Our story begins a little while ago. But I'm saying this right now:

I swear it was an accident.

I mean, how was I supposed to know the Great Barrier would fry up our ships navigational systems? How was I supposed to know we'd also end up being chased by Russplucian rebels, chasing us through most of Magii-Mar until, thankfully, we reached Chienian air-space and eventually, rather unfortunately, emergency landed into the apothecary shop of a very unlucky young Tarkheenian man?

Honestly. You can't blame me or the rest my crew.

My name is Soran Lundi, and I am the leader of the Journal Keepers.

And this log officially begins the fifth cycle of Journal 906 of the Journal Keepers of Chien.

Our purpose was, originally, to simply record the world as it is in our time era. But that was at least 910 years ago. Now, in our modern times, our purpose is to travel around the world, helping people in need.

We also mostly receive missions from his highness, King Arturious Le'Frae, ruler and protector of the island nation of Chien. But it's, of course, a lot of work to be the sole ruler of such a big country (okay, it's not thatbig, but it's decent.), so that's why he has us.

But why have a team of teenage adventurers manage such complicated and dangerous tasks, I shall never know. But hey, we're here already, so why not?

Our latest mission was probably one of the biggest we've gotten in a while. Our mission was to investigate the Great Barrier, the weird energy field that separates our little slice of the planet from the rest of Magii-Mar.

But we kind of… messed up… and disobeyed orders.

The point is, we tried to directly cross it, and by we I mean my first officer Mina Ryder, second officer Naomi Verdana, ensigns Alecciano Lundi (my adoptive brother) and Anira Ryder (the Magii-Marian half of Earth Mina's sister), and myself.

It turns out that the Barrier messed with our air-ships navigational systems, forcing us to manually fly it. This wouldn't have been so bad if we suddenly hadn't been attacked by two smaller ships from the Tarbaular, a rebel force in Russplucia that's trying to bring down the already crumbling republic and replace it with a monarchy again.

I believe that the only reason that they attacked us was due to our having Chienian registration marks on our ship, otherwise we could have just flown back safely to Chien.

But no.

We had to fight them over most of the Russplucian continent, energy beams shooting from them to us and from us to them. One of their beams hit one of our engines, and one of the wires that connected to the solar collectors. So we had a failing engine and we were losing power.

Very fast.

So we kept flying until we finally left Russplucian air-space, but they insisted on following us. Across the Indamar Sea.

They ran out of solarium for their light-guns, so they couldn't shoot beams at us anymore. But they kept getting closer and closer, they being faster because they were smaller ships. Thank the gods we arrived to Chien in time, the graceful spires and domes of the capitol gleaming bronze and gold in the twilight sun.

They probably stopped chasing us because they knew that if they'd entered Chien, they would've been shot down by the Sky Navy.

Which they were.

But even with the Tarbaulars off our backs, we were still running out of solarium (just so you know, solarium is a condensed form of solar energy created by mechanical and magical means. We coat a special paint on the air-ship that serves as one large solar panel, which then runs through some wires, into the engineering section, and is converted into solarium).

Finally, we saw the harbor. We tried to reach the Aerodrome to properly land, but we didn't have enough power… so we began to slow down.

And fall. At a very alarming rate.

We later learned that they had shoot light beams into our envelope, so now were losing our chiantium (the lifting gas. Considerably lighter than hydrogen.)

Mina needed to land the ship in a relatively empty area, and we spotted a nice, wide street. We thought we'd land on the street, but the ship kept going forward after touching down… subsequently crashing into Jarken's store.

The Kaisa's hull was ravaged, the bay windows shattered. The control consoles were badly damaged. The front portion of the envelope had been torn off, and the alumiros frame was bent out of shape.

There was, as expected, a large ruckus. Thank Anzo no one got hurt, and we even invited Jarken, the very unlucky apothecary, to live with us at our base while they fixed his shop.

Then the king called us to the Governmentarium.

I went with Mina into his private audience room, and he told us that he had a deal for us.

Let me tell you that he was not a very happy person at the time. He's usually a kind and father–like king... but he talked to us like a dad. Pissed-off and passionately disappointed. He said that we could either continue the Barrier Mission, which we couldn't, due to our lack of an air-ship, or we could do this mission over in Hanoma.

Apparently, there were some outbreaks of anti-magical sentiments in the Eastern Coast, so we were assigned to go investigate on it. If we did take the mission, he'd get the royal mechanics to work on our ship and repair it, allowing us to fly off in the distance and regain our honor. We accepted. Not like we really had a choice, but hey, the guy was like a dad to us.

And that's how we ended up here, on the Trans-Continental Train. We researched our mission over the next few months after our audience: examining profiles on people we were likely to meet, maps of Hanoma, and the common slang, among other things.

I had to leave Alecciano and Anira at a boarding school because this mission was too dangerous for the young ones, and I wouldn't be able forgive myself if something happened to them.

We all got a nice compartment together: Naomi, Mina, and Zaira… and Jarken.

Zaira, from what I gathered from the past few weeks, is a very well educated young Fox girl. She told me she's a Tarkheenian native, but trained at Telia for a few years. She did seem rather reluctant at discussing her years in Telia.

The only thing that confuses me about her is why she's with us. I had caught wind about prince Sorkea being assigned his official Royal Bodyguard, but I was shocked when I was told that Zaira was in fact the new bodyguard. She mentioned something about him not liking the idea of a bodyguard, so the king assigned her to us for a little while.

There's something about Zaira… she seems so familiar. I feel like I've met her before. Not recently, but long ago.

And then there's… Jarken.

Short. Pale blonde. His skin so… pale. You wouldn't expect it from a Tarkheenian boy.

He had told me that though he was a native of Tarkeen, his family had escaped Naarkenan a few decades ago because of the rising threat of a Russplucian invasion.

So they packed up, hired a ship (a sea one, if you're curious) and set off for Tarkheen. Jarken told me they had made quite a good living for themselves there, something about the textile trade and banking.

He himself, though, went to Masrara-Bo University, and was the youngest student there at 15, having graduated recently after 4 years of apothecary training. Had it not been for his extensive training, I wouldn't have let him come.

I understand we are in his debt, but I'd never anyone who could be detrimental to the success of our mission just tag along. Though I do think it would have been cruel to leave him at base with Stroga (our house-keeper. It's avery long story, though I will say she's a witch whose bound to serve us).

Well, always didneed a medic in our crew.

Oh, the conductor just told us over the comm that we still have a few hours to go. She said that she couldn't take us directly to Hanoma Station because of the radicals, due to the train working partly on magic; they'd probably storm the train.

So we have to walk to the gates. Apparently, the uprising is causing all sorts of mechanical problems too. The reports that Doktor gave me said the Hanomian infrastructure was failing because people broke into the generator houses and broke the summoning circles etched into the mechanisms, causing the machinery to malfunction. Luckily they also used water power, but a lot of the districts are powerless now. Though I think Nadine's house is in a still active urban district, so that's good.

I had been to Hanoma, many years ago, before Mina had even slipped through a Storm from Earth into Magii-Mar. I was sent to Hanoma to train with Master Gashorino, who's the best at Space style magic.

You see, to be honest, I'm not completely… human. I know I had already explained all of this in the first journal cycle, but it doesn't hurt to reiterate.

I share my body with a sliver of Anzo's soul, who is the god of Day and the Inner Light. He cast off a piece of his soul so if his celestial body was destroyed, he'd still live on through a human vessel.

My parents knew I was the reincarnation of the Inner Light when I had been in my crib and they found me chewing on Samara, the holy sword of Anzo. Ever since then, my life was, and is, training.

Constant training.

Having mastered Wand magic and Summoning magic at the tender age of eleven, I had yet to master Space magic (which is basically magic activated through complicated hand and body movements.)

So I was sent to study it with Master Gashorino, and after I had mastered it I simply returned to Chien (the capitol is also called Chien, just so you know.) and went on to have many adventures. I met Mina almost immediately after I had come back to Chien, and shortly after our first mission we met (or were attacked) by Naomi while we were walking to Kheir Paurara (the town that surrounds the Le'Frae castle, a few miles out north the capitol.)

And so we're on this new adventure. I wonder how Hanoma will be like now in the present. What happened to my teacher? What'll happen to us?

Logged in by Soran Lundi, 12.00 AM, 8.10.968