Chapter 1 - No Silent Secret

Astraea forces her eyes open, braving the spears of light that stab at her brain. She's been awake for twenty minutes, summoning the courage to tackle her hangover. There wasn't much urgency, no pressing engagements or responsibilities to attend to, but after twenty minutes lying on her backside she had gotten curious as to where exactly she had gone to bed last night.

Blinking away the haze she focused her eyes and found herself in a comfortable bed of moss surrounded by hyacinth flowers and low bushes.

She rose to her knees to greet her flower friends, her mild headache soothed by their scent. Who could feel bad when surrounded by the most exquisite beauty and utmost cheerfulness of the hyacinth?

Her revelry was interrupted by the galloping horse tearing around the corner, which nearly crashes into her as it barrels through the undergrowth. As the dust clears, Astraea calls out to the two of them:

"By the Gods! Are you two okay?"

Saya the centaur travels this path often in her patrols, looking for danger along the road that would threaten any of the good people in the area, but rarely finds anything. Until today, when the horse and rider round the bend, clearly hurt and exhausted.

As the horse and rider come crashing down, Saya gasps and rushes forward to see how she can help, "Are you okay?" she calls at the same time as the little satyr nearby.

Having decided to protect human settlements, Saya moves to the humanoid figure and looks it over to see if she can help in any way.

Astraea approaches the prone horse with overflowing compassion in her heart. She opens her being to the natural world, and her eyes see with the warm rays of the sun while her voice is softened by the gentle breeze wafting through the grass. Immediately she is by the horse's side, a reassuring hand placed on his neck.

"My dear four-legged friend, that was quite a tumble! Are you hurt?"

Astraea looks up to see the Centaur also so quick on the scene. Gratefully, she focuses on the horse knowing the weird masked rider is in good hands.

So far, Scylax's travels have been relatively peaceful compared to life on the wild grasslands of Oreskos. Now he's able to see firsthand how the safety of civilisation makes its citizens soft and complacent. Some travellers have at least the presence of mind to render assistance, but the majority simply stand around shocked and gawking. Nobody seems alert to the potential threat the rider's sudden arrival represents.

"Beware!" he roars, grabbing everyone's attention. "The rider may have been pursued. If you can fight, make ready and watch the road. If you cannot, make haste to Meletis and tell the guards. Move!"

Kalstios is still stewing. He's in a strange part of the continent that he's never been in before, the grasslands seem foreign to him, so different from the dusty plains of Phoberos but he secretly kind of prefers it. He never felt at home in the lands of the minotaur. His mind is however still preoccupied with the events a few days prior. When the band of pirates who had started to feel like friends to him, despite their natural predilection for random violence and carnage that should be inherent to Kalstios' own nature but for some reason isn't, decided to turn on him and throw him overboard along with his meagre belongings.

He closes his eyes, breathes deeply and listens for the sea. He had only known the sea for a short time, but it feels much more like home than anywhere he's ever been especially after the strange occurence that happened as he had already resigned himself to losing his young life at the bottom of the Siren Sea. He had heard the voice of a goddess, he was not in any doubt. She had called herself Thassa, and thanks to a few of his fellow pirates, he knew quite a bit about her. He had awakened on a rocky beach not too far from where he is now, his clothes tattered but with his belongings magically next to him. She had saved his life, no question about it, and for once in his life he was dedicated to a higher power. He has just been walking since, trying to reach the biggest city he can find, feeling a need to learn more about why he was saved...and maybe a way to satiate the rage burning just below the surface. Despite having rejected Mogis all of his life, the anger and bloodlust that legend says he bestows on the minotaurs is still very much present.

Once he got to the main road, he's just been trying to follow the steady flow of people, hoping they would lead him to a polis. Hopefully one not too hostile towards his kind. He's been attracting some looks, minotaurs doesn't seem to be common here and his shabby appearance probably doesn't help.

Suddenly a rider races by him, Kalstios only just getting out of the way in time. He sees the horse crumble to the ground just a short distance ahead of him, a centaur and a satyr rushes to the aid of it and the rider. A leonin starts to shout a warning for potential foes following after. Kalstios whips his head around and tries to scout into the distance.

What caught her attention was not the arrows, or the panicked horse but the mask.

Sarlyn had been walking trying to make sense of a map she had. She still had no idea where best to travel on her journey to track the returned. She had hoped people in Meletis could guide her. The triton wore her holy symbol openly, over her armour. She had tried a cloak to hide her aquatic nature, but found it made others more suspicious. In the end as no one tried to interfere with her service to Arethos, she did not care.

The mask though, she cared about that. Others who had also been travelling the road were starting to react as she reached up to her symbol. 'Stay back. They may not be what they seem' She calls as she moves over to look at the rider herself, ready to act if it was what the mask could indicate. A returned. Her mission.

She ignored the Leonin roars. If this was a returned, then that was what was important. Not the attacker. She could worry about that afterwards.

'He is not the only 'heretic'. Sarlyn doesn;t flinch as the arrow passes over her. This was it, what she had trained for. She raises her amulet. 'Let me guide these lost to where they belong' As she speaks she throw out her hand aiming at the returned who targetting her, firing a bolt of radiant energy.

Attacking folk who had done nothing to warrant it other than trying to aid a horse and its rider? They are in for a world of hurt. Saying a silent prayer of thanks to his new goddess for saving his gear as well, Kalstios draws his greataxe and goes for the nearest masked man.

Saya doesn't know what's going on, but she can't help but assume that anyone who'd attack innocents who are just trying to help must be bad people. She grabs her spear and charges forward, stabbing at the first foe that she can get to.

[Soundtrack for Astraea's Turn]

With Astraea's soothing of Photina so rudely interrupted, she sees the masked troublemakers barrelling down on the other travellers who have come to help. Ducking under the stray sling bullets, she screams out at the top of her lungs:

"You threw a rock at me? YOU threw a rock at ME? You THREW. A rock. AT ME?"

Her head clears nicely as her blood gets pumping and her lips spread into a dangerous smile.

"Hey! Ho! Let's GO!"

Astraea leaps to her hoofs and stamps into the fray. She draws her blade but recklessly leaving her shield strapped to her back. She charges at a foe that is engaged, using the distraction to find a weakness. All the while she sings!

"Hey ho, let's go
Shoot 'em in the back now
What they want, I don't know
They're all revved up and ready to go"

Scylax hefts his greatax and charges into the fray with a snarl, heading for the closest rider.