[IC] Dark Paradise (Supernatural Dystopian Future)

[EnsoNoctis]

Chapter 1: The Uprising

The beautiful city of M'alo has long since been renowned for its wealth and natural resources. Creatures of all sorts have lived in harmony for half a millennia, and the city's fortified walls and military have made it an ideal residence for many. However, in the recent years other cities in the south and west have been raided with little effort. Even M'alo has become victim to these unknown attackers. While their defenses have been successful in deterring the bandits, the citizens of M'alo have begun to question their own safety. Even Belloc, the city's mayor of over sixty years has grown concerned over the welfare of his people. He had sent out spies to gather information about the sudden attacks, and had found something rather sinister lurking in the shadows, but kept the information known only to his small council. In an effort to quell the fear of his people, Mayor Belloc called for an assembly to discuss plans to prevent further attacks.
On the appointed day of the assembly at high noon, the citizens of M'alo gathered at the town square awaiting the mayor and his council. The crowd was bustling with talk over their own safety and some even spoke of traveling north to seek solace. Mayor Belloc arrived in a grand fashion, walking through the crowd with a confident grin spread across his face. He greeted each individual he passed on his way to the podium, shaking their hands and even embracing some he was more intimate with. He reached the podium and cleared his throat as if beckoning the crowd to give them his attention.

"People of M'alo," his voice resounded with great spirit and authority, "as all of you know, we have been under attack by bandits over the last few weeks. Our soldiers have been successful in keeping them from breaching our beautiful city, but these bandits do not seem to know the meaning of restraint. We have lost a few great men in these raids, and many proud citizens have worked tirelessly in repairing our city walls, but our people can only do so much. However, fear not as I have found a solution to our problem. I propose that we spread news over radio lines and messengers to seek aid in keeping our beautiful city safe!" Mayor Belloc gestured at his civil servants to hand out flyers to the crowd. The flyer read:

For Hire.
The City of M'alo is seeking talented individuals with combat experience to aid us in defending our city.
Each month we are willing to offer you:
One Adranium Coin
Two Platinum Coins
Two Gold Coins
You shall also be granted free residence in our beautiful city.
Come to the Tavern in M'alo for an interview and a free pint of ale should you be hired.

Belloc waited until the civil servants finished handing out the flyers to continue his speech. "I shall also sent our most abled messengers to post these in taverns and guilds in every city." Some of the townspeople were visibly unsettled by the steep price the mayor was willing to pay, and Belloc had noticed their concerned faces. One citizen raised his voice, as if speaking for those sharing his concern, "but isn't 800 Krell a month quite a steep price? Even our soldiers only get paid half of this!" The citizen's argument roused the crowd.
"Answer this for me," Belloc retorted, "Is our way of life not worth a few coins? What is 800 Krell to our townspeople if there is no town for us to live in? How much longer can our soldiers and workers continue before we lose more of our loved ones? I assure you that I shall only hire the best of the best, and their abilities shall be tested."

The crowd's reaction turned to Mayor Belloc's favor once more. He had been mayor for sixty years not only because of his charisma, but also because of his great judgment and ability to keep his people safe. "My citizens, I have called upon this assembly to ask for your approval because you have elected me for over half a century to keep you safe, and I wish to return your respect. I can not stand to lose any more of our people against these attackers, and I fear that this may only be a prelude to a much greater danger. So, the great people of M'alo, I shall ask you again. Will you stand with me in my cause?"

The crowd grew silent as they gazed at their mayor. Another man in ragged clothing was the first to speak up. "Mayor Belloc, I have lived in the outskirts of the town for most of my life. I have livestock and make enough to support my wife and three children, but I would rather starve for a day than risk the chance of losing any of them. I stand with you in your decision." The crowd turned to the old man, and once again, the townspeople began to whisper to one another. "Sir, what is your name," Belloc inquired to the old man.
"I am John Sheperd, Mayor Belloc," the man replied meekly.
"John Sheperd, I will not put your family in harms way, nor will I allow you to starve. I shall be paying for these mercenaries out of my own pocket. This city is mine, and the people are my family."
The crowd grew silent once more, until a woman in splendid clothing spoke up, "Oh, my dear Belloc. You will not have to hold the burden yourself. You have my respect, and I speak on behalf of many of us when I say that we shall support you."
An older, stout gentleman also spoke up, "I agree with Madam Belfry. Belloc, you have my support as well."
The rest of the townspeople followed suit and shortly after, the crowd began to applaud in approval.
"It is settled, then," Mayor Belloc bellowed, "I shall send our most abled messengers to post these flyers in every city in this continent. I also ask our travelers to spread word of our cause. The city of M'alo will not bow down to these criminals, and I would rather fight in the front lines and die before I see another one of my people get hurt. I thank all of you who have shown your support."

Within a few days, word had spread throughout the entire continent, and M'alo's call for help had become a great topic of discussion in every city. Not since the great war has a wealthy city asked for aid, and many were curious about what sort of threat Belloc feared that prompted him to summon outsiders for help. There were, of course, others who saw his action as cowardly due to their own ignorance, but Belloc knew quite well that something was astir.
Creatures who had never set foot outside of radiation zones started to travel far from their native lands, and an unknown force seemed to be pulling the strings behind the seemingly arbitrary migration. Travel had suddenly become more dangerous, and only those who were brave enough took to the city.

[Vale Kaiser]

Vale punched the rock before him, taking no pleasure in watching it shatter effortlessly underneath his powerful blow.
"Another wasted lead. More wasted time."
Cursing in the native tongue of the Lliandrii, he slipped his hand into a pouch by his side, pulling out a wilted but appetising lettuce leaf. He chewed it absently as he walked away from the two unconscious bodies. They would survive, however one would need attention to his lung to stay that way sometime in the future. In all his searching, he was no closer to finding that dastardly inscriptionist who had taken his 'mother.' Plus all his errant adventuring on all these leads had left his once amply abundant coin pouch rather low. Being of Lliandrii royalty or not, he was far too far to get any assistance from his family, or for his name to have any sway over the local populace. He was essentially a no-body. And that suited him just fine.

A piece of paper, billowing in the wind, snapped him out of his angry reverie. He stopped and watched it flutter and float through the air, landing on a nearby rock. Leaning down, he picked it up and scanned it quickly. Some city called M'alo had a bit of a problem, and required people to help 'defend' them. But defend against what, for how long, and with how many? The coin was good though, and he was the better part of a days walk away. He would need some more vegetables soon. Scrunching up the paper and tossing it away casually over his shoulder, he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. At teh next crossroads, he took the left hand branch, as the sign said M'alo.
n

[NewSun]

The dull red wire connected to the first inversion socket, the blue was attached to the polarity socket; the calculations involved in discerning the proper locations of each and every circuit within the complex device board were immense. No human would have been able to solve the mysterious and complex workings of such a device so easily, but then, the rather enigmatic man hunched over the workbench, solder iron to the side and a myriad of unusual mechanical tools to the other, was far from human, even if his outward appearance suggested otherwise. His concentration was evident, even if his face displayed no outward signs of being mentally strained by his complex task. He even seemed to be somewhat revelling in being given the opportunity to delve into the workings of his assorted machinery.
“Hmm,” his voice finally broke, as he leaned away from the device. “I should think you are fixed,” For some reason, Aaron smiled. It was a force of habit. He knew that science and engineering had given him a buzz when he was still able to feel such things, though his software definitely provided him with some semblance of satisfaction, at the least.
He closed the working hatch on the small, round device, and it whirred into life. A small row of lights flicked on along the bottom half of the rutted sphere, and one large one clicked on on the top half. There were three quick beeps followed by a more complex pattern of noises and flashes of light. It would have seemed nonsensical to any organic being, but Aaron was more than capable of understanding such puzzling syntax. The sphere began to float into the air, spinning uneasily to face Aaron, as though it’s central light was some sort of eye, as though it were looking at him.

“M’alo?” He asked the small, mechanical creature. “What has happened to M’alo? And why are you receiving radio signals? What frequency are you on?”

Aaron’s questions had seemed to be ignored by the sphere, who continued to bleep and bloop and flash in some form 4-Hex encoding. it was it’s way of communicating.

“Under attack? It needs defending?” Aaron shook his head. “No killing. Please stop the transmission, Sphero,”

The sphere apparently took no notice, and continued to whirr and flash.

“I told you to stop- Wait,” Something had caught the attention of the Android. “Say that last bit again,” he demanded.

The sphere complied, and repeated a pattern of noises hat it had emitted moments ago.

“That… is a lot of Krell. We could use that, we need a new Hydraulic Wrench and Morphic Microfile. Maybe… maybe those bandits could be subdued with something other than combat. What do you think?”

The sphere bounced in the air as though it were excited. As excited as a primitive assistant robot could be.

“It is highly probable that both goals can be achieved. It may well be possible to defend M’alo and spare the lives of the assailants,”

Reaching outward, Aaron took hold of Sphero, who immediately seemed to turn off at the touch. Aaron stuffed the small robot into one of the folds of his cloak before quickly attaching his various engineering tools to his belt under the fabric, finally finishing his routine by folding the small workbench into a portable square and slinging it over his shoulder. He secured everything in place, his crossbow too, before turning on his heel to exit the shack that he had taken residence in to get some work done without interruption. He was lucky enough to find such a structure in the middle of the desert.
Emerging into the desert, the light would have been blinding to organic eyes, but Aaron’s adjusted instantly; his internal compasses and clocks meant he already knew exactly where he was, and how he could get to M’alo in the shortest time possible. Many things become possible when technology replaces your body. He looked up to the sky for a moment, thinking what it would have been like the appreciate the majesty of the world in the way he had once done. Maybe when the world was healed, he could build himself an organic body through which he could once again feel what it was to be human. The thought would have brought melancholy to him, but he was not capable of feeling such a sentiment. Instead, he blinked, turned himself a good fourty-five degrees to his right and started off into the desert. He estimated he could be at the city by nightfall if he kept regular pace.

[kagethekiller]

Woooops

[kagethekiller]

Noah sat in his workshop laboring over his newest brain child. His latest model of the Defence bot was turning out to be the trickiest, it had a travel function with a click the bot would fold down into a ball about 10 inchs across. Noah couldn't figure out what the problem was exaclly.
"S3! Where's that part I asked you for 10 minutes ago?" Noah said full focus on the task at hand
A metallic voice made Noah jump in his seat. "I have it here, sir, a message has just arrived from the city of M'alo" The S3 unit said standing directly behind him holding out the small micro chip he had paid two platnum coins for, half the rest of his savings. He fliped the ball over finding the small slot he had made left for the chip. He slipped the chip in and used his index finger to flip the internal switch, a failsafe for his prototypes so no one but him could activate the machine.

It sparked to life, the room was lit with a red light casting glancing shadows across the hardware spread across the room. The ball began to spin, slowly unfurling inch of panel by inch of panel unfolded, untill a sleek black robot with a sythe as a left hand stood in front of him. Red eyes glowing ominously
"Sinch, activate action 13. Passive mode." Noah said. Sinch sat down and crossed his mechanical legs, sythe folding up. Noah then spun around in his chair.
"What's this about an urgent message?" He asked the S3 unit. He knew M'alo's reputation, they never did much business outside of there city, any message they had would have a heafty price tag attached to it. And maybe his prtotype could get some field action, now that it was fully functional. He heard M'alo was a beautiful city and he knew they were wealthy.

[kagethekiller]

Noah arrived at the tavern in M'alo a day and a half after he had received the message. The ride had wore on his patience, seeing as the message had been so urgent and so lucrative he had rode the whole way with only an hour or so sleep. The speculations he had of the city where not met, the small slice of our races display of thriving that his father had told him of as a child looked to be close to the opposite.
The city itself was still intact, the walls still stood and the farms on the horizon were not tourched or ransacked as far as Noah could tell. Though the demeanor in the eyes of even the children playing in the houses he past was that of a man on his last days. The cityfolk walked in the streets at night sluggishly, a portion one form of intoxicated or another. Noah could almost feel the towns worry, and it got him thinking.
What could the great city of M'alo be so afraid of? He felt as though the world may be changing a little, and maybe that wasnt all bad, but whatever was happening here was no change for a better cause. As he walked up the steps of the tavern he thought about the prosperity this city had gone through, and its downfall. Seeing this place for the first time, he couldnt help thinking of how his expectations had let him down.
The doors opened to the tavern as two severely drunk men walked down the stairs towards Noah pushing one another jokingly.
"She did not say any of that!" The man walking out first said, laughing pushing the door open with his back as he continued to talk to his friend. The man took two steps backwards not anticipating that it was only one step from the door to the first stair. His step met nothing but air and he began to tumble backwards nearly falling on Noah.
Noahs first reaction was to push the man back into his friend, using his left hand to counteract the mans weight slightly, but it was to late the man was already on his way down. A split second before the man knocked himself out on the steps Noah caught him on his back and slowed his fall. From the outsiders perspective the man had halted in midair and suddenly became parallel with the stairs. To Noah he had grabed the man by the head with one full hand and pulled up, while pushing at his flailing body with four fingers on his other hand not needing the thumb until the last secound before the mans heels nearly smashed into the second step down.
He then nodded at the man standing in the doorway, and passed him to enter the tavern, leaving the astonished pair where they had behind him. Noah was actually dissapointed in himself, he had used 9 fingers for most of the incident when on a normal day he would have been responsive enough to use the one hand. He couldnt wait to get this over with and climb into a nice bed.
The bartender approached him where he was sitting at the end of the bar. "What can I get you tonight boss?" He said broad smile spread across his face, laughing from his previous encounter.
Noah pulled the pack on his back up and reached into his sachel to find his Krell.
"Do you carry Moondraft? Brewed in Oden. Dark draft, rather strong..." He said wrapping his metal fingers around his coin purse, pulling it out.
The bartender thought for a moment put up a finger as to signal 'one moment' and ducked under the counter, coming back with a dark pint of ale and a mug. "Rather expensive cause of the import cost..." he said sliding the cup towards Noah. "Though im sure that wont be a problem huh boss?" He said looking at the lines on Noahs arms leading to his wrist, glancing at his hands winking.
Noah noded and put a silver coin on the counter.

[El_Tigre]

|-|Charlie Veno|-|

Charlie groaned lazily as she began to awaken on the firm mattress within the small room of the inn. She lazily brought her hand up to her face, too tired to slow its descent before it hit her face with a slap; though she seemed unphased. She began to rub her eyes as she pushed herself up with her free hand. Her legs flung over the edge of the mattress to rest on the cool floor, her toes stretching and flexing absent mindedly.

As her eyes adjusted to the morning light she looked around the room. The morning rays shone several more details of the small room that she had not noticed the night before. The walls were covered in tattered wall paper and stained with years worth of dust. The candle from the night before had still been burning, the old building no longer having electricity. She leaned over to the dresser and blew out the flame. She hated the dark and falling asleep without at least a little light was nearly impossible for the girl.

It was an odd fact. Most Vaegorne hated the light and thrived in the darkness. But little Charlie was hardly similar to any of her kind. The only similarity was her small black horns that protruded out from her pink colored bangs. Charlie quietly sighed under her breath, finally ready to begin her day. With a push off her bed she lazily fumbled into an easy stride as she made her way into the run down bathroom. She looked upon herself through the cracked mirror and used her slender fingers to fix her mild bed head.

Once satisfied with the results she smiled brightly, twirling on her heels and nearly skipping out of the room and down the hall. She made her way to the front desk were an elderly woman sat listening to a radio riddled with static to the point the words were hardly understandable. She leaned against the counter, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet as she awaited the clerk to notice her.

“Yes?” the elderly woman grumbled as her graying brown eyes blinked up at the strangely upbeat girl.

“I wish to check out! How much do I owe you for one night?” She chirped in her sweet sing-song voice.

“Twenty krell”

With that Charlie dipped her hand into a hidden pocket of her short red skirt and pulled out a small pile of assorted coins of varying quality. She picked out two silver coins and set them on the counter before dropping the rest back into her pocket with a clatter. “Here you go! Bye bye now!” she nearly sang as she turned and headed for the exit. Though before she could leave a new looking flyer caught her eye. A brow rose curiously as her steps slowed to a stop. Quickly she scanned over the flyer, her curious brow remaining.

She had heard plenty of M’alo, even yearned to visit it on several occasions. She knew of M’alo strong defenses and their request of aid was… surprising to say the least. She read further on at the reward. Her eyes widened in delight. Residence in the city of M’alo with a hefty bounty of Krell. She thought back on her thinning coin purse and knew she could use the money.

With a nod to herself she came upon a decision. She would help out the town of M’alo with her unique skills and eagerly accept their reward. Pushing her way out of the Inn she winced and cringed at the piercing light. The sun had always been especially bright in Kol’Uira as the ozone layer had thinned and blocked little of the suns natural rays. As her eyes adjusted she made her way towards the south end of the poor town where the caravan sat in wait for paying customers.

Little time passed before she arrived at the steam powered carriage, the driver setting behind the wheel. The driver had been leaning back in his seat with his hat down over his eyes as if he were taking a nap. Charlie lightly knocked on the steel wall of the carriage to get his attention. The driver pushing his hat up a bit and lazily peaking down at the young Vaegorne, giving a faint ’hmm?’

“Hi there! I wish to buy passage to M’alo.” She stated casually with a hint of her honey voice.

“Seventy krell and I will take you.” He responded as he pushed himself up to a less leisured position.

Charlie nodded and took out the appropriate coins and placed it in the drivers open palm.

“Alright. Hop in the back.” The man stated as he started the engine with a putter. Charlie made her way around to the back and climbed in, shutting and locking the door behind her. As the door locked the driver gave little time before they were off.

During the day long ride Charlie spent most of her time sleeping in the corner of the carriage, only waking when there was a bump in the road.

[EnsoNoctis]

Oden
~+Virgil Noctis+~
It was just past dawn and the west wing of the house of Daedalus was already astir as the servants prepared for the day's activities. Virgil had woken up and remained on his bed for the better part of an hour as he stared up at the finely sculpted stucco work. Infant cherubs lined the crown moulding of the ceiling as if holding it up. The center piece was a popped out dome with a golden chandelier in the shape of a blooming flower branching off to resemble rays of light radiating from the sun, and more tiny little cherubs could be seen engraved on the dome. Virgil sighed as he recalled his days back in heaven when he had once been constantly surrounded by these cherubs - although their true appearance was nothing like the ones depicted in the painting. 'I quite like the idea of cherubs being tiny little children. They are much more pleasant to look at than a those three headed chimeras. This will be the last morning I will wake up staring at these infants,' Virgil mused to himself.

A butler meekly knocked on the door, as if fearful of waking Virgil up. The butler's previous experiences with rousing him had been less than pleasant. Virgil was known to be quite irritable when roused too early and glare at those who dared to disturb his sleep with what many described as glowing blue eyes resembling that of a demon.
"Come in," Virgil begrudgingly answered. A butler in his late thirties dressed in single pleated black trousers, a white shirt and a vest with with red tie opened the door. He had a stoic look on his face, but Virgil could clearly tell that the man had been up for several hours from the wrinkles on his finely ironed uniform. A maid followed closely behind, wearing a simple black dress with a small white collar and short sleeves with white cuffs. The maid looked more cheerful - almost excited, as she entered the room. She held an ivory suit made of linen and maintained the same distance behind the butler as they walked into the room until the butler until the butler stopped. The maid continued to walk while trying to hide a smile and the butler cleared his throat to remind her to keep her composure. She blushed and shuffled backwards to the same distance. The butler then bowed and exclaimed the morning's activities.

"Breakfast shall be served at the terrace today in half an hour. The madam has prepared an outfit for you," the butler turned to his side and spread his arms toward the suit as if presenting it to him before continuing, "Mary will be assisting you with preparations today. Should you require more assistance - ".
"Yes, yes, Alfred, I will call for you," Virgil interrupted. He had grown tired of hearing the same rehearsed lines from the butler from his year long stay and had frankly grown tired of the butler, who he felt was too haughty for a man in his position.
"It's Albert, sir," the butler responded politely. Virgil knew it quite well, but insisted on calling the man Alfred to get on his nerves. "Now if you will excuse me, I have other duties to attend." Albert turned around and his stoic visage was immediately replaced with a flustered and agitated look. Albert walked out the door and closed it behind him.

Soon after, Mary could no longer hold back her smile and she pranced toward the bed, nearly jumping on it before she caught herself as she realized that Virgil was completely nude. She stopped just short of the bed and shyly turned away in embarrassment. "Excuse my forwardness, sir" her voice quivered ever so slightly as she tried to regain her composure, “will you require any more assistance this morning?”

Virgil rose from his bed toward Mary and grasped her shoulder as if urging her to turn around. Mary complied silently and met his gaze. She could feel blood rushing to her cheeks and her heart racing as Virgil moved closer to her. His subtle, yet graceful movements enticed her to her very core, and as Virgil’s mouth inched closer to her face, she closed her eyes as if expecting to be kissed. However, he moved his head toward her shoulder until his lips lined with her earlobes, and he whispered into her ear. “My dear Marie, you have done enough by simply gracing me with your presence. This suit is indeed to my taste, but I am afraid I shall be departing today and I cannot dirty such fine wardrobe in my journey.”
Mary’s heart fluttered as his breath brushed her earlobes and found great delight in his accent and the way he pronounced her name. Even his scent was enticing, and her whole body shook from his abrupt advance. Mary stood in a daze by the bed and nearly lost her balance when Virgil removed his hand from her shoulder. When she opened her eyes, Virgil was already on his way to the bath.

---

Virgil took his time walking down the illustrious west hall of the Daedalus home. The guest room was near the very end of the west wing, beside the family’s adopted daughter - Elizabeth’s Daedalus’- old room. Every little detail, from the floor to the ceiling, was meticulously crafted - from the marble pilasters adjoining together to hold up the barrel vault ceilings with small chandeliers, to the large open windows facing the front of the Daedalus house. Much of the artwork in the west wing consisted of the Elizabeth, depicting her from simple portraits to interactions caught in still frame. The were a total of twelve paintings and sculptures made each year she was born. One could start at the door of her bedroom and find the oldest portrait and go toward the end of the hallway toward the entrance to the main hall and observe her twelve years of growth in the Daedalus house. The hallway was built with exactly fourteen barrel vaults separated by marble pilasters, and each section held a painting and a sculpture, with the exception of the last two portraits. Even the sections that had doorways had smaller sculptures that sat on a display, and directly above it there was another picture of her. Virgil surmised that the last two sections were to commemorate her seventeenth and eighteenth birthday, but due to her departure, they had been left empty. I’ve walked through this same hall for the last year and still can’t shake the feeling that I’m living in a shrine,She must not have liked the attention very much, otherwise she would have stayed, he surmised as he slowly took in every detail of every painting.

Virgil was the last to make it to the terrace. Marcus, the current head of the Daedalus family was reading a newspaper as Amelia was speaking to the head butler about what tea set to use after breakfast, until she saw Virgil emerge from the mansion.
“Oh, dear Virgil,” her expression showed clear dissatisfaction, “was the linen suit not to your taste?”

“Dear, he’s leaving for the South. What good will a linen suit do for him outside of this city’s walls,” Marcus rebuked half heartedly as his eyes scanned the newspaper. Before Amelia even had a chance to respond, Virgil spoke up.

“Madam Amelia, I quite liked the suit, but I fear I would dirty it should I bring it with me on my travel,” Virgil took a long gaze at her before bowing apologetically. Amelia’s disgruntled expression melted into one of sympathy. “You have already done so much for me that I can not thank you enough.” Virgil straightened up, walked to the table, and sat down. “And do excuse my late arrival last night. I wanted to admire the view of Oden before leaving for Treya. I called a colleague of mine who had mentioned that he had seen a woman resembling your daughter accompanying a merchant caravan from Eldrock to Treya.”

Virgil was in fact not in Oden at all yesterday. The ‘colleagues’ and long walks he spoke of were just excuses to hide the fact that Virgil had actually been flying from city to city searching for clues about her for the past year. It was quite difficult to track her, as she was constantly on the move, and she left very few clues about her next destination. He did, however, hear from a third party about a young beautiful woman had accepted a job as a guard for a merchant caravan.

“Oh, that is great news!” Amelia chirped. “You know, Virgil, the more I look at you, the more I am reminded of my daughter. You have the same eyes as her!”

“Indeed you do,” Marcus interjected as he put down his newspaper. “If we had not raised our Dear Elizabeth since her wake, I would have taken you to be her relative, but that would mean you would be at least a millennia old” he chuckled at the thought. Virgil joined Marcus’ laughter, not because of how foolish the idea was, but rather, he laughed because he was in fact much older. Before Elizabeth’s wake, the owners of her original cryogenic form was recorded since she had fallen from the wormhole. At one point, one of the previous owners had set out to try and find clues as to what race the statue might have belonged to, but no one had taken a step forward, so it was common inference that Ella was a unique phenomenon in the wormhole disaster.

“That aside, Virgil, are you not worried about the recent raids in the south? Just last night, General Zvalt of the defense corps had mentioned that even M’alo, the great city of Treya, has called for aid in defending their town. I hope Elizabeth has not got herself into any trouble, ” Marcus spoke with fatherly concern.

Even Belloc is asking for help? I’ve noticed the aftermath of these raids all across the west, but for a mayor who has prided himself for keeping a city safe for sixty years to be requesting aid, something serious must be brewing. I'd rather not get caught up in that, but if Elizabeth is headed in that direction, I just might have to, Virgil contemplated for a moment. He kept a calm demeanor as they continued eating breakfast, all the while planning where to go next. Should I start at the northern ruins in Treya, or at M’alo? It’s only been a day, and that caravan may not reach it until tomorrow. Perhaps I should scope out the route first. Still, though, if a city that has a defense corps that almost rivals Oden's to be asking for aid, she could be in danger.

"I am indeed, worried, but I am more so worried about your daughter's safety if she is traversing the Treya region," Virgil explained. "Do forgive me, but I must head out after breakfast."
"Oh, Virgil, sweetheart before you go I have a present for you! " Amelia almost jumped out of her seat in excitement. She called out for the head butler, who came out from the mansion carrying a gift box. "I want you take this. It's a camera. Go ahead. Open it."
"Dear, don't tell him what's inside before he can open it," Marcus grumbled.
"Mark, sweetheart, you know how excited I get about presents. Do forgive me Virgil. If you can, please take pictures of her and send them immediately back. We haven't seen our daughter in nearly a decade, and it would bring me great joy to see what she looks like now. And please, do take this money for your travels. There are few caravans that will take you as far south as M'alo, but there is a caravan that travels far as sourthern Eldrock."
You ask for her picture before the safety of your own daughter. No wonder she left, Virgil almost blurted out, but he maintained his composure as he accepted the gift and the purse of coins. Inside there were two thousand krell worth of a mixture of coins including two adranium coins. It was quite a lot for what he needed, but he graciously accepted. "Of course Madam Amelia. I shall write to you as soon as I see her. Words can not express my gratitude."