He knew that planetoids tended to be more oblong than spherical, which was relevant to his current task. The oval shape skewed the mathematics, but he compensated and should have sized his currently developing world map correctly.
As his journey of random sailing ceased and he began 'mowing the lawn' as it were, covering and mapping most of the northern continent, he wrestled with the wind to follow the coast north.
From the northernmost regions of the continent, he circled the Arctic Circle. Before his arctic journey, he briefly stopped to repair and reinforce his hot air balloon and pack should the worst happen, say, if he ran aground within the circle.
August, however, was a seasoned air-ballooner, and circled through the Arctic of the northern pole. Then he turned back around and used his maps to find the opposite side of the yet-traced continent.
During his time within the Arctic Circle, he produced several dozen artistic representations of this world's unique aurora borealis and completed the northern hemisphere's star-charts. When he was reinforcing his air balloon, he returned home and manufactured a relatively low-powered, for the modern age, but still sophisticated telescope, allowing him to develop star-charts and learned to navigate using them.
August's total journey around the entire circumference of his original continent took merely an hour of real time. Still, the start of his trip, where he explored the entire continent, took him four entire days of real time.
He entered the southern continent at the turn of the fifth day that was connected yet separated from the northern continent by The Great Desert.
The Great Desert was a geological feature similar to the Sahara Desert, inhabited by tribes of what he knew as Bedouins, but were likely something entirely different in nature.
In terms of reference, The Great Desert was in place of the Caribbean and Central America if he was paraphrasing his old world. While the continent he'd just finished scouting and mapping was North America in that context, he was now headed further south, seeking to map the southern continent.
While he knew not the development and exacting natures of tectonic plates and the formations thereof within the world, he could indeed separate the world into more sizable chunks so as to better organize and develop his maps. Without the knowledge of the continents exact boundaries and formations, he was left to divide the world into mental and human constructs, like aforementioned Great Desert.
August found himself dividing the world up in biomes, targeting defining physical features and ascribing generalized names to such geographical features that he used to denote a territory. North of the Great Desert was a biome similar to what he'd refer as a high desert, with steppes and plateaus dominating the landscape and a windblown landscape. He named this region that so-intensely reminded him of the arid high deserts of New Mexico and Arizona as The Arids. The Arids were massive stretch of land, empty for the most part, but August had seen traces of odd species of humanoids that lived within the region; but their covered forms had him unsure if they were human, or some other race.
As these arid lands reached rivers and tributaries, and elevations climbed, one reached the Great Plains, named after a similar land-mark and geographical region from his old world. Unlike America, the dividing mountainous regions were not the Rockies or the Appalachians, and instead a region of mountainous vales, valleys, and ridges that sculpted a 'bed' across the entire width of the continent, coast to coast. Like a rising gash that started low at the west forming the bogs, wet-lands, and swamps, the mountains went high into the north-east, before being shattered by a godly hammer into a thousand islands that the far north consisted of.
This region very large region consisted of The Lowlands, The Mountain Valleys, The Marbled Hills, The Mighty Mountain's Reign, The Old Forests, Highland Ridge, and even his own Enchanted Woodlands. The list went on, with there being so many natural features and unique forests within this stretch of land that August had spent weeks of subjective time just trying to think of names.
It was here, within a specific range of latitudinal coordinates, that the majority of civilized populations resided. At least, those that were potent and powerful civilizations, and not the odd Arid farmer, or desert nomad.
Of the hundreds of other regions he'd named, the hilly and fertile vales and valleys were home to the most diverse selection of sapient species. He'd spotted mountain holds that were guarded by what he thought were dwarves, and forested enclaves that only his keen eyeglass allowed him to spot potential tribes of knife-eared elves.
August didn't disembark to check these theories, as he knew that he'd get side-tracked hard if he abandoned his current duties and task, leaving it unfinished as he started to study anything ranging from xeno-biology to alien species' cultures and traditions.
In this way, to resist his curiosity, he avoided any further discovery or investigation and simply marked them on the map.
To the far North, there were kingdoms and semi-advanced assumedly medieval feudal societies living within the tundra-lands. Most of the settlements he'd spotted resided within fjords or were located nearest to the coast. This was due to the fact that there was in fact a means of water-way travel from East to West and vise-versa in the north.
This took place within a fractured island-chain and or archipelago consisting of a plotted total of eight-hundred and ninety-four islands spread out and forming a 'True North'.
He named this island expanse The Fractured Sea, with boats and other means of trade occurring through this region most commonly. With it being summer, August assumed that these trade-routes were closed off or limited during the winter-months and landed to conduct some surveys and investigations on such a theory.
He saw evidence of sea-ice freezing in the location, taken from the patterns he'd analyzed from sediment samples that spoke of yearly frosts that likely formed ice bridges that connected to the continent.
August theorized that the Fractured Sea was located within a subducted tectonic plate, with the convergence of southern tectonic plates sinking the northern plate into the arctic seabed.
Back to The Great Desert, this large landmass possessed numerous oasis and coastal regions, paired with island-chains or nations that were developed by a people within the age of sail. Advanced ship designs filtered to the coastal regions that sent their supplies to trade with the desert tribes and oasis cities. Further north, they sailed their ships reaching all the way to the Fractured Sea, around the continent, to trade with cities on the opposite sea.
What he mentally referred to as 'North America', but truly referred to as The North-Western Continent, was a territory of separated and fractured nations and empires with more banners then he could fit on a single piece of paper. The sheer quantity of these polities had him developing a lexicon of sigils, banners, and house emblems that he related to various pieces and chunks of territory.
A similar situation appeared within The Great Desert, as while they did not have the same banners and easily recognizable sigils, August's observations of these peoples did come with some theories that were nothing more than baseless speculation on allegiances and organizational structures. Ultimately, while he was interested in the anthropological angle of his adventures, it was not his main focus.
August did not sneak into their cities and steal their writing, nor did he interact at all with the people and things of these nations; instead, he observed from a distance and committed to his current action. He was currently on a mission, and while curiosity and a desire to interact with other people were growing wants, he'd get distracted if he abandoned his current duties as a cartographer.
Past The Great Desert was a practical civilization, a copy-pasted Aztec or Mayan Empire. Practically word-for-word with all the jungles, swamps, marshes, and other rather disgusting territories, these people built massive temples, engaged in slash-and-burn agriculture, and while he'd found no evidence of human sacrifice, he gave these people a wide berth.
He was momentarily paralyzed out of sheer fear of tropical diseases, parasites, and all manner of nasty things, but resolved to test his luck inside this hell pit, descending to conduct his resource analysis and bestiary surveys.
The Deep Jungle, as he referred to this region of the world, was a massive continental region that, as he was wont to discover, was home to all manner of hell-beasts, parasites, bugs, insects, spiders, and predators.
It also experienced tropical storms out of the ass, with him discovering that the south of The Great Desert was home to a mountain range that he came to name The Storm Giants. The deep south of The Great Desert seemed to perfectly absorb and direct coastal and sea-borne weather events, like hurricanes and tropical storms; not into the bowls and deeps of The Great Desert, but instead the mountains seemed to catch and then deflect the potency of the storms; leaving the lands at the base of the hills a saturated wet hell, that evaporated and built-up horrendous storms that then move inland of the Deep Jungle, raining near non-stop, and thundering or storming every waking moment.
Buffeted and battered by consistent bad weather, August made his way to the southern arctic after diverting from his track and needing to backtrack twenty-seven times to reset course while traveling and trawling the Deep Jungle.
This extended his stay within the Deep Jungle longer than expected, but still within projections. The jungle eventually began to peter out into marshes, which then became wetlands, and then mountainous highlands, and finally rocky and mountainous tundra.
This tundra, as he found, bled right into the southern Arctic Circle, only separated by a small gap of ocean that reminded him of the Bering and Chukchi Seas that separated Alaska and Russia by merely eighty kilometers. The separation between the Deep Jungle's continent and the South Pole was merely twenty-two kilometers.
This gave credence for the Southern Arctic Circle to be a rendition of Antarctica, a continent on its own, although one covered in ice and snow.
Performing his loop around the pole, August then set course through the oceans, measuring relative windspeeds and comparing them to his current bearing and course, possessing a near-obsessive trace of where he was relative to other positions on his map and course.
He charted his way on the other side of the Deep Jungle's coastline, cutting up into recognizable sands of the Great Desert. He sailed through the Great Desert, then into the Arids and the Great Plains. There, he coasted over an army of soldiers frozen in a march across the wetlands of the Midwest.
Briefly, he paused his journey to return home, floating an hour to the northwestern forests of The Enchanted Forests, storing away his current repository of overflowing journals, maps, and documents.
He resupplied on paper, food, and water, and then started to cut his way west, across the ocean. He hung around the city he'd first found in his travels, the one with the odd lighthouse, and then began his journey using it as a point of embarkation.
The following journey was by far his slowest and longest of travel as he spent days floating over the empty ocean, spotting islands, referencing his travel speeds that he logged every fifteen minutes to triangulate his position.
Once he did so, he'd cancel his current plan and create a plan solely to sleep. This would anchor his position in the air as his hot-air balloon would freeze in time and space, allowing him to rest before he resumed his traveling logs to keep an accurate record.
Mapping the ocean took him three days of real-time travel, as he meticulously mapped out every island or visible seamount he came across, performing several backtracks as he 'mowed the lawn' of the longitudinal and latitudinal axes, allowing him to cover the entire ocean. He didn't find much out there, which hindered his ability to ensure he'd covered everything without constant landmarks like he possessed on the continent.
What he did find, eventually, was a new continent. He discovered it relatively early in his explorations, but he merely used its coast to continue scouting the oceans for various land masses and other oddities.
After traveling for approximately ninety-eight thousand kilometers across the ocean, ping-ponging back and forth between the new continent he discovered and the old continents he'd left, he decided to start exploring the new continent.
It was during this time on the high seas that he started to post on his blog. He'd been recording and videoing much of his journey, taking snapshots and timelapse recordings of his work on his maps. He'd peer over the world with phone in hand and capture the terrain with a blink of the eye. Then he'd set up his phone in a mount that had a perfect view over his easel, and return to his papers to paint, draw, sketch, and illustrate with ink, paints, and graphite alike.
He started recording landscapes and posting them on YouTube, along with his timelapse videos, treating his videoing and recording like a Bob Ross project, minus the commentary. He lacked the equipment for stellar sound quality; his Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra had a decent quality camera, but at high altitudes in high winds, the audio wasn't too great. It wasn't going to be winning any rewards for its pixel quality compared to a dedicated camera. Still, the modern phone was superior to any old-timey recording device, so he was going to take what he could get.
With his phone, he was able to capture much of his work, posting it on his blog, including recordings of his vivisections that he labeled as 'dissections' so as not to get in trouble. His blog also helped him keep track of his travel logs, with him posting his math, the calculations he was using to help him navigate, the stars he was seeing and triangulating by the wind patterns, the tools he was using to estimate wind speeds, and so on.
Aside from his blog, he also posted on Instagram.
Of course, his blog was linked with his Instagram, but his Instagram was more cultivated with a sense of focus on the self than on what he was doing.
It was where he posted thirst-trap photos and long-landscape video edits, videos of him cooking dragon steak on floating islands overlooking the ocean with the corpse right next to him, and of course some photo-shoot albums of his gear and clothing.
He ranged from practically naked, thirst-trapping, to the modern clothes he brought from Earth, which were growing increasingly faded, to the 1800s Arctic Survivalist Getup he wore most days.
The latter primarily consisted of a thick burka, with padded fur boots and gloves that were secured with straps and insulated as best as possible. He'd constructed goggles that paired well with face masks, and all sorts of high-quality winter gear like insulated blankets. To protect the contents of his basket, he'd created slime-resin-covered tarps to keep him and his supplies dry in case of severe storms. The basket itself wasn't a dense weave of wicker like a traditional hot air balloon, but something one would likely see survive in such weather conditions.
Made from a stainless-steel frame, the entire assembly was a metal frame with a top-side portion that had a wicker basket railing, but much of the living space and storage was metallic. The hot air balloon itself was made from several dozen dragon and wyvern wings stitched and pressed together, the flexible treated membrane more than up to the task of his quest.
'Eye spy with my little eye, a young master.' August thought one day as he zoomed in with his eyeglass, spying a cultivator flying around on a massive ass sword. Shaking his head, August took a zoomed-in picture of the man with his phone, videoed the city, took a few good highlights of the city, detailed its position on his map, and made sure to memorize as many angles as possible of said city and its topography for future reference.
All by The Plan.
Then he set course further inland on this massive continent that he'd been traveling for the past two real-time days.
For reference, August generally tried to always be within an Action, which meant that roughly he was within an Action every other second of the day, which meant that for every real time day, August spent roughly 43,000 days performing his work, which came to a total of approximately 118 years a day. August wasn't always within an Action, of course, but it put into perspective just how much time doing this required.
He wasn't merely 'sailing around the world', or something similar. No, August was mapping the world. In extreme detail, at that. He'd circle an entire location, then lower his altitude over a specific area to obtain a more detailed memory of a particular location. Then he'd spend time in the air or on the ground, putting his memories onto paper; then he'd do it again, just expanding his search, drawing and recording more.
Sometimes he'd create different types of maps or a different format.
Or he'd put his balloon down to the ground, pausing the entire cartography thing, and go to dissect some beast or investigate an anomalous plant that had some mystical effect surrounding them. He'd take samples, and when he ran out of space for those samples, he'd return home to store them and make sure nothing was squatting in his home. Even when on the other side of the world, home was maybe a week or two of subjective time away, especially if he used the trade winds.
He'd do maintenance on his livestock and test-subjects, care for his home, restock on supplies, organize what he brought back, and get swallowed up in another project, before eventually departing and returning to where he'd left off. Then, in the air, he'd realize he'd forgotten to make a topographical map of the Arctic and return there, or he'd discover a new species that he'd not documented in an area he had already passed and mapped and needed to get its measure. Then there were the times he'd go spelunking in a cavern, ravine, or a canyon; drawing art on walls, carving his name in the face of a mountain, mining interesting gemstones and metals, and on the adventure went.
Recording those findings takes even more time, as he puts them both on paper and in his digital blogs. Then he was back up in the air, recording his findings, inspecting the local landscape, and juggling his logs to measure against his maps and ensure accuracy.
August also tended to run out of paper and places to put that paper. Sometimes he made enough paper by hand to last him thirty seconds of real-time work, which required him to spend a real-time hour on the ground processing materials, skins, or hides into usable parchment or paper. Which only added to the amount of work he needed to invest in this project. He then had to double back on his journey home, sailing across the ocean using known wind currents to speed up his travel and store his current finds. Once he arrived back home, he would set out again.
It wasn't so much one big 'one and done' journey, but more so a project that required an insane amount of time investment for one man to complete what had taken his species back on Earth centuries to accomplish.
August was also doing this with a sense of practicality, holding sub-objectives that he put just as much effort into completing as his main objectives. Using his spyglass, August was always on the search for natural resources.
When he headed down to the surface, it wasn't just for animals and wildlife surveys of a local region, but also material analysis. He'd mark down unique materials, finding diamond and gemstone fields, precious metal deposits, and spelunking in random holes in the ground. This led him to uncover all manner of functional, mundane materials he recognized from his time learning geology and materials science, as well as entirely new materials that were magical.
Oil was located in many regions of the world, and like a proper American, he laid claim to it by being an American. He tested wood samples, comparing his experience with other wood types to find better bow woods, hardwoods, or woods that just had an unnatural level of beauty. It went into the resource maps and journaling entries, while also ending up inside his blog within the 'resource analysis documentation' section.
His blog and social media were always filled with nuance; his journal and blog entries had been ongoing since day one and now span millennia. August has been on this world for probably less than a month. It took him about two weeks to secure a semi-modern living situation, skipping past the bronze and iron ages into the steel and industrial ages, while then going on to discover and develop a field of science that edged into the realm of xenobiology and Xenopharmacology.
Then he spent the next several centuries, with many decades effectively 'lost at sea', doing nothing more than writing down endless amounts of log entries and recording sightings of surface-dwelling sea life that he didn't risk going down and tangling with. Then he sighted land, and his journaling picked up. He promptly posted on his blog two centuries of findings ranging from geological surveying to professional levels of anatomical analysis of alien creatures.
Then he'd go back home and do the same thing, a 'brief' period of maybe a few months of travel from the continent, across the sea, to his home. Then he'd find something new to distract him that'd take him into the Great Desert and into the dreaded Deep Jungle, in which he, blessedly, found magical coffee, cocoa, and coca plants.
August would head back home to construct a new greenhouse to grow those plants with samples of their local soils, before he knew it, he was distracted by a monkey with two heads that he found in the Land of The Orient - what he called the Xianxia land to the far west- and would go on trying to figure out how it was creating clones made from mist.
Whenever something so mystical came up, despite trying to meditate and 'find some energy source' inside of himself, August always came up dry. He wasn't so mad about not having magic, as he had Instantaneous Action, which was, in his opinion, more overpowered than any amount of mystic chronomancy could ever be.
Such creatures usually ended up in pieces, and he'd document and record the extremely unique nervous systems of the beast, preserve specific organs like the twin brains, and continue in his mapping efforts as a cartographer.
Then he'd run out of ink and paint, and so he'd have to source more of that.
It was ever a game of logistics and interests, with this world being so foreign and new to him, August was constantly drowning in things to research and investigate.
As days dripped by, and the days became a week, and that week became two, August marked his official month of living within this world.
On the eve of that day, his hot-air balloon set down. Her battered draconic membrane was tattered and worn, her steel surface of the lower-basket compartment buffed and scratched from one too many harsh landings. The vessel had been repaired and reworked, salvaged and reforged, all too many times to count.
Yet, The Scale of the World, as he named her, officially completed its mission.
For one thousand, seven hundred, and seventy-five years, this hot air balloon has flown. Her sails and airbag were crafted from the hides of hundreds of dragons and wyverns across the world; her basket was battered and eroded by the winds of all corners of the world. She weathered the rains of the heavens and tasted the snows and soils across the earth.
Today was her rest.
August spent an Action to disassemble the craft.
He detached and deflated her air balloon, folding and rolling it away for storage. He unloaded the contents of his last voyage and then disassembled the basket one bolt at a time. Removing the paneling and relocating it to his wine and food cellars, or the barns and storage sheds. Throughout this process, a short distance away and propped up in a metal stand forge by yours truly, was his phone, recording the process as he put the balloon away.
With a bittersweet smile, the action ended, and he walked over to his phone.
Softly picking up the phone, a bit lost for words, August rolled the item in his hands. The metallic casing had been worn down from the time in his hands; the black paint was wiped away, but if he removed the device from the casing, it'd look brand new. August had never tested the durability of his phone, as why would he? But, looking at the item that he'd had with him for literal millennia, August knew that it was an anomalous piece of technology.
Throughout his journey, he rarely spoke directly to the camera. He'd always been a bit speechless, never really having much to explain when he could instead document his thoughts on his blog. Furthermore, he didn't tend to have much of a personality within his Actions, as his phone only worked in a Plan of Action, or an Action Without a Plan. With the latter only happening if he was in danger, and not useful as it lacked the practical guarantee of success he possessed in a normal Planned Action, he didn't tend to use that ability much.
Within a Plan of Action, August didn't have much of an Ego. While he still had an individual will, there was a layer of separation between himself and the robotic motions he was working through within an Action. He could still have thoughts and reactions to things he encountered within an Action, which allowed him to break out of one if he so desired. Still, the Ego was deadened, which meant that for anything more social and requiring anything resembling an identity beyond the phrase 'I do this, ' his Action-Self was useless.
Narrowing his eyes, he remembered that he'd only spoken once, a brief introduction of himself.
'Welcome to the channel, explorers! My name is August Rondellian, although I go by He-Who-Is-August. Once again, welcome aboard. This channel is here to help document my journey. Although unbelievable, and many of you may doubt me, my situation is not typical, for I've been transmigrated to a world of fantasy, a world of myth and magic. Isekai is real! Who knew?' He chuckled there, 'Here's some of my chronicles. Please sit back and enjoy, and make sure to check out my blog posted in the description. There, I post some of my more graphic content that may not abide by YouTube's User Guidelines. Now, welcome to a world I call Mythral.'
He'd posted that clip, which was followed by some highlights of his early adventures and recordings of the terrain within his forest and the start of his journey within The Scale of the World.
He figured it was only right to give her a proper send-off. Picking up his phone and entering an Action Without a Plan, August started to record.
He set the phone on the stand and stood in the field where The Scale of the World once resided.
"Good day to all of you explorers. Today is a day of sendoffs and farewells. Today is the day that I decommissioned The Scale of the World. For one-thousand-seven-hundred and eighty-eight years, The Scale has carried me within the four winds. The heavens kissed that vessel. The earth blessed her with each settling and send-off. I am proud to have built and serviced such a vessel. I am proud, and somewhat saddened, to say that my mission is complete. The Scale has served me well, and now my duty is complete. Her and my mission is finished. Today marks the day that I have completed my mapping of this foreign world named Mythal. It is the day of The Scale of the World's decommissioning." August took a moment to let that sink in, walking over to the camera and picking up the phone.
He started for the library. Made from granite and marble, the library was a towering edifice that looked more in common with a looming Wizard's Tower than a library.
"My work has seen me across every continent, across every sea, and every vista. I have been to every place and every natural wonder. I have wandered the floating isles, the shifting sands, and the frigid white seas. I have seen the aurora borealis a hundred times, and she has carried me there each time I beckoned. I have crashed her more times than I care to admit, and we, together, have worn and weathered storms that I hardly care to remember."
Entering the library, August's fur boots marched him to the center of the library. He panned the camera around, taking in the massive walls filled to the brim with books and scrolls; packed and packed evermore. It was dark inside this library, but windows allowed just enough light to spill into the building for its contents to be revealed.
August walked to the center of the library, and there, rendered in masterful detail, was a carved representation of the world; topographical insight was fully displayed.
"We did it, girl." He whispered. He captured as many sights as possible and explored the library, acting as a tour guide, explaining every book and scroll, each map, and going over the exact date of their nearly two-thousand-year-long journey. It was a time of soulful remembrance, and a time that had him smiling in a bit of awe and nostalgic pride as he traced his fingers over worn papers scrawled and marked over a thousand times.
Some were ancient things, like his log books; the thick leather-bound, worn and wrinkled pages were damaged by wind, rain, and snow alike; their inked logs smudged or torn from some pages and continued from memory or salvaged pages woven into their mess.
Then he moved over to the bestiaries, weaving through thousands upon thousands of pages and recording detailed and colored drawings and sketches of anything from several dozen insect species, to the most majestic and marvelous of draconic species he'd found in his travels.
As his Action Without a Plan petered off, August retreated to the steps leading into the grand tower he'd just visited. He had other books, more knowledge than he could fit even within this modular tower, which he had architectural plans to expand and grow. Sub-wings that split off, with basement and underground levels dug into the earth. Yet, for now, the Library of the August Rondellian stood alone on a slight hill located within the central area of the meadow of flowers, his home sprawled out within.
The meadow was home to a systematic organization of greenhouses. It was then juxtaposed by near-constant cultivation of aesthetic flower patches that were framed or juxtaposed by the growth of medicinal plants native to the area. Streets and roadways made from cobbled stone meandered throughout the space, leading to the humble yet still magnificent off-center structure of his home, forge, and pseudo-laboratory.
Once nothing more than a collection of branches supported against one another and tied with twine covered in foliage and leaves, the structure had evolved from a hovel, then a cottage, to a small manor, to what it now existed as, a four-story manor with attachments of buildings that grew off of its walls like tumor growths. The low-story forge, with its billowing soot clouds covering one part of the stone walls, was black, while the sterile clean rooms were where he performed his more intensive investigative lab-work.
Then there was the tower, the inspiration of The Library of the August Rondellian. It was far smaller than the towering edifice of granite and was instead a tower of stone that grew into the side of the manor. A reading loft was located at its highest peak with hundreds of books and scrolls stored away within its spiral bookshelves that followed along the staircase.
Cellars and underground niches were constructed as storage spaces for tools, machinery, and a place to store away his side business of fermentation and distillation products. With him having a horde of all manner of rare fruits from faraway lands, it felt like a crime not to make wines and spirits brewed from sugary fruits.
Such things, like the mentioned discovery of the addictive, magically stimulating coca plant, or the discovery of super-coffee beans and super-giant coco pods, were grown within one of the several dozen glass-houses that sprawled the meadow. These facilities took up much of the space within the region, with the meadow being expanded into the forest in recent years as August visited periodically to 'drop by'.
Small sections of agriculture decorated his yards, with vineyard fences keeping a growth of grape-like fruits satiated, or the many gardens he had decorated around his property. These allowed the growth of strong trees that, through some temporal manipulation with his Plans, were full of succulent summer-ripened fruits.
Spread throughout the earth were small tubes and piping infrastructure made from copper sections of pipe extruded into the planet and periodically pressurized by a facility constructed at the foot of a stream. Acting as his irrigation pipework, the facility above was his water pump, intaking water to pump it through his yards and greenhouses. Functioning and effectively programmed through mechanical clockwork valves and complex analog devices that specifically measured how much water should pass into each yard, greenhouse, or grow area.
Sitting on the imposing stairs leading into his grand library, August finished his latest action in editing and then posted his latest recording.
Briefly, he paused to check in with his social media and statistics and frowned as he saw that he only had a scant few followers, merely thirty on his Instagram. Meanwhile, his YouTube channel was stuck at just 110 subscribers, which he vaguely remembered being a result of a few comments that blew up.
While he'd never been doing this for clout, August scratched his neck and tried to understand why his accounts weren't experiencing growth. Whenever he posted his content, August never paid much attention to the reaction to his content. This was due to several reasons. One, while within the Plan, he was not tempted to linger long enough on the topic of 'clout' or 'internet points' before he moved to the next task set in the Plan. Two, August had only been 'active' on the internet for a month, and in the early days of posting, he'd assumed that he'd yet to be swept up by the algorithm.
Even if his content was deemed fake, it was interesting enough to garner at least a few thousand views or likes, right?
He stared at his phone for a moment before slamming his palm into his forehead.
"Dumbass." He muttered, entering his settings and deadpanning. His YouTube account had been hidden for a long time, but checking the settings revealed it was still active, meaning all his videos were private.
Meanwhile, he checked his Instagram account and discovered that the ten followers were old friends he hadn't been in touch with. He had only created the account to claim he was on Instagram and to watch reels.
Fixing his account settings and putting his videos as Public, August shook his head. 'What a blunder.' He chuckled.
Coming back to reality, August sighed, looking over what he'd wrought, and started to think of ways to improve it. New hedges, more variety in the flowers, perhaps a development of artificial fertilizer to keep the soils healthy. He's gotten a bit invested in art, so maybe he could give some of the more traditional art forms a try? Marble statues were always so intriguing to him.
He'd always wanted to forge a set of medieval armor, too.
Nodding, August stood up and went to get back to work; there was so much in this world, and so much to do still.
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She stared down at the reflective pool of water.
The stone diviner's bowl rippled as the image shifted and distorted in real-time, her eyebrows furrowing as her fingers traced over the surface of the water; blackened nails dancing over the ripples and causing the perspective of the image to change.
It was the seventeenth sighting of what she termed as The Floating Oddity within the last two weeks. Her fellows would claim this to be an obsession. They saw no point in investigating this odd object appearing periodically in the sky. Whatever the entity was, it obviously meant no harm and stayed far away from their defenses, preventing any means of retaliation.
Furthermore, it was too high in the sky for most traditional means of flight to reach, and it tended to vanish before anyone could obtain more information besides its general position in the sky. Thus, it was a pointless and fruitless endeavor to try to research this anomaly.
Valerie was of a differing opinion, of course, else she'd not have continued to divine and inquire the presence of this odd object that, for but a mere few seconds, would grace the skies above Briarhearth.
The object first appeared two weeks ago, hovering above the City of Briarhearth high in the sky.
A city within the Hightower Domain, Briarhearth was ruled and home to the Tower of Briarhearth. The Tower of Briarhearth, better known as The Circle of Briar, or the Briar Circle, was the founding school of Wizards, Mages, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Sorceresses that established the city.
Ruled, protected, and managed by the leading figures within The Hearth Fire, the name of The Tower within Briarhearth, Briarhearth was a coastal city on the edges of The Hightower Domain's territories. A mercantile and trade city that utilized its looming six towers as a lighthouse to guide mercantile ships into the harbor.
A booming trade center and the lifeblood of maritime trade with other nations and polities, funneling in goods with trade coming from all over the continent and outside of it, thanks to the Northern Thousand Shards. The Thousand Shards was a frozen expanse of hundreds, and likely thousands, of islands located far north of the continent that functioned as a relatively quick -if dangerous- trade route to the other side of the continent.
The trade route and other maritime entities on the coast meant that the Tower of Briarhearth and its territories were rich, wealthy, and populous.
Valerie was the first to spot the object in the sky. She was the first to call it to attention, having just seen it for a few moments. It hung in the sky for but a few moments, flickering away from sight. At the time, she was in transit between the towers of the Hearth Fire, traveling on one of the high open bridges, and caught it in her peripheral vision.
She'd thought it some queer creature she'd never seen before, perhaps something that had drifted up from the green hells of the Haltk Jungels or was native to the Orst Mountains. She'd tried to spot the creature with further divination, attempting to pierce through its invisibility, but no matter where she looked or divined, it seemed as if the creature had vanished.
A reason for her intense interest in the creature, entity, or object was due to her held theory that it was teleporting away, not merely turning invisible. If that were true, then she's likely been witnessing the personal mode of transportation belonging to some foreign or powerful High Wizard.
Perhaps the next evolution of Air-Ships is being developed by the Empire?
The fact that it repeatedly kept returning to Briarhearth was a key hint to this theory. The odd object notably always originated from one of two directions: one where the trade winds blew into Briarhearth, and one where they blew out. Paired with the city's world-renowned lighthouse for maritime travel, she believed it was using the city as a navigational aid to explore deeper inland and as an embarkation point for sea voyages.
Those, however, were future theories, and her immediate actions were to report her sighting. She pressed for the attuning of the wards for an invisible foe, or perhaps an infiltration attempt. Such a stance was a hard sell to the members of the Briar Circle; the resources needed to strengthen and focus the wards to capture such an indirect vector of attack were a hard ask.
However, with evidence in the form of divination records, she'd managed to convince her peers and superiors of the dangers that a mystically cloaked aerial invader could pose to not only Briarhearth but also other cities within the Hightower Domain.
Yet, as no attempt at attack was met or seen, the preparations and reinforcements added to the wards were lax. The assumed threat was called off as some odd creature of unknown origins, with many having assumptions that it was potentially non-hostile or passive.
Valerie Gnost, Sorceress of the Briar Circle and Lady of Briarhearth, daughter of its current reigning Duchess and Tower Master, was not so convinced. With her speculations on the entity's nature, she configured her additions to the ward scheme covering the city. As a result, she was soon alerted several times a day.
The sightings of the entity were always too high for more detail to be gathered from her initial alterations of the divination scheme; the gathered images were a mere silhouette on the sky, and nothing besides that.
Beyond being able to detect the entity when it was uncloaked, or perhaps teleporting into the territory, she was able to confirm her theory that it wasn't some unknown creature, but potentially a man-made construct. The unknown object tended to float within the cloud layer, but sometimes, when the days were clear enough, she was able to start analyzing the creature's features.
Of course, try as she might, that was the most she'd been able to divine. There was the possibility that it wasn't a 'creature' but an artificial construct of some kind.
Today, it seemed, was the day she knew for sure. As her fingers slowly widened the ripples of water, enhancing the image being projected, she waited with bated breath as the frozen still-shot image came into clarity.
With a gasp and a smile spreading on her face, Valerie devoured the image. As her eyes roamed the image, her hands moved on their own, taking up a piece of vellum specially treated in an alchemical solution for this specific purpose as she lowered the skin into the waters. The image was then transposed onto the alchemically saturated vellum, and she quickly hung it up to dry and develop.
Moving about her chambers and laboratory within the high towers of The Hearth Croft, one of the six towers that made up The Hearth Fire, Valerie began collecting ingredients needed for further divination. She now had a clear enough image for more involved divination, possibly plotting where the object was headed after it vanished.
She worked to gather ritual and enchanting materials, powders and distilled essences, droplets of ichor and alchemically produced chalks, along with an assortment of tools that were specialized for her needs. As she moved about, she paused to inspect the developing images. With a smile, she traced the image with a nail, the slight shadow that she was able to see within the 'basket' of the construct, undeniably human, or some other similar race.
She postulated and theorized on the silhouette, knowing that the bulk of the shadow was likely due to the cold air up high. One would need heavier clothes, even within the warm environments that a summer in Briarhearth possessed.
Fanning herself with a hand, she paused in a full body mirror as she went to reach for an ink pot, briefly halting her action to mentally bemoan Dominion Era Fashion that the Hightower Domain so strictly adhered to.
----
Sorceress Valerie Gnost, Lady of Briarhearth.
---
The fur mantel was a warm and comfortable item, as were the thick linen robes with their billowing sleeves. But all of it was so stuffy. She liked her hat, though, regardless of the weather. She'd never give up her full-brimmed hat that perfectly shielded her face from the sun, especially when she needed to take a nap.
She'd made modifications to her dress, of course, but there was only so much that she could modify of the traditional Coven Sorceress robe cuts and accessories that denoted one's alignment to the Briar Circle before her mother would start looking at her queerly.
Yes, she knew the acolytes and some of the less inhibited Wizards and Mages loved seeing her walk the towers, but she'd take the stares if it meant not suffering during the summer months. It was a cloying heat that drenched robes with sweat, stinking up the hallways and poorly ventilated tower structures within the Hearth Fire. The smell got to her, but the feeling of sticky, icky sweat was all the more a precedence.
Sweat-drenched robes were just the beginning of suffering in a region that was forever suffering from intense humidity that was only ever tempered by a draft from the sea.
This is what we get for living within a bog. Valerie thought as she reached up, stretching high to grab the high shelf of the glittering green orb of ink.
One would think that she should change into a lighter dress, but no, her entire damned wardrobe needed to represent the Circle.
'Ugh,' Valerie thought in disgust. Always a game of clout and image within a circle. Politics between other Towers and Circles, or even Covens, was all too important in the Hightower Domain.
Covens, Circles, and Towers; they were the leading organizations that governed the territories of the Hightower Domain. A decentralized government that consisted more so of a collective of allied city-states led and ordered by their respective dominating Tower or Circle. Some cities possessed multiple Towers and Circles, or even collections of disorganized Covens attempting to rule as a sort of oligarchy.
To belong to one such organization was to represent that organization. It was thus that the traditional garb of a Coven Sorceress was enforced. Consisting of a robe and fur mantel and an appropriate circlet, hat, or cover; these articles were to conform to the scheme of the Coven, Circle, and or Tower. Dictated by the Council or Tower Master, these edicts and laws ranged from loose rules that were flagrantly flaunted to strictly enforced rules; all entirely dependent on the nature of the Circle or Tower one belonged to.
It was but one of many rules, laws, and codes to be followed within a Circle or Tower, with Covens functioning somewhat similarly, but were more family-oriented than acting as a cohesive organization.
Covens, generally, were the lowest and weakest of organizations within the Hightower Domain, consisting more so within families and internal politics of select organizations. They were known to possess extreme influence within established power blocs, like Circles and Towers, or through economic and material vectors.
Weak Covens were essentially a general grouping of individuals banding together for like-minded goals, with such pacts fraught with betrayal and backstabbing.
A strong Coven was a blood and oath-bound familial unit that worked to accrue wealth, prestige, influence, and power.
Circles and Towers, meanwhile, tended to share the same level of power and or influence, with the differing point being that a Tower was a Circle that possessed a physical 'Tower'. A tower is a defining and critical piece of infrastructure that acts as the heart and center of civil services for a city or territory.
A Tower also acted as a school of learning for acolytes, a home for members who were either employed within the Tower or were attached to it, like Valerie herself, a fortress and defensive citadel, and a vault for the organization's proceeds from taxes and/or industries they managed.
The Briar Circle was not publicly or internally referred to as a Tower, except for the unofficial title of the Moss Tower or the Tower of Briarhearth by others who were unfamiliar with their history. The Briar Circle started as a Coven in her great-great-grandmother's era and grew to prominence when her great-grandmother rose to succeed her mother. This was the beginning of the Circle, and it was in the waning age of her era that the Hearth Fire was built.
They remained The Briar Circle, despite constructing a Tower, something that was somewhat common throughout other territories. Mercantile trade saw a surge in the region, allowing the at-the-time small town surrounding the infantile Tower, infinitely dwarfed by the current resplendent Heart Fire, to develop into what resembles the city of Briarhearth today.
Then there was the Briarthorn Pact, an event that stripped her bloodline of the title of Duchess and Tower Master after her great-grandmother struck a pact with the twisted Fae. It was highly illegal to strike such deals, not only within the Briar Circle, but as a community of magic-users, consorting with Outsiders was a forbidden practice.
A cousin took the titles as reigning Lady, only to then lose the position after being seen as a weak leader by the Circle. This allowed her grandmother to rise to the position, who washed away the sins of her mother, and passed it down to the current ruler: Duchess Vala Gnost, Tower Master of the Hearth Fire, and reigning Duchess of the city-state and surrounding territories of Briarhearth.
Valerie was, theoretically, an heir to that prestigious title, but succession was something that was done by a council of the greatest minds within the Tower, Circle, or Coven. At least, within the Briar Circle.
Some Circles and Towers handled succession differently from others. Still, merit, power, skill in the mystic arts, and their potential as a leader were all factors that were considered by not only her mother but also others within her council.
She was competing against not only her siblings but also other candidates as well.
Valerie, if she were honest, would not have found herself in a position to meet the requirements and standards she was held to. She was a master at Divination, a talented expert within the arts of Wardcraft, and she loved the arts of ritualism, alchemy, and enchanting. However, she was not what one thought of when the term 'powerful' was brought up.
Perhaps in later years of her life, she could become a master at weaving plots like the fabled goddess of the Dark Elves; entrapping her opponents in webs of schemes and tangled manipulations, with information gathered using her potent talents in divination acting as a blade of blackmail and threats.
That 'future' was not who she was, neither in the present, nor what she hoped she'd become in a theoretical future.
Neither was she a potent and skilled duelist in the arcane arts. She was no Battle Mage or War Wizard, and she tended to stay away from such grim magic.
Instead, she was a scholar, one who liked learning magic and serving her Circle as she did. Wards were always an interesting and endlessly expansive puzzle, rituals were an art of song and emotion, of intent and symbolism. Alchemy was a calming practice of unfathomable rewards, and an enchanting art that she was becoming entirely obsessed with the meticulous details of mystic infusions and arcane etchings.
Her Major and focus in her magical talents as a Sorceress was Divination; the art of knowing and finding, the power of knowledge and information. She strayed away from things like portents but truly loved the magical powers of calling on the past to reveal itself, or to see far places where no man had ever gone.
It was with this magic that Valerie was to solve yet another mystery.
It was with gentle care that Valerie took out a stowed map. A copy minted from the hand of an acolyte scribe, The Map of Anglogand, was one of the most detailed— if generally inaccurate —maps of the known world. While Valerie knew tales of the far-distant continent across the distant west, or east, depending on which ocean one decided to travel on, none but the most determined and foolish of explorers had dared to attempt to venture to those foreign lands.
She never heard much of anything come from those voyages.
While the original map had long since been lost or ruined, and the Stenator Empire and their air-ships had created better maps, most maps never extended beyond the Haltk Jungles. In ancient times, this was because the shore tended to deepen unnaturally there. At shore and near the coast, deadly Sea Monsters and Leviathans were able to trawl close to land and prevented most sea-born ships from exploring deeper south.
Airships, meanwhile, were only a recent invention, but they weren't built for raging storms that were all too common in the Green Hell. They tended to go to ground during intense weathering, something that in the dense and dangerous jungle was not possible. Seeing as Air-Ships were prohibitively expensive for the Stenator Empire to put to the field, risking such valuable vehicles of commerce and potential warfare capability for little exploratory gain was not wise.
Although she lacked access to the more accurate maps created by Stenator's cartographers, the Map of Anglogand had been used by scribes and scholars for the past eight millennia. Although her copy was not an original, it was more accurate than the original.
The continent of Anglogand was the northernmost continent and her home. Named after the man who tamed a Sky Leviathan and lived upon its back, recording the shapes of the continents and their contents, Valerie should be able to plot the locations of the object of her curiosity using this map.
While the entity's nature as a floating vessel wasn't unique, it was distinctly different from the airships employed by the Stenator Empire. She only knew of Sky Leviathans that lived within the clouds to be at such altitudes, and for such a vehicle to easily sail so high, it was likely either a Stenator prototype, exploration vessel, or something else entirely.
Setting up her ritual diagram with the map overlaying it, she started to focus, a drop of mercury being dropped onto the surface of the map, settling there and not saturating the paper. Slowly, she burnt the vellum containing the divined image of her object of interest and watched with wide eyes as the drop of mercury started to vibrate and rush.
She watched as it moved with the trade winds, every second or so, the mercury drop would rapidly cover distance, and she began tracing the path of the droplet. The droplet eventually fell off the page as it waded off into the sea, but she kept the magic active. She patiently waited for an hour before eventually picking up a book to read.
Then, as the day turned dark, she jolted as she heard a violent shuffle of liquid that shifted the map. Eyes darting onto the page, her jaw dropped as the mercury droplet darted over to the opposite side of the map; 'circling the globe' as it made its way across the eastern sea. Then it drifted to the north, then west, before settling in one location that made her heart pound.
That was very close.
She waited for the droplet to move. For it to do anything, but when it didn't, she referenced the map itself and noted that the location made sense.
'Why was a potential Stenator aircraft, one that can teleport around the entire world in mere hours, within Everglow?'
Everglow Forest was a thickly forested valley located to the south of Briarhearth. It was home to many drakes, dragons, and wyverns, with rolling forested hills and a receded mountain range along the edges of what the Hightower Domain considered their territory.
While no actual political entity claimed the entirety of the Everglow Forest, mainly due to it being effectively the property of nesting dragons, it was located dangerously close to the Blighted Lowlands, Duskvale Bog, and the Creekwood, all of which were territories of the Briar Circle. This proximity worried Valerie, having thought it would land within the territories of Stenator, not so close and within 'neutral' territory.
Yet, as she was having these thoughts, her eyes widened and she watched as the ball of mercury vibrated; then collapsed and lost all cohesion. Her spell had failed.
Biting her lip, Valerie got up and marked the position where the mercury destabilized, pacing in her study as she thought on the ramifications of this. Getting nowhere, she grumbled and stalked out of her room, navigating through the confusing halls of the Hearth Fire and eventually reaching her mother's chambers.
Knocking politely, she waited to be allowed in and heard permission be given.
Stepping in, Valerie stared at the lounging form of her mother, one Vala Gnost. The Duchess was enjoying a glass of wine and fanning herself on the awning balcony of her private suite, dressed in a similar style to her own, albeit with a bit more revealing attire, as Vala Gnost was currently relaxing and not on duty.
"Valerie, dear?" Her mother asked as she gazed up from the beautiful view of the maritime harbor, watching as boats sailed out into the seas.
"Mother, I succeeded in divining the location and port of that mysterious airship we found in the sky." She gave a slight courtesy in the form of a bow before presenting her map to her mother.
"An airship, you say?" Her mother mused, with Valerie passing one of the preserved images of the ship. Her mother quietly inspected the queer balloon, which carried a basket with a man inside. The sails on the side allowed for steering, presumably, with rigging and ropes slung over the side of the basket.
Her mother hummed as she traced the image and referenced it with the location of the divined landing space.
"Close." Her mother mused. "Valerie, dear, would you mind going on an expedition?" Her mother asked suddenly.
Blinking, Valerie stared dumbly with her mouth slightly agape.
Vala rolled her eyes, "I'd like to know what's going on in the Everglow, is all. There have been concerning rumors of odd migrations of dragons and drakes fleeing the Everglow, followed by migrating greenskin hordes fleeing into the Duskvale and Creekwood. They're becoming some form of river pirates." Her mother's face twisted in disgust at the mention of the greenskins, something Valerie mirrored.
"A-are you sure you'd like to send me?" Valerie asked, "I'm not exactly a potent Sorceress…" She muttered.
Vala rolled her eyes. "Girl, I've seen you practice your forms of battle magic. Few know how to counter the devious potential of Acid and Poison." She gestured over to a rug kept tucked by a curtain, with the gesture causing Valerie's eyes to open wide in shock as she snapped her head to her mother as if she was seriously giving her permission.
"Yes, you can use the Flying Carpet. I want a hasty report on the ongoing situation in the forest and a clear understanding of what is scaring creatures away from it. Perhaps there truly is an encampment of Stenator Soldiers? Odd, considering recent relations with the Kingdoms of Krost and the Al-Munda-Marai Emirate. Not to mention Clan Karkakazzan accusing them of theft and threatening a blood feud against Duke Kristenloft." Her mother tapped her bottom lip with an elongated nail, thoughts of the state passing through her mind.
Yet, those thoughts passed as Valerie went to accept the mission with a deep, courteous bow. "I'd be honored to take this mission for the Coven, milady." She stated. Her overtly formal acceptance caused her mother to click her tongue, tutting in disapproval.
"Please come back safely, Valerie." She was enveloped in a warm hug and kissed on the cheek. "I just want you to get out of the Tower, but your life is more important than this mission, yes, dear?"
"Ye-yes, mother." Valerie blushed as her mother chuckled and patted her cheek.
"Of you go, now, love."
"Love you, Mom." She grabbed the carpet and waved to her mother, butterflies stirring in her chest, before determination set in her heart.
"Be safe!"
Valerie shut the door behind her with red cheeks and ears as she played with her hair, resting for a moment. She loved her mother, honestly, but she could be so suffocating sometimes. Lifting the carpet, she brought it to her room and began to pack for her trip to the forest, loading non-perishable foods and some changes of robes; some of them her cut and design, while others the more rugged and traditional robes that would help protect her from the elements and many hazards due to their enchantments.
She got some rest to ready herself for her journey and woke the next morning fresh as the rise of dawn, taking her time to cast an incantation that left her and her loaded flying carpet invisible.
Taking off from the tower, Valerie's journey was unmolested as she soared through the skies, pausing to eat in the first three hours of her trip and keeping strong for the next two. Checking her map and making sure to reference the journal entries of an adventurer that once explored the Everglow Forest, Valerie tried to triangulate the area where her quarry was divined to be located.
She made camp for the first night after a day of fruitless searching, and then rose into the skies, whispering notions of divination and omens to guide her in her search. The shadows leaned in a specific direction, and Valerie used a similar spell to create an intersection of the two directions.
Traveling to this intersection, Valerie soared through the sky, still cloaked in invisibility, and discovered something that was undoubtedly anomalous.
For a long moment, her mind broke as she stared down at the gleaming, organized structure of what she could only liken to a fortress of steel, glass, and stone.
The fortress covered acres, dozens of acres, looming over the towering trees that defined the Everglow forest, with many structures within the fortress seeming to have been sourced from such woods. The fortress was built with a frame of polished granite stone, masterfully quarried and crafted by a thousand artisans. A single tablet carved from a wall of this fortress would beggar nobility.
She floated down, inspecting the rising central tower, so reminiscent of her own people's Towers, yet done with a design that she'd hardly ever seen. With rippling polished stone that granite was known for, and marbled facades with looming dark-iron statues in the form of leering demons and wrought iron work decorating every roof and angle of the structure, it bled down into massive halls and auxiliary buildings that were no less imposing.
From those buildings, massive steel portcullises framed this central structure, with a separate keep attached to the gigantic stone structure, surrounded by a curtain wall with a courtyard of beautiful flowers arranged in such a manner that it sent her mind in spirals.
Looming on the walls, both exterior that framed the entire grounds, and interior that captured and contained the towering structure and its stony keep, were statues of stone; frozen and still, they were morphed in depictions of life-like animation. They were men of white marbled stone, carved in such agonizing detail, their forms naked and bare to the world; yet the musculature and poise they carried had them displaying their bodies unashamedly.
These men were juxtaposed by leering demons perched on high walls or defenses, looming and staring out into the blankness of a leveled forest whose hilly nature was either tamed or conformed to as the towering walls of the outer curtain painted and rolled along the landscape, surrounding the entire complex.
Within the outer complex, not the courtyards of the central tower and keep, there were several buildings of queer purposes. The grounds were marvelously cared for, creating confounding patterns and shapes with the colors and shades of flowers in abundance. Yet, smartly connected through a system of roads paved from stone, were buildings of glass that were full and filled with plants, blurry to see from such distance, and the distorting nature of the glass panes.
Several dozen of these massive structures encompassed the territories of the castled fortress, populated by nothing more than marble statues of stone men: frozen in thought, in duty, and purpose.
Valerie checked for wards.
She checked again.
Nothing.
Slowly, tentatively, she lowered herself to the outer walls. She sat down and stepped off, watching and waiting for what were undoubtedly animated golems to spring to life. Yet, as she laid a hand against their stony flesh, the man playing a queer game, analyzing the board of strange pieces, did not react.
Fading from her invisibility, she wandered the perimeter wall, scampering back to her flying carpet and lowering herself onto the grounds.
She walked the fields of flowers, gawking every which way. As she meandered, she found her way into the glass gardens where she found all too many foreign plants, and rare ones she recognized and scarcely believed existed in such beautiful health, let alone the quantities! She marveled at the copper tubes that dripped water periodically, and the humid environments that felt engineered.
Then, as she exited the glass gardens, wondering if this odd fortress had been abandoned, she came to the keep. Flying over it, and to the portcullises barring her entry into the central Tower, she bit her lip and tried to find a way inside. She wandered, not wanting to damage or break anything in a forceful entry, as doing so felt like a crime against nature. Even if she detected no wards, she wasn't sure what this was doing here; why it was here, or how.
The Everglow was a hostile land, filled with Dragons, Wyverns, and Drakes; only adventurers and hunters entered these lands, and most thought those folk mad.
As she frowned, she caught sight of an odd emblem pressed into the top of the gatehouse of this tower. Floating up to inspect its detail more closely, her nails traced the methodical detail of its craft. It was no sigil or banner she recognized.
Crafted by an artist like everything in this fortress, the emblem was that of a dagger with its blade facing down, a floating crown hovering around an ornately decorated pommel. The crow was extremely glamorous, surrounded by a laurel wreath of golden filigree, and bejeweled with plush velvet and patterns woven intently. These were pressed into a background of crimson and violet, bordered by a circle of golden leaves.
It was as her fingers pressed against the life-like emblem that she realized the gemstones that made up the gem pommel and the crown's likeness were real, and as she traced the metallic blade -larger than a sword yet obviously proportioned as a dagger- her heart stilled.
'Mythril.' She stared at a blade that would ignite wars, embedded into a gatehouse of all things.
Floating down and more pensive about this place than ever, she stared into the darkness that the portcullises were barring her from. There, she bet her questions would be answered. Tempted to burn or bust down the unwarded steel, she debated for several long moments.
Only for a soft cough to interrupt her.
Spinning around, Valerie stared.
There, a man stood.
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