[Endrykas Entrance] Journey Across the Sea of Grass

[Mycroft]

Endrykas migrates around Cyphrus, so reasonable travel to the moving city is largely seasonal. If you arrive with a trading caravan or a traveling party, please check the map on the Endrykas wiki to determine your party's place of origin and when they would be arriving, and date your posts accordingly. If you would like to enter the city alone or at a more difficult time of year, PM an Endrykas storyteller. Otherwise, please put your entrance posts here. It isn't easy to reach Endrykas. Upon entering the Sea of Grass, all that can be seen is simply miles upon miles of endless grasses and rolling hills. Even if a traveler walked for days in a straight line, it would have been impossible for him to know whether he had even moved at all. And in these dry meadows, in a land with very little water to speak of, surviving through it for any length of time is no less than a struggle, even without the added danger of Cyphrus' wildlife and roving predators, including large cats and the iconic glassbeaks. However, sizeable and well-prepared caravans with proper experience in the Cyphrus grasslands are not so helpless. Venturing seasonally to and from the moving city, they act as Endrykas' lifelines - providing wood, metal, spices, and a plethora of other resources that the Drykas cannot come by themselves. Veteran tradesman have learned to time their dealings with Endrykas, remembering the approximate times every year when the city is close enough to travel to. Surviving in Cyphrus is a skill honed to perfection - requiring both survival knowledge and combat expertise - but finding the city itself is in this endless expanse of prairies is another matter entirely. Fortunately, the guardians of Endrykas known as the Watch are always keeping vigil on their domain through the Web - an invisible network of threads laid out and utilized by Drykas Webbers. Caravans and familiar travelers are easily sensed through this web, along with any other outsiders including poachers and traveling slavers. Friends of Endrykas, well-meaning traveling parties, and trade caravans are warmly welcome into the city, and are usually intercepted by a traveling party of mounted Watchmen, ready to escort the caravans and hardy travelers back toward the city. Using the web to navigate back to Endrykas, caravans - trading and traveling - are allowed to settle alongside the outskirts of the city, and informed that it's imperative to keep moving as the city moves. The massive sprawl of pavilions, tents, and small tabernacles might easily appear to be chaos to any outsider. Just reaching the city was a feat, and now navigating the city is a difficult task. There are no roads, and no static "north" or "east" districts. Thin pillars of smoke rise above the city, which draws the only similarity between what looks more like a colossal camp or swap exchange, and a more traditional city. Nearly as numerous as the tattooed Drykas routing their way through the city are the horses fitted with the complicated-looking yvas, many of them even following their masters without being led on a rope. The conversation any outsider can manage to overhear is often in the native language - Pavi - which not commonly taught outside the city. Approaching from the chaos is a young Watchman, swaying with the Cyphrus Strider beneath him as if those hooves belonged to his own set of legs. Tipping his head toward you in a polite nod, wearing a cordial smile, he greets you in accented Common. "Ho, traveler," he says, slowing his horse to a stop with an easy tug of the yvas. "Welcome to Endrykas. If you're lost, I'll be happy to guide you to where you'd like to go. Tell me, what brings you all this way?"

[Flye]

Flye approached the entrance of Endrykas, Erzotol close behind her. As she approached she noticed a man coming towards them. Flye looked back to Erzotol for reassurance, since she had never been here before and wasn't sure of what to expect. Flye smiled at him politely as he spoke to her, and answered the same, "Thank you." At the last question she glanced back at Erzotol again, "No, I have my guide, and just trying to settle in. Don't mind me." With that she started to walk again, "Good day."

She hurried passed him, making sure to grab Erzotol's forearm as she continued. She knew that was rude of her, but...she was not a socializer. Conversations did not come easy to her, neither did introductions. As soon as they had passed through the gates she turned to the Drykas behind her. "we're here."

Then, she took in the significance of her own words. They were here. She looked wide eyed at everything and everyone around her. This place was so huge. There were hundreds of people walking around and leading horses and all kinds of other animals. "Where...do we start?" She looked back to Erzotol excited golden eyes.

[Erzotol Silverden]

Season of Spring, 47th, 511AV

Erzotol followed close behind Flye, almost protectively, and matched her strides easily while always watching forward. The watchman approaching them set him at ease, and almost immediately he felt at home. The comforts of Endrykas where akin to those he felt at his family’s pavilion and he felt at home here. The drykas greeted them warmly, and he allowed Flye to make the introductions offering a welcoming smile to the drykas from behind the woman. Understandably she was a bit nervous, and to make sure the man didn't think there was anything suspicious afoot he offered a few words before he was pulled along by the woman. " Forgive our curt actions, we are very weary from our travels and look very forward to some respite within the city " he added to Flye's words.

As she locked his hand over his forearm, he placed his hand over hers reassuringly to let her know that it would be alright. Her hand felt delicately soft, and it offered him a bit of comfort as he continued to follow her. Soon they were within the city, and as the girl turned around his eyes met hers, and he smiled wide. His silvery blue eyes sparkling as they met hers, and he couldn't help but feel excited too as her enthusiasm was infectious. " If you’re feeling a bit hungry we can get you a bite to eat, but if you’re not I can see if I can introduce you to a few people, and get you settled "

oocThe golden words are when he is speaking Pavi

[Kaja]

Summer day 5, 511 AV

Kaja was tired, hungry, bruised, and looked just a little battered. It had been a long track, and most of it she hadn't known where she was going. Her land navigational skills were lacking as she had only a little training in it. She was sure that, that was one of the things she was going to put on her lists to do to get better at. That and her leather working. She learned some while she had still been in her home city, but not enough so the clothing she wore now was rough sewn and very simple. It didn't matter really she was just glad when she ran into the rider who seemed friendly enough.

She pushed her tangled hair back out of her face and looked up at the man on the horse. "Yes, I am lost, well slightly I suppose." Kaja said shyly. "I don't know how but I have managed to get to where I wanted to go which was here." However, the rider could tell by the shape that she was in skinnier then she should be, bruised, cut, and messy that it hadn't been an easy journey from where she had come from. "Could you point me into the direction of something to maybe eat, drink, and a place to stay?" She smiled and said from the last part of the question, and said, "I look for a place to settle, maybe someone I could serve, or some companions, or pack I could be with." She looked down at the ground and said, "I am very lonely, and really only strive to find someone I can work for or serve, kind sir. Do you know of anyone that is looking for a good Kelvic servant?" She finally once again looked up at him, pushing her tangled mat of hair out of her face again and tucking it behind her ear.

The young Watchman, a top the Cyphrus Strider nodded his head and lead the young Kelvic into the moving city. She was awed by the size of it and the activity of the people in it. The set up was different for her to see as she had been in a city proper for a year of her life, and since then wondering mostly the wilds, and city of different parts a long the way to get here. This made her smile, there was no real homes, well there was, but it moved. Or at least that was what she had got from what she had heard of it. The only thing that bugged her was that their was much talk in a language she didn't understand. She would have to try to pick it up. There was a bit of Common mixed in but more of the other language she had never heard. The young Watchman dropped her off where she could eat, drink, clean up, and rest. She looked up at him and said, "Thank you." before he left her to go back out to his rounds.

[Tebridiar]

Day 10, Summer, Year 510 AV

Familiarity was etched across the grass. Written in the soil and whispering in the wind. The familiar smells came rushing back and sudden tears spiked her eyes.

This was the place she once called... home?

It had been months, but felt much longer to her somehow. Her bondmate had vanished mysteriously, and it had gotten too much. Too long had she left the wilf behind, and she had to get back to it.

Yet home is where the heart is. And she really understood those words as she walked slowly up to the gates she had once known so well. Too well. Gulping in a rush of air, she stepped into the city. Everything flooded back. Civilisation, people, friends, familiarity.

How had she lost this?

[Amelika]

As she approached the tent city she now had come to call home, Amelika's shoulders were uncharacteristically low set. Exhausted and disappointed, she slouched forward on Jeryko's back. She carried along with her a tarp and bow. Only intending to stay a couple nights, she had only brought that much food, but she still hadn't caught anything other than a couple snakes and wanted to stay longer to try for something bigger. Upon her return, Amelika still didn't have anything to show for it but an empty stomach and an aching right arm. The closer she got to civilization, the more she felt her attention slipping from her own safety to the meager supply of meat she had stored in her tent at home. And her straw bed, which was much more comfortable than the hard ground she had been sleeping on.

Straightening her back, Amelika nodded at the friendly Watchman as she saw him approaching on his mount. She traveled in and out of Endrykas regularly, normally to hunt near the city, and so she came to recognize almost all of the Watchmen at the gates. "Just coming in from a hunt," she said in Pavi, replying to the few words of Common she could recognize. She was very conscious of lack of an animal, or even a skin, on the back of her horse. "Not as successful as I had hoped," she shrugged, "but I'll feel better once I get a good meal and a soft bed under me." She added, with a slightly noticeable upturn of her lips. The Watchman nodded an smiled, calling after her something about having better luck next time as she rode into the city.

Her tent was set up near the Diamond Clan war district, among the other men and women of her clan. After living in the city for nearly four seasons, she felt comfortable there. It was close to where she did her sparring and training, but Amelika also found that her fierce, and sometimes rowdy, neighbors made her feel more at home. Being surrounded by warriors that she knew would fight til their deaths in order to protect the city certainly gave her a sense of security. But the atmosphere and community felt so much like her father's pavilion it almost made her homesick for the ways of her childhood, especially when she saw a familiar face.

Amelika wound her way through the city, now quiet as the sun was starting to go down, until she found her tent. Sometimes, it was even more difficult for her to navigate Endrykas than the grasslands. While the hills and trees stay the same, tents are always moving in and leaving as people come and go. When she found her little tent, she quickly took all her gear and the yvas off of Jeryko, brushed him down and fed and watered him, then crawled into her own tent to collapse in her bed. She didn't bother washing or undressing, or even eating; that could all wait until the morning. For now, she just wanted to crawl into the warmth of her covers, amidst the comfort of surrounding Drykas, and sleep a good night sleep without worry.

[Akilah Windsong]

She rolls her shoulders lightly, the long grass brushing against her knees as she moves. Her body aches, muscles sore from her practice. Everything feels bruised and it's only now, when she's not moving, that she can feel it.

She wants to sleep. The pavilions loom into view and the guard moves forward.

"I'm baccckkk!" she almost sings, her strider following beside her in a slow trot. She snorts softly into her hair, tickling her, and she halts before the guard. Vespera continues to move forward, a dark shadow in the orange-brown grasses, and Akilah sighs.

He stills needs to be trained, but he's young. Only a pup.

"I'm afraid training didn't go as well as I expected..." she motions to the stains on her knees, the cuts on her arms. Her father won't be happy to see them.

"Please don't tell dad I'm back yet," she glances carefully at the city, before returning to the guard. If he doesn't know yet, then she has a chance to fix herself up.

Already Adámas is moving forward, following Vespera, and Akilah hurries after.

[Ronan Windsong]

Ronan gazed out across the grasses, and the people bustling between tents and horses, lost in their own ever moving lives.

Returning from gamboling in the wilds always made him feel very aware of humanity - the life milling about around him. But unfortunately, he couldn't stay in the wilderness forever. He patted Tairell on the side of its soft brown muzzle and wandered into the camp.

This was humanity, he thought awkwardly.

[Bolden Denusk]

Bolden sat comfortably astride Nightwind, as if one creature. His long dark curls whipped in the breeze as he nodded to the pair at the entrance.

He smiled recognition of man and horse.
"Do you think Vanator will be surprised at seeing me again?" The young man laughed without mirth and went by them without waiting for an answer.

"It's time to make amends and lift this curse." He said with quiet conviction.
His magnificent Strider stallion nickered in agreement. For a brief chime, they paused to drink in the wind and waving grasses. With practiced ease, he shifted his weight forward just the slightest breath and said,

"Walk on."

[Delvan Farsun]

As Delvan rode past the Watchman, all he could do was nod at him as he put the cloak over his head, concealing his facial appearance. He was nervous, and he did not like to show it. It was not like he had anything to hide, he just wasn't a people person. Slightly embarrased he thought to himself: -"If I am to ever find some work around here. I'll have to be more friendly to the people around here." Sheina walked alongside Delvan and Firemane, curious and eagerly looking around, wiggling her tail in excitement. They were rarely in the centre of Endrykas and she weren't used to so much going on. Firemane acted as usual though. He had been with Delvan in the centre of Endrykas many times and this time was no diffrent. Delvan scouted the city. He wasn't sure what to look for, but he hoped to find it soon.