Now, About That Backstory...

Hints about a potentially interesting backstory were left hanging. Hopefully they're dry by now.

Lin
Tolbana - Igneous Library

Paper lurks in stacks and piles, bound by leather and glue. Carefully arranged on shelves in an unassuming corner of an otherwise ostentatious and dramatic structure, the books lurk in the shadows. Waiting for their moment to pounce and fill an unsuspecting mind with knowledge. Well, their intent is unprovable, but Lin has filled in the blanks with something fun.

Lin sits in a reading area under the large chandelier. Its golden glow illuminates the pages of a thick tome and the handful of loose papers he scribbles notes on.
Uta
Tolbana - Igneous Library

Utas wander the land and seas of Yamato in search of answers, answers which beget more questions, which demand more answers, which in turn- I am sure our astute readers will see where this is going, a branching explosion of interrobangs flooding the landscape.

Or, Utas would if there was more than one; as far as people are aware, though, there is only the one; and this particular one that is the only one known to exist is here, ready to research ancient scripture and chew bubble gum.

And she's all out of ancient scripture.

But that is not going to last for long! There is plenty of scripture available around here, and in fact, Uta starts running her index finger across the spines of a particular shelf of books, gloved fingertip hovering millimeters away from the leather.

"Thank goodness there's ancient scripture available," she mentions cryptically. Probably because nobody has invented bubble gum yet, but that's just a guess.

That is when she glances sideways and does a double take as she spots Lin. "Oh, hey!", she whispers (it's a library! Shhh!), as she approaches the Pooka. "Lin! I remembered you mentioned a backstory... but never provided it!"
Lin
Tolbana - Igneous Library

The library is quiet as libraries would tend to be in the evening. The quiet bustle of daily business is now the quiet crackle of burning candles. The scratching of pen on paper and occasional cough from a distant shelf. Lin looks completely comfortable here - however different this world is to the real, this environment may well count as a home for him. The arrival of a rogue Uta takes a while to sink in. Confusion flashes across his face. Why is someone engaging with him!? Then recognition and a cheerful smile. "Uta! Hey!" His greeting is cheerful but quiet. He reaches over to nudge the chair next to him away from the table, offering a seat. The wood squeaks loudly, echoing through the domed room, and he flinches. Oops. The Pooka powers on through the embarrassment. "Oh, is that important for you? I've been doing a survey recently and a lot of things seem to have backstories." He jabs his pen at the tome he was studying. "I don't know if any of it is actually true yet, but some of it is a bit weird."
Uta
Tolbana - Igneous Library

Uta winces a little at the squeaking, more out of reflex than anything, but otherwise does not seem to have any other negative reaction to the noise.

She eyes the offered chair, and after a moment of consideration, covers the remaining distance with a couple of resolute steps.

She takes special care to keep her wings out of the way as she does so (sitting on chairs with backrests is not an easy task when you're a Spriggan), and to adjust the chair back under the table after that; once she's settled, she places a glove-covered elbow on the wooden table and props her face up. "I find backstories important. Why do you think I went through the trouble of setting up an inter-alliance public library system? Researching the backstory of this world, that's why!", she (quietly) exclaims, as her non-face-propping-up hand sweeps the air around her.

Patterns of light and shadow painted by the flickering candlelight dance on her featuresas as she leans forward. "I love me a weird story of dubious authenticity. Tell me all about it."
Lin
Tolbana - Igneous Library

Lin pauses, evaluating where to go from here. "Yeah, all right." There's a bit of reluctance in his face, but he powers ahead. The Pooka closes the large tome and pulls up his inventory menu. "Your disease curing stress ball? The full description had a few names." More notes appear, the loose papers rustling as he lays them down on the table and picks out a page to slide over to Uta. "Here's yours."

He waits for Uta to finish reading with the patient aura of someone who's waited like this thousands of times. Finally, he says. "I've inspected a few other objects with descriptions like this, like my glasses. But your stress ball? The tagged creator is what it says in the description. Bondrewd. I thought item descriptions were.. you know.. mostly filler? But there's no way the system would show someone as a creator if they didn't exist at one point."
Uta
Tolbana - Igneous Library

Uta scratches her head multiple times. In the silence of the library, that faint rubbing sound can be heard at a close enough distance, for someone as close as Lin.

"Uh. I..." She picks up and squints at the sheet, as if that would help.

"...I have no idea of what most of that means. I... I /have/ heard the word 'Orth' before. And Fluegel are definitely a word I've encountered multiple times," she mumbles. "Not much to be found on them in the literature." She taps her lips. "No idea of what a Narehate is. Or who Bondrewd is. Never heard of either. But maybe... someone else has?" She quietly begins to talk on chimlinks. "Good evening, Olympus! Has anyone heard the word 'Orth' before? Or know what it means?"
Lin
Tolbana - Igneous Library

Lin wrinkles his nose, staring down at the collection of notes and papers. He doesn't try to add anything on the chimlink. "I've never heard of any of it. I haven't found Orth on any map. Narehate sounds like some kind of monster, but I can't see how one would be immortal. As a rule, the system doesn't seem like it does immortality." He reaches over and gathers his notes back into a pile, then flicks it back into his inventory.

"I've got a couple of ideas. First is that this is some kind of scavenger hunt. Collect all the items and what you get from appraising them tells a story. I've been hoping that one's true because I bet there'd be a set bonus for putting them all together. Where did you get that thing, anyway?"
Uta
Tolbana - Igneous Library

"...I found it inside a slime. After I... uh..."

She sighs. "Ok, as far as we know, we just found out we had a relic in our inventory, right? Well, uh, one day, there was a tragic accident whereby I lost mine, snatched away by a monster, never to be seen again. You will understand if I don't go into details at this point..."

* * *

Ripple to flashback for the benefit of the reader.

Close up to Uta's face. She lifts a reptilian scale, to place it between her eyes and the camera.

"Enkido's Scale."

She flicks through her menu, then reads the flavor text that appears later

"A singular Scale left by the Great Dragon Enkido, lost during the Crystal Tower Rebellion, and mourned by his greatest friend. It seems to glow red when the world's laws are being broken."

Her gaze intensifies. "An item of untold might, which ties directly into the Laws of this World, from a creature nobody has yet seen in Yamato. This power, entrusted in my hands. I must choose wisely how to employ it."

Zoom out. Uta is standing in a field, and there's a little 'neutral' slime wobbling next to her.

Uta squint-glances at the tiny monster, then snatches it up, and attempts to shove the scale into its mouth. "Eat it, become a majestic dragon! A FLYING ONE!" Her eyes light up. "If this works, I'm gonna have you puke it up and then feed it to a mount-sized slime and then I can be FLYING AROUND IN A DRAGON SLIME MOUNT! How cool is that?"

There is some wrestlign with the slime, and eventually, the little creature snatches the scale in its mouth, without swallowing, jumps out of Uta's grasp, and wobbles away into the vegetation. "NO! NO! COME BACK!", Uta yells out, launching into a desperate chase.

* * *

"...sooo, yes. A monster got the upper hand on me, and ran off with my initial relic. Luckily, thanks to my superior intelligence and unshakeable nerves, I managed to wrangle the Core of the Narehate off another monster..."

* * *

Ripple to flashback.

Sunset of the same day as the previous flashbadk. Uta lies face down on the grass, exhausted after the chase. "I have been an idiot..." she sobs between tears. "My relic! I wasted it like that! I... I..." She sniffs. She lifts her face, and reaches into her jacket. She rummages, tongue sticking out, and then face-plants again. "...and I've also lost my stress ball to the Undead Army. Can this day get any wors-"

Uta freezes.

In front of her, even if slightly out of focus through the tears, is a transparent slime with a red squishy ball in its mouth.

Uta's eyes go wide. "...best...stress...ball...ever..."

Cue chase again.

* * *

"...so, you will understand if I keep the details of how I've so masterfully wrangled this item of inestimable value form the clutches of a terrifying monster, well, private, for now."

So, there we go! Lin gets a description of yet another relic, and a very vague outline of how it was acquired, with all the embarrassing details left off.

Which, considering how embarrassing the whole story was, is most of the story.
Lin
Tolbana - Igneous Library

It takes a moment for Lin to realise that he shouldn't have put those papers away. As Uta spins her epic tale, he flicks through his inventory in a hurry. Why did he do that? The Pooka doesn't add any commentary. Instead he scratches precise notes down on a fresh page. As soon as he finds one, that is.

"Don't worry, I'm not some kind of travelling bard about to go sing this story in every inn." Lin offers a bit of reassurance as he puts final touches on the page. He frowns and rubs his brow with one hand, then tucks a few errant silver hairs back behind his ear. "The value is the one thing here I'm certain about. Maybe not inestimable, but definitely unreasonable. And just think... there's probably a slime roaming around out there with a dragon scale that can give us insight into the Laws." Lin trails off for a moment of wild imagination. He snaps back to reality. "There's a lot more work to do. We've got to start surveying all these relics. There could be someone out there with ultimate cosmic power and no clue how to activate it."
Uta
Tolbana - Igneous Library

Uta replies, "Estelle is already looking into relics. You might want to contact her. I certainly will. I'm sure she'll be ecstatic to learn about a new relic."

Uta taps her lips again. "Again... maybe they do activate some cosmic power. Maybe they don't. Perhaps, who knows, they're just really snazzy items from Another Time."

Uta sighs. "I'm still cursing myself about it. But... such is life. I have heard that the people at the Temple of Law in Mac Anu can somehow determine if something breaks the Laws of Alba, so... they might have something similar, or something based on the same principle?", Uta offers, followed by a shrug. "...Still. One thing you mentioned makes me think. The text says that the Core of the Narehate was /retrieved/ by Bondrewd. But your relic reports them as... the creator? Are you sure your relic shows the creator's name... or is the exact term something else? Like... 'originator'?"
Lin
Tolbana - Igneous Library

"Estelle." Lin scribbles a note in his margins, underlining it once for emphasis. "Another Time is the tricky part. What other time? Altimit's not that old. This should all be fictional, there's no way it could have actually happened." The Pooka drums his fingers on the tabletop thoughtfully, grappling with player-related solipsism. Uta's question seems like a welcome change of topic. "Creator's the exact term. So far it hasn't given me any hints that the information's made up or anything. When you use it on a regular crafted object it's just what you think. I've seen places that say the name of the Lander that's inside them." Lightning strikes somewhere in the Pooka's head. "Maybe there actually is history..." He stands up quickly and looks toward the door. "I've got to go look into some stuff. If you get a chance, let me know if you find anyone else with relics of a bygone era?"
Uta
Tolbana - Igneous Library

"I didn't say a 'bygone era'. I said 'another time'," Uta corrects. "...time seems to work strangely in this world. We'll... have discuss this at some point. I need to double-check a thing or two myself before I dive further into details." She stands up and bows to the departing Lin. "Take care. I will remain here to continue my research. Hope we'll meet again soon- oh, hey, while I'm at it..."

She sends Lin a friend request.
Lin
Tolbana - Igneous Library

"I'd normally say that semantics aren't worth getting into, but you're probably right to be correcting me." Lin accepts the friend request and scoops up the heavy tome he was studying earlier. "We'll compare notes soon!" The Pooka bustles off into the shelves, placing the tome at the librarian's counter before disappearing out into the evening.