Bethma
The night is cold in the rocky terrain of Bethma, where sand and towering rocks met. Winds blew the nightly chill, enough to send shivers to one's spine. Insects and nightly creatures flolick in the perfect night, out for food.
But tonight on this wilderness, a simple campfire disturbed the calmness of the night.
"Brrr, that would take care of the chill tonight." A purple haired girl said, having conjured a fireball to light up the campfire.
This is Aisha, a mage.
She got short purple hair styled in a neat bun, with a few loose, face-framing strands and short, straight-cut bangs. As a mage, she's dressed in a white puff-sleeved blouse with purple trim and a prominent yellow bow at the collar that is form-fitting to her rather petite figure. Her skirt is a complex, layered white and purple "tufted" skirt that resembles flower petals or a ruffled tutu, held together by a thin belt with gold circular buckles. To complete her outfit, she wore white leg warmers over dark purple shorts and a pair of sneakers designed for movement.
She carries a long, slender white staff as her weapon and focus for magic. The head of the staff features a unique pink and white winged edge.
"A warmth." Almost immediately, a red haired boy slides into the warm afterglow of the campfire, relishing the warmth provided by the lit fire.
This is Elsword, a knight.
He's a young knight with an unruly red hair, sticking out on random directions. He wore a black and red vertically-striped tunic with a high collar. This is topped with mechanical silver pauldrons. Down below, He wears wide-legged white trousers with red trim at the cuffs, layered over dark leggings. These are secured by a distinctive brown belt system with a large "X" buckle and a pair of large, heavy-duty armored boots.
His weapon is a massive, broad-bladed red greatsword.
"Elsword, will you help me cut up the meat for tonights dinner? Aisha can take care of the tents while we make dinner." A green haired elf said behind them, pulling out supplies from their packs.
This is Rena, the resident Archer and the only adult in the group.
She has long, flowing lime-green hair, partially tied back with a teal ribbon, and pointed ears as usual to her race. She wears a green and teal tunic with small silver spaulders on her upper arms and dark brown sleeves ending in fingerless glove on one and the other, a full glove. The tunic features a white and orange patterned trim at the hem, flaring into a skirt below. A thick brown leather belt sits at her waist to hold it together. She wears white thigh-high stockings with teal patterns, ending in flared white leg warmers. Finally, her boots are dark grey with heavy armored plates, perfect for kicking or climbing.
She wields a unique green and white recurve bow, a gift from her people.
Pulling out the much needed supplies aka meat, vegetables, spices and basic camping kitchen utensils, she handed the knives and the meat at the boy, giving him the task of cutting them to piece. On the background, Aisha is using her magic to set up the tent. The magic flowing into the folded tents, animating the inanimate objects to set themselves up for her, a rather unconventional use of magic but convenient.
"How long do you think till we can reach Altera?" Elsword muttered between cutting the meat.
Rena's ears twitched at boy's words, working on a pot and adding vegetables for the stew. She can tell that boy's frustrated after months of progress in recovering the El kept slipping through their hands. First in Ruben in Wally's scheme and later on, by some unknown Sky pirate group, taking the El stone to Altera.
They had travelled so far from home at this point.
"I don't know but I would say in about a week. Traveling through the rough terrain of Bethma is not like Ruben forest." Rena sighs, a gesture mirrored by the boy.
"Man, this will be a rough week."
"You say that when your the only one getting best of this place. I can still feel sand in my shoes." Aisha joined the conversation after setting up, taking a seat on a rock near the campfire.
"Serves you right for cheating. Me and Rena are walking and climbing the entire trek while you can just float." Elsword gave her an unimpressed look, making the girl red in being called out.
"Hey! It's not my fault! I'm not like the two of you that are built for this." Aisha replies, turning her head in sniff and crossing her arms.
"Didn't you travel a lot, Aisha?" Rena asks, stirring the pot.
"I did but that was before I lost most of my magic and with my master. Most of the time, we travel along caravans for safety and leisure." The purple haired girl replies.
"Ha! Too bad we missed the next caravan by weeks in Bethma." Elsword laughs at her, making the girl narrow her eyes at the teasing grin plastered on the boy's lips.
Sensing another brawl from the two, Rena opted to stop it before it begins. She's tired from the day's trek and sweltering heat, she needed rest.
"Stop it you two, foods about to be ready. Elsword, drop the cut meat will ya?" That ended the small banter immediately. Nobody is allowed in the middle of a meal, that's just begging to starve yourselves.
Before long, the trio are already enjoying a small dinner of meat stew and veggies. A luxurious meal from Bethma where they recently left a few days ago. Better savor the exquisite meal before they resort to hard food when supplies got low.
"We're really far from home right now, huh." The redheaded boy suddenly said, staring at the stars.
"We definitely are." Rena followed his gaze, agreeing to that statement.
"You two really never left Ruben or pass Elder?" Aisha asked
"Hmm, not really. I grew up in Ruben all my life and simply trained as a knight with my sister before she left for Velder." Elsword replied, still staring at the stars.
"I wouldn't say the same for me. I grew up in Eldemyr, home to the elven race. I simply moved to Ruben to help in guarding the Tree of El as part of my duties." Rena answered Aisha with a nostalgic smile, remembering her home.
"Good thing I'm here to guide you two in our travels then." Aisha said smugly towards the boy of the group.
Elsword scoffs but smiled. They really did luck out with Aisha with them. The girl is well traveled, helping the young boy and secluded elf in their travels to unfamiliar lands. Now if only she wasn't so smug about it. For now, he'll give her the win.
"No need to be smug about it, Aisha." Rena pouts at the girl's smugness. The implications of her lack of awareness of the distant lands despite her age is accidental on the girl's part but the supposed young elf won't stand it.
"Sorry, Rena." Aisha immediately apologized to placate the miffed elf.
"Oh look! A shooting star!" Elsword suddenly exclaimed in child-like glee. Their eyes look up to the sky to see a red burning streak flew across the sky of Lurensia.
"I'm making a wish." Rena giggles at the innocence of his words while Aisha rolled her eyes but her lips quirked up for a smile. Sometimes they forgot that the boy is the youngest member in the group despite his great physique for his age.
But as the shooting star pass by, Aisha can't help but follow the destination of the falling star. Before it vanished from their sights, she can vaguely guess the direction it was falling towards.
Altera
"So what did you wish for?" Rena cut through her thoughts.
"Not telling. It won't come true if I told anyone. That's what big sis said." Elsword replies.
Unsatisfied by his answer, the two of them began to team up to make the boy spill his wish. He vehemently defended his wish though through the entire ordeal till fell asleep in their tents.
Tomorrow, they will resume their journey.
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Altera
On the floating island off the coast of Lurensia, a mighty crash disturbed it's entire local populace. A red comet has struck the island, leaving a deep trench and scarring the land.
Alerted by the unknown disturbance, Nasod scouts were deployed to survey and investigate the crash site. These spider-like machines scuttle across the Nasod Graveyard, the location of the crash site. It's home to ruins of the Nasod War, remnants of fallen Nasods and broken machinery.
When the scouts arrived, they found nothing in the crash site. The land is scarred, a long trench left behind, and a giant crater are the only thing they found. Unsatisfied of their findings, they began to investigate further in the area to see what they missed. They will find nothing until one of the scouts fell on a hole and broke a leg. Other units began to converge towards the broken unit until one unit noticed something.
It wasn't a hole that the broken unit fell through, it was massive footprint.
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In a deep cavern in an unknown location, the Phoenix Gundam finally sat down to rest.
The poor thing didn't look so good.
Her wing launchers have been ripped off, destroyed upon entry to this world's atmosphere. She also missing both of her arms, having attacked in the middle of transit between timelines, forcing an emergency landing to a random timeline.
She didn't know what attacked her but it was something that's not supposed to happen. No one is able to attack her in the middle of the time stream, it's an impossibility yet it still happened.
But there's no time to dwell in thoughts. She is badly damaged and running on fumes. Despite that, she still managed to protect her important cargo in her cockpit. With the damage and lack of resources for repair, she has to go on dormant state to let the Nano skin armor fix what's lost and damaged.
As such before powering down, she opened her cockpit and ejected her passenger for their safety. A round object dropped, rolling out.
"Ow." The thing said, bouncing on the cave floor before stopping on it's tracks by some rocks. The thing rebalanced itself, two beady red eyes scanning the area before landing on the Phoenix Gundam powering down.
"...You did well." It said at the broken machine. The words were unheard though as the Gundam is already offline.
Now alone, the round machine began to roll and explore where is it's whereabouts.
Unbeknownst to both machines, they have stumbled into a den of dangerous locale.
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