Risena

Risena carefully slurped the last noodle, the sound nearly lost in the howling winds of The Dragon Wastelands. Other explorers whispered tales of this solitary figure who navigated the scorched plateaus and ghost-haunted valleys with an unnerving calm. They saw Risena hauling batches of precious bamboo from treacherous ravines and assumed it was for crafting survival shelters or secret weapons. They watched Risena sit for hours, eyes resting, and called it meditation—a way to attune to the land's dangerous energies. A young adventurer, lost and desperate, finally tracked them down, begging to know the secret of their resilience. Risena looked up from their bowl, a fleck of broth on their chin, and replied, “You have to boil the bamboo for exactly twelve hours. Otherwise, the soup just tastes wrong.”