"Speech: Halkeginian"

'Thoughts'

'Spells and the like'

"Speech: Common"

"Speech: Draconic"

TAoM

Raskreia after having finally gotten something into her stomach other than a bit of dry meat, and having (hopefully) dealt with everything that she needs to deal with for the day, goes back to what she originally planned on doing, sunbathing.

Lately she spent too much time in her demi-plane, and while it does have a 'sun' it is not quite the same as the real thing. What it does have is a small lake of magma which she sometimes uses to relax in. Since she developed her inherent immunity to all things hot she rather started to enjoy normally uncomfortable (read: lethal) temperatures. That is not to say she dislikes the cold, that is actually not the case, she likes almost any sort of weather, this is mostly thanks to both her immunity to the adverse effects of heat, and her resistance to cold, as long as it is not storming she will most likely never complain about the weather.

Never the less, she does not want to take any chances of being interrupted again and just wants to take a nap already, so she uses 'Dimension door' to get to the roof of the academy, makes sure she is secure, and lies down to fall into blissful sleep.

After sundown: TAoM

*Yawn* "Now that was a nice nap, been too long since I took a nap under a real sun. Now what do I do though?" She thought

Looking around the courtyards from the roof to see if she can spot anything she indeed does spot a certain someone familiar near the same fountain they met last night.

Siesta has been in deep thought the entire day since Raskreia told her and the other three about her worlds magic. Its sounds too good to be true in fact. If it is true however it might be her biggest chance, for something greater, ever.

After getting closer to her the half-dragon calls down to get her attention "Hey Siesta, are you the only one around here that does the laundry, or am I just that lucky to meet you here two nights in a row?"

The sudden call startles the poor maid out of her thoughts, who then quickly looks to see from where her new friend is calling, and not spotting her "I'm up here." Comes a new call whereupon she does finally spot Raskreia on top of the roof above her.

"Raskreia! Don't startle me like that. And how did you get up there? How are you going to get down?"

Rather than answer her Raskreia merely takes a step off of the side of the building, much to the shock of the ravenette. But before she could meet the unforgiving ground she simply casts a 'Feather fall' and slowly descends to the ground.

"Well, that's how I am going to get down, as to how I got up in the first place. I teleported, could have just flown… with you know… my wings, but don't want people to see them yet. From what I have seen of your culture so far, which admittedly is not all that much, you seem quite a bit more xenophobic than the people I'm used to. No offence of course." She says as she fixes her hair that got a bit out of place after sleeping.

Siesta for her part quickly composes herself, she somewhat understands now what Rask meant when she said that her friends are jaded towards her antics "None taken. I was actually hoping to speak with you, but I couldn't find you anywhere. Then again I would not have thought to look on the roof, probably shouldn't surprise me that you were up there." She says as she turns back to finish cleaning the clothes she is supposed to wash.

"Oh, you wanted to talk to me? What about? But before that, I should probably tell you how to use that ring I gave you. Its simple really, you can use it to do the following: Clean, warm of chill, lift something of up to one pound, or alter the flavor of whatever you affect with this. And to do that you merely need to think of the effect you want to happen while vaguely pointing the ring at whatever it is you want to affect. Simple, right?"

After that explanation Siesta looks at the plain silver ring with new appreciation "Are you sure I can have this? You said this came to you cheap but I cant believe something like this would be cheap. I know it is rude to ask about the price of gifts but how much did this actually cost?" She shifts slightly as she says that

"Yes I'm sure you can have it, if I wasn't I wouldn't have given it to you in the first place. and if you really want to know how much it costs its no problem for me to tell you, it makes little difference to me. Besides I made it myself so its not like I paid its market price." As she says that she moves to sit on the fountain to watch Siesta try out the ring the way she had it explained. It took her a bit but she managed to get the shirt clean. At which both of them smile at the small success.

"Well lets see here making, that ring cost me approximately 500 gold pieces of materials, and about 8 hours of work. Meaning that it could be potentially sold for around 1000 gold pieces in my home give a or take a bit, I don't know how much it would be worth around here though."

The way Raskreia just stated that Siesta was wearing more money on her finger than she was likely to make in the next decade, as if it was a every day occurrence is quite a bit less shocking than it would have been for the maid just yesterday. As such her reaction is merely a loud "WHAT!?" as she might have fainted yesterday. "How can you just give something like that away? For that matter how can you afford something like that if you are not a noble, and you don't seem like a merchant either, if you don't mind me asking of course."

"Oh no, I don't mind at all, its not like it's a secret. Well, I spent a good portion of my life as an adventurer, a profession that if you are good at it can and will make you rich in time. Treasure hunting, monster extermination, bounty hunting, that sort of thing. I remember not too long after I started out we had a minor job to rid this town of a werewolf for which we got paid 1000 gold pieces between four of us." By this time Siesta finished applying the cleaning properties of the ring to the clothes, and they started walking around the academy.

"Or this one time we were tasked to retrieve someone that was kidnapped by pirates, that job paid 5000 gold pieces between, again, the four of us, but we also managed to steal the pirates ship and sell it, including all the things it had on it, that was another 25000 gold pieces right there, we could have probably sold it for more but we were in a hurry, and had not patience to seek out a better buyer." Siesta was slack jawed, that was ALLOT of money, even 'just' the werewolf mission she went on could feed her family for years.

"Of course such method of income is somewhat unreliable, not to mention hazardous to ones health. And since I hired a number of servants to take care of my mansion I had had built somewhere along the way," 'Lets not mention that said mansion is in a private demi-plane for now' "I needed some form of stable income too, which is why also opened up two mines, that I co-own with my three friends mind you, to gain some stable form of income. In that sense, at risk of sounding like a pompous asshole, I don't really consider 500 gold pieces all that much anymore. And a friend is worth something so 'minor' any day in my opinion." The last statement earned Raskreia a grateful smile.

"Thank you." Said Siesta still smiling.

"Anyway, enough talk about money, its not really I topic I like to talk about. You wanted to talk to me about something?" At this Siestas smile got replaced by a small blush because she forgot about the original reason why she wanted to talk to Raskreia, but it was soon replaced by a determined expression.

"I wanted to ask you if you could teach me how to use your type of magic." This earned her a small grimace from Raskreia which sent her into a slight panic at being rejected.

It is in a sad tone Rask replies "I would, I really would. But I'm truly not sure I can teach you. I'm a sorceress, I was born with magic similar how the local nobles are. And I never really bothered to learn how wizards learn to cast magic, nor could I teach you to become some form of divine caster. Unless you are a sorceress and just don't know it, I cant help you, I'm sorry." Siesta could tell she was sincere in the fact that she would help her if she could, that does not make it any less disappointing however.

"So that means I wont be able to use magic after all. Should have seen that coming." She says with a tone of acceptance.

"Huh? I didn't say that. I only said that it cant be me that teaches you. I could try and set you up with a proper teacher if you want to learn magic. I'm just sad it cant be me teaching you, that would have been fun." Raskreia said with a apologetic smile, as if she had something to apologize for. Whereupon she found herself lung-crushing hug by a extremely happy maid.

"You would do that for me? Really? But I cant leave the academy. My family relies on my income for their living." This got a thought-full look from the half-dragon "How much do you make a month, if you don't mind that is?"

"We maids of the academy are paid quite well, we make 3 gold pieces in a month."

"Alright. Now I need to ask you something important and do not answer this lightly." Rask says in a serious tone, Siesta has never seen her like this before, all the other times she was so easy going and carefree, now she is all business. "Just how serious are you about learning, just how willing are you to put possibly years of your life into learning the path of the arcane, or mayhap divine. This is not something to undertake lightly, nor will you have an inborn shortcut, as I and these brats calling themselves nobles around here had." She takes a short breath.

"The reason I am asking is, because I would be willing to fund both your family, and your apprenticeship for the duration thereof. Now this would be an investment I would be willing to make, but it is not the money I'm concerned about. Nay, to do this I would have to pull some strings as you are already slightly above the normal age at which someone becomes an apprentice, and if you were to not take this seriously it could be potentially damaging to my reputation, not to mention the fact that you would have wasted not only your own time but also the time of the one to teach you." They stare into each others eyes for a long moment before Rask continues. "I want you to think about your answer, and I will ask for said answer when I think you have had enough time to think. Now it is quite late, you should probably head to bed, and rest. Good night." With that she took a turn down a hall leaving a thoughtful maid behind.

Next morning: TAoM

Louise woke up feeling quite excited. Today was the day of The Void which means she would be free to go to the capital with Raskreia, maybe if she were to impress the woman with how grand Tristain is, she would be more inclined to stay here.

Looking towards the haystack serving as her bed for the time being she notices that Rask is already up and doing her morning routine. "Morning Raskreia." "Morning." "I had planned that we could ride to the capital today, as I have this day free also, it being the day of

The Void." That got the attention of the 'elf'.

"The capital you say? How far is it from here?"

"Oh, just a under two hours ride. So it is not that far from here."

"Great you go get ready I'm going to get my mount." With those words the sorceress was out the room already.

'What did she mean "she is going to get her mount?"' was what Louise thought 'I hope she didn't mean to steal a horse or something'.

With Raskreia

Our resident half-dragon is currently walking towards an open space in a courtyard for what she had in mind. Some students are around and a few are giving her curious glances, including a certain dark skinned girl.

'Well this is a somewhat unexpected yet welcome surprise. I wonder what the capital here is like.' "Well whatever 'Gate'" As she said the spells name a black circle appears in mid air. Those that look through can see that it looks like a portal into some sort of verdant grassland, but they can also see what appears to be a mansion in the distance. What none of those that see this, other than Raskreia, know is that this is an inter-dimensional portal leading to Raskreia's personal Demi-Plane.

Taking a few steps through the portal Raskreia then appears to shout something, but none on the Halkeginian side of the portal can hear what is said, and Raskreia then just steps back through the portal.

Kirche being curious about what is going on walk up to the half-dragon in disguise. "What is this portal thing darling?" upon hearing the voice of a friend said dragon half turns around to flash Kirche a smile but goes back to concentrating on the portal.

"It's a gate to my home, I wanted to get a friend of mine over."

"A friend you say, I must admit that I am curious as to what they will be like. If they are only half as interesting as you then we are in for a ride." This earned her a amused huff from Rask.

"You'll see, there she is coming right now"

Suddenly leaping out of the portal comes a snow white tiger, that stops just short of Raskreia. As soon as the Tiger is through the portal closes behind it.

Raskreia turning towards the tiger and says words in a language that none of the students present understand. "Fekiikiri thurir. Si mi saeuth wux confnal"("Greetings friend. I am glad you came")

And to everyone's shock the tiger actually huffs in what one can only assume to be amusement before replying in the same language.

"Lae sjek si tiliw dolruth svern shafaer wer krehl ekess ossalur mrith wux, ekess vucot dout apzen wux geou itrewic sari korth creol svaklar korja wer idol "("As if I could pass up on the chance to travel with you, knowing you, you will get into some kind of trouble on the way.")

"Did that tiger just speak?" Kirche's voice breaks through the two friends reunion, and both their attention is now on the red-head.

"Well, yes she did, Felniir is not a quite a normal tiger."

"Felniir, huh? She is quite pretty isn't she, can she speak in our language?"

"Sadly not, she speaks two languages, neither of which you understand."

"Pity, I'm sure she knows some juicy secrets of yours."

"Heh, that she does, but you will just have to learn my language then if you want to know them." She replies with a wink.

"Speaking of, how do YOU speak our language, I highly doubt your homes language is the same as ours." Raskreia blinks a few times then starts laughing lightly.

"Would you believe you are the first to ever ask me this, most people just assume their language must be important enough for me to learn it. I'm wearing a magic item on me that lets me understand and speak any language, only thing it does not let me do is write. Quite useful id say for a traveler."

"I'll say, just how many magic items do you have on you?"

Rask just shrugs "A few."

Kirche huffs in amusement. "Anyway, I ought to be going Tabitha will be waiting for me at breakfast."

"Alright, have a good one. I will be going to find Louise."

Felniir pads up when Kirche left "That one reeks of pheromones. If I did not know better, I would say she was interested in you. What did you do?"As they talk they are slowly walking towards the front gate.

"Nothing that should warrant the kind of interested you are implying. She called you pretty by the way."

"Ohh, I like her already. Where are we going today?"The mild excitement in her Voice is not missed by Raskreia

"The one that summoned me is offering a tour of the capital of this country, and I took her up on it." She stats sheepishly.

"And let me guess, you wanted a ride for the trip. I should feel offended that you only called me now because you don't want to walk or ride a horse."There was no real bite behind the accusation.

"Oh lay off it! Walking would take to long, and you know how much I hate riding on horses. Besides, its not like you even notice my weight."

"True, but you could also just teleport." Was the retort.

"And miss the scenery? Never!" This made them both laugh before falling into comfortable silence in which they waited a few minutes for Louise to shot up and for Raskreia to pull out a saddle out of her bag of holding and saddle Felniir.

As Louise got closer her horse got distinctly more uncomfortable at the presence of a Felniir, and Louise was not far off.

"Fa- Raskreia! Where did that tiger come from? Don't tell me that is the mount you talked about."

"Why yes dear Louise, it is indeed the mount I was talking about. This is Felniir, a dear companion of mine. And I brought her here from my home."

"How?" She could not believe it, her familiar seemingly had a familiar of her own.

"Magic." Was the deadpan response.

"Right, I just hope it wont eat me or my horse on the way." With that they set out.

"Don't worry, she wont eat you." 'Not unless you make her angry that is.'

One and a half hours of travel later: Tristania

"You know, that must have probably been the easiest it has ever been for me to enter a town with Felniir with me. The guard barely even gave her a glance" The unusual trio was currently walking down the main street of town.

"While I still don't understand why you insisted on bringing it with us into town, it was probably because the guard assumed you to be a noble and it to be your familiar."

"Well, that's convenient. So what is there around here to see?"

"We could go and see the palace, also I'm sure the market has some interesting things to see, where do you want to go first?" Rask contemplated for a moment before deciding to visit the market first.

A short walk later they arrived at their destination, it was a bustling street filled with market stalls and all the buildings were either shops or restaurants. One could find allot of things from all over Halkeginia here.

"What do you think? Quite impressive is it not? You can find things even from even Romalia." Louise stated with proud voice at being able to show a foreigner how great her own country is.

"It is quite nice." She tried to sound impressed, she really did 'Sometimes I wish long term adventuring was not so desensitizing to being impressed. I can tell that Louise must be proud so I cant very well say "Yeah I have seen the planar market within the astral plane where there is almost nothing one cant get" or "I have been to a marketplace within the city of Utopia once sooo…" tough I suppose I shouldn't read a book by its cover, if I don't try to enjoy it I wont be able to in the first place.'

A few hours later they left the market to go see the palace. Louise bought herself a new dress for the upcoming ball at school, while Raskreia bought quite a bit more.

She bought a few sets of clothes as well, yet not for herself, not needing to since she has a set of sleeves of many garments, but mostly for her friends back home. She also bought a few local books and maps for some of her more scholarly friends, including a dictionary of all five major languages of Halkeginia. She also bought some seeds for fruits and vegetables she has never heard of, including a book on how to cultivate them.

They took a rest in a park in the shadow of the palace where they ate some of the fruits they have bought earlier.

"This is the royal palace. Within reside the current queen and princess. The king died not long ago." Raskreia did notice the slight change of tone at the mention of the princess but did not dwell on it.

"It is quite nice, as far as palaces go. I always wanted to live in one, but the only chance I ever had to do so was when this one prince wanted to have me as a glorified concubine." The resentful tone in Rask's voice was not missed by Louise, who choked on a piece of apple at the statement.

"You were a concubine!?" She exclaimed.

"No! Were you not listening? I just stated that I never lived in a palace and the only chance to WOULD have been to become part of a prats 'harem-in-all-but-name'."

"How could you refuse a royal like that? What if you got tried for treason or something."

"HAH! Yeah right, it was not even my home country. We were just passing through, and we were doing a job for that countries king. Whom I told, in no uncertain terms, that if his son were to lay his hands on me he would lose said hands. I admit I could have handled that a bit more diplomatically, but thankfully the king is nothing like his son, and took my statement in stride."

There was mirth in her eyes as she retold her story, and Felniir, who got a regular casting of 'Comprehend Languages' for the day, was smiling lightly to the side at the memory of threatening to bite princeling's genitals of. Not like she would follow up on that threat, there was a limit on what she would put into her mouth.

Louise was just glad that her familiar did not get into trouble for her actions, even tough it would have been deserved in that case.

They spent the rest of the time wandering aimlessly through the city and with idle chatter.

On the road back

Raskreia had quite a bit of fun, it has been a while she had been to a new city, she always liked exploring cities. While it was not as grand as a fair few of the cities she had been to, nor had there been any species other than humans around (something that was a somewhat novel experience for her.), it was by far not the worst city she had been to. A shudder ran down her spine at the memory of her visit in Egorian, capital of Cheliax… never again will she willingly go there.

On the way Raskreia notices something that was not there before, a toppled tree lay across the road making Rask scoff 'some things are just universal aren't they'

Unlike Louise who had not yet realized the significance of what they were seeing, Felniir did and quietly whispered "I told you, you would find trouble, or it would find you the moment you leave town."Earning a small laugh from her rider who discreetly prepared to cast a spell, as they both moved slightly closer to Louise. Much to the discomfort of her horse.

As they got closer Louise started to complain about poor road maintenance, which Raskreia for the sake of appearance mimicked as she let kept a close eye on anything going on.

Felniir not having to hold to appearances was looking around, and smelled the air. And she could tell there was a group of people hiding slightly off the road on either side.

She quietly whispered again "Small group, both sides, cant tell how many, no more than 20."

As they reached the tree a group of men stepped out from behind them and on both sides effectively boxing them in. The group consisted of five men on the left and three in the back, with another six on the right. There were 2 archers on both the right and the left side who had arrows pointed at them, all but one of the rest had some form of melee weapon, and they were all equipped with either chain or leather armor.

After a moment the last person, the apparent leader, and probable mage judging from the wand, spoke up.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here? Two noble ladies out for a ride and no guards in sight. You will fetch us a fine ransom."

"Hey boss, look at the one on the kitty, ain't she a fine one, can we have some fun with her later?"

"As long as they are still alive by the end of it I don't care what you do."

Louise was horrified, she and Raskreia were going to get kidnapped, and most likely raped. If only she never suggested this stupid trip.

Raskreia on the other hand was not really nervous at all, this was not the first time after all that she was waylaid by bandits. True most of the time she had a group of equally experienced companions with her. But at the same time most of the time those that ambushed them could at least somewhat back their words up with, if nothing else, appearance. Something that these people could not. Not only could she not sense a single magic item on them, but by the way they held their weapons and behaved, she could tell that they underestimated them, something that a experienced combatant would never do. ESPECIALLY when dealing with what they already know to be a spellcasters.

Letting out a sigh she addresses the leader "I know you will refuse, but I will offer anyway. Just go to the capital and turn yourselves in, that way none of you will be hurt any more than necessary." Which earned her laughter from the surrounding men.

"I don't think you realize what sort of situation you found yourself in, you would be shot before you could draw your wand. Speaking of, men, go relieve them of their wands. Watch out for that cat though."

Raskreia merely shook her head. "Well, I tried 'Time Stop'." Everything around her 'stopped' at those words, and she could now take a few seconds to survey the situation.

Quickly deciding on a course of action she cast a 'Create Pit' on the people behind her, encased the ones on her left in a 'Wall of Stone' (she did leave them a few small breathing holes) followed by a cast of 'Black Tentacles' to finish things off but used a rod of the 'Merciful' metamagic to ensure they would not die.

Time resumes flowing normally once more, and the formally cocky jeers of the bandits turned into exclamations of shock, confusion, and panic. The three behind her fell into the pit, the ones on the left tried to break out of their unforeseen prison, and the ones on her right were grabbed by a field of large tentacles with no sense of personal space.

The leader of the bandits was the most confused and panicked he didn't even see anything happen. One moment they were about to capture two noble women, and the next some of his boys fell down a hole that came out of nowhere, others were now stuck inside a stone box, and the rest, himself included, were now being continuously pummeled by large rubbery tentacles. He and his let out a many angry shouts trying to get free before these things knocked them out or worse, somewhere along the way he even lost his wand. One of his guys actually managed to get out, only to be mauled by an angry tiger. This was not what they had planned at all.

After about a minute of this, and Raskreia making a similar stone cage as she did with the ones on the left for the people on the right before they were lifted up by the pit spell ending, all the bandits on the right were knocked unconscious by the overly affectionate tentacles, whereupon she ended the spell, removed any wands they might have had anywhere on them, and set up yet another stone box around the last of them.

Louise was about to say something, but before she could Raskreia vanished using a 'Greater Teleport' leaving Louise alone with Felniir, who for her part did not really look all that concerned. Maybe five minutes later where Louise was angrily pacing around, and shouting abuse, (and getting shouted at),toward the still conscious bandits, Raskreia popped back in using yet another teleportation.

Louise immediately rounded on her "WHERE WERE YOU? Why would you leave me alone here with some bandits." She was obviously distraught and angry.

"Ok, first off, you were not alone, Felniir is more than capable of protecting you against something like this." To which Louise huffed not seeing how a tiger could help against 8 armed men. "Secondly I teleported back to the capital and informed the guard at the gate of the fact that we have apprehended a group of bandits on the road towards the academy. Now we just need to wait a bit for them to arrive." This was followed by the frantic sound of banging on stone and digging, by the bandits within.

"Okay listen up you guys, you have two options. EITHER you stop trying to escape, and be grateful that I went out of my way to capture you alive and unharmed," no one dared mentioned the ones beaten into unconsciousness by the tentacles "OR option number two, I could simply shoot a fireball into those lovely boxes of yours, through one of those breathing holes I so graciously provided for you. What will it be." The following silence was telling.

A relatively short 45 minutes later a group of twenty guards showed up, who thanked the two mages for their cooperation with the law, and then took the bandits off of them from there, after a few brief questions of course.

The rest of the ride towards the academy was silent as Louise did not know what to say, Raskreia enjoying the silence, and Felniir not having anything to say.