Self-Discovery Part 1: Christmas Town [QUEST]

[Beaver Dude]

Tomten was cleaning the stables.

No, not those stables. The reindeer stables of rhyme and song were reserved for good, thoughtful, well-behaved elves. The sort that didn't question authority and weren't blundering dunderheads filled with good thoughts and candyfloss brains.

These stables were reserved for canny, mutinous, squint-eyed elves with a hair too much skepticism -

Tomten felt his hat leave his head and glared upwards. The two Yule Goats endeavored to look as innocent as possible. They belonged to a bygone era - very few still practiced in or believed in the two goats and soon their memory might fade forever. Tomten continued to glare. Good riddance to them silly-

One of the goats snickered and coughed out a cotton ball. Tomten slapped his muzzle and pointed a threatening finger at the goat's eye.

"Now don't be silly, you know cotton puts you off your sleep."

Tann or Tonn - Tomten had never been able to tell them apart, snickered before obediently pretending to go back to sleep. Tomten went back to shoveling...

Goat droppings.

Sigh.

He stopped, leaned on his shovel. It could be worse. They could be real droppings. These were just...

Anyway.

Santa wasn't stupid. Even Tomten knew that. Santa could be downright... scary, at times. It'd been a long, long time since Santa had given out coal and roe, but there had been days where Jolly Saint Nick wasn't quite so... jolly.

But still. Year after year they slaved and toiled - and for what? A night of magic? Of cheer and happiness? Younglings across the multiverse always grew up into pompous, bigoted, terrifying creatures. Even the ones that didn't had a bad habit of cutting off hands or stealing other people's children or other such nonsense.

Why, it was enough to make a hard-working elf absolutely, incoherently, splutteringly mad, mad, mad.

He began shoveling with a vengeance.

And that's when he found the naked child.

...adult. Thing. With funny hair.

Tomten stared at the goats.

"Fudgenuts," the elf swore.

=====================

And thus your adventure begins! The last you remember was chasing Teepo - you know he can't possibly be alive but he was there and you thought that maybe, just maybe it was him... and that's when you accidentally ran into a corridor of darkness.

The trip wasn't precisely pleasant.

When you awake, you think you smell of dark chocolate. Beneath that scent is the slightly more subtle scent of goats - which makes sense, seeing that there are two huge goats right next to you. There's a very little person in a funny green costume in front of you.

Speaking of costumes, all you have is a... blanket. And not a big blanket at that. The little person speaks. His voice sounds like syrup and sugar and the curious color of neon brown.

"Who, my friend, are you?"[/size]

[Ryu the Dragon Knight]

The last thing Ryu remembered before passing out was being engulfed in a wave of shadows. He was chasing a figure that looked strangely similar to a past friend of his. Ryu tossed and turned in his deep sleep. Teepo! Where are you? Was it really you I saw? I thought we... His mind screamed these thoughts at him. It was too painful to think of what he did. They grew up as childhood friends, inseparable. Ryu, Teepo, and Rei. That is, until the day the mercenaries Balio and Sunder had been hired to kill the group for crossing a criminal. They knew not of his powers then, and burned the trio's house down. Thinking survival impossible, they left laughing about it. Ryu gripped the ground he was laying on, leaving marks in the ground. His mind wouldn't let him wake; He hadn't seen everything yet.

After the attack, Ryu had fallen into a deep sleep. When he had woken up hours later, he was in the care of a local woodsman, with no trace of Teepo or Rei to be found. Years passed, and finally Ryu found Rei, but Teepo was still missing. They would find him eventually, but not as an Ally- Teepo had been brainwashed by the evil goddess Myria, convinced that Ryu, Rei and their group of friends were evil. Teepo had discovered a secret as well- He was also of Brood descent, and would attempt to use this newfound power to stop Ryu and Rei from bringing down the goddess. They were forced to kill Teepo with their own hands. NO! Teepo! I saw you there! You can't be dead...

The blue-haired young man sat up in a flash, slamming his fists into the ground. He was slightly sweating, a startled look upon his face. Something was in the air here... but where was 'here'? It smelled faintly of chocolate, and even less faintly of... goats? He supposed that explained why there were two massive ones beside him, but not exactly why they were so large, nor the fact that it was so cold. Cold. He looked down to see that he was barely covered by a blanket, and was being stared at by a small person in bright green clothing. As Ryu turned bright red, a clear look of confusion and embarassment on his face, he gripped the blanket closer to him and quickly slid against the wall. The man was speaking to him with a sweet-sounding voice. Why is everything so sweet around here?! What was his name? Ryu looked into the mans eyes, and quietly replied "My name is Ryu of Wyndia." He wasn't used to talking, in fact he rarely ever spoke, relying on his body language to talk for him. This, however, wasn't exactly a question he could answer with a gesture. He looked around again, taking longer this time, and looked back to the man as if to ask 'Where am I?'

[Beaver Dude]

He didn't seem to be lying.

Then again, adults of the multiverse did many things. Few of them pleasant or straightforward. He'd met a star once who fell and had her heart... well, nevermind. That was a story for another day.

Still, even Tomten's most finely developed senses of paranoia proclaimed: "this here is a hero."

And if nothing else, heroes were idiots who had difficulty constructing even the most rudimentary of lies. It was like they all had some great big idiot ball that they needed to hold. Tomten had the slightest of soft spots for the breed even if they tended, when the going got bad, to fall the furthest and hardest from their ideals.

"You are in the stable of the most wonderful, glorious, ancient and revered Yule Goats," Tomten said carefully and with the requisite boredom to make him sound like he was reciting a tourist pamphlet. He whacked Tann on the nose. The dratted goat had lowered his head and was trying to discretely eat this 'Ryu's' only shot at decency. At least until they got to the seamstresses and tailors division (tm) - they'd probably be able to whip something up as quick as a whistle.

"Which is funny," the elf continued, "because that really shouldn't be possible. We are protected by some of the greatest and most ancient magics here in the North Pole."

Santa wouldn't explain how they were protected. Just that they were. Tomten suspected that a lion was involved... in the bygone days when Santa was not quite so jolly.

"So. How was it that you arrived here, Ryu of Wyndia?"

Behind him, the shadows shifted ever so subtly.

[/size]

[Ryu the Dragon Knight]

Though he wasn't quite telekinetic, Ryu could adequately communicate with many people without having to speak much. As he was leaning against the wall, he gently pulled the blanket back from the large Yule Goat. It didn't seem hostile, just hungry. Ryu looked around for something to feed it with before he remembered he didn't have any of his belongings. His gaze shifted back to the elf. I have to go through this again? Argh... The emotion shining through his eyes showed a young man that was hurt, an event from the past was clearly bothering him. "Teepo... I thought he was dead... I started chasing him and the next thing I knew, I was here." He trailed off slightly as he finished his sentence. Something had happened behind the elf, but he wasn't quite sure what it was or if it had really occurred. "Do you work alone here? Are there any more of your kind around?"