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Taraah - outside the inn

@Searat@RedPandaGamer@Ozzy Cross@Kumbaris

The dragoness was pulled out of her sky staring daydream as the rest of the group came out of the Inn with information to go on. She twisted her head to better hear what was mentioned. It sounded like the southern princess had a mind for this sort of thing, the plan was good, except for their seeming lack in execution. Well then... perhaps there was something she could do about that.

She got up, slowly walking to the group, the possibility of the Inn patrons seeing her in her true form completely lost on her. "Perhaps I could be of help. Wizard, you say you are skilled learning the ins and outs of spells that already exist, correct? If it will help you, have a look at this." she lowered her head, letting the chain with her amulet slip off of her neck and catch on one of her horns, dangling it in front of Rudolph's face.

"And before anyone gets any funny ideas, no, I am not flying you over the forest. I am not some stable animal. Also half of you was mean to me." she stuck out her tongue.
Command and control

"Well, I was the captain who used a mark XI missile as a tripple A against a fleet of Al'Kesh and gliders..." the captain grinned, "Probably best to keep doomsday weapons from the replicator war locked up, or at least in someone else' hands. If you have a list of what's out there do distribute it to the away team with detailed descriptions, a big red 'do not touch' label and a manual of how to disarm whatever it is. Better prepared than sorry." the captain requested.

She looked at the data projection, looking at their estimated position and the estimated time of arrival. Eight days remaining. She looked at the bridge crew: "Anyone brought a deck of cards?"

Bowels of the ship

"I didn't ask whether the materials are ready, I need something to take my mind off of the insufferable not-a-computer now, not in four hours." Morrigan groaned. "That is not to speak of the food. Staying on Earth for a while has given me a sweet tooth. How do you and Catherine prefer meat that is half raw is beyond my understanding." she frowned.

She moved to inspect the still. "Could you improve cycle time if you used the ship's cooling system instead of free air flow?"

Falnore's quarters

"I am looking forward to see the alien fauna as well." The engineer dreamed, "The flying animals on Earth are something amazing. Do you think there is a chance that a spacefaring civilization developed between the replicators wiping them all out and us arriving?" Falnore proposed. "I think we might find someone if they were somewhere on the outskirts of the galaxy, or possibly far off the stargate network."
Taraah and Thaddeus


Thaddeus would nod slowly, taking the piece of parchment and the small coin, he removed his blade in the opposite hand. Taking a deep breath he looked at the parchment, he would clear his throat a couple times. It had been some time since he pronounced anything draconic, it put a lot of strain on the throat if you were not a dragon. Handing the paper back to Pyrona he took the hilt of the blade in one hand and levelled it at his chest, in the other he clutched the coin which he placed over the hilt so they were touching, he stared at the hilt, a name would flash into his mind:

~Jaraah~


Taraah felt something stir. Inside of her, so deep within she didn't know she could feel that far into... into her very soul. For a moment, her body felt alien, as if someone else woke up from the deepest slumber, stirred and took the reins form her. But as quickly as the feeling came, it was gone, before the dragoness could figure out what happened. It frightened her to her core nevertheless. What the hell was the Mesmer doing with the spell? Did the magic reacted poorly to his nature? Or did it react to something else? No. Someone.

In another moment Thaddeus would begin to make noises tantamount to growls and jaw snaps, the veins in his neck bulged a bit as the pronunciation had to be forceful. The moment the spell was spoken there was an almost immediate reaction, it was strong, it would throw Thaddeus into a spiral as the whole world seemed to spin. Before long his consciousness was gone and everything went black.

At the same time, the dragoness decided to investigate what she felt. Fishing out another copper coin, she recited the incantation in her head and cast detect thoughts on the half-mesmer. She was curious as to what the spell revealed to him.





Out in the real world, the dragoness did not just see the same memory. She felt it. Every blow, stab, and unkind word. She almost screamed when the first impact came. A dull, crushing pain seared through her body, her bones feeling like they nigh shattered. She steeled herself, unable to do anything. By this point, she figured out what was happening. She was not just observing Thadeus' memory.

For the next minute or so, her soul recalled the memory! She stood through it all, only dropping to her knees at the end. She knew the wounds were not real, but they hurt her all the same. And when her soul stirred before, it was now screaming in rage at the injustice of it all! Her chest felt like it was going to explode.

What finally made her body cry out in anguish was when she saw the older Mesmer impale Thaddeus like he was made of butter. She felt like dying there and then, and a lesser dragon might. That was her brother! Her anguish turned to fury such as she has not felt since that day Nihelbet made her fight her siblings, and she drew her blade, pushing through the pain and charging forward! She would slay that Mesmer if it was the last thing her battered body ever did!

She woke up from the memory only when she slammed sword first into the wagon, the magic finally fading away and letting her go. She shook her head. No. Not her brother. Not in this life. Yet, anyway.


Thaddeus opened his eyes as the world around him spun into a frenzy and slowly but surely returned to the real world. A.. memory? But it was not his own, it couldn’t have been. Pyrona… had he been inside of a memory from Pyrona? No, not just inside a memory, it had felt as if he was living it himself, he could feel it still, everything that had happened was still reverberating in his body. The rage, the pain, it was almost overwhelming, not of his own but of the other that rivaled his own and it shook him. When he looked up and saw Pyrona’s sword inside the side of his cart he barely registered it as he stared at the dragoness. ”What the hell was that? Was that… was that your memory? What kind of spell did you have me do?”

"I don't know what you've seen. But I think I know why." the dragoness whined, stumbling a few paces away from the wagon to an empty space. With a whisper of her mantra, she changed back into her true self. Good thing they were not in clear view of the inn anymore. "Your Draconic could use some sharpening. I think you cast detect thoughts instead of detect presence by mistake. As to why you've seen some memory of mine? I have only one explanation. The spell latched onto what reacted most to the true name of the dragon." she lowered her head to look Thaddeus straight into the eyes. "Me. I apologize for intruding, but when you started casting I felt something resonate within me, so I cast detect thoughts on you. You must have been thinking of where that bone came form on some level. I saw you and Xevoaren battling against another Mesmer and doing, forgive me, poorly. I see no better explanation as to why the spell would react to to me rather than the bone - I carry the soul of Xevoaren. I was him in a past life." she proposed. It was a hypothesis, but she only needed the feelings in her core to know it was true.

”That's… that's impossible.. Thaddeus looked at Pyrona with a rather distasteful glare. She was mocking him, she had used her magic to peer into his thoughts and saw a memory and now she was playing a cruel joke on him, trying to get in his head. But the question was, did he really believe that? He wanted to but deep down his heart was telling him that she was telling the truth or at least she thought she was. It would explain why he felt a connection to her even though he knew nothing about her, but that would not be enough to convince him. ”So what you're saying to me.. Is that you are the reincarnation of Xevoaren?” He shook his head side to side, deciding to ignore what his heart was telling him deep down. ”He’s dead and he is not coming back, Alduin and him may have believed in reincarnation but not me. They spent hours trying to convince me but It was just something to make one feel better about death. A way to make it easier to live with the passing, convincing yourself day after day that they will come back someday when they never will. Spending year after year living with the hope that one day some stripling will look at you and in their eyes you will see your long departed brother. I don’t know why any of this is happening but I know this, your not the reincarnation of Xevoaren.”

"Of course." Taraah nodded, "A death is a death, and the person is not coming back, it is the end of our stories here in the mortal world, the only way to change that is a divine act. We do not believe in anything like that." She agreed.

"And I do not claim to be him. I am my own person, thank you very much. My life ends with my death. What we believe in is that the soul is immortal and moves on, reincarnating into a new being based on the worth of it's previous life. If you were a scumbag, your next life may be spent as an ant, or a honeybee, a member of a hive without free will, but spending your life doing work that matters for the benefit of others. Likewise, if you lived the life of a hero dedicated to the protection of the people, you may be a demigod in the next life." She explained.

"Naturally, like with all beliefs, there are sects that modify this part and that. I am not sure if what you were taught matches what I told you or whether you care to believe in it. It defies my beliefs as well! I was taught the soul cannot move on if the body is not laid to rest in its entirety." She nodded her snout towards the bone in the sword, "Yet here I stand. If you do not think my hypothesis is correct, then answer me this: Why did the spell target me, rather than the bone? You can ask the wizard to teach you how to cast the spell in a language you are proficient in. See if the result is the same."

She straightened up again and then coiled up next to the wagon, pondering the conundrum. "If you ask what this means… I do not know. Us meeting could just be a fluke. But what I saw in your head… I know what it's like to lose siblings. Meeting in a previous life or not, I will be there if you need me. Whether to talk or to kill someone."


Thaddeus would sigh and sit on the edge of the wagon crossing his arms as he thought of what Pyrona said. He didn’t have an answer to her question, he knew nothing of magic, Alduin tried to teach him some but it just did not take. That was one of the reasons he trained with a blade or close combat. ”Forgive me, I have become so untrusting through these passing years. In truth, I wanted to believe more than anything that his soul was here, for a lot of years that kept me going, but eventually I just had to let go of him.” Letting his mind wander he went back to the memory he had felt from the dragoness. If he really thought about it, the two of them were more similar than either of them would think. ”Look, I don’t know if an old soul resides within you, I don’t understand that kind of thing, I never did. But it is nice to see a dragon again, I've missed them for so long now, up until you whipped me with your tail I thought I would never see another live dragon again. For what it's worth, I am glad your here.” Thaddeus became quiet, he wasn’t all that good with emotions.

”Then I shall keep you company.” the dragoness purred, looking at the skies, ”Until you no longer need it, or grow tired of it. I have been looking for new home, perhaps I shall find it here yet.” After that, she laid her head on her tail, almost ready to doze off after the emotional flight of a revelation.
@Ozzy Cross

A small smile graced Taraah's face as she finally got somewhere with what she wanted. "I assume you know draconic pronounciation. It is a bit of dark magic that is as low level as it gets, but it serves some useful purposes." she said, producing a piece of parchment and a quill from her satchel. Then she wrote an incantation in draconic runes. When said out loud, the draconic language sounded like growls, jaw snaps, and stones rumbling down the side of the hill, but the words could be formed by a humanoid mouth, if barely.

"The ritual calls for a piece of a body to recall the soul it inhabited it. The older the body, the more of an imprint the soul would leave on it, but if cast early enough, even a young bone would do. Now, as you would know, knowing a dragon's true name is to have power over them. If you modify a detection spell to use a somatic input and think of the true name of the dragon, it should resonate with the soul recall and detect it as the dragon him or herself. I won't even need to know the name of the dragon, as you would not know the name if you weren't close." she said, sliding over the copper coin the detection spell required as a material component.

She hoped the man spoke truth. She could use someone she could trust. Most of all, it would be less strange why he felt familiar despite the two of them never meeting before.
Taraah laughed out loud as the wizard rated her performance, snapping her fingers and letting the reanimated bodies drop and rest forever. "Words of ignorance form a student of only half the books that were ever written!" She reached for one of the fallen bandits that was not dead, only writhing on the ground. "The use of magic can be distasteful, but not the magic itself. Necromancy can be used to raise an army of undead soldiers, or to heal injuries beyond the ken of healers." It turned out the subject of the demonstration was the bandit that Shina shot to the shoulder. Taraah ripped the arrow out, the arm hanging limply as the nerves were severed. Then, she cast a reanimation spell that replaced the severed nerves with magic. The bandit gazed on his arm that worked once more, flexing his fingers in front of his eyes.

Before Taraah swiftly snapped his neck.

"And even the undead soldiers can fight for good." She cleaned her blade on a piece of bandit clothing, noticing with displeasure that indeed, as she mentioned at Shina's forge, the silver plating was wearing off too much for her eyes' liking. Sheating the sword, she returned to the wagon, wondering if anyone would mind if she took a bite out of a bandit's liver. It was good for vitamins! She decided against it though, silently praying this inn was better than the last. The innkeep seemed more bubbly and awake at least. She looked back to Thaddeus, continuing their earlier conversation as if nothing happened: "So... would you agree to cast the spell yourself if I show you how? I need only to observe the results." she suggested.
"I said nothing about destroying you being simple. I said it's beneath me. I have no need to harm those who would lie to me. Why spend such an effort for any scum of the sort? Simply ignoring their existence is far less tiresome." the dragon-turned-witch grinned. She wanted to continue the conversation, but the group was rudely interrupted by a bunch of different kind of scum looking for easy coin (And no, she definitely never raided a caravan herself, nooooo!).

"Come, bandits! Face the fire and darkness themselves, if you dare!" She roared in her draconic voice loudly enough to rattle everyone present, less of a sound and more of a shockwave. Several arrows buried themselves in her fur coat that occupied the spot she just vacated in one long jump, landing just behind the smoke barrier Thadeus created. "Suffer my rage!" She growled as the silver blade was drawn and pointed at one of their attackers. Everyone so far seemed to incapacitate the bandits. Taraah had no such plans. In a second the length of her blade was engulfed in fire, which promplty shot forward as a jet, searing half of the flesh off of the poor sap in front of it.

Then, she stabbed the tip of her blade into the ground, and a vile, black aura seemed to coil like tendrils around her.

"Rise!"

The still smoldering skeleton twitched, got up, and proceeded to claw at the eyes of the man standing next to it.
@Ozzy Cross@Searat

As the wagon, horse and the motley group finally got moving, Margaret kept walking alongside at a brisk pace. Keeping up was nothing to her, but sitting down on the cart might lead to the cart getting an axle broken. Or all of them. Her illusion spell could only hide so many things, and her mass was not one of them, her human form leaving rather deep footprints anywhere that was not paved.

She kept her talk with Thaddeus: "You need not release the blade form your hand. If you were truly close to those dragons, I wonder... did they reveal to you their true names?" She asked. True names were reserved for family and only a few very close, very trusted friends. Heck, in her family, she only trusted her father with it. Her brothers were opportunistic blacks and the witch of a female that called herself their mother would one day die by her hand, if it was the last thing Taraah ever did. "If the dragon since perished, I could hardly use it against them, and knowing it I could perform a resonance spell to gauge if you are truthful." she explained.

"If you are, you have my undying friendship. If you are lying... Well, frankly, dealing with that is beneath me." she snotred amusedly. "I can not lose the feeling though that for some reason fates decided I should meet you. One does not simply wander into a friend of dragonkin, as the rest of this town clearly shows."

She was briefly amused by the return of the apologetic wizard. "Better an apologetic bigot and coward than one not reformed at all," she shot an ugly look towards TOM, "I will fight by your side, wizard."
@Zanavy@Ozzy Cross@RedPandaGamer@Kumbaris@Searat

Taraah - In front of TOM

Margaret raised her arm, offering it to the Hawk to perch on. "I thank you for your offer, although I worry that it may more likely result in a mob with pitchfork and torches chasing down on me. I think I will stay disguised for now, and let my actions show the people who I am. If some of them then decide to attack me after all, well, that is their folly." she shrugged, "I would rather go for a relaxing flight, sky-sister. You must know of a good hunting ground around." Taraah moaned. She still only had the mystery soup and foul eggs to eat. Hopefully a large deer or small bear will not pay attention while they are searching for Guan.

The dragoness nodded at Thaddeus. "Well, if he did, you shown me how to turn him off." she grinned, "And I would like to hear more very much. After we return then, prefferably over a roast and spirit." she nodded.

Shiina came back making a ruckus and trying to keep everyone from killing each other over misunderstandings and prejudices. When the question of her shapeshifting came up, Taraah had to pause to think before answering: "While rpesent company may be used to my true form by now, any strangers we meet would cause issues. Worry not about me though, I have means of keeping up with a horse." she said finally.

Just as she did so, the night elf came crashing out of a window of her establishment, before the wizard that proclaimed to also help them bolted faster than Taraah could summon a fire circle to prevent him form fleeing. "Ugh! We should swing by that coward's tower and hold him to his promise!" She growled furiously.

Taraah - Denied attention in front of TOM

"Aaaaaw! What you'd done that for?" Taraah almost bawled, "The little guy was clearly excited to see me, the first person to do so in this town! Did I fail to mention I love being adored, pampered and worshipped if you like?" she shook her head, wisps of flame starting to cover her sclaes, until once more they vanished and Margaret stood on the street again. She walked over to Thaddeus' back, reached out into her satchel and pulled out a vial with unidentifiable substance. She uncorked it and waved it under Thomas' nose, making the boy gasp loudly and open his eyes.

She walked a few steps over, looking at Thadeus: "Do you know whom it belonged to? If not, I would like to examine it. I'll return the sword undamaged, just a magical resonance test." she asked as politely as she was able given the item to be examined. "But if you are a friend of dragonkin, you have nothing to worry about where I am concerned. Unlike a certain night elf." she shot an annoyed glance towards the Inn. "You spoke of my kind as your family. I would like to hear that story, if you are willing to share some time."
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