When the first bits of light began appearing on the horizon, Villin was about to arrive at the meeting point. He slowed down and got off of Fang, walking in front of the beast. He was worried Fang would get attacked as soon as Ruby and the other runemaster saw him, he decided to stop this by standing in front of the beast, this way they would see him first and even if they didn’t he could cast a defensive spell.

This soon proved to be rather useless though, a bit after he dismounted from Fang, he arrived at the location they agreed to meet at, it was a large clearing near the corner of the tile.

Villin noticed three figures in the clearing. Closest to him was a boy around eighteen years of age, he had his wand out but lowered it when he saw Villin, then his gaze landed on Fang. He scowled before turning around and walking to the other figures.

Villin noticed Ruby sitting there, she seemed to be feeding a beast that sat next to her, it resembled a tiger but it was as tall as Fang and fir occasionally came out of the beast’s nose as it breathed.

When Fang noticed the beast he growled immediately, as for the tiger who had been eating relaxed, it immediately jumped up and hissed at Fang, similar to how a housecat would.

As things seemed like they could get out of hand, Villin put a hand on Fang’s fur, “Here here boy, it’s just a kitty.”

In response Fang licked Villin’s face before sitting down, keeping a close eye on the tiger.

After seeing that Ruby had tended to that beast and it had also calmed down, Villin approached, “Impressive, what’s she called?” Villin asked as he looked at the beast that seemed to be about as strong as Fang.

Ruby looked at the tiger as she replied, “Her name’s Ember. In all honesty I thought I was one of the only ones here with a mount and the only one of the new arrivals for sure.” she said looking at Villin slightly impressed.

In response, he simply nodded, “Same here. I found Fang on the first day I arrived, and well, he still seems to like me pretty well.”

Just as Ruby was about to respond, an annoyed voice spoke up, “Oh, yes please, let us all talk about our magical little mounts instead of going out to do our damn mission ay? I didn’t come here to see you all go on a date or whatever, let’s move it.”

The man who said this looked at them both with an extremely annoyed expression, it was the third runemaster who Villin didn’t know.

Ruby’s gaze turned colder as she looked at him, “We should at least introduce ourselves, no? And don’t act so superior, both of us have been a runemaster for longer than you have.”

The boy scoffed at her, “Whatever, I’m Cornelius, let’s move it before they retract the damn mission.”

Ruby rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything, after all, without Cornelius they wouldn’t meet the mission requirements.

“I spotted the mission over at B14, let’s get there quickly,” she said as she got on Ember.

Villin also called over Fang and mounted him, leaving only Cornelius on the ground.

Ruby sighed, “Get on Ember, we don’t want to waste too much time traveling. Annoyed and embarrassed, Cornelius silently got on Ember’s back, sitting just behind Ruby.

And just like that, they were on their way.

On their way, they had to fight a myriad of times but the trio didn’t get into any trouble and the fights were always finished quickly. Cornelius in particular finished most battles quickly. Villin had to admit that he seemed quite strong at first sight.

And so, after a day of riding, they arrived at B14. Since they were here, they all decided to sleep for a while and five hours later, they were good to go.

Arriving at the board and teleportation array, they noticed that the mission coming from Atlantis requesting three runemasters was still there, Ruby and Villin both walked to their respective mounts telling them not to fight each other before they stood on the teleportation array.

Ruby took the initiative to activate the array using the frequency the mission gave and also supplied it with the required power, then, the three of them disappeared.

When they arrived at the destination none of the three runemasters felt too dizzy, they had all gotten used to using teleportation arrays at this point.

Looking around, Villin noticed they were in a large circular room with pillars along the outer edge. There were a few really well-made engravings in the walls depicting the tales of various heroes.

They were standing in the middle of the room, atop of a teleportation array. It was clear that this array was the ‘main attraction’ of the room they were in. In front of them was a large door that had artistic engravings on them.

Overall the pillars and door reminded Villin of a mix between the Corinthian and Composite styles, he rather liked it.

Seeing as how the door was closed, Cornelius was the first to make himself comfortable, finding a place to sit, “Tch, we’ll probably have to wait for a while since they didn’t know when we’d come.”

Ruby seemed to agree as she began walking towards one of the stories engraved in the walls, trying to get a better idea of this place’s history.

Villin, on the other hand, leaned against the wall and focused on the ground beneath him. Magic power spread out from his feet and a magical tunnel was being made underground, this may allow Villin to sense what was going on outside of the room.

As for simply opening the massive door, that would be beyond disrespectful and whoever did that would most likely be kicked out.

Yet, before Villin had the time to properly create a transfiguration net in the ground underneath him, the massive doors opened, getting everyone’s attention.

The three quickly grouped up at the teleportation array, no matter what first impressions were important, if the person that commissioned them noticed they didn’t get along very well they may just send them back, nobody was willing to risk that.

By the time they grouped up, the door had opened fully revealing the people on the other side.

In the center stood two men, they both had armor on in a golden color. The armor was very round all over and didn’t have a single edge on it. Their skin was somewhat blue and Villin spotted gills on their necks. It seemed that they had some fishmen genes inside of them. Since they were both bald they would look rather similar if it wasn’t for the different designs of the armor or the fact that one of them had pointed ears and the other one didn’t.

It would seem that these people had some fishmen genes within them.

But they weren’t the main threat. On either side of them were large groups of soldiers, dozens of blue tridents were pointed towards the three runemasters. Each of these was held by a soldier with shining silver armor, similar to the duo in the center their armor was extremely artistic and rounded, with no edge to be seen. Looking underneath their helmets, Villin spotted some pale skin, it would seem that these people were fully human, or didn’t have as many fishmen genes as the two in the center, at least.

The man with the pointed ears squinted his eyes before taking a couple of steps towards the runemasters, “And who may you three be?” he asked in an odd accent.

Ruby was the first to respond, “We are the three runemasters you have requested for, we come from The Academy.”

A look of understanding flashed on the man’s face before he spoke again, “I see. In that case, you all have come at an opportune time.”

He waved his wand and at the same time, all the soldiers pointed their tridents upwards before turning around and going back to their original positions all around the city.

The man with the rounded ears quickly walked up to the other leader and said something in his ear before leaving as well.

After he gathered himself, the man with the pointed ears spoke out, “You will find that much needs to be done in a short while. If you walk around the city you will find much that needs repairing, be it the armor of many of the soldiers or defensive devices bolted to the ground.

“I expect you all to work hard, we will need all that we will get in the following month.” He paused for a moment as he looked at the three runemasters, he seemed to be able of looking straight through them and noticed there was some division in between them.

“In order to motivate you, I will give a special reward to the highest contributor. If you contribute the highest I will give you a private lesson teaching you one of Atlantis’ unique techniques.

“And, as promised, every one of you will be given some of our basic techniques once you finish your tasks. I suggest you all work hard. Please remember that you are the second group to enter Atlantis in the last hundred years, behave yourself so our people don’t find a reason to say that I was wrong inviting outsiders.”