“You could always learn something from your predecessors, be it the mistakes they made, the great things they had done, or the way they lived through life. Those who refused to learn from the past only set themselves up for a repeat of it.” - Edena Ollsjaer, Historian from Flokisvet.

Cal spent the majority of the night talking with the three older Champions, as she listened to their respective life stories and the choices they made before they became Champions. Since everybody had already made merry and brought out their own booze, she joined in and took out a barrel of Orloff’s handcrafted brew, which she shared amongst the crowd to appreciative accolades.

From the conversations, she learned that Thelos had always been a wanderer and a nomad. His tribe was one that had long integrated into the Elmaiya Empire, yet he was struck by wanderlust since young, and had spent most of his mortal life walking the world, visiting nearly every nook and cranny to see things with his own two eyes.

He became a Champion roughly three and a half centuries ago, already near the end of his mortal lifespan at the time, as he had caught the eye of the erstwhile Champion of Earth during a fluke encounter. Thelos had wandered the world mostly as an observer, and he rarely raised his hands in violence, except for defending himself.

At the time, he had arrived at a village that bordered the great forests of the Elmaiya Empire just as a beast stampede happened, and was caught up in the mess. Already a natural prodigy as a mage despite his lack of formal studies, Thelos had created an earthen wall that halted the stampede in its track, long enough for help to arrive and disperse the threat.

The then-Champion of Earth, also an Elmaiyan native, noticed his talent, and had walked the world with him for the latter half of Thelos’ life, while he taught the younger mage all his knowledge. Like most earth mages, other than the usual manipulation of earth itself, they usually specialize themselves into a particular shape of the earth, with which they showed greater skill and ability.

Where his teacher and predecessor was a mage who focused on stone, Thelos mastered a duality of two starkly contrasting shapes of the earth, in the form of soft, brittle talc and hard, unyielding diamond. His ability to manipulate the two very different forms earned him the nickname of the “Sandstorm of Death” during his wandering years.

The nickname came from his favored method when he was forced to fight, which was to use powdered talc to blind and suffocate his enemies, whirling around violently like a sandstorm, while shards of diamond tore his enemies apart under its cover. It was only when he neared the end of his mortal life that his mentor offered him the spot as Champion, which Thelos had assumed.

As for Dalorian and Rosalind, they were older than many of the current champions, not in seniority as Champions, as they both only became Champions around two centuries ago or so, but in actual age. Both of them were half-elves despite their strong therian blood, and had lived a good four centuries before they became Champions themselves.

Natives of Greenmeadow Isle, they hailed from a small mixed clan that used to live deeper in the forest, a clan which considered themselves the Guardians of the Forest. Their clan did what it took to preserve the forest, and often discouraged forays deep into the forest by others. They also often served as intermediaries between Kyara’s tribe, which had exiled themselves deep in the uninhabited western region of the Isle, and the outside world.

While nowadays the tribe had left the deeper forest in favor for a more normal life in the peripheries - or even migrated to other islands - Dalorian and Rosalind had remained in the forest, staunch holders of their stalwart traditions. Over the centuries they lived, they had practically become the Guardians from legend, double so with the help of their pets.

As both of the couple were talented druids, they had always been able to communicate somewhat with wild animals. The Three-headed Hydrake that they rode on was one they had accidentally discovered, in a nest of dead hydrakes and broken eggs, the sole survivor of whatever attack had killed its parents and unborn siblings.

The couple had taken the one intact egg that remained and cared for it until it hatched. In many ways, they considered the Hydrake almost like a child of their own - something they were never able to have for themselves - while the beast also imprinted on them as its parents.

With its help, they had guarded the forest from outside intrusions, whether it be man made ones or otherwise. Cal learned that the Cor D’amo she had run into was the last of a pit of such beasts that had unexpectedly flown into the isle from the west just a month or so ago.

They were foreign invaders to the ecosystem, and given their prodigious appetites would have likely driven many creatures to extinction if left alone, which forced the couple’s hands. They had hunted down the beasts to the last over the past couple of weeks. Cal had met that last one by chance only because it had escaped while the couple had taken down a larger pit of the serpents.

Despite how their pet had handled the last serpent on its own, neither of the druid couple were to be taken lightly. Both of them had the power to be considered archdruids. Rosalind’s control over nature was such that to conjure and manipulate thorny vines strong and large enough to restrain and constrict the serpents to death was well within her ability.

As for her husband Dalorian, he was a shapeshifter of great power, with the form he was most fond of being that of a massive, antlered dire wolf easily as large as their Hydrake pet. With the couple at their home ground, and intimately familiar with the forest as a whole, Cal could see how they would have made short work of the serpent like the one that gave her group trouble.

After all, they were far better suited for such a job.