Legendseekers: Catchup Part I and II

Pantalaimon watched as Troia resurfaced from the depths of the in the Selune Woods, swimming to the shore to bring back several pieces of an unknown, shattered item to them, her golden horns glowing with magic as the pieces levitated above the surface to set them down on the shore. Her Sunchaser amulet, once gleaming almost as brilliantly as the sun itself, had now lost it’s luster and hung dully on her neck. 

“Troia!” Pantalaimon cried out. When Troia almost reached the shore, they swung their tail towards her, letting her grab the ring with her claws as they hauled her up to the ground. She was thoroughly soaked. Her drenched fur hung limp on her, with her long bangs completely plastering the face of her mask halo; it was comical compared to the normally dignified and well-groomed way that she carried herself. 

Troia rigorously shook herself to be as dry as she could, and the glowing eye-like markings flared brightly before she sat on her haunches beside Pantalaimon.  As long as her mask halo was on her face, she couldn’t lick herself clean, instead opting to comb her long metallic claws and the stinger of her tail through her fur like a comb to neatly part and untangle it to remove debris.

Pantalaimon had to stop themself from giggling at the sight of her once-wet fur. “I’m so glad you're safe! What did you bring back with you?”

Troia looked down at the shattered pieces by her side. Water glistened and beaded down droplets from the jagged edges of each one, and they gleamed through what little moonlight could be seen shrouding their surroundings.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “We need to take it back to Moonreach for Oberon to see…”

—

Back in Moonreach: Pantalaimon, Troia, and numerous other xyns surrounded Oberon in a laboratory. Everyxyn present had brought back at least a single piece, if not more, of whatever had been broken beyond recognition.

Oberon nodded to all that were present before beginning his speech. “Thank you to everyxyn for bringing these shattered pieces to me,” he said, “ This marks the very beginning of the unknown path that we all must strive towards: finding out how to save our dying moons. But how will we achieve that?” He gently brushed the tips of his celestine wing just above all of the other relics in a single swoop. “I believe the answer lies in these. Something precious has been broken; we must fix it at any cost- before it’s too late.” 

Pantalaimon, Troia and everyone else watched with bated breath as Oberon deftly reached for each shattered piece with both of his paws and the tips of his prehensile wings; quickly, he attempted to rearrange something from all of the pieces before him. But every time he placed the pieces together in different arrangements, the makeshift objects that lay before him were never complete. Some parts were still clearly missing.

Oberon shook his head and huffed, ears and his monocle-like halo drooping ever so slightly from his disappointment.

“I can’t fix it as it is now,” he sighed, and turned to face everyxyn. “Despite all of your efforts, we don’t have all of the pieces to fix it,” he said- disappointed but determined to keep going. “I’m going to need more xyns to search and find the last pieces that we need to make this whole. And this time we will not just the Royal Knights; your Sunchaser Amulets may be spent, we can’t produce more right away, but anyxyn that is capable can help search for the last pieces that I need to assemble this.” 

The crowd surrounding him into mumuring, then chatter, shouts of “I’ll help!”  as xyns raised their paws to volunteer! 

“Oh! Oh! I’ll help! Count me in!!” Pantalaimon waved their paw enthusiastically. As Troia sat silently next to them, Pantalaimon’s faerie halo flitted over to her masked face and flicked her mask halo’s eyes with it’s wings as if to give her a reminder. 

Troia grumbled, shooing their Faerie halo away by flicking her ears, and she raised a paw too. The golden talons on it shone in the candlelight. “I’ll help,” she said. 

Oberon beamed, encouraged by their enthusiasm. “Excellent! I’ll draft up a plan tonight and give instructions for several groups to split up and find the remaining pieces beginning tomorrow. Judging by the areas that each of your Sunchaser amulets directed you to, I think I know how to narrow down the final pieces..."

Pantalaimon grinned at Troia. "We won't have long until we find the next pieces! I've got a nifty trick up my sleeve to help find it..."

———————————————

The very next night, Oberon gave  orders to the knights & trainees on where to search for the scattered shards; this time, however, they were each sent to a location where they hadn't been before.

"Why is that?" One xyn asked Oberon. "Wouldn't it make more sense for us to return to where we first searched? The Sunchaser amulets sent us there for a reason."

Oberon adjusted the halo floating over his eye with a paw as he would with a genuine monocle. "We can't afford to waste time looking through the same places only to find nothing- because, of course, you already searched there," Oberon replied matter-of-factly, "After spending hours poring over these shards and taking, I suspect that- judging by the nature of how these shards were broken- someone, or something, might have broke whatever these pieces once formed on purpose... and perhaps deliberately hid them where your Sunchaser Amulets directed them to. Suspicious stuff, isn't it? Therefore, it only makes sense that rest of the pieces may be hidden in a place where you wouldn't ever think to look..."

———————————————

Pantalaimon looked at Troia, a bit perplexed. The both of them were in the Knights barracks, preparing to pack for their journey. 

Pantalaimon snorted. "We're being sent to the Elysium Heights to find one of the missing pieces that Oberon is missing. But that's a daft request; you don't have proper wings to fly or walk on clouds, Troia!"

 Troia stared at them blankly. "... I technically have wings to properly walk on clouds." She fluttered the glowing bat wings on the side of her head, and Pantalaimon turned their head away to huff, embarrassed at their mistake. "But it's true that I cannot fly with them all the way up to Elysium's height. They're too small to support my weight."  

Pantalaimon paused to think- and their eyes lit up almost immediately. They turned back to Troia with a grin. "Well, If you need help flying, I think I might have a plan..." 

Troia felt unsure, but didn't say anything. Every time Pantalaimon had a 'brilliant plan' things typically went awry- but not before they worked they worked themselves out in the end. Oberon clearly had faith that with their skills, the both of them could work out something and find what the other xyns couldn't in Elysium Heights...

———————————————

"How's it going for you?" Pantalaimon called cheerfully to Troia as they flew forth through the clouds. Troia , not too far behind Pantalaimon, stood on a chariot drawn by a team of Pwigis, each one flapping it's wings as rapidly as possible as they all struggled to haul Troia behind them. Pantalaimon showered them all in a trail of Faerie dust to help suspend the chariot's weight in midair as they all gradually flew upwards through an incline.

"Why did you think this was a good idea?" Troia shouted. "The Pwigis are struggling to fly! Where did you even get them from?"

"It's easy!" Pantalaimon laughed. "Just sing a lovely little song in a forest, and enough of them will come flocking towards you to help you with whatever you ask for!"

Troia felt that Pantalaimon was omitting a suspiciously large portion of the truth, but there was no point in arguing with them now. They were stubbornly good at arguing.

"We're about to speed through a cloud!" Pantalaimon cried out. "It's going to be the last one before we reach Elysium Heights- hang on, I'll pave the way!" 

Pantalaimon sucked in as much air as they could before blowing out a jet of powerful wind magic, piercing a tunnel through it. The clouds that Pantalaimon had pierced immediately began to reform from latent Pixyn weather magic, and Pantalaimon beat their wings as hard as they could as they passed through to keep it open just long enough for the chariot of Pwigis and Troia to fly through it too. It was a turbulent ride as every Pwigi strained to flutter through the makeshift tunnel and the chariot rattled Troia within it; but eventually, they all made it through.

Troia breached the barrier of clouds that Pantalaimon burst through, and the Pwigis settled the carriage on an especially thick  and fluffy bed of clouds. They had reached the layer of clouds supporting Elysium Heights; Everything around them was an ocean of soft, pale grey and white clouds and fog; the Pwigis shook themselves dry of the dew that had formed on their feathers, and fluffed themselves up to keep warm. 

Pantalaimon flew over to Troia, panting through a smile. "Tough work that was! We can start our search for the relic piece now!" They peered over at her chariot and the exhausted Pwigis. "You can hop off that chariot now. These little ones have finished their job carrying you for now- let's give them a break." 

Troia cautiously stepped off the chariot. As expected, she was able to walk on the clouds without much difficulty; though she was somewhat apprehensive to walk on them, as it was her first time ever visiting Elysium Heights. 

"We should try talking to the locals first," said Pantalaimon. They motioned to the cloudy gates not too far off in the distance, barring the entrance to Elysium Heights itself. "They should have some insight on where to start our search. And don't worry about the Pwigis! They'll be safe here by the gates; we should leave them to rest before returning to Moonreach."

———————————————

Troia and Pantalaimon entered Elysium Heights, and split up to talk to as many xyns as they could to possibly find a clue about the relic's whereabouts.

Troia could not help but feel some brief admiration at the cloudy structures of Elysium; to was an incredible sight to her, one she could only imagine from the confines of her noblexyn home as a xynlet. But even Elysium itself wasn't without trouble; the xyns here, just like below on the ground, seemed to visibly suffer from a lack of moonlight to sustain them. She passed by a few Pixyns struggling to maintain the clouded column of a building, and several vexyns were struggling to lugging around clouds to mold into the sides of dissipating homes. Troia knew that Elysium was a heaven where vulnerable and elderly xyns lived in safety; what would happen to them if the city were ever to fall...?

Troia spoke, awkwardly, to the locals. They were fascinated seeing a land-bound Noblexyn without proper wings to fly.

"A shattered piece of a relic?" One moxyn asked. "I don't know about that, but I have to hurry- a relic won't be the only thing that's missing if I can't help repair Elysium!"

"I haven't seen such a thing," said a Vexyn. "Even if Elysium Heights is xyn-made, why would you assume that anyxyn would know every inch of this city like the back of their paw?"

"You have to excuse me young whippersnapper," said an elderly Pixyn hobbling along. She wheezed, and her pompom antennae puffed up too. "I need to see my grandkids!"

And Troia received many such responses, no matter how many xyns she asked.

But it was only when Troia spoke to an elderly Vexyn that she recieved some sort of answer that offered a clue. 

The elderly Vexyn shook his head sadly. "Ever since two of our moons have fallen, Elysium has been crumbling the more the weatherxyns have fallen sick," he said. "Night by night, more of the city's cloud structures crumble to droplets of water and mist... and so I would imagine that if anyxyn wanted to hide something, it would be in a place of the city that must always be thouroughly maintained- you can't lose what's always hidden. Try the oldest, historic parts of the city, perhaps." He looked, forlorn, at Troia's masked face. "Everyxyn is fighting their hardest to keep Elysium alive and well, but some of us have lost our homes and are being forced to move to the ground. But where will we go if all of Elysium is gone?"

———————————————

Troia made her way back to reconvene with Pantalaimon at the square they entered, the clouds padding her footfalls so they were silent.

Pantalaimon laid at the base of a tiered fountain sculpted from clouds, dipping their paw into the shallow water and watching it's enchanted streams of water trickle down into a shallow pool at the base. The fountain had nearly dried up from a lack of maintenance- and even small sections of fountain itself were dissipating into mist from the lack of magic sustaining it's form. 

They turned to Troia when they heard her approaching- their winged ears were especially sensitive to sound. "Any luck?" They asked. "I think I have a lead or two."

Troia shrugged her shoulder feathers, and explained to them what she was told. Pantalaimon nodded as they listened. "So a forever-maintained part of the city... that's the perfect place to hide something. I think I know what to do there! Come along!"

They both arrived at the center of the city itself, where the tallest towers and spires loomed overhead. It was quiet now, as it was late at night, with few xyns roaming around. Many had gone to sleep and others had breached the clouds above to moonbathe in as much light as they were able.

Troia turned to Pantalaimon, tilting her head slightly in expectation.

"So what was that brilliant plan you had, then?" she asked Pantalaimon. "Do you think it's around here?"

"Certainly!" said Pantalaimon. They whistled a tune, silent but precise enough to pierce through the clouds. As if on cue, a swarm of about twenty Ophistles emerged from the clouds; and leading them all were their own three personal Ophistles Hermes, Mercury and Asclepius. Pantalaimon rang the ringed end of their tail like a windchime to direct every ophistle towards themself, and turned to Troia with a wink. "If a needle is hidden in a haystack, we'll get as many hands as we can to dig for it! I'm guessing that the relic piece might be hidden deep in the clouds somewhere within here. Ophistles are far better suited to flying through clouds than the Pwigis; they're sinuous enough to tunnel through easily and they aren't wont to fuss about being wet! Good thing it's night too- we can't disturb the civilians with my pit of snakes!"

Any other xyn that saw this would have been shocked; but Troia, dulled emotions and all, was used to this. Pantalaimon's skill with charming and commanding small animals was unthinkable to many other xyns.

Pantalaimon gave brief instructions to all of the Ophistles, and they all flew their own ways- burrowing directly into the clouds forming structures, the ground- everything around them. It was a mesmerizing sight to see their bright green burrow into the soft white of their surroundings, leaving behind nothing but fading trails of iridescent glitter behind.

Pantalaimon giggled to themself, thoroughly pleased. "Perfect! We'll just wait a few moments and an Ophistle will-"

"HELP!!!" 

The scream was nearly muffled through the cloudy walls and streets of the city. Troia and Pantalaimon immediately whipped their heads around, searching through their surroundings- but they didn't see anything.

"HELP ME!!!"

Pantalaimon stepped forward cautiously, and flicked their tail cautiously at Troia . "I think it came from that direction." 

They bolted off down the cloudy alleyway down from, and Troia followed suit- Pantalaimon  excelled at navigating cityscapes, and in just minutes they had found what they were looking for.

A frightened moxyn nearly shrieked, cornered at the end of an alleyway, by a corrupted Vexyn.

Something cold as ice sank deep into Troia's and Pantalaimon's throat. Pantalaimon's eyes nearly bugged out at the sight, and their faerie halo froze in place; and Troia, though her face wasn't visible through her mask, could not move.

This was impossible. 

Elysium Heights was a haven away from the Corruption Beasts. How could a corrupted xyn even enter the city?

The cornered xyn saw the both of them and immediately went silent, holding a paw to their mouth to quiet themself. But it was too late; the corrupted vexyn turned around and noticed them too. It's eyes crackled with a strange type of corruption... the same kind that Pantalaimon and Troia had seen before from the corrupted xyns by Pixiehome. But it's wings were soaked and oozing with corruption- it clearly couldn't fly well, and  Pantalaimon quickly noticed that it somewhat struggled to stand aloft on the clouded floor beneath it. The ooze dripped onto the clouds beneath it, and bit by bit, the clouds turned a stormy grey before fizzling away into an acrid vapor. Corruption began to pool, and the carefully structured layers of magical clouds around them, too, sizzled away into nothingness.

Pantalaimon rigorously shook their head to snap out of their stupor, and they flared all of their wings, assuming an aggressive stance to seem as large as possible.

They didn't turn back to Troia to bark out their orders. "I'll distract  the corrupted xyn and see if I can blast it out of the sky! Take the other xyn to a safe place, then come back immediately to help me!"

"Are you foolish?" Troia retorted. "We need reinforcements NOW!"

Pantalaimon stood their ground. "We can't waste time waiting for any other Knights to save this poor sod- they're too far gone! This has to end in minutes; or who knows how many holes that their Corruption can tear into Elysium!?"

Troia bit her tongue behind her mask halo. They were right. As the corrupted vexyn turned towards them, more of their corruption sank into the clouds beside them; and already, pinpoint holes of the night sky began to show through. Every moment that they lost was one that Elysium would suffer for.

Pantalaimon barked several times, then blasted the vexyn with their wind breath. The vexyn snarled, and stampeded towards them- Troia leapt over it to the cornered moxyn, and Pantalaimon immediately bolted out the alley, goading the Vexyn to follow them in a shower of golden faerie dust. The both of them vanished around the corner, leaving Troia and the moxyn by themselves.

"Are you unharmed?" asked Troia. She approached the Moxyn, and they ran to her side with tears beading up their eyes. 

"Thank you for helping me!" They cried out. "But I can manage myself just fine now that I can run to safety; please, just get rid of that monster!"

Troia nodded, and together with the moxyn they sprinted out of the alley, parting their ways; Troia went to chase after Pantalaimon as the moxyn fled to shelter.

The corrupted vexyn's howls and Pantalaimon's barking were her cues to swiftly navigate through the alleyways; together with the patches of corruption-damaged clouds on the pathways. She eventually found them in the center of the city again. 

The Vexyn's raging corruption flared in it's eyes, with corruption flowing more freely from it's body; more and more of the clouds that it's contaminated paws soaked gradually sizzled out of existence. 

"TROIA!" Pantalaimon called to her. "Let's see if we can have their corruption burn a hole large enough for them to fall into! I'll keep them in place until it's time- then help me shove it down!"

Their bit their tongue, and raised their tail so that the spiked ring stuck out upright; They clearly didn't want to do this to another xyn- but the gravity of the situation left them no other choice.

Pantalaimon swayed their tail, slowly at first, then ringing it faster and faster. The highly pitched sound shocked the Vexyn, and it could only stay frozen in place for a few seconds; and corruption quickly pooled around it, with viscous black fluid eating away the clouds on the ground with its acidic touch. Already, several small holes had torn into the clouds, revealing the sky and earth far beneath them both.

Troia's horns flared with Dark magic, and multiple illusory copies of her surrounded the corrupted xyn; they would not try to escape now if they were surrounded. Troia and all of her clones assumed their threat stances, flaring out their vibrant shoulder feathers and hissing.  

The vexyn, thoroughly cornered, hesitated- and a single hindpaw, then its entire back leg, slipped through the last of the fading clouds beneath it. They struggled for purchase with their forearms as their next hindleg sank down- then their rear- as more and more of the surrounding clouds that once supported them now burned away from their corruption. 

"We need to shove it down NOW!" Troia heard Pantalaimon cry out.

She immediately lashed the stinger of her tail out to the ground just in front of the corrupted xyn and sliced the clouds around them in a circle, separating them from the yet-undamaged clouds that they now lost a hold of. Pantalaimon heaved in their breath, and blasted a jet of piercing air at the vexyn's forearms; the vexyn lost their grip, and Pantalaimon beat their wings as hard as they could to blow them down the hole that it burned through. 

The vexyn shrieked, and it's crackling eyes flared brilliantly with some unknown corrupted light- it's claw's finally lost a grip on the fading clouds, and it plunged down to the earth,  shrinking ever so quickly to become a black dot that vanished in mere moments. 

It was over.

Pantalaimon panted, exhausted, and shut their eyes so they couldn't watch the vexyn fall- instead facing  Troia to slowly open their eyes with a rueful, pained smile. 

"I suppose that does it," said Pantalaimon. Their voice wavered; the fight had clearly taken its toll on them. Troia shook her head, saying nothing, and helped them back from the edge of the hole that the corrupted vexyn had burned through. It was a shame things had to end this way- but that was the unfortunate reality that the Corrupted sometimes had to face. 

Something hissed from the hole itself. Troia immediately bristled, and readied herself to fight again.

But what emerged was not what they had feared it would be. It was all of Pantalaimon's Ophistles; and Asclepius, the leader of the snake pit, fluttered towards Pantalaimon while its body was wrapped around the shattered relic piece that they were looking for. 

Troia relaxed, and Pantalaimon immediately perked up despite their exhaustion- thrilled at what they saw.

"YOU GOT IT! We've done it- we can go back to Oberon now! He'll be so pleased!" They exclaimed, and despite their exhaustion, licked Troia's masked face happily- she growled in protest and gently tried to shove them away with her claws, but didn't do anything else. 

"Thank the Queens we did," she said, and brushed herself off. "But what do we do about the damage done here?"

Pantalaimon accepted the relic piece delicately from Asclepius by using their magic to levitate it in the air, bringing it towards the both of them just so that Troia could see. Just like the pieces they retrieved  from the pool in the Selune Woods, this one glistened with dew from the moisture of the clouds. "Well," they said to Troia, "We'll need to alert the authorities here in Elysium before we tell the Royal Knights and others back at Moonreach; everything will have to sort itself out from there. We have lots of other work to do."

Asclepius wound itself around the relic again to lay against Pantalaimon's back, with Hermes and and Mercury following it to curl up on Pantalaimon's back. The rest of the Ophistles parted their own ways, slipping into the depths of the clouds to fly back down towards the earth.

Pantalaimon flicked their tail at Troia with a grin, and their faerie halo flicked its wings at her too invitingly. "Let's get moving! We have a whole lot to tell the residents here!" And so they ran off to the entrance of the city, almost carefreely, as if nothing had happened.

Troia sighed, and chased them too. She could never understand how Pantalaimon always managed to perk up so quickly; there would almost be something admirable about it if she were to look up to those qualities. 

They had found what they had came for- the relic piece was safe in their paws. This, she was glad for.

But she couldn't stop feeling troubled about the corrupted Vexyn that they had both seen. The circumstances were dire enough that corruption, somehow, began to spread to places where it should never be... and she knew that this would not be the last of the corrupted xyns they would see thenceforth.