[b]The Tricity area grand tour[/b]

Thirty seven thousand feet above the lands of origins a figure floated above creation, but she was no god. Instead she was the product of chaotic chance, as all beastfolk were, and in her case the dice had been kind in some ways and cruel in others. She was one of those cursed to be without mortal arms, and instead she had the wings of a vulture stretching out from her shoulders. She was also small as a goblin would go from the other half of her gamble, which was what let her fly better than most bird-folk. She had the bird’s eyes too, and it was with them that she gazed out from her lofty perch, having reached it by riding thermals.

She hadn’t come up here for fun, but rather to feed her belly and her flame, for one of the rich folk of her city had promised her a feast if she would ascend and get him a report about the invading beasts they’d all been warned about. Unfortunately, even with her enhanced eyes, the invading forces were just dots. Or had been. Until something that was markedly not a dot had come striding over the horizon. 

Egrioth. She became transfixed by the titan, and so rather than swooping down to report, she stayed up there long enough to witness the spec that was Allianthé fly out to battle the titan, and then her failure as she was sent flying back to the great tree at the heart of the land’s of origins.

The beastwoman hovered there for a few moments before summing up all she had just seen with a simple “Oh fuck” and then diving back down towards the city she called home.

[hr]

A few hours after the vulture-goblin had witnessed the divine battle, Lilly, ‘discoverer’ of the art of speaking with one's past lives and secretly daughter of Asheel, excited a council chamber within which she had just heard a retelling of said battle. 

From those steps, she paused to look out over the rest of Tricity as she mulled over what she had just learned. True to its rather literal name, Tricity had started out as three separate cities, all of them built into and atop the hills and cliffs that ringed the land of origin, and specifically the spot where the eastern river entered them.  

The oldest settlement was the one she was currently in, spreading outwards from the cave of painted memories, a site holy to Asheel within which generations of folk had left their artworks to be remembered for all of time. Naturally it was a popular place to make a home for the devout, and so it was surrounded by the well of citizens of the city, and, by extension, most of the important buildings, such as the council chamber themselves which sat within view of that temple/art gallery.

As did her own family home. Or rather, the family home of her mother. The Mother. Despite her divinity, the building was not the most impressive or richest place around, though the sprawling stone structure still represented a great deal of wealth and influence. Not the goddess’s own however, for none but Lilly knew that was what she was.

Instead it came from her large and successful family, though certainly she’d had a hand in their triumphs.

Still, when Lilly returned home it wasn’t to speak with any of them, and so she traded only brief hellos with the goddess’s varios partners and descendants and promised that she’d fill them in on the council decision soon. Goblin families were large, and not at all monotonous, so even the large home was still bustling, and so it was something of a miracle that she managed to find the Mother alone as she did. Or, well, almost alone

“Hello dear, I take it you’re here to see me?” the slightly wrinkled but not as much as she should be goblin asked from where she was sitting by the fire and rocking one of her grandchildren in her arms. Her garbs were a comfy cotton robe dyed a cozy red, and her slightly graying hair was done up in a pair of buns. She was not wearing any kind of hat.

“And youz already know why,” Lilly replied, rather combatively. This wasn;t the first time they’d talked about the impending crisis after all.

“I’ve heard a thing or two. That city wide announcement for one. Somewhat large monsters coming from the south, which I assume that emergency council meeting was about” the goddess summarized, disregarding the tone of the question, before saying “So I assume you have come to your dear old mother for advice?” not unkindly before requisition she “please, come, sit by the fire with me. But do keep your voice down, I only just got this little one to sleep”

“No, I came to ask why you iz still here, and where is the goddess who saved gobs and beasties from the desert? The voice said the gods was handling things, and yet youz still here!” the goblin replied, even as she obliged the request to keep quiet via whisper-shouting her accusation. 

“I’ve learned to delegate, my dear. I can’t be everywhere, and for the world to be stable people need to be able to handle themselves instead of waiting for me to show up. I tried that back in the day, and believe me, it was an endless parade of putting out fires” she replied “You can handle these beasts, I know you can” 

“Handlz them! One just smacked a goddess outa the sky! What are we gonna do bout summit that can do that!?” Lilly threw her hands up, unable to believe the Mother really thought they could do that.

“I… I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” the goddess replied slowly, looking genuinely shocked
 
“You… you don’t know?” Lilly replied, almost as shocked and yet, somehow, a little relieved.

“Darling dear, I’m not omniscient or all powerful. Or all that powerful at all at the moment” she explained and didn’t explain before asking “so could you tell me more about this… concerning news” to which her daughter obliged.

A few moments after she was done, the doors to their family home’s garage open, and a family six wheeled buggy came rolling out with the Mother at the helm and a soon to be road sick from her mother’s erratic driving Lilly in the passenger’s seat.

The Buggy rolled down the streets from the wealthy district towards the shore line, weaving around other buggies and more traditional bug drawn carts. Lining that shore where the north bank docks, bustling with activity as resources and food were shipped in, and worked goods from the artisans of the city were shipped out, all of it carried either on the backs of large boat beetles, on barges either pulled by dozens of smaller ones, or powered by buggy technology to spin multiple paddlewheels. On the far side of the river was another set of docks, sat to the second of three cities, but neither of those docks were going to be involved in the way the pair were going to cross the river. 

Instead they took a turn, and swung onto the main road, one that led to the third city, and also a way across the waters. 

In the center of the river sat an island, a craggy rocky thing that stood in the face of the river, splitting and widening it by its very presence, and in doing so, shallow and slowing the waters, forming not quite a lake, but something close enough to it. This width should have made it harder to cross, and indeed in the past it had, resulting in the island being used as a home for a community of goblins who, after being exiled from the land that had become Harrowfane, had tunneled into the rocky cliffs and turned it into a fortress from which to launch retaliatory raids back into the lands they had been created in.

Retaliatory strikes from the fowl-folk had eventually put an end to that, and the island had lain sparsely inhabited until it had been learned that the more calm waters made building in this part of the river safer. The extensive piers strutting out from both shores were the first use of this, but the two goblins were riding towards the newer and grander construction: the two sisters.

Built and constantly maintained by teams of aquatic beastfolk, the two sisters were a marvel of engineering.  Hundreds of stone columns encased in biocrystal waterproofing rose up out of the water, all of them covered with circular carvings for strength, while the plank walkway they supported had the same symbology freshly painted on it every few months. In addition to this, numerous shrines to Tuuni had been erected all along their twin lengths, to which travelers offered thanks and tribute, further strengthening the bridges against the force of nature they straddled.  

It was also the source of one of the world's first major pieces of congestion, as anyone and everyone who didn’t want to or couldn't afford to charter a beetle boat used it to travel between the three cities. As a result it took a while for them to get to the center island, which was now part military high command because of its central and defensible location, and part entertainment district because of its central location that sported a lot of foot traffic and off duty soldiers. 

Lilly and her mother had no time for the peddlers of trinkets, snacks and the oldest profession attempting to get their attention however, and after passing through the central cavern and out the other side, where soon buzzing across the south bridge towards the poorer side of town.

On either side of them stretched more docks, these rather than exporting finished goods instead exported the cities actual primary resource: the bounty of the earth. Mining was the name of the game in the south, as the hills before them where pockmarked with goblin sized mining tunnels used to extract ores (including the now all important tin used to make the bronze backbone of their civilisation) and gems from their depths, or simply torn apart by beastfolk wildbloods who’s strength had been put to use quarrying out vast sums of stone for use in construction both in the city itself and beyond. 

The hills on the north were pristine by comparison, because no one in their right minds dared risk disturbing the cave of painted memories. Desecration of a site holy to the goddess to whom they owed all was unthinkable after all. 

What was mirrored on both the north and south sides however were the farms to the east, stretching out as far as the eye could see. They were the rowdy domain of the snouters, although the pig folk were only a plurality and not quite a majority. It was there they were heading as it turned out, though there was one stop they had to make apparently, and that was to the grand market situated just a street away from the river side ports.

“Lilly darling, do you have anything to barter for a shovel or two? I seem to have forgotten to bring anything but the cloths on my back, and the Pollies will need their feed if you want to get home” The Mother said to her daughter, who ended up having to trade an earring and a quick lesson on past life seeking meditation to a happy if bemused pangolin-dwarf while her mother doted on and hand fed their buggy’s bug motors.

The goddess did not dain to explain why they had purchased those shovels till they were both out digging a hole in the middle of a field, which was the point at which Lilly finally snapped “Mother! I’z had it up to here with dis! You goddess, why can’t just. Fix!” her goblin accent fully slipping back in as she did so.

“I don’t have my hat” the Mother explained without explaining, before saying “now please, less talk, more digging we’re almost- ah, there we are” only for her shovel to thunk against something solid. A few more scoops, and she had unveiled a crystalline substance Lilly had never seen before. What was even stranger was when the Goddess pressed a hand to it, and caused it to open up somehow, before she hopped inside with a call of “Take care my darling!” to her daughter.

Lilly was too shocked by her sudden disappearance to reply, and then when the ground started to collapse around the hole they had dug all she could do was run. As if a great object had been suddenly removed from beneath it, the dirt spilled into a great pit, and yet up from that pit burst a smaller mono wheeled buggy adorned with spikes and made of unknown metal and crystal. 

It landed next to Lilly with a crash, revealing its rider, now far more wrinkled and grinning beneath her purple hat.

“Mother?” the goblin asked, but the goblin before her simply barked out a laugh and replied 
“Hah, not on your life. That fool wanted to play mortal, so she locked our power away in this ol thing” she gave the witch’s hat a flick “and locked us both away again too. Well, now that she’s come crawling back and let us out of the cage so we can solve this little problem of hers, she can have a turn in time out instead of us”

“I… Little? Dat thing took on a goddess!” Lilly replied, both aghast at this dismissal of their fears, and also suddenly coming to the realization that the very same might happen to her mother. 

“Oh yes, showed Life who’s boss it did. But so what? She makes things that she never wanted to end. Me? I Break things” she said, before revving her super cycle, and then blazing away from the scene, leaving Lilly to explain to a very angry snouter where half his field had gone.

The goddess herself was long gone before the snouter arrived, roaring southwards. First she rolled past the Tricity area’s borders, where the state’s troops: shield, mace and crossbow equipped goblins, billhook armed Snouters, and eclectically armed beasfolk, had seen off the first scouting beasts. No state in the riverland survived if it couldn’t overcome the military strategy of an all wildblood army, and the tactics vs those were rather adaptable towards fighting the larger monsters.

Once she was out of the lands, she found the first thing they would struggle with, as she ramped clean over a wave of refugees fleeing north. They came from all around the south of the lands of origin and represented all those who could not fly or swim with beasteal prowess, and were too destitute to own rivercraft or beetle boats, or who would be denied entry into the goblin city states. All of them were heading for the bridge Lilly and her Mother had just crossed, the only place where the waters that split the world in too could be crossed by all forms of mortal life. 

Only then she encountered her first beast, one that was literally hounding the straggling refugees as if driving them towards the city was part of a greater plan. Before it even knew what had hit it, the Breaker did just that, her blade armed super cycle cleaving it clean in half. Cackling, the Breaker rode on, slicing through every beast she came across, or at least those on the ground. An army of beasts had been coming for Tricity, it seemed, and she rolled right through  it as if its forces were air, before continuing on, weaving to and fro to further cut down the numbers the city would face as she headed for a date with the titan.

[hider=summary]
A Rüppell's vulture-goblin flying thousands of feet in the air observes Allianthé’s ill fated battle with Egrioth, and then reports back to her home of Tricity (which is built around the cave of painted memories on the eastern border of the lands of origin) about this. We then pass to Lilly, one of Asheels many mortal children, who rouses the Mother form of the goddess from her life playing mortal matriarch with the news. The two then take a trip across the Tricity, giving us an understanding of its three sub cities, and the two bridges that span the mighty river flowing through it.

Then Asheel digs up her hat and super cycle, reclaiming her true power, before her Breaker form rides off to the south to confront Egrioth, road killing a whole load of beasts in the process as she does.
[/hider]

[hider=mp summary]
Start: 7
No MP used, just time
End: 7
[/hider]