Sanctuary IC

Toran heaved.

"Well, see-"

Esmeralda interrupted him.

"Ha! Who am I?! Why I am no other than Esmeralda Megrande, younger sister to the great Dorothy, the first to create the smartest zombie in all of the land, also known as Toran and-"

Toran looked worried now. "Don't say it-"

She went on anyways in quite a surprising way. "MY FUTURE HUSBAND!!!"

Heads turned, noises stopped, and Toran was pretty sure that somewhere out there, worlds collided.

"... You had to say it."

Gorck's camp

Lucas hurried to Gorck to report his findings. Once he was done, he requested 9 more knives from the armory like the last 3 he had to make up a full dozen, and then to await further instructions.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lakeside Path - Near Chronomancer's Tower - Gensei Woods (5-2/1-6)

Amurei froze as the golden blur skidded to a halt to reveal what looked like a suit of armor carrying a bag that looked to be extremely heavy. The face was a mask of anger and Amurei dared not move. It seemed to be staring at her, but its lack of action seemed to indicate that it was uncertain. She dared not reveal herself, if this was really a guardian of the tower, then it would probably attack first and ask questions later. She knew she could not be harmed by it, but it seemed angry enough already, no need to infuriate it even further. Then a confused voice came from the helmet: "Hello?"

So it must be a person in there, well at least humans could think for themselves. But he had been moving at such a high speed. Could he be an undead? Undeads, unlike humans could harm her, so she decided to conduct a small test. She took out one of the darts and moved right in front of the person, and jabbed the dart through the eyehole. nothing happened, no sound and no resistance, so it was a live human. She was so relieved she materialized fully so that she nearly looked like a live human too, but she did so in her current position, right in front of the person, holding a dart in his eye.

" Hi, do you know who lives in this tower? "

(Azeruk's swords)

Spoiler

Lakeside Path - Near Chronomancer's Tower - Gensei Woods 7:26

Without even so much as a warning, a woman appeared, holding a dart inside of his helmet's eye hole and only a few centimeters away from his eye.

"Hi, do you know who lives in this tower?", the woman in the black kimono asked.

"AAHHH!"

With the same speed as before, Azeruk jumped back and pulled out his swords, ready to attack. He was alarmed by the woman just appearing out of nowhere, and holding a dart to his eye no less. Was she a threat? She didn't seem like one. How did she even turn invisible? What kind of magic did she use? Despite the fact that the woman almost gouged his eye out with a dart, Azeruk eased his stance ever so slightly, but still maintained a combative presence, just in case she attacked.

"Who are you? Is it normal for you to greet people by gouging their eyes out?", Azeruk asked the woman in a slightly sarcastic, yet tense and serious tone.

Lakeside Path - Near Chronomancer's Tower - Gensei Woods (5-2/1-6)

"who am I? I was sort of hoping someone here actually knew me, I'm Amurei Burade, sound familiar? And can you put away that sword? This dart would not have harmed you anyway, unless you are an undead, which as I already tested, you are not. see?"

She moved forward at inhuman speed, not as fast as the man had moved, but still extremely fast, and pushed the dart through the man's chest without leaving a mark. But what would probably alarm him more was that she accidentally allowed her hand to follow the dart halfway through his chest. She let go of the dart and it landed on the ground behind him.

"Ooops, well since you already saw that.." She leaned through him and picked the dart up and after wiping the dirt off, put it back in the quiver. " So, who lives in this tower?"

Tempus

Reaching the King´s main room, the Yaju hoped that the guards wouldn´t attack her the moment she walked towards him

Nera calmly showed both hands with no weapons at all and talked "Im here to treat the King´s poisoning with my water magic" she then took out her bottle of fresh water showing it was clean

"Let her treat him, we don´t have much choices, proceed with the treatment Yaju" a guard said giving her space to start her work

The black fox kneeled close to the King who was sitting on a chair and explained the process "Im going to open a little wound on your upper arm and purge out the venom from your system by exchanging it with my blood, there won´t be side effects because of blood types and the water will lower the risks of me getting poisoned too"

Slowly the vixen used one of her sharp claw-like fingernails to cut a bit of skin from the man´s arm, a little trikle of blood appeared as she also cut her palm to start the process.

Taking the water out of the bottle, the Yaju used her magic to cover her hand and planted it on the man´s arm. Both wounds connected as she focused on the venom, it was on many areas of his blood system. The fox then chanted small words as she started exchanging the venom out of the king´s wound with her own blood. Nera felt her body reacting to the venom as it both mixed with the water cleaning most of it, only a bit of poison got in her system as she finished the treatment.

Cleaning the king´s wound, the Yaju stepped back suddenly feeling both a heavy nausea and dizziness "Give sme space.." she said running to the closest bucket and letting throwing out the venom out of her system.

Sitting on the wall, the heavy breathing Nera only said while recovering from the dizziness "The poison is out.. just give him fesh water"

Tempus - 7:30 (3-4)

Aion watched the King closely as he recovered. "If this was related to Hyperion...the king should have been dead. No, this was a warning. The only people that know of Hyperion..." Aion unbound the bandage that covered his hands slightly. He saw the brand of eternity, the mark of one of the Guardians of Time. He despised it. As he tightened the bandage, Aion addressed the King. "Sir, Do you remember who did this to you?"
"Let his majesty rest!" snapped one of the guards.
Then another guardsman appeared bearing a vial and a piece of parchment. "I found this on a fellow down by the medical ward. I think we found our assassin."
With out a word, Aion snatched the vial and examined it. "Curious...I know what type of poison this. It's..." He looked up. "What does the note say?"
"...uh...the note is just a written confession."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, someone recognized the man and the name in the confession matches."
"....I see...."
"And what is significant of the poison?"
"....oh nothing...It's...it's...native to Shíjian. A basic poison that in small amounts takes ..." Aion stopped again, sudden realization dawned on him. "...Only five hours." He then turned to Nera. "You said that your mission was to prevent the Yaju from attacking Tempus, correct? Is the attack to begin within the time frame of about five-to-ten hours?"
One of the guards put two and two together. "So this was an assassination by the Yaju!"
"No. This was no assassination attempt. This was a set-up." Aion turned to the guard with the note and motioned for him to let him see it.
"The way this played out...Someone wanted this to seem like a Yaju did it so that we would take up arms against them. In our current situation..." He turned to the king. "It would be wise to parley with the Yaju. We could gain allies to fight off the undead."
"Do you really think the King would negotiate with...beasts?!"
"Oh you have a better idea on how to gain reinforcements, to save the city from further destruction, to stop the undead while we are crippled and cornered like rats?"
"I agree...with the mercenary." The King finally composed himself. "We are weak. Despite our history with the Yaju, we must make amends, or face destruction." The King then turned to Nera. "Besides, I do believe that I have a debt now to the Yaju, since one of their own saved my life."

---------
Land of Cinders and Ashes (4-4)

Dalia had obtained a new glass of beer. When she heard the fact that Esmerelda was a self proclaimed fiancé, she choked on her drink slightly. PFFT-COUGH-WHEEZE
Kiara stood and seemed happier. "Aha! I knew you were a good guy!"
Dalia looked from the couple to Kiara. "...uh...ya...sure..." She then proceeded to drain her glass in a single swig and turned to the bartender. "JUST GIVE ME THE WHOLE BOTTLE!"

Lakeside Path - Near Chronomancer's Tower - Gensei Woods

Azeruk was shocked. Just whenever things couldn't get any stranger, the woman named Amurei Burade phased through him, bypassing his armor, his flesh, and bone without any hindrance whatsoever. Many thoughts flashed through Azeruk's mind while Amurei leaned through him. She was definitely a ghost, but usually, such complex ghosts were only possible by a Necromancer. Azeruk didn't really hate Necromancers, but that wasn't going to stop one from hating him. Back to the situation at hand, how was she connected to the tower? Did she know Chronux? Didn't she know that he died about a month ago? As Amurei leaned back to a standing position, she asked a question.

"So, who lives in this tower?", Amurei asked.

Azeruk decided that perhaps he could trust her and that she might have been a friend of Chronux.

"Chronux used to live here, but he died about a month ago. Now, it's just me, his student.", Azeruk said to Amurei.

Toran shook his head.

"Esmeralda, I've told you plenty times, it would never go through. For one, well... I'm a zombie. You're a human. Don't you think the two kinda don't mix?"

Esmeralda hugged Toran's arm. "Oh, you just keep saying that, but face it, you're just as human as I. Why, the only difference I'd say there is is that hole in your head, and it actually makes you look manlier," she said as she lifted a portion of Toran's hair. It revealed a hole going through the side of his head, as small as a blade. Toran backed away.

"Seriously, don't do that, you might scare someone. Secondly, I already fell in love with Dorothy."

Esmeralda let go and covered half of her face with a fan. "You can't really use that excuse anymore. After all, you tried to kill me, mistaking me for my big sister. Plus, I look exactly like her, we're twins."

Toran was dumbstruck by how right she was. He tried to think up another reason.

"Thirdly, what if my stability gives way and I end up killing you?"

Esmeralda laughed. "Don't worry, Toran dearest. I will fight you off, and of that doesn't work, I will resort to killing you, but with a romantic theme to it! 'Oh, I'm sorry it had to end this way.' 'Don't worry about me. You'll be alright.' Toran, just know that I love you more than anything in the world!' 'Just make sure... That the kids grow up strong like us-'"

Toran was already creeped out at first, but when he heard kids, he covered her mouth. "Okay, we've heard enough here!"

Esmeralda took his hand off slowly. She faced Kiara. "And you. You think he's nice?! Ha! He obviously didn't tell you about what he did oh so long ago. Just tell me this. Have you ever heard of the 'God's hand' City of Toran incident that created the Toran ruins? Should I, dearest?"

Toran thought on it. "... It would... Be best to know... Just how much of a monster I really am."

Tempus

Nera was still recovering from the venom exchange as she was taking deep breaths. She was now slowly getting on her feet seeing that everyone was discussing about their next problem

The Yaju people were coming towards the capital leaded by the rhinoceros chief who was too deep on his hatred towards the other species to see the reality of the world

"Thank you for your acceptance your highness, as you heard the Yaju are coming right now towards this location by taking advantage of the destruction of Tempus´defenses" she said starting to walk towards both Aion and the king

"I understand both your side and my people´s side have been on a cold war and I know that both sides only need a little spark to explode a bigger war adding with the undead, Im sure there are nechromancers behind plotting, but there must be a reason for the sudden attack" she talked and took a map from her pouch

It had a detailed scenery of the country with marks of each city and village, yet the Grove was hidden because of obvious fears

"The Yaju chief Gorck is leading the army right now and he is a powerful and influential being, the drawback of him is that he despise humans and abains" the fox said with a sad tone

Facing the king, the vixen kept her speech "I understand there have been a lot of bad times in our history, but we must stop this madness before it destroys everyone, be it human, Abain, Yaju, even the undead as im sure there must be someone behind this. SO I come requesting to let me talk with my people about this, there is no need to shed more blood"

Lakeside Path - Near Chronomancer's Tower - Gensei Woods (5-2/1-6)

"Chronux...He sounds familiar...an abain with chronomancy? I never knew he had a student, but I suppose you became his student quite recently. You are a human aren't you? So you couldn't possibly be that old for me to have known about you. I think I studied something with him in the past, not chronomancy, I think it was related to Yajus."As she spoke, she stopped trying to remain visible, it put strain on her, mental strain not physical since she couldn't actually get tired (it actually also drains a lot more energy from the surroundings, but she does not know that), it affected her thinking. And she wanted to think clearly and also remember more at the moment, so she now flickered and seemed more ghost-like.

"He died?" She frowned, well that was one hope lost. "well, that is sad, I was hoping to find someone who had a link to the last time I was here, it could only be an Abain or a Yaju, it has been a millennium since I have been here. Don't be insulted that I am not breaking down or crying over his death or anything" She defended, as she realised how her words sounded. " I can't even remember much about him in the first place, and besides, I am extremely used to death already, I spent more than a 1000 years in Limbo didn't I? So,could you tell me what had been going on? Also do you know where the silverwood grove is? I am hoping a Yaju that knows me is still alive and that I can find him or her." She doubted he knew where it was, but maybe Chronux told him? She was just starting to remember, but she remembered the first time she met him was when she was accompanying a young dog/human yaju roam around, he had wanted to know more about Yajus and she helped him, even showing him the (previous) location of the silverwood grove.