Welcome to Gaia! ::

It is beautiful here, quiet. You feel more at ease then you ever have. Here, you are mostly free from the shadows. Here, the guardian of the lake heals and consoles you.

You notice at the surface of the water, small sprites floating above it, lighting the path. Creatures of light. They are mischievous creatures, and flutter around you.

"Would you like to hear a story?" they begin, "it begins and ends in a riddle".

Before you can answer yes or no, they begin.

Shun wandered on towards the lake, tilting his head at the little creatures of light. They had a story to tell. He felt guarded, uncertain what to make of the thing, but it wasn't a shadow. He would humor it.

The sprite giggled, then went on to spin its tale.

Once upon a time, there was a beggar, who spent his days on the corners of Camelot, asking for coin and food. He was an old man, unable to work on his own. Long gone were the days of his youth, where he could help farmers and merchants alike with various tasks.

One day, as he held his little tin cup out, a mysterious stranger stopped and placed a parchment inside instead.

"Eeeeh?" the old beggar asked while pulling it from his cup, "What's dis?"

"The answer to your problem. Follow this map, and you will never have to beg again, for it leads to great treasure."

"But 'M just an old man. I cannot go out adventuring. Why don't you go instead, young lad? And claim this treasure for yourself?"

"I would, but I have no need for such riches. You, on the other hand... I see you at this corner every day. It's been that way for many years now. Consider it an offer of good will."

The old man considered this, then looked down at the map.

"But I am still a frail old man..."

"I'm positive you can make the journey. Good day."

And just like that, the mysterious stranger was gone. The old beggar was left with the map. He spent the next few days, doing his usual routine. Each night, he consulted the map, deciding what he should do. After some thought, he decided to embark on this journey. He was... after all.. just an old man. He had been spending far too many years in this lifestyle. Most likely, he didn't have many years left in him. The beggar figured he might as well see the rest of his days in adventure, where perhaps something exciting will happen.

He saved up as much coin as he could for supplies. It wasn't much, but it was still something.

Once he had everything he needed, he set out of Camelot to search for this great treasure. For three days he traveled, slowly. He couldn't go too far before needing to rest. He did eventually come across a great cave, just like the one marked on the map. Treasure was near.

Oh, but things are never simple.

He ventured in and found the vast hoard... as well as a large red dragon resting on top. The great beast stirred from its slumber before eyeing the old beggar. The old man thought this would be his end.

The dragon asked him what he was doing here, and he told the truth. He had received the map from a stranger and was told about vast treasures. He also stated that he was going to go home now. A vagrant he may be, a thief he was not. The dragon considered things for awhile, flicking some coin towards the beggar from his hoard.

"You are lucky I am in a good mood. I smell no lies from you. You bear me nor my treasure no ill will. Take this."

The beggar graciously took the gold and went home. It was far more than anything he had before, even if it wasn't much to the dragon. The journey back home was rough, but he eventually made it. Haggared and ragged. He was able to buy himself a nice room at the inn and eat a decent meal for the first time in many years.

And he was happy.

The sprite finished before bobbing a bit in lieu of a bow. Shun stared down. He didn't seem to be impressed.

"That story had more holes in it than cheese," he grumbled, then walked off.

It's dark and the night is young. There's a soft kind of fragility to the night, one that's rare and reserved for full moons and foggy moors.

A single figure rides into the night. He emerges from the shadows because he was raised in the shadows, erected from nothing but political ties and wavering alliances. He is a king, but in no strict sense of the word.

In his right hand he has a single lantern and it is the only rival to the full moon overhead. They're waging a war, which will outshine the other? Which is brighter? That which hides in a cage or that which takes on the weight of illuminating the entire world? Which is right?

He's ecsaping pursuers, but he's escaping himself too. He rides away from the poison of the city, the poison of a life he never wanted to lead. They call him king, they point to his sword, they proclaim him hero, wonder, magnificent and he's too weak to bare these titles.

So in silent apology, he leaves and never returns.

Chel didn't think that was a very nice story.

(( GOAT who owned a SWORD. Elements: TOWER, HUNGER. ))



Once upon a time, there was a princess locked up in a very tall tower. The tower had no doors, only a single window up at the very top, which really begs the question of who would build such an architecturally bizarre structure and why anyone would want to do such a thing.

The answer, of course, is that it was a dragon. Obviously. The dragon needed somewhere to keep his treasure hoard, didn't he? So whenever he came back from terrorizing the innocents of the surrounding countryside (and he'd probably bullied them into building the tower in the first place!), he would throw whatever shiny baubles he had found that day into the window of the tower. Then he would curl up around the tower to sleep, winding himself up into a tall coil of shining dragon scales.

The princess, obviously, had been wearing a lot of shiny jewelry, and when the dragon picked her up, she held very very still. We think that's why the dragon decided to keep her instead of eat her, but you can never be too sure.

The princess had once had very long, beautiful hair, but she'd cut it off on her eighteenth birthday because she'd gotten pretty sick of stepping on it all the time and it was really heavy. She was going through a bit of a rebellious phase, you see. So after her birthday celebration, she chopped all her hair off and went down to the peasants' farms to see how the poor lived. To her surprise, the fields were blackened and charred. Apparently, the King and Queen had been importing all of their food from the neighboring kingdoms lately because none of their knights had been able to stand up to the dragon.

Where were we?

Oh! That's right. So the eighteen-year-old princess was walking through the burned farmland in the elaborate robes and expensive jewelry from her birthday party, because she didn't have anything else to wear to blend in a bit better. The dragon, flying overhead, swooped down and caught her. She did her best not to move or make a sound as the dragon flew across the fields and pitched her head-first into the open window of the tower. It was fortunate for her that she didn't break any bones when she landed.

Now, the dragon had been throwing his treasure like this into the tower for years, but there was only one window, so everything of note was on the upper floor. The princess was a little horrified by the lack of order, but of course, the dragon had no servants to keep his hoard neat and tidy.

She had just eaten at her birthday banquet, so she was content at first, but when the morning came, she was awfully hungry. She hadn't slept at all! What princess could sleep on a pile of gold coins and jewels and trinkets and discarded pieces of armor and magical weapons from the knights who had fallen to the dragon before?

"I demand some breakfast!" she shouted out the window. "And a proper bed!"

The dragon, who had slept just fine wrapped around his tower, like usual, woke up and realized that he had accidentally kidnapped a human. Now, as a general rule, he didn't particularly care for humans, but this one had made it into his treasure tower alive, and if he breathed fire through the window to kill her, he was likely to melt a lot of his treasure. That was unacceptable.

Little did the princess know that Goat, the king of all goats, had witnessed her kidnapping the night before. He wasn't of royal blood, but had inherited the Goat Throne by default because the dragon had eaten all of the other goats in the area. (And the sheep, and the pigs, and the horses, and the chickens.) He had escaped death by periodically lying very still and pretending to be dead - as we've established already, the dragon's eyesight and sense of smell weren't the best. Goat was a clever goat, and he thought that if he could rescue the princess from the tower, perhaps she would fall in love with him and bring him to graze in the castle gardens, far beyond the dragon's territory, where he wouldn't have to sleep in fear each night.

Clearly, Goat had big dreams. He also owned a very sharp sword that a fleeing knight had dropped in the field one day. He carried it around in his mouth from time to time. It made him feel very important - after all, he'd never seen another goat with a sword. He was unique.

So, that dragon didn't really want to feed this princess, but if she died of starvation in his tower, it would start to smell awful. He didn't want that to happen. And then she said something that won the dragon over: "Dragon, if you fetch me some breakfast and some furniture, I'll bring some of your hoard downstairs so that you have more space."

The princess still thought manual labor was beneath her, but she was bargaining for her life, here. She didn't think he would just let her go. Dragons never gave up anything they had added to their hoards. Everyone knew that.

The dragon thought that was a fair deal, so he took off over the fields.

Meanwhile, Goat, sword in his mouth, had undertaken a glorious quest: he was going to slay the dragon, rescue the princess from her tower, and live happily ever after with her in the palace gardens. A shadow overhead blotted out the sun. Goat, king of the goats, felt a sharp pain and then nothing at all as the dragon's jaws closed around him.

The dragon had a princess to feed, after all.

The end!

Once upon a time, the sprites began, there was an old, gnarled beggar who lived on the side of a well traveled road. He was hard to look at, but this worked in his favor - for you see, no one truly looked at the withered, deformed old man when they threw coins in his direction. No one noticed that his dirty rags were virtually blossoming with gold by the handful. No one seemed to care that he never actually asked for money, he just sat there and waited, grinning with broken and greenish teeth, until the noblemen and women that walked by turned away with disgust and threw something at him out of pity.

He owned a coat, you see. It was no ordinary coat - it was constantly dirty, and worn down, and broken at the seams. He could not wash it, or clean it in any way, because if he did he would lose the magic the coat had cursed upon him. That magic created gold in it's pockets constantly - but the gold he created was pure, untouchable poison. He could never touch the gold his coat made, and only used the gold that was given to him by passerby for food and drink.

He'd seen the poisoned gold in action. Whenever he entered the tavern, there was always a new and untried pickpocket who would see the gold falling from his pockets, and decided the man was an easy target. And when the old beggar was done drinking his small usable coin away, there would always be a dead body to walk over when he left.

He was not welcome at many taverns for long.

One day, while he was asleep, a gentle soul of a woman came to his side. She felt such pity for the man, that she took his coat from off of his body, and brought it to wash at the well. When she returned it, it had been sewn up and cleaned thoroughly, and she placed it back on top of his sleeping body.

When the beggar awoke, not only did his cursed gold no longer exist, but his face had lost all of the deformation he'd suffered. As it turned out, his greed for coin - even coin he could not use - had turned him sour and ugly. Now that it was gone, he wailed with great distress, and begged those on the street to help him. When they saw the man, they saw nothing but a simple healthy man looking for a handout, and helped him no longer.

Eventually, he left the roadside to search for a job, but he was extremely put out about it.

[2d20]

Once upon a time, there was a noble steed, who had a saddle. They encountered a sidhe in a tower.

"Wait, WHAT? Chicken Hero?" Rei interjected, but the sprites did not pay him any heed, and continued the storytelling.
Once upon a time, there was a single chicken. His feather was pure white, and his crest's as red as blood. He was a beloved pet from a king of certain country, whom he received while still an egg---a golden egg---from another King from far east.

The King loved the chicken. It would rise to the top of his castle each morning and sang as the sun begin to rise. Everyone in the kingdom awakens when he cried, and every morning began with his call.

But someday, somehow the chicken has learned how to speak like human. His song has turned into speech, and that speech will not awoke the sleeping humans. They who had heard his song for so many years won't wake up, even the sun has risen and set repeatedly.

The chicken cried and cried, as many people from that kingdom died of starvation, of illness as the once beautiful castle turned into ruins. He cried and cried with his now human voice, until a passing magician gave him a map.

He doubted that the story will be interesting at first because of the title, but now Rei is completely absorbed in hearing the story.

The map given to him by the wizard contained location of a certain poisonous spider's nest. It was so poisonous that eating one of them will cause your throat to swell and your voice turns into what a bag of pebbles will make when shaken. But if that means he can make the kingdom awake again, the chicken accepted that as his fate.

Many hills he crossed, many lakes he swam across. The chicken, once feathers was pure white now half-bald. With each step he took a feather falls, with each jump he loses another. But the chicken paid no heed and continued his journey.

As he finally reached the spider's nest, he was surprised. The lair was no more, but what he found was a hero from the east. He has killed the spiders, but seemed to be starved. In his belt was one, small golden egg he brought as payment for his deed. Seeing the chicken, the hero jumped and grabbed him at his legs, ready to consume him.

But the chicken said to the hero: 'O son of man, hero of the east. Before you consume me, I have something to ask.' The hero jumped back in surprise, yelling: 'Demon! Why are you, a chicken able to speak!?'

The chicken answered: 'Because I was treated by the King, and the people nicely. They admired me, they loved me. But also because of that I put them in mortal danger. They had been locked in eternal slumber, and the only cure is my kind's crow. That's why I asked you.'

'I will give everything that's left on me to sustain you. And you will take that egg, raise it and deliver the rooster to my kingdom, far west from here. It will again awaken my people, and save them.'

The hero replied 'But you are just skin and bones! What if I fell again, starved on the way to your kingdom? And why must I listen to your plea?' the hero yelled.

'Have you ever see a talking rooster? What riches can you get if you can present a healthy one to your king? I can guarantee it; as long as you bring that egg to my King, it will learn to talk, just like me.' The chicken bargained.

The hero was confused. He can kill the chicken, eat it and go back to his own country. But he can also go to the chicken's king and save the country.

...

The sprites told him after a while of silence that the story ends there.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?" He yelled, scaring the sprites back into the water. Talk about annoying, now he can't help but to wonder if the story was based on truth, or just another tale spun from nothing.

[Rei Exits!]

[wrong dice]