Portent Alliance

[Ailinea]

((Ailinea's adventures in Norrath, as we once knew it, were full of excitement, danger, and discovery. The Portent Alliance explored Norrath and Luclin to do what they could to stop the visions they had of their home becoming a wasteland and all life wiped from existance. As promised, their quests took them to the farthest planes and the strangest lands, and yet they were always glad to return home. This story begins in the "future" of EQ1.))

********

Ailinea stretched in her seat in the library, noting which additional muscles and joints were sore today, before picking up the piece of parchment that was the culmination of her life’s work. She knew she would not go down in Norrath’s history as the next Arantir Karandor or, Tunare forbid, Al’Kabor. But with the spell she just crafted, maybe she would be known as the one who opened the door to porting to the upper and elemental planes. “And why not reach high on my first attempt?” she thought. “It’s not as though we haven’t killed Quarm, and the wizard spires Fizwick and I created here in Omen Halls have proven successful to port to places I already know. My research is sound, and getting back home is no more than another port away. Besides…” Ailinea glanced at her reflection in her silver scrying bowl, “…it’s not as though I’m getting any younger to finally try this.”

Indeed, Ailinea was glad that being a High Elf meant it took longer for her youth to fade with time. She knew Koada’Dal in their 100’s who looked the same age as Humans in their 30’s. But she did not lament the fact that her age was beginning to show, as long as she convinced herself it gave her an air of experience and wisdom. Her pale blue eyes still flashed with an inner fire when she was on a hunt, despite the laugh lines that surrounded them as she and the Portents shared wild stories of their adventures around the fire in the Tavern. And her bright copper hair was still thick and lustrous despite the streaks of white now flowing from her temples.

Ailinea sighed. “Damn my vanity! When I was young I didn’t have a full spell book, nor could I even begin to tell anyone that someday I would port us all directly to the Plane of Time!”

She stood, and with a twinkle of excitement dancing in her eyes, she ran from the library of Omen Halls to the Tavern to share her success.

The Tavern was quiet. Members of the Portent Alliance were coming and going, pausing only for a hug and either a hello or goodbye. Except for Ktok and Tmitka, Ailinea saw. They were snuggling together on a large bench by the fire. Ailinea studied her guild leader and his mate as they purred with each other about the future of the Th’Rooks family. Ktok’s ears were notched, and there were thin places in his fur where the streaks of old scars marred his otherwise thick coat. Tmitka, on the other hand, looked half her real age. Ailinea knew that the time Tmitka spent communing with the spirits left her changed but not physically aged. Time passed differently for her as she spent a lot of it in the spirit world or in meditation. One of the revelations Tmitka had in her time alone was a name…one she and Ktok would announce whenever they presented their first cub to the family. They glowed as they looked into each other’s eyes.

“Ktok! Tmitka! It’s done! The Port to Time! I’ve completed it!”

“Congratulations!” rumbles the grizzled tiger. “When are you going to test it?”

“As soon as Fizwick gets here to help calibrate the Omen Halls spires for it! My plan is to just port in, get our location so we know where we wind up so we can plan future hunts, then gate back home. Do you have any interest in coming along?”

“Certainly!” said Tmitka, speaking for her mate. She paused and let him continue.

“Aye, we can even speed up the process a bit. Tmitka can get our location, while I tank anything that might happen along, and you can immediately begin to port us back home.”

“How strange to think that after all these years, we’re going to take a relaxing jaunt to the Plane of Time,” Tmitka mused. “This is going to be an historic event!”

********

A few hours later, Ailinea, Ktok, and Tmitka stood within the Omen Halls wizard spires, and a small crowd of excited family members gathered around them. Ailinea was proud of the spires. After much discussion with the scions and magi of the Nexus, she and Fizwick developed the spires for Omen Halls so the members could port directly home from wherever they were. However, unlike the spires that dotted Norrath, the Omen Halls spires depended on a gater’s affiliation with the family to know the spell (Ailinea’s first major research accomplishment) or possess a potion (thanks to the alchemists involved in the project) rather than a connection to the Nexus. With all the disconcerting dreams the Portents had of the destruction of Luclin, and subsequently, the Nexus, Fizwick and Ailinea managed to create a doorway that always welcomed the family home as long as the spells were never forgotten and lost.

Ailinea felt faedrakes in her stomach, and she leaned against her epic staff planted firmly in the ground so her knees wouldn’t go weak from nervousness. Budgie, her familiar, swooped around, chattering excitedly with the energy of a newly hatched drakeling. He could feel the electrical buzz in the air.

“Ktok and Tmitka, are you ready?” shouted the gnome.

“Ready and willing!” the two Vah Shir shouted back.

“All systems check. Ailinea, give us a show!” Fizwick called to the group.

Ailinea nodded and raised her staff. She turned to Ktok and Tmitka as she began the familiar hand gestures that activated the spires and opened the gate in a flash of fire, spinning in circles about them. She felt the familiar tug of energy pulling at her body at her solar plexus, the base of her skull, and at the center of her forehead where the jewel in her tiara rested against her skin. The tugging sensation intensified as she began her chant to define the location of the port.

“Through space. Tempus frangit. Through time. Tempus frang-AH!”

Already, Ailinea knew something was horribly, irreversibly wrong. The ring of fire that forms the border of energy of her ports suddenly changed from orange to gas-flame blue. It burned far hotter than she had ever experienced in all her years of shooting balls of fire from her fingertips. But, before she could interrupt her casting, the spires crackled with energy, the fires of her port gate flared up, and a bright flash and rolls of smoke concealed the three as they succumbed to the pull of the spell.

A hush fell over the members of the Portent Alliance gathered around the spires. They knew this was no ordinary port.

Ailinea, Ktok, and Tmitka were gone.

********
_________________


"A hit is hard to resist, and I never miss. I can take you out with just a flick of my wrist." ~Garbage

"Look at me, guys! I'm a hunter! PEW PEW!"

[Ailinea]

Ailinea woke up slowly. She felt the floor unsteady, even rolling. A boat. And it was dark. Her senses slowly came to life. First was touch. The wooden floor was rough and hard, but she was on some kind of mat. She tried to move, but the shackles about her slender wrists and ankles were connected to heavy chains. She was a prisoner, but to whom?

Smells reached her nostrils next. Apparently the boat had been at sea for some time now because the stench of rotting refuse and biowaste made her begin to cough and retch violently.

She tasted salt and bile. Her stomach growled from hunger, but she continued to heave and choke from nausea.

Her eyes began to adjust to the light, and she saw other bodies shifting uncomfortably around her. Spying a light further down in the galley, she tried to sit up and see what was going on. Muffled sounds reached her ears: Jeering voices, an animalistic growl, strains of music, and…

…the snores of a guard watching over the chained prisoners. Another guard, relieving the first for his rest, held something glinting and shiny in his hands. Her tiara! He was trying to pry the jewel from the Phoenixborn diadem with a dagger!

A rage built up inside her, and she shifted and struggled against the chains. Her hands, she noticed as she tugged on the shackles, were smooth and showed no signs of her age. Interesting.

She did not have more than a few moments worth of exertion before a rough hand grabbed her by the hair and wrenched her head back.

“So ye’re awake now, pretty-pretty! The boys could have some fun with you!”

Ailinea tried to scream, but couldn’t find the lung capacity as she was hauled to her feet and thrust forward to stumble in her hobbles over twitching bodies. The guard had detached the chain that had connected her collar to the wall and led her along using it as a leash. When she stumbled, he yanked hard on the chain, choking her. He drew her towards the light.

In the next room, men were gathered around in a circle, whooping and whistling at the figure in the middle. Tmitka! The chains to her collar and wrists were thrown over a beam in the ceiling, and she was completely surrounded.

“Dance!” they shouted at her. “Dance the way we like it!”

Men prodded at the Vah’s feet with hot pokers, while others wrenched the chains, making her move like a marionette. They grabbed at her tail and her hips and her breasts, and every time they touched her, Ktok rumbled in anger from the corner.

Ailinea gazed upon her guild leader in sympathy. The men had him chained tightly. His wrists were allowed one chain between the shackles and held to the floor by a metal ring. He was on his knees and elbows, his collar chain allowing his head a radius of movement of about one foot. He was kept in a position making him look as though he was bowing in submission to some unseen master. Every so often, a man would turn and poke at Ktok, or worse, kick him in his unarmored belly with a steel-toed boot. Ktok probably had several cracked and broken ribs, but to his credit, he only growled over what happened to his mate.

Ailinea was pushed towards the crowd and she fell to her knees. Not only were the shackles binding, but the sea was growing steadily rougher. As one accustomed to sensing the energy of the elements around her in the forms of the cold ocean and fiery lightning that were undoubtedly tossing the ship in the swells of waves, Ailinea thought that only some form of divine intervention would help this ship survive the night in the worsening storm.

Hands grabbed at her and flung her into the circle. Groping, grabbing, rough, harsh, prodding hands grappled at her from every direction. Ailinea knew she no longer wore her beautiful caster’s robe…her favorite with the metallic thread running through it. She was in barely more than rags, and the more the hands attacked her, the more the rags ripped.

She realized she was chanting—quietly at first, but building in a long crescendo with the force of the wind. “No no no no stop it no stop it! Stop it! No! No! Stop it! Touching! STOP IT!”

A giant wave tossed the ship as though it was a leaf on the wind. In the meantime, there was a loud roar of triumph and a short scream of terror. All the men who had not been thrown to the floor by the ship’s movement turned to see Ktok gutting one of their own. He had used a claw to work out a screw that kept his wrists chained, and the guard with the key was unlucky enough to be the first one within arms reach of the tiger. Ktok was free of his chains and began a bloody rampage against their captors, using a blade he stole from the key-keeper’s corpse. The men had better sea-legs, but the Vah Shir’s natural feline agility and grace helped him maintain his balance as he hacked and slashed his way towards his beloved Tmitka on the wildly tossing ship. Ailinea dropped down at Tmitka’s feet to stay out of the way of the flashing steel, and within moments the female Vah Shir was unchained and added her own claws and a pilfered dagger to the fight. The key was dropped to Ailinea, who crawled towards the bulkhead to unlock her chains.

She lost the foot shackles first, then those about her wrists. As she finished unlocking the collar around her neck, a hand grabbed her from behind again, this time around her waist. The man half-dragged, half-carried her back to the carnage, and then got the attention of those who were not dead or dying. The two Th’Rooks paused, growling.

“May I have your attention. Unless you want the responsibility of this girl’s death on your…paws,” he placed the edge of a dagger to Ailinea’s throat, “I suggest you submit to the chains again. Quit now and no harm will come to her. Refuse and keep fighting, and….” He drew the blade across about one inch to show he meant business. Ailinea gasped as the cold blade bit into her throat, and she felt the warm trickle of blood lazily trail downward.

Before he could do any more damage, the boat lurched and rocked violently once more. Ailinea saw her chance and grabbed the man’s wrist away from her throat and twisted her body from his grasp. Startled, he launched himself towards her, but she continued her twisting motion, forcing the blade-wielding hand downward. The sudden crash of the boat into rocks slipped the blade cleanly and fatally into his belly.

Men were scrambling, leaving the two bewildered Vah Shir and High Elf to fend for themselves and each other. The ship was splintering apart and torches were knocked over. The smell of burning wood reached their nostrils and they soon realized that the men—slavers, they agreed—had scuttled to the top deck and latched the doorways leading to the cargo hold. They were trapped.

They were not trapped for long, but the danger was far from over as their means of escape formed from the destruction of the boat. Ailinea heard whimpers and cries from the other slaves—the bodies she had stumbled over earlier. The sounds were those of people whose hope had abandoned them long ago.

The fire was encroaching on them, so they moved back towards the other slaves. Ktok found a place in the hull of the ship where the sharp rocks had begun to punch holes into the vessel. He began to slam his full weight against the hole, trying to make it bigger. Tmitka clawed at it with what tools she could find. Their task was made progressively more difficult as the ocean continued to mercilessly hammer the ship into the rocks, and the smoke from the fires made it more and more difficult to breathe.

Ailinea could not bear the thought of letting the other prisoners drown in their shackles, though their survival would depend solely on their will to live. “They may have given up on hope,” she thought, “but I won’t let those men and their chains *take* their hope away!” She rummaged around where the two guards had been posted, and found a key. She also found her tiara, the metal bent terribly, but the stone intact.

She began unlocking the chains of the other prisoners and yelling at them to move. Some whimpered in terror and Ailinea understood they had already resigned themselves to death. Others scrambled as the splintering ship began to lose its shape and ability to float.

Water sucked at Ailinea’s ankles, knees, hips, then waist as she waded back towards her friends. The boat was tossed once more by a giant wave, and the ceiling collapsed as she saw Ktok and Tmitka dive out the hole they helped the storm and the rocks widen. They thought Ailinea was just behind them, but she was cut off from freedom.

Frantically, the elf looked around for another escape route. Burning timbers continued to fall around her as she saw another escape. She swam against the terrible current, her eyes fixed on the doorway to freedom.

Another wave, another cracking sound of wood, and about five yards from her escape, another timber fell, an intense pain, and Ailinea’s world went black.

********
_________________


"A hit is hard to resist, and I never miss. I can take you out with just a flick of my wrist." ~Garbage

"Look at me, guys! I'm a hunter! PEW PEW!"

[Ailinea]

Light filtered through her eyelids as Ailinea awoke. Again, the world around her was rocking, but this time the sea was gentle and no sensations of nausea washed over her. Instead, the breeze flowing through the cabin was salty-fresh and clean. Most importantly, Ailinea realized, there were no sounds of chains.

Ailinea rolled to the side of the bed (a bed!) and sat up, putting her bare feet on the smooth wooden floor of the cabin. She tried standing, but she plopped back down from dizziness. She sat for several minutes, breathing deeply and wondering what had happened. She could still taste salt, so she figured she was pulled from the wreckage by her hosts. Finally feeling more clear-headed, Ailinea stood up and explored the cabin. “It must be the quarters of an officer on duty,” she thought. There was only one bed, a small desk and nightstand (both nailed to the floor, she noted), a chair, a chest for personal belongings, and an old mirror.

Ailinea strode over and checked her appearance, remembering how her hands looked…younger somehow. How odd it was that…

… she gasped. She looked no older than when she fled Felwithe for the first time. Her hair was the copper of a summer sunset, and her skin was as smooth and fair as fresh cream. She looked at her clothes. They were still severely tattered, and Ailinea blushed as she realized someone must have removed them and re-dressed her as they were freshly mended in places. She looked around the cabin once more and found not only a hairbrush, but also her tiara waiting for her on the small table by the bed, along with a meager meal. Dried fruits, fragrant cheese, crusty bread, and a goblet of white wine awaited her appetite. Ailinea did not even realize how hungry she was until she began to nibble on a dried apricot. She ate enough to satisfy her hunger pangs, then brushed her hair back into a ponytail to get it out of the way. She scowled at her reflection. “Damn my vanity! I look like I’m just growing into my ear points like a puppy again! Whatever happened to that air of wisdom?” She sighed and tried to put on her diadem. It had been repaired by her benefactors, but not as she was used to wearing it. She sighed again and placed it on her head with the stone pointing upwards. An unusual look, but, satisfied, Ailinea decided it was time to meet her hosts.

As she reached for the doorknob, the door swung open with force, and a huge shadow of a man stood in her path. Startled, Ailinea squeaked and retreated a few hasty steps from the door.

“Ahoy, lassie! So good ta see ye’re awake! We was gettin’ a mite worried about ye! But I thought I heard a noise….” He paused, peering at her frightened face. “Ach, ‘tis okay! Come on out!” He stepped back so Ailinea could step out to the deck of the ship and finally see sunlight.

The light was blinding at first, but Ailinea soon became accustomed. Then she realized the man, apparently the captain, had still been rambling at her.

“T’was a bad storm, but we vowed ta put those slavers outta commission. There weren’t many survivors when the ship wrecked. Most o’ ‘em were skewered be tha bones o’ tha boat or dashed ‘pon tha rocks. Others were too heavy wit’ chains or armor and were pulled under an’ drowned. We found ye’re two friends holdin’ ya above water. We first thought they was drowning Ratonga.” The man chuckled. “Tha slavers that lived, well, we dealt wit’ them. But tha fact that those two kitties were holdin’ up a blacked-out High Elf, well we knew they couldna’ be too evil, right?” He chuckled to himself again, not noticing Ailinea was only half-listening to his story. “By tha way, what be ye’re name, lassie?”

At this, Ailinea finally looked at him with her full attention. “My name is Ailinea, and…you said two Vah Shir saved me? Where are they?”

“Vah Shir, ye say? I knew ye High Elves like ta hold on ta th’ old ways, but I ain’t heard of any Vah Shir bein’ roun’ since tha Shatterin’. Nah, but there are tha two Kerrans, if they be who ye mean.”

“Um…yes. I’m sorry, I must have hit my head a bit harder than first thought.” She blushed as the captain chuckled again. “Ktok and Tmitka…are they around? Are they okay?”

“Why, yes, lassie! They’re helpin’ earn their keep—and yours—by lendin’ a helpin’ hand or two on board.” He pointed to where the two cats were getting instructions from another crew hand. “There they be. Go talk wit’ them, and ye can help out too, if’n ye don’t mind. Though I dare say that they should take charge of the minor rodent problem. Now, if’n ye excuse me….”

“Thank you,” Ailinea said to the captain, who was already turning to bark orders at other crewmembers. She dropped a quick curtsey and ran off to see her friends.

“Ktok! Tmitka! You’re all right!” She embraced her friends tightly, glad to see somewhat familiar faces again. They, too, looked younger than before the porting accident. “What has happened to us?”

Ktok rumbled, “Time. Time happened to us. We didn’t port to the Plane of Time, we ported through time itself.”

Ailinea was startled, but unafraid with her friends there with her.

Tmitka, serene as ever, pointed to the sky as she spoke. “Seems our visions were correct.”

Ailinea gasped. She had not noticed the remnants of the moon of Luclin overhead before. “Then…then we have failed! I took us from the Portents…away from our mission! We failed to prevent it from happening because we were not there! My spell…” her voice dropped to a whisper. “I mis-cast. ‘Through space…TO Time!’ One word. One stupid word. And none of this would have happened.”

“Nay,” Ktok purred reassuringly. “Remember, the visions were of all of Norrath and Luclin being destroyed and all life being wiped from existence. Yet we still live. People are alive. We may have lost Luclin,” he winced, and Ailinea could tell he thought of Shar Vahl, “but not everything was lost. That means the Portents succeeded. We may not have been there for this event—what they call the Shattering, but it means that we succeeded in preparing the Portents for what was to come.”

“And how far into the future do you think we are?”

Tmitka answered the elf’s question. “I’ve done some investigating, and as best as I can tell, we’re about 500 years in our future. With the destruction of Luclin, and the loss of Shar Vahl, the surviving Vah Shir united with the Kerrans of Norrath to help our cousins evolve and flourish. Now we are all considered Kerrans. Most of the cities of Norrath are rumored to have been destroyed…Neriak, Kelethin, Felwithe,” Ailinea cringed, “even Gukta. The Frogloks have disappeared. In fact, the gods themselves are said to have disappeared. Norrath is emerging from the initial chaos to rally under the banners of Antonia Bayle in Qeynos or Lucan D’Lere in Freeport. We,” Tmitka nodded, indicating the boat and all aboard, “are headed to the Isle of Refuge where we can find directions on how to get to Qeynos. We were lucky this ship came when it did.”

They all considered what Tmitka told them before Ailinea spoke. She was obviously pondering the loss of Felwithe. “And…why are we younger if we traveled forward in time?”

Ktok spoke, “Tmitka and I have discussed that at length. We think the rift affected us on such an incredible level, taking into account the evolution of our species, that our very genes were changed…”

“What he means is,” Tmitka interrupted, “we’re really not sure, but we were given a second chance to affect the future as we were always destined to do.” Ktok blushed slightly, the furless skin around his eyes briefly turning pink, but he nodded in agreement with his mate.

“So when we reach land, what shall we do?” Ailinea asked her leader.

“As we no longer possess the knowledge we need to be magically efficient in this world, and in my newfound youth I…I am not as fit as the seasoned warrior I once was, we shall first gain some experience in this world as we make our way back to Omen Halls—spirits willing our home still stands.”

********
_________________


"A hit is hard to resist, and I never miss. I can take you out with just a flick of my wrist." ~Garbage

"Look at me, guys! I'm a hunter! PEW PEW!"

[Ailinea]

Ailinea slowly waded into the bay, not caring that her new robe was getting soaked and filling with sand. The ocean waters felt good on her tired and sunburned body, cooling her off from the Norrathian sun. The past two weeks have been a strange experience. The three companions…people who have seen the highest planes and the most foreign lands…were fighting goblins, of all creatures, and completing menial tasks just to prove their worth so they can gain passage to the city of Qeynos.

She disliked Malvonicus’ sneering, impatient manner with her, but also understood that unlike the Felwithe guilds where the masters only had to teach the High Elves of the city, and even then, they were already very specialized in their training so they each had fewer novices to deal with, Malvonicus had to begin the apprenticeship of all mages of all races. So she could somewhat understand his short temper due to how busy he was…but that look of contempt! The one piece of Portents insignia she still had on her was a small necklace bearing the Portent of Norrath emblem: The all-seeing eye over the planet of Norrath. Malvonicus spotted it and gave her a look that made her blood run cold. The look in his eyes demanded, “Who are you to be wearing that?” He didn’t even have to say the words…and when she told him her name he actually made a sound of disdain! Ailinea hadn’t felt so low in ages. On one hand, she was glad that the name of the Portents had survived to the point of recognition of the Portent of Norrath insignia even though it and the Portent of Luclin merged when she was still a wide-eyed Seeker. But on the other hand…no, she didn’t expect anyone to believe she was the same Ailinea Phoenixborn that lived 500 years ago. That still did not mean that the rudeness was acceptable. There were plenty refugees here who came from all sorts of backgrounds. Surely Malvonicus has had to deal with others who claim to have been from another era before the Shattering, right? But what if…what if…the name of the Portents was not remembered kindly and that’s why Malvonicus gave her that look?

Ailinea sighed and began wading back to shore. Ktok and Tmitka were there, negotiating their fees with a ship’s captain to bring them to Qeynos. Truly, the richest people she had met so far were merchants and ship officers like Captain Varlos. He admitted he was paid to bring refugees to the island. The refugees then had to earn their own keep to pay their fare to the city itself. She was also aware that the slave trade and indentured servitude was high due to even less trustworthy ship captains running through the area and offering rides for much lower fares, but at a much higher price. Did the small group of young Wood Elves not know that they were about to board a ship full of Trolls who were more interested in having some meat in their stew than taking the Elves to the gates of a city that hated Trolls to begin with, much less welcomed Trolls to dock and unload passengers? Ailinea heard their screams as that ship left the Island’s harbor. She shuddered and tried to push the echoing sounds out of her memory.

The Elf tossed her copper hair, shaking the sand from her ponytail. She had cut it a little shorter than she was used to wearing it to lift it off the back of her neck and help keep her cool from the heat. This island was nothing like the marble halls of Felwithe and the dappled shadows of the Faydark. She then joined her friends in a short meeting with the Ambassador who seemed to accept their pledges to Qeynos, but could not grant them citizenship. They were told to speak with the Stewards of the city to settle into their new lives.

Qeynos…never their favorite city. Antonia Bayle was at least kind enough to make sure all who come to the city were provided with shelter, and the city was divided into different districts for the various races to at least give them some semblance of their lost homes. But she felt no more at home in Castleview Hamlet than she was certain the two Throoks felt in Nettleville Hovel. Without the trees of Greater Feydark around the district to purify and circulate the air, Castleview took on the muddy, swampy smell of the Frogloks who co-inhabited the village. Ailinea did not totally blame the children of Marr for their unfortunate low standards in personal hygiene, but one would think that the governing body of Qeynos would have levied more consideration of sanitation in the district. Perhaps they thought that the spiritual beliefs of the Tunare-worshipping High Elves and the Mithaniel Marr-worshipping Frogloks would get along best together. She would have preferred the company of the Wood Elves, much as Felwithe and Kelethin were neighboring cities, but, in retrospect, figured that they would be best suited to live with the Ayr’Dal…the Half-Elves. The Portents stressed accepting people for who they were, no matter what their race or creed, as long as they were willing to fight side by side for the common cause. But Ailinea knew that even her fellow High Elves could be cruel to those they felt were “beneath” them.

A district for the short races, the Gnomes and the Halflings, had to be re-constructed for their stature, and so the Baubleshire belonged to them. The Dwarves and Barbarians got along well, save for the not-so-occasional drunken bar fight in the Greystone Yard tavern. The Erudites would not stand to be paired with the Half Elves and would butt heads far too often to live with the High Elves, so they were placed with Humans in Starcrest Commune. The…Kerra – Ailinea had to stop herself and remember they were no longer called Vah Shir – they were noble, yet possibly too aloof and tribal for the High Elves’ and Erudites’ sensitivities. Plus, the smell of fish and wet fur would not go over well with so many of her kin any better than the Frogloks do. And Humans. Ailinea remembered that this was originally a Human city, and so they populated several of the villages. Half-Elves originally lived here too, but they seemed to be destined to suffer ostracism no matter where they wandered.

Perhaps the division of the races was as best as Qeynos could arrange. Ailinea pondered their present state as she ran around the district to earn her citizenship. Her inn room was comfortable enough, but it was still not the home she had at Omen Halls. She wondered about the shockingly low numbers of Frogloks in Qeynos, and determined to learn what happened to them during the past 500 years.

But more importantly…what happened to Omen Halls? Ailinea went to the Mariner’s Bell and rung it for a ferry to take her to Nettleville to meet up with Ktok and Tmitka again. Perhaps if they reached Omen Halls they could find some more answers. Ailinea had done her best to make sure journals and documents were kept to maintain a record of their history…but had anyone taken up the task when they disappeared? Was anyone left? Were the Halls even there anymore?

********
_________________


"A hit is hard to resist, and I never miss. I can take you out with just a flick of my wrist." ~Garbage

"Look at me, guys! I'm a hunter! PEW PEW!"