would make a difference. She was going to be here a chime or two before she could help him.

Ixzo took two measured steps back to try and goad the woman closer to her. Although the woman was clearly using ranged attack to her advantage and didn’t need to move forward, it was an instinct to feel as if she was advantaged against the Kelvic, and just as Ixzo expected the mage took her own two steps forward in pursuit. Ixzo heard the grind of rock to her left, and immediately skittered to the right, reactionary to save herself, before reassessing where she was in relation to the woman, and lunging for her once again.

Word Count: 1,525

[Kynier]

The Night Lion Kelvic relocated towards the back wall and closed the door she had forced open earlier. It was a weak barricade to keep the young girl, Lolan, out of sight and out of the way. Then the large feline settled herself low to the ground with her eyes set on the door. Her tail flicking and her tongue licked her whiskers. “Fighting then,” he muttered to himself in affirmation. At least it was going to be an even fight, so long as their friend, Kithias, remained unconscious. Kynier gave the unconscious figure a quick glance. The man had no weapon. He probably was a mage as well then.

In a way, the situation made Kynier a bit envious. For a long time, he knew of no one else in Sunberth that practiced any of the arcane disciplines. Then recently, mages were becoming a more common occurrence for him. His bondmate had shown an interest, his employer was a powerful wizard that most likely suffered from overgiving, Anja was a spiritist, Farris… was a self-destructive wreck, and several others that he had encountered too. Unfortunately, none of them had experience with any magic that would be useful in a battle against other mages. That was what he was envious of.

Footsteps on the other side of the door approached and stopped. Kynier took a single deep breath as quietly as he could to calm himself and his mind. While it had slowed his heartbeat only slightly, it did little to ease the anxiety of battle. Mentally, he reached in to call upon his Djed. There was no purpose for it at the moment, but he wanted to have it ready for whatever may happen. It would take too long to cast a Shield weave, his Voiding was still to miniscule to assist in combat, and his Projection was not strong enough to manipulate the body of another person beyond the lightest of touches. Kynier looked at the door for an instant and realized he had missed an opportunity to use one of his magic items to their advantage.

Thought it honestly would have done little to help them. The door simply broke away from the frame with a loud crack that he had not been expecting. Kynier flinched and raised an arm to cover his face from the splintering wood since he had been standing right next to the door. There was a thunking sound from the dagger hitting the back wall. As Kynier lowered his arm from his eyes, he witnessed the Kelvic pounce the woman who had been in the process in stepping through the doorway. There was something unusual that he noticed in that brief instant that he saw the woman. His Auristics were no longer active, but he could visibly see the magic in the woman’s eyes.

The strangeness were not the tell-tale signs of Auristics or overgiving. Her pupils had small radiant burst of light within them. As though Syna were shining directly from her eyes. There was no magic that Kynier had ever heard of that had such an indication of its use. It was something that he would want to inquire about, perhaps he could ask Doler at some point. His thoughts on it were brief as the Kelvic mauled the woman and her shrieks of agony rang out. With his hold on his Djed still intact, Kynier activated his Auristics again. In a battle against mages, it would be useful to potentially see the build-up of their magic before it was unleashed.

Another rare moment occurred for Kynier. A wishing that he had stayed with his instructor longer before coming to Sunberth. Bourin never spoke of being in battle against other mages, but it had to have happened at some point. The Eypharian had lost one of his forearms at some point in his life. To suggest that it had happened in a battle would not be farfetched. As it was, Kynier had no training for this sort of encounter. No lessons to suggest what he could do to improve his chances of survival. So, he was going to trust his instincts. That was the best that he was going to be able to do.

Kynier took a step to stand in the doorway. The Kelvic was dragging the woman across the road a few paces as the man held out his long sword to protect himself from suffering the same fate as the woman. The woman that was being dragged was using Reimancy to generate large rocks and hurled them at the Night Lion. The man was looking for an opening to exploit. Kynier focused on the man, but not with his Sight. He had learned that focusing on an aura that he intended to harm would reflect the pain back onto him. As it was, Kynier could see that the man’s aura was moving with activity. The white with red tinted mist that emanated from him was swirling around rapidly, especially around the arms and legs.

Both were mages, but it appeared that the man was practiced in disciplines with internal functions. While the Kelvic was a large predator, she would not be able to handle them both on her own. They needed to divide and conquer, and she had already laid claim to the woman it seemed. “Hey!” he called out to get the man’s attention as he brandished both cold iron short swords. The man was a little taller than him and had well defined muscle. Kynier cursed inwardly about how he had to get the more physically oriented foe. He backed away from the door as a means to bait the man into coming inside. Indoors, the longsword would be at a disadvantage to his shorter blades.

The man came inside and began the engagement with a horizontal slash at Kynier’s throat. With his Sight, he could see that man’s aura condense around his weapon arm as he drew it back. The attack itself was fast for such a long weapon. Kynier barely managed to get a guard up with both weapons. The man’s weapon also struck with a lot of power and caused Kynier to stagger. A sharp sting touched his cheek as his body twisted around from the force of the attack. He did not need to raise a hand to his face to discover that the sword had managed a small cut on his cheek. As he stood back up the man had already rushed in for another attack. This time with a cut from overhead.

Standing his ground was not a wise idea. The man had already shown that his attacks were already stronger than Kynier’s attempts to block. When the attack came down Kynier performed a little sidestep. When his weight had transferred over onto that foot his other one circled around behind him so that the sword would cut straight down at the place where he was. The forward weapon came up and down in an arc to set its edge on the wrist of the man’s main weapon hand. While it cut the skin and allowed some blood to escape the confines of his body, it did not appear to be enough to break the man’s grip on his weapon. His adversary’s eyes did wince slightly in response to the pain of the cold iron biting into his wrist. Kynier stabbed across his chest and at the man’s head.

Whatever distraction the pain might have caused was short lived. Too short for his riposte to make contact. The man’s aura condensed around his torso as he dipped down at an unusual angle to avoid the weapon. The man’s other hand took hold of the long sword’s hilt and pulled it to his hip so that the tip came low and threatened to lunge forward and skewer Kynier. Rather than allow it to happen, Kynier turned the failed stab into a wide sweeping cut at the man’s neck. Whatever magic the man was doing, it was allowing him to move in inhuman ways. Despite the short distance for the cold iron to travel in order to tear into the man’s flesh, his opponent managed to step backwards as he tilted his head back and out of reach. Kynier immediately followed up with a thrust of his other weapon, which the man pivoted around as he brought his sword in an arc at Kynier’s head.

The mage kicked out with his right foot, hitting the man’s shin with his heel and stopping his movement short. That happened as his body lowered to the ground and he performed a backroll over his shoulder and out of reach of the man. The sword tip tapped the floor at the end of its swing as Kynier’s feet touched the ground again. In a fluid motion he stood up and held one cold iron blade forward and held the other close to his chest as a guard. Kynier’s opponent smiled in amusement. The tainted aura expanded briefly as the man began to circle around him. The motions of the aura were telling, though he had yet to figure out the significance of it.

Each time it had contracted, the body part where it occurred moved with unusual speed or power. The fragment of a memory came to mind as Kynier realized what discipline it was that the man was using. Bourin had called it The Flux. It was an ability to use Djed to make the body faster or empower the muscles with more strength. Shyke. The man did not appear to be a better swordsman than him. But how was he to defeat someone that was faster as well as stronger than him? An idea came to mind. Kynier was a mage as well and did possess on discipline with offensive capabilities.

Still using his left hand to wield the longsword, the enemy came at Kynier with a flurry of slashes and cuts. To be able to endure the onslaught, Kynier had to give ground with every attack. Every attack was dealt with by taking a crescent step that pulled him back as well as away from his attacker. Sometimes he moved in a way to be on the inside of the attack, and others he was on the outside. Each time he brought a short sword up to deflect the longer weapon. Kynier was biding his time as he reached into his Djed reserve for more. Kynier brought the power forth to his hands and began the process of transmuting it into res.

It was not easy. The man was moving even faster and Kynier was having to apply more muscle into deflecting each attack. The tinted aura of his opponent was gradually condensing around his body more and more. Eventually, it looked as though the mist emanating from the other mage’s soul had taken a physical form around him the way it grew so dense. Kynier had lost track of his positioning in the room. When he took another step backwards to avoid an attack, his foot stepped on something. His body was already trying to shift weight onto the foot that had not stability, and he fell backwards. By instinct, he brought that backfoot forward and initiated another backroll. His spine rolled over what felt like Kithias’ leg.

When he got to his feet again, he tried something that seemed foolish. The impulse was brought on by the heat of the battle. As he straightened his posture, he shifted his weight forward at the charging opponent. He tossed the cold iron blade at the man, trying to do so in a way that kept the tip and the sharp blades facing the man, rather than tumbling end over end. Kynier did not know how he did it, but that’s exactly what he was able to accomplish. Glister’s ever-changing colored blade flew forth from his underhanded throw, the blade kept straight forward and toward’s the man’s chest and neck.

Either the Flux was reaching its limit, the distance was too short to allow for reaction time, or perhaps a combination of the two, but the man was not able to evade as well as before. The cold iron blade cut across the man’s neck, creating a small gash. Wide-eyed, the man brought a hand up to immediately clamp down on the wound as the short sword went past him and clattered on the ground. At that point, Kynier held his free hand forward as the gaseous res gathered in his pam. He willed it into Air and propelled it forward. Fueling more res into it to attract the surrounding air in the atmosphere to condense to a fine point. The collect blew into the man’s chest with a velocity to drive him off his feet and across the room.

The man crashed into a shelving unit against the far wall hard enough to break it. His body slumped on the ground as blood spewed from his neck in short fonts in time with his pulse. The man tried to stand up but stumbled back to the floor. His eyes were wide with disbelief as the color was draining from his face rapidly. Kynier went and picked up his thrown weapon as he watched the man’s lifeforce spill from his body. While it was not the first, nor the tenth person, that he had killed with a blade, it was the first time he was witnessing it with Auristics.

The man’s aura was fading in color to a pale gray and the thickness of it was beginning to wane. Small plumes of mist vented away from the larger mass as the man lost consciousness from the blood loss. As his body settled against the inside of the shelving unit, the aura darkened drastically to an ashen gray before it broke apart into countless flakes that disintegrated into nothing. Kynier stood and watched death through his Auristics vision; finding it horrifying and morbidly fascinating. Too distracted to see that Kithias had woken up and was running out the door to make his own escape, leaving his comrades to their own fates.



NaNo Post: 2,357

Credit for the boxcode goes to Luminescence!

[Ixzo]

This time the lunge was considerably more effective. She wasn’t used to hunting humans, they were small and stood on two legs, making their weak spots in a slightly different place. Physical habits did not work on them, she had to actually calculate where she was going to land. This time, she pushed her paws together into the woman’s chest, and when she landed on the woman, it was more than just the breath that knocked out of her. She heard ribs crack, and there was no scream this time, as the woman did not have enough breath in her to do it. The neck was too small for her massive jaws to latch onto, so she leaned down and bit into the bicep of the woman, yanking the arm off. It wasn’t particularly hard, with the bendy joints and weak tendons, the skin and muscle attached to her teeth. But she wasn’t hungry, and tossed the arm. This time, the pool of blood that welled beneath her was more satisfying. There grew a certain amount of blood that no creature would come back from, and the woman was quickly on her way to reach it.

Ixzo glanced around her to ensure she would not be stabbed by the sword-wielding one while she finished off her prey, and the lion eyes caught sight of the two swords squaring off. Something was unnaturally fast about the lady’s companion, but the kind stranger was not innocent either. While she watched, the glimmering appearance of res pool in the man’s hand and when he activated it, a gust of wind threw the woman’s companion into the wall. Petching mages, everywhere!

Her eyes were attuned to the habits and movements of prey, that she only focused on the two men’s fight for so long before a slow movement caught her eye. The unconscious one was fleeing. As soon as he saw her gaze zero in on him, he bolted. Confident that the woman beneath her was as good as dead, Ixzo burst forward. She was built for this kind of chase, and the straight shot of the street was the closest she would get to it in these thickly wooded areas. Her hunting had to be adapted to the woods, but this, this she was used to. In one leap, she had gone twenty feet, shooting past the stranger and his opponent. She landed prepared to run, and her stride barely missed a beat when her paws touched cobble again. This man seemed unnaturally fast, faster than a human should be, and she wondered if he too was a mage. But it didn’t matter how fast he was, she could catch a horse in the open plains if the chase was not too long, and so even a magical human was not fast enough.

Again the thing was too small for her to properly latch onto his neck, but she lunged for him anyway. Large paws raked down his back, and where it did long streaks of red began bleeding through his shirt. She ducked her head, catching one of his legs in her jaw, and then skidded to a stop. Intending to do with this what she did with the woman, she pressed a massive paw down on his chest, hearing the loud snapping of bone as she yanked. Only it seemed human hips were better placed than shoulders, and she could not get the leg off. Instead it hung at an off angle, blood welling where her teeth had been. She forgot about her earlier intention to spare the head, and stepped onto him, the crack of his ribs as he bore her weight didn’t register to the lion, and she grasped his neck in her jaw, yanking the fleshy bits from the thin bone which held it up. It did not spurt, he did not gasp, but she watched the expression of shock reach his face, the dark pooling of his life running through the seams of the cobble below him.

She watched him for a few ticks, the life leaving his eyes not too long after losing his entire neck, and she licked her whiskers once to get the blood off. She didn’t like the taste of humans, and she wasn’t hungry.

Stepping off of him, she welled her energy into her chest, switching this form for another. Within a few ticks, she was standing on two legs again. Unnecessarily, she spit on the corpse, and then turned to walked the way back towards the building they were in. Blood seeped down her face and neck, a few speckles spilling over her bare breasts, but she didn’t seem to notice. The man had killed his opponent, wonderful. She needed that axe. Ignoring the stranger, she leaned over his corpse, yanking the unused hand axe from the man’s belt, and strolled over to the woman. Methodically, she picked up the woman by her long brunette hair, pulling the skin off of her face. To Ixzo’s surprise the woman was not yet dead. She came here to retrieve the skull so she could scalp and preserve her kill later, but she lacked compassion for this woman. Her face was paler than she had ever seen a pale faced human to be, and she was hardly breathing past her broken ribs, the only telling that she was alive was the gurgling of blood in her mouth, and the flickering of her lids trying to fight unconsciousness.

“Ah, you poor thing.” Ixzo hissed, lifting one bloody foot from the pool that she stood in, and stamping it down on the woman’s neck. She pushed her weight into it, making sure that any last breaths the woman could have taken were stolen from her. After a few ticks, she decided it was enough. If she wasn’t dead yet, she was about to be.

Ixzo flipped the axe from her left hand to her right, and with a swift motion slammed it down on the woman’s neck. It tore through the flesh easily enough, and she heard the crack of the spine beneath. The daughter of the Shorn Skulls did it once more with the same force before lifting the woman’s head, and severing any skin or tissue that still allowed it to connect. After doing so, she began walking the distance back to her second kill, still not looking at the man, but listening for him with her ears. The Drykas had called her a barbarian for this act, but she had saved them from the sea-people hadn’t she? Traditions were not to be abandoned, simply because she was away from home. She would have her scalps; she had rightfully killed these two in battle.

When she reached the second body, she did the same to his neck, only requiring one hard hit with the axe to sever his bone and then picked his head up. She wove her fingers through the woman’s hair and then clasped the man’s with what was left so that she could hold them both up with one hand to look at them. The woman’s eyes were closed, but the man’s was not. Forgetting that she was ignoring the man, she immediately turned back.

“You.” She accused in common, keeping her grip on the head so he could not take it from her, but producing the butt-end of the axe to point at the now dulled grey eyes of the dead man that echoed back at him. “Magic.” She explained, although what kind, she did not know. And then she remembered why she had ignored him, and took two large steps back, adjusting her grip on the axe.

“Magic.” This time it was said in an accusatory tone, her narrowed eyes on him, forgetting her earlier curiosities about his unusual kindness, and then his ties to these gang members. In the moment, she remembered the reimancy. She didn’t have a particular vendetta against mages, they were accepted where she came from, but if he could do reimancy as well, did it mean he was with them?

Word Count: 1,393

[Kynier]

The man’s death had stolen all of his attention as he watched it with his Auristics. Kynier was thankful that he had not attuned his mage sense to the man’s aura for the spectacle. What his personal use of the discipline did to give him extra sensitivity was hazardous at time. While other users of the discipline had to perform more guesswork to what a person was feeling, Kynier would experience a reflection of it. It allowed him to more quickly understand a person’s mentality when he could feel their laughter or their anger as his own. Unfortunately, the imitations extended to pain as well. Kynier had recently realized that, and for that purpose, he never focused his Auristics on anyone’s aura during combat. And he was thankful to have missed the opportunity to experience a reflection of dying.

From outside he could hear to the woman’s screams as he engaged the man. Now it was silent and there was nothing to disguise the sound of the Kitias’ magically enhanced movement. Kynier’s attention snapped to the door just in time to see the motion of the slaver going out. The mage ran to the door frame and could see that Kithias was also using The Flux to improve his capabilities. The man’s aura was heavily condensed around his legs as he was fleeing down the street. It was a futile attempt. The Kelvic chased him down and pounced him.

Death was not an uncommon occurrence in Sunberth. Everyday, a street was painted red with blood and the ground drank it greedily. The ground was darker in the city from being stained so much with it. As though there was too much death even for the environment to be able to handle. What was different this time was the savagery of it all. Kynier had heard screaming before and the pained whimpers before Dira’s embrace. But a Night Lion latching its maw on the man’s leg and attempting to rip it from the rest of him produced terrified shrieks from Kithias that Kynier was less familiar with. Experiencing a cut from a blade was different than having fangs and claws attempt to tear one asunder. Having already seen death once with Auristics, Kynier ended the flow of his Djed to close his Sight.

It was so horrifying to watch that the mage was not able to pull his eyes away. Even as the Kelvic ripped the man’s throat out to finally silence him. Kynier turned his gaze down the other way of the street and saw the woman lying still on the ground with a pool of blood around her. When Kynier brought his gaze back, the Kelvic had taken to her human skin again. Blood dribbled from her jaw to fall on her exposed breasts. As a human male, it was instinctual to have a peaked interest at the sight of a nude female. Kynier did not experience that this time.

As he returned his weapon’s to their sheaths, Kynier watched her walk past him back towards the building. His hazel eyes were fixated on her, how calm she was with had just happened. Her body did not portray the uncontrollably quicker motions that adrenaline left in a person moments after combat. Curiously, he followed her inside to see her take the one-handed axe from his dead adversary. When she went back out to the street Kynier instead went to the room that the girl had taken to. When he pushed on the broken door, he felt heavy resistance. Setting both palms against the door, the mage pushed forward with all his body weight.

The door shifted open slowly as something on the other side skidded across the floor. Once it was halfway open, he stopped and slid through the gap sideways into the other room. The desk had been moved against the door in an attempt to barricade it. Kynier looked around the room and saw no sign of Lolan. Holding his breath and listening intently, he did not hear anything either. Except… there was the sound of a wind gust. Kynier followed the sound to a different adjacent room. In there was more or less the same abandoned rubble. But there was a small hole in the wall. One that was less than shoulder distance in width and only came up to his shin. Kynier got down on the ground and looked out through it. It led out to a back alley.

“Gone,” he murmured before getting back to his feet. Lolan had run off during the battle and he suspected that they weren’t going to find her. Kynier made his way back outside just in time to watch the Kelvic remove Kithias’ head from his corpse. His eyes widened at the horrific sight but then narrowed again when he noticed that she had also taken the woman’s head. He did not understand why she would take the heads. But if he ever came across other bodies in the streets that were missing their heads, he’d at least have a good guess as to who had killed the person.

The Kelvic came to him and held the woman’s head up in front of his face, pointing at the lifeless eyes with the butt end of the axe. Kynier looked at the gray eyes. When she uttered the word “magic” he understood what it was that she was referring to. The woman was harnessing Djed through her eyes for some form of magic he wasn’t familiar with. Auristics never made so obvious an indication and most likely wouldn’t unless the mage was deep into the symptoms of overgiving. Kynier wished one of them had remained alive. Now he was left with many questions that would remain unanswered. Like who the three of them were? Was there a small collection of mages secretly residing in Sunberth? And what was that discipline of magic? It seemed to lead the woman directly to them despite how they left them behind on the other side of the Mudway.

Then the Kelvic took a step back from him and repeated the word. Her tone was unmistakable and matched her eyes. He took a step back from her in kind as he quickly read her body language. After an instant, he relaxed. If she intended on attacking him, she’d already be shifting back to her lion form. Though Kynier cursed himself inwardly. He didn’t expect that the Kelvic would’ve noticed his use of Reimancy from outside. Now he needed to weigh his options for his own safety. Could he afford to leave the Kelvic alive, knowing his secret in Sunberth?

For one thing, he didn’t even know her name. Though, she would be an easy person to find in Sunberth. A tall, dark skin toned, brutal woman that couldn’t speak a lot of the common tongue. But what were the reasons for silencing her? One, he did not know if she could be trusted. Most Kelvics were not like humans or the other races and could demonstrate more goodwill towards others. But she had just taken two heads and was holding them at her side by the hair. Two… she did not seem to think fondly of magic based on the way she was looking at him now. Three… there wasn’t a third reason that he could think of for justifying keeping her silent.

Where there any reasons to risk trusting her? One, she had not tried to tear out his throat and remove his head during the time he was considering all of this. Two, she hadn’t killed these people because they were mages. At least, he didn’t think so. She had been minding her own business until one of them stole from her. As he stared at her, measuring her in intangible ways, he chose to do something he normally would not have done in the past. He was going to risk it and giver her a chance. Kynier had seen a lynch mob in action as it hunted down a mage and had even been swept up in it. There was a distinct hatred in the eyes of the individuals involved. A hatred that the Kelvic was not reavealing.

“Magic,” he said quietly with a single nod of agreement. Kynier stared at her for a moment, wondering how to communicate with her. With slow steps, he walked around the Kelvic and back to Kithias’ body to kneel beside it. His hands delved into the pockets and searched for hidden items on the corpse. There wasn’t really anything of note on him. Just a handful of gold mizas. Kynier gave the Kelvic and critical look. She appeared to be the sort that claimed ownership over her kills. The heads were an indication of that. Kynier took the small pouch that the man’s money was in and tossed them to the Kelvic in an underhanded fashion.

Then he stood up and walked over to the woman’s body. It was unlikely, but one of them may have something on them that indicated who they were. When he came over to the woman’s form, it was even more unsightly. An arm had been completely removed and tossed aside. The smell of blood was powerful and Kynier wrinkled his nose at the intensity. Then he searched through the pockets and the pack that she had brought along with her. There was nothing in her pockets and as he felt through her pack his hand came in contact with what felt like a thick book. Kynier pulled it out of the blood-stained pack with a curious expression. The book was leather bound and over four inches in thickness. It had not been stained by the gore of the battle, so Kynier wiped the blood from his hands to keep it clean.

There was nothing written on the cover or the spine. When he opened it and flipped to the first page with writing, his he sighed in disappointment. The book had in fact been stained by the woman's blood. It went straight to the pages and seemed to have ignored the binding entirely. Crimson red distorted the black ink so much that he couldn't read it. The few letters that hadn't been dowsed in blood were not familiar too him. Without being able to see what a whole sentence looked like, Kynier was unable to guess what language it had even been written in. He tucked it back into the woman's pack.

Kynier stood back up and looked at the Kelvic. He held up a hand against his own chest, “Kynier.” With that same hand, he indicated her. “Name?” How much common she understood was impossible for him to know. But at the very least, he thought it was time that they knew each other’s names.



NaNo Post: 1,794

Credit for the boxcode goes to Luminescence!

[Ixzo]

She watched him while he watched her. She wasn’t as stupid as the common speakers thought she was, but her inability to understand or communicate with them usually made them think she was. That and humans who lived in stone buildings usually thought themselves better than those who lived in wooden huts or tents with their families, as was the only lives this Kelvic had known. They lived lonely lives in the east, unsure of who they could trust and who they could not, an obvious root to the problem behind this lawless place. But he was measuring her for another reason, and she genuinely couldn’t decipher what it was. She had stepped back, wondering if he knew magic, then perhaps he knew one of them. But he simply nodded to her, and then walked around to the bodies.

The human didn’t look terribly upset nor sad over these deaths, he was curious, and perhaps a little disgusted. The Kelvic didn’t look at death the same way as humans, but her last family had tried to give her their perception of death, that it was sad. But he did not react the same as her last family had, and it confused her. He began looting the bodies, uncovering a small coin purse and peering inside. Without seeming to think too much of the action, he tossed it towards Ixzo underhand. Habitually, she reached for it, snatching it out of thin air. Perhaps he pitied her lack of funds or had another judgment to think that she needed it more than him. Perhaps he thought she would be territorial about her kills, Ixzo didn’t know. She had their scalps, which was all she needed from her kills, the coin purse was a perk.

Not wanting to watch him loot what was left of the bodies, she ran the back of her hand over her mouth, without looking at the blood she licked it off, and then turned to head back inside for her clothes and the girl. The door had been moved, and when she reached the room with her boots and dress, and the girl, the girl was gone. Ixzo saw another door that opened to another depreciated room, and she trotted into it, her eyes narrowing on the broken down wall that lead to the alley way. The girl had run. Dejection softened the predator’s shoulders, and she turned back to dress herself. The gloves she had picked up where tucked in her pocket, the small coin purse in the other. As she slipped her stockings and boots on, she noticed she was missing her knife. She searched the immediate area, but didn’t find it. The answer was obvious, the girl had taken it.

Ixzo sighed, she supposed she couldn’t fault the child that, if she was now on her own she would need it. If she had stayed, Ixzo would have helped her, taking in strange children was not an alien concept to the Kelvic, but there was no way the girl would have known that. And the children of Endrykas were much more trusting to fellow Endrykas Denizens than the children in Sunberth would be for fellow Sunberth denizens. The culture shock of going from one big web of family to the chaos and distrust of this city was beginning to wear on the Kelvic.

She had gotten most of the visible blood off, although there were still smears in the crevices of the raised scars on her chest, so she returned outside. The stranger had just finished searching the woman, although she didn’t see if he had gotten anything, and she didn’t care enough to look, she had questions for him. But as soon as he looked up at her, before she could speak, he placed a hand on his chest and spoke his name, then asked hers. She raised an eyebrow, these humans had such weird names.

”Ixzo.” She answered curtly. She wanted to list her names and where she belongs, be it of the Shorn Skulls, or of the Stormbloods, but she had a feeling those words would mean nothing to this man. She picked up the axe from where she had left it, hooking it into her belt, and then looked back at him. She held his gaze for a tick to two, trying to decide how to word her questions, before she spoke.

”Why you help me?” She finally got out. Her clutched the heads, and so she could not form the grassland signs to accent her word, a habit she had fallen into after spending so long with the Drykas, but signing in Pavi soothes most of her discontent with not being able to speak the Common Tongue. So her left hand still twitched into half signs by her side, Priskil’s vortex glimmering in her palm. She was sure it was wrong, she was still being corrected on her Pavi after all, but as the Kelvic learned languages, she began to understand that as long as she got the important words out, in some semblance of order, most people would understand. ”Slow.” She asked when he began to answer, hoping he at least now understood they would have trouble with the language barrier.

Word Count: 872

[Kynier]

He paid close attention to which parts of her name were stressed so that he could annunciate it correctly. “Ixzo,” he repeated with the smallest of nods. Kynier had no understanding of the Myrian culture and had nothing to associate Ixzo with the warrior race. The half-formed signs of Pavi were also beyond his understanding, though he still paid them attention. Gestures could communicate a lot when words were unavailable. Though he felt awkward standing there with a woman he had just stood beside in a fight that he knew nothing about. Leaving was his strongest instinct, but now he couldn’t take that chance yet. His understanding of Ixzo needed to improve if he was going to allow her to know his secret.

It seemed that the Kelvic had questions of her own. Kynier rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he thought about it. Why did he help her? The short answer was that it felt like the right thing to do. Otherwise, he could have done nothing and let her continue walking away, until she discovered its disappearance on her own. “I was…” Then she requested he speak slower. So, she could understand some of the common tongue even if it took a little more effort. Kynier nodded once in understanding before he started again.

“I was following him,” he said as he pointed to Kithia’s headless body. Kynier was not speaking so slowly as though he thought that she was mentally inhibited. Words were spoken at about a little under half the pace he normally used. “I was watching slavers. He,” he pointed at the corpse again, “came and talked to the slavers. The slavers gave him the girl,” Kynier paused and held his hand level at about where Lolan’s head came to. “The girl, Lolan.” How much Ixzo was understanding was difficult to determine, but all he could do was continue to explain.

“He did not pay for the girl. I wanted to know why. I hate slavers and slave owners. I saw him take,” he pointed at the amulet that Ixzo had around her neck again, “your amulet. I helped… because I could.” His eyes fell on the heads that she was holding as a thoughtful scowl crossed his brow. “Mages,” he said pointing at both the heads. “Mages are very hated in Sunberth.” Kynier’s eyes came up to meet Ixzo’s. “Sunberth hunts Mages. Very strange to find more than one together.”

Kynier looked up and down the length of the street. No one had walked by yet to discover the carnage, but it was only a matter of time. Because they did not know who the dead where, or who they could be affiliated with, it left a small possibility of someone they had known to be the ones to discover the bodies. Kynier did not want to be standing around should that happen. “We should leave,” he said and waited a few ticks before turning north and beginning to walk. He paused and looked back at Ixzo before making a gesture with his hand to invite her to come along with him.



NaNo Post: 517

Credit for the boxcode goes to Luminescence!

[Ixzo]

As he explained, Ixzo would have gotten lost if not for her recognition of the names, and his motioning towards who she was talking about. She hadn’t quite understood what he said, but she pieced together that he was following Kithias, and that the concentration of mages was unusual in this city. Why was he following this man? Had she missed the explanation? And if mages were so frowned upon, why did he himself wield magic?

He hated slavers, and he helped her simply because he could. But the fact that it had occurred to him to do so was what had intrigued her. Ixzo’s hand flew up to her amulet to rub it, a nervous habit she had acquired, and let her reflective gaze shift over the bodies, trying to digest what he said. She hadn’t been in this city nearly long enough to know it with any relative familiarity, but she had learned the most important lesson very quickly, no one was good here. She herself was not good, although she desperately wanted to be. She was raised by blood thirsty warriors, instinct directed her in the path of the hunt, and circumstance had severed her empathy for human emotions. Everything and everyone she looked at had a veil of survivability affecting their usefulness to her. The Drykas had been a soft spot in her stony heart, but she had no love for these humans. And yet, she wanted to be near them so bad. She should have turned around on her first day, walked away from this city and continued to brave her odds in the wilderness. But then she had met Anja, and then she had met Tierre and Kiarsha. She considered none of them her friends, and doubted they thought twice about her, but the hint of connection to the humans was enough to keep her hungrily returning for more.

And now she was pulled by curiosity, curiosity and a frustrating lack of ability to communicate. She didn’t like it, but she would do it. Before following the man, Ixzo stooped to pull the shirt from the woman, all traces of the white cloth had been seeped in red, and she tied it around the heads. The man was leaving these bodies so they could not be traced as the killers, but she was not about to walk around with the heads of her kills on display. She could have just scalped them right there and made it simpler on her, but she wanted their scalps.

He gestured at her, and she stood, letting the heads hang by her side, now covered by the makeshift knapsack. She didn’t run, but did take two quick bounds to catch up, letting her long strides do the rest. She would walk beside him, not follow, still cushioning her own ego. A thought tapped the back of her mind, telling her she should be more suspicious about following this man to multiple locations, but her ego overcame the thought. If he had watched her kill two mages and then behead them, he likely would not attack her outright, unless he could surround himself with allies, which the hunter was confident she would see coming from miles away. So she silently walked with him, not exactly in blind trust, but still far less paranoid than any sane Sunberthian should be.

Word Count: 599

[Kynier]

Nothing else was said. And so it was they began a dance that Kynier had never attempted before. Trying to learn the intentions of someone that he could only just barely communicate with. Ixzo’s silver eyes had that specific strain a person had when they were thinking hard. How much she had understood about what he said was impossible to determine. There were no follow up questions either. The first thing Kynier would want to ask is who she was, as opposed to why she had helped if their situations had been reversed. It did not occur to him immediately that perhaps Ixzo just didn’t care who he was. Every Kelvic he met was curious by nature. Either Ixzo wasn’t curious, or just didn’t know how to convey it to him.

He watched each movement of hers after his inviting gesture for her to follow him. Watching her as she went to the woman’s body again and tore some clothing away. When Ixzo made the improvised sack to carry her heads in, Kynier gave a thoughtful “hmph.” Kynier supposed that even in Sunberth it was not a wise idea to walk around with a pair of severed heads hanging at your side. Half of his expectations were that Ixzo would turn and go her own direction. So, when she returned to walk with him, the mage was partially surprised. Though he did notice that she was not following, nor leading.

There were questions that he wanted to ask her but wanted to do so from a place of relative safety. A few miles north was the Midnight Gem, yet that idea was immediately dismissed. Despite how they worked together they were not allies. Nor were they enemies. Kynier would not show her his home, and possibly risk the safety of the others living there, until he had a better understanding of the Kelvic walking beside him. Though they were heading north, Kynier was directing them deeper into the Stumble Alley district rather than out of it.

Using hand gestures to indicate paths to turn down was how he communicated his direction to Ixzo. Guiding them through the labyrinth like set up of the streets. They did not walk for even a full bell before they got to the destination that he had in mind. Walking down an alley, one more crowded with rubble and odd assortments than most, Kynier veered in his path to approach a door almost everyone could easily overlook. Above it was a skewed sign layered with grime that had the work “Majestic” written in the common tongue. Kynier opened the door and stepped into the abandoned shop.

A little light seeped in through the clouded windows to show the empty shelves that lined the walls. Cob webs covered the surfaces of every shelf and most of the floor. The stench of Brat feces was as strong as ever inside. Kynier was thankful that this time it was not the smell of wet feces. The Brat that usually took refuge inside scurried away at the scent of the Night Lion, or maybe the blood. Kynier thought that the empty room outside his employer’s secret residence would be the most ideal location. Unless the mad wizard elected to walk out on his own, the place would only seem like another abandoned building to Ixzo.

Kynier evoked his Djed again to employ Auristics. Power flowed through his eyes as it opened his Sight. The mage walked to the center of the poorly lit space and turned to face the Night Lion, arms crossed over his chest. As Ixzo’s aura became visible, Kynier focused his mage’s sense upon it. Through the Auristics he could taste the copper flavor of blood from when she licked her hand. Pushing past that sensation, he focused on the other sensations and feelings the Kelvic would experience. While word selection may be limited, there was a lot he could learn by sensing her feelings and emotions with magic.

“Why,” he began while speaking slower than normal, “did Kithias stop to talk to you?” It was something that the mage did not understand. The slaver had been walking for some time without so much as pausing due to an inconvenience to his stride. That is until he stopped to try and speak to Ixzo. Kyner did not suspect that there was really any reason behind the man’s theft of her amulet. An opportunity that he probably seized out of habit, if not annoyance by Ixzo ignoring him to speak to the slave girl instead. “He stopped to try and talk to you. Why you?”



NaNo Post: 768

Credit for the boxcode goes to Luminescence!

[Ixzo]

When they entered the next abandoned building, Ixzo spared the man no mind, checking the whole of the room he had elected they stay in first. Buildings were beginning to make her nervous. She didn’t care much for the stone structures that the easterners wanted to live in. The buildings cut her off from the sky, from her father the wind, and from her mother the earth. She had never liked it, but now she was nervous. Ixzo abandoned her trophies beside the door frame, she was used to the smell, but it didn’t make the stench of death any less pungent. The heads did not carry much to reek up the room, but she could smell the brain rotting out of their necks, and had no interest in carrying it around such a small room.

She was quick to assume the place was abandoned; a healthy family of spiders occupied the upper corners of the window and rafters. Rat droppings that were both old and new littered the floor, mushing and crunching under her feet as she walked around the room, examining it. The shelves had rotting books that meant nothing to the woman who couldn’t read. In all senses of the word, the room was abandoned. But she did notice the rat droppings on the ground, and that she was not the first pair of boots to trample over or through them. Her tracker mind found the path that led to a particular section of the wall, but what happened there she did not know. Ixzo elected to ignore the information, she hadn’t expected Kynier to bring her to an abandoned building, and she supposed he didn’t. Whatever the building’s use was, she wasn’t certain, but she didn’t care.

The Kelvic returned to the window, testing the rusted ancient lock that once allowed it to open. It didn’t budge, but the glass was yellowed and wavy, and she thought if she needed to, she could break through. It would hurt though, and she wasn’t in a place where she could nurse and infection… Ixzo sighed, running a hand along the sill to brush away dust and droppings so that she could lean on it, turning back to face Kynier. He was staring at her a little too intently, and she didn’t understand it or like it, but she had been suspicious of him from the start. She had been suspicious, but too curious to have the sane head to walk away. Anxiety forced her hand up to caress her amulet once more and she glanced out the window, digesting his words.

”I don’t know.” She said, being perhaps the clearest words in Common that Kynier had heard from her all day. She was used to this phrase, from her time on the Mischief when she genuinely had no idea what people were saying to her. The answer sufficed for everything and people generally dropped a conversation afterwards. Except now she did understand him, or at least had an idea. ‘Why, Kithias, you.’ Why had that man stopped to talk to her? Perhaps she should have paid attention at the time, but the girl with no free will had distracted her, especially because the child bore a Kenashian slave mark, like she herself bore. Although not owned by the same dynasty, she recognized the tattoo well enough. Then it occurred to her.

”Kenash, slave.” She said simply, her hand absently forming the word for bondage and capture, realization and curiosity overpowering the nervousness and suspicion. She turned back to the man, pointing her finger to her face, where the Paille swirl had been burned into the cheekbone just below her left eye. Time had aged the mark, and one may not recognize it well enough, but she would always know what it meant, and that she would never rid herself of them, no matter how many times she broke their chains.

”I am a slave of the Paille dynasty.” She repeated the mantra that had been drilled into her under the Dynasty rule. She spoke no common, and it was her only excuse to be anywhere but the fields, she had been property. ”No more.” She amended, her hands coming up to curve and slice the are in an vigorous expression of Freedom.

”Lolan, be Sitai dynasty slave.” And then she also amended the weak common. ”Now Kithias, now no more.” She shrugged again, turning her head so her eyes could scan the street once more. ”I don’t know.”

He was questioning her like he had questioned that man, except she could walk away at any time. Or at least she was given the illusion she could, if he had any tricks up his sleeve. She could break the window if she needed to, but the option was not favorable to the door. But as she watched him digest the information she had given him, her own curiosity reared it’s head. The need to know had been patiently waiting, and now that silence filled the room after the Kelvic’s words, she had her own questions. She didn’t trust the man to not lead her to a trap, he seemed like the trapping kind of hunter, but she couldn’t help but ask for an answer and hope for the truth. ”Why you know magic? How you see, uhhh…” She held up her palm, pointing to the shimmering vortex that connected her to her Goddess. Blessing. ”This! On Lolan.”

She was leaning forward slightly now, the frustration of the language barrier and having to have waited to ask her own questions was perhaps translating as aggression from the Kelvic, but she was making no move to attack, and although her accusatory tone was evident, she did not feel anger towards the man. She wanted to ask him why he was in Sunberth, who his questions were for, and what he had learned from the man. She wanted to know how he knew to look for the girl's Gnosis mark, and where he had learned the magic. Why was he following the man in the first place? Some of her questions may have already been answered, but her grasp on Common was not well enough to have noticed, and her aggression stemmed from her frustration with the language, and that she could not learn what she wanted to know from him.

Word Count: 1,059

[Kynier]

Ixzo had a strange habit. In the short time that he’d known her, all what… two bells? She would linger by the windows. With how old and dirty the windows were all that could be seen was the wall of the larger structure on the other side of the alley. Even that was not clearly visible. With his Auristics, he could sense discomfort on her. The source of it was unknown to him. There were also traces of frustration and unease. The unease would grow in intensity when she set her eyes upon him. Which made him pull his head back a little in surprise.

She feels uneasy around me? I’m not the one that ripped another man’s throat out with my teeth. Kelvics...

The first answer that Ixzo gave sounded more like an automatic response. The words were more clearly spoken than any other common word that she had said. What didn’t she know? Why Kithias would stop to talk to her, or what it was that Kynier had just asked her? After a moment though, it seemed that her reasoning finally came to a possible conclusion. But Kynier did not know what Kenash was, let alone that it was a city in Cyphrus. The strange gesture she made… was that another language as well? Kynier had seen Anja use hand gestures when he spoke with his Strider. His original thoughts on the purpose of those gestures were being reconsidered the more Ixzo used them.

Kynier felt a prickle at the back of his head. It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t actually him, but a reflection of something from Ixzo through the Auristics. The sensation felt very familiar and reminded him of the feeling he had when his curiosity was peaked. Ixzo pointed at a scar below her eye. It was patterned though not in a way that Kynier recognized. The Night Lion then spoke more common. Words that were clear and well annunciated from thousands of repetitions. Followed by her thickly accented words that declared she was not a slave anymore. So, Ixzo recognized the slavery brand on Lolan. Then… did Kithias recognized the brand on Ixzo? The Kelvic repeated that she did not know as she turned to the window.

There were so many damn questions that could not be answered now. Why Kithias would stop to talk to Ixzo? The man admitted to finding people that chose slavery over starvation. Did the man think that Ixzo would be one such mark just because she had also been a slave in Kenash? Kynier’s eyes fell to the web and filth covered floor as he thought about it. Ixzo’s senses and emotions still crawled over his skin as his Sight remained active. A surge of desire and more curiosity made him look up again at the Kelvic’s silver eyes. From her tone it was almost a demand to know. But the question itself was very strange. Why did he know magic? Why would anyone want to know magic?

Then she asked about how he had seen things, sensed things. As she pointed at the mark on her palm, the one that still help a small aura of divine magic even as it was dormant. Another gesture that he didn’t understand. How had he known… about Lolan’s gnosis? Though Ixzo was leaning forward, and her words sounded accusatory, Kynier did not feel the aggression in her aura. There was plenty of frustration, though it did not feel directed at him. What he felt from her was that each carefully chosen word was a struggle. Kynier sensed the anger of not knowing and not being able to ask, though he could not identify those as the direct sources of the anger.

Kynier sighed heavily and looked up and to the side in thought. How could he convey why he wanted to know magic in the shortest, simplest way, so that Ixzo could have a chance of understanding? When his hazel eyes came back down to meet hers there was an intensity to them. “Magic… saved,” he tapped himself on the chest, “Kynier. That is why I know magic.” That was the best he could do. Kynier willed that Ixzo would understand that. Otherwise, he could not answer her question without someone else’s help. As for her other question…

Kynier held his hands up, palms facing Ixzo, as he took slow steps to get closer to her. Close enough that the both of them could comfortably grasp each other’s neck, then took one more step after that. One hand slowly returned to his face as he leaned in slightly. A finger pulled down on the lower lid of his eye as he widened them as much as he could. At this distance, Ixzo would see the subtle tell of his Auristics. The hazel iris of his eye was swirling around the pupil slowly, like a whirlpool. “Magic. I see… more.” The finger released his eyelid as he straightened his posture. And the same hand pointed at Ixzo’s gnosis mark. “I could see your gnosis power. And Lolan’s.”

Then his other hand lowered gradually as his eyes focused on the Kelvic aspect of her aura. The tendrils of her bond that wrapped around her form protectively. The hand that was being lowered drifted down by Ixzo’s side to be near a tendril that the Kelvic could not see. Kynier’s hand shifted around in the air about a foot away from her body as he almost touched that part of her aura. “I can see… Ixzo… is Kelvic. That Ixzo… was Bonded. Your bond… broke.” After another instant, Kynier stepped away and withdrew his hand. Djed infused eyes watched her. Unsure of how she would take what he had just said. An aggressive response was not out of the question.

There was a small question that came to his mind. It was something that he did not need to know, but with his Auristics focused on Ixzo, he noticed it unlike before. The amulet she wore had an aura. Everything did, but Kynier was surprised to see that the amulet’s aura was stronger than that of a simple amulet. Ixzo’s agate amulet had magical properties. “Ixzo,” he said with the tone of realization. He pointed at her necklace. “What is that amulet?” After a moment he looked up at her silver eyes again. “Your amulet… has magic.”



NaNo Post: 1,067

Credit for the boxcode goes to Luminescence!