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(Same disclaimer as the thetwo/Knephi thread being run with DG4's system.)
Mount Nulbunarg towered ahead, its snow capped spire standing high above even its brothers and sisters who stood around and behind it. Its name was orcish, and unlike many of those who lived in its shadow Kaida knew the origins of that name, for her temple had held many tomes of compilations of stories and legends. One of them had spoken of the great frozen spire and its namesake, the great frost wyrm that supposedly still slumbered within its heart that had once enslaved entire tribes of orcs to its wicked will in centuries past. Only a great effort by a legendary orcish hero had managed to seal the great beast away in its lair, her blade still embedded in its icy hide but its life not yet extinguished. The mountain had been a symbol of fear to the greenskins in ages past, an ill omen telling of darker times, but now it was known for something else.
On its summit, recently enshrined in an ancient temple, lived an oracle, a seer of past, present, and future. It was said that this oracle could answer any question, could guide one to their destiny, and for the kitsune that had proved a temptation too great to resist once she had heard of it. Since her own temple had been desecrated and destroyed, Kaida had found no trace of the precious palanquin shards that had been stolen when her sacred home had been raided several months prior. The men who had taken its pieces had seemingly scattered with it, possibly taking it to all corners of Heloras and possibly even beyond if the tales of strange lands discovered across the sea was anything to go by.
With no leads, she had wandered almost aimlessly, desperately searching for clues while earning her keep as best she could, but when she had heard of the oracle atop the mountain she stood beneath might be able to direct her to one or possibly many of the shards that she sought there had been a surge of hope. Her journey from the East had taken almost a month, and had taken her through very dangerous lands that had never been tamed by man, but now she was here, at the foot of the Gormoia mountain range that separated Crolia from the Amazon.
Before her lay the last portion of civilization before she would have to make the legendarily dangerous climb, a tiny village that was little more than a collection of huts and barns that the locals, who mostly lived sprawled out and farmed rice or fruit to sell to traders traveling on the crossroads on which it sat, seldom visited. Only two structures seemed inhabited, one of them a temple to the spirits judging by the architecture and the ornate carvings of animals and elemental symbols on its frieze, and the other obviously a tavern of some sort. Only the latter was well lit, and a great deal of noise seemed to be coming from within, possibly courtesy of the collection of wagons gathered to the side of it signaling that a caravan was in town.
~~~~~~~~~
*SMACK*
Rashi felt a stinging blow land on her ass, the hand that had caused it remaining to grope her sculpted backside for a few seconds before removing itself. "Get this girl a drink! My treat!" the man who had taken advantage of her bent position as she'd been downing her first drink for the night said as he stepped up against the bar beside her. His words were slightly slurred as they came forth, the slightly gaudy clothes of a lord's son clinging to his wiry form and his somewhat soft features stirred into a cocky grin as he laid a handful of coins deftly across the bar, enough for a whole round of drinks. "Give 'er the good stuff too!" he continued, his slightly golden skin marking him as of local stock but his accent suggesting that he was from a different region of the Amazon, assuming of course that Rashi could tell the difference. Or cared, for that matter.
She was sitting in the only tavern in the small town of Tanjin, at the base of the great mountain at the foot of the Gormoia mountain range called Nulbunarg. Rashi had likely recognized the lingual origins of the name, though whether she had heard of its true origins or not was perhaps less clear. Regardless, her true purpose for being there had nothing to do with the town and everything to do with what was at the top of the mountain. High, high up on its snowy peak stood a temple, an ancient fortress of her orcish kin that had been re-purposed into a grand shrine devoted to the Thunderlord, Doraleous.
In that shrine lived a mysterious person, their gender not revealed by any of the rumors that Rashi had heard on her way to this tiny town at the crossroads beneath the mountain. That oracle was said to be able to reveal any truth that those able to withstand the test of the great mountain could ask, and that offered her a chance. A chance at freedom, freedom from the weapon on her back with which she was so easily able to defend herself from any conventional threats. Even now it hung to her back, the tiny whisper of feeling running from the possessed urging her to shed blood, to crush the skull of the man who'd just had the audacity to touch her beneath her foot.
The barkeep, a burly man with no hair to speak of in plain clothes and an apron, handed over a pair of foaming ales, her own pint already half gone but this one looking a good bit thicker and foamier. The man who'd paid for it grinned at her, "have one on me!"