The Legends Of Chima: Journey to the Lands Below

Chapter 23- Eris

After the meeting we were escorted out of the room with as much grace as the way we entered, by being quickly sucked back out and thrown into the streets. Now on top of being covered in all kinds of dust, dirt, blood and who knows what else, I'm covered in tread marks from the tank that had passed us by. Can't say I didn't enjoy a change of color pallet, despite it being gruesome I thought I looked good in red.

Kyten helped me to my feet after being unceremoniously thrown to the ground, a kind gesture that I'm used to seeing outside the eagle towers. Though after he helped me up I was more red than when I fell, mainly in the face. And this time it wasn't blood, well I hope not at least.

Kyten and I flew ahead of the others on the way to the markets where we were to get our supplies. When we exited off to the side of the main road we were standing at the entrance. The ground was crowded and the airspace above the colorful tents was blacked out by a flock of birds. They were just as varied as the land walkers like Laval too.

Some looked as pure white as I am minus the blood splatters of course. Some had white heads and brown bodies, others were covered in bright blues, greens, reds and every other color of the rainbow. There were some plain black one like the ravens on Cavora but one stuck out amongst an entire flock, and he was staring right back at me with those yellow eyes and even took a break from serving his crowd of customers to lock eyes with me. How the hell did Razar get down here?

I pushed my way through the crowd to get to the stall, much to the displeasure of everyone else, Kyten too for being dragged through with me.

"What's the rush Eris? Did'cha miss me?" The raven teased.

"What are you doing down here? how did you even get down here!?"

"What does it look like? I'm doing what I do best,  make money. And just today I've made close to what I've ever made on Cavora."

"You know you're not supposed to be down here. Nor are any citizens of Cavora besides military!"

"It's not like I'm the only one from there down here. Besides your little landing party and me, Worriz and his little pack are also down here. While you all are caught up in bureaucracy and whatnot,  he's out fighting the snakes directly. More than any of you have done so far." He retorted. That last bit really got to me and I could feel my hand curl into a fist. Kyten noticed and put his hand on my shoulder and whispered to me.

"Don't, you'll start a riot. Just calm down." Even hearing calm down had the opposite effect. While I wanted to lash out and start swinging my axe, I swallowed my anger and un-scrunched my face, which was probably twitching beforehand.

"Doesn't matter, we've only just gotten down here and can't afford the luxury of peddling snake oil or reckless mercenary work. And when I get my hands on than snake again I'm gonna haul his scaly ass up to the temple dungeons along with you."

"Oh how naive are you Eris? To think that you can win a war against someone who has almost every advantage over you? You really have no idea what you're going up against, such a grand and intoxicating innocence. As for me I'm likewise going nowhere, if sales keep going like this then I'll own a sizable company in a years time! Now if you're not here to buy then leave, I'm losing customers." He concluded his rant with. After that I looked around his stall as if I were to buy something. No way I ever would though.

"What are you selling that's so profitable anyways?" I questioned him. He ducked down below the counter top and pulled out two glowing blue orbs, holding them in the air.

"Chi!"

After that I lost it. Getting ready to shout at him I opened my mouth to speak but it was then clamped shut by Kyten, who took me in his wing and hurried me out of Razar's queue. As he said goodbye I heard Razar laughing like a madman through the noise of the crowds.

I shook Kyten off of me and tried to rush back to him, axe in hand. Kyten kept blocking me.

"That bastard! How dare he not only steal the Chi, but sell it too! I swear if I ever get me hands on that little shi-" I yelled. Kyten then cut me off, physically and verbally and took my axe in his hands, shoving the handle into the sand.

"Eris, I know you're mad, so am I, but we cannot just go around threatening violence in the most populated city on the planet. I know it's personal to you and outright sacrilegious to others, but let the guards handle this." He said, trying to calm me down. It worked to an extent and I calmed down enough that we could continue on to a different section of the market.

We held hands as we waded through the thick crowds to wherever Kyten was leading me. I assume it was so we don't get separated but we stayed pretty close as he almost had his wing wrapped around me. With how dirty most of the people were I'm glad he did as so I didn't brush up against too many of them. But I was probably worse giving I was covered in blood.

After awhile of trudging through the crowds we came to a clearing in front of a tower that looked to be made entirely out of metal. It wasn't nearly as tall as the one that connected the floating rock above us to the city but it was taller than the majority of buildings here. I started to feel the heat beating down on me again so i assumed Kyten had left my side, and he did. He wasn't too far though as he was talking to another bird who looked a little like him and with the same robes. Then I noticed most of the people around the tower had similar robes to Kyten, and they too were all birds, almost made me feel back at home on the eagle spires. Kyten returned to me with what looked like a short coil of metal cable rolled up in his hands.

"What do you think?" He asked as he began to unwind it. It straightened itself out like a solid metal bar and went straight to the ground. It even had a steel ball at the top as some sort of ornament piece.

"What is it?" I asked, dumbfounded at the sight of something like it.

"It's my new staff. My last one was damaged in battle so I had this one specially made by my master, Eramil." He told me, holding it out in his hands as if it were an offering. I took the staff and just like that it fell limp again, now more akin to a ball and chain.

"What does it do exactly? Apart from being a waking stick." I said while handing it back to him.

"It allows me to channel my magic more effectively and be used as a weapon."

"Since when did you have magic? I thought that was just a myth."

"Oh right, I forgot you were unconscious for all that."

"You're gonna have to tell me more than that." I said with a chuckle.

"On the bridge a week or two ago when you were protecting me from Resegidis, your axe broke and I mended it to my old staff. Everyone calls it magic but the guild says it's more of a faith thing."

"Faith? Like it's a religion? I don't think we had that on Cavora, at least not in the eagle spires."

"Sort of, the elders worship an old god who controls all solid forms of matter. That's where we draw our power from."

"Oh, so is it like how we use chi to power our vehicles?"

"Yes but on a much larger scale. Where we draw power from, it spreads it's influence across the whole universe. All I need is a special gemstone imbedded into my staff and I can bend metal."

"How does it work exactly?"

"I don't know the specifics, but one of the higher ups in my guild resides here in the tower, he might be taking questions."

"We'll let's go in."