[b]11th of Sun’s Dawn, 5th year of the Gwangyeong Era (February 11th, 4901 YDC)[/b]
[i]Imperial Capital of C’hung-jin[/i]

“Goddamnit! Get to the damn point, Min! You can’t just call us all the way from the four corners of the Empire and waste our time with this!” 

Those words set the men and women gathered around the intricate table up in arms. There were five of them in total there, if we include the one shouting, known to the group simply as Mae-da. He was a man that could definitely be considered unnatural in every sense of the word. Snow-white hair accompanied by near blood-red irises and skin as pale as a damnable strigoi. The sound of his fist slamming the table would make it painfully obvious he was not in a good mood.

Opposite him sat Min Ru’sa, the leader of the group. She was a woman that could best be described as playful and nonchalant, yet had desires and aspirations unrivalled. Brushing aside a lock of her brown hair from her face, she rose in her seat and gazed at Mae-da.

“Now, now, I’ll get to it in a moment, alright? I just wanted to catch up with the rest of you four first! Go’jun shipped us off individually to the every frontier in the Empire to deal with Strigoi problems and inspect candidates for the Imperial Mages. This is the first time our little group of Mage Commanders have seen each other in over a year!”

“You know, Min...we’ll have plenty of time to catch up after this. It wouldn’t hurt if you just told us why we’re here in the first place.” The second voice of discontent came from Zhu Rae’in, leaning ever closer to the table.

“Why we are here?” He asked, left eyebrow raised.

“Fine! I’ll just get to the point…” Min snapped back at him. “The fact of the matter is that the Gwangyeong Empress is sending an envoy to the Far East. I think I mentioned this to you before Zhu…” She rubbed her forehead slightly as she struggled to recall the name of the country in question.

“Y...llendthyr. I think that was what it's called."

“‘Yllendyr’” is what you wrote to me in your letter.” corrected Zhu

“Right. Yllendyr. The Yllendyr Imperium. The Empress is dispatching Duke Xen V Huo-ming on the Imperial Flagship, Y’ang-wei to travel to the Far East to make treaty with the Yllendyr Emperor. Go’jun wrote to me requesting that I consult with all of you and pick someone to accompany me in escorting Duke Xen on his journey to Ylleria. 

“A journey...to the Far...East?” asked a fourth voice. The group turned to see Lin Ha’en staring at a map she had recently placed onto the table. Both Zhu and Min rolled their eyes to hear her speaking in such a staggered manner. 

Mae-da laughed upon hearing Ha’en speak, “Prepared too many spells and can’t be bothered to keep track of what the last segment of the invocation phrase was again, Lin?” The rest of the table let out light chuckles before huddling around Ha’en to examine the map.

Min couldn’t recognize the design nor the script in which it was written but if she had to guess, Ha’en bought it in Cantha after meeting some merchant from across the seas. It wouldn’t be completely out of the question, given that Lin was assigned to deal with Strigoi sightings in the peninsula southeast of the port city. 

Wei Wu-myeong, the odd man out finally spoke up at last. “It’s quite a distance, isn’t it? I’m not sure what the scale of this map is, but it would take atleast half a month to cross the Great Ocean by my estimate. And of course, the [i]Yang-wei[/i] is the only vessel we have constructed so far capable of surviving Kraken attacks with a full degree of certainty, so bringing along the lesser steamboats is risky. I suppose the Yang-wei would simply need to be loaded with an obscene amount of coal to fuel the journey.

Zhu shut him down before he could derail the conversation any further. “Beyond the point, Wu-myeong. That’s for Go’jun to sort out. There should be outlying island ports at which to refuel. It’s not like the [i]Yang-wei[/i] is going to make a beeline straight for the Yllendyr Emperor’s capital anyway.”

“Right you are Zhu, sorry about that.”

“Anyway…” Min butted in, “Who’s going to come with? It’s a given that I’ll be accompanying Duke Xen, so I’ll need someone else to go as well.” 

“Wait...a second...who decided that?”

“Myself, obviously~!” She said grinning. “Now who else wants to go? It’s down to either Zhu or Mae-da really. Wei being the eccentric that he is, he’d probably try to mind control and pluck information out of whatever poor peasant he sees as we approach the capital. And despite what Lin says, she’s going to hit the words in the right order for her invocations eventually, and I’d rather it not be on the boat, or when we’re in the presence of the Yllendyr Emperor. I don’t even want to try explaining away that incident when it happens.”

Both of them crossed their arms in protest to Min’s rather blunt statements, but eventually sighed and resigned themselves to it. It’s not like they wanted to go in particular anyway. Well, Wei did, if only out of sheer curiosity to see what the civilized domains of the Far East were like.

Zhu was next to reply “I have no interest in travelling East. My men have uncovered the hiding place of a rather troubling Gerudo bandit chieftess encroaching on the northern steppe towns. As such, I will have to take my leave soon to deal with her.” 

“Guess I’m the only one left huh?” Mae-da shrugged before turning to Min. “Guess I’ll come with yer. Could use a break from killing Strigoi anyway. Not much of a challenge anymore when you’re nearing your hundredth. Just don’t expect me to be much good talking to royalty. You know how I am.”

“Definitely. You’ve never been one for more formalities than necessary, really. That settles it then. I’m going to charter a steamship to take the two of us down to Cantha to meet with Duke Xen. Meet me at the docks tomorrow morning, alright?” Min said as she turned around to grab a brush, ink and parchment to write down the details of the charter.

“Alright Mae-da?”

Silence.

“Mae-da?”

She could hear the sliding doors shut behind her.

“Wait! You’re all leaving already?! Not gonna spend an evening catching up over a game of [i]Sho’ji[/i]?”



[hider=Amrean Dictionary]
Yang-wei - Flagship of the Imperial Navy. Roughly translates to "Display of Might".
Sho'ji - A game roughly analogous to Chess, except it can be played with up to 6 people.
[/hider]


[hider=Explanation of Amrean noble ranks]
There are five tiers of nobility in the Celestial Empire ranging from top to bottom: Prince, Duke, Marquis, Count, Baron. Each tier of nobility is subdivided into 5 ranks, with V being the lowest and I being the highest subrank. The title of Prince is granted only to members of the Imperial family, and Duke II is the highest noble title obtainable by those outside the imperial family.
[/hider]