Submission (#1230) Approved

Quest: Resonance - Act 1
Act Type: Exploration
Word Count: 1075
Adult Elnin Present: Bazil [ELN293]
Regional Affinity: Kyendi
Claiming Regional Affinity for: Hanami [ELN1185]
Noble Rank Unlock Mini-Requirement: Treasured Possession (A compass)

Hanami was on an outing with her father, Bazil, to go deliver some food to a nearby town from the restaurant her aunt worked at. They had bundled up the meal and now it was just a matter of crossing the jungles of Kyendi to get there and Hanami could feel her paws itching to explore a bit. As they set out on their journey she could hear her father’s voice behind her. “Stay on the path, Hanami! Don’t stray too far ahead.” Bazil said a bit sternly. He was not the type of elnin to wear his heart on his fur but even Hanami knew what a worry wart he could be. Her ears twitched ever so slightly at his words as she slowed her pace down.

The foliage in Kyendi’s jungles was so thick at times it got a bit dark and hard for her to see if she stepped off the path for even a moment. The large leaves would block out most of the sunlight and a few times she did get nervous she had lost her father. A small compass hung around her neck though and it gave her a slight boost of confidence. Her aunt Anko had gifted it to her mentioning when she was younger she used to get lost quite frequently and Anko’s father Kormir had gifted her the treasure. Hanami could tell though her father didn’t dare speak up that aunty Anko still got lost at times. All the same the compass was now Hanami’s treasured possession and she took good care to make sure she didn’t drop it or get it entangled in any branches or leaves as she wandered.

She felt the damp air clinging to her fur a bit from the mist that covered the mountain ranges in Kyendi and it gave her a chill. “I brought a cloak for you but you said earlier you didn’t want to wear it.” Bazil said as he rummaged through a bag. Hanami had said earlier she hadn’t needed one and, while she was in doubt a bit now, her father plucked her up from the ground and set her off into a fit of laughter. She had been trying to escape him to give her father a hard time but in the end she was the only one of them to break down into laughter. He did crack a warm smile though, as any proud parent would. She was quite fast if Bazil hadn’t grown up looking after his other sibling so closely he may have had a harder time with his own children. As she rolled free of his arms she scampered a bit and gasped as she nearly ran into the goods they were bringing to the other town. Bazil could see her shoulders relax with relief as she didn’t destroy their reason for taking the trip in the first place.

Casually she backed up slowly and proceeded down the jungle path, Bazil in her wake. After a while though the forest felt a bit too quiet. The fog had thickened and she couldn’t hear her father behind her that one glance revealed he was nowhere to be seen in the brush. Nerves swarmed her and she felt herself step on some stone that looked almost like a ruin. A map on a stone tablet seemed to catch her eye as she shifted her paws but the map didn’t look like any map her father had ever shown her of Eyre. Tears began to well in her eyes and she sobbed. Maybe she wasn’t even in Kyendi anymore and the fey had played a terrible trick on her.

She didn’t even hear her father calling her name until she saw a shadow looming over her and thought she might be eaten by something in this place she thought was not Kyendi anymore. Crying even harder a paw gingerly wiped the tears from her face. “It’s a relief you’re louder than your aunt was when you realized you were lost. This is why I was worried about you wandering off the path. I wasn’t that far but you suddenly started crying. I was worried something might have happened to you.” He said soothingly as he wrapped an arm around her side to give her a sense of security. Looking down at her feet he noticed the stone tablet with the strange map on it.

“I’m here now. Lets see what it is you’ve found.” His calm voice distracting her with mention of the strange object in front of them. “This looks like it’s not from here. Perhaps something moved by the fey folk or unknown powers? It’s a bit broken but I’m sure your grandparents would have interest in it.” Bazil said and her eyes widened a bit. She carefully put the tablet into a small bag she had been carrying on her back. The map lands were much larger than eyre and the script entirely foreign. Even the way they wrote characters seemed strange she wondered if other strange things had made their way to Kyendi like this. With her father and her reunited they proceeded through the jungle. In the distance she could see the edge of the tree line where bridges lay across a gap in the cliffs and floating islands were on the horizon. Faintly she could also make out the town they were heading too. It wouldn’t be long now until they arrived.

Her father went first across the bridges to test the boards and when they reached the edge of town Hanami just about got lost again in her excitement. She wanted to do great things in the future and this was just one of many steps to get there. They delivered the food and she proudly told the strangers about her compass she had gotten from her aunt as they talked casually. Her father was surely more familiar with them but Hanami had never been a particularly shy kittom. They would stay at the local inn and return tomorrow though. The trip felt like it had gone fast but Bazil knew better from his experiences traveling how quickly the daylight could escape a traveling elnin and sleeping in Kyendi was not something he wanted Hanami to have to experience quite yet. So with that they settled in for the night in a room at the Inn, the damp smell of the mist still hanging in the air.