Novaris: Adventure in the Shattered Fang Continent

Novaris. Sax (June). 905. AGC.

Nodel. Waning Crescent 🌘. Day 1.

Rose woke up like usual and went about her morning routine around the temple. This often involved eating with her fellow clergy, cleaning herself up, ensuring her room was clean, and caring for her gear. She also did any task asked of her by her seniors since she was out of duty, but only combat duty. Thankfully, even then, any tasks that were assigned to her were mostly delivering messages or other menial things.

As she was about to leave to go on her roundabout of the city, like she usually did, she was stopped by one of the clerics attending the front desk. Someone had left a note for her late last night and was told to give it to her and only her. Her fellow cleric had given her a bit of a smirk, probably misinterpreting the note. Still, Rose didn't say anything and grabbed the note before heading out.

Curiosity quickly got the better of her, and she opened the note and was shocked to find the contents within. It was a note from Jasmine. The note indicated that Rose should rent out a room at Badger Inn. That was to be their meeting spot, and Rose vibrated with excitement as she quickly rushed to find this unknown inn.

Ever since she had seen Jasmine yesterday, her mind had been going nonstop on the possibilities. Why was Jasmine here in this city? What happened to her? Was it simply a coincidence, or had Jasmine been looking for all this time? That last question didn't make sense, as Jasmine knew she would be in their home city. Still, Rose wanted to learn anything and everything she could about her friend. She still didn't know what happened back in Alloy outside of the attack by Setiel's follower, and she was itching to question her best friend.

It didn't take long for her to find this so-called badger inn, and thankfully, she was not wearing her armor as a paladin of Sol walking into such an establishment would bring many questions. The small square building was overgrown with vines and had a simple thatched roof. She knew it was the right place because of the sign that read “Badgers Inn.”

Rose quickly walked inside and found an old-looking badger sleeping. Rousing the old badger from sleep, she promptly spoke with them and rented a room for a night. After that was done, Rose quickly left to go about her day since she still wanted to do some training to keep herself in shape.

Night time came about extremely slowly as Rose couldn't help but account for every minute and hour that passed. Eventually, though, she left Sol's temple with a hooded cloak. Rose quickly approached Badgers Inn, not even bothering to wake the sleeping badger, and headed straight to her room, where she waited quietly for whatever was going to happen to happen.

With only one day before the new moon, their hair and eyes were already getting darker. Along with this change came the fact that Jasmine's thoughts would get muddled every so often. However, it wasn't a big problem as long as they weren't in combat. Even then, their lives so far had pushed them into very bad circumstances that forced them to adapt, and they had managed to survive and persevere, even in their weakened state. It would take even longer, but eventually, the days when they found themselves in such weakened states would be something of the past. It wasn't the actual weakness of power that currently threatened them, though that was part of it. It was more of a mind issue as the impeding switch between them got closer; Jasmine's mind would falter here and there.

Still, these periods of a muddled mind could be overcome as long as Jasmine could focus on a task she found truly important. And she found nothing more important than trying to talk with her best friend. She had patiently waited the whole day as the best time to sneak into the inn was at night. It's important that she was not seen meeting with Rose, at least not yet. She was worried that some people from Alloy would still be following her redheaded friend to get to Jasmine, but she did not want to hold up her best friend longer than she needed to.

So, hopefully, if everything went alright, no one would detect her going into the inn. After all, the only people who could truly detect her were those who were not from Luxanas and Setiels' clergy, and she doubted that the two goddesses would have hired outside help on this supposed sensitive matter.

They had waited until Rose entered the inn and had watched the redhead from the moment she left Sol’s Temple. When Rose finally made it inside, it was time to go in, but not through the front door. Jasmine quickly gave Arelion control, something that was only possible so close to the new moon. However, once her brother was in control, he began to channel his shadow magic. What her brother was about to do used up a lot of energy, especially since it wasn't the full moon yet. Effectively, he was going to teleport them into the room where Rose was waiting. They had speculated that the stronger they got, the less of an issue this would become, but for the moment, such teleportation to an unseen area was very difficult.

Soon enough, they were consumed in shadows and disappeared from the nearby tree.

Everything went dark, and they felt the coldness of the dark as they traveled through shadow and darkness. It was only a fraction of a second before they materialized in the corner of the room in which Rose sat. From the redhead's perspective, they would have simply just been formed from the shadowy stuff as it came into physical form.

Their red-haired friend was not expecting it, and she jumped in surprise. She began channeling some of Sol’s energy and began to glow slightly. Luckily, the shadows quickly dispersed, and Jasmine's form was revealed, causing the redhead to ease up.

Rose had been sitting in the rather subpar bed for a minute or so. She wasn't sure what was going to happen, but she couldn't let her guard down. So she had spread out her presence through the room. It wouldn't do much, but it would at least alert her of any incoming magic. She had wanted to bring her full armor, but it would have been a bit hard to move about. So, instead, she had come with some basic leather armor and a dagger.

While she had been sitting there, she felt something disturb the nearby mana. The corner of the room got darker, and the darkness spread outward, transforming into a shape. Caught by surprise, Rose quickly stood up and, unsure of what to do, began to channel her mana along with a bit of Sol’s. Thankfully, she didn't have to do much as the figure coalesced into her best friend.

Both of them stood there looking at each other for a bit before Rose smiled brightly and rushed at Jasmine, quickly giving her a bear hug. Her friend hesitated a bit but quickly reciprocated the hug. They hugged each other for a minute or so before they both separated. Then, in silence, they both sat on the edge of the bed, and Rose was the first to speak. A rush of questions spewed forth as he attempted to stay calm. However, her usually soft and calm voice clearly showed she was agitated.

“Are you okay? Where have you been? What happened back in Alloy? Are your eyes okay? Why are you so pale? What was that shadow magic?”

Annoying Rose, Jasmine smiled, looking at her for a bit longer before finally speaking to her for the first time in forever.

Appearing out of the shadows, they were surprised when Rose rushed at them and hugged them. Jasmine, who was still gaining control over their body from her brother, took a bit longer before she hugged her friend back.

From there, they sat, and Jasmine was assaulted by a multitude of questions from Rose. Valid questions, all of them. However, Jasmine wasn't sure where to start, so she just decided to start from the beginning.

Her explanation started with their attack at their orphanage. She told Rose about Setiel’s assassin and how she had fought him off. Though at great cost to herself. Hearing about the assassin brought anger to her friend's face, as Jasmine could imagine the young paladin wanted to go to war against the dark goddess’s clergy.

Next, Jasmine explained Luxana’s Temple. This took a bit longer, as a lot had happened during her stay at the temple, from her discovering her real nature to magic training and learning about all sorts of things that she hadn't heard of before. She spoke of her new powers and having to share her existence with her brother. Her brother. The fact that she had a brother. That prompted her to explain a few things about their existence and how they came to be, but she kept some things hidden, like her talk with the World Crystal and the involvement of the entity with their creation. They both knew Sol was hearing everything they were, and they did not want to give the god any insight into her existence. At least more than necessary that bugged Rose a bit, but she understood that some secrets were better kept.

Jasmine also did not explain, at least just yet, the fact that she could not produce her own mana. This part was also explicitly omitted when she explained how she had escaped from the temple. Rose had also asked about the barrier situation, but Jasmine truly didn't know about a barrier, so she could not comment on that.

After explaining the deal with the temple, Jasmine gave a quick rundown of how she had decided to move south towards Wildwood, as that was the best place she could think of hiding for a while. She gave some details about her journey there and the many perils that she had seen as she traveled from ship to ship. How she had been worried that she would encounter more of the dark deity’s clergy but had thankfully avoided such a thing, though they were still worried about attracting attention.

Jasmine felt like she had given Rose a decent understanding of her situation, especially explaining her soul and how she shared it with her brother. It was at this point that Rose brought up something that Jasmine knew of, which was going to the Magus Empire. However, Jasmine explained her worry of being thrown into some research chamber. Rose acknowledged the valid fear, which suggested something Jasmine herself had also considered looking into. Apparently, some sort of high-ranking individual from the Magus Empire was in Wildwood City to help some individuals with soul issues. Jasmine had yet to find this individual as she had been mulling over the idea of doing so, but with Rose at hand, she could have the redhead approach first and investigate this high-ranking individual from the Empire.

After the investigation, if this person seemed decent enough, Jasmine would seriously consider asking for assistance.