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Dyrk­ius Rhe­sus of Amp­phipolis, Cit­i­zen of the Re­pub­lic of Pe­los

In­struc­tor Abreas(hu pelosian, m. lusty, ar­tic­u­late, per­cep­tive. Suc­cess­full

Pri­ma­ry Men­tal­ism ad­vis­er Aster­a(high pe­ol­sian, fm. Qui­et, Cru­el, old) Sec­ondary Men­tal­ism ad­vis­er Tetri­tary Men­tal­ism ad­vis­er

Rock Fel­low Lunel(g­nome, ma. blus­ter­ing, per­fec­tion­ist, fa­mous for clock­work maul of speed) one of three Hall of Ge­ol­o­gy heads

Iak­chos(high pelosian, m. ide­al­is­tic, young, be­lieves in his iron pen­dent of Mylien is luck­y) 3rd of­fi­cer on Pe­los Mi­nor Spri­gate “Gull Chaser”.

Cit­i­zen of The Re­pub­lic of Pe­los. You are as­signed to the re­serve “bird”, Am­phipo­lis Pi­geon. (A bird has around 730 sol­diers in it, it is like a di­vi­sion in mod­ern mil­i­tary.) Specif­i­cal­ly you are “Third of the Tail”, com­mand­ing three feath­er­s(9 sol­diers each) sort of(I can go in­to more de­tail if you’re cu­ri­ous). Am­phipo­lis Pi­geon is the most pres­ti­gious of the re­serve birds in Am­phipo­lis or Pe­los Mi­nor. Like most re­serve birds it is pri­mar­i­ly foot sol­dier­s. You are cur­rent­ly on “leave”. But when you re­turn to Pe­los you are ex­pect­ed to no­ti­fy the mil­i­tary and to per­form oc­ca­sion­al re­serve du­ties.

Stu­dent at the “Tri­cade­my of the Re­pub­lic” in Am­phipo­lis. Mem­ber of the Col­legium of Men­tal­is­m. To “grad­u­ate” you must cre­ate a new spell or ar­ti­fac­t.

8th Rank dis­ci­ple of Shoot­ing Star. Your in­struc­tor and 1st rank dis­ci­ple is Cit­i­zen Abreas of Dilos(­male hu­man pelosian) He had a suc­cess­ful and fa­mous ca­reer in the Pe­los Navy. He is cur­rent­ly an ad­mi­ral in the naval re­serves.

Family:

Your fa­ther, Lykon, was First of House Ea­gle, the most elite and re­spect­ed bird of The Re­pub­lic (house refers to the rul­ing body of Pe­los Mi­nor and ea­gles are the most revered an­i­mals of Pelosian­s) He is a du­al class Psy­chic War­rior/Aris­to­crat(D­MG class) around 14th lev­el.

Your moth­er, Tryphena, is or was for­mer­ly a mid-lev­el ad­vis­er(pro­fes­sor) in the Col­legium of Essence at the Tri­cade­my of the Re­pub­lic. Now or pre­vi­ous­ly a Head of the Hall of En­ergies(­like chem­istry abit). She is a du­al class Wiz­ard/­Ex­pert(D­MG class) around 11th lev­el.

Your old­er sis­ter, Vara, was study­ing sev­er­al years at the Tri­cade­my of the Re­pub­lic in the Col­legium of Essence and then switched to Chan­nel­ing Col­legium. She dropped out sud­den­ly af­ter wit­ness­ing or suf­fer­ing some great in­jus­tice. The fam­i­ly did not hear from her for month­s. One day she came to the fam­i­ly es­tates wear­ing the black robes of Bea­ho. At first shocked your moth­er burst in­to tears af­ter Vara ex­plained she was­n’t be­com­ing a judge or pros­e­cu­tor(the com­mon, safe, and re­spectable paths for priests of Bea­ho). In­stead she claimed to be a vi­tu­per­a­tor(wan­der­ing dis­penser of Bea­ho’s jus­tice) and stormed out af­ter tremen­dous yelling ar­gu­ment with your fa­ther. Vara is 3/3/2 Cler­ic/Wiz­ard/Mys­tic Theurge.

Pregame:

Your pri­ma­ry men­tal­ism ad­vis­er Cit­i­zen Aster­a(fe­male, high pe­ol­sian) and Rock Fel­low Lunel(­male gnome) have spon­sored your first field study. You’re to eval­u­ate the mines and lands of Scu­pi Prov­ince for mag­ic crys­tal­s/­sub­stances.

Astera is old and you be­lieve over­ly cru­el, but she is the most skilled with ki­neti­cism at the Col­legium. Lunel is loud and can be ob­nox­ious. He is one of three Hall of Ge­ol­o­gy heads (Hall is small­er than col­legium but goes across dis­ci­plines where as a col­legium is fo­cused). Famed across Pe­los and be­yond for cre­at­ing the Clock­work Maul of Blind­ing Speed. But feared amongst stu­dents for his de­mand­ing per­fec­tion­is­m.

You al­so have a sec­ondary and tetri­tary ad­vis­ers if you feel like flesh­ing out some peo­ple. One or both are prob­a­bly from oth­er col­legiums such as Essence(ar­cane), Chan­nel­ing(­di­vine), Art, Sci­ence.

Abreas used his navy con­tacts to get you pas­sage on “Gull Chaser” a Spri­gate class(­fast light scout/escort/raider) navy ship that was be­ing trans­fered to Scu­pi from the re­serve fleet. Dur­ing the te­dious 14 day jour­ney you be­friend Cit­i­zen Iak­chos of Am­phipolis, Third of the “Gull Chaser”. He is young like you but comes from a poor unim­por­tant fam­i­ly(not that that mat­ters much in Pe­los so­ci­ety). He is ex­cit­ed and anx­ious to make his mark on the world. You no­ticed he wears an iron pen­dent of Mylien(pro­tec­tor/heal­ing god­dess). When asked he laughs and says it’s a luck charm giv­en to him by his lit­tle sis­ter.

1st session “Deadly Desert part1”

Es­cort­ed by 9 Pelosian sol­diers on hors­es who are dressed in black with sandy yel­low cloaks and black and yel­low crest­ed hel­met­s. Talk­ing up the sol­diers over dai­ly meals you find out these are the col­ors of the Desert Con­dor cal­vary bird to which they be­long. Al­so that all but the right wing of the Desert Con­dor is in Scu­pi Prov­ince. Most of it is de­ployed around Scu­pi it­self but the Fore Sec­tion of the left wing is in Sil­ver­town and small­er set­tle­ments out east. You keep to the sol­diers and few oth­er Pelosians as the un­civ­i­lized Ka’im and Babrem(what are they here for!?) prob­a­bly have fleas and re­al­ly what could you pos­si­bly dis­cuss with un­e­d­u­cat­ed brutes.

Trav­el is fast at first along a fine stone road. Sur­prised and elat­ed to see the in­fra­struc­ture of civ­i­liza­tion out here since your re­search had in­di­cat­ed Scu­pi was a bit more “rus­tic”. Hm­m­m­m, per­haps your ex­cit­ment was a bit pre­ma­ture since on the 4th night you pass over the end of the road and past a large num­ber of Ka’im, slaves?(btw slaves are com­mon, you/y­our fam­i­ly would have them) led by en­gi­neers and sol­diers from Desert Con­dor’s Body. Who are busy ex­tend­ing the road. Past the end of the road the bare­ly vis­i­ble track is rough, filled with stones, and rat­tles the wag­on vi­o­lent­ly. The car­a­van’s once good speed is cut in half. Rus­tic in­deed.

Late on the 7th night a hor­ri­ble sand storm en­gulfs the car­a­van. It was worse than you could have imag­ined and gives cre­dence to what you had thought were ab­surd sto­ries of winds and sand so fierce they strip flesh down to the bone. Dur­ing this the car­a­van is at­tacked by un­known as­sailants. You nev­er see the at­tack­er­s.

2nd session “Deadly Desert part2”

You stum­ble on a “forest” of stone trees. Many of which are top­pled and bro­ken. No doubt Lunel would be ex­cit­ed by this find. Be­fore you had a chance to in­spect them or take a sam­ple you are am­bushed by hye­na men.

Ione and Ian have been killed or less like­ly es­caped. The rest of you are trussed up on poles and car­ried north. Af­ter you don’t know how many days the hye­na men are them­selves am­bushed by medi­um height hu­manoid­s, cov­ered from head to toe in bil­low­ing lay­ers of tan, brown, and sand col­ored sheet­s. On­ly the thinest sliv­er across the eyes is bare. In the dis­tance and dark­ness you could­n’t make out skin, eye col­or, or even the shape/p­res­ence of eye­s.

You are sure they were men­tal­ists of no small abil­i­ty. Sus­pect­ing they used psi­con­ic shots to de­cap­i­tate the hye­na men with some un­fa­mil­iar thrown weon and the psy­chome­abolis­tic “Hus­tle” man­is­fi­ta­tion to keep away from the hye­na men’s dead­ly bat­tle ax­es.

That night you have a bizarre dream. Ian, Ione and the rest of you are in what ap­pears to be a city park. In stark con­trast to the ac­cursed desert there are rolling lawns of grass, pond­s, creek­s, and leafy copse of un­fa­mil­iar trees. The park is full of High Pelosian­s(s­trange you see no Com­mon Pelosian­s), strolling, frol­ick­ing, talk­ing. It looks like a nor­mal day out in the sun ex­cept there are an ab­surd num­ber of golem­s, con­structs and oth­er mag­i­cal servi­tor beasts walk­ing, crawl­ing, rolling, and fly­ing ev­ery­where. There’s more ar­ti­fi­cial be­ings than peo­ple!

Amongst the nat­u­ral lit­ter you find a cou­ple of odd green oak leaves that look alive but have the tex­ture and tough­ness of can­vas.

In­ex­plic­i­ty you can now read the words carved in­to the pil­lars of this tem­ple. It ap­pears to be ded­i­cat­ed to some na­ture/­for­est god, per­haps Brogine. Af­ter solv­ing the rid­dles a hu­man(a Dar­sian?) dressed in un­usu­al green cloths (like noth­ing you have ev­er seen, pants, shirt, many pock­et­s) ap­peared who looks at each of you and then says “Don’t open the Flakarg, argh! The seal, don’t open the seal.” Then looks over his shoul­der and dis­ap­pears.

You awake to find your­self healed of all wounds but sud­den­ly sur­round­ed by sol­diers from Desert Con­dor. They de­mand your sur­ren­der. Like some com­mon crim­i­nal they clamp in­ter­dic­tion man­a­cles on you. Out­ra­geous! Trans­port­ed on horse back for two and half days to some camp or town. Spend­ing the night, on the next day you trav­el by wag­on to what sounds like a large town.

<to be con­tin­ued>