Welcome to Gaia! ::

The portal is very well defended, with over 2000 guards on patrol in the castle at any given time, and the capacity for 5000 in total. Only humans are allowed here, but there is a small area reserved for demonic prisoners, to test the effects of the portal on them, and to find out their plans on the human realm.

The portal is opened to a very wide courtyard. Looking upwards you can see the stars, but they are not real stars, they are just painted upon the rock of the castle.

The rest of the castle has the standard amenities, mess hall, forge, latrines, training grounds and even merchants.

Raven arrived with Amnity through the portal, happy to note that she did get it right and Lucian was alright. When she didn't spot Lassan right off the bat she became slightly worried. The look of the castle put her off that worry really quick though. Her summoning circle was in one of the barraks, and now that she had all the things she needed as well as more than enough power for the summons thanks to the crystals she would definatly be able to get her Nightmare before tomarow.

So, chewing her lip in excitment, she clutched her staff and walked out of the portal. She turned to Lucian and looked around for Lassan, if she didn't find him soon she would assume her work here was done and head off. So with hope she looked around for him.

Lassan groaned as he stepped through the portal, and shook his head as he noticed everyone else had arrived before him. "Raven, can you explain why I was last? No, don't I know why, it is my damn affect on magic. I distort and disrupt it. I don't know why I do, perhaps it is all those potions i've drank, I know some of them make it impossible for you mages to reach magic, maybe that's why...."

He trailed off and started randomly walking towards the door.

((BTW, added a Skill/Abilities to the profile. You can add that into yours))

Lassan laughed, a very loud and sharp noise. "Why Raven, you seem to have gotten over the fear you had of me, is that really wise? Knowing what potions and poisons I have on me? You never know, His Imperial Highness might one day deign you a threat, and I might need to kill you. The chances of that happening are very small, but you never know."

He stopped walking short of the gate, and lit a torch. "Anyway, we are to head to the ruins. And why have you not mustered the army? Both of you, you are generals. We are to muster the army and secure the ruins. Now go get them."

Lucian nodded at Lassan, and smiled at Raven before she went. He didn't like Lassan scaring the poor girl, even though that last stutter was entirely forced he still felt that this sick obsession of people being afraid of him was starting to get in the way of the mission. He ran out of the Portal room, and into the barracks where he found many troops sleeping or just lollygagging. "Hello, Troops!" He roared at them, waking the sleeping ones and stopping the awake ones in their tracks. "Daddy's home!" They nearly screamed, hurriedly finding their uniforms and jumping into them like they were in Mount Tiki and the Uniforms were death-proof. He threw down one of his very weak concoctions, which brought up a shower of red sparks and mortar from the floor. "Not fast enough, hurry up!" The Soldiers stumbled around trying to get into their uniforms and eventually managed to get nearly everything into the right place. "I'm back, and one of our Soldiers was found Dead back in Drelax, he was either killed crossing the Portal... or was killed before he crossed it." He glared at them, "Would any of you know who or what might have done it!?" He roared at them, his eyes virtually aflame.

One of the recruits nervously raised his hand, coughing slightly, "Well I did hear a strange noise a couple of nights ago sir, it was coming from the mess hall" A particularly chubby recruit edged backwards slightly. "I have an excuse for that sir!" The Chubby One moaned, looked downwards.

Lucian grinned slightly, and said "Well no demons are capable of getting into this place without being smuggled in, so it's safe to assume either way that there is a traitor in our mits, gentleman!" He marched up to them and glared at them straight in the eyes for any sign of guilt or fear, he found plenty of the latter but he generally had that impression when he was like this. "Well, Nightshade wants you maggots to report to him, NOW!" They all shouted Yes Sir and quickly ran out of the room towards the Portal, a few seconds later he marched in afterwards. "All done sir" He said soothingly, smiling warmly.

Lassan scratched his head in confusion, these people were securing... nothing.

"The ruins, You know L'enlor Imaral? Those ones? The ones that have given us most of our new discoveries? "

Smirking, he went off to the stable and began to saddle a horse.

Raven rushed up to her room, hitting a dead sprint when Lassan was out of sight. As she found her own room in the castle she slammed shut the door and threw up some hasty shadows that would cover it. Any passerby without magic awareness wouldn't know there was a room there at all. Quickly, like a teenager might she threw her bag of newly bought summons goods on her bed and started rummaging around her room for goods she would need, things like a copper knife, a ring of silver that was as wide around as Raven was tall, several white and black candles and ungodly amounts of incense. She needed to do the whole nine yards for summons, since she was more attuned to moving light and dark than anything else.

After about a half hour of preparation, Raven having swapped out her blue cloak for a white one, and the room heavy with the smell of incense and candle light. She had set the silver ring about a yard away from where she drew a complex circle of her own with chalk on the floor, involving several knots that looked infinitely fascinating. She stepped into the chalk circle and snapped it shut with a force of magic, now nothing could touch her assuming she did it properly.

She began murmuring that gradually became louder, and the candles she lit faded down to pinpoints of light as the shadows in her room gathered towards the center of the silver ring. Raven had to move around the magic she had stored in the crystals to keep the beast she was summoning in the crystal ring. She couldn't be more grateful to the portal being unstable, she would never have had enough power on her own without it. Finally, after several long minutes the Nightmare solidified and started thrashing around in the ring. Raven mumbled something that sounded vaguely archaic as she picked up the copper knife and a bowl, she made a clean cut across the pad of her hand and let some drops fall into the bowl as she muttered. The Nightmare abruptly stopped thrashing, it didn't look happy but it was obvious that it knew it had a new master.

When Raven was sure that the Nightmare wasn't going to pull any stunts she used her foot to smudge the chalk circle. The Nightmare walked towards her, now free of it's silver prison and she offered the bowl to it. The bowl, promptly erupted into shadow and faded away. Raven, now with her new mount grabbed onto the horse's mane and pulled herself astride it, careful to ride in front of the wing joints. The nightmare pushed aside her door and the two cantered towards the portal where they had left the generals and Lassan.

She arrived to find Amnity and Lucian, but Lassan had already left. She turned her Nightmare so everyone got a broadside view of her new mount. Raven seemed to glow with pride at it, she rode it proudly kinda like a kid who got the hottest toy of the season.

"Are we going now?"

She asked, sounding a little less squeaky than usual. Especially now that she had her new bodyguard mount.