#zendikar

“Hey, look at that, a- OW!”

The kor rogue on the ground winced as she felt a sharp pain in her neck. The pain forced her gaze down, away from her airborne counterpart soaring through the sky on a kitesail.

“Busted the neck, did you, Aitana?” chimed a chipper voice from the kor’s side. A merfolk in a waterproof wizard hat surfaced from the river running beside the path, smirking at her wounded party member. “That’s why I don’t look up at random flyovers.”

“How- ow…How very incurious of you, Waverly,” Aitana grumbled, as she stretched her neck one way, then the other. “And, why not? It’s keeping an eye out for threats from above.”

“But Markus isn’t a threat.” Waverly pointed a webbed finger up at the kitesailing kor making another pass overhead.

“No, but- ow…It never hurts to double check.”

Waverly merely remained silent. Her smirk grew wider.

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh look at that! A third disturbance overhead!” Waverly teased.

“Knock it off.”

“Surely it couldn’t be the same-”

A horrible roar from further back up the trail silenced the taunt, and put both fighters on edge. They drew their weapons and spun around, only to see another of their number - a third kor, this one seated atop a drake companion.

“Oh. Sorry, Flax.”

The party’s warrior waved off the two’s concern before turning his attention back to his drake, who Waverly and Aitana now saw was writhing in pain. “No problem. You didn’t do anything. It’s Sand here. He saw Markus flying overhead, and stretched his neck trying to watch him as he flew directly over us.”

“You…” Waverly trailed off. She scowled, intently not looking at Aitana’s smug expression beside her. “You do realize, having the same habits as a drake isn’t the triumph you think it is.”

“Whatever you say,” smirked the rogue.

“All right, Damien. Show us what you’ve got.”

The party’s trapfinder took a deep breath, then broke into a fast sprint. As he lunged down the hallway, slits opened in the walls and ceiling, producing swinging axes that narrowly missed their mark. Damien dove under the last axe, sliding to safety on the other end of the hall with a wide grin.

“Come on down! They’re all triggered!”

A minotaur wizard shook her head as she navigated around the blades now embedded in the stone. “That was the worst trapfinding I’ve ever seen.”

“What!” Damien protested. “Tally, come on! I’m getting us safely through the skyclave. After that, what do my methods matter?”

“For when you run into a smarter trap than sharp metal,” grumbled a vampire warrior, trailing close behind Tally.

“Oh, what do you know? Your job is to hit stuff until it stops moving.”

While the warrior fumed, Tally took the lead. “All right, that’s it. I’m searching for traps from now on.”

A dot of blue light burst from Tally’s outstretched palm and darted further down the hallway. It illuminated a large chamber which opened into a massive library, causing the minotaur’s eyes to light up in wonder.

“Imagine how ancient these scrolls are!” she marveled, as she walked ahead, despite Damien’s protests:

“No, wait!”

Suddenly, the orb of light burst into a scattering of sparks, startling its caster. Immediately after, the ceiling began to rumble violently, breaking apart and falling to the floor. Damien dove and tackled Tally to the side, narrowly avoiding a particularly large chunk of rubble.

“…All right!” Damien cried, as the last of the crumbling subsided. “I think it’s over. Tally, are you okay?”

The mage clambered to her feet and brushed the dust from her robe with a sigh. “My ego is bruised…and maybe my knees. But I’m not crushed. Thank you.”

“Now, see?” Damien smirked. “This is what happens when you don’t let me do my job!”

Tally frowned, staring up at the destroyed ceiling. “Surely it wasn’t…my magic?”

“…So you just drop down on top of them to ambush them?”

“Sure do!”

Tazri put her head in her hands. So far, her interview with the goblin seated opposite her had not seemed promising, similar to the rest of the potential candidates for her adventuring party. This most recent answer simply served to confirm her suspicions.

“And…how do you get up onto the cave ceilings, Gregory?” Tazri asked tiredly, just about ready to end the interview. “Grappling hooks?”

“Oh, no. That’s too much weight. I just climb up there.”

Tazri blinked. “By hand?”

“Sure. I’m light enough thanks to not wearing armor, and I bite my knife so I can use both hands to climb.”

“I see.” Tazri sat upright in her seat, now paying attention. “And, do your ambushes usually end successfully?”

Gregory bit back a laugh. “You tell me. If I was bad at bushwhacking, I wouldn’t be sitting here telling you about it, would I…? Uh, I mean, I almost always take a few licks, but the parties I’ve traveled with in the past have been gracious enough to pull me out of the fire.”

“Fair enough.” Tazri leaned back in her chair. “Gregory, I will admit: when you first sat down, I didn’t think highly of you. I’m happy to say, you have proven me extremely wrong.”

The goblin gave a beaming smile.

“If you’d still join the party after that, I’d be delighted to have you.”

Tazri offered Gregory a handshake. The goblin half-clambered onto the table and began to reach for it, but swiftly pulled away at the last moment.

“Oh, wait! I almost forgot! I’d love to join, but…What would you say to a plus-one?”

“Bringing someone else along with you? I applaud your loyalty, but I don’t know, Gregory…”

“They’ll work for peanuts! And they’ll bring their own provisions and everything.”

Tazri scratched her chin. “Okay…What do they do?”

“Oh, they’re a sapper! They know all about explosives, and they specialize in clearing out trapped temples…with explosives, granted, but yknow!”

Tazri leaned forward, her interest piqued once again.

“Tell me more.”

...the planes of the Multiverse, but one that's stuck on my mind as of late is Zendikar.

World of limitless peril and adventure, temporary prison of the Eldrazi, littered with traps and relics and ruins ancient beyond reckoning yet all still deadly or coveted, etc., etc. But those aspects aside, what I'm stuck on thinking of is: is there a government of Zendikar?

Avishkar has a government, Tarkir has the clans or dragon-clans depending on when it is you visit. Innistrad has mayors, but I'd assume is essentially an Avacynian theocracy, or at least it was. Separation of church and state is hard when church descends on silver-white wings to cleave through the tide of rotten flesh howling at the gates of state. Theros has her three major polei, Dominaria has several kingdoms, Fiora has the throne that everyone is forever Conspiring over.

But Zendikar- we know of the Expeditionary Houses, a kor empire long lost (fascinating people, the kor), and the vampire bloodchiefs- but that seems to be about it. There may be Cutthroats in Zulaport, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of Zulaport City Watch to deal with them. The Expeditionary Houses don't seem to really rule all that much, either in terms of how much they rule or how much ruling they do.

“Might I interest you in a…Hey, you already lost your halo- AH!”

The demon loosed an uncharacteristically frightened yelp as he leapt away from the lightning bolt that struck the ground beside him. He looked up, expecting to see an angel taking flight. But instead the seraph he saw was merely perched atop a ruined monument.

“Kasla! I was merely going to offer to-”

“Kill me. Yes. I understand your sarcastic intent, Basalt.” The seraph’s gaze settled on the halos in Basalt’s claw. “I’ll not be so easy a mark.”

“No, no! These halos are from…” Basalt looked away from the halos, to the bloodied feathers in his offhand. “You aren’t concerned about the feathers, here?”

Kasla scoffed. “We angels can lose a few feathers without dying. And I dare say, we can withstand far more pain than you. Their halos, however…”

“No! That’s not what happened! I genuinely removed them.”

Kasla was silent.

“…Without killing them! I would’ve thought that part was implied.”

“It was not.”

“Yeah, I could…I took these feathers as compensation. Just one feather per angel, by the-”

“I do not care about the feathers.”

“…I didn’t kill anyone…this time.”

Kasla silently scanned Basalt’s ashen face, searching for signs of treachery. Then, she raised her magic staff to the heavens.

“In the name of those fallen seraphs, I will strike you down!”

“No, wait-”

A second bolt of lightning struck just beside Basalt. Though the demon was temporarily blinded by the flash, he remained unharmed, much to his confusion.

“Er…thank you, for showing mercy?”

“That was…a warning shot!” Kasla snapped. “I shall not miss again. Now depart.”

“Gladly…” Just before Basalt turned to flee, however, he noticed Kasla’s eyes, glowing a harsh red. “Wait. When you removed your own halo, did you-”

“My eyesight is unimpaired!”

Basalt gritted his fangs, and begrudgingly pushed the issue. “This isn’t a deal. I promise. However, I have some eye drops, if you’d-”

“Yes, please,” Kasla answered, resigned.

“Hey…where are the rest of you?”

“Excuse me?”

“N-Not how I meant to say that, Lady Legion!” stammered the hapless elf, to the two angels hovering just overhead. The adventurer knelt as she apologized: “My deepest regret, for my wording.”

The angrier of the two seraphs descended to the ground on feathered wings. She tapped the elf on the shoulder, speaking in a magically amplified voice.

“Rise, mortal.”

“B-Bernetta…”

“Rise, Bernetta. Our sisters are busy elsewhere on Zendikar. Their whereabouts are none of your business.”

“B-Business…? I mean, of course, Lady Legion! Again, I am sorry.”

“Then prove it.”

A pause.

“Prove?”

Legion extended an open palm. “Payment, for services rendered.”

Bernetta’s eyes widened at Legion’s waiting hand. “This is highly irregular…But, all right.”

“Stop!”

Both Legion and Bernetta froze, the latter already rummaging through her bag. The second angel landed beside the first, forcefully berating her.

“This is not the way. You said-”

“That we’d be getting paid. Do any of your clients- Sorry, ‘charges,’ ever pay you? Anything, at all?”

“That is not the point.”

“It’s half the point, at least! Should gratitude be limited to kind words and smiles? For saving lives-”

“Hey, what happened to your voice?”

“Er…Nothing, mortal!” The first Legion - the one expecting tribute - floundered in the face of Bernetta’s question. “Oh…Never mind. The game’s up.”

Legion’s form began to blur around the edges. Then, a dashing rogue stood in place of the angel, holding back laughter. “I had you going, though!”

“Uh…?”

“That’s quite enough.” The remaining Legion roughly seized the shapeshifter by the shoulders. “Ashen here volunteered to assist me while my sisters are away. She also insisted on teaching me the ways of a rogue - unsuccessful, as was my trying to impart my own teachings to her.”

Ashen blew a raspberry at Legion’s stern expression. “Yeah, yeah. I just still can’t believe you warriors stab folks in the front, not the back.”

“Good morning, Riley. Wow, you’ve got a whole army after you today, huh?”

A merfolk rushed past the waving human fisherman. She gave him a quick, playful salute in turn, before an angry mob forced her to sprint further down the shore.

“What’d you steal this time?” the fisherman called after her.

Riley spun around as she ran, and shouted, “A ring!” before facing forward once more in her flight.

“Just a ring? What, is it magic?”

“Very!”

“I see…Uh, hey!” The fisherman pulled his line from the water and waved his pole in the air. “Riley! You’re dropping some jewels there!”

The thief did not even feign to look down at the glittering gems escaping from the nets wrapped around her waist. “I know! It’s a distraction!”

But despite the loot’s luster, the mob passed them by, still rapidly gaining on Riley.

“Look out behind you! There’s…No, wait, in front! You’re running out of land, there!”

Just downstream from Riley’s current position, both the river and the shore suddenly dropped from the floating island where both lay. The water cascaded down, surely thousands of feet, before crashing into an enormous lake below. And yet, Riley did not slow.

“I know! Perfect!”

With a running leap, Riley shot forward, off the last bit of solid ground and into the open air. Her flight remained horizontal for far too long, before finally settling into a long glide towards the water below. The crowd, stymied by the precipitous cliff, was reduced to shouting obscenities from the ridge. Beside them stood the fisherman, his catch forgotten in favor of cheering on his friend.

“What an escape! And…really? All this, just for a ring?”

As the mob glared daggers at the man, Riley glided to a surprisingly soft landing in the lake below. She resurfaced, and fired a thumbs-up at her friend.

“And it was worth it!”

“…And then, once you’re kneeling, Iona will either bless you, or…Well, she’ll almost certainly bless you. Then-”

“Excuse me!” exclaimed the younger knight to her partner. “What exactly happens if she doesn’t deign to bless me? That feels like an important thing to know.”

“Don’t worry,” Alaina’s partner reassured her, though he seemed not quite sure, himself. “Iona doesn’t look the part, but she’s a soft touch. Well, her magic isn’t…and her sword isn’t…”

“This isn’t exactly giving me confidence.”

“Just go.” The older knight pointed to the door. “Oh, wait! One more thing.”

“What? She’ll vaporize me, too?”

“Not that. Iona is…big.”

“Well, of course she’s big!” Alaina gestured to herself; despite her armor, she remained rather short of stature. “Angels are big, and even you’re big compared to me!”

“No. I mean, she’s…very big.”

Alaina rolled her eyes. “Look. If she kills me, I doubt her being twice my size is gonna matter…”

—

“…Oookay. Fine. You were right about one thing.”

Alaina knelt, bowing deeply to face the ground. Looming over her was a titanic seraph, easily dwarfing even the ruined skyclaves floating overhead. Just the handle of the massive greatsword she effortlessly held was taller than Alaina, a fact at the forefront of her mind as Iona spoke:

“…No, no! You don’t need to kneel!”

Stunned by the booming voice, Alaina kept her head bowed, earning another noise of concern from Iona.

“No, please rise! That’s the point, after all.”

Finally too bewildered to remain silent, Alaina looked up and instinctively called out, “The point?”

“Oh, yes! ‘No more shall the righteous cower before evil,’ I always say…” A pause. “I’m not evil, just for the record.”

“Do you say that? I’ve never heard anyone…”

“Oh, perhaps I forgot to have a scribe record it. That does sound like something I’d do…What about, ‘The righteous may stand without fear’?”

Alaina shook her head. “Sorry, My Lady.”

Iona’s dismayed expression contrasted sharply with her armor and armament.