Welcome to Gaia! ::

Pearlian sat in the Shaman’s tent listening to Yrral yell at him.. again. So he’d gone out and used magic before he was supposed to! Also left camp and ventured into very dangerous territory… Who cared? He’d lived! So had that girl Zama…

He’d lived and seen things he wouldn’t have if he’d stayed safe! Yrrl’s civilized roots are showing, he thought in irritation; the other Wild Tribe members didn’t react this way! They’d thought it was an achievement! Something worthy since he’d gone into a dangerous area without his magic! Basically doing what Zama had been doing but without his main weapon! Makes me more epic than she is, he thought smugly as he kept a downcast and suitably contrite expression on his face.

“I apologize Shaman,” he said. “But… I would have done so even if you and mother had both told me forbidden me to.” Yrral had told him to behave, but not forbidden him… and his mother hadn’t either! He looked up and gave the other a determined stare, “I wanted to see this secret land. Wanted to know its secrets! Why it only opened during the Blood Moon and how it was done!” Wanted to see what mysteries lay in the mist, to know what magic held that place secret, the urge to know, to learn was almost to great! He was beginning to think that he had his mother’s reckless urges except instead of wandering the world looking for battle his was to wander and look for magic.
How could such magic exist? How did they do it? Could he copy it somehow? Imagine if he did that? A secret hideaway!

Yrral sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. It did make sense..and when he was young he often did things like this as well.. Now I know how my parents and Master felt! He thought wryly as he looked at the boy. He could see in Peralian’s eyes that he wasn’t as contrite as he was attempting to be! Useful thing eyes are, he thought to himself, it allows me to read his expression easier!

“I can believe that you would have done this despite my words… though not that you are sorry, boy.”

Peral gave a shrug. Well, he’d tried!

“So…” Yrral sighed and collapsed into his chair. “You might as well tell me what you discovered….
" This tribe ad its unruly children! Trying to make them follow orders was like talking to Uruu's!

Peralian decided it would be best to start with the pain of using his magic then go on to other stuff..
“Well… I was able to get a spell off… but I couldn’t hold it for too long! Like… my head got all hurt and the worse spike of pain ever hit… I had to drop it immediately…. Is that why you told me to not use magic?”

Yrral nodded; “Yes. Magic uses muscles... not physical ones usually, but mental ones. You need to give it time to mend after the beating you gave it. Plus the Blood Moon is still up.” He said with a warning tone.

“I know... I only used the shadows connected to my shadow to make sure I didn’t go to crazy.” Which was mostly true… but then the entire thing had been half shadow!

After that, Peralian went on to describe the creatures he and Zama had encountered… and the disappointing lack in information on how this place came to be. He’d been dragged out before he could do to much to investigate! Stupid Zama and her nervousness….

He managed to get Yrral onto a topic dear to him: how mages did what they did. More than just simple spells, but discussing the why’s and how’s of the spells. Peralian did understand half of what was said, but he was able to get some of the gist of the lecture and poke Yrral into deeper discussions; this is what he loved about being taught magic; not just the repetition of spells, nor the dry topics of ethics and morals… but the mechanics of magic! Eventually Yrral and Peralian started to dig into the boxes that held the scrolls and tomes Yrral had packed up and carried with him into the wild to teach the children of the Tribes. He had also collected quiet a few over the years of being Shaman, which meant as they searched for the scrolls on earthen magic they had to dig past ancient treatise on old spells, tomes on manipulating shadow and light, random spell tomes on the different elements, books on history, and some non magical books. Peral pulled out a book with slick dark cover with a small symbol in red in the middle of the cover.

“What’s this?” He said sitting back; he couldn’t sense any magic in it. Yrral looked up and then coughed.

“Ah… It’s a bit to soon for that type of book.” He said as he deftly took it out of Peral’s hands before the boy could open it.

He scowled. “Why? There’s no magic in it!”

“Because it’s an adult book. And you probably wouldn’t find it very interesting until you are much older.”

“I’m 13!”

“Yeah… A twerpy teenager. Nowhere near adult!” He looked at it and smiled. “Hadn’t realized I’d brought this with me!”

“What is it?” Peral pestered him, even as he noticed there was another slim sleek black volume with a pale pink mark on it hiding further down in the chest.

“Told you. Adult book.” He patted Peralian on the head before heading over to the curtain that lead to his sleeping quarters. “You’ll learn.”

Adults! Peralian thought huffily as he pulled the other book out and stashed it quickly into his pack before going back to innocently searching through chest in front of him. As he shifted about, his foot knocked a box of books over and he felt a slight chill along his ankle even as books thudded around it.

Pausing he looked over and moved his foot out from under the books that had fallen. Chill? In this warm tent? He moved over and began putting his hands on books and shifting it around and about trying to find where the chill came from. He found it was not a breeze somehow sneaking past Yrral’s shield but something coming from within the pile. He began to pile books off to the side, searching for the cold thing.

Yrral came back in to see him piling books into tall towers and looking very intently for something.

“What is it Peralian?” He asked. The boy had a very intent look and curious look about him. Usually that meant something destructive was probably going to happen.

“I felt a chill… Not a breeze, but something cold.” Peralian looked up at Yrral, “Can’t tell if it’s magical cause its buried in all these magic tomes… but there’s something there!”

“Hmm.. could be that map I found a long time ago….”

“Map?”

“It was iced over… but no matter how hot it got, it remained icy and never melted. Useful when you are in the desert!”

“What was it for?”

“I do not recall… I just know I had it for a while… All sorts of books and scrolls got left behind when I left to join the Tribe…. Half the time I am unsure of what I have with me!” Yrral said with amusement as he began to organize the books Peral was displacing. “Keep looking, I will go through these to see if they contain what we were originally looking for!”

Peralian nodded and went once more into the chest, even more eager now that Yrral had mentioned a map! Figures it’d be on the bottom of the chest! Peralian thought with amusement as he found it. Carefully picking it up, he examined it and looked up at his mentor.

“You think it leads to treasure?”

“What else? That or a location of a base of some sort.” Yrral said in an amused tone. “Most maps that have locations marked on them like that tend to lead to one or the other. Otherwise people would not bother!”

“Can I have it?”

“It leads to Aisko… and you are not yet strong enough for that.” Yrral said sternly.

“… Well… what if I went and stayed with the tribe there to grow stronger? Get used to that environment? Then when I was strong enough, I’d at least know the lay of the land and how to survive!”

“And leave your family? Don’t you want to talk this over with your parents?”

“Well yeah…. But they won’t mind! I think mom and dad want to go back to wandering themselves… Mom was mentioning taking us on a trip… But I think she won’t mind if I go to a different place.”

Yrral was going to disagree except he knew that Peralians parent’s would do that… They loved their children but were, at heart, wanderers. Like most of the Wild Tribe, Yrral thought wryly, and unlike what I grew up with. Yrral, no matter how long he lived among the tribe, never did understand how the parents of the Tribe could encourage their children to go exploring or hunting when they were so young!

He sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face before answering. “Alright… but I want you to copy that map down perfectly before I let you take it! That way I have a copy should you get lost and you can practice map making. I believe I heard the chief mention something about running out of Aiskalan orbs and sending people to there… so if you want to go with the tribe better get it done quickly and tell your parents.” The boy would probably try to steal it and sneak away otherwise... best I just... have him supervised. He was beginning to think Peral was learning bad habits from some of the smuggler's of the tribe...

“Cool! Thanks Yrral!” Peral said with a huge grin. Aisko! He was going to go treasure hunting there! Definitely! Even if he was going to be supervised, it wasn’t a bad thing… Aisko was dangerous that he knew. He didn’t feel like blindly rushing off to die in the cold! No, he’d stay and learn from the hunters there before venturing into the wilderness.