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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 667732" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #206b]  Another Perspective[/PLAIN]Ixin dragged herself painfully to her feet. The gate had closed, she saw; there was no going back. Not that she truly wished to go back to that... place. Or non-place. Or whatever it was you called the hub at the center of the Great Sphere. What had Babiran called it? The Gateway to Eternity? To Ixin it was a creepy maze of huge, empty halls filled with gates - portals that looked out onto various parts of Mid'Gaard and beyond. It was also apparently home to enormous insects the likes of which Ixin had never seen and hoped not to ever see again. She was about to become a meal to one of the armor-plated things when she was magically hurled through one of the portals by a woman covered with jeweled scales and having eyes that shone with golden light.Conveniently, Babiran had neglected to mention the existence of giant bugs and angry dragon-witches when she'd traded him a Wand of Wonder 'borrowed' from Drake Irthos. Typical."Never trust a pixie," she grumbled as she dusted herself off and looked in the direction of the closed gate. "They cannot help but cheat you." The fat man standing nearby looked at her with a complete lack of understanding."Do you not speak Castillan?" she asked and his confused expression remained unchanged. She tried the Common Tongue and then Draconic with similar results. She needed Arivexoth and walking forward, she snatched up the cutlass from where it was stuck in the ground at the man's feet. The sword's wire-wrapped hilt throbbed in her hand and she tried again. "Can you hear me know," she asked, aided by Arivexoth's magic."Y-yes, m'lady," the fat man stammered, blinking his eyes several times. "Who? Who are you?""My name is Ixin, daughter of Ventisjir the Red, granddaughter of Lady Dominor Corastrixarosvith of Clan Vermillion," she said as she sheathed Arivexoth at her hip, "Ur-Corastrixarosvith serves as Grand Councillor for Clan Vermilion to the Council of Wyrms. Her daughter, my mother, Ventisjir the Red is a Clan Champion."She spoke the litany without much interest or conviction. She'd repeated her lineage enough times in the last decades that it had ceased to impress her much anymore. But it was impressive, she knew, for Skrazargul the Green and his sons Drakes Thuulsias, Irthos, and Ulric made her repeat it often, their eyes flickering with lust and greed at each syllable. It was a gem in the horde for any Green Dragon, even one of Ur-Skrazargul's age and wealth, to have in his holding one of the lineage of Cr'Corastrixarosvith. Even though she only shared 1/4 of the Lady Dominor's fiery blood, Ixin knew that she was an important trophy for Skrazargul the Green. Not only was he naught but a Green, but neither did he claim clanblood on the Council; he had left the Dragon Isles to live in the human lands. But it was this very fact that made him attractive to Clan Vermilion who retained little of their former influence among the lesser races. So she, Ul-Ixin, was the linchpin of an elaborate political marriage of two Dragon Houses."A-an impressive lineage, to be sure," the fat man sputtered, his hands pressed together in front of him. "What brings you to my... humble home?"She almost said, "I'm fleeing from Skrazargul the Green and the Dragon's Claw." But that was no way for her to disappear and wasn't that the very reason she'd sought out the Pool of Glenmasis in the first place? After all the trouble with Babiran the pixie and his one-way trip to the Gateway to Eternity, it would be foolish to announce herself to every person who asked for her history."Are we very near Highgate?" she asked and the fat man arched an eyebrow."Never heard of it," he told her. "This is Strenchburg Junction.""Is it in Castillia?" she asked and he shook his head. "Lyonesse? The Frankish Lands? Estalia? Condottieri?"At the mention of each country, the man shook his head. "Strenchburg Junction is in Elcaden," he offered and this time it was her turn to look confused. Ixin looked around. She suddenly realized that she recognized nothing. Perhaps the pixie had fulfilled his promise to hide her where the Dragon's Claw was unlikely to find her."Where on Mid'Gaard is Elcaden? Is it one of the Slavian Realms?" she asked and the man shrugged."I don't know about Slavian," he explained, "but it is one of the Realms... of Enlightenment, that is. But anyway, it isn't on Mid'Gaard at all. It's on Oerune."Ixin's teeth ground against one another as she growled out the words, "Never trust a pixie."</blockquote>

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