…..:::::|. The Glorious Toot .|:::::…..

Siin made his way, slowly, down the wide stairwell attempting to keep the morning from spinning. He had begun to dread mornings. The Terile Function was a markedly poor choice in achieving life-goals but if one wanted to cast battle-winning magecraft one had to endure the toils of intestinal turmoil.

He stopped thinking about the formula for it was causing him to waver on the steps. Thinking of anything else would most likely help his state. As he gripped—hard—the railings, histories taught to him about Warcasters across the globe who persevered and won conflicts with cunning and might, came to his memory. There were so many stories told of them; told in every language system on Dureyr: The Majora, Minora, and Alluvium. The latter was so rarely spoken outside of their own cultural circles hardly anyone knew they even still existed. But Siin was special. He could comprehend all languages. He hadn’t really known why but he chalked it up to some innate mage skill. He wondered if there would be any stories told of him one day. He cursed in all languages at the sudden churning of his gut as he took another step downward.

Siin forced a grin for he could smell the fresh pools before he saw them and as he breached the hanging curled-wood doors, he saw a familiar head of loosely wound black waves bobbing to the deep drum tavern music that drifted herein.

His insides danced at the sight of her and he was pleased with how he felt about her still. So very pleased to have met her again. But softness was not on his agenda; toying and teasing were.

“Oh, I see you found your way back.” He chuckled at her soaking quietly in the near empty terrace hall.

Halycind turned back to greet her near crouched over friend. “What, I wasn’t going to pass this up.” She said making a face of playful challenge.

He reached the edge of the pool where lay her outer robes and sandals and pins for her wolaenki. She, as most patrons in the pools here now, wore a white near-sheer bathrobe as they soaked. Some of the length of her hair lay in wavy wet strands over her sheer-covered honey-bronze shoulders down to the depth of the pool. He licked at his fang. Her long black hair had always been such a source of attraction for him. The churning in his gut shed itself for a swell of hormones, but neither mix felt entirely good at the moment.

“I wish I could preserve this image.” She let out with a childlike wonderment. Siin brightened a bit, then made a quick decision.

He flourished hands into a square and tossed a flash of craft to the fabrics at her side. She looked to them and gasped. It was a perfect rendering of the vista she now soaked in. “Now, you have to get your robes framed.”

"You know you didn't have to go to that trouble. In primitive days, all people did was slather on some stain from someplace and draw up what they saw--Siin?"

Halycind looked up to see the grinning young man grimace and hug his gut.

“Too early?” She winced for him.

“Too early. I'm going to go throw up.” His words struggled to pass his groans and he turned away.

Halycind took the opportunity to gag his morning with her own pranks and projected in a louder than normal voice facing the few patrons in the pools along the hall. “Y—you should get off of that Yaan!” Siin looked back at her, shushing her with one hand. “Stunts your growth!” She finished, smiling and nodding at the logic of her falsities.

“I'll...get you back.” He grunted as he scuttled to the nearest latrine.

Halycind giggled to herself as she watched some of the patrons chuckle and still others shake their heads for-shaming the boy.

…..:::::|. The Ladi: Ward Plaza WEst .|:::::…..

It was a bright sun-rising over the mountainside. Stalls, freshly stocked with wears. Folks freshly dressed for the day. Flowers freshly strung for the hanging. Five men walked with a fresh purpose down the walkways of the city center; three Agents and two warriors. Townsfolk and other soldiers and travellers gave them wide berth as the men placed boots on ground as only head-hunters could.

It was not an often spoken of connotation but the Zadagen Agency wrought fear into the hearts of many, reverence into some and pure adoration into others. The Agency was openly known to be brutal and never shied in the notion that common-folk described the head-hunting Order as both murderous and relentless. The epithet ‘Paragon and Prince’ most always escaped the lips of whispering passersby who happened to see them parade through the streets but 'Brutal Butchers' came from those who happened to see them hunt. This was the case here in the whispers of Ladi Gru Has this sun-rising. First Agent Veygornne, Fourth Agent Critza Brietcheld, Weroance I'eladh Carabaan, Margrave Ebron Iella and one Exemplariat Percival Hollichek sauntered through the city center in full knowledge of the awe the Agents struck in those about town.

The Margrave had been making intermittent meetings with the Exemplariat for the past few days, given their history as friends and fighting comrades. Fourth Agent Critza and Weroance I'eladh arrived only just an hour past to deliver news to the Exemplariat of the most recent trial results in Northern Gaen a Nce.

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“Only four?” Started Percival. “Dun'ahka choose?”

“He's been...occupied.” Critza's voice was remarkably deep.

“Meaning?”

“Scerci.”

“Again?” Percival sighed and rolled his eyes, then squinted them. “Hestia didn't oversee the trial did she?”

“Pregnancy means nothing to an Isam woman.”

Percival shook his head. “She should be in the Ladies House. Getting daily massage treatments and taking soups for ease of labour.” Dun'ahka had only just married the young fighter from Cat'a one cycle ago and they were already expecting a little one. Percival found himself keeping close eye over her as Exemplariat Dun'ahka was often called to answer Kings and Immortals who needed the aid of the most powerful man in the Agency. Percival also realized how lonely it left Hestia but even though she was just passed her budding youth, she was a woman of sound wisdom and significant patience. If she had been left to make final judgment over the hunting abilities of the young candidates for the Agency, the choice of who would pass was in capable hands. Percival spoke his mind. “Then how many of the four did she choose?”

The Fourth Agent Critza sighed. “One.” He shook his head. "A violet-eyed Solemner girl named Hadiza."

"Ah, her parents are mages in the Villa. The first from their nation to be so. Good on her to be accepted." Percival's eyebrows were high and happy on his face.

Veygornne who had been silent most of the morning made an audible groan. He was not encouraged by this number. Less and less prospective youth had been taking the triennial trial dubbed the 'Venge—after its vengeful creator, Inoa—and less and less had been chosen. Conversely more and more rogue-mages had been cropping up and more and more brigand companies had been extending their harmful reach across the trades of the world; poor Veygornne was clearly getting on in cycles. His involvement with the Agency was soon to be a tertiary one for his head-hunting days were beginning to irritate his bones. “Only one.” He sagged for a moment. “Does no one see the ichor that is rising from the depths?”

The Margrave was the first to answer, “Oh, they see it. There's just no money in it. And to still have all the responsibility of a paid semeguard, ugh.”

“We are much more than the semeguard, Ebron.” Percival passed a cross look to the Margrave pursing lips at him.

“Autonomous though you may be. Rich you are not. Constantly on call you are.”

“There is respect in our station. There is purpose in what we do.”

“Yeah, yeah everyone respects you...No one wants to be you, save the children nobbish enough to tie their hair back like yours. We always look at that guy going 'Oh, whew, glad I'm not the one that has to go risk my life killing some whatever-beast, wrangled by some whatever-mage, for some whatever-king that may or may not be a shite.'”

The three Agents nodded in amiable understanding but it was Percival who spoke, “We remind ourselves we're bound to more Primeval Principles than fleeting Kings and Kingdoms.” His point, succinct though it was, still needed elaboration but it and the whole conversation was interrupted by a very welcomed sight coming up the walk from the woods.

“Well, if it isn't the Mad Mage.” Percival tilted his head to a bedraggled man in rags for robes, chains about his person, and a glowing webbed muzzle at his mouth being guided at each arm by two fox-like women in ornate metal masks and black leather wildergear. "You seriously couldn't come up with a better epithet than that, Marvynn?" He tilted. "I feel silly telling people I'm hunting one of the strongest mages in the land who'd dubbed himself, 'Mad Mage'. It's a stain on all our occupation."

The gaunt and untidy man shook his head like a dog toward the mocking Exemplariat.

“Maester Mordran said you had missed The Great Island. How are you finding Gaen a Nce? Homey? Anything like you remember?”

Drool fell in gobs from the corners of his lips as he panted through the muzzle. Flakes of crusted earth sprinkled from his rags as the women wrestled him to the Exemplariat's position. Folks cleared the street, in as much as a crowded thoroughfare could clear itself, from the likes of the scraggly man in chains but he still nipped and bit and snickered at passersby.

Veygornne growled in reaction as the three approached. More than his appearance, something seemed foul about this prisoner. He glanced about pathways and walkways of midtown. It was an open terrain. Too open. Only small gardens, benches and manicured stream-beds lay the land. Nothing terribly close or confining to halt runners, save the Ashwood cottages and establishments surrounding the center. He stared at the Mad Mage, expectantly.

The five men walked upon the women and the mage, finally, in shackles. Percival gripped the air with his left fist and the Mage choked on his own cackling.

“Hush it, Marvynn.”

The mage pursed an ugly set of dripping lips to the Exemplariat in fur.

“How many chances have I given you?”

Some of the townsfolk scurried knowing what the Agency was capable of in the ways of execution. What Percival's actual intent was they didn't care to see. The notion of public maiming and murder was enough to walk swiftly from this meet up.

“Two?” Percival nodded to himself. “Yeah, I thought so.”

The other four men watched as the man, who they’d thought was a calm centered fellow, drew close onto the scowling face of his quarry like an abusive spouse. Percival was not known for his displays of anger but it was as if he wanted Marvynn to test his resolve. Weroance I'eladh placed a hand on Percival's arm. Percival ignored him.

“I would almost think you wanted them to catch you for me, Marvynn. So you could look me in the eye one last time. Find out if I'm as serious about your head as my charter relays.” He glared at the mage breathing stringy spittle upon Percival's braided beard.

Veygornne knew better than to part them but to the life of him he thought he saw Marvynn's clasped hands flinch.

“I can hear you transmuting them.” Percival confirmed Veygornne's observation as the fox-women looked down to see what his hands in mittens had been casting while they walked from the woods. “I warn you...don't do it, Marvynn. Don't run.”

The two men—brown eyes, blue eyes—shared a long wicked look just before Marvynn spat a cackle and took to a wicked run. His craft resistant shackles and mage muffling mittens had hit the ground in piles of now miss-shapen wooden splinters.