Junipero and the others couldn't help but smile at the Troll's new found enthusiasm. Around them the decks were alive with activity, the skies were clear and pristine for miles. For a brief few seconds they all sat in silence as the ship plowed through the sky. Finally Junipero hopped down from the bow spirit and said, "Come, let me show you to your cabin. You'll, of course, have free range of the whole ship, except the captains quarters!"

Coaul blinks and quickly draws himself away from the beautiful sight, "Alright. You may show me to my room."

Junipero showed them below decks, gracefully descending the ladderwells just ahead of the mainsail.  Sailors made way for her and the small party of adventurers, curiosity alive and well in their eyes. As she showed them their cabin Junipero smiled. "I hope this will do." Clearly this was better quarters than even she had aboard this ship.

Coaul peers about the chambers, tilting his head slightly as his gaze falls upon the perching avian. Coaul is bemused and he begins fumbling about his pockets for something he believes birds might like, "Seems like someone already made himself at home."

Garon's eyes widened until it seemed they might swallow his head. He'd never seen such a small animal, nor anything so quick; it hopped about on the sill of the port, air-light and fire-quick, eying them with as much curiosity as they eyed him, if indeed it was male. The animal's head tilted with Coaul's, and Garon had to stifle a laugh; could the Beastmaster's influence extend so far?

"A bird?" he said quietly. In the kaer, there'd been reading material enough for a lifetime, but many of the works were beyond his ken. The Book of Tomorrow, on the other hand, had been written for even the most fitful reader, and it spoke of the animals and plants of the outside world. The small drawings and brief text hadn't prepared him for the reality of what truly must be a small songbird, something he'd never truly dreamed to see.

As the three young men settle into their bunks, the bird chirps, twisting it's head to the side looking at them with what seemed like curiosity. As they settled onto their hammocks, wondering what came next the bird spontaneously burst into song. For a brief second they were each floored by it's almost magical tune, but just as suddenly the door burst open and a dwarf summoned them to main deck for dinner, and introductions.

Coaul's eyes burst visibly from his face as the knock and barging-in jolt him out of his childish fascination. He gives the dwarf a surprised look, quipping out from gaping lips, "Dinner?! Right! ...We will be out come shortly."

"Food... Urgh..." Isil grimaces and takes a deep breath, and then struggles to put on a pleasant smile before heading up to the deck.

Garon smiled at his companion's discomfort. On deck, the dwarf-sized railings made standing about a perilous task for a troll, but in here, he could safely gaze out the window without any concern; his head wouldn't even fit through the porthole. Though his air legs might be some time in coming, his epiphany on deck left him suffused with an enthusiasm that was just short of being dangerous. "Come!" he said, with something like glee. "We now eat!"

It was pretty much unlike any meal they'd ever had-both in content, and form. Half of the dwarves came and went, taking bites here, swilling down beer from pewter steins there-but always attentive to their duty stations. The dwarves who who did stay, certainly didn't sit still. They danced. They sang. They feasted.

Each Dwarf seemed to have a unique talent. Some juggled. Others sang. Some played musical instruments. A few used magical talents to animate food and drink alike, manipulating the very elements that held the universe together! As the ship soared through the sky, the stars seemed larger than life, and endless.

It soon became apparent that this show served several purposes-it helped maintain morale, but it also was meant as invitation to them. To participate. To be a part of something, but not bound by it.

Coaul, supposing it would be better to mingle than to watch, joins in on the festivities after grabbing a bite to eat. When the opportunity presents itself, he performs a acrobatic dance taught to him by his master imitating the movements of a most silly gibbon. When the dance is done, Coaul bows and retreats behind his more social companions.

Garon watched the proceedings with growing trepidation. Ever since the first comings of the Horrors, namegivers had embraced artistic expression as a basic diagnostic of Horror possession. While someone marked by a Horror could still craft works of art, as the corruption took hold on their soul they lost the ability to create beauty. Thus, while someone who had recently been Horror-marked could indeed paint a beautiful scene, doing so was impossible for anyone deep in the clutches of a Horror.

Within the kaers, constant proof and reproof of freedom from taint became a way of life, even long after such a diagnostic was needed. Lack of raw materials for such endless artistic expression had led to the custom, in Kaer PorBajin, of making the Namegiver the canvas; self-painting and tattooing were common. Garon, though, had never found much interest in either. Deeply against the wishes of his mother, whose fear of blood magic and injury and infection anything that might harm her last surviving child were endless, Garon embraced instead the art of scarification.

Some in the kaer had found this distasteful, as well, although Garon was certainly not alone. His father had warned him of their reactions, but it wasn't until Kalf had pulled him aside at the end of training one day that he had realized how deep some fears ran. She explained that, before the Scourge, some had used self-injury to power their magics, but that doing so had made their corruption easier; the Horrors, like dogs drawn to cookfires, were drawn to the pain, and fed from it.

This did not worry Garon. The tiny Windling dagger he'd used for years couldn't possibly cause him pain; the winding whorls he carved in his flesh were barely noticeable to him, beneath the deep flesh of a Troll. Still, the fears remained, and with few exceptions, Garon kept the process of his scarification to himself; the effects he could not hide, as his arms and face were favored areas for carving.

Artistic skills were not necessarily performance skills, though, and this was the source of Garon's trepidation. It was rapidly growing clear that the dwarves expected them to have some sort of performance to give, and it was true that most people had some skill that availed them to public performance. Such was not Garon's way, though; he had no gift with words, no voice for singing, no head for music, and while he supposed he could have learned to dance, he had certainly not done so yet.

Following Coaul's jumping, capering performance, there was an air of expectation, as if now they thought perhaps their other guests might perform. Garon looked to Isil, but the man simply gave him a mischievous smile. Garon spitted him with eyes like daggers, but that merely broadened the other man's smile. "Fine. Me first," Garon muttered, and stood.

The constantly-shifting group of dwarves drew back, anticipating his need for space. The airship shot like a fired arrow through the night sky, sails whipping and ropes flailing through the dark. There was little room on-deck, and for a moment, Garon thought what he intended might be impossible, but the rising expectation - the longer he stood here, the quieter and more intense the attentions of the dwarves - finally made him relent.

In the center of the vague empty space formed by the roaming dwarves, Garon stood tall and closed his eyes. He breathed out, and out, and out, clearing his lungs of warm, used air, and then drew in a massive breath, inflating his chest, drawing his head back, making him light-headed with energy. With a silent grace belying his size, Garon reached behind him and slowly drew his massive ancestral blade.

Ordinarily, his next step would be to extend his senses outward, to locate his adversary and take the blinding, bashing movements which would eliminate him, but this time, he reached out for the empty spaces, picturing them in his mind, hearing the places where no one sat, feeling them on his skin. In the space before him, he imagined the fiercest, most capable adversary he knew: Kalf, his teacher, a Warrior of great skill and ability. He pictured her whole, her weapons and armor, her long legs and short, bashing orc-arms. His eyes closed, he could see her before him as clearly as if she were not miles away and below.

His eyes snapped open with a nearly-audible click, and his massive body swirled into motion. He kept his elbows in, his sword close; all his opponents were shorter than he, and attacking on a high line left his body exposed. Two short chops blocked her sword blows, and he struck out, taking her on the shoulder, a glancing wound which would not slow her. She drew back, and he leaped to pursue before she could regroup.

All about the boat they fought, her invisible, him immense and yet oddly graceful. As the battle grew more fierce, he began to tumble, leap, and twirl, making acrobatic moves that he would never indulge in if the battle were true. Magic suffused his being, and he glided over the surface of the deck, barely touching it here or there before launching into the air, or tumbling along the rail, or sliding along a sails'-line. The great crystal sword, too heavy for some present even to lift, soared through the air like a butterfly, never nicking a line or approaching a witness; in his hands, it was the lightest rapier dancing. Even those who had seen him fight before were surprised; this was far beyond the simple drunk-bashing Garon did in the guard, far beyond even his yearly examinations; only in private with Kalf had he allowed himself to range so far outside the bounds of standard combat convention.

Drenched in sweat, his hair plastered to his blocky head, he finally brought it to an end with a great leap to the top of the cabin, and a coup de grace that, though surely not capable of defeating the real Kalf, was impressive for his audience. He bowed with a flourish, caught up in the moment, racing through the night, chilled with sweat, many hundreds of feet above the embrace of his earth mother. Spent and yet somehow infused with energy, he leaped down to the deck to the cheers and back-clapping of the dwarves.

Something was coming awake in him, something quick and smooth, something of power and presence. He ached to fight, to wear himself away against his enemies, to hone himself; he wanted to soar above the earth forever with nothing but his sword and his passions and his power. Birthed from the kaer, Garon was coming alive.

Isil claps for Garon's masterful performance, and slowly stands, leaning against a nearby mast for support.

"I am a historian. My father was a historian, and his father before him, and his father before him and his father too. We keep the lore of the Kaer, and the memory of the world that was... that is... outside of it with us. One of the lores taught to us is the Story of Founding, of how we came to live in PorBajin and how we survived and what happened..."

Isil steps away from the mast and begins to weave the tale. It is a well-practiced story told in regular metre, half-chant, half-poem, with call-response sections that Garon and Caoul know well.

It tells the tale of the ancient founders' journey, and the Horrors they overcame or tricked or fled before they reached the Kaer, and how they founded the council, and of the Starving Times and the legend of the Architect and the Forgotten Pit, and the chaos of the Great Struggle, how Durek Crackfinder crawled to the centre of the earth but could never return, and how the magical blade Horrorsbane took command of Trien's soul and nearly convinced him to open the Kaer's doors to slay all the Horrors in the land.

Isil is a gifted storyteller though he rarely looks at the audience as he speaks. Instead he stares off into the night sky, as if the stars themselves depicted the stories he told. Just as he finishes the tale of Trien, with Trien wandering off into the darkness of the deep caverns to find another way, refusing to give up the struggle against the Horrors, a single shooting star crosses the heavens, and keen-eyed Isil points up to it as a final flourish.

Isil claps for Garon's masterful performance, and slowly stands, leaning against a nearby mast for support.

"I am a historian. My father was a historian, and his father before him, and his father before him and his father too. We keep the lore of the Kaer, and the memory of the world that was... that is... outside of it with us. One of the lores taught to us is the Story of Founding, of how we came to live in PorBajin and how we survived and what happened..."

Isil steps away from the mast and begins to weave the tale. It is a well-practiced story told in regular metre, half-chant, half-poem, with call-response sections that Garon and Caoul know well.

It tells the tale of the ancient founders' journey, and the Horrors they overcame or tricked or fled before they reached the Kaer, and how they founded the council, and of the Starving Times and the legend of the Architect and the Forgotten Pit, and the chaos of the Great Struggle, how Durek Crackfinder crawled to the centre of the earth but could never return, and how the magical blade Horrorsbane took command of Trien's soul and nearly convinced him to open the Kaer's doors to slay all the Horrors in the land.

Isil is a gifted storyteller though he rarely looks at the audience as he speaks. Instead he stares off into the night sky, as if the stars themselves depicted the stories he told. Just as he finishes the tale of Trien, with Trien wandering off into the darkness of the deep caverns to find another way, refusing to give up the struggle against the Horrors, a single shooting star crosses the heavens, and keen-eyed Isil points up to it as a final flourish.

Isil claps for Garon's masterful performance, and slowly stands, leaning against a nearby mast for support.

"I am a historian. My father was a historian, and his father before him, and his father before him and his father too. We keep the lore of the Kaer, and the memory of the world that was... that is... outside of it with us. One of the lores taught to us is the Story of Founding, of how we came to live in PorBajin and how we survived and what happened..."

Isil steps away from the mast and begins to weave the tale. It is a well-practiced story told in regular metre, half-chant, half-poem, with call-response sections that Garon and Caoul know well.

It tells the tale of the ancient founders' journey, and the Horrors they overcame or tricked or fled before they reached the Kaer, and how they founded the council, and of the Starving Times and the legend of the Architect and the Forgotten Pit, and the chaos of the Great Struggle, how Durek Crackfinder crawled to the centre of the earth but could never return, and how the magical blade Horrorsbane took command of Trien's soul and nearly convinced him to open the Kaer's doors to slay all the Horrors in the land.

Isil is a gifted storyteller though he rarely looks at the audience as he speaks. Instead he stares off into the night sky, as if the stars themselves depicted the stories he told. Just as he finishes the tale of Trien, with Trien wandering off into the darkness of the deep caverns to find another way, refusing to give up the struggle against the Horrors, a single shooting star crosses the heavens, and keen-eyed Isil points up to it as a final flourish.