Valmial landed heavily upon his feet. The magic that had transported them to this place echoed around him, the blinding radiance gleaming in his eyes. He held the threads of the Radiant Gate within a clawed hand, unseen to all but those gifted with the sight of the arcane such as he, and slowly ran his claws over those chords of power. He trailed them, saw the dwindling gate in his mind's eye...

He severed the threads with the clenching of his fist. No turning back.

"Burn the boats." He murmured to himself, citing an ancient orcish war record. As the threads of magic snapped and his vision peered through to the reality around him, he clutched at his staff in a mighty grip. His other hand rose, as it often had in recent days, to caress at the scarred mass of repairing scales on the underside of his jaw where the assassin's dagger had failed to inflict an end to mortality upon him. He caresses his jaw and chin like a bearded sage might have.

Even before Naenia's trailing words, before he himself even gazed at his surroundings, Valmial was gazing at the sky. By the time Naenia's introduction trailed to its end, Valmial was knelt low upon one knee, his injured leg carefully curled whilst his dominant knee held his weight. The long Starspire sceptre in his hands had been twisted, revealing the long telescoping lens it concealed. His gaze swept across the sky, more concerned with the firmament than with the township around him.

This was his expertise. The others could attend to the architecture, horticulture, speculation, and cartography of this ordeal. The sweeping of the lens sent his gaze excrutiatingly far into that black void above them, as he sought out even a dwindled inkling of a star's light. He gazed heavensward to the instinctual places of the constellations, to the well calculated lunar shadow, to the deep nebulae known only to those of the Starspire.

[color=green]"Valmial Hippokrates."[/color] his voice rumbled from his lips as a baritone cut with razor's teeth. [color=green]"Ne'er have I had opportunity to come myself, fair lady Blackwell, and if you have any inclination of pathfinding I will follow. The heavenly guidance I would have relied upon for position and measurement will not be of any assistance."[/color]

[b]Presuming a lack of interesting occurances in the inky void of the sky, Valmial twists the staff closed and rises back to his feet with a few lumbering steps and finally takes in his surroundings and companions with more than his prior cursory interest. If no other decisive action is taken, his attention is drawn to the Portcullis and he directs his initial surveilance to this path and its troublesome warning.[/b]