Born From A Divine Gamble

Their trip to Dark-glint was almost over now and Emp felt it was a good time to go check for the friend of the two sisters. Since she was a cursed-blood, he felt that bringing Celtine would help him communicate with the unknown girl.

His own friend seemed to be really happy to regain her seat once more as well and smiled in a good mood as they walked. Even though Calla had been gone for days now, Emp had spent most of his time training hard and didn"t really get the chance to just go around with Celtine on his shoulders.

He brought her to the cla.s.ses and back but aside from that, he only had some time with her when he went to meet the duke about the matter concerning the seal. Once that was underway, he just trained all the time, barely ever going out to follow the girls or the guys somewhere. He was working really hard but he believed that in the end, it would all be worth it.

On their way out, they crossed the path of Odilon who after welcoming them happily asked something absurd.

"Hey Emp, I was wondering something and now that there"s no one around to listen, I feel it"s the perfect time to ask."

"What is it?"

"Does your wife have any sisters?"

"..."

Emp felt the urgent need to take a deep breath and ma.s.sage his forehead. He did just that while he asked himself if he should just ignore his words and move on with his day. He felt that a year ago, he would have just answered yes without understanding the actual meaning behind his question but now, he was relieved he had learned some things and bettered himself. This way, he didn"t have to deal with something so ridiculous.

"Come on, that face means yes, doesn"t it? Won"t you present me to them? Who knows, I might be just their type."

Calla had only one sister that was old enough to be in a relations.h.i.+p and wasn"t married, Azalea. She might somehow fall for Odilon but Emp highly doubted it and even then, Emp couldn"t picture the result in his head at all. That whole thing would simply be a disaster. On top of that, Calla was nothing like her sisters so none of them were like Odilon pictured.

Odilon was an idiot rather than a bad person but the two category had the common point that neither could be trusted with important things.

"Odilon, I won"t present you her sister, I can"t bring her here and I"m pretty sure she doesn"t want to meet you."

"What does that even mean?"

"I don"t even know your name and I"ve never seen you do anything worthwhile. I don"t mean to insult you in any way but I don"t feel like going out of my way to introduce her sister to you. I won"t do anything to stop you from meeting her but I won"t help you either until I know it wouldn"t be a terrible thing for her to meet you. I"d take you for a hunt but not to be my brother."

"Ouch, as blunt as ever. I"ll go console myself with a good drink and a laugh. See you later I guess."

Odilon seemed to have expected that sort of answer because he wasn"t that surprised. He gave his answer with an exaggerated tone and left with a wave of his hand.

Emp watched him go and let out another sigh once he was out of sight. He was really a strange guy, never taking anything seriously and just chasing after unreachable things only to give up after half a step. Emp didn"t understand what was the point of saying he would achieve this or that if he didn"t even intend to try at all. He was pretty sure he would do the same with Azalea. Emp didn"t have time to waste on that.

He turned back towards the exit with an utterly unimpressed Celtine and made his way into the city.

The streets were busy like usual but Emp ignored everyone. He was looking for either a slave merchant or an alley called Plogat. If he found either of those two, it would be easier for him to locate the vaelian girl called Svaenaha.

He walked up to the place where he first met the two girls and started looking at the alleys on either side of the road from there. He looked into to each but the name never matched, most of those alleys didn"t have any name at all. Thinking about it, he wasn"t even sure the two girls could read, they might have just gave it a random name.

Since Emp had told Celtine in detail what they were doing here, he trusted that she would warn him if she found anything from her elevated point of view. Sat on his shoulders, she was able to look over the heads of mostly everyone and read the signs of every shop they crossed.

After a long time searching however, Emp started to think that they wouldn"t find anything that day. Maybe he should have asked Esther in the entrance hall where were the slavers shops.

"I guess we should go back to the school and ask for some information." He told Celtine.

He turned to go back but Celtine stopped him with a few taps of her foot on his chest. She pointed something on his left and it didn"t take him more than a second to see what she was trying to show him.

On the other side of the road, there was a pale blue girl with shoulder length lilac hair and old plain clothes. Those were obviously the garments of a slave and the veil-like appendage growing from her upper back told him without a doubt that she was a vaelian if the color of her skin wasn"t already enough. She was stopping people on the street to tell them something but he was too far to hear what she was saying.

Emp had just seen her but he was pretty convinced that she was the girl they were looking for. How many vaelian slaves could possibly wander around the streets of Bêtéclair?

"Good job Celtine."

Emp walked in her direction and soon got to hear what she was talking about. She was stopping people at random to ask them if they had seen the two sisters. Most of those she asked just ignored her, told her to go away or even insulted her because she was a cursed-blood but a few listened to the description she gave. She"d tell them about their height, what they were wearing and what they were doing when they disappeared. It had already been more than two week, so no one remembered two ordinary girls and could only shake their head at her questions.

She called out to Emp like she did with everyone else, not knowing he was looking for her.

"Sir and miss, please, excuse me but two of my friends disappeared. Did you happen to see two girls this tall and this tall? They were wearing plain s.h.i.+rts and straps to hold their pants, the tall one had freckles and the short one had two buns of hair. They disappeared two weeks ago after they went to look for a job, I haven"t seen them since."

The girl was surprisingly tall. Since the sisters were both so short, Emp had thought that their friend would be similarly tiny but she was just as tall as him. Her voice was light but her tone was as worried as her eyes and her lilac irises were very focused on her task.

Emp offered her a smile and answered calmly.

"Their names are Erin and Leonni, right?"

"It"s them!" She said with a gasp.

She had been ready to switch to the next person right away but hearing the names of her friends, she locked herself in front of him and waited anxiously for his next words.

Emp wondered what he should tell her first. Should he say that the two were sorry about worrying her or that they left with a caravan first?

"Please tell me what happened to them! Are they hurt?"

"No, they aren"t hurt, they took the caravan going towards Red-water a bit more than two weeks ago." He chose to say first.

"What? But how did this happen, why didn"t they tell me?"

She seemed jumpy and sort of scared for them so Emp gestured for her to calm down as he retold the events of that day.

"From what I know, they were looking for a job on a street close to here and they encountered a girl that gave them fruits another day."

"I heard of her, they told me she seemed super kind." Svaenaha nodded.

"Then they accused her husband of kidnapping her because they had never seen him before."

"That does sound like something they"d do but how do you know all that?"

"It"s a long story but let me finish telling you what happened to the sisters first, alright? After the guards got involved and the guy was freed the girls went to apologize and found out that the guy and his wife were leaving with a caravan that day. They thought that the two of them were rich merchants because they didn"t care at all about the two fruits and the sisters thought that they may be able to get a job from them. They got all their things in a hurry and joined the caravan before it left, they even had the guy pay for them because they didn"t have the money for it. The thing is, they didn"t know that the trip would take more than a day so it didn"t cross their minds to say anything to anyone. I was tasked to find a vaelian girl named Svaenaha and tell her that the two of them were fine and that they were missing her already."

She seemed both relieved and very saddened by the story. Her shoulders slumped a bit but she also took a big breath as if a huge weight had been lifted from her her.

"I was so scared something might have happened to them but they just left for another town without saying goodbye. Thank you mister for telling me, I"m Svaenaha so you can stop looking now."

Despite the good news, she seemed really close to crying.

"You miss them a lot too, don"t you? You care about them a lot."

She answered with a nod.

"People like me don"t have a lot of friends. Most don"t even want to talk to me. There"s only a few like you who threat me like a person and those two who welcomed me right away even though they had nothing at all. They were my only friends and now they"re gone."

"You want them to succeed but you"re really sad that they aren"t with you anymore."

The girl nodded again. Emp thought about it for a second and asked her the question that was bothering him.

"You"re a vaelian, couldn"t you just fly there to meet them again?"

"I can"t, I"m a slave. I was forbidden to swim."

That was a slightly strange answer but Emp had heard before that every vaelian referred to their flight as swimming so he wasn"t surprised. He also already knew she was a slave but apparently, she wasn"t just a simple slave, she was sealed just like Celtine and Harriett. That was the only only way to explain why she would be allowed to walk outside without supervision and obey when asked to not fly. If she wasn"t, she could simply fly off and away wherever she pleased and never come back.

"If you weren"t a slave," He asked. "would you go after the sisters or go somewhere else? Maybe you"d rather leave the empire since it"s so unfriendly to you."

The girls sniffed back her tears and answered without thinking too hard about it.

"Maybe I would have left before I met them but I don"t know any other place. I don"t want to leave alone and get lost, where would I even go? I"d rather go with Erin and Leonni, I couldn"t leave them behind, they"re my only friends."

"But aren"t they the ones that left you behind? They didn"t even say goodbye."

"That was just a silly mistake, they always do that. They"re unlucky and clumsy and they make mistakes all the time but I know they"re doing their best and I know they care for me. You said it yourself, they miss me and then had you go all the way here to let me know they were fine. I"ll really miss them, part of me wish that they"d come back already even though I don"t really want for them to fail. It"s just that... What do I do if they finally get to work somewhere for real and they never come back?"

Emp would just have told her that she"d make new friends soon but from what he understood, Bêtéclair wasn"t really the most friendly of places for cursed-bloods like her.

"Now I"m just bothering you. I"ll go back now, thank you for telling me what happened."

Svaenaha turned around and left with slow dispirited steps.

Emp wondered if he should do something. He understood that he couldn"t help everyone but this girl was right in front of him and he was already involved with the other two. He didn"t know how to fix the actual problem but he could at least offer to reunite her with her two friends. All he really needed to do was sacrifice a bit of money to buy an expensive slave he didn"t need at all.

"What do you think Celtine? What should we do?"

A paper answered him with an encouraging face from Celtine.

She knew the full story and came to the conclusion that he should do something for this vaelian girl. In that case, he had no reason to hold back. The opinion of Celtine was more than enough for him to take a decision. After all, she lived in a very similar situation to her, she was the best placed to understand her problems and he trusted her judgment.

"Wait, Svaenaha!" He called her back.

He walked up to her and she stopped her feet to know what he wanted.

"You know, I have a lot of money... No, that"s not the right way to put it. How would you feel about... That"s not right either. If you want, I could pay for you and send you to Dark-glint, the village where the sisters went."

The vaelian was unsure on how to respond. She seemed interested but wary as well. Either she was reluctant to let her hopes up for something she misunderstood or she didn"t trust him at all.

"You would do that? But what for? I cost a lot you know, it seems unreasonable to buy me just to send me to my friends. I"m a sealed slave, you don"t have to lie to me if you buy me, there"s noting I"ll be able to do against you anyway whatever it is you plan to make me do. It"s cruel to say things like that without thinking mister."

"Just answer me and we"ll see about the cost after, if at all possible, would you like to go with them?"

"I would really like that... Are you really saying you want to buy me?"

Her face was becoming brighter quickly.

"If I can, yes. Don"t get too excited yet, I don"t know what sort of price the slaver will present yet. I"ve got a lot of money to spare but it"s not infinite."

"Right, I need to stay calm. Don"t sell the pelt before killing the bear."

She shook her head and blew a lot of air through her nose to calm down. The gentle smile of Celtine over his head didn"t help to keep her expectations in check. Celtine seemed fine but Emp asked her how she felt just to be sure.

"Are you fine going to the slaver with me? Should I bring you back to school first?"

He was answered with a shake of her head and the tightening of her grip on his forehead. It could have meant she wasn"t fine and was scared but Emp knew her well enough to understand she meant the opposite. She didn"t want to be brought back and held him strongly so that he wouldn"t put her down.

"Alright then, in that case Svaenaha. please, when you"re ready, lead us to the trader."

The girl nodded again and started walking towards their goal.

"The girl on your shoulders, she doesn"t speak a lot."

"That"s because she"s mute."

"That"s unfortunate."

"I think so too, you must have had a really pretty voice before, I wish I could hear it." He said to Celtine"s attention. "I"ll do my best to get around to fixing it soon."

She smiled and gave a light tap on his chest to tell him it was fine.

The group walked down a few more streets in silence before their guide decided to ask another question.
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"You both know my name but you didn"t tell me yours mister. You plan to buy me so I should know, right? Who are you?"

Now that she mentioned it, it was true, he was so focused on his story about the sisters and how to help the three of them that he forgot to present himself.

"Sorry, I didn"t think about it before. My name"s Emp and I"m a student at the imperial school. The girl sat on my shoulder is called Celtine Estelli, she"s a good friend of mine and she came from the winged tribe."

"The winged tribe? What"s that?"

"A tribe of cursed-bloods from the tribe"s lands."

The vaelian girl turned her head back as she walked to give them a surprised look.

"Is she really a cursed-blood? She looks a lot like a human to me. Oh! Sorry, I didn"t mean to talk as if you weren"t there, I just... Don"t know how to speak to someone that can"t speak."

She added the last part in a hurry because she feared to offend her two potential benefactors but Celtine didn"t mind at all, after two years, she was more than used to it.

"To answer your question, she truly is a cursed-blood. Her wings were cut of by hunters and her voice was taken by a slaver."

Svaenaha made a really pained grimace.

"That"s horrible. In comparison, I was really lucky. Aside from my freedom, I haven"t lost anything. I even made two friends. Did things get better after you met mister Emp?"

Celtine nodded and it made Svaenaha happy.

"So you"re like Erin and Leonni, you don"t mind if people are cursed-bloods or not."

"I don"t really, no, but I only know two including her."

"Well now you know three." The Vaelian girl smiled before pointing at the first floor of a large building. "It"s here, the place were master does business."

The sign over the door said . The front wall was well taken care of and the door wide open. Emp had expected a slave trading place to be dark and gloomy but the place seemed well lit, at least from outside. There were large and expensive gla.s.s windows all along the stone wall and many rushlights lit the interior. It might be a thriving business.

Emp stepped inside following Svaenaha and he was received right away by a girl with long black hair. Her face was strangely delicate too, she was unlike anyone Emp had ever seen.

"Welcome esteemed client to Gnash and sons, traders in exotic slaves. Are you here to see my master Gnash?"

"I"m here to buy this vealian girl." Emp answered, going straight to the point.

"I see, one moment then please while I go notify master of your presence and intent. You may sit over there if it pleases you while waiting for master."

The well dressed girl walked off and left Emp with the luxuriously cus.h.i.+oned seat and the two girls he came in with.

Emp didn"t feel like sitting down but he didn"t know how long he would be waiting for. He walked up to it but didn"t bother removing Celtine from his shoulders before sitting into it.

Svaenaha didn"t know what to do either and just stood there fiddling with her thumbs until the guy named Gnash showed up a few minutes later. His face sort of reminded Emp of a rat. He wasn"t a cursed-blood but his face showed so much bones under his thin skin and his nose was so prominent that one could hardly think of something other than a rat when looking at him.

The man wasted no time before he started talking but Emp had a hard time listening to his words because Celtine"s fingers clenched hard on his forehead when he showed up.

"Hi and welcome to my shop. I heard from one of my slaves that you came to buy this vaelian girl. A truly good choice, if you would please follow me to my office we could talk about the specifics."

The man made a short pause in his speech after inviting Emp with a gesture and his eyes focused on Celtine as his client got up.

"I know this one! I almost can"t believe my eyes!" He said before rubbing his neck strongly.

"You know her?" Emp asked, curious.

"I do, you must be a student from that school, no? I sold her to a representative of the school after she tried to rip out my throat."

"So you"re the one who took away her voice."

He had no good or bad impression of the guy before but the moment he said this, Emp"s opinion of that man plummeted all the way to deep underground. No wonder Celtine became so tense on his shoulders.

"You might think it was a bad idea but it was the only way to make her sellable. Even with a seal, only a rare few would have dared buy her considering she was a sky witch and even less would have ever let her speak at all. I did the only sensible thing I could on a business standpoint and made sure that no future buyers would get in trouble or decide to employ some more scarring measures to stop her from casting a spell in the future."

Emp could feel that Celtine was getting really angry on his shoulders and he was annoyed too but there was really nothing to do against that man. Getting angry wouldn"t bring her back her voice and the man couldn"t reverse his actions either. Plus, he needed to trade with him so exposing his anger would only complicate things for him.

"I disagree about that but what"s done is done, I"m not here for her today."

"Of course, follow me."

The man led him to his office and told Svaenaha to follow. On the way, he spoke about how he was proud of the quality of the slaves he sold here. He would only buy those with great potential and sell them only once he had polished them as much as humanly possible. Celtine was actually one of his only and worst failures. He had never managed to convince her that getting on the good side of a n.o.ble master was the best way to improve her life even though he genuinely thought so.

He told Emp about how he did his best to find only serious buyers for his cursed-blood slaves that wouldn"t use them as fodder or sacrificial p.a.w.ns like most people did with lesser races.

Then, once in his office, he praised the many qualities of Svaenaha to express how valuable she was. She could read and write, knew how to speak the common and n.o.ble tongue, knew her numbers, knew how to do most servant"s work, how to use a bow and could fly at high speed. She was also very polite and agreeable, a true pleasure to have nearby, Gnash never had any trouble with her and let her wander as she pleased.

This privilege paid off too since she even found herself a potential buyer which pleased him greatly.

She kept her mouth shut since they walked into the building because she feared she might make some mistake in this crucial moment. She didn"t make any comment on what happened to Celtine or on anything that the merchant said about herself even when he went in too much details on her physical condition.

"So my n.o.ble customer, in order to proceed forward and talk about her price, I need to see your card to confirm your ident.i.ty and make sure you do not plan on doing anything unlawful or unethical with her. What do you intend to do with this vaelian girl if you can buy her?"

Emp found annoying that the man wanted to make sure he wouldn"t do anything unethical with her even though he was a man ready to erase the voice of someone. He really didn"t want to present his hunting card either because it would make one more person who knew who he was in Bêtéclair and there were already enough.

He decided to answer with some half truths in order to dodge the mention of the two sisters or the question of his hunting card.

"Mine has lost her wings in the past but I need a scout. Vaelians are very practical when scouting for hunts or wars. Plus, I need someone to a.s.sist my wife with her housework back home. I have a big house but only two slaves and both of them are here with me in Bêtéclair instead of back home. I wasn"t convinced about buying anything until I met her in the streets however. She"s very interesting and also, the only vaelian I found in Bêtéclair."

"Right, vaelians are quite rare. I"m not surprised you haven"t found any other vaelian than her here. Scouting jobs are common for them too but why does a student need a scout?"

"I don"t right now but I will in a few years and I don"t want to let this opportunity go to waste. I"ll have a big place in the imperial army and it"s only smart to take any advantage I can when I can."

The rat faced man raised a skeptical brow but still asked to see the hunting card of his client. Emp tried asking if he really had to show it but the man insisted he couldn"t sell him any slaves unless he saw the card.

Emp took the time to think about his options.

The logical conclusion would be to simply give up on Svaenaha. He simply wanted to buy her to do a good deed, the risks a.s.sociated with those actions weren"t worth it at all.

On the other hand, he really wanted to help her and the sisters to get back together, he would feel bad to give up simply because he didn"t want to show a merchant his name.

He might be able to convince the man to sign a contract forbidding him to say anything but he didn"t trust him at all so he wouldn"t be surprised if he talked anyway.

He asked Celtine for her opinion too and she told him to show it. She might have been too angry at the man to think properly and just wanted him to s.h.i.+ver from Emp"s name.

He ended up taking a deep breath before finally agreeing.

"If I show you my name, you will have to swear on the ancestors and the G.o.ds that you will not reveal to anyone that I was ever here or that you ever saw me unless I tell you to. Do you understand?"

"Of course, if you wish so, everything that is said here will remain confidential." The rat faced man said, rather unconcerned.

Emp shot him a frown and made his card appear in between them.

It didn"t take long for the eyes of the man to land on his name and he was immediately taken with s.h.i.+vers. He rose to his feet and loudly swore on the ancients and the G.o.ds both that if anyone asked, Emp was never here.

Svaenaha was confused by the scene and looked at Celtine and Emp with question written all over her face but still didn"t say a word.

"It is the greatest honor of my business to receive a man such as you in its walls. It would make me famous if one heard of your prestigious presence here but I will not let a word of it slip or the ancients might take me to nourish the soils."

"It will have to do." Emp nodded. "Can we talk about the price now or do you have even more questions for me?"

"No no, a man such as you will surely need the most competent scout there is and I a.s.sure you that this one is perfect for the task, you will not be disappointed. Please, let us discuss her value."

Emp didn"t like to talk about money because he had no idea if the prices were right or not. Every time he bought something, he was wondering if he was being cheated or not but he didn"t want to argue in case the other side was genuine. Here however, he had no sympathy and no pity for the rat faced slave merchant.

Emp had no clue at all about what the true value of Svaenaha was so he couldn"t argue about any point the man put forward but he kept giving him angry frowns. The two sisters really thought he was a bad guy because of his serious face but the angry frown was much more effective, against that man, it did ravages.

Emp remembered that Chinui had a great frown too, maybe that was why no one could lie to him. He just had to frown and everyone would spill the truth right away in fear.

After arguing that no one else than him would buy her and no one more worthy of buying her than him would ever come here, along with a generous amount of cold stares and menacing frowns, he decided to buy the Vaelian girl for six-hundred and forty-eight golden crowns.

The man hurriedly got the contracts out of a drawer before Emp could change his mind and was paid with seven red dragons because Emp didn"t have the spare forty-eight crowns on him.

Svaenaha had a huge smile on her face as the money was exchanged and names were signed on the paper. It was happening for real, that guy was buying her to bring her to her friends!

Emp received the crowns he was due and everyone made their way to the huge room where the transfer of the seals were done. The vaelian had a rat in chains pictured on her shoulder when she came in and a crenelated hammer in a crowned book was there in its stead when she came out.

*-*-*-*

There are many things to say about the vaelian race. They are one of the most well known cursed-blood race there is and one of the most dangerous as well. A typical vaelian will look mostly like a human in general shape and size but like any other cursed-blood race, the difference will be instantly obvious.

As a first obvious difference, their skin has the many tints of the sky, from the pastel blue of a cold day to the soft pinks and oranges of a sizzling evening. vaelians are usually tall and lean, with sharp streamlined features, slightly webbed hands and feet and more importantly, a pair of long fins sprouting from their back. Those fins are thin like a veil and flap when caught by the wind like silk does, they are long translucent limbs that they can control perfectly to swim in the sky.

In case you did not know yet, you read this right, every vaelian is born with the ability to swim into the air as if it was water. They raise into the air, disregarding any logic saying they should fall and undulate their bodies along with the flaps of their fins and limbs to swim anywhere at all. They can hover suspended in midair as if it was natural, go higher than the clouds and faster than a hawk rivaling those of the winged tribe in speed and agility of flight. They even have a second set of clear eyelids to protect their eyes from the strong winds.

Despite sharing the flight ability of the winged tribe, theirs work in a totally different manner. An individual from the winged tribe would move like a bird, flap his wings to gain height and glide somewhere, obviously, if you remove a wing, they wont fly anymore, they follow the laws of logic. The vaelians don"t.

Their flight ability has nothing to do with their wings-fin, they simply threat air as if it was water. The only thing that will happen from removing one of their fin is that they will loose in agility and speed.

Like the extreme life-span of the fwans, the ability of the vaelians to ignore the natural laws have left scholars perplex for a long time. It is today believed that it is the extreme amount of magu trapped in their body that let them float in the air. They are one of the races with the highest quant.i.ty of internal magu on record and this gives them incredible potential.

This makes them extremely dangerous.

Their ability to swim in the air is believed to be a kind of self magic, an extremely powerful one requiring tremendous amounts of power no other race could ever sustain. With perfect control of their position in the sky as well as the speed and agility to move unhindered and dodge attacks from any directions, they are a real menace when fighting against any other race. Most of them master the use of bow and arrow to rain death from above and otherwise, they tend to rely heavily on magic.

Vaelians have high magic potential as one would expect of a race with so much concentrated magu inside them. All of them posses a dual affinity for water and wind but few ever limit themselves to spells of this nature. Vaelian battle mages rely on anything that can be used on great distances, they have strong visual acuity and tend to attack from distances where a human scout would not even see them yet.

To make matters worse, their race as a whole tend to love adventure and conflict, they"re willing to go to war for the tiniest thing simply for the thrill of it.

A famous battle between our empire and the vaelian country close to us resulted in a crus.h.i.+ng defeat of our army when the vaelians rained fireb.a.l.l.s on us from far above. Far too high for our bows to reach them, our army was thoroughly defeated.

The only known ways to reliably defeat them is to hide in places where their arrows and spells won"t reach and attack at night when they sleep to fight on solid ground or hope that they will be targeted by some flying monster able to challenge them in their own field.

The latter is what happened when our army had been routed by them, an old green dragon showed up out of nowhere and started devouring the vaelians one by one. With magic being highly ineffective against dragons, they were forced to retreat and incurred huge losses as well.

Like the fwans, they are highly valued slaves. They posses high flexibility and adaptability, very human-like features despite the strange tint of their skin and usually exhibit bravery beyond the reasonable. It is encouraged to not teach magic to a vaelian slave but even without it, they make highly prized scouts, hunters and spies. They have similar physical abilities to humans, they do not share the weakness of bones, muscles and balance the wing tribe has and enjoy an often longer life than humans.

Vaelians are hard to find outside of their country and only a few slave of their race ever appear in the empire. Their kingdom is situated south east of the empire where the mountains die under the sand wastes. Outside from flying there, it is a place almost impossible to reach for a landlocked traveler and few humans are welcome there.

Vaelians are often very arrogant, thinking their race to be superior in every way to the others and often try to prove it in wars and art alike. They like to steal resources from others as their due, make works of art out of the precious materials and go back to human civilization to sell it back at a high price.

Despite their quirky and often infuriating habits, everyone would agree that the vaelians are at least more trustworthy than the laomillians.

-- Common Steelwood Bestiary entry on the vaelians.