Amid whispering snores, drool delicately tip-toed on moonlight-glimmer feet across the lines in a sleeping Asura's parted lips and dangled toes over the threshold of her mouth, wiggling them just above an arguably priceless work of magical literature. Too many continuous hours spent poring over the same few works time and again in a passion-drunk scramble on the heels of a budding thesis had drawn a fuzzy curtain over her mind and curled her eyelids into each other. "Just a little nap," she had said to herself. Now she laid but seconds away from irreparably staining her impromptu pillow of time-scuffed vellum. As the drool thread limbered up to kick free and spelunk into the book binding cave below, a soft hanker-chief robbed it of its chance.
"She would never forgive herself for something like that," a man muttered quietly.
In his hand, the simple cloth square slipped across her mouth before he stowed it softly in a nap-sack tied at his waste. The sleeping Asura murmured and tossed a bit, but did not wake. He sighed. The house's sudden collapse into a startlingly aberrant silence had not come from her being kidnapped or murdered-which was good, honestly-but she clearly was not going to make any breakthroughs that day. However, the situation gave the man a somewhat rare opportunity to really have a good look at his company. An Asuran woman. Ragged robes with mismatched patchwork plains joined by winding railroads of impromptu stitching. Short, auburn hair that hinted at curls dangled about her cresent ears, now limp upon her desk. Graduate of the College of Synergetics with a rabid obsession for the magical arts of hexes and enchantments. And most importantly: the reason he found himself in this humid swamp, fumbling with carpentry, slaying jaguars, drakes and fending off bandits while somehow managing to drum up edible meals each day for himself and the small creature in question now snoring softly before him with her head coddled in a pillow of time-scuffed vellum texts.
Truth be told, from her little soapbox in Divinity's Reach's district promenade, she specified her preference for an Engineer of some sort to join her in her mission to the Shattered Henge: a swamp in the southwestern part of the Brisband Wildlands region. Apparently, she was hoping to hire someone with a background in establishing and maintaining stable laboratory or experimentation spaces. However, her criteria must have been rather flexible for her to reconsider those prerequisites when an eager Guardian volunteered himself to accompany her without pay simply on the off-chance that she might come across the goal of her research: the revival and mainstreamed reimplementation of techniques regarding sustained magical influences over a person that could be either self-generated or imposed on another.
Thinking back on it now, it all seemed rather shady to the man. Why did she so readily accept his offer despite it being drastically different from what was her original plan? What was an Asura doing in the Human capital city soliciting associates when she could have probably found someone just as capable in Rata Sum? Why was she so concerned about magics that seemed to be the elder enchantments that inspired him to become a Guardian in the first place? Even so, with all of those questions like rocks clicking in the gears of his mind, he still remembered the rush of discovery that they shared back then. The moment he first understood what her mission was, standing together in front of that empty merchant stall, he had to jump at that chance—maybe the only chance he would ever get in his life to unlocking the secrets behind the proud and alluring legends entwined within in his profession's origin. In the end, when he had finally spit his mushy monologue bubbling with stories from his childhood told by his grandmother about monks long ago that could protect and defend with the simple whisper of a word and wave of a focus, the way that Asura's eyes lit up like the sun quickly crashing a mid-summer's dawn across the dark morning sky, he knew that he had found a great ally and someone worth protecting.
So he hacked at mimosas and crafted a hut-shaped shamble, clumsily planed out ragged furniture and bookshelves from poorly hewn wood and did whatever he could so that his ally could devote herself to tracking magical energy spikes and craft her theories in hopes that one day—just maybe one day—she might find that lead that would change everything. But it had been seven months since that fateful meeting, and as hopeful and devoted as he was, for Rell Whittlestark, even his cleric's heart could not completely abate the thick breath of the Maguuma Jungle that creeps and rots the treasure of an idealistic adventurer's dream.
He was tired, but even so, slivers of hope still cracked out of him in the small smile on his face as he went off and came back with an Asura-sized blanket from the exhausted scholar's cot. Then he sighed again. The drool was back. He had been gone fifteen seconds and she was once more about to ruin a priceless tome in her sleep. His furrowed brow and eyelids twitched at his brain's only remedy for the situation. With chainmail-coated arms leaving trails of rainfall whispers behind his movements, he scooped his hands under the Asura's armpits and lifted her swiftly from her chair in order to preserve the book. This was not something for which she could remain asleep.
"Muh, fuhh." It took a bit for her to fully understand what was happening. "RELL! What are you doing?!" she yelped, now fully awake and suspended in air: the Guardian's hostage en route to her proper bed.
"You drool in your sleep," the cleric muttered, with the smallest slip of enjoyment—the kind a child gets when he finds out a secret.
"I—I! You! Get your—! You were watching me?!"
"Watching you about to destroy a precious tome full of insight into lost magics."
She huffed. "You're supposed to be guarding outside."
"I came in to check on you when it suddenly got a little too quiet."
"You don't need to worry about me."
"I do need to worry about the books, apparently," they had reached her cot by this point.
"Are you just going to throw banter at me?!" she shut her eyes and seized about bitterly in his grip.
"Did you find anything today, Kleppa?" It was a serious question; spoken not with gravity but rather with the kind of soft feeling in a mother's voice when she asks about her child's day out. One he asked every night. One for which the Asura rarely had a positive response, but even so, after seven months of repeated, patient questioning and given the situation, the familiar interrogative was more like a sorry than a real probe for information.
The Asura sighed limply. The Guardian set her down.
"There's something around here," Kleppa began softly, teeth gritted with a frustration that they both shared but Rell managed to more successfully conceal, "I can sense it in the way I can channel the elements here and some research from several Dynamics academics seem to agree. They were working to harness the anamolies, but nothing ever came of it. It's here, Rell. I know it is, but..." her voice lilted, sad like the whole experience of this search had foamed up and crashed into her like high tide in a single second: all of that work and time with nothing to really show for it.
Rell dropped the little blanket on top of her head. "We're running low on supplies again," he said calmly, assuredly; then frowned a bit in hindsight. "I mean, lower than usual. I want to make a trip to the nearby encampment to the east. Seems the Durmand Priory has been busy lately and the place has sprung up into quite the little settlement. I haven't been lucky with the game around here lately so figured I could trade for something that could tie us over for a little while."
"Actually, tomorrow I wanted to run some more tests with my elemental magic," Kleppa said. "I think you could actually help too." This caught the Guardian's interest. "I've been taking notes on the duration of several invoked effects. In addition to any sustained or amplified elemental transmuations, I'd like to observe any quantitative anamolies you might be able to generate with your symbols or energy spheres. I'm more sure than anything now that tracking such phenomena is the key to a lead."
As if waiting for her to finish, a soft rumble—like a pair of angry hands twisting and ripping wet cloth—bubbled up from her stomach. Blood vessels gorging tingles in her cheeks, the Asura gave her fiercest poker face.
"And you'd be willing to starve for that?" Rell chuckled.
"Any day," Kleppa flashed a shark-toothed grin.
In their beds—Kleppa's cot arguably more comfortable than Rell's bedroll for reasons established at the beginning of their partnership regarding Asuran pride—the pair rested off their frustrations and quarrel, doing their best to think of tomorrow as the day that they would find something that could bring back the magics of old. Rell tilted over to grab another look at his only tangible hold on that hope: a little ball of blanket with ears bordered by moonlight that yawned in through the only window in the entire hut. Another gut mumble gargled from her side of the room and the ball twitched with a surrendering moan. Rell thought to himself how it'd be best to get some food as soon as possible. He was also feeling the effects of their meager diet as of late. Another shockingly timed stomach groan gurgled this time from his own belly. He could have sworn that he heard Kleppa snicker and thought that, well, at least she wasn't alone anymore. They were certainly in this together if anything—daily victories and failures alike.
The following morning, Rell awoke drastically hungry. Despite his interest in Kleppa's experiments, he made the snap decision to dress and leave early en route for the nearby encampment, He assumed a half-stavred state would do neither of them good whether in guardian a hut from wild animals or discovering the secrets of ancient magics. However, along with his dire motivation for food, Rell felt rather excited about leaving the swamp. Frisky wind gusts skipped through his auburn hair, refreshing him on his hike eastwards with several animal pelts in tow. Strolling through the gate, the cleric noted a pub built close to the lifeblood of transit in the town: the Mirkrise Waypoint. Having been tied to muck and water for over half a year, his drool pooled and stomach gurgled when the air suddenly drove the dank spike of ale's wheat into his nose. The palpable odor snaked into his mouth and toe-tapped across his tongue in time with the plentiful clink of heavy glasses. His trading would have to wait.
Meanwhile, Kleppa awoke to a note left on her bed.
"Breakthroughs don't happen on empty stomachs. Why not take a day off? I'll return by sundown with some supplies."
She crumpled the script in her hands. "How dare he underestimate the potential of genius. I don't need food!" Throwing the ball of paper onto the ground, the lonely crinkles foamed in her ears. Her own stomach moaned again in a cheeky echo. "That idiot better hurry back."
Still, unwilling to delay her research by an entire day, she set aside her aged tomes and hunger pangs to venture out towards where the Shattered Henge's sticky mouth of stone cliff teeth breathed grassy plains north into the Duskstruck Moors. In an open field she produced a scepter from her backpack and channeled her radiating arcane energies through the air until lightning buzzed in her marrow. With her weapon in hand, she focused the spell in mind and launched a crackling stream of electricity that would have made Tesla blush. She wheeled around slowly while maintaining her spell, paying careful attention to the influence of latent energies whirling in the air.
North yielded nothing special. West drained her as usual. South saw her slipping slowly; stamina dwindling. East shot her backwards several feet. She yelped as her stream of bolts roared its reach further than she thought possible and recoiled violently back into her body. Lying on the ground recovering, Kleppa quickly tried to put the data together in her stunned mind. She wobbled to her feet, hair and ears on end and took a good look down the path her lighting sparked. Southeast. Nothing like this had ever happened before. For a split second, alone in that field, she felt herself overwhelmed with arcane power before discharging that powerful attack as if she had tapped a well of personal energy that she never knew she had. She plundered her mind for a possible cause, but despite her interest in logical conclusions one answer dominantly skimmed above the surface of her frantic, foaming thoughts. It was only a tenative hypothesis with no real proof, but its implications spun her hope-drunk brain headlong into the next sentence:
"Did someone... that energy. Could someone channel an enchantment with that?" She looked in the direction in which she fired her arc lightning. She recognized the resonant energies of an Asuran waypoint cube.: the Mirkrise Waypoint.