After asking around, Seren and Fairs quickly find out the city lord's assistant has a notorious love for a local bakery called CinderCrumbs and could be seen there almost daily. ‘Do you think the guy who just walked out the bakery carrying an unreasonable amount of bread goods and wearing easily 5th hand enchanted gear is the guy we’re looking for?’ Seren asks Fairs bemusedly as they watch the lord’s assistant leave the bakery and begin to follow him from the rooftops.
‘Well if he’s not then I’d honestly be quite surprised considering his robes are the same as the cities trademark sands and he’s wearing the lords crest very prominently.’ he replies while staring at the man slightly disgusted, not because of the insane speed he's devouring his purchases but because while sands of every color rolling up and down in flowing dunes and valleys looks quite awe inspiring the same can’t be said when they’re covering the body of a man who has a very visible love of mealtime both from observing his eating habits and his figure.
Upon seeing the assistant near the castle gates Fairs covers the two of them within his Dao and they enter the castle. ‘I was really hoping it would be cooler inside the castle, it turns out it’s even hotter.’ Seren speaks while a sheen of sweat can be seen on his face with drops rolling down his face only to be caught by Fairs Dao before they can hit the ground.
‘It’s not that surprising once you consider the ancestors of all the peoples here and specifically the cities ruling families. As the legend goes there were once two great beasts deeply in love, one of sand and one of fire but due to their powers being so great they would be unable to take on humanoid forms and be together until they we’re nearly at the peaks of mortal power. Realizing that as long as they were of two different species they wouldn’t be able to mate with each other and that there was no guarantee that either of them would be able to reach the heights of power they needed to reach let alone both of them, they decided to do something to simulate the depths of the love they felt for each other. They decided to both raise up a group of peoples by using a lesser known method beasts can use to pass down they’re bloodline. Typically a beast won't start passing their bloodlines unto humanoids until they can take on a form that naturally allows the to do so, these two decided to remove portions of their blood essence, life spirit, and primal instincts and merged them into drops of bloodline power and passed them directly onto humans, repeating this until they had both reached their dying points. During this time the peoples they had gathered and blessed asked what their purpose was, why were they chosen. ‘You were chosen to represent the love we have for each other, to fulfill what we couldn’t. We have no other tasks for your peoples than to mingle and coexist, live together in harmony and give birth to the things we couldn’t while we lived.’ the beasts speak to the people they had gathered for the last time as they told them this and then as there bodies began to break down and fade, rather than allow their spirits to return to the cycle of Samsara they dispersed themselves over not just their own peoples but onto each in order to reinforce the fact that all they had wanted in life was to be together. So considering these guys are direct descendants of at least semi divine beasts if not full divinities I'm not surprised that their idea of comfortable temperatures differ from ours.’ Fairs finishes as he chuckles at the wide eyed look on Serens face as he tells them that the people of CinderSands were all descendants of great beasts.
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With a dazed expression Seren can be seen staring into the distance as he thinks to himself, ‘When Senior Owl-Bear gave me his blood essence and life spirit I originally thought I had felt a third energy flow could that have been the instincts? Fairs said the beasts merged the energies first though which Senior didn’t do. Argh, I can’t figure it out, I’ll have to hope someone at the academy can tell me if I can’t figure it out myself.’ As Seren shakes out his daze he can see Fairs glancing back at him and smiles sheepishly. ‘Sorry about that, what you said reminded me of something.’ Seren responds to Fair's look.
‘Well enough then, It looks as if this guy has finally reached wherever he’s been heading, let's hope it's the destination we want. ‘ Fair’s answers while they get ready to enter a room approximately three flights of stairs down and dozens of turns later.