ROLEPLAY

Staeflina was startled awake: a gubani was grazing right next to her nose!
Recovering from her surprise, the hominin looked around her. The Void Jungle was bathed in morning mist, while high above, violent winds dragged long gray clouds. The little sky that broke through here and there was light mauve. It was a beautiful dawn in this humid autumn.
Below her "bed" of green moss, Staeflina could make out the camp of the Zoran dynastic guards. They must have been up all night, taking turns sleeping in tents or in the wooden tower overlooking a small fog-shrouded chasm - "or was it the distant smoke of the famous Dragon the Fyros talked so much about" thought the Matis. Inwardly, she was grateful to the soldiers, for after all, they had ensured the safety of the place where she slept with her cousin...
-But by the way," she says to herself, "where is he? He's gone, but he left his zig. "
Staeflina stood up, stretched, and took the little dwarf gubani in her arms. The little animal purred affectionately.
-" Where's your master?" she asked, without waiting for an answer.
The hominin let the zig gambol again.
She then looked above where she had slept: the Goo was rising in menacing vapors from the top of the hill.
Staeflina picked up her bag and folded her blanket, brushing her black hair. Then, with her bag firmly on her shoulders, she called out to her cousin: "Staerano! Staerano! "
Getting no answer, she questioned a guard who told her he had seen her leave for the Capital Stump, while it was still dark.
Staeflina couldn't help but gasp in exasperation: "He knows I don't have a pact with the Kami of the Void altar, so he could have waited for me..." she murmured.
Of course, she didn't think this was her cousin's first insomnia. In fact, he had told her that sleeping in his room sometimes gave him the agonizing feeling of being back in his dungeon in Yrkanis. Staeflina had thought that a night "à la belle" would do him good...
"It's not enough," she concludes.
The Matis found it hard to understand what her cousin was going through. She thought Staerano was hiding from everyone what he had experienced under the Karan Palace... Staerano didn't talk about it much.
Staeflina decided to set off in search of him. She put on the boots she had taken off for the night and set off.
The little zig watched her for a moment, wondering what he was going to do, then decided to follow the homine as she moved away. He dashed off and joined her. The zorai guard watched the two ghostly figures disappear into the mist...

Staeflina leaned against the edge of the Souche for a moment, catching her breath.

Distancer c'est Yetins had not been easy...
Wiping away the sweat beading her forehead and the tip of her nose, the Matis observed the little zig de
Staerano, who was also resting from their long run. Staeflina would have liked to set off again,
but her legs were shaking a little too much...
"Decidedly", she thought, "the Jungle has its dangerous corners too!... Oh no! "she added.
looking at his lam Muse, "she's full of Najab mud and venom!"
Tired, Staeflina let herself slide along the bark.

She stayed there for some time, perhaps half an hour. But as she rose to her feet
resuming her search, she spotted a hominin in the distance. From his silhouette, Staeflina guessed that he was
was Staerano...

Staerano advanced, his eyes haggard, mumbling something. He didn't see the hominin coming towards him, hailing him. He walked straight ahead, his fingers stiffened on his Zo'Kra-cho axe. When Staeflina reached him, she tried to stop him, to bring him back to reality, but he mechanically sent her to the ground with a blow from the handle of his weapon. The young Matis hit the ground hard. As she propped herself up on her elbows, she saw her cousin standing over her, brandishing his axe. She barely had time to articulate a "What!?!" and the heavy blade struck her...

A passing Kincher, enticed by the scent, saw the homin erect, but disdained to notice the axe carried by his two wrists. The homin was daydreaming, his eyes vague. "A godsend", said the animal. On the dexterous mandibles that served as its paws, the Kincher approached, and slyly delivered a brutal clawing blow to its prey's back.
Staerano felt the wound, and the blood that beaded there was a rude awakening for him. He saw red and turned around in an instant. With deadly precision, the axe slammed into the kitin's closest joint, then landed hard on his head. The animal reared up to let the homin feel its thunderbolt, but before a single flash of lightning could strike, the head bearing the dreaded claw fell to the moss, sliced open...
Staerano felt as if he'd just woken from a dream. He looked around. He was not far from the Capital Stump. "I must have sleep-walked", he thought, and yet he knew that wasn't the case; an irresistible force had forced him to get up, and deprived him of his sight. It had led him through the Goo, judging by the smell, he had felt his breathing become difficult, among the deadly vapors. The strange force manipulating him made him swallow potion after potion. Then he was out of the purple expanse. A distorted voice came to him. It sounded so much like the voice of the hooded hominin who had questioned him so many times in his cell. A hissing voice, a few drops of a non-lethal poison in small doses, some kind of dagger or scalpel, obscure memories that remained of Karan's dungeon...
The voice... Staerano thought he was reliving an interrogation after the Goo. The force had ceased to act, and Staerano saw himself in front of the homine with the voice." A sheet of mist takes the place of a hood this time", Staerano had said to himself as he pushed the homine to the ground.
This time he had the weapon, this time he would escape from the dungeon.
He had put down his axe, and was contemplating the open door before him, the fresh air above...
Then death...
"Death... no, his servant rather," thought Staerano. He thought back to something very small just before his "awakening", a cry from the voice, but: "No, it wasn't the same voice".
A new hominin voice, one he recognized when he spotted an unconscious body at his feet, half buried in sawdust.
In a panic, understanding whom he had struck in his madness, Staerano invoked a spell, just as the body began to dematerialize, recalled by the Kamis. The stricken homine's health returned, as Staerano inundated her with healing spells. Finally, Staeflina jumped to her feet, as if at the sudden end of a nightmare. Then she cast a dark look at her cousin, which quickly disappeared when she saw his expression all changed and puzzled.