Book One - The Dragonkin Empire.

Traveling.

  AN: The weapons on the left side are the two talwars of Lixk, at the center there's a short sword and a lotus flower, on the lower right side long sword (Van) and in the upper right side the Claymore (Alice).

Alice's side.

 We've been traveling for a week now, half the time needed to reach the west tribes, the scenery's pretty much the same, bushy, colorful and lively. Since the day Leo lost his eye, he hasn't recovered enough to remain awake, drifting from a shallow sleep to a delirious consciousness, drenched in cold sweat originated by high fevers and from time to time he suffers strong spasms, his condition is bad but at least he managed to keep his life this long, so he'll probably be okay. I won't let him die but it seems that it'll take some time for him to gather enough life force to beat this condition The group made a improvised litter to carry him around and Van Helmont was starting to show some bottle up anxiousness walking all over the place.

My brother was tied and led about with a rope along with the guy named Roux, I ,on the other hand gained the trust of all the members after treating Leo, now they let me walk around, carry my own stuff, train in the mornings and they even started to give me chores, although no one, except Van and Ratt talk to me. I asked them to release Lixk and after I managed to convince them the idiot went and said that if they let him free he would slit their throats while they're sleeping, such dark attitude is what makes my brother really dangerous.

 I'm sitting slightly far from the group with my dinner in front of me when I heard Van asking me if he could eat with me, the night is already pitch black, the fire's nice and big covering all around our backs with eerie shadows, the weather as fine as it can be, it has rained a few times but the heat's already subsiding making it more bearable. He grabbed a green fruit and approached making me notice his tall and broad body.

"Go ahead." We're resting and a piece of meat is in my hand.

" I want to ask you something." he cut straight to the point, I knew from a few days ago this was going to happen, I also have questions, but it's better if the other party asks first, that way you can put the conditions I nodded slightly and he continued. "you said before, that if Leo had enough strength he would live, what did you meant by that?, I mean, I know that one need to eat well and all that stuff, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant"

" I can tell you the the basic stuff behind it but I won't teach you, and while we're on the subject I've some questions too, me first, then you." my face showed a dull expression when in fact I was dying to know about a lot of things in order to escape from their clutches ." Why and how, in detail, did you mange to get into our Tunnel?." This was the most pressing issue, since I don't know how they did it, they could just sneak in anytime they wanted.

" Fair enough The how is very simple, we traveled all the way from the west to the north by foot, when we where at your doors I sent an envoy from our group to talk to your Chief and after she knew our reasons she allowed us to come all the way." That explanation is indeed simple "but as things stand we're not going down again and journey all the way to our city, that was part if the deal, instead we intend to reach the west by traveling the Tunnels from here".

 The Tunnel's a big structure with many mysteries, but it's unreasonable saying that one will reach another region, he saw my confusion, and answered readily. "your people, that try to protect the Tunnel by the development of Martial Arts have scarce knowledge of them and in return can live next to it, we can't since we know and use magic, but as you may know all the surrounding places of a Tunnel are depleted of mana, thus we have to get away, but that's not the point, we are more used to the workings of them and we know that between the Tunnels exist some sort of 'paths', composed of pure mana which is invisible to the eye that connects them to their adjacent Tunnel. we are in the passage that connects the North to the West, this paths are a one-way trip, we can't go back tp the north using this path, in order to do that we have to get on a specific location in the west Tunnel and travel from there, in scale, this method of traveling through regions is a lot faster, if we were to go out of the Tunnel and walk all the way to our tribe in the west it would take us about one and a half month leapfrogging and two and half months at a normal peace."