[hider=Khookie Summary]
Susa:
Level 4
29 Kh
+ 10 Kh for the post (17k+)

39kh
-7
32 lv5
-10
22 lv6
-11
Level 7
11 Kh
[/hider]


[hider=Summary: In which I take three months to write some basic stuff]
So, Susa, being a mess of a human being, is getting stressed from working too much under Lifprasil, her idea to deal with that is to go looking for trouble in her homeland of Mesathalassa. Since it is very far from the capital, Belvast teleports her.

First, she checks to see if everything is not too burnt from the Realta attack, and things seem to be OK. Then she finds an old palisade and house and goes into full archeologist mode to discover more about the past of the building.

The real deal is meeting her mother again, though, who suddenly reached for her after basically abandoning her at birth. Turns out Anzam (Susa's Mama) wants her to join in the ranks of the shamans. Susa, being a mess of a human being, is basically convinced to join it under an "Ain't you curious?" argument.

She is still doing srsbusiness in the capital, though, due to time zones, she can basically shift between regions when the night is about to set in just to find herself in a place where the sun is about to rise. Who needs sleep anyway? Not this huntress for sure. 
[/hider]


[b]Susa[/b]
Level 4 hero

"So, it is morning over here, huh?" said Susa.

The first rays of light of the rising sun were the first thing she noticed when she stepped back into Mesathalassa. Not an instant ago, she was in Alefpria, where the night sky ruled. 

"Makes sense I guess..." she shrugged. 

She had yet to grasp most of the concepts taught to her after she became involved with the godly world, but even in her limited understanding, this change in time made some sense.

"Good thing I decided to visit this place before the actual meeting."

The leather charm she received back at the innkeep was the typical family keepsake of the inner Mesathalassa. All hunters, and by extension, shamans, had their own empathetic animal, which defined most of their training in both life paths. The ritual in which the connection was established is deeply religious, but for most people, after training was over, it didn't mean much outside of a token and maybe the source of a few jokes, still, most accomplished families proudly carried accessories inspired by or printed with the animals. Susa had a hawk, only one of her village and thus why people called her hawke. Her mother had a deer, an animal rare to Mesathalassa but of extremely religious importance.

However, there was not only a deer and a hawk in the charm but also a few inscriptions. Some families did that, with some scrambled references to their homeland or implications about their values, this one looked like that at first, but upon deeper analysis, there was a certain wordplay that led to a location and marked a certain point in time.

Susa had noticed this in the first day she got it but didn't care much for it until she was already back at the capital. Life under Lifprasil was always hectic, but lately, it became suffocating. Endless bureaucracy, training sessions, mock fights, all this while she had to put up a responsible face for the soldiers and guard. This wasn't new, from the first time they met she had notice Lifprasil's effort to try to convert her from a huntress into an army archer, but she didn't mind it, she was grateful for the healing she received, and as time went forward she grew to like him, and Belvast, and Lakshmi, and Tira, and all the other people from that odd city. Still, she was aware of it, and ever since the falling start attack, she became very anxious about it, and in typical fashion, started to deflect the issue by seeking some new trouble that looked less troublesome to trouble her mind with.

She didn't care about the absent mother or the intrigues of shamans and hunters, and that was perhaps the charm behind seeking the whys behind someone giving her the little leather charm.

That was only in a few days, though, for now, her curiosity had brought her to Mesathalassa for other reasons.

[hr]

The huntress rested her back against the abandoned palisade of a ruined building she had found. Not too far from the northmost harbor town and the Vascogne tradepost.

She breathed in deeply and tiredly. She was impressed at just how fast she managed to run across the entire region, overlooking all of its key cities on the human side. Sadly even if she ran at her peak speed without stopping it would still take almost two days to reach Alefpria. Thankfully she had Belvast to create a portal between the distant regions.

It appeared that most of the region on the human side had been spared from the worst of the Realta attack. It made sense, from what Lifprasil told her, the falling stars only target the works of certain gods, and luckily, Mesathalassa lacked in those. The northern wilderness suffered the most casualties, mostly due to being in contact with the eastern coast, dominated by hain and a with moderate jvanic influence. The southern wilderness and the western coast were largely spared. Only two of the harbor towns even reporting an attack.

She felt glad, which was curious, as she could remember when the hordes strolled by the region and that no razed town or dismantled tribe caused her much grief beyond her own hometown. After all, those were, at the time, such foreign places to her. She remembered vividly her first visit to harbor towns with her father, back when she was still a child, she recalled how Tabata was too hot, Puperute too crowded, Water's Edge too fetid, Kivico, Inganani, Jan, all odd and different.

Now this whole area felt like her personal homeland, and she felt as if all the people there were closer to her than the people elsewhere for reasons that felt bizarre to her, yet somewhat logical...

Susa shook her head.

That didn't make sense. She knew the people of the region better than they knew themselves, and it was easy to remember a thousand or more fellows who were big nuisances to her across her travels.

"Travel lightly," she said, repeating this mantra of the hunters as a way to ward off whatever unneeded feeling that was.

[hr]

Staring at the map and at the reports of the surveys the scouts held in the marshes south of Alefpria, Susa took a heavy breath and faced the room full of Lifprasilians. 

"I stand by my point, we should not expand the farms into this direction. Instead, we should leave it as it is, maybe build up some roads, set up a watch. New farms can be built further down south." 

Her tone was serious, matching her clothes, an adaptation of the higher officer uniform of Lifprasil's guards with a few changes born from the huntress threatening to throw Meimu out of the highest window in Alefpriel should she ever think about forcing her to wear thick long sleeves.

It was a miracle she managed to get into the outfit before the meeting started, this whole morning had been hectic due to she arriving back from Mesathalassa a bit later than the planned. She also owed Belvast a few barrel worth of fish after making the poor cat wait for hours.

Unaware of the situation, the Lifprasilians in the meeting thought she was just very serious about what she was saying. Still, they had objections to voice.

"Sorry ma'am, but I cannot agree with your idea." a high-ranking officer said, trying to not be too nervous about disagreeing with her "this would need far more resources to be built, would present no boost to productivity and would also split the population, as the new farms would be isolated."

Susa glanced at the officer, almost sighing, almost saying how terribly boring transforming the local wilderness into endless farms would be, but that wouldn't do it, she needed an excuse.

"Most of the land to the north, east, and south are marshes, making this area a reserve would give our guard the opportunity to train in a tame version of this environment and thus making them more familiar with  the environment of those regions in the future."

She suppressed a smile, the made up point actually almost made sense. Then she suppressed a frown, as she realized she was talking about conquest again. 

It was fine, wasn't it? Lifprasil was a good boss, he did good things, he brought the people a good life. Yet...

The meeting had ended by that point, but one of the officials decided to ask Susa a question. "Miss, I have been thinking about what kind of structure we should build in the area. So far, we never had a major outpost like this in the uncivilized wilderness, and, you know, since your people come from such areas I thought..."

There was a hint of annoyance in the woman's face but she sighed it away. It wasn't that far from the truth, but still, the man could surely take some classes in euphemism with the divas.

"Yeah... I can help, I guess. I know the sort of structure we should build."

[hr]

Her hands carelessly ran trough the wooden walls of the abandoned housekeep she had found on the day prior. Most of the buildings were long gone, what remained were the stone foundations and the wooden palisades. 

"So, who lived here?" asked Belvast. 

The huntress shrugged.

"Do you think they were attacked?"

"I don't see evidence arrows or fire being used. So I don't think so."

"Huh, I wonder what happened then."

"Eh, maybe the game became scarce, maybe the hunters got lost in a storm and never came back, maybe the people just left."

"It's a shame we can't find out who lived here before. It got me curious... oh well. I will be going now... don't miss the time, this time."

Susa was left alone among the ruined plots and buildings, the location was far closer to her points of interest than the previous portal location. However, she didn't leave for those places, instead, she continued her exploration of the locale.

First, she thought that it was just for the sake of seeing the structures, as the hold they would build in the marsh near the capital would be similar to this typical mesathalassan hold, but eventually, she accepted she was just curious. 

It was not that the building in itself was special in any way, but the fact its owners were gone made it interesting in a frustrating way. She was partially aware there was nothing useful to be found but...

Suddenly she threw a rock in the air, almost hitting something sneaking by.

Belvast shrieked in surprise.

"You are lucky I noticed it was you at the last moment in which I could still change the direction of the rock" she scolded.

The cat demi-god answered with a "humpf"

"So, why are you still here?"

"I just got curious. Why are you digging holes in the ground, miss Susa?"

"Eh, decay travels faster trough air than trough earth, apparently. Stuff just last more when under the earth, I think," she said pointing at the muddy cloth she had recovered.

"Oh..." 

There was a moment of silence. 

"But why are you doing that?"

"Eh? Just curious, to find the stuff lost in time, maybe a few clues about who lived here."

"I see. It is a bit sad, though, isn't it?"

"For sure, in a sense, it is very bitter to see how easily things that were once held dearly can be lost and forgotten."

"So why are you digging it up? Do you think there is something useful down here?"

"I don't think there is anything to be discovered here that is good or helpful, but even then, it is fun just finding out."

[hr]

The assigned place was a limestone ravine, particularly, the section of it that had been used for rituals in times past. The light of the summer sun did not combine well with the walls of beige rock and the dryness of the area, forcing the huntress to find herself a shadowy area to rest, as waiting for hours there was uncomfortable even for a blessed person.

Out of boredom, she started to look at the ritual drawings that decorated the walls of the ravine. Mostly animals, representation of tales and other normal stuff, not too different from what she had near her own village. Even in shrines, it was considered bad luck to draw the gods, as the local belief was that one could never properly represent spirits of such magnitude, the exception were the caves, especially the ones near the Halagan mountains, where the darkness would always conceal most of the drawing, even with a torch, so no one, not even the one who drew it, would ever be able to have the perfect idea of what was in the rock.

However, being a place seen as holy, some figures were more likely to appear than others. The particular breed of Shamanism in the region had a clear cut division between gods of the heavens and gods of the earth, and while the most venerated gods were those of earth, there was a sense of purity and holy seen in the realms of the sky and fire. Due to that, many heavenly creatures were drawn near the shrines, most of them real, like elementals, others, however, as Susa discovered when she was exposed to the true divinity, were not as real. 

One of such cases that particularly impressed the huntress were the little bright fly-like things that she and many others saw flying around them, as proven by the many depictions of such things in the rock murals. Shamans disagreed on what they meant, some said they were nocive creatures attracted by rot in the soul, others said they were guardian spirits, in truth, it was just blood within the eye, Susa never understood the explanation very well, but stuff in the blood at times acted oddly and thus the bright dots were created. An entoptic phenomenon, the smart people at Alefpriel called it.

At times she felt silly for having spent her whole life getting things wrong, but at others, she kinda preferred it over the actual deities around. Those bright and fast dots never dove down from the sky and set the world ablaze unlike a more "real" kind of phenomenon. 

Perhaps that was why she was even there to start with. She had a chance to get involved with Shamanism before, went far enough into the Hawk path to get people calling her Hawke, but it just wasn't of her interest and it involved way too many rules and social expectations, being with Marcelo also did give her a good reason to not walk "the paths of purity" but it was far from the main reason. Now that she had a wider worldview, she felt more distanced from it all, and oddly, such position made her more interested in all that mess.

Finally, when the sun was about to set and Susa started to lose faith in her ability to read cryptic leather charm messages. Susa's mother finally walked into the ravine, probably doing what the divas described as "fashionably late", the sound of rattles announced her presence before she could be seen.

"Ah, I see you are here." Anzam, if Susa still recalled her name correctly, was wearing a very simple dress and her only accessory was a walking stick with the noisy rattle. Usually, Shamans liked to make their presence clearer and also wore objects of status made from rare animals, not her, though. "That is good, it seems you are still aware of the traditions of your homeland."

"Why did you invite me?" Time was a rare resource in these days, she needed to make that clear.

Her mother's aged face didn't wrinkle any bit more from the rude reaction, it was all expected, and it was good it was like that. "To invite you into the path of awareness."

"Seesh, it is a bit late for that, not sure how much you know, but I almost got married once. Furthermore..."

"Never did I say that you would take a normal path. Surely, for you, the normal path is long gone. But if you were normal, your hair would be graying out, and the bites of time would be showing in your body."

"Oh, so we are going to cheat my way into the circle? But for what purpose? You never really showed any interest in my life or growth, not even when I was being introduced to basic shamanism."

"Do not think this is because you are my daughter, in truth, there are others that could do the same, but you happened to be easy to contact secretly, moreover, I trust your capabilities."

"Oh, and what is this big plan of yours?"

Anzam thought to herself for a few instants, judging how wise it would be to tell her without a promise of loyalty beforehand. "Most of it you would be able to do naturally just by joining the circles. Do you truly need to know what my greater goal is?"

"Huh, now that is funny, do you think I will just..."

"Yes, you will. Truth be told, even if I left at this moment without saying a word, you would try to get back into the path just to see what in the rotting depths you could do that was so impactful. The scent of curiosity and anxiety is just all over you right now."

Susa had to pause a moment to develop an answer "Well, you are right, I guess. So, I will play my part in your little plan, what is next? Surely they won't let me just walk into the great caverns in the Halagans."

"Your identity is somewhat safe, Marcelo and Livina covered your tracks when you crossed the land a while back. Nobody will suspect you are who you are since you are too young to be my daughter, we will just pretend you are some northern huntress who got lost, the current high elder loves people not from here so he will get you involved in a blink, the opposition to letting a stranger into the path would be from my side, but I will downplay it for you."

"Sounds like a bad decision, don't you fear losing ground?"

"I'm too old for that, they will just think I'm being soft because you vaguely look like my daughter. And that is the essence of it, from there onward it will be a natural path for you."

"All right..."

She hastily interrupted her daughter"Good, I will be leaving then, the more time spent together the larger is the chance of something going wrong."

"Wait, aren't you curious about why I'm still so young?"

"Sincerely, just like you will try to figure out my objective once you are involved with the plan, I'd also prefer to find what sort of sorcery or miracle made you stay young by myself instead of having you explaining it to me."

And just like that, as the night took over the sky, the meeting was over, she was handed a second leather piece, this time it didn't even try to be disguised as something else, it was a clear instruction of what to do next and how to fool her way into the shamanic path. She would need to analyze it later, however, as she needed to return to Alefpriel, where the sun had just started to rise, as she had a long day ahead.