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[Rhodri]

10th of Spring, 517 AV
Mid Morning

Rhodri walked through the library with his head on a swivel. His mother was very insistent that her children have some kind of formal education though the eldest son always found ways out of his allotted time. That being said, he had enough of an upbringing to know his way around a bookshelf. The tall Eypharian ignored the worker who gave him a peculiar glare and moved to the nearest stack of knowledge. He took a tome and looked at the peculiar letters on the binding. He did not recognize them and furrowed his brow. When he looked up to the worker, he found the man to be gone from his desk.

The young man spent quite a bit of time struggling through unreadable texts and scrolls until he found a set of shelves where everything seemed to be in Common. This brought a smirk to his face. Finally, he would be able to accomplish what he set out to do. He found a thick book on the Akalaks and took it from the shelf. Not too far on the same shelf was a book about Riverfall; its history and culture. As the Eypharian strolled through the aisles, he grabbed another entry that caught his attention which was on the gods and goddesses of Mizahar. The three books had some size to them which gave Rhodri the confidence that he would be more than sated with the information they contained. He quickly found a seat at a small corner table by itself that was near a window where a tiny breeze filtered into the stuffy building.

It took some doing for the large frame to get comfortable in the stiff and confined space but he managed. Rhodri started with the book about his hosts; the Akalaks. The cover was thick and well-worn as if it had been read many many times but the pages were still stiff which suggested that the tome hadn’t been opened in a while. The aristocrat took a moment to savor the smell of old paper. It was unique and reminded him of some childhood memories which weren’t wholly terrible. The Eypharian didn’t linger in his past, however and dove into the book’s secrets.

Over the next bell and a half, Rhodri discovered that the big blue brutes didn’t have any females in their race which explained why he had not seen any women with blue skin in the city. This was strange and completely foreign of a concept to the young man but he also found it humorous. It definitely raised more questions than answers but Rhodri would keep doing his research to see where it took him. The ‘noble’ Akalak race was also known for having dual-personalities. Each one was a good man but also a darkly-motivated being. Rhodri thought about how his landowner and the conversation they had regarding his apartment. At the time, the exile had felt like he was in the middle of an argument with two other people –now he knew why.

The book was fascinating and shed a great deal of light on the hosts of Riverfall. Rhodri grew a little more respect for them as he learned that the large blue warriors were an old race from well before the Valterrian and he found himself being jealous of their long life span. Having learned quite a bit, he knew he needed a break and got up to walk around. Stretching his legs was going to be a recurring thing for this trip. The arrogant young man was wishing for more comfortable seating but made his way back to continue with his studies.

[Rhodri]

Rhodri made his way back to the little bench where he had stashed his books; the tome about the blue men was still open where he had left off reading. The Eypharian cocked his head to the side and wondered why such a large race would make such small furniture. The thought crossed his mind that the Common section of the library was probably tailored more towards the women of other races. He shook his head and sat down but quickly found a relatively comfortable compromise between being hunched over and folded up.

The book shifted its focus from the main aspects of the Akalaks to a separate group referred to as the Cerulean. There was a reference to another book which gave the man a pause. The deep brown eyes looked from his current text to the one next to him on the corner of his small table. He read the title of book about Riverfall and nodded. The fact that there was some kind of correlation between the two gave Rhodri a better sense of faith in what he was reading. With renewed interest, he delved back into the words on the page. The author went on to describe the members of the segregated caste as being out of control and prone to extreme violence. These men had given up with the struggle of their race- the struggle to maintain a personality of light and one of dark. The Eypharian stopped for a moment. He wondered what Riverfall would be like if all Akalak had given way to this path; this lazy route through life. He frowned.

Nothing worth doing is ever easy. He was born with six arms and divine blood so the heavy burden of being a leader was his to bear just as Akalak were born to develop dueling personalities. To give up on one is akin to defying one’s nature. The aristocrat felt a tad more respect for those who did maintain and even caught a line of praise running along his mind for the men who figured out how to control and utilize their fallen brethren. The book went on to describe why the tattoo was so important. Not only was it a mark of their brokenness and inability to control their desires but the Cerulean were marked so vividly with the intent of visually separating them from the Akalak race in general. There was a list of references of noble Akalak heroes and leaders then several examples of how these men improved relationships with other races by performing magnificent deeds. Rhodri breezed right over this part out of sheer arrogance. There would be books about him one day but it wouldn’t stop with text. No- the gold skinned man would have temples built to honor him and shrines all along the rivers of Eyktol. He smiled to himself and allowed the fantasy to linger for several chimes before returning to his studies.

There was a note at the bottom about how the Akalaks worshipped a god called Wyser but it mentioned that the Cerulean followed him with even more fervor out of respect for his control. The god was one of integrity, conviction and discipline. Rhodri straightened in his seat. He had all of those things. The god, apparently, looked like a big Akalak; heavily muscled and blue of skin. His domain was a realm of focus and determination as well as patience and the willingness to never stop training. The Eypharian smirked at this. He would spend his entire life chasing perfection of form and body. Wyser was now of interest to him. There was also a footnote about a ‘gnosis’ that allowed the marked to anticipate his opponent’s moves in combat. Rhodri stared at the word without recognition. He reached over and grabbed the book about the gods and goddesses. He opened the cover and flipped to the contents. The pantheon was broken down by levels and then alphabetically then at the bottom was a chapter about ‘Gnosis Gifts’. Greedily, he skipped over the meat of the book and found the tabbed page which listed the gods and goddesses who blessed mortals with special powers. Wyser was easy to find at the bottom.

The god of conviction and discipline imbued his faithful followers with a gift called Evantia. This divine magic generated an aura that surrounded the marked person and allowed them to focus on intentions and movements that would otherwise be missed. The text detailed how a devout student of Wyser could stack multiple marks from the god which would increase the range of this aura but also the amount of people that the mortal could read. The sheer potential of such a power was making Rhodri start to daydream. He smiled and sat back in his chair as he closed the book. The thought of being able to know what an enemy was going to do was such a rush that the Eypharian felt his body heat up and decided to take another break.

[Rhodri]

Rhodri took a quick lap around the area to stretch his legs and twist around to ease some of the tension in his back. He spread his feet apart past his shoulders then rotated his upper body while keeping his hips stationary. He went around as far to one side as he could; the muscles in his back straining in a way that provided a great deal of relief to the large frame. After holding it for a ten count, Rhodri rotated in the opposite direction until he felt the strands of tissues that ran up and down his back stretched to their max. He felt the slight burning which gave him some relief in his lower back muscles and decided to head back to his reading corner. Once back at his desk, the big Eypharian opened the book about Riverfall to the beginning.

The desert exile flipped through the first few pages which detailed the layout of the city’s infrastructure. It was quite boring for Rhodri but he made sure to make note of the basic table which defined the downward path that crap took in Riverfall. The top is the leader, then a council of ten; Rhodri paused at this. Ten would make for split verdicts and indecision but then he thought that perhaps the leader also gets a vote so that could be the tie-breaker. He continued to read. The next five ranks in society were all Akalak; Elders were men of a certain age, Exalted had a grandson, Esteemed had a son, then came the Adults and last were the blue kids. Rhodri scoffed. Even the baby blue bastards had more rights than any other race despite talent or worth. The Eypharian got to thinking about this a while longer and decided it wasn’t so different from his own home. Maybe that’s why the old man had sent him to Riverfall in the first place…

The gilded-skinned man continued down the list of Riverfall’s social rankings. Wives of the blue brutes then their stable of child-bearers known as Nakivaks were close behind. After that came the highest rank a male outsider could achieve; the Kuvan. The man looked down to the tattoo on the inside of his bottom left wrist. The paltry mark that disfigured his golden skin was not a sore subject but it was something that Rhodri felt was rigged. A man as talented and important as Rhodri could join the blue men’s society but only at a rank below the city whores. His face twisted for a while even though a still small voice in his head drew direct comparisons to his upbringing and the way his people viewed outsiders. It was several more pages of political this and that before the Eyharian came across something that truly caught his eye –history.

[Rhodri]

Riverfall was full of a rich and long history. After the Valterrian, the Akalak race was decimated but despite this, they were one of the first groups to reorganize and set up an establishment that would provide them with safety and security in the tumultuous time. The book went on to explain how the city grew and what the blues believed about their former city. Rhodri was intrigued by this because the his people are heavily invested in their origins so he could respect the Akalaks’ bridge to their old way of life before the great cataclysm.

The section on Riverfall’s history was so large that Rhodri knew he could spend days with this single chapter and never learn all there was to know so he simply started skimming for words that caught his attention. Remorse. The dark eyes settled upon this piece of text and read the line which unveiled a nearby location known as Christine’s Remorse. The tale tells of the Nakivak who had gone astray and the consequences of those actions. The first was many years ago and the woman aborted her child. Before any official stance could be taken – since this had never before occurred in all of Riverfall’s expansive history – a group of Cerulean hurled the woman from a bridge. One might think that the populace would be appalled but there was no uprising. In fact, the act seemed to have the opposite effect as there was not another incident until much later.

A Nakivak named Christine was with child and destroyed the life inside of her for one reason or another. The book did not say. Perhaps there was no reason high enough to warrant such an act in the mind of the author. Rhodri smirked. The Council had Christine taken to the bridge and ordered her to cast herself from it. There was a poetic justice to it but the Eypharian saw it as a way for her to die with honor after breaking her oath. Naturally, the weak woman refused. The arrogant man scoffed. “Typical.” He leaned over and went back into the story. The Council summoned several Cerulean men and they beat the woman. They tore her down so badly that she couldn’t have jumped even if she wanted to at this point. With her life hanging by a thread from the violent stomping that she endured, Christine was hurled over the bridge into the river below.

Rhodri took a moment to sit back into his uncomfortable chair and slowly drug a ribbon down between the pages. He shut the book and closed his eyes as he allowed the story to sink in to his mind. More than just a cautionary tale for Nakivak women, the bridge named Christine’s Remorse was a symbol of what the Akalaks held dear; order and themselves. A chill settled over the man as he made sure to never forget this. Regardless of his station, despite any deeds he may do in service of the city and its ruling race, he would always be expendable. This set a cold wall around the man’s heart. There was so much in Riverfall to love but it would never be home. It would never be more than a place in the story of Rhodri; Famously Powerful. The history books would one day tell of how the Eypharian was exiled to the city of blue brutes where he found the strength to rise to his destiny.