Completed Wanderer in Alvadas

[Ruzekiel Soren]

1, Fall of 512 A.V.

------> When Zeke stumbled upon this strange city,
his first thought was to find a warm bed and some autumn ale, but that turned out to be harder than expected, since the first tavern he encountered evidently was in fact NOT a tavern but a cramped, dirty latrine, which he found out the hard way when he walked inside. He wandered the twisting, winding streets for at least half an hour, without seeing a soul, given the early morning hour, and his poorly shoed feet throbbed with every step. Once he thought he saw a young woman in an alley, but when he ran after her to ask where he was she disappeared in a swirl of fog. This was a strange city indeed. Stranger still were the walls that would constantly shift—shift was the only word the traveler had for what happened. He would be walking down a dimly lit cobblestone street, looking for anywhere, even a pile of hay, to rest his head, and he’d turn around to find a dead end right there where he came from.

Now he leaned against the brick wall and sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. He yawned and decided at that moment that he did not need a tavern to conk out for the night, so he took off his dusty brown coat, bunched it up on the fuzzy ground and lay his head on it, about to fall asleep when his eyes suddenly snapped open again. “Wait…” he muttered to himself, “The ground isn’t supposed to be fuzzy…” He looked down and found that the ground was now carpeted in soft black fur. Zeke blinked once, and it was gone. The cobblestone street looked unchanged. As he stared at the ground his face split into a wide grin. “Well, that is a neat trick,” he said gleefully, tapping the stone, reveling in the sudo-reality of it. Most people would be scared of such a weird occurrence, but as it happened Ruzekiel Soren was a curator of the weird. He lay on his back, hands behind his head, and looked up at the foreign stars scattered across the city sky.

“This is going to be fun.”

Thus the long, weary night ends, and morning begins...

Something was eating his hair. A soft set of nostrils nudged his head as impatient teeth nibbled. Zeke yelped and shot upright, pain shooting up his back from his stiff sleeping place, and looked up at his assailant. Etienne stood over him, snuffling and chewing on a big tuft of hay. “SO, you finally decided to come back then, eh?” Zeke growled sleepily, reaching out to pat the insufferable pony’s nose. “Where’d you get that?” Etienne gave him a look that said, “Really?” and then Zeke realized where he was. “No way…” the traveler said bemusedly.
He had gone to sleep in an alley and woken up in a sheep pen. Three fleecy animals roved around, grazing on hay and giving Etienne a wide berth. The pen seemed to be on the edge of a busy street, bustling with people of all kinds, humans and non-humans and animals and shopkeepers. “I guess the place isn’t so desolate after all,” Zeke said in wonder, grabbing the chipped fence and hoisting himself over it, shaking off dirt and dust and picking strands of hay from his hair for the second time that week. “Stay,” He told Etienne. The horse whinnied, which Zeke now assumed meant an adamant “No”, but he was too fascinated with this new and interesting City of Illusion to really care what his irresponsible horse was getting itself into. So without further ado, he brushed the last few pieces of hay from his hair and set out to explore the city, its people, and most importantly its food. He really was quite hungry.

[Alea Campbello]

Alea was flying over Alvadas when she spotted a man lying in hay. She perched on the wall side of the alley and watched as he got up to walk away after talking to his pony. She flew down in front of the man and turned into her human form. She looked at the pony and then turned to the man.
"You are obviously new around here" she said laughing "You shouldn't leave that pony unattended or you will lose it"
She got ready to move but then she heard a rumble which she assumed came from the man's stomach. She turned back into a bird and flew to the next alley where she saw an old man sitting on the ground, a piece of bread beside him.

She grabbed the bread in her mouth and the man glared at her, his eye's seeming to dissapear and then reappear. She flew into the air immediately and then landed in front of the man, putting the bread in front of him as a friend offering.

[Ruzekiel Soren]

Zeke was just about to wander into another strange alley and get hopelessly lost (yet again) when he heard the soft rustle of wings behind him. Suddenly a feathery black something flew in front of his face. He blinked, and before him stood a Kelvic woman with sharp eyes sparkling with laughter.
"You're obviously new here," she told him, "You shouldn't leave that pony unattended or you will lose it."
"What pony, that pony?" Zeke asked, pointing upwards at the paint horse who had trotted forward upon seeing the Kelvic and was now nibbling the back of his shirt.
"Hah, if I lost Etienne it would be a cause to celebrate, madam," He quipped, patting the horse's neck all the same.
"The great silly thing threw me into the snow this morning after he found out we were out of supplies. Besides," he turned to look at her.
"Etienne always comes back to nag me. It never fails." He grinned and knocked heads playfully with the pony. Zeke was starting to think he'd made an acquaintance. Then his stomach grumbled. Loudly.

Etienne whinnied. The traveller blushed and stammered, "Uh, ahem, er…" But the Kelvic stranger had transformed into a raven and was now flying back to him with a piece of bread in her beak. Ruzekiel grinned at the raven and bent to pick up the bread. He broke it into halves and put one in his coat pocket to save for later, while chomping down the first half like a starving wolf.

"Ahh, that hits the spot. I am in your debt, madam," he said to her, bowing graciously. His eyes lit with an idea and he reached into his other coat pocket, fumbling around a bit until he brought out a small trinket. It was a little hand-carved Nordic bear, painted a deep rich brown, with thin, unpainted swirls covering its body. As he held it in the light its glazed black eyes twinkled. He presented this to the Kelvic with a flourish, offering his own gift of friendship.