The Tip of the Iceberg [Open]

[Locke]

"Well... This is interesting. A human settlement, on the edge of our desert. How quaint. Well, I guess I'd best meet the people, and get acquainted with the locale."

The manakete strode forward, entering the town and beginning to wander through the small market, his eyes sliding from stall to stall as he perused the goods on display. Hmm, a pity he didn't have any human coin on him. He'd have to find a way to get some so that he didn't seem too out of place. On a positive note, nobody could tell that he was not one of them. He appeared to be just another traveler on the edge of the great Nabatan desert. Pulling open his satchel, Locke withdrew a small cactus fruit and began munching it as he strolled along. This was interesting. So many interactions, so much new material to learn and understand. This was a feast for the brain.

"Excuse me. Would you happen to have a map?" he inquired of a passerby, who gave him quite the interesting response.

"Are you daft? Traveling the edge of Nabata without a map? You'll get yourself killed!"

"Oh. Well, I'll have to be more careful. But in the meantime, may I see your map?"

"Map? What do you take me for, a ship's captain? I don't have no bloody map!"

Moving away, Locke shook his head, chuckling slightly. "Ah, humans. They're so full of contradictions."

[Kyle]

Kyle was just walking around after going back to see his father. The meeting was a horrible mess as his father took away his dog! The fact that his father beat him wasn't the most upsetting, he was drunk, and he'd done that whenever he'd messed up in the past, or just done anything his father deemed wrong. He was almost used to it. But being used to it didn't hide the bruises or his black eye. The cloths did that. except for the eye. Good thing it was his left eye, so he could still shoot well. Well. . . he could still shoot.

His first goal was to finish weaving a hat to maybe hide his eye. Under, over, under, over. The motion was extremely repetitive, but he was almost done, all he needed to do was to finish the bill around the hat. He became so focused that he just stopped abruptly in the middle of the market.

[Locke]

"...hmm." There was a boy in the road ahead of him. He looked a bit battered. He was weaving a hat. And he was stationary.

Locke approached the boy slightly warily. Maybe the kid just loved to get in fights... Maybe he hit himself in the eye with a lance. He could be dangerous. Or, he could be as passive and pacifying as a rabbit. He just didn't know.

"Are you... okay?" Locke asked awkwardly. "Um... Do you want some cactus fruit?" Locke held out the fruit, which had a bite taken out of one side. The pale pink fruit showed a deeper pink inside, and seemed to advertise its deliciousness. Locke hoped he wouldn't upset the boy. He'd never fought a human before. What if he accidentally used too much power and someone recognized him as a dragon? What if he lost? What if his stone was taken?

Locke just didn't know. And that made him more than a bit uncomfortable.

[Kyle]

"Ah! U-um, yeah." A random person walked up and talked to him so suddenly that he actually looked at the man directly. Shoot! Had the man seen his eye? He quickly looked down once more until the man offered him what appeared to be a cactus fruit. Even though there was a bite taken out of it, fruit never traveled well unless it was dried, so it wouldn't be too good to turn him down but he couldn't just take it. He took the pack off of hiss back and began to rummage through it. There it was. Some smoked and salted rabbit. He took a couple of strips and handed them to the man as he took the fruit. "H-here."

[Locke]

"Meat? Meat! Oh, thank you, my dear sir, thank you!"

Without any further ado, the manakete tore into one of the strips, his canines tearing the meat to smaller shreds before gulping it down voraciously. Smiling with evident satisfaction, Locke put the other strips away carefully in his satchel before turning his attention back to the young man in front of him. He quickly appraised him, his eyes flashing over the boy's posture and quickly evaluating him. Locke also took note that the man carried a bow. Hmm. So he most likely was a hunter or gatherer, which explained the meat. Maybe he got in a fight with an animal?

Irregardless of how he was injured, the fact was, he was injured. Which meant that Locke felt like the gracious thing to do would be to help.

Removing some strange-looking plant parts from a small outside pocket, Locke set them on the ground and crouched down, motioning to the boy to crouch or kneel as well. Locke then took out a small skin with an abnormally large screw-top, which he unscrewed, reaching his hand in and removing some moss, which dripped with water. The manakete then crushed the herbs in his hand and mushed the whole bunch into a mash with the moist moss, creating a poultice of sorts.

"Here. This should reduce the inflammation and make it easier to see. I assume your prey didn't go down as gently as you expected it to?" As he spoke, his hair shifted, revealing, for a brief second, a strange looking tattoo on his forehead, which he hastily covered again with his bangs. "Erm, please, do take it. It'll do wonders, I promise."

[Kyle]

The man acted a but more. . . Excited than Kyle'd anticipated. The man ate one of the strips right away quite voraciously and put the remaining strips into his pack. It was almost weird how he tore into the meat, as though he hadn't had any in a while. Or maybe he smoked and salted it just right for the man's taste buds. Rabbit wasn't that rare after all.

The man then motioned for him to crouch down next to him. Um? Well he didn't have too much to lose so he did. The man proceeded to bring out a type of moss that he'd never seen before, in fact he didn't even knew moss grew in this arid climate. It was quite curious where he got it. The man took out some various herbs, many of which he recognized, and mashed them with the moss and held it out to him saying that it would lower the inflammation. Kyle didn't know how true that statement was as the 'wound' wasn't open, so it would take much longer to even have an effect. But there wasn't much to lose, except if it was poison. He might lose a lot if it was that. but hopefully he had the right herbs to counter it if it was so. So he took the weird blend and held it to his eye.

Kyle then noticed that the man had tattoos on hos head when his hair shifted. Weird, But they meant nothing to him, but other tribes of Sacae had markings that they would put on each boy as he reached the age of being a man, as his father said would happen to him when he proved himself. As if that would happen. But the moss was still interesting him. "Where did you get that moss?"

[Locke]

"The moss? Oh, it grows in anywhere dark and damp. There's a cave full of it back in Arc-Arphen."

Oh, crap. Hopefully the young man wouldn't pick up on his slip of the tongue. He could always pass it off as a cough or something. He looked normal. Right?

"It's an interesting moss. It holds a lot of water for its size, making it a good way to store water for long journeys. Also, if you eat it, it energizes and refreshes you, although it's quite bitter, stringy, and chewy. Would you like a clump to take with you?"

Locke looked at the young man. He seemed like a nice enough chap. "My name is Xerxes Locke. But I usually just go by Locke. What is your name?"

[Kyle]

The man was talking about where the moss was when he started tripping up on the place, poor man he must have a stutter. But he did end up getting it out. Arphen? His dad never told him of such a moss in that area. Maybe it had bad properties as well? Enough to stay away from?

When the man offered Kyle realized that it would be a good chance to show his father and ask hi about it, after he got better with the bow of course. He shuddered think of what his father would do if he came back early again."Sure, I'm Kyle." This Locke person apparently had a wide knowledge of herbs and other plant life. that was interesting. quite so in fact that he almost wanted to open up, but that could still be bad.

[Locke]

"Okay, Kyle. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Locke bent down and retrieved a small clump of the moss, offering it with his left hand and extending his right to shake Kyle's hand.

"I'm a traveler, just passing through here. Are you from this area, perchance? Do you know of the desert and its secrets?"

This was a test. If the young man claimed knowledge of the desert, and it was in accord with what Locke knew to be fact, then he could trust him with his facts and assume he had a relatively decent understanding of the terrain. If he didn't but was honest... That was good too. Locke thought to himself that Kyle seemed like an all right chap to him. However, he'd have to keep his guard up for now. It wouldn't pay to be overly trusting.

[Kyle]

He took the moss from Locke, thinking a bit of where to put it before remembering he had a couple empty jars from a lack of herbs and put it in one of those and put it back in his backpack. Kyle just stood there a moment staring at the hand Locke extended, did he really have to shake it? Really? Yeah, he did. Darn. He reached out and grasped the mans hand firmly and gave it a brief shake before letting go one more.

Desert secrets? What was this guy talking about now? The only secretes he'd hear of is about lost ruins, and the fact that his father said he had half siblings from here. That was one of the reasons why he was here. he just didn't know where in this desert country they were. But the siblings were one of his Dad's secrets, so he'd leave that part out. "No, unless you mean about ancient ruins, I know they're in there somewhere." He'd only heard rumors of the ruins after all, but in a place this old and deadly there were bound to be some in there somewhere, so while he didn't know of any in particular it was safe to say that some were in there somewhere.

[Locke]

"Ah, yes. Those ruins. Ruins are quite the ubiquitous decoration, hmm? Everywhere, there are ruins. Nabata's must be of fabulous quality to warrant such hype and appeal..." Locke gave a short, light laugh. "Of course, nobody really knows much about the desert.

Pshaw. I'm just babbling now, I fear. So, Kyle... Are you from these parts, then? I actually was raised around here, but I've never ventured outside of the desert. What is the world like, when it is not desert? Have you seen the outside world?"

Locke was getting excited now. This was a start. Maybe this Kyle would inspire him to visit some other part of the continent... His adventure was just beginning.

[Kyle]

Wait, what? This man has never left the desert yet he had moss from Arphen? That didn't add up at all. Hopefully this guy wasn't lying to him. He had already piqued his interest with knowledge of plants, but lying is never a good thing. Especially if it was about something as simple as that. But he was asking about the outside world, did he really not know that part? Oh well, no harm in telling him.

"The world? I'm trying to travel, but it's broken." He'd rather not deliberate, but he might if asked. Men killing young girls, the continent up in arms, dragons attacking cities, bandits coming back from the dead, nothing seemed right in the world right now.

[Locke]

"Broken, you say... The world has been broken. The cracks have merely deepened. For ages now the rifts have widened... The gulf has expanded. Strife and agony have proliferated... And the world has once again plunged into darkness and ruin."

If Kyle was really intently watching Locke's eyes, he might notice what appeared to be a trick of the light -- a faint and momentary narrowing that seemed almost reptilian, and a nearly imperceptible scaling of the skin around the eyes for a fraction of a second before Locke shook his head and everything became normal again.

"I'm sorry. My family has lived in an isolated village for generations now; I'm only the second to leave the village since we settled there. Life was always peaceful back in the village... There was not any such brokenness you speak of. We grew our own plants for food and medicine, raised animals for food and clothing, and wandered the desert as a means of connecting with the environment."

Of course, Locke's 'backstory' was all farce -- he couldn't let Kyle know about Arcadia. However, this would justify his lack of knowledge of the world, and provide for his deep knowledge of the desert and its secrets.

[Kyle]

Kyle just cocked an eyebrow as the man just started going off on a tangent about the world always being broken, and how it's just getting worse. For a family that doesn't leave the village they sure kinda knew a bit about the world if they knew that it was bad before and just getting worse. His story wasn't matching up, but he had no idea what that meant. Maybe the man was just incoherent. And Kyle noticed a weird flaking pattern around the eyes as they did something kinda funky. Poor man, it seemed like his family kept their line a bit too straight to have stuff like that happening. Poor poor man. "Environment in the desert? Why would you want to be out there?"

[Locke]

"The desert holds many secrets, Kyle. By walking alone in the vast sea of sky and the plains of sand, a man can learn much about himself. In all my years, I’ve found that the one thing that is sure to relax me and give me a sense of clarity is a long walk alone in nature.

But enough about me,” Locke finished. ”Tell me about your history, Kyle. Who are you? Where have you been?”