dragoncalled | Welcome, New Scions.

Here, There Be Dragons

New arrivals:
The dream you wake from is an unsettling one that feels like a memory. It sits out of place and too far forward in your mind, yet feels as real and clear as any other could be. It's the shadow of a massive creature blocking out the sun, skyline, or similar entity. A roar that shakes you to the core and and a feeling of dread and loss weighing heavy on you. Whatever the feeling or vision that comes across, it brings with it a sense that your world is no more.

A voice, reassuring and almost motherly in nature urges you gently to wake from your sleep. Rise from the ashes, little one, The voice calls in a whisper of wind and crackling fire, There is need of you, yet.

As the voice fades and the world of the waking returns to you, you are greeted with the sounds of faint bustling and the bounce of wooden wheels on stone or the sight of Upper Nuren's winding streets and open squares. A cloud passes by slowly near one of the stone pathway ledges and the sounds of nearby Touched and Remnants at work or leisure filter through the calm, cool air.

Whatever you had previously been wearing or carrying has been replaced. You might now find yourself garbed in a cloth tunic, pants or shorts, robe, dress or skirt, and sandals or boots if you wore clothing. A sash around your shoulders or a belt at your waist contains a small but weighted purse of gold coins, enough to acquire some materials, new clothing or food from the market and craftsmen in the city.

Current Scions:
Concern over the mild Winter has begun to spread through the city. The chill air should have come with the nearing end of the harvest, and so far the weather remains only pleasantly cool. The air barely passes the gentle cool of Autumn.

Nuren's citizens are spreading rumors that mountaintop ice and snow have begun to thaw, causing mudslides in the mountains. The thaw has displaced the Ice and mountain creatures, leaving them irritable and unpredictable. The sailors mention that the Frozen Shore has also begun to melt, and the waters around the Frozen Shore and the mountain areas have grown treacherous and unseasonably cold.

Throughout the city, activity springs to more vibrant life, with Scholars of the Cycle of Life and Scholars of Knowledge claiming that Benra has blessed the city again, bringing more Scions to help protect the great city. The rumors put the city's citizens into higher spirits, and music fills the cool air, spreading from Lower Nuren both up and down the mountain.

The Heart of Nuren

After waking, a pull starts from within your chest, growing stronger with each passing moment until it becomes the only focus. It tugs insistently once, then twice. A need to follow the pull curls around and through you, urging you toward a wide and torch lit staircase that leads down into the heart of the mountain. The steps are wide and sturdy, and the further down them you travel, the clearer the call becomes until you can almost hear it.

At the bottom of the steps, the large cavern beneath the city is revealed. The floor beneath your feet is warm to the touch, and the magic in the air calms your mind and fills you with a strange sense of safety and peace. No magic or harm can be done within the cavern. The cavern's floor is covered in circles of runes carved into the stone that surround small depressions in varying sizes, from a coffee cup's rim to that of a small circular table. Some of the depressions contain dormant dragon eggs of various colors, shapes and sizes. The runes surrounding them glow faintly with a magical light. Only the Scion who is bonded to the dragon within the egg can pass the runes.

Upper and Lower Nuren

Once you emerge from the cavern, the strange spell that fell over you fades. The bond between you and your egg or hatchling remains but your command of your own decisions and actions return and you are now free to explore, question and move about.

The streets of Upper Nuren are sparsely populated with Remnants, Touched and other scions with their eggs or dragons. Questioning any of the citizens leads to a variety of answers. You are a Scion of the Great Beasts. You were brought to the city from the ashes of time and space by the Great Phoenix known as Benra and the Great Serpent known as Mouros.

Pressing for more information will reveal that there are five Great Beasts. They are Benra the Phoenix, Chelba the Stone Giant, Renzu the Griffin, Mouros the Serpent, and Lysheu the Chimera. They are said to represent Mortality, Order, Knowledge, Time and Chaos.

You are in the great Mountain City known as Nuren, and its people are the last remaining vestige of civilization on this wild and dangerous planet. The Touched and the Remnants share an alliance and work together to keep the city protected and its citizens alive and fed. According to these citizens of Nuren, you are here to help them defend the city, unite the remaining races and restore balance to the elements.

Soon after the first Scions awake, the city begins to buzz with the news and gossip that more scions have arrived. The curious and braver citizens make their way to Upper Nuren to get a look, and the rumors spread like wildfire through the city that Benra has come again.

Outer Nuren

Although those rumors make their way to Outer Nuren, the citizens there show far less interest in making the long trek up to Upper Nuren. The unseasonably warm winter has done wonders for the fishing in the bay, and the docks are alive with intrepid fishermen and ship crews interested in making extra gold while the fishing is still good.

The taverns fill with activity and the markets are livelier than ever in the hopes of selling more of their wares and merchandise before Winter's chill catches up with the passing seasons.

Evening

When night settles on the city, the taverns, inns and squares fill with curious citizens hoping to meet the new Scions or catch a glimpse of the Scions they have already managed to glimpse a few times before. Food is offered freely, as well as blankets to guard against the cool night air.

The night sky fills with beautiful displays of magic from the Fire, Light and Energy Mages, the Osaaru equivalent of fireworks, though far quieter. Several Scholars in bright and colorful robes can be found approaching the new scions and older ones alike, offering to tell them more about the city, Osaaru and the Great Beasts. Mages of similar garb guide scions to the cavern homes, and help where they can in making the scions more comfortable.

Small comforts of food, pillows, decorative crafts and other small tokens are offered to visible Scions by the citizens of Nuren in hopes of earning their favor and friendship.

Notes

Please direct Introduction questions to the Plotting Post Q&A
As a Reminder: Bahemait is not one of the Great Beasts openly discussed or mentioned by the Citizens of Nuren who believe the Great Dragon is little more than an old legend.

We would also like to emphasize that the Spirit energy within every resurrected character is required to use all magic in Osaaru, even that which is brought from their own world. The drain of powerful or excessive use of magic will lead to exhaustion.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, scavengers. Small creatures, fluffy heads, like to wave swords and spears at us and steal treasure? At least that's what you all do back home. And you don't talk, either... At least, not in a way we dragons understand.

[ Tsunami frowns at that thought and settles back a little on her haunches, still peering up at Emily. There's some common ground there in their mutual unhappiness with their situation, isn't there? She knows the feeling of glum, muted anger well enough. Tsunami tenses. ]

I don't get it either. Personally, I think this is all some kind of weird trick. It's still weird though! I almost want to go down there and start shaking scavengers until I get answers!

You mean... us humans. ["Fluffy heads". That description would be almost amusing if not for their relative bad moods.] Them waving swords and spears shouldn't be surprising to you. Dragons look intimidating.

[She glances back down at the crowd below.] I don't think that would be a good idea. And I also don't think it'd be so simple, otherwise someone else would have gotten answers long ago.

Humans. Yeah. I knew there was a word you used once I got here.

[ Tsunami seems a little dimissive of that point, though that might be more down to her general foul mood at the moment than anything else. ]

And we are pretty intimidating, yeah. But... you probably have a point.

[ An annoyed huff follows. ]

Maybe I just need to be a bit more patient. See what I can find out before I do anything.

[Seems that they are both keen on annoyance when their moods are low. But Emily sounds somewhat appeased by the dragon's concession.]

All the answers so far have been less than satisfactory. [A priest had spoken with her, given her some brief glimmer of hope. But that was earlier in the day, and with nightfall comes Emily's doubts all over again.] My goals are expected to realign themselves, just like that. I don't understand why the transition isn't harder for some of them down there.

[Maybe they're just stronger than she is. Maybe more foolish.

Maybe both.]

If my home is really ashes...

[ Tsunami trails off, her voice twisting into a low, snarling growl. ]

I don't want to believe it. I've already been part of one of stupid, fake prophecy I'm not doing this again! I don't know how they can be down there having a party!

[ She exhales, closes her eyes, then opens them to peer at Emily. ]

Do scavengers have names?

[She doesn't know anything about this dragon's world, but even so, Emily feels the barest pang of empathy for her. It was all so surreal to her -- the city, the celebrations, the dragons themselves -- that her mind still wasn't certain how to process it. She just knew that she would have to take it one moment at a time, and swallow the bitter pill of sorrow again and again.

She seems a little surprised at the question, despite herself. She shifts her weight so she's facing Tsunami more properly, though still seated.]

Of course we do. [The lift of a slender brow.] Are you asking me mine?

[ Tsunami can see it in her mind's eye. Jade Mountain with it's classrooms, the Summer Palace, all of it... It can't be gone. She shakes herself out of that line of thought, trying to focus on the conversation she's having with the, uh, human. ]

I guess I am. Uh...

[ A pause. Should she use her full title? It wouldn't hurt, she guessed. ]

I'm Princess Tsunami of the Sea Kingdom. But just Tsunami is fine.

A princess? [She looks... surprised. She never thought that, well, royalty was something a culture of dragons might possess -- but then again, what does she know? Her whole world has been turned upside-down in less than 24 hours.]

Princess Tsunami, my name is Empress Emily Kaldwin, of the Empire of the Isles. [She takes a formal tone, even if it is superficial in a very wry way.] I'm sorry we couldn't meet during better circumstances.

[ If Emily is surprised, Tsunami is probably equally so. She's never considered that scavengers (humans, she reminds herself), had royalty either, much less empresses. She laughs quietly and dips her head in respect. ]

Your Majesty! Or, uh... what's the right way to address an empress? I've only ever met queens.

[ There's a brief pause. ]

Yeah. Same here.

[The formality eases, a silence filling the gaps. She allows herself a sigh -- it sounds tired.]

"Your Majesty" was one of the many ways I was addressed, but now... just Emily is fine. [She doesn't have an Empire anymore, now does she? What a hollow sort of ache that causes, in the pit of her chest.] Here, I'm just another Scion.

Okay. Just Emily, then.

[ Tsunami gives a small, almost sad smile in her own dragonish way. ]

Just Tsunami is fine for me. I've never been big on formalities.

[ She lets out a quiet sigh. ]

This place is so weird.

[She nods, in both acknowledgment of how to address Tsunami, and in agreement concerning the oddities of their new home.

Emily eyes her new dragon acquaintance curiously.]

Do you have a dragon egg, too? One that you're supposed to take care of, like the rest of us?

Oh! Yes. It hatched earlier, he's around here somewhere...

[ She peers around, then hefts up a small, silvery dragon to perch on her shoulders. ]

I've decided to call him Minnow.

[Emily's eyes flicker with interest -- and even the slightest amusement -- when she sees the small silver dragon.]

Because he's small and silver?

[ Tsunami laughs and nods her head. ]

You get it. Yes! He's so tiny and the right color, so...

[She chuckles, a feather-light thing that's easy to miss.]

And what if he grows larger?

Well, I don't think he's ever going to be my size, so I don't think that should be too much of a problem.

[ Tsunami chortles quietly. ]

Besides, if he DOES get bigger than me, it'll be pretty funny, don't you think?

Well, you'd get to enjoy the funny looks that people give you when you introduce him as Minnow, that's for certain.

Welcome, New Scions.

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