Epik

Uh-oh, looks like this lonely mirror wandered a little too far from his home lair (lunusdragoness, 17407), and now he's off to see the world! If ever you feel the need to exalt, he'd really appreciate it if you could just return him to the home lair, or to the 'Dragons Off To See The World' thread, here. This is not necessary, but he would be very grateful!

He is impatient to be with his mate again, so he wants to go try to be with her and guide her back to the clan. If he's not lost himself by that point, anyway.

Unfortunately he reached the Light Clan just as his mate had departed for another, so he set off to do his best to track her path.

Lairs I've visited:
Lunusdragoness
Zikul
Upshur
Twistedstripe
EmeraldJubilee
inuraichi
LostDreamer
LizardTheGremlin
AmethystSeaWing
PaperDragons
grxndsxn

---

Epik was traveling through the Sunbeam Ruins, hoping that for whatever reason his dear mate had happened to travel back to Light territory when a green Skydancer landed beside him.
"Hello!" she cheerfully greeted, "I can't say I've met you before, would you happen to be a traveler?"

Epik was surprised, both at how quickly she guessed, and how she just dropped beside him.
"...Y-yes, I am. I'm searching for my mate, SolarFlare. She's one of the most beautiful Mirrors you've ever seen..." Epik trailed off, his mind swirling with the thought of how long it had been since he'd seen her. He shook his head quickly, trying to shake those thoughts away. He needed to find her, he had no time to be sad. "Have you seen her?"

"Oh...no, I haven't. There's only one Mirror in our clan and she's not her, trust me." The Skydancer walked beside Epik, brushing him with her wing to signal for him to walk as well. "We don't get many travelers since Queen Ancilla took over, which is probably a good thing." The Skydancer's tione held a note of a growl. "Anyhow, I'm Aiko. I hate to tell you this, but my clan probably isn't one you'd want to seek refuge at."

At that statement, Epik began to walk with Aiko. If one of the dragons living there couldn't even say it was a good place to stay, Epik didn't want to be there, and he didn't want SolarFlare to be there either.

"I'll get one of my friends to watch out for your mate, though, just in case. Here's a map to mark all the places you've been, and places you've heard she's been." Aiko pulled a tattered map of Sornieth out from a tube strapped to her side. She pointed her claw at the Sunbeam Ruins' coast. "Here's my clan, Aurectri. Mark it off when you get to another clan. There's a friendly clan not too far away from here, right over there," Aiko moved her talon to the center of the Sunbeam Ruins, near the Mirrorlight Promenade. "If you can make it there by nightfall, they'll give you refuge until you're ready to go again," Aiko explained.

Epik examined the map. He'd hoped to find refuge with a nearby clan for the night. "Thank you, Aiko." Epik looked up at the Skydancer, who seemed to be studying him. "...Aiko?"

Aiko shook her head softly. "You're a gen one, aren't you? You can't let my clan know about that. My Queen has an obsession with gen one dragons, being one herself and all. I'm going to teach you some fighting moves, and if anyone asks you, you just have some unlucky genes, alright? At least, that's your story until you're not here anymore." She explained

Shocked into agreement, Epik allowed Aiko to teach him to fight before continuing to where she had advised, his muscles burning and his mind cloudy.

---

Epik was kicked out of the Clan he was staying at because another dragon was coming in and there was no space to keep him. He desperately wanted to meet the new arrival, but in the end had no choice. Later, he learned that the dragon had been once again, against all the odds, Solarflare.

He was starting to seriously regret his travels. If he hadn't gone, Solarflare wouldn't have either, and they'd be happily together at that moment, rather than learning over and over that they'd just been a little too late.

He lingered at the Clan Lupa for quite a while, as he was quite discouraged and unhappy, before finally moving on.

When he got home he realized that his mate had not come back and the lair was now full.

---

Epik traveled to the Plaguebringer's domain, desperately clinging onto the last shred of hope that he would find Solarflare there. He came across a clan that had carved their lair within the Rotrock Rim, and was greeted by the entrance by the clan's leader.

"Greetings traveler," the mirror spoke as he approached, "I am NightProwler, the clan's leader. You look weary. Come with me." Epik complied as he followed NightProwler past the guards at the entrance of the lair and down a tunnel just big enough for a full-grown Imperial to crawl through. "Tell me traveler, what brings you to the Scarred Wasteland?" NightProwler inquired. Epik proceeded to tell him about his seemingly never-ending search for his long-lost lover. He showed him a map of all the places he had been to, which was now tearing at the seams and covered in various ink smudges. "I...see. Well, I'm afraid you won't find any other female mirrors here, except maybe one..."

"Who?" Epik asked.

"Erm...nevermind. Anyways, I've personally never seen or heard of Solarflare around here, but theres a chance that someone else within my clan has heard of her. You're more than welcome to ask around! Although, do bear in mind that some folks here aren't particularly keen on speaking to travelers." Epik tried to speak with other dragons gathered in the lair's main corridor, and found that most within the clan were not very willing to speak to him, let alone talk about where they've been. Out of the few dragons who talked, none recalled ever seeing Solarflare. His wavering hope had finally collapsed. He would never see his beloved mate again. Ever. All these years he had spent travelling had been in vain.

Broken-hearted, he would spend the next few days grieving for his lost love. A few dragons attempted to console him, but their efforts were of no use. They were simply much too young to understand. One dragon, perhaps out of pity, suggested that he change his appearance so that he could find a mate with one of the single females looking for love within the clan. When Epik asked what they meant, they took him in front of an enchanted mirror that showed what he would look like with fade primary, striation secondary, and capsule tertiary. When Epik asked how he could attain such an appearance, they told him that he would need to come up with the money himself in order to purchase the pricey scrolls. He had never considered himself a broke dragon, but all the treasure he had gathered over the years wouldn't be nearly enough to cover even a fraction of the costs. Epik asked how he could earn some treasure to cover the costs of such items and met Corrigan. He was a battle-hardened, Banescale warrior and served as chief party organizer for those who wished to battle. He explained to Epik that those who participated in battles would receive a higher allowance of treasure than those who did not. When Epik told Corrigan about his previous battle experience, his interest seemed to peak.

"Very well then, I shall assign you to a party and send you off to the Scorched Forest shortly. Also, don't tell the others, but I'm paying you a slightly higher allowance than your party mates due to your experience. Don't tell anyone else though." Epik promised Corrigan he wouldn't tell anybody else, and soon afterwards headed out to the Scorched Forest with his new party.

The Scorched Forest was certainly no joke. Enemies were tough, brutal, and fast; forcing them to quickly return to heal up after fighting only a few battles. Sometimes they would be forced to flee mid-battle by throwing a stone to distract the enemy while they fled without losing energy. After repeating this cycle many countless times, Corrigan called Epik into his study to tell him that he was being dismissed from the party.

"But why?" Epik cried out in protest.

"I'm sorry," Corrigan responded, "I have a long list of dragons on a waiting list for the Scorched Forest, and I'm trying to get everyone through there as quickly as possible. I'll put you on the waiting list for the Sandswept Delta, the next area, and you'll be one of the first to know when there's a spot available for you." Epik sighed and turned to walk out of the study. "Oh, before you leave, here's your payment as promised." Corrigan handed Epik a medium sized pouch. Epik thanked him and returned to his den to count his earnings. After adding his earning to his current savings, Epik groaned in disappointment. He still didn't have nearly enough to pay for what he needed. He had to come up with some other way to earn treasure.

He spent the next several days offering to run errands, do chores, or take on patrol duty on behalf of the dragon originally assigned with the task. Some would accept his offer, others wouldn't, but all those who were interested in the offer were excellent hagglers. They would try to whittle down their price as much as possible both before and after Epik completed a task on their behalf, resulting in a lot of arguing. Epik didn't consider himself to be a short-tempered dragon, but trying to get paid a fair amount after completing a task wore his patience very thin very quickly. It wasn't long before the clan's second in command asked Epik to leave due to the lair's lack of space. Epik happily obliged, packed his belongings and left shortly after, hoping that perhaps his luck would be better at the next clan he would visit.

---

After a great deal of traveling with the same result, Epik finally found a rumor about his love and headed for shadow.

The clan leader he met there was very caring and understanding, and offered him a room in their small inn. He was given comfortable quarters while he decided what his next move should be.

After a week of looking for more clues, the rumors had run dry and he fell into depression for a long time. The clan tried to cheer him up by helping him look at some different gene plans, and he finally found one he liked even better then his original.

Jaguar Primary Stripes Secondary Basic Tertiary

Not only was it less pricy then the first, but it looked better too. He decided that he'd better start actually saving up for this thing if he wanted it.

After thanking the clan for their hard work in helping him try to find his mate, he decided he'd like to try and leave again, but the clan wanted to help him once more. They decided they'd try to spread the word about his gene-less self, and try to raise enough money to get him some genes.

After several weeks of securing funds, the clan managed to raise enough for the two genes. Epik had been so grateful for the help that during his time there, he'd helped train some of the clan's dragons. Now that he was happy with his new look, he said a hearty thank you to his hosts and left the next day.