Nine Points

With portal magic still clinging to your mind and body, you look around to see where this latest one has dropped you. The area seems to be a meadow of some sort; trees and soft rolling grasses abound, as well as birds in the trees. A warm breeze blows through the area, carrying a hint of flowers, and it makes it hard to imagine this place ever being in winter.

Wait... have you been here before?.... it's hard to tell.

Anyway, the immediate area is a large circle of neatly cropped grass, in its center a wide flat stone, coming up to about waist-height, and eight paths spiralling out from its center. You are about to walk up to this stone when a small creature flits up into your face.

"Well, hello there, traveler!"

This bright little creature is about the size of a ferret or a weasel, dark brown with creamier tan along her neck and underside, and appaloosa-patterned on her back beginning where her metallic dragonfly wings meet her shoulders. She has a short, unkempt mane, all colours of the rainbow, the same as the small tuft at the tip of her long tail, and while her hindfeet are pawed her forefeet have tiny, needle-sharp claws.
"Fresh from the portal, eh?" she grins, hovering midair in front of you. "Where're you from?"
You blurt out your name, surprised that such a creature like this exists, much less is intelligent. The little creature tilts her head.
"Haven't had a traveler from that realm in a while," says she. "I'm Nakhi, and I'm in charge of greeting and re-orienting travelers as they come my way. The tourists usually come into Tárakyna by Sandshores... I take it you're a true rurouni, else you wouldn't be here."

"Tárakyna?" you ask, dumbfounded.
"Yup! That's the name of this here realm, if you didn't know." Nakhi grins and flicks her lop ears. "Specifically, you're at Nine Points, smack in the center of the realm. To the east is Talon's Roost, the home of Talon the Black. To the west is Roamer Grasslands, Lucrecia's Forest and the Dark; beyond that, the ruins of North Point. To the southeast is civilization; one of only two human cities, the larger and the original settlement, Sandshores. South is the majority of the Meadows, then shoreline and the ocean; southwest is the Shark Islands and Underwave. North is the Chakaani Mountains, which run almost the length of Tárakyna, and past them is the Kashkabald Desert, which fades into the Ihoku-Kouya Plains. Dominion is up there, though... if you make it that far north, you be careful."
With that, Nakhi flits over to the stone and sits in the center of it.
"You can get to just about anywhere in Tárakyna from here, if you walk long enough and find the right people - or creatures - to help you. But if you want to start over, if you're close enough the magic here at Nine Points can portal you back. It might mess up your memory of the last time you were here, but it'll work. Wyldmagic is strange like that."

"So pick your path, traveler - the sun is high and the wind favourable, no better time for a journey!"

Due to the chaos caused by the Great Shifting, the paths have changed and the creatures in disarray; only the East and West Paths are open for exploration at this time.

Name	Nakhi
Gender	Female
Type	Whorling (Ultimate Fusion)
'Parent' Whorlings	Lye'Sandre & Nikai
Origin	The Everrealm

Tárakyna (C) me, Jessica Dragontamer. Compass rose (C) Lessa Lynn. Critters (C) their respective creators. Background courtesy of ABTA.