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Neza	Warm, damp and still air hangs from canopy to forest floor. Lush trees, thick and verdant cloud lines of sight and obscure the trails and paths of the Southeastern woodlands. The thick air carries noise from insect and bird, chittering and chirruping along with keens and cries. The forest is a rich gem of color and teeming with life, but each turn carries with it the inescapable feeling of being watched, of the great and terrible predators, beasts and monsters hidden by the trees. And it is in this place that one scholar with money to indulge his curiosity has paid for scouts to corroborate a lead on a potential lost ruin of some esoteric academic import. Despite her coverings, and a growing distaste for humidity, Neza has been quiet much of the journey. She has remained to herself and steadily focused on the mission. Deferring, as needed, to the expertise of the guide she had put money toward. And though she appears unarmed, Neza has assured that she is prepared to defend the party of two should the need arise. However, boredome comes to all, and Neza has begin to talk, mostly to herself, and entirely in a strongly broken and accented Skytongue.
Winds and Dreams	"If you're expecting me to respond, I don't speak that," comments Winds over her shoulder in a more local dialect of the forest tongues. She seems quite comfortable in the heat and wet- altogether too used to being deep in the woods. At a cursory glance, one might think she isn't doing much on this journey- rather the great black wolf with her seems to be ranging out ahead and to the sides more often than she does. But then, a closer look might note her watchful and quite perceptive gaze, and the almost effortlessly traceless way she moves through the underbrush. She's also a little more conspicuous in her battle preparations, with the sword on her back disguised in no way at all.
Neza	The response brings pause to Neza's recitation. A moment hangs as she is silent, trying to figure out what was said to her. She gives up attempting, but she presumes it had to do with her talking. "I'm not certain what you said," she starts, switching to Riverspeak. "But I am trying to learn new tongues. I'm finding myself at a loss at times, being away from the River." Neza's bead curtain waves when she puts her focus on the lead wolf. As behind the obscuring shade, she smells the air for dangers. "I must admit, I don't expect there to be anything. This is not the first false lead my patron has sent me on." A small laugh, pitying and distant. "With laden merchants, at least there was some hope of interesting times."
Winds and Dreams	"Worry less, perhaps, about being attacked as a laden target- and more about signs like that," answers Winds, returning to Riverspeak as she gestures past a pair of trees on the small group's left. Not much for smell, but certainly a very... very large and somewhat fresh track in a more muddy patch, of some enormous beast winding its way between the trees not so long ago. "Likely a Siege Lizard, given where we are- which usually means a small herd. I don't take these trips to worry about traps, often- I take them to figure out where along the way one should be wary of the local beasts. And if this is a false lead- someone else might need to come this way someday, and you can sell them that foreknowledge as well as your presence."
Neza	Neza stops at the track. She looks down into it, trying to commit it and the impact to her memory. It's impressive, terribly so, and she looks up with a bit of wonderment and thoughtfulness. A moment of forgetting. A side effect of her distance from the crowded city. A degree of comfort distracts her mind. As she's looking up, the beads split for a moment, and the tip of her nose, more animal than human, peeks from that covering. "I would like to see it," Neza admits as she imagines the site of the seige lizard. She drops her head and the hiding resumes as she continues after wolf and master. She's quiet for a moment and reflecting on what the woman says regarding selling. "Not going to spin a story about how you're the only one to know how to make it past such herds? You're a curious mercenary," she says with no lack of mirth in her voice.
Winds and Dreams	A slight shrug from Winds. "Well, woodlands were not my first profession, if I am being frank," she answers over her shoulder, looking back just a moment. If she did notice the nose, she's certainly not reacting much to it. "Furthermore, those creatures are herbivorous. All you need to do is keep a respectful distance and not threaten them. Beyond that it's simply knowing when to be ready for it- which you are, now, whether I share some secret expertise or not."
Neza	Watching Winds, Neza walks with an ease and comfort she did not have in Great Forks. She seems to drop the constructed formality and stiffness for a fluid swaying step. "So you and your companion aren't from these lands?" she asks. "I wouldn't have guessed." "Whatever they eat, size alone is enough to invite danger. Still, I should seek one out. They sound impressive. And knowing what one looks like is better than simply their tracks."
Winds and Dreams	"Asena, yes- myself, I started out more city-bound. Used to ply my trade more in just... sheer subterfuge and a passable hand at a sharp object," says Winds, only doing the very slightest of dancing around the reality of her assassin days. She shrugs a little, again. "If you can't hear them, they've made it a goodly ways away. You're certainly welcome to go chasing after them, I suppose, if you are so curious."
Neza	A solemn nod. Neza can understand the matter at hand. She knows the need to make ends meet and she also can see that maybe this is why the scout is so solemn in her duties. "You I can see," she says, setting up the line as she looks toward the wolf. "But her, that's an impressive profession for a dog." The laugh is short and happy. "Cities were always temporary for me. The end of one route, the start of another. Time with company to drink and dance and celebrate having lived to see the end." She goes quiet then, but for a distant sniff of the air.
Winds and Dreams	"I met Asena a while after those days- but that's a long story for another day," says Winds with a slight wave of her hand, head shaking a little. "I grew up in a small capital before that nation disappeared from the maps. Now things are more... fluid. No disagreement on making the most of those visits, though."
Neza	Hidden or not, Neza looks between Asena and Winds with a careful eye and the ghost of a smile. She lapses into quiet then, following the guide along the ways. Stone juts from the earth as a first sign of a shift in the surroundings. Rough hewn, but cut. Pillars at one time, but sunken, vine choked, bent and bowed relics of ages past. But certainly no sign lf some great structure, not at all. By all appearances, maybe a one-time grand gate or guardhouse, but now little more than the heavy markers of time's power to end eras, and the shear strength of the verdant grip of the east. Neza stops by one of the angled stones. She reaches, running clawed hands over the carved relief. "A sign, but not enough for the scholar. He won't be satisfied that we found standing stones in the woods," she comments. "But still, it's more than I was expecting at all. Shall we continue?"
Winds and Dreams	"I don't especially see why we wouldn't- I'm quite certain this cannot be much other than a good sign," muses Winds, stepping up atop one of the stones to get that slight bit of extra distance in her sightline. "Though, by the looks of this place and some of the angles, I think a little digging could have potential- not that I'm an expert on that."
Neza	"Do you know a master digger?" Neza asks, walking around one stone, move toward another. She judges the height above her before making a simple leap toward the top, landing in a crouch on the vine and lichen crusted stone. Much of the distance ahead is blocked by a curtain of greens and browns. Thick trees with leaves as broad as a man's torso hang in waves. Orchids of vivid oranges and teals smells of sweet nectars. Distance birds cry and animals hoot and whoop. But through the hanging canopy stands stone, wet with condensation and glistening mosses. Heavy stones, many stones, the foot of a sinking, aged and lingering ziggurat lashed with plant life and the claws of the forests.
Winds and Dreams	"No, but if valuables would have been left or dropped anywhere- likely where the buildings already were, in my mind," says Winds, chuckling lightly at herself. "Presumptive of me, perhaps." "Those standing enough for your benefactor, there? Because if so we may have been fruitful after all, here."
Neza	So the scholar was right. . . Neza's head tilts. She genuinely did not expect to find something like this rising from the morass of the Eastern forests. But she watches it for a long moment, letting the discovery linger and the small surprise and pride of the momsnt pass. "This will do nicely." Neza drops from the pillar and lands with a soft thud amid a billowing cloak. As she stands back up, Neza straightens the cloth from with it's folds and creases. "I suspect my patron will want more information. And if you want to search for any treasures yourself, can I trust on you to lead a way here again?" In a pique of playfulness, she adds, "Or should I be addressing Asena?"
Winds and Dreams	"I'm a plenty capable guide- but who do you think leaves people more uncomfortable to be left alone with?" questions Winds, smirking a little with one corner of her mouth. "I don't especially feel a need to search for anything, but if you require further help I can make the time. I have few other pressing needs on my time in the recent days." She tugs one arm across herself in an absent-minded stretch, ponderous. "I'm surprised you don't want to focus the funding on yourself now that you've made the trek, though."
Neza	"So he is the soft face to your subtle steel?" Neza asks, the tone to her words pulling double duty to cover for her covered grin. Another shift in posture under the cloak, relaxed, almost teasing if it weren't for a body covering cloak. A loose ease to the woman underneath the outfit. "I was paid to find out if my employer's information was worthwhile. I'm no scholar, I wouldn't be able to know what to do with all this." Still, Neza looks back, around and takes in the warm still air of the deep forests. "And I am a mercenary, I learned early in my life the needs for multiple hands. Why would you think I would try doing whatever it is alone?"
Winds and Dreams	"No, I mean that if I disappear into the foliage and leave people with an enormous black wolf, it tends to put them ill at ease," says Winds- amused, but certainly blunt in with it. She then shrugs, and leans herself down to sit on the edge of her rock. "I'm not a scholar, just hard to find and good in the woods. And well- in my experience, some take the mindset that fewer hands makes for larger shares of ensuing profits. But then, Nexus was always a cut-throat place."
Neza	Neza looks to the wolf. She has to think for a moment on the matter, but in the moment nothing is setting her off in regards to the wolf. She also knows a weapon is close at hand, as well, and her own capabilities. Those things are not something others might have. So Neza reflects on that reality before she nods. "You must think me naive," Neza says, "For not showing a requisite caution or greed." Her posture shifts from one leg to the other. A pivot in her stance. "I know the only thing you can trust with people is that they will act their worst." The flap of her cloak gestures toward Asena. "But we're here alone, and I trust my intentions, and my abilities."
Winds and Dreams	A pause from Winds, and she glances towards the stones again for a moment. She waves it off, in the end. "Refreshing, if anything. Having planned exits when out to receive payments lest someone try to tie up a loose end became... tiresome. I try not to go back there too often. Even now some amount of repute lingers."
Neza	A sharp look in the direction that draws Winds' attention. A quick scent of the area, a study in the stillness of the stone. But nothing happens and the tension of a moment slips away. "The life of a sellsword doesn't always come with as much politics as one would expect," Neza says, her body carries and over-acted shrug for the sake of animating the gesture enough to notice. "Though I doubt a city like Nexus would have the same appeal to me it would havd had once."
Winds and Dreams	"To visit, and consume and take it in, plenty fine. To actually be working and dealing with merchants- worrisome. That, I think, would sum up Nexus fairly well. I would perhaps not steer entirely clear." Winds thinks on that for another momenet, before looking back up, apparently satisfied. "On the other hand, it can come with quite a few. All too easy to get caught up in wars and sieges when one is joining battles. Your opponents don't always know it's simply business, and simply see you as another enemy resource."
Neza	"Merchants become more generous when you've kept them alive," Neza says. "And if you have a pretty face, all the more so." She starts, now, walking again, slowing to look back at the stone pillars and sunken ruins as to apply the terrain once more to her memory. "It isn't politics then," she says, "When you're taking money knowing you're there to fight, you can't fault the other for being as willing to kill as you are." She laughs, but a lingering bitter tone is there now. "And it doesn't take much for a man to think you a monster."
Winds and Dreams	A faint, perhaps halfhearted smile from Winds at that. "Well. It's not always your own being targeted that gets you further involved, is it? But it helps, in its own perverse way. And then sometimes you get swept up in that back and forth of striking back and... well, I think you take my meaning." She stands up again then, dropping off the side of the rock, and dusts herself off a moment. "But- perhaps more present questions. How much foreknowledge of the area do you want before turning back?"
Neza	Neza doesn't answer. Not right away. "At times, pride and ambition drive steel more than anything," she speaks, but the words sound hollow and distant. "And when it's not pride, or ambition, it might be fear." "Never mind bad memories," she says. "I'll listen to whatever you have to offer. Whatever I can pass on to my employer."
Winds and Dreams	"Well, I'm moreso asking how much time you intend to spend here getting the lay of the land before turning back," clarifies Winds, a slight shrug accompanying it. "As I said, I have no especial requirements for time."
Neza	It's a reasonable question, and one that seems almost an invitation. Neza pauses, and then the brim of her hat dips. "I presumed you were intending to tell me something," she clarifies. A few steps toward the stones again and she looks upward to the slanting ziggurat. "I could come here on my own time," Neza says. "It's warm here, and I'm not very comfortable." Her whole self turns to face Winds. "But I should see to the perimeter, a walk around as much of the complex as I can. Just in case any animal has made their home here."
Winds and Dreams	"Then perhaps I'll take a look around the inside, or what may be left thereof. Many sorts of potentially dangerous animal that might take the remains of a great hall for a convenient cave to take as a den," suggests Winds, nodding backwards towards the ziggurat. "Get the ground covered as best one can."
Neza	"Keep your friend close," Neza says with a gesturing movement of her cloak toward Asena. "Make enough noise and I will come to your aid." She turns now, back toward the ruin. A look, a study of her immediate surroundings, and with a steady and focused walk she approaches the front of the great layered pyramid. But the walk is only to approach, in short order, her whole body seems to tip forward before surging ahead, moving like a spirt with light steps and speed that courses over the forest floor.