As Gora walks through the astran palace she looks upon all their artifacts paintings and other notable oddities that they had displayed around the castle. She is amazed at the sheer quantity of exceptional items. Rex and cofus look pleased with themselves as the look at the awestruck chieftess princess as the continue around the palace they find themselves in the throne room the kings had already be alerted to their presence and sit on their thrones in anticipation as the three travelers walk in.

Gora looks at the three kings still in awe from the splendors of the castle, she actually bows to them as she stands in front of them.”greeting kings of astran i am lady grigora kalo heiress to the grand chief of the land of Sokara i have come to redeem my families tarnished artifact and help you in this war with the luutons”

The two low kings look toward cofus and rex with much approval as the high king looks unimpressed”i do not understand, where are the sokaran warriors or have they denied us their aid in the physical sense and sent you as a tutor to our soldiers?”

Gora looks annoyed by this and looks up to the high king her eyes meeting his”i doubt there is much i could teach you wielders of fire no i have come as a warrior to your aid for my own personal means my grandfather could not reason sending his aid im sorry on his behalf but the noble men of our lands are more independent than the nobles of astra and would need convincing.”

The high king frowns and looks at cofus and rex”so the negotiations were a failure then? That is a shame the sokaran warriors would have been a great aid to us”he looks back at gora and meets her gaze”well i accept your personal request to assist us in the oncoming conflict grigora Kalos i hope you’ll be a great aid to us”

His face is serious, it does not seem cold or joyful at her help, it look as if hes calculating her potential worth to him. He knows of the spear that she now wields and his eyes glance over her hair. Her whole head of hair was a bright deep yellow that stuck out like bolts of lighting in some places. “She is surely a powerful user of geia perhaps she could be use to us yet and Rex’s journey wasn’t pointless after all” the high king thinks to himself.

Grigora nods and gets up now that she has signed herself to this war it was done their was no returning to her home now not until the Aklha Fon has been driven back over his the mountains. The king dismisses them, rex and cofus lead gora out of the throne into a general place of commerce.rex is quite pleased with the results so far he still doubted the grandness of this approaching conflict but regardless its good to foster relations with their neighbors, he believed that while still much of the world is unknown he doesn’t believe the simple minded raiders of the north could be the greatest threat to the astrans.

Cofus smiles at this turns of events surely if this all proceeds well and gora is shown to be an indispensable ally, the young Cofeneva’s reputation will surely rise for his part in the coming conflict, and more importantly he thinks to himself; creating a strong connection between the Kalos and cofeneva clan.

Gora looks around the grand ballroom she is in and is amazed while it is currently mostly empty except for a few loose courtiers and visiting noble men and women, it is still a very beautiful room with marble flooring and fine wooden furniture.”what an amazing room of commerce here this room could easily fill up to 300 people”

Rex nods at the accurate statement”yes this room is often subject to the high kings lavish balls and festivities it is an often occurrence for the nobles of astra to gather themselves here. the high king put the castle in the center of the kingdom so that all could easily travel here’’

Rex seems quite proud of the castle and what it means for the people” cofus i in trust you with our guest you’re more than capable of showing her around I’ve been on the go for the last six weeks and im truly tired so im going to take this moment of delay between actions to rest.”

Cofus nods and bows to his departing senior”i understand captain ill be a honorable host to lady grigora”

rex nods and heads off to his domicile in the palace. Gora looks at cofus unenthused”so now what? If that rusting knight is gonna take a nap im guessing we have a few hours to ourselves?”

Gora not one to stand around gawking for long gets straight to the point now that shes already bored with seeing the palace” um i guess i could show you around lady grigora” cofus states in a comely tone though unsure what to do.she thinks to herself to a moment then grins”oh i know I’ve heard stories by my grandfather that the astrans use to have dragons like us can i see your moment to their remains?”

Cofus looks at grigora quite confused.”moment to their remains?”he says quite confusedly and the slightest bit disturbed”ya like the tower you bozos were standing in front of when you arrived in my city”

cofus thinks long and hard to what she might be referring to but then it clicks for him he recalls seeing the odd large blue tower next to the chiefs palace.“WAIT THAT WAS MADE OUT OF THE REMAINS OF A DRAGON!”

he shouts aloud a few courtiers and nobles look in the direction gora quickly covers his mouth”hey shut up man you cant just go around yelling that kind of stuff we get enough raiders as it is”

Gora says in a very aggressive hush voice the gears are turning in cofus his head while they thought their own home was impressive to gora they themselves failed to grasp the luxury materials of her grandfathers palace. Every little bit of that shining material was the remains of an electric dragon such materials in astra are impossible to afford. The tower and even the bits of blue ornaments on Gora’s person are all items of immense value.”wait but how can you have access to such things gora was all of that from your great grandfathers beast?”

Gora looked confused”huh? What are you talking about there’s no way all of that could from one dragon besides my grandfather never even recovered all of it no there has to be like 3-4 dragons total there”she say in a quite matter of fact tone not aware of the insanity of what she just said

“3-4! Gora how can that be? the Dragons died off hundreds of years ago their remains have been lost and scattered among the astrans how could your people so openly display them i thought your great grandfather simply had the last one?” his voice shown shaky as if his whole line of reasoning is being questioned

“I mean I guess he had the last one but its not like he was the last one in two hundred years. Dragons in the lands of Sokara are considered incredibly sacred to kill one off the battlefield is unforgivable. My 3rd great grandfathers beast dead 80 years ago but my 5th great grand fathers beast only died 90 years ago they live pretty long and i would have likely got to see my 3rd great grandfathers beast if it wasn’t slaughtered 80 years ago. Are you saying nothing remains of your ancestors great beasts?”

Cofus frowns abit”um well dragons in the lands of astra were never tamed and were mostly used as high valued prey. I can only really think of one astran king who rode one and maybe a handful of chiefs. Nobles of astran are lucky to have a few fragments of the beasts. I know rex has a rare dragon scale embedded in his sword”

Gora thinks to herself once again how savage the astrans are to slaughter such noble beast for their material was unthinkable to her people she shakes her head looks at cofus”OK got it not monument then show me your training grounds or something i still haven’t really got to test my new weapon yet”

Cofus sighs and nods and gestures for gora to follow him. He leads her to a part of the palace that opens up to a training grounds of some sort it would be quite busy as many knights of the realm would be training for the upcoming fight. They’d be running, sparring and doing many other exercises. As she looked around she could hear the sound of music playing, it was a soft and cozy song that made her feel warm.

As she looked toward the sides of the field she spotted a group of musicians playing their instruments some of which she’s never seen before. moving closer to them intrigued by two of the instruments they were playing. some odd 4 stringed harp like instrument that layed on the ground. They plucked the strings with their hands then pressed at the side of the instrument to change the pitch. It was a little eerie but also soothing. in front of the group a man playing an instrument gora was very familiar;a set of two flutes that he played at the same time.

between them lies a man with shiny red hair at the top of his long and thick hair that is black towards the ends. while he plays it often covers his eyes as he moves around his slim body was not that of a warrior as it moved with much grace and elegance as he strums away. His instrument is a type of lute that gora has never seen before the neck was thin and only had 4 strings on it. It had frets on the neck as well and a thin wooden body that was hollow . It was a light instrument that was probably 3 feet long. The strings seem to be made out of some kind of woven hair that’s as red as Sicus’s she thinks to herself

Gora looked at the instrument with amazement she approaches the man who is probably around her age if not a little younger and stands in front of him thoroughly observing his instrument ” hello there sir what instrument might that be?”

she ask pointing at the item in question.he looks at her with abit of confusion for a second but then answers her”its a pandura madam”

He says in a charming tone that seems to have no effect on lady gora. She looks at it a bit longer than disregards it and moves on, truly not the type to ask too many questions simply satisfied with knowing its name.

She moves towards a large blocks of stone they keep around to test there flames on; looking at the massive block with interest”how neat so you astrans simply fire away at large rocks to test your geia. We sokarans will line logs standing up and will test ourselves to split the logs from the top.”gora says to cofus who has remained by her side at all times.

“I see and what shall you attempt with our large blocks of stone miss grigora?no offense to your skills but i think you’ll find this a lot harder to split than a long”

cofus asks in a conservative manner.gora grabs her spear and walks up to the block and looks at it. It was a large cube exactly 9 feet tall and 9 feet wide. She looked at it for a moment herself trying to think. She looks at her spear then at the stone.

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She proceeds to walk back standing 20 feet away from the stone. She pulls the spear behind her, holding her other arm out for balance. Little pieces of static electricity move around her person as she gets prepared to throw her spear for the first time. She flings her whole body into the motion with an incredible amount of grace and technique she throws the spear at the stone her geia propelling it through the air like her arrow from cofus’s bow. Lightning is sent sparking across the ground leaving the ground scorched where the spear went over. The spear quickly penetrates the stone hitting with so much force the rock entire rock cracks though as the lighting that is released from it discharges into the stone. It penetrates the stone with so much force the it splits the stone open with Gora’s spear going melting right through the stone and piercing itself up to the last foot of its staff into the castle wall that lies behind it. that is now only being held together by the cooling magma caused by the spear.

Cofus and gora panic at seeing this they both quickly rush to the spear and grab a hold of it together. They put on their feet on the solidifying stone and pull together. Luckily as the stone hasn’t had a chance to fully re-harden as they pull it out with much ease sending to the two falling onto their backs as they used too much force to pull it out. They lay next to each other with the spear in Gora’s hands.

Gora lets out a heavy sigh”wheh thought i lost you there for a minute”she says in a consoling voice to the spear. Much of the training grounds would be looking at gora and cofus. Suddenly a man starts to run up to them in a very aggressive manor. He stands right over the two laying down his eyes filled with rage as he looks at them.”what in the ancestors name is going on here why did you throw a spear at a block of stone miss now where gonna have to reforge that rock and repair the castle wall!”the man yells at the two.

Gora frowns and stands up”im sorry sir i was told that the stones were for using geia on so i assumed they’d be much stronger i also just received this weapon and underestimated its strength”she says in a very noble manor that sound so unusual for her cofus looks at the normally rambunctious madam with a bit of confusion before bowing himself”yes im sorry sir Codia ill make sure she uses the proper equipment from now on”

The mans face remains stern as he gestures towards the shattered stone and the deformed wall”you think an apology will simply cut it?!? No way you’re both mine for the rest of the evening!”

Gora begins to open her mouth to say something but is quickly silenced by cofus stepping in front of her as he yells right over her complaints”yes of course sir im so sorry”

he says walking over to the stone with cofus following behind groaning. He gestures for a few other men to come help him. They all stand around the stone and take a position of reinforced balance thrusting their open hand forward; they let out a tsunami of fire upon the broken stone causing it to melt. It seems the floor below the stone was designed for this as it pooled into a hole and started draining down.

Gora watched this with a bit of amazement as the stone quickly faded from sight as it seeps into the floor. The man looked at cofus and gora”well come on get up now we gotta get it back up here”he said with the voice of a military instructor without thinking they both get up and ran to follow him, As he took off with the other men without waiting for them. They’d walk down a side of the palace that would lead down a level a large door is open by the other men. in the room lies a bunch of training gear and a giant cube mold that holds the new stone.”now that we are here you two will be doing drills until the stone is cool enough to carry back up”

Gora and cofus looked horrified for the next 4 hours they did nothing but drill after drill by the time the stone is ready gora and cofus are laying on the floor covered in sweat”rest time is over maggots, stones ready get up and get ready to help us move it.”

gora and cofus lack the will to refuse the man and quickly get up to help lift the stone. As the mold was removed it left it on a podium that left the sides hanging off allowing them to get under and hold it. 9 people stand around the stone and lift the almost a ton block. With the load split between so many strong people its not the hardest thing in the world but is still no easy task to do.

No the hardest part lies ahead as they carry the stone slowly uphill for the next hour only able to move at a truly irritating slow pace. Once the stone is finally put back into place gora and cofus fall over exhausted. Codia looks at them disappointedly”if this is the shape you’re in this upcoming conflict is going to be hard on you two.”

he says before walking off. Gora stands up furiously”who the hell does he think he is bossing me around like that!?!”

cofus shushes her fearing that he might be in ear range.”look i think we need to go freshen up im sure the high king will call for everyone later tonight and we don’t want to show up in clothes that smell like dry sweat”

Gora sighs, dropping her grudge for now simply nodding her head tiredly as she prepares to follow cofus”fine lead the way to the bath house. Cofus nods and leads the way to the public bathhouse on the palace grounds. The city of Oneidora was built where two rivers merge on both sides allowing for water access throughout the city. Gora was taken in by the stone bathhouse as every inch was filled with steam. It was very different than the wooden bath houses of Sokara.

Not one to stand around around for long gora quickly takes a bath in the warm waters, then gets redressed in some clothes picked out by servants. She stands in the mirror looking at the astran noble woman dress while it was not a fancy dress it was still much more than gora was accustomed to she winced at seeing the red garment adorn her body.

She puts all of her old clothes in a satchel that had been adorned on the side of her hip this entire journey. She sighs and looks for cofus her feet still in the sandals she had been wearing before. The spear wrapped around her back. Walking around the bath house with her hair still being wet.

As she gallivants across the public entrance to the bath house looking for cofus. Many knights and noble snicker at the oddly presented blond woman wearing such an ill fitted outfit. After several minutes of looking for cofus she starts picking up on their snickering confused what about they could possibly be snickering about she starts look closer at everyone and starts to release that her gaze is meeting theirs. They are looking at her and snicker at her.her eyes twitched abit upon this realization.

Suddenly a hand from behind rest upon her shoulder and a familiar voice speaks out”oh lady grigora i thought that was you i see found a more formal set of clothes how nice did they not give you any shoes dear or place to put your stuff?”gora looks behind her to see rex! She smiles abit feeling better about their snickering

“No they did not sir rex i was simply handed this dress and that is all i don’t even know where cofus is we both went into the bath house at the same time but I’ve been looking for him for the past 10 minutes”

gora complains in a defensive voice trying to raise awareness of their poor hospitality to her. Rex chuckles at this attempt of manipulation and gestures for gora to follow him”cofus tends to take long baths we can find him later at the kings meeting. For now let me show you to your temporary room while you’re staying in this palace’’

Gora nods following Rex to her temporary sleeping chamber. Rex smiles at gora as they walk”so how are you enjoying the palace lady grigora?”

she shrugs abit”i don’t know its all very big and fancy but i don’t really care for the people that fill its halls. Everyone seems so up their own ass but i guess i should’ve expected that you are astrans after all” she was a with a bitter tone

“Oh did their snickering bother you that much lady grigora or did something else happen?”rex ask sounding actually abit curious as to what could upset the princess so much

“Ugh that stupid drill instructor that i encountered in the training grounds! That asshole ran me ragged for for hours he didn’t let us stop long enough to curse that bastard collia or what ever his stupid name is!”she says out loud hoping by some chance he hears it.

Rex cant help but burst out into laughter at hearing this. Hes clutching his sides as lady gora just looks at him upset now with a bit of an embarrassed blush on her face”what the hells so funny asshole!”

she say quite aggressively dropping any form of formality.“Sorry miss grigora you must of had a run in with cofus’s uncle Codia, im truly sorry for your misfortune hes known as a very strict man. When i was a young man hed often torment to such extremes that i don’t think i could survive today”Rex’s voice sound very friendly as he fixes his jacket gora though seems even more rilled up by his response”his uncle huh? I wont have to fight with that bastard will i?”

she says quite stubbornly Rex cant help but let out another laugh”no he has very little geia hes always just trained his body hard and now that hes older there’s no use of him as a soldier so he spends his time training the younger generation.”he says holding his head high it seems he head a lot of respect for the man.

Gora scoffs at the attempt to redeem the man”whatever as long as i don’t have to see that bastard again i don’t care”

Rex smiles blankly trying to put up with the abuse his mentors reputation is taking. He tries changing the subject”so have you had a chance to try out your weapon miss grigora?”

She scoffs again and rolls her eyes”ya that’s how i met that asshole to begin with i destroyed one of those dumb blocks and he got pretty pissed off about it”

Rex looks at her in disbelief how could should be so arrogant”um miss gora those rocks are meant to test the heat of an astrans flame, a high class spear like yours would no doubt chip the rock id say its hardly a practical use of our equipment”

Gora huffs and looks away from rex”its not my fault i thought the point was to destroy the rock with geia so i destroyed it with geia” gora says quite confidently

Rex sighs and once again figures its best not to argue with her. They spend the next thirty seconds in silence as they walk to Gora’s room for the moment. As they walked in gora seemed quite happy with the arrangements her bed had a strong wooden frame with some very nice wool-like blankets she presses down on the bed before sitting on it her expression seems to show much content with the quality of the bed”rex do you have any way i can wash my clothes? It wouldn’t be very proper to wear them in the condition they are now” she says retrieving them from her satchel. Rex looks at them and nods”yes don’t worry ill call for a water maiden right away”

He pulls on a little bell on the side of the wall within the minute a woman with strands of blue hair mixed with blacks one. You called sir?”

she says looking at rex. Equipped outfit be a dark linen servants gown she looks at rex abit nervelessly. Gora glances at her ankle noticing the mark of a slave on her. Gora is quite upset by seeing this but doesn’t say anything for now”servant can you wash ladies Grigora’s clothes?”

the servant nods and bows taking Gora’s clothes and pulls a tub from underneath a counter getting on her knees she starts summoning water from the palms of her hands. pushing the water into the clothing soaking them in the quickly evaporating liquid made from her geia. Her hair loses a few strands of blue as they turn pitch black. after a few minutes she pulls the clothing out of the tub and raises them up to gora.

They’d already be dry and even more important clean! Gora grabs her clothing and looks amazed”oh my I’ve heard that those with water geia are often kept as servants i didn’t realize its because of such useful skills”

gora says trying her best to show empathy to the indentured servant. Rex nods and sends the servant off”well ill let you get acquainted the high king shall want to see us all in a few hours. so make sure to make your way to the throne room lady grigora”

she nods and politely as she can gestures for rex to leave so that she change back into her preferred outfit”OK rex thank you very much ill do just that ill see you later then bye bye”

practically pushing him out of the room she closes the door right behind him. With a heavy sigh she lays back against the door a moment before getting redressed.

It had been an exhausting last few days and she knows the worst has yet to come so after getting dressed she just lays on the bed for a moment laying their peacefully before getting up and getting ready to hear the king. She puts all of her drakkite jewelry back onto her body. then fastens the spear to her back. Looking at the red dress with much distaste. Throwing it into the tub where the maid had just cleaned her clothes. she points a single finger at it and zaps it causing it to catch fire. She watches with much delight as it burns safely inside the metal tub.

She waits until the last of the embers burn out before leaving the room once out she makes her way to the grand throne room of the high king to soon learn her place in this on coming war