The town of Tolbi was abustle with activity today, just like any other day of the week. The merchants called out at passerbys that were crowded shoulder to shoulder in the streets, trying to call anyone and everyone to check out their wares. Tolbi was the largest and most powerful city in Gondowan, the coliseum and palace being the most notable land marks. They were more than that though, these great structures were symbols of power and strength, a testament to Tolbi's reign and longevity. This was the same city, after all, that had once held a powerful adept girl held hostage while it forced her hometown to build another grand structure, and that was only after the former leader had raided an ancient civilization to increase his life for centuries. Tolbi had a list of high crimes almost as grand as its accomplishments, but what's in the past was in the past.

An armored man moved through the crowds, occasionally getting the odd look but never being stopped. Anyone else simply ignored him, Proxians weren't a rarity in the world anymore, not since the rise of the Golden Sun. They made journeys into the world all the time now, it was even encouraged by parents for their children to go see the rest of Weyard so that they could understand that the world went beyond the edge of Prox. Of course they were also encouraged to always come back home and help with the village. When you grow up in a culture that lived in isolation for centuries, family became extremely important.

Cale pushed his way through the crowds and eventually stopped at an armorsmith. The main was going to town on his anvil when Cale called out to him.
“I'm looking for something a little bit lighter than what I've got, any ideas?” Cale said. The man stopped what he was doing and looked back, giving Cale a once over before he approached table which Cale stood across. The armor smith reached out and placed a hand on Cale's armor and shook his head.

“If you're looking to compete in Colosso in a few weeks you know it doesn't matter what armor you wear. They strip you barebones. Or are you trying to hunt those adept raiders we've been hearing about?" The smith said. Cale raised an eyebrow.

“Colosso? That's the big tournament you guys have every year, yeah? They don't let you have your own armor or weapons?” Cale asked. The smith shook his head and ducked down behind the counter, shuffling through some unseen materials as he spoke loud enough to be heard.

“Supposedly it's a way to test your mettle. You run through an obstacle course, grab the best gear at the end if you're first and then fight until you or the other guy goes down. So not that then eh? Maybe the raiders?” The smith asked. Cale once again shook his head. This time he knew what he was talking about. He had heard a few reports on his way into the city.

Apparently there had been some strange wildfires on the outskirts of Suhalla. A few people had gotten hurt, others killed. For fires to just randomly spring forward made people think the prime suspects were adepts. There was no proof of this since no adepts had been spotted near the sites, but people will talk.

“Well your gear is pretty good, but you could stand to use some magical components. Unfortunately I don't have any artifacts in right now. Come back in a week or two and maybe I will. Good luck out there.” The smith said. Cale gave a nod and moved back into the crowd.

"This is incredible!"

Marta ran away into the city of Tolbi the moment the merchant cart she was travelling in entered the gates. The lemurian conductor shouted a quick "Hey, don't..." but he stopped because the girl's safety wasn't his business, not to mention how much of annoyance she had been with all the question she had been asking during the whole travel, so it would be better to let the girl go on her way.

So many people with different hair colors, yellow, brown, black and even red. Back in Lemuria all that there was to see was lemurians with blue hair and herself being the odd exception being blonde, but now Marta was finally outside the timeless island and just like a kid the adept was jumping from place to place at the little sight of anything that was a novelty to her, which is to say anything. After having bought a fruit that seemed to be delicious (and that was thrown away once she bit it and discovered that it was rotten) Marta entered a local from which joyous voices were heard and upon entering all the people gathered turned their heads to look at the cheerful girl. Muscled men with tattooed arms, scarred faces and or unwashed beards seemed to compound the majority of the crowd gathered in this noisy place. Marta squinted her eyes and tried to accustom the view for the poor illumination when a busty brunette barmaid called the girl

"Hey, you. We do not accept kids here, how old are you?"

"Well I don't know miss, what date is it?"

Instead of answering directly, the barmaid pointed to a greasy calendar that was cleaved to the wall with a knife. Upon looking at it, the girl tried to remember the date she was found by the lemuarians and she made some calculations in her head, she came to a conclusion that because of the weird time flow of Lemuria, which passes different than outside the sea of time, she probably was going to have some trouble.

"Well, I'm about three and half years or something, but it's not what you think, I'm from Lemuria and..."

"That's not a funny joke, kid, get out of my bar."

Just in that moment a bald bearded man and another who was wearing a headband and had a scar on his chin appeared out of nowhere and interrupted the conversation

"Oh don't worry about that, Mirian, we will take care of this girl."

"What do you say, sweetie? Want to stay with us for a while?"

The barmaid shook her head and walked away once she was called by some clients and Marta was left alone with the two strangers. She had already given up about to leave when two friendly strangers offered her company, how lucky was she!

"Of course!"

What could possibly go wrong?

The wheels of the wagons came to a sudden halt as the lead wagon driver pulled on the rains. Out of the first wagon, hops a woman with a sword strapped to her hips. She walks towards to rear of the four wagon caravan. With a smile on her pretty face she speaks to the caravan, "See I told you the silk road was still open. Before us lies Tolbi itself. We all made it alive and we made it with 80% of the cargo. That is more than enough to us a huge profit."

The driver of the third wagon spoke up in reply to the woman, "Yes, Sophia, we made it. However, those storms spawning of the Karagol Sea and those land slides are not something I want to transverse again. Ever since the Golden Sun, the freak storms have gotten worse. I know you as an Adept enjoy the release of Alchemy but we are not adepts. I personally will not be heading back to until the sea is calm again. I do not believe I am alone in that feeling."

"Understandable, I do not plan to head back to be under my father quite yet anyways." Sophia replies, "Can I get you to handle the selling of the silks and coco banana beans? I am going to find a way to message Kalay. I will meet up with you at the usual place" She waved goodbye to her caravan as it rode the rest of the way towards Tolbi's markets. Sophia herself walked calmly into Tolbi while taking in all the sights and sounds like a tourist.

Leyya made it to the city of Tolbi the same way like any other person would - trough the Kalay and Tolbi docks which allowed merchants and travelers to cross the Karagol sea - and walked into the settlement with eyes wide open - from experience she knew that the bigger the city, the more of crocks and thieves it held inside itself. The city itself was large but large cities were no novelty to Leyya, after all she pretty much crossed the whole east Weyard during the last four years of traveling and even saw the Mercury Lighthouse. Without haste, and yet quite quickly she made way to one of the bars that doted Tolbi only to notice that the relative normal outside hidden a den of who-knows-what-kind-of people and a single one which stuck out as a sore thumb with, for this place, a extremely unfitting appearance. To make things worse two ruffians were already having some sort of conversation with, if she guessed right, a young lady of her age.

Leyya sighted and approached the trio, her right hand lowering itself on the hilt of her rapier just in case. She spoke up:
"Now, now, cloud I ask you two gentlemen to step away from her? I don't thinks she needs the kind of help you are offering."
"Those guys are up to nothing good," she whispered near the lass' ear while placing herself between the pair of up-to-no-good and the tourist? girl.

Her right hand waited on the rapier's handle just in case and she was already ready to fight if needed, preparing the mental strength needed to unleash Jet on the right man if the two attacked...

Leyya said "Those guys are up to nothing good,"

"Oh come on, what makes you say that?"

The bald man answered

"Exactly! We are nice guys, I promise. Perhaps do you want to enjoy our company too?"

In that moment the seed of doubt planted by the other girl started to sprout inside the mind of Marta, perhaps there would be no harm in confirming that the two men had good intentions, even if she was told countless of times not to do it back in Lemuria.

{Mind Read}

"Damn, just when we have found an easy target to rob this other woman had to appear and try to ruin it"

Marta got visibly surprised and moved behind the woman that was confronting the two thugs

"You know, I think I'm going to listen to big sis here, so try having fun without me, seeya!"

The ruffian wearing a headband approached Marta with a smile on his face and tried to grab her arm while saying something among the lines of "oh, come on..." but he was interrupted by a violent slap that made him fall on his back. When he stood up, with the face red of anger, he exclaimed "bitch!" and unsheathed a machete.

{Jet}

However before he could do anything else the other girl raised her hand and a sudden gust sent the thug flying several meters backwards and crushing on a distant table where other two men were sitting, who said "Marcelo, are you alright, dude?". Most of the people gathered in the local ran away at the sight of this phenomenon, but the ones who didn't were now pissed and ready to face the mysterious girl, who surely must had used psynergy. Marta tiptoed in the direction of the door she entered from but her path was blocked by the bald thug.

"Where you think you are going? Hand over your money!"

Upon being cornered, Marta instinctively unsheathed her jeweled cutlass and adopted a fighting stance, to which the ruffian answered by taking a mace and attacking the girl, who just jumped backwards every time the mace was swung towards her. After some jumps, she ended up going through a door and ending in a back alley, where the thug finally hit the cutlass and because of the strength put in the blow he managed to break the small sword in pieces, which was never meant to be used as a weapon but as adornment. The ruffian laughed and approached the now disarmed girl, who would have no choice but to resort to use psynergy.

After yet another unsuccessful attempt to upgrade or replace the current equipment he had, Cale decided that it had been a long day and he deserved a drink. Tolbi was certainly the city that the tales had made it out to be. It was a market and melting pot of different people and items, all coming to trade their wares. The thing that stood out most about Tolbi to Cale though was that nobody here knew each other. In Prox, everyone knew everyone, right down to names and favorite food. Other small towns that Cale had passed along the way to get here had been in similar situations as far as he could tell, but Tolbi was different. People rushed along without talking to each other, trying to get their wares and get on with the day. It was interesting, but also somewhat depressing.

Cale had stopped for a moment to get directions to the nearest tavern, and as he drew closer to the site he heard a great deal of commotion. People were running out of the building, clambering over each other as if trying to get away from some great disaster. To Cale, however, it only served to intrigue him. The adept pushed past the crowds and into the building.

The scene inside made Cale snicker. He counted two young women apparently kicking the ass of a room full of grown men. He knew better than to underestimate women though, in his village there were women that could make your head explode just by thinking it. He frowned as he noticed one of the men thrown back through a door though. One of the men, a shorter stout man with a beard, noticed Cale enter and shouted at him.

"Hey buddy, this has nothing to do with you! Leave if you don't want any trouble!" The man yelled. Cale shrugged, stepping further into the building.

"What I want is a drink. But with the way you guys are destroying the place I'm wondering if that's still an option." Cale said. The bearded man wasn't having any of it however, and instead grabbed a bottle and charged the warrior.

"I said beat it!" The man shouted before bringing the bottle down towards Cale's head. The adept brought an arm into an upper block to catch the attacker's forearm with his own, using his free hand as a fist and putting it into the bearded man's face. The thug went sprawling across the floor and knocked over a table. So much for a drink.

Isaiah was walking through Tolbi, thousands of thoughts racing through his mind in this new city and so many opportunities to have glory. He was enjoying the commotion like a bug drawn to light. It was almost peace-like and calming.

He stopped the next merchant he saw and asked for directions to a bar, maybe to find some disposable friends to use on his journey.The merchant pointed to a random one. Isaiah thanked the man and headed onward for glory.

The walk was decently long and he was thirsty in this hot sun. The commotion he heard made him turn his head and wonder what was happening. A small girl was hopping backwards trying to avoid a large man and avoid getting smashed."oh boy," he muttered, "here we go. Not a single relaxing day." He unsheathed his broadsword and rushed forward. His head pointed toward the small girl. There was nothing but contempt for her, but he flashed a devious smile. "Name's Isaiah. Nice to meet ya." Before taking a swing at the large man.

It was definitely not the most desirable turn of the situation for Leyya but it was not the first time that she had to duke it out with thugs of this kind. She quickly gave up on drawing her rapier and in a single move of her right hand she pulled out her longsword and smashed the other of the original molesters, which was still stunned by her psyenergy display, with it's dull and broad side straight in the face, breaking his nose and sending him to the ground. She then turned to the doors from which the girl escaped and started to move towards that door - ready to fight her way trough if needed - and said: "Don't even thing about attacking me if you are not ready to say goodbye to your lives." It was clearly visible that Leyya was an experienced fighter, both from the numerous marks of blades which adorned her longsword and chain mail - evidence of previous fights - and the fact that she managed to do such a quick and precise movement with a force enough strong to blow a grown man to the ground. Furthermore she clearly demonstrated that she was an Adept something that cloud not be overlooked with ease - after all it was well known that the infamous pirate Briggs and his large, experienced and strong band of pirates were defeated by three young Adepts. Now as Leyya approached the doors it was up to the rest of the ruffians to decide to fight or not, risking to confront Leyya whose mood was becoming less and less good ...

Isaiah said "Name's Isaiah. Nice to meet ya."

The newcomer guy, which appeared to be a kid just like Marta, didn't hesitate to play hero and launch an attack on the ruffian that otherwise would have had the chance to hurt Marta, making the foe suffer damage and fall back, dropping his mace as well. Marta was looking at her broken weapon in dismay when Isaiah interrupted, and with blank expression she hadn't paid much attention to what she had been told, but when the thug was standing up and about to grab the mace again, she snapped and shouted with furious anger

"You. Big. JERK!!"

{Marta casts Prism!}

Just as the girl raised her left hand on the air, a humongous block of ice materialized on Marta and was sent towards the ruffian, crushing on him and finishing him, who ended up laying unconscious. The girl, still not truly aware of the presence of his savior, just turned back to her now broken jeweled cutlass and grabbing the pieces she started to cry like a little kid.

"Aaaah! M- *snif*-my sword, it was a gift from my faaamilyyyy *sob* and... and... *sob* It's broken and... Bawww!"

Still with tears on her cheeks and red colored eyes she finally looked at Isaiah

"T-thank *snif* thank you, my name is *sob* Marta. Nice to meet you."

After the other thug had been knocked out by Cale, two more rushed to attack the man using their fists. Cale was tempted to draw his broadsword, but he resisted for a few reasons. For starters, this was a small place, and swinging around a giant weapon was neither convienent nor safe to the others that were in this bar. Second, if he used his weapon there was a good chance that he was going to kill somebody, and even though some of these men might deserve it Cale had no interest on getting on the wrong side of the law. His heritage would work against him in that scenario.

Cale threw a powerful front kick at the first man that came at him and knocked him into the second. The second man pushed his comrade off of him and jumped up to attack Cale again, however he was immediately stopped as he noticed a fireball leveled at his face.

Cale stood with one hand open towards the man, a fireball psynergy attack readied in the palm of his hand. The other man that had been knocked down also hesitated to jump into the fray again when he saw Marta drop a block of ice on one of the other ruffians.

"Y'all...are a bunch of freaks!" One of the men cried.

"Yes, clearly the right choice of words to use in this kind of situation. Beat it." Cale said. The men grumbled and hobbled around Cale and the others, leaving the bar to lick their wounds. When it was all over Cale withdrew the fireball and looked around the room. They had caused quite the mess, it would probably be best to help clean up some. Apparently another young man had joined the fray at some point, whether or not he was an adept like the other girl was hard to say though.

Cale moved over to one of the overturned bar tables and picked it up, placing it back on its pedestal. He then looked over to Leyya and gave a nod.
"That's quite the arsenal you have there. So what happened here anyway?" Cale asked her.

Seeing that everything was over before it even begun Leyya shouted back at the young man as she run of after the girl: "There is still one guy after a powerless girl which I protected in the first place! I will be back as soon as possible."
With haste, not waiting to see if the man would follow her, she run in the general direction in which she saw the other girl run off. She took out her bow and an arrow while on the run and got ready to blast the guy to hell with Bora if needed. But when she came to the alley it was obvious that the whole thing has already ended and that girl with another person beside herself, was crying over something on he floor.
"You okay?" she said as she approached the two. She cloud now see what it was a broken jeweled cutlass that the lass was crying over...

"Son of a..." Isaiah muttered under his breath as he bent down to help her. He picked up the shattered pieces and picked her up.

"Nice to meet you i guess marta." He looked at the other adepts and the lady wondering what happened.

"Outta my way" he groaned as he shoved her aside on his way to find a blacksmith to fix this girl's rapier.

Marta dried her tears by the time she arrived alongside Isaiah to the local blacksmith, who, upon seeing the two youngsters enter the shop, seemed to be annoyed by their presence

"What does a couple of kids want? Are you lost or something?"

Marta took the broken cutlass from Isaiah and slammed its pieces onto the table in front of the blacksmith, still with the eyes a bit red after her previous rant she tried to sound as serious as she could when she made her request of fixing the weapon. The blacksmith examined the broken sword, whose blade was about the size of the man's forearm, and after some second of looking the parts that were broken he looked at the girl and answered

"Well, I'm not a jeweler, but it won't be hard to fix, I can do it."

"YES!"

"Come back after two weeks and half and I'll have it repaired by then."

Marta, still with the triumph expression on her face, turned her head incredibly slowly and faced the blacksmith and clenched her teeth, before she could even open her mouth, the man had already read her thoughts

"What? you though the only blacksmith in this city wouldn't have any requests and that I would fix it in the moment?"

"Okay then, what can I do until then?"

"Honestly, I recommend just getting a better weapon and forgetting about this. It's pretty, sure, but useless in battle."

"Yeah, you are right, I'll want it fixed though, it's a nice present. Do you have any artifacts?"

"Well, I told this morning to a proxian that I had none, for him that is, but someone small framed such as you, I think I've got something..."

The blacksmith stood up, towering way over the girl and her companion and from one of the shelves he took a wood staff that twisted on it towards the end. Marta was surprised to see that it was lighter than it looked

"A witch's wand. What do you think?"

The girl made some maneuvers with the pole, turning and waving it around with a smile on her face. She agreed to buy it and was about to take her money out when the blacksmith pointed to Isaiah and asked

"And who is this guy?"

"Him? This is my little brother Isaiah. He is so nice!"

"That sword he is carrying is quite big for him, but also a bit rusted, wouldn't you want to get something better?"

"Of course! After all he has helped me so much today. Tell me, lil bro, do you want me to get you something?"

Amalvi said
"Of course! After all he has helped me so much today. Tell me, lil bro, do you want me to get you something?"

This was the final weight that broke isaiah. "I'm not some little brother, I don't need help and don't take my sword!" He threw coins at Marta and marched outside after his little yell. He started to march back to the bar where the brawl had happened to finally get a drink. He saw the other adepts. He was absolutely detestable at this point so why not add to the hate?

The other adepts seemed to be talking so as angrily as he could marched up to them and asked what happened.

Back in the bar, Cale had decided to clean up a bit. After all, he had added a bit to the destruction in here by throwing a few thugs around. Any thugs that were still snoozing were dragged outside and left on the street. Cale picked up what tables he could and turned them back to the way they were supposed to be and kicked broken debris and bottles over to the side. He might have been offering to clean up a mess he caused, but he was no maid.

After that it was done it seemed that all the other adepts had all run off somewhere. Probably smart, a guard was going to show up eventually asking what had happened and since the bartender had also run off that would happen sooner rather than later. Still, running implicated guilt. If the law was going to show up, Cale was going to wait for them if only for a little while.

Cale went behind the counter of the bar and grabbed a bottle of milk. This was probably used for mix drinks of some sort. He wasn't a big drinker, and if he was going to need to speak for himself later he wanted to be as clear headed as possible. Cale poured himself a glass and put some money on the table before moving back around to the other side of the counter. It was about this time that one of the other people involved in the fight had decided to come back, and apparently he was having a hissy over something.

"If you're looking to know what happened I haven't got a clue. The other two women were involved in a fight or something and I got dragged into it. How did you get involved?" Cale asked him.

Sayuri sighs as she walks through the streets. She was in a rather bad mood due to a group of people trying to get her imprisoned on the grounds that she was a "dangerous threat" merely because she was Proxian, "Why must people blame an entire race for the actions of a few. Whatever at least not everyone hates me based on appearance."

She had a fairly intimidating appearance holding a good sized sword. She was resting the sheathed blade on her shoulder. She was headed to the blacksmith she'd dropped her boots off to be repaired about 2 weeks earlier. As she approached the door an angry kid burst out the door and almost knocked her into the dirt, "Hey! Watch it asshole!"

Shaking her head she enters the smithy. Noticing the young girl that was in there she nods to her before turning to the smith, " Hey are my boots ready?"

The smith just looks at her and shakes his head, "No I told you it-"

She interrupts, "Yes you said 4 days. 10 days ago! I've been here 3 time in as many days and every time you said come back tomorrow. I have half a mind to go to the guard and tell them you are refusing me service. Or are you trying to resell my boots? Either way you could get in trouble for it."

The man winces before sighing and heading into a back room.

Grayscythe said
."If you're looking to know what happened I haven't got a clue. The other two women were involved in a fight or something and I got dragged into it. How did you get involved?"

"Well while you guys were fighting in here, that ditsy girl was trying to survive. So I had to do the right thing and save her, only to have her call me big brother or something like that. She also tried to sell my weapon and get me a new weapon when I took her to get her precious weapon repaired."

Isaiah took a deep breath and took a swig of the man's drink, hoping not to anger him too much.

"I just hope I didn't piss off some gang or something. By the way what happened to that other lady?"

After catching her breath for a while Leyya, her bow returned to it's strap under the longsword and the arrow back in the small quiver on her belt, decided to return back into the bar where the fight took place and was surprised to see the teenager which was next to the girl and which took off together with her, standing with the man which fought against the ruffians. She overheard him talking about herself so she said as she walked up to the two: "I am here, I was just catching my breath, now I wonder where are the guards? Ah, never here when you need them; always here when you don't. Well we just defended ourselves so they can't take us in or anything, but the sooner the come the sooner I can be out of this mess without worry." She sat down, almost crashed down actually, on one of the nearby chairs and leaned on the table, her rapier swinging from the movement and took a good long look at the pair - one of them was obviously Proxian, no one cloud miss that and pretty large, probably quite strong too while the other, the one which helped the girl while Leyya was occupied with the ruffians in the bar was looking quite young but who cloud tell his real age. She let out a sight and waited for something, anything to happen.

Isaiah said
"I'm not some little brother, I don't need help and don't take my sword!"

Marta shouted a quick "ouch" when the coins hit her and was about to berate Isaiah when she looked at the coins

"Oh, money!"

What a nice guy, she had enough money to pay, but for some reason Isaiah had given her some more. She was picking the coins and about to say thank you when, instead of finding the blonde teenager she found a rather tall redhaired girl. He must be a shy guy, how cute!. When Marta stood up from picking the cash she witnessed the girl arguing with the blacksmith about her boots being late for repair or something, at first it didn't strike the girl, but then she noticed the red tainted skin of the newcomer and her hearth started to race

"Oh my goodness! Are you a proxian? I've never seen a proxian before! Where do you come from? Have you been in the north? What you guys eat there? What is snow like? What..."

Marta ceased her enthusiastic interrogatory before the other girl could even respond when she realized what had just been discussing in front of her moments ago, her face getting into a more worried look and her voice suddenly getting more serious

"What was that about the blacksmith reselling items he is supposed to repair?"

Cale raised an eyebrow at the boy suddenly taking a swig of his drink. Whoever this kid was, he clearly didn't have any manners, and by the way he was talking it sounded like he might have a few different issues altogether. Cale poured himself some more milk and gently pulled the glass further away from the boy while nodding at the woman who had just returned.

"They'll show up soon enough. Name's Cailan. Friends call me Cale.": Cale said, nodding at the woman and boy both to see if they would drop their own names. Before they answered though he looked back at the door that had been broken earlier. The other girl, the one that was definteily an adept, had run off to get her sword fixed and now the boy had come back. If guards were going to question them, he hoped that her story was going to be the same as theirs otherwise there might be trouble.

"That girl was an adept. Are you guys...?" Cale asked, flicking his fingers a bit as if to pantomine some form of spell casting.