The night passed slowly; no one but Zaveid actually slept. Velvet tried to, but found herself restless, too taken up by thoughts and sensations; she still had to get used to having two bodies, especially when one of them was constantly bathing in liquid mana and Malevolence, both of which prickled on her scales in an unusual yet also comforting manner. As for Laphicet, he played around with some kind of arte whenever she opened her eyes to peek at the world surrounding them; he even kept the emitted light to a minimum once she admonished him at some point.
After a few long hours, when the horizon began to brighten up, she found herself sitting and continuing her own practice at projecting various items she might need. By the time the sun rose and woke Zaveid, she had her hair down and was busy combing it; his whistling made quite clear that he was awake. "Damn, girl; now you look more like you used to!" She threw a sour look back at him, which only prompted a grin. Velvet had forgotten how irritating this could be, but it was also fun in a way. Reassuring, too; Zaveid looked a bit different, but he was still the same man she knew back then.
Thankfully, her response made him back off and leave her alone until she was done; he went to talk artes with Laphicet instead, who seemed happy to have someone else to talk to as he worked. Perhaps Velvet imagined it, but she felt she saw Zaveid tense a little with each new flash of light. After some thought, she decided it was her imagination and went back to her hair. Without distractions, she once again felt her empty stomach; she often did, hardly remembering a time when she felt sated, but now Velvet was actually famished. Sucking in Malevolence simply did not suffice for her, or at least not yet. This more human body of hers still required sustenance.
The comb faded away and Velvet put a hand on her stomach, brow furrowing as she considered what Zaveid told them the previous day; perhaps she could train herself not to require food, now that she was Empyrean. The thought faded soon after and she sighed in disappointment, arms rising to bind her hair into a simple ponytail. "We should get going."
"Yeah, we better, before you make a snack of me and not in the nice way."
Her eyebrow twitched, and twitched again when Laphi giggled about the quip. So that previous motion of hers had been seen. Velvet turned her head to behold the grinning Zaveid, annoyance mostly absent of her voice as she quipped back: "You don't need to worry. Machos taste gross, I'd rather go hungry."
He put a hand over his heart in mock pain. "Ouch, way to hit a guy where it hurts!" But he was grinning and so was she. Laphi kept giggling a little longer before calming down.
They headed out and began to descend the mountains after that. An hour or two passed in idle conversation while they walked or floated, ignoring easy but longer roads in favour of simply dropping off where the distance was not too great. The three were already halfway down the large mountain when Laphi stopped them, pointing at a bird pecking at something a bit further down the slope they were on.
At a second glance, Velvet figured it was a falcon; the bird had not seen them yet. Laphi poked her hand and then motioned for himself, so she watched as he composed a small arte circle surrounding his feet. It glowed faintly as he channeled mana while a second circle formed in front of his hand. In that circle, a spear of roiling air formed and rushed off when the arte completed after a second; it hit home and replaced the falcon's head, the bird dropping off the rock it had been sitting on. "I was thinking," he explained while they walked over to collect their prize, "that you're an Empyrean now, so you should be able to use malakh-, er, seraphic artes like these. Hellions usually don't have an aptitude for them and humans only learn a few basic ones while they're bonded with a seraph. You, though?"
He had a point and Velvet gave him a nod. Zaveid huffed at their side. "You definitely got the mana to pull it off, unlike unbonded humans or hellions. Kind of a shame if you ask me; would be interesting to have some humans cast more than a bit of reading light or the bonding arte on their own."
"They simply lack the instinctual understanding of how to shape mana on their own," Laphi shot back from her other side. "Which might be an issue for Velvet, too. We will have to test that soon."
Another half hour on their descent, they came by another bird. Laphi had coached his sister on the arte he used before and she brought her new senses, her new understanding to use as she drew on the mana within her. A green arte-circle formed as the mana took the shape she was told, drawing itself around her feet. The circle was apparently the most stable structure to build artes in, though others were sometimes used for greater creations.
She reached out with her hand and felt her mana grasp for the surrounding air; winds howled as they were drawn into the spear, not thin like Laphi's had been but rather the size of her head and growing. While the noise startled her target and made it flee, she only noticed after the arte ran its course and completed; after the projectile was already flying and right before it impacted the branch the bird sat on. After penetrating the branch, it punched into the tree's thick bark and tore through as if it were paper. Then it ran into the solid mountain behind the tree, using itself up in an explosion of dust and flying stones. Zaveid whistled while Laphi sighed.
"Well," the boy offered, "it makes sense that you're used to putting in everything you have. You can definitely learn and cast seraphic artes, but you will need to learn moderation." Velvet quietly added this to the pile of things she had to do, but did not comment further. Seraphic artes
were useful after all.
Just how useful they were became apparent soon after, when her brother went and called a break right before they reached the mountain's foot. He took some distance and began to weave another arte, consisting of seven circles interwoven with three squares and a triangle in the very center. Veins of golden light raced through every single structure, connecting them in places and running together; the whole arte had the size of a small house.
"I remembered the basics of that arte from back then," he told the watching two conversationally as he worked. "Then I spent last night going over what I knew and had to find out, and played around a bit." The various forms pulled themselves closer together in the air, becoming smaller until the entire setup hovered between his hands. "And I think I got it... yes!"
A flash of light blinded Velvet for a moment; when she could see again, the geometry was gone and replaced with a slowly glowing hole floating where the separate components were before. Laphi grinned widely. "There we go, an extradimensional storage space for anything we pick up on the way!" He then demonstrated what he just did by pulling Arthur's sword from his waist and pushing it through the hole that expanded in size to let it through; he went in up to his elbow, rummaged around for a moment, and then pulled his empty hand back out. "And it works just fine!"
Zaveid and Velvet shared a look at that. "Can I get a convenient Empyrean to do stuff for me, too?" he asked, though she snorted about the resigned face he made, which then turned into a kind of playful indignation. "I mean, seriously! That's cheating!"
"Oh well," Laphi supplied while he pushed the hawk into the hole as well, "being allowed to cheat is just one perk of being a god." He winked back at them, which made Zaveid huff in turn.
. .
. .
Morning turned to noon as they spent their time hunting more than traveling; supplies were important after all and Velvet would not have anything else, so they filled Laphi's new creation with several more birds and even a wild boar that crossed their path. Berries and herbs were added to that on the way, most of them kinds she remembered from her own time.
Velvet made doubly sure that the storage her brother created was ordered properly; it would be a mess if she just threw everything inside. Thankfully, Laphi thought ahead and gave it several 'pockets' for different things. She could even walk inside if she wanted to, finding a warehouse-sized area in every single pocket, their borders clearly marked by the intricate lines of golden mana running over every void-coloured wall and interconnected on the inside. By herself, she understood what Zaveid meant when he spoke of cheating. Although she had to admit that it felt nice to be the cheater for once and not on the receiving end.
Soon after her short exploration however, they found their first hellions. A werewolf cowering on their hindlegs, muzzle lowered and growling weakly, surrounded by three wolves that were lying on the ground and looking up at the larger canine. All four sniffed the air and turned their heads to them, but none attacked.
"Weird," Zaveid mused even as he pulled out a pendulum, "they got more aggressive than they used to be, might be the greater amount of Malevolence in the air. Those are a lot more docile than most. You've still got the odd one like Rokurou who's perfectly fine, but not all that many recently." Velvet nodded at him; she recalled many daemons just quietly living in the wilderness during her first journey, far away from people and hoping to make do somehow. Some were aggressive and hostile, but not that many. The hellions had yet to make a move, they were simply watching them; the werewolf drooled a little, which she took as a bad sign.
"Um, Zaveid? How are you feeling with all the Malevolence in the air? Anything odd?"
"Well, now that you mention it, I feel surprisingly fine. Kinda odd, but I'm not complaining."
"I see. Velvet? Is your domain active?"
That got her attention and she stopped observing the hellions; Laphi was looking at her, but she could only shrug. "No idea." When that got her confused looks from both sides, she rolled her eyes. "I know domains exist, but I could never manifest one conciously. It isn't like I had a teacher for it, Phi never tried and Eizen obviously wouldn't, with his curse."
She turned her attention back to the hellions, only to find the werewolf stroking two of the smaller wolves, quietly, calmly. All four were still gazing their way and Laphi sighed. "We will get to that in a bit." Then he raised his arm and waved at the hellions, visibly making the werewolf rear back. "Hello!" Velvet could not help but give her brother a look; he was completely unrepentant and began to walk over. Zaveid shrugged and followed, so she did the same, wondering what Laphi's game was the entire time.
The hellions tensed as they approached, but did not attack. Velvet took the time to look the werewolf over more closely, finding her to wear rags that might have been villager clothes. They were torn as if exploded outward, so she grew in size and mass when she turned. At least Velvet assumed it was a woman, considering the noticeable bulges in the chest area where breasts would have been on a human.
When Laphi reached, her assumption was confirmed by a soft and hesitant "Hello", delivered in a bright soprano voice; the werewolf crouched to be closer to his height. "I'm, uh, I'm sorry, but it's not safe around me. I-" she stopped when the boy shook his head.
"It's fine, ma'am. I know you won't hurt me. Who are you?"
The hellion's jaw hung open for a moment before she hugged herself weakly and sighed. "Amelia, I'm a huntress, or was. And I used to live in Opin, that's a small village a few days thisaway." Her explanation came slow and with audible sadness.
"Did something happen to your village?"
"No, but... look at me. I can't go back like this! I haven't been home in weeks." Velvet listened and found her heart going out to the werewolf; she turned on her own and was alone, much like Velvet herself had been after the tragedy in Aball.
"So you left of your own volition?"
"Um, kind of? I, I always get so angry, and so easily. I think they can't see what I've become, but I'm scared of getting angry and hurting someone." Amelia hugged herself a little tighter and shivered, which prompted one of the wolves to reach up and nuzzle her fur-covered thigh. Another had slinked closer to sniff at Velvet curiously, but a quick "Mint, down!" made the creature return to its obvious owner's side. Laphi frowned as he watched that, then turned his attention back to the huntress.
"Say, you don't seem angry to me at all. Do you still feel it?"
Her response was interesting: "Well, no. It went away a few minutes ago." Before Velvet could consider the implications however, Amelia had risen to her full height and pushed her hands together to plead with him. "But it could come back any moment, please leave before I hurt you!" The third wolf took that moment to sniff at Laphi; whatever dog it used to be, now it stood as tall as the boy's chest. And yet he showed no fear but rather reached out to scratch the hellion behind its ears. Velvet could not help but smile when she saw Amelia stare at the sight, flabbergasted.
Zaveid spoke into that silence, injecting himself into the conversation: "A shepherd can help you with that one, lady." He did not even flinch when the werewolf's attention and muzzle snapped to him in an almost feral manner. "There's gotta be one soon...ish. Might be a few years, but there will be one. They're gonna purify you." Velvet could not help but give him a look at the kind words, but he gave nothing away and continued: "You should go see your family sometime, too; not like many beside other hellions and seraphim can see what you are now."
"I, I see. Thank you, kind sir." Amelia lowered her head and muttered 'Hellion' to herself, but then went stock still, wide eyes rising back up first to Laphicet and then to Zaveid. "S-Seraphim? You, you are....?"
Laphi nodded at her and let off the panting wolf with a sigh. "The world is cruel like this. Hellions and seraphim alike remain hidden from human eyes except for a select few, the shepherd being among them. In becoming a hellion, one gains the power to see yet loses most any chance of having a peaceful life."
Amelia whined a little as he spoke, nodding sadly. "I understand," she muttered to no one in particular. "I never knew all of this happened right in front of our eyes."
Velvet nodded in agreement, then pushed herself into the conversation: "Will you be alright?"
In response however, something odd happened; something she had rarely seen from the outside. Amelia tensed up, her hands curled into fists, and she raised her head defiantly. "I think I will be fine now, thank you. To meet such kind seraphim, and to know a shepherd will come."
Zaveid chuckled at that and gave her a wink. "They always do," he told the huntress who seemed a little enthralled... probably by his abs, Velvet amended when she saw her gaze dip down a bit.
And then Laphi had to ruin it by pointing at her. "That aside, you might want to dedicate a prayer to our Minkkubi here." When he drew everyone's attention, he smiled up at Amelia. "She is still coming into herself as a deity, but her power is what quelled your anger and cleared your mind. I believe she will allow all of mankind and the seraphim alike to push back against this corruption."
A stunned look went her way at that point, but Velvet was scowling down at her brother. "And where do you take all that from?" She was not all that annoyed, but it felt too out-there and she really did not want prayers dedicated to herself.
Laphi just shrugged. "Simple conjection, really. A seraph on the brink of falling is suddenly alright once your domain settles, and a hellion who was on the verge of giving in to violence is suddenly clear-headed again." He then turned to Amelia once more. "We are still figuring out how her powers work, as she has just been born."
His words seemed to not even register, aside from pushing the huntress out of her fugue; she sank to her knees and lowered her head before Velvet, a low howl rolling out of her throat. "Oh, have thanks oh Great Lord for your kindness! Or is it Great Lady? Please forgive your lowly servant for not knowing, have thanks!" Velvet was taken aback and completely out of ideas for what to do while Amelia continued to praise her. She did not know how to react. This was the first time since she turned that anyone thanked her like this, and the first time ever that she was actually revered. She started to reach out with a hand but faltered, expression shifting back and forth; Zaveid and Laphi were trying to hold in their laughter in the background and she threw them glares.
When the litany of thanks and apologies stopped after some time, she tried her best to keep her expression calm. "Please get to your feet." Amelia did, not daring to meet her eyes. "Look at me." She did, jaw hanging open ever so slightly and tongue lolling out. "If you will be fine, that's good enough for me."
"Chances are," Laphi interjected before another flood of thanks could begin, "that Minkkubi's blessing will fade as we leave and plunge you back into your previous state."
There was a moment of silence before Amelia bowed her head once more. "That is just fine, oh kind seraph, oh Great Lord. Just being able to catch my breath is enough, it's more than I could ever hope for. I will endure, I swear!"
"Then we better get going," Velvet decided to intervene with a smile for Amelia. "Good luck." They saw the huntress and her pack off with only a modicum of praises to the 'Great Lord' and the seraphim; Amelia soon led the wolves off to do whatever and Velvet learned that Great Lord was the current term Empyreans were referred to as. In addition, after asking Zaveid, she also found out that seraphim were worshipped in general, even if true worship went back recently.
She just gave this huntress a religious experience.
Either way, Velvet sized her brother up once the hellions were out of sight; Laphi grinned unrepentantly. "An Empyrean ought to have a following, even if she is a goddess of darkness." Which got Zaveid to laugh and agree with him.
"Heck, considering how the four of the elements are sleeping all the time, I'd be following you if you can do the goddess thing even just half as good as the villain!" Now Laphi was chuckling and Velvet had to snort, too. She ended up shaking her head, understanding that she just could not keep up with these two.
Their wandering continued and the three soon decided to leave the dirt path they were on before to explore the plains further; that was when Zaveid got back to the previous subject. "Anyway, what about that blessing of yours?" From that followed a quick introduction to domains and how to sense or project her own by Laphicet. He also explained that his therions normally did this instinctively because the technique could not be taught to animals and the domains needed to be active to draw in Malevolence. Velvet retained that power, making her first blessing a personal one; to devour Malevolence without risk and bolster her own power with it. The same as Innominat's.
"As Empyreans however," he then added with a teasing grin in Zaveid's direction, "we get to cheat again and have more than one blessing where seraphim only have one and most hellions or humans have none. I have three myself, the boost to peoples' resonance and the suppression being the other two. Just focus inward and meditate for a bit, it should come to you."
They took a break soon after, allowing Velvet to actually try as she was told. She even went so far as to close her draconic body's eyes, feeling the power thrumming in her veins. Power she realised she never wanted to explore too closely. She had seen herself as a monster, still did. What more did she need to know before? Now however, she embraced her nature and looked deeper. It did not take long until her senses adjusted and made her realise something else; there was power and even her very essence flowing outward. It suffused the surrounding air and plants and ground and even living beings, coursed through it all, then returned back to her from elsewhere. It remained a cycle, but one that continued beyond her body.
"Yeah, I can feel it now." That was Zaveid, calm and perhaps a little intrigued. She kept focussing and testing her own powers. Pushed on her surroundings and pulled, brightened and darkened the surroundings, tried to shift space so the plants grew in loops but failed at that.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself in an almost monochrome world with the other two, yet knew this power was circulating through her. Crimson lines ran over reality and seemed to emphasize darker contours. Zaveid was looking himself over while Laphi eyed their surroundings. "On a guess," he mused, "my therions usually have hardly noticeable domains because they don't try to affect their surroundings. They just take Malevolence out, so one's senses wouldn't notice the domain being there."
Weirdly enough though, she did not feel like truly commanding what was in her domain; rather the opposite, if she was perfectly honest. Laphi commented on it when she mentioned that, his own eyes closed: "I can feel it too, sister. Your very presence urges us to... to follow our own will, to not give in. Something along those lines." His eyes began to shine and he turned to Zaveid. "Can you help me test something? I'm almost certain her blessing strengthens the resistance to Malevolence in humans and seraphim both, even after they turned. We don't have a dragon to test it on, but-"
"But I'm right here, yeah." Zaveid eyed them both for a moment while the surrounding colours faded back to normal, then nodded. "Alright, I'm fine being your guinea pig for this one, it'll be huge if this is what it looks like." Velvet agreed, knowing that even small amounts of Malevolence could be dangerous to a seraph. Then Zaveid pointed at Laphi while the latter pulled on a few motes of Malevolence floating closeby. "But don't you dare pull your 'you're a dragon now' trick!"
He just received an eyeroll from Laphi, who decided not to snark back and rather turned those motes into a small wisp. Not enough to immediately turn Zaveid, not even enough to harm him gravely, but definitely enough to have an effect. The wisp was blown right into Zaveid's face and dispersed, sinking into his form. A few seconds passed while both siblings watched the wind seraph, who blinked a few times, eyes widened by a fraction. "Huh, not a thing. I should've felt something, but I didn't." Then his almost ever-present grin returned and he winked at Velvet. "Congrats, looks like you're going to be our ticket out of dragonville."
"Yes and no," Laphi immediately shattered the idea with a sad shake of his head. "It's not a free pass, it can't be. Most likely is that it increases your resistance, not that it makes you immune. And I think I understand why." Then he studied Velvet who waited for his explanation, while Zaveid followed Laphi's gaze. "Seraphim gain their blessings upon birth, ignoring the Empyreans; it's more or less random, but often shapes the character of the person it belongs to. Velvet only developed her blessing after she already fully formed as a person and it's based off of who she is instead. It allows others to choose more freely, to not be so easily bound by the shackles of Malevolence, but they still have to fight on their own."
It felt right. She could not say why exactly, but this explanation just felt right to her. Everyone had to take flight on their own, all she could do,
should do was to ease the burden on their wings.
"It's still big," Zaveid answered after a moment, to agreement from both Crowes. "If you can expand your domain over the entire continent, this'll change the world."
"It would." Laphi frowned and turned back to her thoughtfully. "It just occurred to me that we need to figure out if prayer grants you power. You're not a seraph, so it might work differently for you."
"It's not prayers." Velvet enjoyed the owlish look her brother gave her, being the one to be lectured for once. She poked his nose. "Prayer doesn't mean anything to seraphim. It's deep and heartfelt emotions and thoughts toward a seraph. We just call it prayers because that's the same thing if genuine, just easier to explain." He nodded slowly and she continued with a hint of curiousity: "But what does it feel like?"
Zaveid took over there, making a sweeping motion with his hand. "It's a little odd. Like a soft whisper of thoughts and feelings not your own flowing into you from outside. Like, I got a few of my own and that huntress is definitely one of 'em now. She's happy to her core just for me giving her the good news. You feel anything like that?"
Velvet closed her eyes again and listened into herself, but found nothing. After a minute of quiet, she shook her head. "Nothing. Looks like I will have to do without. And good riddance, that takes a lot of potential work off my shoulders." Zaveid huffed at that but did not disagree.
A moment later, Laphi put a hand on his forehead and sighed. "We're dumb," he told the other two. "Sure, we had to check, but Velvet is a goddess of darkness. It makes perfect sense that she would work mainly on Malevolence, which is also something humans produce."
Zaveid snapped his fingers at that. "Yeah, you're right." Velvet agreed, too. They went on their way after that, with Velvet spending most of her time thinking while her brother talked quietly with Zaveid about whatever struck his fancy. Or he ran through the thigh-high grass of the meadows, or smelled whatever flowers grew around the area and tried to remember their names.
A few more hellions crossed their path, but they were all aggressive and thus killed. Velvet or Laphicet bisected them with easy strokes of their blades, which more often than not ended with visible tears in the ground and them knowing they had to work on their fine control. They took whatever the few once-human beings among the bunch had on them before devouring them whole. Laphi by just absorbing them through his mouth, Velvet by gobbling them up with the maw in her hand.
It was odd to use her left arm again. A mental command, almost a reflex, and the flesh would grow outward while bandage-like skin rolled up and away. Her palm grew as big as her head and the entire thing turned black, jagged claws protruding from it while crimson veins ran up from her fingertips until right before her shoulder. Hundreds of teeth churned within her palm, taking the bodies she pushed in with the wet crunching of bones and all sorts of tendons. She could taste the blood but not the flesh, feel its texture, but nothing else. That had not changed either.
They noticed a large, spire-like building reaching high up in the distance, but Zaveid told them to ignore it for now.
Once they were done with the hellions, Velvet decided to get on with lunch and sent Laphi to gather firewood; Zaveid was kept by her side to help turn some straight sticks into skewers. Unfortunately, she could not make any pots without clay and refused to form one out of mana; it was too much of a risk to have it fade away while she was cooking. The same for the skewers, though they formed mana-knives to carve them.
A few skewers in, Zaveid began to make conversation again. "So, eh, 'Minkkubi'?"
Velvet paused to look up for a moment and shrugged. "Laphi came up with it, a new name for a new Empyrean. I'm still Velvet to you, though." The silence only held for a moment before she felt compelled to add: "It's not my true name either way and I'm not going to tell you that one."
She almost missed how Zaveid shaved off half of his stick in one stroke; the knife fell to the ground and he raised his arms defensively at her. "Whoa now, I wasn't asking about that! We don't know each other nearly well enough to go that far!" Looking up again, Velvet thought he appeared almost flustered.
Then she recalled how much true names meant to seraphim and averted her gaze, sheepishly getting back to carving her stick and soon picking up another. "Sorry." He just grunted and they got back to work, this time with Velvet herself picking the conversation back up after a little while. "Actually, I do know your true name; what about that?"
"You do? Can't remember telling you."
"I was around when you told Eizen."
"Ahhh, yeah. That'd do it." He interrupted his work and she followed to meet his eyes. "Just don't use it then. If you learn it by being around, that's fine and all, but no one except the people who tell you personally or allow you to use their true name are who you're allowed to call by them."
"I'll keep that in mind."
The conversation stalled there and they both finished their work before Velvet got started on eviscerating her earlier catches. Laphi, her little angel, soon returned with a bunch of dry wood, some mushrooms, berries, herbs, and even a bit of clay he found.
Preparations took a good while longer than she was used to, having to do everything from scratch, but Velvet found enjoyment in the menial work. Once they ate however, she was once again reminded that not every scar of the past would fade. Just as she thought, her sense of taste was still gone. Its only exception was blood.
"I've gotta say, I was promised something outstanding," Zaveid joked halfway through while throwing a bone behind himself, grinning to take the sting out of his tease. "This is good, but not all that special to me."
Velvet just gave him an unamused look, then idly looked down at her hand. "Maybe I should make wind malakh stew next time."
"I thought you don't each machos?" A flat stare went to Laphi, who cheerfully undermined her counter and continued to fill his belly with boar and berries. Velvet shook her head and let him off the hook this once, then turned back to Zaveid.
"Give me some time to get set up properly and we'll talk again. Now, what's with that building over there?" She pointed toward the structure in the distance, which she could tell oozed Malevolence and that she only dropped the subject on earlier because Zaveid asked her to.
Seeing what she meant, the wind seraph sat a little straighter while pointing with his newly emptied skewer. "That's a crucible. I think that one's been there for centuries now, and there's a few others around the continent. Shepherds went in many times but they just can't manage to clear them out, that's how persistent the Malevolence in there is. Some Lords of Calamity use 'em to pit hellions against each other or to deal with prisoners, but mostly the first one. Loser gets eaten, winner eats the loser and gets stronger."
"So venomisation?"
He pointed at Laphi with a nod. "The one. They like their powerful but insane beasties better than when their hellions still have a mind."
The boy sighed and shook his head while looking at the structure, even interrupting his feasting for a moment to speak. "It's such a waste, though. Instead of putting in the time and effort to build structures of Malevolence that stay stable when the system is flooded with more, they just immediately throw more and more on top until they get something which can do nothing but kill and rampage." He cast a glance in Velvet's direction at that point, then lowered his head and muttered onto his skewer: "I'll admit some of my therions weren't
much different, but-" A bone flew past his face and he shut up.
By herself, Velvet decided to pay this crucible a visit later. Once she knew what she was dealing with.
"Anyway," Zaveid picked up the previous topic, "the Rolance Empire is most of what used to be Midgand and that's where we are. Lastonbell used to be some dingy little frontier village, I think we met there once-" "Stonebury?" "Yeah, that. City's got this giant belltower, that's unique around the entire continent, and it's the gateway city to Hyland. Lots of travel and trade going through there." Velvet was still with the belltower, faintly happy that the young apprentice she remembered meeting had achieved his goal after all.
"That's the east, to the west is Pendrago and... well, that's basically Loegres with some changes in the layout. That and Lastonbell are the big cities here in Rolance, with some smaller townships and a bunch of villages strewn across the country. Lots of plains and most of the cattle on the continent, and a lotta horses." Zaveid leaned back a little and peered into the distance, where Velvet could spy a small herd. "Some of the farmers got corrupted too, but most of 'em stay with their cattle. That's basically what's around us."
Laphi nodded a few times while he chewed and Velvet let the new information run through her head as well. Pendrago and Lastonbell both sounded like good first stops. To see what remained of Loegres from her time, or to see what became of Stonebury. In the end, it was her brother who gave that small push she needed to make her decision when he offered his opinion quietly: "I'd like to see that belltower."
She just could not deny him. Lastonbell it was.