"You've got the energy of a young goat in the meadow but I don't see any coffee mugs or awakeness elixirs," Ragya pointed out. Hakeshna willing, she wouldn't mind a nice glass of cold brewed coffee with a little milk and sugar mixed in at that moment. She had been riding since the early hours of the morning and hadn't had time to eat a proper breakfast or drink anything caffeinated. Time had been of the essence. Maybe Tif would let her borrow the coffee maker once she got back from the capital.

As per the construct's gestures, Ragya headed to the back of the shop and descended the stairs lit by flameless azure braziers. Leaving the warm, sunlit room to enter a workshop lit by crystals that glowed cold as stars felt like crossing the boundary between night and day. The alchem-enchantress's voice from the last time Ragya had been there echoed loud and clear in her thoughts: Touch absolutely nothing unless otherwise asked to do so. With those words in mind, she took care to be mindful of the hem of her cloak and where it hung lest it snag on some delicate piece of equipment.

Ragya had seen Tathfheithleann's laboratory before but never ceased to be impressed by the halfling's workspace. Before they had met, the huntress had tried working with a number of other "professional" enchanters, but none had the same level of cleanliness or organization that Tathfheithleann had with her workspace. Ragya could still remember one wizard who told her to "trust the process" as he left an amulet with a half-sealed djinn on a stack of books and loose papers while he turned his back and drew runes on the floor. While Ragya had ruined the wizard's favorite copy of "A Hundred and One Uses for Scorpion Nettles," by dumping water on the amulet when it started to smoke, at least she had saved the wizard's workshop form going up in flames.

In the meantime, Ragya watched the circles of glowing runes with a learned patience. Tif would get there when she got there and not a moment sooner. 

Ragya nearly jumped when the halfling teleported closer, her nerves strung tighter than the strings on a lute, but what really unsettled her was how uncharacteristically calm Tathfheithleann was about all this. She understood Tif was a professional when it came to alchemy and enchantments, but customer service wasn't exactly her strong point. The huntress had half expected to get an earful for bringing what could be classified as a soon-to-be active incendiary into the halfling's workshop, not... whatever this was. Unless...

"Tif left her customer service enchantment in charge of the shop again, didn't she?" Ragya asked in a flat tone of voice. Her shoulders relaxed, not from relief, but from resignation. Like a sack of potatoes dropped into a pantry or a door shut firmly in one's face, there was a plain finality of Ragya knowing she would have to wait for the halfling to return from whatever errand she was on. She took a moment to compose herself. They still had a few hours before the seal broke and unleashed a very angry djinn, she had all the enchantment components Tif would need to put the spirit into a harmless trinket, they could still make this work.

The djinn huntress carefully set the repurposed vinaigrette container covered in runes on the shop counter, alongside the sack containing salamander fur, dried nettle leaves, and everything else that had been on that little printed list of necessary ingredients. "Do let the good alchem-enchantress know I'm here, and to hurry back from wherever she is. She made you with the ability to do that, right? Or do you just save messages for later?" she wearily asked the lookalike construct.

The sun was in Ragya's eyes as she rode at a speedy trot through the village. On her hip bounced a ceramic flask with fading charcoal runes that warmed to the touch with every jostle. Buzzing with energy like hornets in a jar, the vessel contained a very angry djinn Ragya had caught nearly three weeks ago. It had taken her that long to gather all the necessary spell components for sealing the djinn into a more stable container, now all she needed was a skilled enchanter.

After several familiar turns through the winding, grassy hills, the djinn hunter saw THE hill she had ridden all this way to find. Her steed had hardly finished slowing to a walk when Ragya nimbly swung her legs over its backside and landed by its left side. She wasted no time grabbing a sack full of something from the horse's saddle bags and speed walking past the front gate.

"TIF," she called, not slowing for a second, "TATHFHEITHLEANN. WE GOT A LIVE ONE." She ignored the caress of cinnamon and vanilla as she swung open the door to the halfling's place of business. The djinn hunter was normally a much quieter woman of few words, but with less than a day left on the seal that confined a volitaile being of fire and spite to an eensy weensy urn originally meant to hold salad dressing, hiding her steadily rising anxiety was only the 3rd thing on her mind.

There was a clear glimmer of interest in Ragya's eyes as she looked upon the aged tome. Until now, she had only known Blackdune as an artifact of oral traditions, a fable passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. The story's details varied from teller to teller, but they all told of a flourishing oasis named Blackdune's rest that eventually came to ruin and was lost to the sands. She had heard many folk tales reference Blackdune's rest before it's decline as the setting for the stories of clever heroes and cursed kings, but usually because it existed "long ago" and was "far away." If Blackdune's rest had been a real place, many scholars had argued there would be some trace of it such as ruins, artifacts, or mundane mentions of the place in the annals of written history.

However, if this book was legitimate and not some forgery with coffee stained pages, it could give credence to Blackdune's existence as a real lost settlement somewhere in the desert. Books purposely aged with alchemy and rough handling were not uncommon for merchants to sell, older looking books could be sold for more since they were "antique" or could be passed off as "rare editions." Ragya had seen old books in the libraries of her order that had aged with time, and Zakram's tome reminded her more of those than any forgery she had passed on the street. Finding the diary of the very Merchant Prince who founded Blackdune sounded almost too good to be true, but something stirred in her at the sight of the symbol embossed upon the book's cover. A feeling, or perhaps a remembrance that was not her own.

Such things she would set aside for later, at the moment she was still conducting business. The djinn hunter was careful to use only her fingertips when opening the book, a rough would likely damage the pages further if she wasn't careful. The ink used to write was still legible, and the letters were written in Ancient Essyrni script, but the actual words and their meanings were lost to her. Some of the Hand had dedicated themselves to study and scholarship but as a hunter Ragya was not among them. Gently turning another page, she took a moment to feel the paper between her middle finger and thumb. Whatever material this paper had been made from, it was certainly not papyrus.

The flowering wetland reed was the most common plant used to make paper in Essyrn. It grew abundantly in the river delta to the north west and all along the great river that flowed down intot he southernmost part of the continent. A journal filled with paper that was not made from papyrus implied that wherever the journal was made did not have access to papyrus plants, the paper was made from other plant materials, or that the paper was possibly imported from elsewhere, all things that made sense for a journal that could have come from an oasis that was also a trade hub. It certainly gave credence to the journal's authenticity, but there remaind other questions in her mind. Why would a Merchant Prince be buried so far from the flourishing settlement he worked so hard to create? Did he wish to be buried closer to the place he came from, or was he running away from a ruined oasis?

The djin hunter was about to be concerned when she was blinded by a bright, blue light. The instance reminded her of an alchemical demonstration Tif had shown her once with something called "magnesium". She'd insisted they both wear these ridiculous looking googles for protection, and in the current moment, Ragya had wished she'd been wearing them. It took a few moments of hard blinking before she could see clearly again. Nothing was on fire, nobody was bleeding, and the brooms hadn't stopped sweeping. It took her several seconds of hard blinking before she was able to register that the figure before her was not the energetic young woman she had just spoken to.

Ragya's expression, what little of it she revealed above the mask, rapidly shifted from confused, to surprised then settled back to her usual neutral stare with one last hard blink. This was clearly magic and she wasn't going to question it. The hunter had to wonder if he might be like her, separate selves sharing the same mind and body, or if their condition was something more straightforward like a curse, or some combination of both. What little of magic Ragya knew, she understood that certain aspects of the mind and body could be exacerbated by the influence of magic with the magic itself manifesting in various ways. There was a nagging little voice, probably Etain, that was begging her to ask about the shopkeeper's alternate selves. It was rare for Ragya to meet anyone even remotely like her, but there was a reason for that.

We don't ask questions about other people, and they don't ask about us, she reminded herselves.

"We'd just finished conducting business actually." She gestured with a nod of the head to the two coins yet sitting on the shop table top. Practically a steal for the amount of salamander fur she was buying but she wasn't going to give the shopkeeper a chance to change his mind about the price. "Your uh..." Sister? Female persona? Better half? Ragya knew she had sisters but had no idea what other people called their other selves. "The other you, she talked a lot." It was the best way Ragya could summarize the encounter.

Ragya meant business in the most literal possible sense as she held eye-contact with the shopkeeper. Despite the effort she put into reading into every little detail about their exchange, the one thing she overlooked was whether she was possibly overthinking the whole thing. It was unfortunate for Quinn that a place like Essyrn, where a man's fortune could be swindled out from under his nose in the span of less than a fortnight, was not somewhere that fostered a culture of trusting others, not in Ragya's experience at least. Second rule of markets and Merchant Princes in Essyrn: a deal to good to be true often was.

   Which is why she let out a quiet breath of relief as the shopkeeper took two coins from the purse. Salamander fur was not an easy material to acquire, hence why she had left a pull purse on the counter, but she would accept a discount now that they were bargaining on terms familiar to the djinn hunter. Asking only two gold for such an uncommon ingredient was not what Ragya would consider normal, but it was certainly better than trying to barter with intangible goods such as "time" or possible favors in the future. Wordlessly, she took the purse with the remaining coins and returned it to her belt.

    As her eyes followed the shopkeeper across the room, somewhere in the shadow of her thoughts was Etain wondering what her dancing would look like if she could dance on air as the shopkeeper did. She made it look effortless. The way she moved and the windless way her fair flowed behind her, it reminded the djinn hunter of dancers she had seen in a Merchant Prince's palace suspended from long banners of silken fabric. Perhaps this woman was also a performer in her free time, it would explain why she had such a lively demeanor. Ragya knew it was why Etain could never sit still when she was around.



   " I wish you luck in the fire swamps. The Rodents Of Unusual Size can be territorial this time of year,  though I'm sure someone of your..." she glanced around the room at the magically moving mundane objects around the shop, "...talents should be able to navigate through them just fine."

This had to be some kind of fae thing. She knew that djinn and fae alike loved making deals with unwitting mortals. Limitless wealth for the wellbeing of a loved one, supernatural power exchanged for pieces of the soul, these were the kind of deals people usually struck with djinn. From what she'd heard of the Fair Folk, their dealings were less straightforward. Stories varied from firstborn children taken in exchange for stolen lettuce to women of the sea giving their voices for human bodies. Something as innocuous as asking for "a smile" could be taken literally, and Ragya liked having her mouth still attached to her face. She glanced from the tiny vial between her fingers to the shopkeeper who was getting far too close for comfort again.

Buying powdered fur from a merchant was objectively easier than going out and trying to shave a salamander herself. She didn't have that kind of time anyway, not with the runes on the amphora wearing down with every passing day. Tracking down the kind of salamander she needed meant finding a fire swamp, searching through said fire swamp without getting set on fire herself, and potentially dealing with R.O.U.S (rodents of unusual size). She had figured whatever effort and coin spent bartering with a magical ingredient dealer would outweigh the effort she would have otherwise spent trudging through a swamp in a constant state of combustion, but now she was starting to question that line of thinking.

While she found the shopkeeper's form of barter rather unorthodox, this was the only supplier she'd found with powdered salamander fur. Such a fire-proofing agent was essential for enchanting beings born of earth and fire itself into stable containers. Looking to the vial of powder again, she wondered how dangerous it would be if someone were to inhale salamander fur. Glass powder in of itself was no more deadly than regular dirt-based dust, but perhaps the alchemical effects were more damaging. The idea of someone covering themselves in the powder seemed like a surefire way to get lung disease. Sure you'd be more or less safe from getting burned alive by a dragon but getting a fire-retardant substance in your lungs seemed like a bad idea.

The djinn hunter stood and readjusted the amphora on her belt, making sure it was still secured. She gave the store owner a curious look. "Good vibes" and valuable alchemical components "on the house?" This girl had to be some kind of fae or fae adjacent being. Asking for practically nothing usually meant collecting on something later on. There had to more to this than meets the eye. This was what she was trained for, what she had Vhitej's eye for, to see through deception. Listening to someone ramble was hardly a proper payment method for goods and services, so if she didn't want money, what DID she want?

First rule of markets and Merchant Princes in Essyrn: never settle for the opening offer, always haggle. If someone wanted you to pay in camels but all you had was sheep, you offer them sheep. Money wasn't an issue for the djinn hunter, she had a budget set aside for these kinds of things. Time however, presumably spent listening to the probably-a-fae-shopkeeper ramble further, she had less of to spare. Wordlessly, Ragya took a small pouch of coins and set them on the counter.  "Is this enough?"

        Ah yes, customer service. Not once in her life would Ragya have thought to describe her dusty, darkened travel clothing as "adorable." It was comfortable, functional, and make the djinn hunter look generally unremarkable. Being inconspicuous was necessary for Ragya's line of work. It suited her well, and it meant avoiding any questions about her eyes or the subtle spark of djinni magic at her fingertips. Thankfully, she didn't have to as she listened to the other woman ramble on about salamanders and search for the requested powdered fur. Ragya had not seen many mundane salamanders in her lifetime, the deserts and grasslands of Essyrn far too hot and inhospitable to such creatures, but a salamander with scales sounded more like a regular lizard in her mind.


   Cautiously, she pried her fingers from the gently braised wooden doorframe and stepped further into the shop, following after the young woman and the river of raven black hair that flowed from her head. Even with her "third eye" closed she could still sense the spellwork woven around her within the store. The feeling reminded her of walking through spiderwebs, the silken, unseeable tickle over ones skin. From the brooms to the flying books to the self standing coat, they gave the illusion of activity despite the fact there was only one person in the room. Perhaps this girl could summon invisible servants with her magic?

   Shaking off the feeling of spiderwebs, Ragya took a moment to look over the many alchemical and magical items that lined the shop's walls. The girl hadn't been exaggerating when she said the shop had "everything." The majority of supplies displayed on the right wall she did not recognise. There were so many obscure ingredients alchemists used for their work. Just as there were endless varieties of plants, animals, and minerals across the continent so too varied their uses, or so the djinn hunter had been told. She lacked the same depth of knowledge a studied alchemist might have but she knew enough as was useful for her job. It was enough to know willow bough charcoal and serpent oil would only hold a an angry djinn for so long.

   The ceramic amphora pressed against her thigh as she knelt down to inspect the bottom of the second shelf. She scanned over piles of crystallized cinnabar, jars of dried flower petals, something pickled and amphibious, till she spotted the wisp plumes and right beside them a pointed vial of off-white powder. She had to wonder if a plume could burn a cat, what difference was there to keep it from burning a human? With the nimbleness of a pickpocket she plucked the vial from the shelf and held it between her thumb and forefinger. The list had said half an ounce of the powder and she assumed this would be enough. She held up the vial for the shopkeeper to see and asked, " How much?"

__________________QUICK STATS

Name The Hungry One, She Who Devours, The Maneating Maiden, she has been given many names. For fear of drawing her attention, her true name is seldom uttered by mortal kind. Names have power after all. Better careful than not, you never know when Rakshasi might be listening. Though, when disguising herself as a mortal, Sang Ni suits her just fine.
Age As old as the marshes themselves
Gender Female
Species Man-Eating Demoness
Ethnicity Rulastinia
Height varies, always the tallest person in the room

__________________IN-DEPTH STUFF

Spoiler

[close]

In her true form, Rakshasi towers above houses and men. Massive and impeccably muscular, she wears only the pelts of wild beasts around her waist.  Her head is a tall mountain peak and her hair the turbulent rivers that pour down her shoulders to meet the sea. The darkness of their hair is the shadow of reeds against moonlight. Her teeth put the tusks of elephants to shame.



When among mortals, her form changes to match that of those around her, though there are some traits she keeps consistently. Red hair, because she thinks it's pretty. Tan skin, because she likes to take naps in the sun after eating and doesn't want to get burnt. Tall and muscular, because people ask less questions about why you eat so much.


Rakshasi doesn't have the most experience with having "normal people conversations" and it shows. Her choice language tends to be overly formal and her word choice archaic. Normally it helps emphasize how old and powerful you are as a demon but among mortals you just sound weird. She is also surprisingly jovial for someone who used to eat people and has learned to enjoy the social aspect of eating, rather than just the act of eating itself. Raucous taverns and lively hole-in-the-wall eateries are her favorite places to frequent while in mortal form. She is also very critical of other people's hospitality. If she judges someone a good and generous host she may bless them with good fortune. If she judges someone a bad host she may curse them with misfortune.


As a demoness of the marshes, Rakshasi is a natural shapeshifter. According to legend, she can grow as tall as a mountain, take the shape of a menacing black tiger, or appear to be a beautiful young woman. Whatever it takes to lure a person into the wetlands where they'll never be seen again. Nowadays she uses these powers to pass as a "local" wherever she goes. You know what they say, when in Rulastinia, do as the Anathanati do. In addition to shapeshifting, Rakshasi also possess tenfold supernatural strength, an iron stomach, and near insatiable hunger.

When going among mortals, she may be inclined to bless or curse them, depending on how hospitable they are. For example, if she goes to a house asking for food and they give her a delicious bowl of homemade soup, they may find a miraculous orange tree growing in their garden. If she goes to the house of a noble and all they give her is stale rice and cold tea, the household may be struck with sudden potentially deadly illness.


Aung Kyiang Suu - The hunter who put a stop to Rakshasi's maneating habits.


For centuries, a fearsome maneating demon terrorized the people of Rulastinia. Elders would warn children not to stray into the marshes after dark, lest they be snatched away and eaten by the Hungry One. Those who had the misfortune of encountering She Who Devours by the riverside were seldom seen again, save for the bones found floating in the water. They spoke of her insatiable appetite for human flesh, how whole families would be devoured in their entirety. If not for the Hunters she would have feasted upon the Anathanati people for all time.

It was Aung Kyiang Suu who finally faced her down. The first time they met she took the form of a  beautiful woman alone on a fishing boat. It was a duel of balance on water with no winner, but she was able to get a taste of his flesh. The second time they met she took the form of a black striped tiger swimming through a river. It was a duel over stepping stones and around rapids, with again no winner, but he was able to wound the demoness. The third time they met she took her true form, monstrous and hungry for people-meat. It was less of a duel and more of a chase between predator and prey through the marshlands. The hunter led her into an abandoned woodcutter's shack where he trapped her under a rice bowl.

The rice bowl could only hold the demoness for so long but the two came to an agreement. If Aung Kyiang could cook her a meal that tasted better than people flesh, she would swear off eating people forever. He served her a three course meal starting with a wet salad made from fermented tea leaves. The first course consisted of steamed freshwater clams with ginger and garlic. The second course consisted of catfish soup seasoned with more ginger, lemongrass, and pepper. The third course consisted of broiled crayfish seasoned with warm spices and lemon. For dessert, coconut milk rice pudding.

The meal was more than enough to convince the demoness and so she swore off the meat of people. To satiate her endless hunger, she decided to travel across Panzhong and try all the foods that people had to offer. She's even writing a book about it.


__________________Fun Meta Facts!


✿ Her mortal name "Sang Ni" is a combination of the Burmese names Sang meaning "tall" or "above others," and Ni meaning "red." Her name is purposely obvious and simple as a way to show Rakshasi's initial lack of knowledge about humans (expect for how they taste). From an in-character perspective, Sang Ni is tall and red-haired because she thinks it looks cool. From an out-of-character perspective, these traits make her stand out among other Anathanati people to the point that she would be a walking talking target for predatory creatures of the swamps. Were she a normal mortal this would be worth worrying about, but the effect of her striking appearance is closer to aposematism, when animals clearly advertise via color, scent, etc that they are dangerous and should not be eaten. From a visual design standpoint, this is me as the artist telling you she's an apex predator of the swamps so don't mess with her.

✿ Rakshasi is based off of the Hindu-Buddhist demon she was named after. "Rakshasa (Sanskrit: राक्षस, rākṣasa) is a supernatural being in Hinduism. As Hinduism influenced other religions, the rakshasa was later incorporated into Buddhism. Rakshasas are also called "man-eaters" (nri-chakshas, kravyads). A female rakshasa is known as a rakshasi. A female rakshasi in human form is a rakshesha." (source: wikipedia)

✿ Rakshasi's character concept was partially inspired by the story of Hariti. "According to myth, Hārītī was originally a rākṣasī of Rajgir at the same time that Gautama Buddha also lived there. She had hundreds of children of her own, whom she loved and doted upon, but to feed them, she abducted and killed the children of others. The bereaved mothers of her victims pleaded to the Buddha to save them. So, the Buddha stole the youngest of her sons (in a variant version, the youngest daughter), and hid him under his rice bowl. After having desperately searched for her missing son throughout the universe, Hārītī finally appealed to the Buddha for help." (source: wikipedia)

✿ Part of how Aung managed to trap Rakshasi was by leaving out several vats of alcohol, each containing a single drop of his blood. Upon finding the conveniently placed booze the demoness took it upon herself to get drunk and pass out allowing Aung to trap her under a rice bowl. This part of her backstory was also inspired by the story of Sekhmet. "In the myth, Sekhmet's blood-lust was not quelled at the end of battle and led to her destroying almost all of humanity. To stop her Ra poured out beer dyed with red ochre or hematite so that it resembled blood. Mistaking the beer for blood, she became so drunk that she gave up the slaughter and returned peacefully to Ra." (source: wikipedia)

✿ Sang Ni's career as a "food blogger," while actually being a reformed demoness who can bless/curse people based on their hospitality towards her is an example of theoxenia. "Theoxeny or theoxenia is a theme in Greek mythology in which human beings demonstrate their virtue or piety by extending hospitality to a humble stranger (xenos), who turns out to be a disguised deity (theos) with the capacity to bestow rewards. These stories caution mortals that any guest should be treated as if potentially a disguised divinity and help establish the idea of xenia as a fundamental Greek custom." While the term is Greek in origin the concept of hospitality towards strangers who are actually divine or supernatural beings can be see in folklore across the world. (source: wikipedia) 


__________________THREAD TRACKER

Current Threads

Complete Threads

• Lead the Way
  
• Character: Viscera (Kai Eyrikdotir)
  
• Location: Connlaoth, Matron Hollow
  
• Description: Another day, another job guarding someone from point A to point B. The journey starts in Matron's Hollow, where it goes it up to you.

Ragya gripped the wood of the doorframe like she had been falling down the side of a mountain and finally found a tree bough to cling to. Her nails would leave indents in the frame if someone had a mind to inspect the structure closely. She felt her palm slick with sweat as it grew warm, the varnish on the doorframe darkening ever so subtly around the outline of her fingers. She could almost hear Vhitej snickering in the back of her mind. It took no small amount of mettle for the djinn hunter to keep herself from flinching at the sudden and close proximity of the energetic young woman. Her face, what little of it she chose to show, maintained the same straightforward stare as she looked upon the presumed owner of the shop. As always, her expression was unreadable.

At least the girl hadn't injured herself with whatever magical or alchemical misfire the blue lights and wind had been. That would have made things awkward. While relieved to see that she was still alive and moving, the djinn hunter would have set the door frame on fire with a flaming hand had the young woman gotten any closer. Within the confines of her own mind, Ragya bemoaned the fact that Etain wasn't the one out shopping. Etain was the social butterfly among her sisters, she was good at smalltalk and haggling with merchants. She was useful in the right circumstances, but Ragya had to wonder how anyone could be like Etain on a regular basis. It was exhausting.

The bright, gem-like shine in her eyes, the overtly friendly disposition, and social energy the girl seemed to radiate with made Ragya wonder if the other was in some way related to the Fae. Maybe that was it? She'd been told of the Fair Folk before traveling to Serendipity, how their kind could range from beautiful childlike tricksters to otherworldly terrors and everything in-between. To be from such a lineage would not be uncommon in a place like this. She had to wonder what kind of Fae this shopkeeper would be like, if she was related to the Fair Folk at all. Or maybe she really was like Etain, a friendly facade meant to further her own goals. She knew merchants could be like that sometimes. They called it "customer service."

5 grams of rose quartz crystals, tail feathers from a red-winged blackbird, young stinging nettle...

   Ragya glanced over a thin scroll of paper in her hand, the ends bobbing and curling like decorative ribbon where it trailed off of her palm. The warm amphora secured to her belt was an ever-present reminder of why she'd been given the list of enchantment ingredients in the first place. Contained within the ceramic vessel was a dangerous, unpredictable, and likely less-than-comfortable troublemaking spirit known in Essyrn as a djinn. Ragya had encountered the being working its wiles over people while she was passing through the province of Whitesands. The djinn had been busy tempting sailors and other frequent tavern goes into all sorts of trouble such as drinking to excess and suffering the worst hangovers, gambling their earnings away, and making other generally bad decisions. The djinn hunter had managed to capture her quarry by challenging it to a drinking contest and tricking it into an empty ceramic flask when the last of the available booze had run out. The only thing keeping the djinn from shattering its container like an overpowered toddler throwing a tantrum for being put in time-out were a number of roughly smudged arcane symbols drawn from willow bough charcoal and carefully extracted serpent oil.

   This however was only meant to be a temporary container. Normally this is where she would hand the djinn over to other members of the Hand of God who could  transfer it  into a more stable vessel, such as a piece of jewelry or a lamp. Unfortunately, while there were a fair number of Essyrni people in Whitesands, the Hand had yet to establish a formal chapter outside of Essyrn. This left Ragya with little choice but to turn to enchanters outside of her order for help. She knew Serendipity had no shortage of those, even had a certain talented halfling in mind for the job. Only thing was, Linn had been out of the office when Ragya had gone to see her. Her lab assistant had been able to take down her order. She even printed the djinn hunter a neat little list of the necessary ingredients for the enchantment. She had said Linn  would be away two weeks at the longest, which gave Ragya plenty of time to go shopping.

   Which brought her to Jadenshire. If there was anywhere she could find... she narrowed her buttercup yellow eyes at the unfurled slip of paper again. N...No less tan, than? 3 uncracked goades? No. It read "geodes", she concluded. The djinn hunter had learned to read and speak common as a part of her education in the Hand, the issue was the size of the text. It had been printed so small in order to fit all the ingredients on the paper. She had been so focused on deciphering her shopping list that the sudden gust of wind took her wholly by surprise. It blew back her hood and nearly knocked Ragya off her feet. She would have fallen and risked landing on the djinn-containing amphora had she not nimbly moved to take a more grounded stance. The flash of blue that followed only confused her further. A magical experiment or concoction gone wrong, perhaps? Linn had always warned her about people who put business first and "proper lab procedure" second.

   Seeing no smoke pour from the open door and smelling no noxious fumes, Ragya cautiously poked her head inside, resting a hand on the door frame. " Everything alright in here?" she asked, the tone of her voice monotonous as it sounded through the doorway. She eyed the animated cleaning supplies curiously. They reminded her of a Serenain children's story Yeonbi had read once while she had first started learning the common language. The story had focused on a wizard and his familiar, a mouse. As she watched the brooms sweep an the mops mop, she wondered if her own country of Essyrn would use slaves as often if they had magic to serve them instead. The djinn hunter's thoughts were interrupted as her gaze landed on the dark haired figure on the ground.

Journeys almost always started in the early morning. Most folk wanted maximum daylight for travel because doing anything in the dark was "scary" and they wanted to "sleep at night." Of course as a creature of the evening, Vik had her own opinions about this. Wolves were most active at dawn and dusk with the varulfur being no different. Vik preferred to wake during late afternoons, dusk, and the long, dark hours of night that followed. Any and all hours from dawn to noon were for sleeping. Despite this, the shewolf had begrudgingly dragged herself from bed that morning with the sun as it dragged itself over the horizon.

As she sat on a squat tree stump on the outskirts of town, she rubbed at her eyes wearily and blinked through the dusty morning light. She was supposed to meet her next "traveling companion" there before accompanying them to their intended destination. Going between settlements in any country always ran the risk of bandits, brigands, highwaymen, wild beasts, troublesome fae, and gods knew what else, which is why folk might hire a mercenary like Vik to protect them along the way. With her back to the rising sun, she caught sight of a figure approaching and stood to greet them, assuming they were the one that hired her.

"You the one I'm supposed t' be protecting? Where we headed?"

The djinn hunter narrowed her eyes ever so slightly as she watched Zakram lean close and whisper the name, "Blackdune's Rest." She did not know what he would want with such a place, but she better understood that he had a need for discretion. The son of a Merchant Prince could hire guards and guides quite easily if they wished so long as they did not mind the speculation and rumor it caused. Some even relished the attention, but if Zakram wished for the opposite she could deduce a few possible reasons why: what he wanted was going to be profitable, illegal, heretical, or some combination of the three. Whether the young man's fortune grew or he was left with naught but the dust in his shoes at the end of it all was for fate to decide, and Ragya was willing to look the other way if what Zakram wanted in Blackdune's Rest did not agree with the law as written. As for heresy, she was a servant of Hakeshna but her concerns lay with djinn. So long as he did not start making deals with djinn, she could abide whatever his plans were.

After a quiet moment of thought, she nods. " I have heard of this place."

Not too long ago, she had been looking into Akher, an ancient city across the Moraki whose success had depended on blasphemous man-made oases till the day they dried up and the city swallowed by the sands of time. Blackdune's Rest had come up during her research with scholars speculating wether the fabled oasis had also been man-made, possibly in connection to the Akheri, but she had found the discourse inconclusive. Of course there were always the word-of-mouth rumors one would hear on the road or in taverns but it was impossible to tell where truth began and embellishment ended. She assumed that Merchant Princes and their families had the means to acquire their own research materials or hire a scholar to do the research for them. Something about the look in his eyes told her that he knew something.

" I can do my best to protect you and guide you through the desert," the gold of her eyes glinted as she lookup at him, much like a cat's when they caught candlelight in the dark. " But I cannot guarantee I know how to find what you seek."

" It's fine," she replied with a dismissive wave of the hand, " The streets in this part of the capital tend to look alike. It is easy to get lost, especially after dark." The neighborhood Ragya had chosen was not especially known for being dangerous but it was still possible to draw unwanted attention if one strutted through the streets like a peacock. She was glad Zakram had enough sense to dress sensibly for these streets. Zakram... his was not a name she recognised. Whatever his connection to Kellok she would figure out soon enough.

" I have experience traveling through the desert, yes. Most of my work takes me to the south and southeast regions of Essyrn, but I have also traveled north a handful of times. Where exactly do you plan on going?" She had to wonder what kind of business this man had in uncharted sands. Perhaps they were going into the desert to try and chart new trade routes. There was little else she could imagine anyone wanting out in the Moraki.

Ragya eyed the man up and down as he spoke to her. Her overall demeanor was relaxed as she sat at the table but her eyes, golden and glowing in the lamplight, were picking him apart piece by piece. Commoner's clothing, but there was an unmistakably discomfort  in the way he wore them. People dressed like him didn't normally hire bodyguards of her calibur either. The lack of confidence was obvious. The bag was curious. The note she read over with interest, then leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table. 


She then extended her hand over the table to shake. She hoped a familiar gesture would calm his nerves and make her seem more "hire-able." With only her eyes showing she couldn't exactly flash a friendly smile to put him at ease. Besides, smiling was more Etain's thing. Ragya was nowhere near as charming as her "sister" but at least she didn't carry herself with an overtly hostile aura like Vepkhia. Ragya liked to think of herself as an agreeable middle ground between them. Plainly dressed, straightforward, and private, but as far as anyone could tell, without secondary motives.                   

In a quiet back alley establishment, Ragya waited for what could be her next lead in hunting a djinn that was supposedly influencing certain Merchant Princes. Through the cousin of a friend of a sister of the Hand she'd been put into contact with someone with possible connections to the Merchant Prince Kellok. The man was infamous for his cruelty as a slave owner. His rivals spoke no end of rumors that his success stemmed from a dark deal struck with a djinn. Merchant Princes would often alledge such things of each other, but it was the duty of the Hand to discern whether the rumors were true.

Whether or not Kellok was truly conspiring with dark forces was what Ragya sought to find out. Despite the pleasantly warm evening, she remained covered from head to toe in dark traveler's clothing. She was oddly modest for an Essyrni woman. As she waited, she wondered what her potential employer would be like. She could only hope that someone with ties to a man like Kellok would treat their hired help kindly.

[Art Credit: me, I drew this]

The Hand had a number of ways they dealt with djinn once they had been tracked down. A djinn of weaker power could be killed, same as most mortal beings, but a djinn of greater power was not so easily defeated. If a djinn could not be killed by mundane means, then the only other option was to seal the djinn away. Sometimes they were bound to a place or an item, depending on the materials the djinn hunter had on hand. Scholars of the Hand of God were always researching methods on how to best contain a djinn's power, sometimes by innovating new techniques and other times looking back at past magics of the ancients.

It was only recently that the Hand has started looking into the magics of the Akheri. Historically, the church considered the Akheri water conjuring blasphemers, but more contemporary minds were willing to consider researching the Akheri and how they crafted their magical items. Such crafting techniques had since been lost in the centuries following the fall of the city state but perhaps with enough study the Hand's scholars could reverse engineer the work of Akher. Perhaps there was something the Akher had known that the Hand could use to improve they way they handled djinn.

The possibilities were endless, at least, that was what Assad had told Ragya before she was sent across the desert to find Akher and uncover its secrets. The nomads that had directed her to the city state's ruins had emphasized the use of barter by the Akheri people, and in preparation she had brought a jar of honey, a satchel of cinnamon, and a flask of wine, things a single person could be reasonably burdened with on a long journey. As she beheld the obsidian spire in the near distance, she wondered what Akher had been like in its glory days.

" I am Yeonbi," she replies with a slight bow, " Priestess Sanir was just explaining to me... the situation with the temple's snake."   

She doubted Gordeer could have gone far. The snake was probably in a corner or under some furniture. She would have been more worried if the snake had gotten lose at night. Snakes sought out warmth once their environments cooled down, and she figured the last thing the Temple needed was some poor soul waking up to find a snake curled next to them in bed because it was seeking a warm place to sleep.

" If you could show me the last place your priests had Gordeer, I can start looking for a trail." 

At the mention of magics, her first thoughts were of the Eye and how blasphemous it would be if she used it the Temple of Sky. She cast a fleeting glance in the Shah's direction. Using djinn magic, in the Temple of Sky, infront of the Shah herself. She could almost hear Vhitej in the back of her head laughing at the thought of it.  While it would certainly make the search a lot easier, Yeonbi was disinclined to use the tiger djinn's borrowed power for this endeavor.


She smiled warmly at the priestess, hoping to put her at ease.

"One of the first things we learn in the Hand is how to track. With the amount of sand that blows into the city, it's likely that Gordeer left some kind of trail when he left the Temple. All I need to do is find it."