Bottomline: he'd done something irrevocably stupid. Such blinding and painful irony for a mortal of his mental capacity and yet it had been done. As plain and simple as there, for though he possessed great wit (at least to his present knowledge), he couldn't go back in time and fix what might be one of the worst mistakes he'd ever made in his life. Regret hardly mattered now when all was said and done; all that remained utterly pertinent was to attempt to fix such an err in the brain to ensure that it never happened again. But alas, he was hopeless. He was too stubborn to listen to reason, despite what claims threatened his life if he didn't. That however, was another story altogether. He enjoyed his freedom and wouldn't have it any other way.
Still, that didn't stop his lead knight from grumbling under her breath about the a high lord wandering off on his own without an escort by his side to accompany him. Neodoryx however, had something else in mind. There was no possible way that he would able to make it to the temple with a band of complaining knights following him. Though he wasn't exactly fool enough to always go alone on expeditions or anywhere for that matter, he was quite capable of handling his own personal affairs. If he could do it when he was fourteen, he could surely now that he was more than twenty years advanced in his age.
Neodoryx had several options to choose from when picking exactly which way he could get to his prescribed destination. Two of which were the obvious and both involved horses in some way. Others included but were not limited to, methods such as realm-jumping, or teleporting. But at the risk of releasing more than one or two pleasant demons, he preferred to take a less risky path. And teleportation didn't always guarantee one would reach their destination in one piece, or get there at all. And then there was always water-walking or attempting that new flying spell. However, the latter, still in it's early stages of development, and he wasn't quite sure exactly how a gryphon or a dragon would respond to a sky-walking Serenian.
And that left the final option, summoning. He wanted to get to the temple as swiftly as possible for the ruins were simply dying to be explored, this much he could feel. And that was that; out from the sky a massive white avian fell, squawking to his call and responding to his every command. Speaking the beast's tongue, he requested passage to the treacherous peaks of the Thunderblacks, a land inhabited by savages but the key to knowledge he sought. He knew the runes he was currently hard at work on, could not be completed without the relic hidden somewhere inside the temple.
Taking to the skies and at a rate as quick as lightning, what would have taken days of travel and diplomacy between bordering nations, took a mere numbers of hours before he arrived to a treacherous path between a barren hillside and a series of burrows alongside left of it. Shadows lurked everywhere and even the bird whose back he straddled in a small spot just beneath its wings, seemed fearful to land. He spoke once again, acknowledging the creature's apprehension. Instead, the creature fell as close to the earth as possible, allowing him to jump the remaining number of feet to the ground, which he did and cleared with little more than a grunt and a grimace at a sprained ankle.
But shadows closed in on the land at nearly all angles and Neodoryx, as he watched the grand creature soar away, could begin to see exactly why this place was called the Thunderblacks. But he wouldn't let misconceptions hinder him from his tasks, he had a relic to retrieve even if it did lie in the heart of danger.