The cellar reeked, inundating Sophi's senses with a multitude of unpleasant scents. Her nose twitched in distaste. The odors of death, blood, and the scent of alcohol permeated the air in this dim chamber. Everything had unraveled in the blink of an eye, and now she found herself trapped beneath the ground with her patrons. Her father had been left behind, entrusted with the task of ensuring her safety. But from whom?

Who were those merciless individuals?

They had shown no remorse, ruthlessly snuffing out lives as if they meant nothing.

Murderers, all of them!

She tried her best not to think of what may have become of her father.

Despite not being claustrophobic, the room was clearly not designed to accommodate this many people simultaneously. Amidst the chaos that ensued earlier, a peculiar urge had driven her to pocket one of the crystals after the bumbling man who stumbled upon the inn possessed spilled them all across the floor from his satchel. Just before that very man... imploded. It all defied reason. The situation seemed like a nightmare, a dream that she yearned to wake from with a jolting slap to the face.

Summoning her courage, she decided to strike up a conversation with these individuals who, in some semblance, appeared to be competent adventurers. Her father had entrusted her safety to them, entrusting her fate to their hands and abilities.

"Have you thought about why each of us instinctively reached for these crystals? Did you not witness how we all snatched them up, almost without second thought?" She held the crystal firmly in her grasp, revealing it to those within earshot and sight. "I find myself unwilling to part with it. Why is it that I feel this way?"

Varg snapped her attention from the rumbling upstairs to Sophie, every part of her on guard and wielding her massive, still bloodcrusted chakram.

"Huh?

Cry-stal? What you talking abou-"

She paused. She remembered. It had come so second nature to her in the moment that she hadn't even considered it compared to the slaughter still ongoing upstairs.

"Right. This thing..."

Varg shuffled in the sidepouch she'd stored her shard, gripping it tight in her wrapped fist,

"guess it just felt right. Cuz' it's calling to me? Smashin' it or abandonin' it just doesn't feel right, and... Well. It worth big money, yeah?"

Varg tossed it with a grin, but as soon as it left her grasp, she panickedly went to catch it again as if carefully nurturing a newborn. Staring at the shard.

"Shiny..."

Varg's broken Pluilesse was partially vexing to her. However, her father's teachings echoed in her mind, reminding her of the value of patience when dealing with all sorts of customers from every corner of the world. Only minutes ago, she had still considered Varg as one of her clients, a fact that remained unchanged despite her current circumstances. Perhaps that should not change even if she was no longer at the tavern, even if temporarily.

"Sell this..?" The prospect of parting with the shard suddenly struck a nerve, setting her on edge. A strange sensation, indeed. Curious... She wondered if the others felt this as well. She turned her attention to Varg. "I fail to see any shine in it. What exactly do you mean? It's entirely opaque. Are we even gazing upon the same crystals?"

Varg was clearly blanking at the words 'opaque' and Sophi's quite elegant vocabulary, blinking twice and lowering the shard for a moment. "Don't know. Are we? Lemme see yours. Uhh-... No touching mine though!" a pause, "Not because I don't trust you, kid. It's just... Uhhh..."

That feeling again. Why was she so precious about this thing she'd scraped off the ground after some guy had imploded. Varg ponders as she goes to look at Sophi's closer in comparison to her own.

"Maybe one of the Garum'gak Witchdoctors can figure these out. Smell magic all over these."

Sophi grimaced upon hearing about witchdoctors, this was not a combination of words she had ever heard of before. Perhaps it was the language barrier,  but she described the words Witch and Doctor correctly in Pluilesse. Perhaps a mistake, but she had to make sure. This is stressful. While maintaining eye contact with Varg she began to approach her ever so slightly, taking but a few steps closer only. "Witchdoctors? Who are they..?" she inquired rapidly her words coming out in quick succession,  "What can they do? And.. You can smell magic?" She cleared her throat as she tried pronounce an unfamiliar term, "Garum... Gak?" With the crystal still tightly held in her grasp, she extended her hand toward Varg to offer a closer look. The firmness of her grip was evident, a testament to her reluctance to let the crystal go, even accidentally.

You know! The people who make spark fly. Like uh... uhhh..."

Varg was trying her best to try and explain things despite the language barrier, before tapping her head twice as if she'd come up with the right words, "like little red dragon, and Choc! Even ol' hairy-- sorry, Gorranach has its kiss." she said, pointing to Xilo, Gorranach and Nix.

"Magic's something I have to be wary of where I come from. Learned to smell it plains off!" this, of course, was superstitious nonsense Varg confidently proclaimed as she put a big thumb to her chest proudly, "stay away from it usually. That magic danger we call

Garum'Gak. Orcish."

"These three not use the magic gift like Witchdoctors. Use magic for good. And unlike me, they have brain. HAH~! Can probably answer your questions about these things better than Varg!"

That being said, Varg still took a closer look herself, in the off chance she might know something or be able to spot something strange about Sophi's compared to hers.

Nix struggled to understand the Auridian tongue at the best of times but, standing here in this crowded, dank cellar amongst a dozen or more hushed and hurried conversations... it was close to impossible to comprehend even a single word. Granted, he had only roamed a small corner of this new continent that he finds himself in but he was yet to find a single person he could converse freely with in a language he actually understood and tonight he had met two. Two. Gorronach, the dwarf he had spent a few blissful minutes conversing openly in Draconic with before everything happened, was scribbling notes down on some parchment across the room and Varg, who's light green skin was such a vibrant colour - it was almost glowing in the dimly lit cellar, was talking to Pabonni's daughter - Sophi. It was shifting his focus to Varg that allowed one word he did understand to pierce through the white noise and resonate around his head. 

"Crystal" "Ah!" 

His right hand suddenly ached, forcing him to avert his gaze down to his side. Opening his clenched fist revealed the crystal he just couldn't resist picking up before and the perfect imprint it had stamped into his small, scaled hand. Nix couldn't tell if it was the lack of light in the cellar which made the crystal look as dull as it did but - dull or not - this crystal was suddenly the most valuable thing he owned. 

Gasp 

With a sharp intake of breath, his hands raced to his belt to trace the rough, splintered edges of his Biwa - "Phew" - ok...second most valuable thing he owned. Maybe it was the sudden wave of calm - provided by his precious Biwa - washing over Nix or the fact that he had enjoyed an actual Kyoun conversation with Varg in the bar upstairs but he felt compelled and comfortable enough to join the Orc's conversation with Sophi... Maybe they can cast some light on the situation? Are these crystals common in this part of the world? Maybe they've seen them before? "Many...Hello's...Uhh...Both..?" 

Hearing Nix struggling, Varg switched to Kyou with some visible relief that she could speak her own language. When speaking Kyou, she actually sounded quite fluent and less of a 'meathead"'

In Kyou: "Hey, little guy! She was asking about the shard, and I've got no idea what these do or why we picked em' up. I saw you levitating crystals around! That mean you know some uh, crystal magic perhaps?"

Another wave of relief washes over Nix as he hears that familiar tongue. Not necessarily from the region where he was born and raised, so it carries a few subtle differences and requires a touch of work to follow, but it still feels like a warm bed to hear it again after all these months

Nix lets that feeling show with a soft smile and, after his manners gift an apologetic nod to Sophi, he turns back to his new...

what would she even be to him? It's far too early to call Varg a 'friend'...but she's much more than a stranger...I wonder if Auridians have a word for it?

"Hello Varg, good work upstairs and I'm sorry about your - did I hear you say - 'children'? Are they nearby? By the elements, I hope we can find them soon."

Nix hoped that placing his hand on her knee may help show his sincerity. Society suggests that a hand on her shoulder or arm would be preferred but the knee was as high as he could reach, so the knee would have to do.

"I'm afraid I don't know anything about these crystals, no. Instinct just took over and I used something I was familiar with and tried my best to deal damage with it."

Nix's mind races back to where he grew up, telekinetically skimming stones into the violent sea...next to her...

"I was hoping that somebody else may know a thing or two about them and help me work out why, no matter how hard I try, I just can't bring myself to discard it."

Nix's gaze moves towards Sophi and the words tangle his tongue once again. "These...Crystals...Com-Comm-Common..Sophi?"

Xīlōxōch approaches from behind Sophi and wraps her arm around her face as she hands her a white handkerchief.

"Here you go dear, it's times likes these than I'm glad my kind wasn't blessed with a keen sense of smell."

She patiently searches her backpack for the shard and takes out. She holds it with a firm grasp as she examines it, she doesn't know why but she still feels tethered to it. She speaks with her eyes fixated on the shard

"I think that was the wisest thing many people in that room will ever do."

Sophi retracted her arm, considering that Varg had examined the crystal long enough, she pocketed it. Her attention was drawn to the red-scaled kobold, whose question had captured her focus.

Common?

The query lingered in her thoughts. Were these crystals really common? They were certainly the first she had encountered in her entire 17 years of life. Then again, the world was vast, and she hailed from a village with fewer than 300 residents. Her perspective was limited. Nevertheless, she needed to respond.

"I... I don't know. They might be...?" She cast a hopeful glance around the gathering, wishing for someone to step in with an answer on her behalf. Surely, among this diverse group, there had to be someone wise and knowledgeable. How could there not be? Around this same moment the Navin approached her offering her a handkerchief, she felt grateful, she couldn't put a finger on it but the Navin's presence soothed her, she immediately felt cared for even if they were still just strangers. She could count the number of times she'd seen a Navin with her hands, each one quite different from the other. "Thank you." she responded finally after a brief moment.

Having scribbled down all the important treatment details of the past ten minutes, Gorranach finally puts his medical notes away. With a sigh he turns to the others.

"Ah may be young for a dwarf, but I've seen a great many gems and crystals displayed in noble halls and worked on by finesmiths. Used 'm myself, too. Never have I been so greedy for one that I would steal it, and never

would

I be greedy enough to forgo treatment of a man to pick one up."

He puts down his shield on the table and shows everyone the burns on his arm from the explosion. "That man was brimming with magic. I am unsure what, but part of it clearly charmed us. No doubt. Ah suggest we do nae try and take them from each other now, if we feel compelled to guard them. Just keep them close, and hope they cannae track us by them."

"Perhaps you could identify the crystal, Mister Dwarf. Are you some kind of smith, by any chance?" She stepped forward, finally mustering the courage to speak. Her tone remained steady and composed, a far cry from the earlier chaos when she had shouted at Hinny to take cover from the appearance of the strange men. Her gaze shifted between Hinny and the assembled group.

"I, for one, have never seen these crystals before. Do any of you recognize them? Could they be dangerous? What do you think might happen if we attempted to destroy them? Not that I'm suggesting we do so..."

"Don't get it myself. Look same. Smell same. But don't want yours... Want mine," Varg said offhandedly in Auridian, throwing and catching hers in a strong first,

"Gorran, figure it out! You hairy men like the shiny, yea'? I can only smell the magic, but maybe you can smell purpose with your big smart skull."

She looks down to Nix, comfortable with the contact against her leg and giving him a hearty grip on the shoulder in return. The grip powerful enough to cause Nix to wobble slightly, but she quickly realises and goes a bit gentler.

"အ လုပ်လည်းကောင်းတယ်၊ မင်းရဲ့ဂီတက ငါ့ကို တကယ်ကို ခံစားချက်ကို ဖြစ်စေတယ်၊ ငါသုံးနက ဒရမ်တွကနေ အနားယူလိုက်တာ ကောင်းတယ်။ အဲဒီ သူရဲဘကငတ လသတ်သမားကို တစ်ဝက်လောက် လှီးဖြတ်လကတအတွက် တောငပန်ပတယ်၊ ငါလည်!"

Translation (Kyou Standard):

"Hello handsome, good work too! Your music really put me in the mood; it's a nice break from the drums I'm used to. Sorry about chopping that coward-killer in half, I got too into it!"

Her pearly-white grin with her tusks dropped to a more serious one as her grip loosened.

"ငါ့သားသမီးတွေ... မင်းကို မြိုကြီးပြကြမ မဟတဘူးလို့ ပြရလကအောငက ငယုံတယ်။ ငက သတရ အစစ်အမှန် အမေ မဟုတ်ဘူး။ သူတို့က ငါ့သိုးစုအောကက စစ်ကလေးတွေ ပဲ။" အခုအချနမ Keldern မှာ မနေတော့ဘဲ တောင်ဘက်ခြမ်းက မိဘမဲ့ဂေဟာတစ်ခမ ပဋိပကခတ မပြန့်ပွားနိုင်သေးဘူးလ မေလင့ပတယ..."

Translation (Kyou Standard):

"As for my children... I trust you enough to say this, seeing as you're not from the big city. I'm not their real mother. They're war children under my flock. They're not in Keldern right now, they're in an orphanage down south. I hope whatever this attack is hasn't reached them... All I can really do is stay calm and guide these people out for now."

Gorranach puts a hand in the pocket where he stashed his crystal, then quickly pulls his hand back out before he touches it. These crystals themselves clearly weren't anything special.

Then why would anyone cast magic powerful enough to charm a whole room to have us pick them up?

Grim thoughts swirled in his head, but he kept a straight face. These people were clearly counting on him. Same way the Dragonstone soldiers had counted on Bannock. Gorranach had seen his brother give speeches both inspiring and calming many times. He could do the same now. Be the leader he had to become.

As soon as Varg's undecipherable words in Kyou leave an opening, Gorranach blurts out: "Ah think they may be rigged to explode. Same way the man did. But we'll be fine."

"WHAT?!" 

A few audible gasps are heard across the cellar as soon as Gorranach announces that these very crystals they are currently holding are rigged to explode. Concerned looks exchanged across the room, and an undeniable sense of trepidation hung heavy in the air. 

"Keep yer voice down. We're not out of the mines yet, remember." Gorranach takes out his shard to show he doesn't mind holding it. Years of training as a surgeon helps keep his hand steady. "Ah don't think they're going to make us explode right

now

, and I'm hoping I'm wrong. Look, that man had a lot of them. We each have only one. I'm sure it would take years for our bodies to accumulate enough magic. So panic is entirely unnecessary."

There, that should do it.

The audience gradually settled, their anxiety slowly easing. Sophi's expression, in particular, had soured significantly upon that revelation. Ian's whimpering was audible before she managed to regain her composure. Gorranach's explanation had seemingly placated the everyone's fears, at least for the time being. The situation was indeed peculiar – despite the potential danger these crystals posed, nobody seemed willing to part with them. Something about this scenario felt off, an underlying sense of unease lingered despite Gorranach's words. Conversation slowly died down. The mood had shifted. 

As everyone quieted down, Gorranach gives a quick nod and turns around to the cabinet. While searching for the tunnel he realizes he is smiling slightly. He did get them all to simmer down and focus.

Perhaps I'm not so bad at this.

Xīlōxōch gives Gorranach a light pat on his shoulder after seeing his command of the room. She looks at him with a warm smile as she runs her talons softly across his shoulder.

"Not bad, you handled the crowd pretty well, do you have any stage experience?"

Gorranach looks back Wyverna, having to tilt his head almost straight up to the ceiling to see her face. "Hm? Me? Nae really. I've had to lead a minor diplomatic trading mission once, and lead troops during training plenty. But apart from that, Laird Dagda mostly left me be until a year ago. And you, are all Navin naturally as graceful as you are? 

"No" says Xīlōxōch with a warm smile on her face. "My people..." Xīlōxōch lets her mind drift away as she thinks of a description for her people. How will she describe them? Slow? Laid back? Spiritual? It matters not right now.

"They're a special group, we like enjoying life, whatever that means is up to the individual. But above all else, we enjoy each other."

"As in village gatherings? Is that were you learned to dance so well?” 

"Sort of, have you ever wondered why you don't see my kind that often? We like to live alone, in the skies, preferable above the clouds, where a girl could dance with the clouds."

Xīlōxōch does a quick spin as she finishes her sentence before she brings her attention back to Gorranach.

"What about you? How is it like where you came from?"

"High reassuring walls, honorable soldiers, great craftsmen, and a lot of family. Though... there used to be more."

Gorranach sighs.

"The tunnels are definitely behind this cabinet. We should get going soon, I do not want a father's sacrifice to go in vain."