[Leela] Chapter 4: Borders of Xalaster Orthodoxy

[Throndir]

《Chapter 3: Setting Out

《Chapter 4: Borders of Xalaster Orthodoxy》

Location: Xalaster Orthodoxy
Date: Day 2 - Time: 5 PM

The moment you crossed into Xalaster, there was an immediate change in the environment. For one, you could see a clear line from the Domain of Roshandan to the human settlements territory. It was dirt and grey on your side, and all of a sudden, as if someone had placed it down, a field of grass marked the beginnings of the human territories. Not only that, the trees were back to the same color of green that you were used to. The strange thing too was that the skies above went from grey, to the clear blue that you were familiar with.

"This starts the territory known as the Xalaster Orthodoxy. I suspect it's here that we part ways?" Zavan asked to confirm.

[Ella]

Leela Steading

"Wow!" Leela exclaimed upon seeing the scene that she would have considered perfectly normal back at home. But to her, it was more than normal. She had not realized how much she appreciated blue skies and green grass and leaves until this moment. She could not hide her smile, nor the twinkling of happiness as she looked out at the scene before her. "Its so beautiful!"

It took her a few moments of soaking in the scenery before Leela turned to answer Zavan.

"How far is it from here to the human settlements where we believe Ashaki might be?"

[Throndir]

Zavan was impassive. Abi, on the other hand was wide-eyed, along with the rest of the imps.

"I've never been here! It's so weird! Leela-sama! Why are the trees green, Leelasama? Are they broken?" The rest of the imps began chattering away too, all of them trying to crane their neck out the window to get a better look. Soon enough the rest of the imps popped out.

Within moments, the imps started to eat the grasses. The leaves. And some had even begun attempting to bite the trees themselves.

"This tastes yummy! Leelashama these are tasty!"

"That also tastes yummy!"

"I want to try some! I want to try some! I want to try some!"

"These are so good!"

"You should eat this green leaf! It's green!"

"How about this green short plant thing? Its yummy!"

"I don't like the tree bark..."

"Yummy!"

"It will take 4 days for you and Efrit to walk there." Zavan said. "On horseback, it will take 2 days at the very most... However, nightmares can only last 8 hours on our world before having to retreat back into their own plane."

"Zavan is correct... However, I can stay as long as I please in the physical realm. Shall I call for one of the Azure Shadows?"

[Ella]

Leela Steading

"Abi, these are normal, healthy trees!" Leela exclaimed proudly. She had been about to plop herself down in the grass to take a moment to enjoy the blue sky when the other imps started popping out and trying to eat everything that had just made her so happy.

"No!" She cried. "Don't eat them!" She rushed over to one of the imps trying to bite one of the trees to pull them off.

"You don't even know if these are poisonous to you or not!" They probably weren't, but still. The fact that the imps had just up and tried to eat everything like that was not a good thing for their health.

With a sigh, Leela gave up. "If you really want to eat some of this stuff, eat the grass so that it is only this tall." She indicated the grass that several of them had been ripping up to eat and showed them that she wanted it to be only two or three inches tall. If they wanted to eat it so much, she might as well treat them like lawnmowers so that the grass was not so high. More than likely, they would be making camp for the night so that she could go over her plans with everyone and try to disguise one or two of the Azure Shadows.

"Oh..." Leela had not realized that the horses could only stay in this plane for only eight hours. "Since the imps can only teleport so far, if we are able to disguise your Azure Shadows to look like the horses humans keep, we would need enough of your subjects to take myself, Efrit, and the imps. And guess I didn't realize the human settlements were so far from the border compared to Roshandan Castle..." She looked at Zavan. She felt bad just leaving him at the border all alone. Not to mention, if Zavan was not with her, she could not get him to use his ability so that she could copy it and she wanted him to keep teaching her the Ethereal magic.

"Hey, Zavan, are the human settlements we are going to the closest place humans live to the border?"

[Throndir]

The imps were giggling as they continued to taste the new flora around them. Eventually, with your commands, they had stopped. When you mentioned the grass, and having it be a certain height, the imps took it as a game, and then all of a sudden the imps had begun chowing down on the grass with abandon, ensuring that they didn't get to a certain height.

"With sixteen imps, then we'll need eight nightmares for them. Two on each. Then one for you, and one for Efrit."

"Yes, there are other settlements that are closer. There is one that can be reached within 8 hours walking. Faster with one of the nightmares."

Zavan then made his way a short distance away from everyone else.

"Since your ability is based on copying... Then before we part ways, I shall show you some of my abilities, in case you run into the hero." With that, Zavan started to glow red, and all of a sudden, the scales from before were on him. His nails had elongated as well.

"Form 1." Zavan said. "Fire resistance, and natural armor, along with the claws you had seen earlier." Next, Zavan concentrated again, and all of a sudden, he started to grow horns, along with a tail that appeared from behind his suit.

"Form 2. Further fire resistance, and elemental resistance. Increased speed." He concentrated one more time, and this time around, Zavan became almost shadow-like, though still had form. It was as if a miasma had hung around him thickly. When he spoke next, his voice seemed distorted, and much more deeper.

"Form 3. Reduced mental capabilities. Increased physical capabilities. Unlocks innate darkness abilities..." Zavan continued to explain, his eyes glowing red.

"Form 3: Ability 1. Shadow Cloak." With that, Zavan seemed to vanish, though there were wisps of smoke and miasma where he was. He moved quickly, and the smoke dissipated, only to appear a short distance away. "Useful for infiltration." A moment later he appeared again in his miasma form.

"Form 3: Ability 2. Darkness Blast." Zavan said, as a ball of darkness appeared from his hands, and he shot it towards the ground some distance away. It then exploded. "Quicker to invoke than a similar Darkness Magicka spell." As he explained, he began to quickly move around, firing three of them in quick succession.

"Form 3: Ability 3..." Zavan paused, as the miasma around him continued to gather together. "Twilight." All of a sudden, the darkness from him spread all around. All around you, everything seemed subdued. There was dark forms of miasma hanging on the trees, gathered in a thick smoke hovering up to a foot above the ground, even the skies seemed to become a shade of red. It was different from the atmosphere of the Domain of Roshandan, this one seemed to be more threatening. You felt fear begin to shudder down your back. The imps were likewise affected, along with Efrit.

"There is limited control on who is affected or not, however... if you so choose, any specific target will flee in terror." Zavan let go of the ability after that, and soon enough he was back to being normal.

[Ella]

Leela Steading

She was amused that the imps had decided to turn her request into a game, but also relieved that they were sticking to only eating the grass.

"Ten nightmares, then. But we should probably start with two for now, so that we can see if it is even possible to disguise them well enough. I would hate to call for all ten of them only to waste their time if we cannot disguise them." She replied to Roadmarech.

Leela followed Zavan when he started talking about showing her his abilities. She watched with interest as he showed her three of his forms and abilities associated with them. When he showed her his Shadow Cloak ability, she wondered why he had not mentioned it sooner.

"How long can you maintain your Shadow Cloak?" She asked. Wondering if it might be possible for him to go with them in the end.

When he finished going through all of what he wanted to show her, she could not help but to shiver a bit from the last ability he had shown her. Such an ability would indeed be extremely useful if things fell down to it, but she would not be able to use any of the abilities he was showing her if they were parting at the border. Even if they could disguise the nightmares to look like normal horses, two days travel was longer than her mimicry would last. She made her thoughts known.

"I appreciate you showing me your abilities, but... with only being able to use a copied ability for a day after copying it, I might not be able to use them when I need them. Unless you can use your Shadow Cloak to come along and show them to me again to renew my copy."

[Throndir]

"I cannot keep the Shadow Cloak on indefinitely. It consumes my mana... If I were to guess... Perhaps 5 hours, but after that, even I would need to take some rest."

"However... That is long enough for me to use the ability whenever a human is near. But there will be times when I am not able to use it."

[Ella]

Leela Steading

"What about those cloaks you and Tai made for the mission? Could you use one of those for times when you might not be able to use it?"

[Throndir]

"Yes, that very well may work. It would be difficult to cover the color of my skin, or hair, but at least from a distance, they should be none the wiser."

You may attempt to Aid Another, for Zavan's Disguise checks, just roll Disguise if you plan to do this.

[Ella]

Leela Steading

"I think we can work with that then." She looked at Roadmarech. "So, if we can disguise the nightmares, then we'll need eleven of them."

"Abi, will you please retrieve the cloaks and my backpack?" Leela asked her assistant.

When Abi returned, Leela gave Zavan the larger cloak and asked him to pull the hood up and cover as much of himself as he could with it without it looking obvious that he was trying to hid himself. From there, she determined the parts that might show his dark skin to passersby. Her make up was not intended for dark skin, but she would try her best to make Zavan's skin look more like a flesh tone that a human would have.

Aid Another for Disguise:

Rolled 1d20+11 : 5 + 11, total 16

[Throndir]

With that Zavan's skin took on a lighter hue. He was wearing your spare wig as well, but much of the cloak hid the imperfections in the disguise.

Treating your actions as a +2 Aid Another for Zavan's Disguise checks.

[Ella]

Leela Steading

"Well..." Leela looked at the others. "What do you think?" She then dug around in her make-up pouch for the small mirror and held it out so Zavan could see himself. "Are there Elves in this world? He could pass as an Elf, right?"

[Throndir]

Zavan examined himself in the mirror.

"Hmm... I've never seen black-haired elves, but with the amount of new countries and land that appear here... Perhaps I can indeed pass myself off one of them."

Abi stared wide-eyed at the new hair. She started to poof all around Zavan's head, pulling on the strands of it.

"You have fake hair master Zavan! Fake hair!"

"It might work... But too close of an inspection would give it away."

Soon enough, a couple of horses were spawned by Roadmarech.

[Ella]

Leela Steading

"That's the only way we can really explain your ears, though. Besides! There are dark-haired elves in a book and movie series back in my world, so if people ask for details, we can just say you're from the Elven realm of Rivendell in the world of Middle Earth. I can give you more details on them as we travel to make the story more believable. And if anyone tries to look too close or wants you to remove your hood, we'll just say that you have a disease that is contagious by touch, so they shouldn't go near you."

"Abi, don't pull too hard. You'll pull it off." She warned the imp.

When the nightmares arrived, Leela turned her attention on them. She really was not sure how to disguise them... But she decided she should probably let them know what was happening first.

"Hello." She greeted them, unsure as to how she should actually address them. "We, uh... need to disguise you so that the humans don't freak out. It would be preferable if you looked as much like one of their horses as possible."

Once she had explained what she wanted, she got to work in attempting to disguise them.

Disguise:

Rolled 1d20+11 : 6 + 11, total 17

[Throndir]

"Lady Leela-sama... What is a movie?" Zavan asked curiously as he listened to your description. He seemed intrigued.

"An elf..." There seemed to be pain behind his eyes, but he continued. "From a place called Rivendell? Fascinating... And yes... Please do tell me more." Zavan was trying to be impassive, but there was eagerness in his tone.

+2 to their Disguise checks.

Disguising the nightmare's plumes of flames were difficult. Luckily, it seemed like the nightmares can choose whether or not the flames would burn or harm. But at the same time, they acted like actual flames too. You can swipe your hand through it, and objects went through it just fine as well. Eventually you figured you'd just end up putting blankets on top, though you did attempt to fray one of the darker cloaks one of the imps brought, and use it as a fake tail or mane.