Lore/Story Scourge

Spooky everything is spooky

Chapter XX
The Peasant​

The bright morning sun glared through the tiny window beside Julie’s bed. Even though the sun was more dazzling than a hundred fires, Julie did not wake. What did wake her was a loud bang not even ten feet away, followed by a shout of “Even though that was some very impressive magic, your objective was to send a basic mana bolt!”


She sat up and looked over at the center of the room. There stood Jonas, holding a wand and looking quite flustered. Wedyf was standing a few feet away, and he seemed to be both irritated and pleased at the same time. Jonas turned and noticed that Julie had awoken. “Oh, hi, Julie!”


“What’s happening?” Julie asked sleepily.


“Wedyf agreed to teach me magic! He’s going to show me basic spells, like conjuring common objects and firing simplistic projectiles, and then he’s teaching me the advanced things, like inventing my own spells! I guess this means you’ll have to find Robin and go to Almuj by yourself, but this’ll only take like a week or two! Magic isn’t awfully difficult.” Jonas said all at once, briefly glancing at Wedyf at the last part.


She stood up. “Wait, you’re just abandoning me? It was you who dragged us all into this in the first place!”


“At least I’ll be stronger, and more of a use than casting a few unreliable spells!”


“But who knows what can happen while you’re busy having fun learning this! We’re talking serious stuff! We were attacked by pirates not even a day into this adventure! For all you know, we could both be dead by the time you finish your magic lessons!”


“If you’ve noticed, the best I’ve managed is unlocking a door! And I believe I have the full rights to make my own decisions, and I decide this!”


“Fine!” Julie yelled. “Just fine! I’ll go ahead and leave, and if me or Robin die by the time you leave this place, I hope you’ll feel guilty!” and with that, she stormed out the door after quickly gathering her belongings.


As she exited the small savanna town, the events of that morning dawned in the light of someone unblinded by anger, and nothing but regret remained. The walk through the dry plains was far more boring than some would think possible; two entire miles of nothing but sneaking through the tall grass and sniping any obstructive ocelots with a bow and arrow. It wasn’t until she has just gone over a hill when things got more interesting.


“Help! Someone help!” she heard quite faintly, and a second later she figured out that the sounds were originating from somewhere near a house that stood alone, maybe a hundred yards away. Julie ran through the grass as fast as she possibly could, while taking into account the keen sense of hearing the wild predators of the savanna had. When she had made it just several dozen feet away, the yells she had completely distinguished as a kid’s voice. What would a child be doing in the middle of nowhere? Julie emerged into the path where the kid was.


The kid, whoever he was, was standing beside a body that seemed only too familiar…. Julie felt a shock jolt its way around every nerve when she realized it was Robin who laying motionless on the ground. The kid finally noticed her. “Hey, miss! Help! We were going to Almuj when some guy wearing black robes appeared and made him eat a poisonous plant! I think he might be dead!”


“Wait- Who are you?”


“My name is Sam! I’m from Selchar! Then he came along and we went looking for his brother and sister! Do you know them?”


“Er- No, I don’t. Almuj can’t be more than a mile away. Let’s see if we can seek help there.”


And so they went. Even with two people carrying him, it was difficult to support Robin’s lifeless body across the savanna. Julie felt like just collapsing and never getting up again when a long sandstone wall became visible in the distance. Despite the sunny day, visibility was rather low. The wall was so close that with a decent shot she could have just sent an arrow over it. A descend came not too long before they made it to the wall, and when they did, the ground was quite level. Some combing of the wall ensued, walking a few feet by the great divider when Sam collapsed. Julie looked down at Sam and prepared to help him stand back up, but something distracted her.


A massive open gateway was just a few meters away. On the other side, even though at her angle she could not see anything, she identified a lot of people chattering from beyond the entrance. Almuj was right there. After some difficult work moving Robin along with them, Julie and Sam had entered. Dozens of small sandstone residences were packed tightly within the boundaries of the city. A marketplace was at the entrance, and was where a lot of the activity seemed to be. Way in the distance, the Almuj bank stood tall over the rest of the city. Julie remembered Jonas telling her about the mysterious Almuj Banker; someone he had read about in a book. Many passersby glanced at the strange trio as they slowly made their way past the marketplace and up the stairs to where the houses were. “Where are we even going?” Sam asked Julie.


“Wherever there’s help.” was all she said.


With no warning, a person concealed head to foot in shadowed cloak swiftly stepped from an alleyway. “You need help?”


The voice was a man’s voice, sounding both young and old, and also in between. “What? Who are you, even?” Julie asked, thoroughly doubtful that this person was trustworthy.


“To put it in these words, I am, say, a peasant skilled in many things. I see your friend has been poisoned. If you are to come into my house, I can give an evaluation. After all, I have practiced in the skill of medicine. If your friend is truly close to death, which I somehow believe not, then I should be able to treat that.”


There was perfect innocence in his voice, but still, she thought, if he was apparently so talented, wouldn’t be know how to act? The suspicion was too great, but what other option was there? “Okay.”


He immediately beckoned them to follow, and turned to the alleyway. It was very gloomy. Some drapery crossing over both sides of the backstreet blotted out the last few rays of sunlight. A very shabby wooden door was positioned at the very end. He entered, and so did Julie, Sam and the unconscious Robin.


If there was anything to say about this house, it was that she wouldn’t have guessed someone lived there. Everything was in such a bad state that the entire building looked like it could fall over if someone exhaled too hard. A table was against the right wall, and that was where the man strode to. “Lay him here. I’d rather you not ask thinking questions; I have well enough to deal with at the moment.”


She did as told and lay Robin’s body on the table. Surprisingly enough, the table was in excellent condition, and could have just been bought from a top-quality woodsmith. The man was instantly checking every one of Robin’s unconscious pulses, from heart to head to arm. Strangely, he jumped when he examined Robin’s face. “He’s alive and well, just in a minor coma. I should hope he’ll awake in a couple days.”


“Wha- how do you even know that?” Julie asked, stunned.


“I told you before, I’m experienced at many things. This is one of them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must get going. Au revoir, Julie.” and then walked out the door.

 

It's been half a month, BUT AT LEAST I STILL MANAGED TO MAKE A CHAPTER
Fun fact: This was going to be chapter 20, but I deleted it and rewrote it as chapter 21

Even though it was a tad challenging, it's just such a break to be bending logic for a while. Following canon is hard!
There's, what, nine that are/might be major characters now? But now we get to see what's happened to one of our three main characters after about three months (in real life) of uncertainty.

Chapter XXI
Within the Mind​

Robin’s first thoughts were something along the lines of, am I dead?


He certainly felt alive, but there was something missing. All he could sense was his mind, but he didn’t recognize any limbs, or indeed any body at all, at least one he could control. He could tell he had eyes of some form, but they felt unusually out of place, as though they were crudely drawn, like eyes painted by a first grader. All his surroundings were simply a plain of a gray so pure that it hurt looking at it.


Somehow, despite the laws of this strange place, he was able to pick up a hint of motion some yards behind him. He spun on the spot, though he still didn’t seem to have a head or body, or anything to move for that matter. It took a second for his vision to adjust to the color before him.


She was maybe five foot four, and wore a dress of such dazzling yellow that it was more shocking than the solid gray void everywhere else. She couldn’t have been older than seventeen. Everything about her seemed to shine against the background; she was more solid than anything he had seen so far in this place, and to compare, he felt like a bleak afterimage. “I see you’ve awoken,” she said, in an unusually calm, soft voice, almost dreamlike.


Robin recoiled. Who was she? “Who are you?” he asked, attempting to mask the fear in his voice.


He had not expected her to answer, but she did. “I am Macy, daughter of The Builder, the constructor of a dozen houses. I come from Rymek of the Southeastern Wynn. I was a scientist who died from an explosion while assisting The Master. I have since roamed the savanna in spirit, looking for someone like you.”


Someone like him? “Someone like me?” he asked in shock.


“Yes. I believe you possess a pair of oaken daggers?”


“Y-yes….” he replied.


“A novice assassin. The class that I had trained in for my entire life. You know how many assassins there are in Wynn?”


“Seven… eight hundred?” he guessed.


“This is why I don’t store much faith in humanity. One hundred and eighty five assassins existed when I died.”


“Er… how long ago did you die?”


“I died a thousand years ago, when I was seventeen years old. Over the entire span of my short life, the number of assassins to population ratio has dropped by nearly ten percent, with the dwindling number of assassins and the rapidly heightening total population of the Province. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why I’m concerned.”


“Yeah, whatever, that’s great. How did you even get here?” Robin asked, both bored and curious at the same time.


“I believe that’s another story for another time. Was there a reason you were going to Almuj?”


“I find that to not be your business. All I was doing was going there to meet up with my brother and sister so we could continue to search for-” he broke off, not willing to reveal what he was searching for.


“The Weapons?” she asked.


“What- are you invading my brain or something?”


“No, it’s just the hesitancy to answer, and the fact that you look to be very poor. Many have wasted looking for those things, you know. Greed is the driving force of all things bad in these lands. Now that I think of it, why aren’t you make something here, besides nothing?”


“I… how?”


“Just imagine a location as clearly as you can. I’ve been forced to do that for over a century to keep myself occupied.”


“Why can’t you create a landscape, then?”


“Because this is your subconscious, not mine.”


“Very well, then. I’ll try.”


He thought about it. What would be a good setting to create? The first image that came to his mind was Selchar. The instant the island city came to his head, something happened below him.


A mass of blue water started filling the vast plane about a hundred feet below. When the ocean settled, a rock started growing out of it like an enormous tree trunk. Then, one part stopped rising a little over the water as the rest kept going up. The rock was gradually sloping inward, and it stopped just a few meters under him. Then dirt started filling up the area on top of the rock like the water before it filling the empty void. It subsided right below Robin. Grass started growing on the soil, slowly inching upwards like a timelapse film. Suddenly, everything stopped moving. Robin took a breath, yet he still had no body or lungs to breathe with. Once more, things started happening.


A fountain materialized from thin air beside him, as trees inflated themselves and houses sprung up like a picture from a pop-up book. Boats constructed themselves down below from planks of wood that seemed to come from nowhere. Market tents fell from the sky, landing on the grass as soft as a feather. Last of all, the hourglass tower slowly rose from the ground as if it were being lifted from a hole by a platform. Its peak came first, then the giant hourglass, and finally the base. After all the rumbling and dizziness ended, Robin was standing in a perfect replica of the city of Selchar.


“That wasn’t so hard, was it? It definitely shakes you the first time around, but you get used to it.” she said.


Robin jumped, and that was when he realized that he had a human form again, not some floating presence. The grass felt soft at his shoes, and he felt a salty breeze on his face. After spending who knows how long without limbs or anything, it felt quite disorientating. He sat down at a bench nearby.


“Do you accept my offer?” Macy asked, apparently not at all fazed by all the events that had happened in the last few minutes.


“What offer?” Robin asked, having never remembered any offer being made.


“Well, then. I had thought that all my talking on the subject of assassins would have made you realize that I wanted to teach you the art of assassins due to the fact that there are so few left to even consider it an art anymore.”


“Um, I’ll accept, since it seems like nothing eventful will happen otherwise in this place.”


“I shall see you again when you are ready. If you care at all, I’ll just move in at that house down on the port. After all, nobody lives there, unless you create someone who does.” and she started walking away.


“Wait!” Robin yelled, “I want to ask you a question!”


She stopped and turned around. “What is it?”


“Why are you here, besides the whole you-don’t-want-assassins-to-die-out thing?”


“Like your question a while back, I will answer it when the time comes. For now, however, I would like to spend my time planning the future of everything that’s going on.”


“Why?” Robin asked once more.


“You were hesitant on your response about the Weapons, and I would rather be undecided on my chances of responding, too. Now, for the last time, I would like to be left alone.”

 

Yay, 500 views! I decided to, in honor of the event, use up the time I would normally spend playing, to work (gasp!) on a new chapter.
Chapter 22: The Revenge of the Plant-Metaphor Master.
Oh, and Wedyf, I'd lock the front door tonight. Just sayin'.

Chapter XXII
The Master​

The person leaned back in their chair. The room was dark, and made of wood. Broken furniture was crammed against the corners while a long table surrounded by chairs stood in the middle. One man, who showed the face of a young man when the candlelight flickered in his direction, sat opposite of the table from the figure. There was silence for minutes, as it had been for some time, and then the man spoke.


“Ma- Master, I have a concern,” he said, trembling at the first word yet not sounding entirely nervous.


The person looked a little bit up at the man, and he felt a shiver go down his spine as the concealed eyes of the hooded figure glared at him.


“You seem to have been quiet these last few hours. Everyone else has left, because you stopped talking,” he continued. Even with the eerie silence, there was absolutely no echo at all due to the amount of dust clogging the air and walls.


“I have been pondering, Gilroy. Why is it that I am so obsessed with three eighteen year olds that are searching for the weapons? Why am I sending someone to trail them, and why am I choosing to remain anonymous to them? What are the benefits and detriments of revealing myself at last? Alas, I do not have what I require to prove myself any significance to them, besides the ally or enemy as they would choose myself to be for them,” the person murmured, with no real definition of voice besides a hint of curiosity.


“Why not then find what you are looking for, and then come out of the shadows? After all, if people as young as them think they can find the most well-hidden objects in Wynn, then you should well cope with the task of obtaining, well, anything, especially someone as brilliant as you.”


“But I still find that sometimes I must wait, and the task is simply done for me,” the person spoke, “From the trail they’re following, those kids should stray right over the path I am searching for, and only then shall I run to the roads. After all, this is dangerous work I am doing, but the soils this route grows are far more fertile if cared for properly. And at that time I plant the seeds.”


“Would you please mind dropping the plant metaphors? It is difficult to work through the riddles and puzzles you place in your speech,” Gilroy said.


The person pulled out a knife and threw it at him, and it flashed inches from his face and dug into the wooden wall behind him with a dull thud. “Be glad I have good aim, or you’d have a dagger in your face right now.”


“Why did you do that?” he asked.


“Nobody questions my choices of vocabulary. I can pull the roots of your life right now, and all you’d have left is a helpless plant that cannot dig itself back into the dirt. Do you want to be that uprooted plant?”


“No, no, I wouldn’t, Master. I- I was just asking.”


“Just asking,” the person scoffed, “Last time someone said that, he tried to use that information against myself. I don’t make that mistake again.”


“I’m sorry!” he said, “But you tell so little about yourself that I did not know! You never reveal anything but what we have already told you! Why should I continue working for you?”


“Because,” a pause, “You would be running away with information that could ruin my entire plans. Removing the mark I have set upon you would be fatal to me. And trust me, if you do, I will hesitate not even one second in finding and killing you. Have I made myself clear enough, or should I start speaking in the vocabulary of a five year old so that you can understand?”


Gilroy responded, “Okay, okay! If it makes you happy,” the person coughed, “I can tell you that the shorter boy is staying at Bremminglar with the wizard, Wedyf, for a few days.”


“Wedyf! That pathetic old fool does not matter to me! I wish to stomp him out like an ant when I am given the chance. Thank you for that vital information, everything already seems to be going perfectly within the plan for me. As a reward, you get a block of emerald and another week to live. I must say, you have been doing quite well. Marshall only has two more days to make up for himself, or he and his news are going to be as flat as Wedyf, at least when I travel to Bremminglar! I have yet to do that, but when I do, that wizard is dead. Roasted, I tell you, for his attempts to find my plans! Just pass by some hours and that man is dead, I tell you, d-”


“Sorry to interrupt, Ma- Master,” Gilroy said, once again trembling on that word, “but you seem to be rambling.”


“Oh, look! I'm ranting! I may as well dismiss you. Have a good day, enjoy the remainder of your life, come back when I call or you won’t see the sun rise tomorrow, bye, bye.”


The person stood up with haste, opened the door and shoved Gilroy into the crowded High Street, and he just stood there, stunned, as the door slammed shut immediately after he passed through it.

 

This chapter has 1,148 words!
My life is so full of excitement that I find a word count intriguing.

Chapter XXIII
An Uninvited Guest​

“Ouch!” Jonas yelled, and jumped back.


Wedyf looked up at the roof, where Jonas’ wand flew upwards, hit the ceiling, and landed at Wedyf’s feet. “Remember this:” the wizard said as he threw the wand back to Jonas, “Always be prepared to block an enemy spell. If you have already forgotten how, let me teach you again! But remember that we do not have forever.”


“Okay! It’s just that I’ve been thinking.”


“About what?”


“It’s just- I feel like I rushed my decisions on everything. I was too blinded by the idea of you teaching me magic that I never gave one thought of how those few days might ruin this entire adventure. And this adventure! Why did I ever bother going on it? Where have I gone during this time! It’s been only a day or two, and I’m not even at Almuj! Maybe I should find Julie and Robin and we should head back home,” Jonas said.


“But you have already begun your quest! You have already pressed the button, and the effects are taking place as we speak. Your brother and sister are likely to have traveled a long ways by now! And there is- are- other people at work, all because you made one rash choice. I cannot deny that you made mistakes, but there is no turning back now. It is either forwards, or nowhere at all. Both will lead to an end, but the former would likely be less gruesome. Alas, it is not my path to take.”


“What do you mean,” Jonas asked, “by ‘other people?’”


“By ‘other people,’ I simply mean, other people. I do not know who or why, but I can say that whomever are moving about will likely attempt to stay one step ahead of you, for reasons I cannot explain, but I am confident it has something to do with the Weapons.”


Jonas felt a shiver go down his spine. For a moment, he stared out the dirty window of poorly fashioned glass into the late night, and then spoke after a deep breath. “I never wanted any of this!” he yelled, “I just wanted to not be poor as dirt! And this is what I get, people tailing me? I still am hesitant now to continue moving.”


“But you have to, now!” Wedyf said, getting more and more miffed with every word spoken, “For reasons I have told before! It matters not whether the sun is up or down, or the wind pleasant or bitter, or the power of those who trail you, you must proceed! Mind you. as I have said, you have already paved the path, and there is no unpaving it! Anyway,” his voice calmed down, “I sense that we have gone too far off the topic. Shall we resume the protection spells now?”


“Sure, I guess so.”


Wedyf stood sternly, like a teacher about to lecture a class. “To repeat my words from before, a protective spell allows the combatant to block a harmful attack, or to seize seconds so to prepare for a counter-attack. There are three types of defensive spells or tactics, such as disarming-” Jonas’ wand went flying into the air, “-blocking,” Jonas’ wand came flying towards Wedyf like a javelin, but was blocked by a clear blue shield that momentarily appeared from thin air, “and rending the opposer’s weapons,” a vase next to Jonas broke, split clean in two.


Wedyf began pacing around the room. “Naturally, disarming and blocking are the two easiest methods of buying time or defending yourself. Rending is an entirely new level of wizardry, and one that shan’t be taught from me. As is apparent, though, rending takes on the same idea of disarming: Preventing the opponent from using their weapon, even for a few seconds. Now, to disarm, you must first-”


The wizard suddenly grew tense, his old face turning quickly to the window. A shadow passed by hastily under the window, and was gone before one could blink. A moment later there was a knock on the door. “Quick!” Wedyf whispered, as quietly as humanly possible, “Hide! Under the bed, you should be able to squeeze under. You must not be seen!”


Jonas hesitated at the odd instructions, but moved as fast as he possibly could, picking up his wand off the floor and slinking to the bed Wedyf had referred to, and there was a small enough gap beneath it that he could just barely crawl under, so he did. The cramped space made it hard for him to breathe, as he was lying on his stomach and was barely able to move, because the gap was only about six inches tall. Nevertheless, he still could get under, and that was what mattered, for just when he was completely out of sight did the door open. “Hello, traveler, and welcome to my home!” Wedyf said, sounding as perfectly normal as one could be, “Why would one travel so late in the night?”


“I- I didn’t want to come about a village by night, but I had no choice, you see. I had been too far delayed in my walking, and when I had made a plan to set up a tent, ocelots of the savanna ambushed me, and I was forced to flee!” the voice was unusually high pitched, sounding too mixed in a combination of fear and excitement to be easily defined.


“I had seen a shadow pass under the window, and that points to the west. Ocelots come not from the west, as Pirate Bay lay there, and Nemract beyond! You have a suspicious story, my friend!”


“Well,” the voice seemed desperate for words to cling on to, sounding like a story was being made up on the spot, “I came from the east, and I have wonder as to why you doubt my story! I know of no shadow! I am from the east, I assure you! I- I’ll- I‘ll get you for this!”


With no warning, the sound of a knife clanging against its sheath echoed through the one-roomed house. Jonas could not see much from his hiding spot, but there were two pairs of feet moving around the room, bangs and clangs and other conflict noises rumbling around the house. “This is sure to wake Bremminglar….” Jonas murmured to himself as he compared the din to the silence minutes before.


“Out of my house, I say!” Wedyf yelled, and with a flash of light the other pair of feet were forced out the door, and it slammed shut. “Filthy miscreant!” he shouted, “Stay away from Bremminglar!”


Jonas crawled out from under the bed. “What was that all about?” he asked rather quietly.


Wedyf sighed. “You remember what I said about ‘other people?’”


Jonas nodded silently.


The wizard gazed in fear at the locked door, and spoke after a minutes’ silence. “That was one of them.”

 

Well, if anything, I have a lot to say about this chapter.
For one, this is the largest chapter I've written by far, being more than 3,000 words! Second place is chapter twelve with about 1,380.
Second, I almost died from all the writing. It took 2 days of torture to finish
I ended up making this a real drag, because I had to pass 2 days of time in just one chapter to make way for the major events planned back in Julie, Jonas and Robin's adventure, and now I can make it land right on chapter 25!
And the ending is just kinda freaky.

NOTE: This chapter doesn't have any major impact on the plotline (ok, maybe it might)

Chapter XXIV
Troms Academy​

A man with long, bright blue hair set his foot on the cobbled street of Troms. He observed the fort using his keen eyes. Houses lined the cliff faces that were on either side of the entrance, and later opened forward to create a great valley in which the city lay. The architecture of the ancient stone gate he had just passed through was of near-indestructible quality. Citizens, long-nosed villagers, roamed the street, which was bustling with activity. The castle could be seen just over the second wall of Troms, standing tall and proud, its roof almost peaking over the high mountains. He looked back down, and saw the dark robes he bore, and underneath he could feel the sheath of the long sword he had hidden. The people of Troms could not help but stare at the odd stranger; few with such unusual attire roamed the province of Wynn, especially the jungle regions. They were used to seeing travelers in hoods and cloaks and on horses, and rarely does one come and go through the lands without some form of head cover. This man lacked any protection but the robe that trailed to his feet and the plain black clothes he wore beneath. He walked forward.


To him, Troms was a beautiful sight; it was far different to the other places he had seen in all that he remembered. An opening in the ground split the road ahead of him in two, in which water from the sewers could be seen flowing in through one hole down there and out another, into places unseen. The strange man went left, up the stairs, and to the second wall of Troms. The second wall was wider than the first, to accompany the larger gap it had to close. Large towers lit on the top with massive fires were positioned across the battlement of the wall, and like the first one had a gate in which people could enter and exit as they pleased. The man, knowing his destination, continued to stroll past into the heart of Troms.


The plaza was larger and more populous than the entrance. To the left and right, houses stood beside the stone road, and forward lay a beautiful fountain, with water flowing gracefully and quietly through miniature channels to land in a central pool. Two kids were standing at the rim of the pool, and together threw in an emerald, their large eyed shining brightly and their faces radiating in the joy only found in those who did not know the sorrows of life. The man smiled in a faded manner as he watched the two children skip away, without a care in the world. He was not fortunate enough to ever be able to feel that sense of ignorant happiness.


From the fountain the roads split four ways. Forward lead up a long stairwell under the castle to enter from the back, back went to the entrance of Troms and then the jungle beyond, and to the left and right were various markets and homes, all standing proud, looking polished and wealthy. As he got to the fountain, he shot a glance at the depths of the shallow pool. Numerous small emeralds littered the bottom, all reflecting the morning sunlight just like the water they were resting in. He felt a twinge of regret, but then hid away all emotions, turned left and proceeded forward.


After a right turn, a left, and up a stair, he reached his destination. Three large buildings, made of jungle wood and stone like the rest of the houses and shops, stood alone in this elevated subdivision. Many men and women who mostly seemed to be in their late teens and twenties were wandering the place. Meanwhile, a man clad in royal outfit stood beside a soldier. “I’ve come to the right place,” the man with the blue hair said to himself.


In ten long strides he was face to face with the two advisors. “Is this the new training school the King created?” he said, yet he already knew that the answer was yes.


“Why, yes it is!” said the man clad in the attire of the King’s servants. “If you wish to enroll, you must fill out this form-” he pulled out a sheet of parchment from a bag slung over his shoulder and handed it to him “-and then come back when it is completed. If you would like to borrow a quill and ink, I can supply you with some.”


“I’d like some ink and a quill… please….” he seemed to be at a loss of words or hesitancy at the word ‘please.’


The royal servant handed him a shabby, ruffled feather and a tiny bottle of ink; the King was evidently trying to save as many emeralds as possible in the assembly of this school. He accepted the items and walked hastily to a nearby pile of crates, setting the parchment and ink bottle down on the rough wood surface. He looked at the form, and saw that the questions were not of his personal details, but rather a test of fighting knowledge. The only requirement of personal data was a name; he thought for a second, and scribbled down ‘Tollak,’ the name he was known by to his colleagues, but he hated himself. He answered the other questions with ease, being merely things like ‘Name three spells used by most wizards,’ and ‘Determine the damage of a spruce wood spear on the Daumantas Scale using the following data:’


In three minutes Tollak was through all the questions, and he laughed loudly to himself at the simplicity of the test. However, strangely enough as he thought, one or two did struggle with the form. As he arrogantly strode to the royal servant, people glanced at him and his odd appearance, and appeared jealous at the rapidity in which he answered all the questions, but hastily looked back at their own parchments and returned to the fray that was the exam.


Many hours passed with Tollak wandering about, making rude remarks at the less enlightened and receiving several warnings because of that. When the late afternoon sun began sinking below the mountain line, the soldier spoke. “Well, it seems that sundown is beginning, so we shall call off the forms, and begin to accept those who are, at the very least, amateurish in the skills of combat. Now, if you wish to, you may lodge within the chain of houses below this ledge for the night, and the nights ahead; there are bunks and rooms set for those who wish to use them.”


Most of the people who came to attempt to enroll trudged down the steps that were some way away from where Tollak stood, heading down to the plaza area; some people looked confident that they would succeed in the exam, and some were telling all nearby that they are sure they’re going to fail miserably and be shunned from the training. Tollak, instead of descending the stairs, made a great leap over the cliff wall and landed on the road below, making a small dent in the stone but inflicting no harm on himself. Several people from the crowd of potential cadets had broken from the main crowd to race ahead and be the first one to the lodging, but when Tollak landed feet in front of them, they stopped in their tracks, some tripping, all dazed at the sudden appearance before them. No one could believe that a man who jumped off a cliff face and landed without a scratch would be walking so casually to the lodging they were going to, seconds later, without any surprise or reaction to the fact that he just fell more than fifty feet.


As Tollak entered the chain of buildings, he was immediately greeted with the smell of cleanliness. Looking around, he inferred that the entire group of buildings had likely been cleared and cleaned in preparation for the guests. To the left was the entrance to the men’s dormitories, the women’s on the right side of the room. Tollak entered the men’s dorms.


It was clearly put together with moderate carelessness, but it was also obvious that someone had come by and polished the place up after. Bunks lined two walls, the remainders filled with shelves and windows and tables. The ceiling was fairly high; but short enough that there could only be two or three bunks stacked on top of each other for the recipients to fit comfortably. There were only enough beds that about twenty-five men would have to spend nights on the floor. As nobody else was quick enough to have reached the men’s dorms by that time, Tollak had the time to choose whichever bunk he wanted; a pleasure of being able as he was. As he examined all the bunks and their goods and bads, loud footsteps were heard from through the walls; people were beginning to arrive.


Even though he believed problems like choosing the perfect bunk would be trivial, he discovered that even menial tasks could prove so challenging. A fit of laughter burst through the wall as a group of people yelled loudly, and though their words were muffled, they were plainly mocking someone or something. Tollak sprung up several feet into the air and landed fluently on the top bunk of the corner bed. A second later, the door blew open, as if an explosion had knocked the door almost off its hinges. Four boys, all in their late teens, ran into the room, pushing each other and not caring about the fragility of the items in the dorm; even the bunks were of quality wood. They ran to the corner bunk where Tollak was, and they all fought over which two get to be in the lower two thirds of the corner bunk, and who would have to go somewhere else. As he heard the quarrel below, Tollak laughed. “Trivial matters…. Just human things.”


As soon as he said that, the boys stopped completely, and then looked up at him. “What’d you just say about us, you punk?”


The others sniggered. Tollak ignored them and responded. “I would revise the conjunction you paired between me and the noun ‘punk,’ you little brats. Scurry along, now.”


“Did you just try to smart-aleck us? I’ll have you know that I graduated-”


“Listen, kid. Want me to tell you a secret?”


The boy crossed his arm and sneered. “What is it?” he said, in the most mocking tone possible.


Tollak smiled lightheartedly, though in a slightly malicious way. “Nobody cares.”


“Hah! You’re only saying that as an insulting remark. Do you really want to fight? There’s nobody here but us, and you’re outnumbered four to one,” he sneered, seeming to think that he had won the fight already.


“If you really want to fight...” Tollak leapt down with great agility, landing behind the kid who was apparently the leader. He pulled his sword out from within his robes, and held it at the boy’s throat. “...then I won’t hesitate. I’ll let you live for now, along with your friends. But remember,” he smiled brightly, “if you laugh at me again, you might notice that a fingernail will disappear overnight… or a finger… maybe more….”


Tollak returned the sword to the sheath, and the boys all eased their breathing a little, except the taller ringleader, who didn’t stop hyperventilating for an hour. Only seconds passed after Tollak returned to the top bunk of the bed when the rest of the boys and men poured into their dormitory. All of them looked around, observing what may be the place they’d spend many nights in. Tollak saw that not one, but many stared at him for a minute, from his unusually long blue hair to his robe, all of which were an odd sight for them. But eventually, everyone found an unoccupied bunk. Though there were many disputes in the process, and some minor fights, everyone was settled. The soldier who seemed to be one of the two hosting the school of sorts walked in, and blew out the candles so to allow everyone to sleep.


Tollak woke earlier than anyone else; he was not one to spend too many hours dozing. He leapt down to the floor like a cat from the top of the corner bunk, and took time to observe who could be his classmates as he follows his self-set mission. The four boys from last night he could tell were having nightmares from the uneasiness in their tossing and turning, but what they were about he could not accurately determine. But, of course, he wouldn’t care at all, even if they were getting murdered in their sleep. He exited the room and the building.


Troms in very early morning looked stunning; the first rays of sunlight removed the mountaintops from shadow, as the horizon turned bright pink behind all the morning mist. The distant footsteps of early risers could be faintly heard behind the running of the fountain that was some fifty feet away, but still could be heard plainly in the silence otherwise. A soft, bitter cold breeze swept the Troms valley, and Tollak’s hair flowed along with it. He began to stroll the city and look at the impressive architecture when a horn blew back on the training grounds. Guessing what the call meant, he dashed down the street, narrowly avoiding those few who were roaming the paths this early. He flew up the staircase like a bolt of lightning, and skidded to a stop right in front of the weapon shop up there.


Gradually, with the sounding of the horn a few more times from the royal servant who stood nearby, all the enlistees streamed up to the grounds too, and there they would find out whether they were accepted or not. The four boys came first, running up the stair five minutes after the second horn call, then came a group of girls some minutes later and after there were few groups, but rather many individually climbing the stairs by themselves. The last few stragglers arrived just as the colorful rays of sunrise started to dissipate into a plain blue sky dotted with clouds. When everyone was settled down at one of the few tables or sitting on a crate, the royal servant spoke.


“Good morning, and good luck! As you all know, in mere minutes we will announce who has succeeded in the entry-level exam, and who has failed… badly. Now, if you are to all stand up and move to the unused market tents over to your left, we shall begin disqualifying the unlucky students!”


So everyone ran to a cluster of market tents cluttered with crates and boxes that were all shoved to the back. The shade felt cool after several minutes in the hot summer sun. “I am glad you obeyed the request without hesitation!” he said, but then his face immediately became somewhat grave, and his voice grew stern as he continued. “But now, we must proceed to the moment in which a few of you may have to go home, partially as the King does not want anyone getting injured by those who have no idea what in Wynn they are doing.”


Several people laughed. The spokesman attempted a smile, but it came weakly. He pulled a short scrap of parchment out of his pocket, but even though he tried concealing the text, Tollak caught a glimpse of the name ‘Fiera,’ but nothing more in the brief milliseconds that he was given. After a momentary silence, the man spoke again.


“The time has come to announce those four that completely failed the first exam. If your name is called, step forward, and you shall at least be rewarded five emeralds for your efforts. The first one to have to return home is…. Fiera. Sorry, miss.”


An eighteen year old girl bawled in rage, threw a sheet of crumpled parchment to the stone ground and ran off, without collecting the promised five emeralds. People started laughing, but quieted down after a minute. The royal man continued on to the second disqualification. “Sorry, Ryker, if you had just put a little more time into your form, you probably would have made it.”


This time, it was a man who looked to be in his early thirties. He took the five emeralds, pocketed them, and walked off, cursing under his breath. “Wow, this is harsh,” Tollak said quietly to himself.


“Third is the best this time, with Kleitos just barely falling below the line! But alas, it was not enough,” the man said. The boy who was apparently Kleitos was probably fourteen at most. He gladly accepted the emeralds and joked for a little bit about his slight miss. He strolled away, looking completely okay with not being in the school; a defeat the previous two did not wish to accept.


“And last, but not least, comes the final candidate to be dismissed. Say farewell to the fine man…. Give me a second to pronounce his name,” he said. “Tol- Toll-”


Tollak looks ever so slightly frightened. Did he actually fail? Did his ignorance overshadow his intelligence? He held his breath, and waited for the royal man to finish murmuring the pronunciation to himself. At last, he spoke loud enough for people to hear.


“Tolly! Sorry, but you must leave, now. I wish you luck!”


Tollak exhaled as a boy in his late teens claimed his substitution and left to the plaza of Troms. Everyone around him exhaled, too; they had not failed. All could progress into the class and at least learn a little about fighting. He smiled somewhat, strided to a crate and sat down, truly relaxing for the first time in all his memory.


The class was informed that their next lesson would start the following day, and everyone gradually scattered around Troms, conversing with citizens and checking out shops, occasionally with someone purchasing an item using emeralds they had brought all the way from wherever their homes were. As Tollak wandered the streets, he heard a man talking to a villager, who was carrying a chest full of scrolls into a shop on the northern path.


“...and I find the admission is odd,” the man said, “Why give students an exam to enter? Why not an emerald fee, or a practical exam instead of written? The King really must have rushed this school.”


“Ah, yes,” the villager said, “The King has always made strange decisions while he spends his time locked up within the castle. Us Troms folk have gotten used to it, but the travelers who visit always question our ways… we have adapted quite well to the frequent flow of criticizers! I will be quite disoriented the day the King steps off the throne; his unusual thinking has gotten us into a groove… you would probably think I’m insane saying this, but I’m not!... I think I’ll should finish carting these scrolls into my shop… demand has been quite high, lately. I must go, now, sir! Farewell, traveler!”


Tollak looked up at the Troms castle, standing tall over the city on its high ledge, upsetting the early evening sun by blocking the rest of the fort from the last rays of sunshine, and imagining a scruffy old king sitting at a throne, telling his servants to bring him a steak. He laughed at his own mental image of the King and turned to the scroll shop down the road, pulling out a bag. Its immediate contents were several miniature cubes of emeralds, and one bottle of bright liquefied emerald. Deeper down were a dozen scrolls, all bundled together. Checking the tags he had tied to each, he observed that only one read ‘Troms.’ He retied the bag and entered the store.


Like the rest of the city, the scroll store was neat and polished; tall, smooth wooden beams supported the building while a highly finished wall, floor and ceiling made everything piece together. Two carpets were on the floor, both mirroring the Troms symbol from either side of the room: A white pickaxe-like shape in a black background. The shopkeeper stood still behind a detailed wooden counter, gazing at his customer as if ready to spring to business the instant Tollak opened his mouth. He strolled to the counter and talked to the vendor.


“Hi! I want to buy two scrolls, if that makes you happy,” he said.


“Sure thing! It’ll cost you four blocks of emerald each, but you can look at the runes and be instantly transported to Troms! It’s magic! Of course, each scroll is a one-time use, so be sure to deploy them sparingly. If y-”


“Yes, yes, yes, I already know how to use them. Here-” he held out eight tiny cubes of condensed emeralds, “-are the emeralds. Now if you mind, I have to get going soon,” which was a lie.


“Of course! Give me a moment and I’ll have your scrolls ready to use!” and with that, he bent down and rummaged through what Tollak supposed were boxes full of magical scrolls. The merchant exchanged two of the scrolls for the eight emerald blocks, and, receiving many complements from the shopkeeper, Tollak exited the building. Glancing around for anyone who might be following him, he quickly ran down the north street to a back alley, hid behind a bush, and pulled a mirror fragment from his bag.


“I’ll have you repaired,” he said, turning the shard so that the light from a nearby gas lamp reflected off its shiny surface, “Some day soon… and when I do, Lord won’t be mad, but glad and more glad. After all, vengeance isn’t something just humans strive for; we can search for it too.”

 

And on this day, December nineteenth of two-thousand and fifteen, this thread reached one thousand views and twenty-five chapters. I thank you all for reading this story, and enduring five and a half months of me stalling you waiting for this milestone. I would have posted this chapter last weekend, but I could not due to school issues. Conveniently, though, that did allow this chapter to land on precisely the day this thread achieved a thousand views!

I'm going to be that cliche person and say that I'm going to open an unofficial character application form for this story (again) at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1wYtCA0ujLpSWau97oL_tNmJJjMJQ_st9mhuPPSi7oes/viewform. Submitting an application doesn't guarantee at all that I'll add the character in as a whole, but at the very least I'll likely draw an idea or two from it.

Without further ado, I present to you....

Chapter XXV
The Hidden Room​

“Are you sure anything is going to happen?! We’ve been sitting here doing nothing for two days now!” Sam yelled.


“Oh, shut up,” was Julie’s reply.


The Almuj building they were within was old and weary, and it seemed as though it might fall apart any second. The sandstone walls stood somewhat tall on either side, leading to nothing but a ceiling as flat and bare as the walls. A table or two were scattered around the tiny place, and a few pieces of paper were pounded into the walls with heavy nails. Robin, looking both sleepy and a little restless, was lying on a table at the far right of the room, Sam was sat on the floor, refusing to sit in the ‘mildew-chairs’ as he called them, and Julie was sitting on one of those chairs, staring up at the blank ceiling with a fixed gaze. It had been exactly like that for two days.


“Two days ago, that random guy said Mr. Robin would awaken in two days! There hasn’t even been a sign of anything at all changing with him! Why can’t we just leave?” Sam said all in one breath, making his voice come out fairly weak on the last sentence.


“Don’t you fish as a hobby?”


“Uh… Yes,” Sam said uncertainly.


“Fish take hours to catch, right?”


“Well, yes, but-”


“I think my point has been made,” Julie concluded, and the place fell back into silence.


Another hour passed with no event; Julie passed the time listening to the muffled sounds of the crowded street outside. Sam attempted to start a casual conversation many times, but the only result was some small and muffled sound, and then a return into silence. Some while later, Sam spoke up again.


“I heard Robin mumble something about an Inferno once. Was that some incident where his house was set on fire?”


“Actually,” Julie paused, “it’s something different. Ever heard the tale of the four weapons?”


“What’s that?” Sam asked.


“I can’t remember the entire tale, honestly…. There was some person who created four weapons of extraordinary power, and then all six- five, I mean, of them vanished without a trace. I think the names of the weapons are something like the Quake, the Inferno, the Wave and the Eagle. The reason we even went on this journey is to find them, and sell them, all because my brother Jonas wants to escape poverty.”


“Wait…. Wait! Jonas is Robin’s brother too! Um- He also mentioned you! You’re Robin’s sister, right?” Sam yelled in accomplishment.


“It’s nice to know that you at least can figure that much out,” Julie said.


“I didn’t even realize it until now…” Sam said, “I was too busy thinking about Robin alone! Wait a second… Where is he?”


Sam looked in horror at the table that Robin had been lying on, but there was nobody to be seen, and yet if he had even woken and tried to sneak out, then they would have heard, as even light footsteps were like lightning strikes in this building.


“I’m right here,” came a voice.


Sam turned around quickly, and there was Robin, standing tall over the kid. Julie stood up quickly, and Robin just backed away and laughed. “Miss me?” he said, then dematerialized right in front of both of them.


“What the h-”


“I learned a little over the last two days,” he said, then reappeared by the door. “By the way, where are we?”


“A house in Almuj. After you got poisoned, we had to carry you to Almuj, where some man said you would wake up in two days.”


“Ah…. Poison,” said Robin, “That seems like a likely explanation as to why I passed out for a few days. By the way, where’s Jonas? I seem to have a vague memory of him being with you, and not me.”


“Oh- We met a wizard, and Jonas stayed with him, and I left for Almuj. Now let me ask you: Why-” Julie ran forward and kicked Robin in the stomach, “-are you waking up after getting poisoned and acting so casual about it?”


“Relax, relax, at least I’m alive, right?” was all Robin would say on that matter. “Is Jonas ever coming back?”


Julie said, “He’ll probably come here eventually, so if we just wait-” Sam snorted, “-a little while longer, he should find us. If he takes too long, we can just-”


“There’s no need for that.”


Jonas opened the door and entered the tiny building, then slammed the door shut, and another bolt came off the hinges.


“Well,” said Sam, “This seems like a nice little reunion. I’ll just walk over to this corner and do nothing while you people talk.”


And so he did. Jonas, Julie and Robin conversed for a while, and Sam sat at one of the corners, denting the hard sandstone wall over and over again with his spear out of boredom. Some minutes later, Julie punched Jonas, and Robin laughed. Jonas threw some insult, and the arguing slowly morphed into calm conversation. Sam had spent so much time jabbing the wall with his spear that there was a hole an inch deep into the sandstone wall.


“I dunno, Sam looks a little bored over there. Sam!” Robin yelled, “Are you okay over there?”


Sam paused his idle whittling of the wall for a moment. “I’m okay,” he said tiredly, then continued prodding the wall with his spear absentmindedly.


Jonas was talking about something, but paused suddenly, looking around as if sensing some invisible presence. “There’s some kind of magic lingering here,” he said, “But what it is or what it’s for, I can’t tell…. By the way, Robin, how did you and Sam escape from Baab and his minions?” and so they continued talking.


Sam started singing quietly as he continued carving a hole into the wall. “The river flows, but not the trees, the air is tense, nothing’s at ease. A fire burns within the lands, and all I have left is….”


He aimed a hard blow at the great dent in the wall, and with a loud clang the sandstone crumbled and behind was a dark, hidden space. Jonas jumped and looked over at the small hole Sam had carved into the sandstone wall. “Whatever magic I sensed, it must be over there!”


Sam stood up and ran out of the way as everyone rushed over to the hole in the wall. “There’s definitely something behind this wall; we have to get back there,” Robin said.


“But how?” Julie asked.


“If Sam can dig a dent through an… approximately six inch thick wall, then we can too.” he responded.


Robin looked at Jonas, who appeared puzzled for a moment, but then his face brightened with an idea. Raising his wand, he pointed it at the wall. He took a deep breath. “Everyone, stand back. Hide behind a chair at least. Implosion!”


The entire wall collapsed on itself, sending the entire room into a cloud of dust that choked the air. Julie and Robin had dived behind a table, and Sam threw a chair in front of himself. Five minutes later, the dust cloud was thin enough that breathing was possible, and so Robin and Julie stood up and looked over at the site of the demolition. Barely visible were some jagged rocks of sandstone that were the remains of the wall. Little pebbles and bits of debris were spilled all over the floor, and a dark shape was lying on the floor a few feet away.


“Jonas!” Julie yelled, running to the figure. Robin and Sam followed.


There, lying on the ground, covered in dust and debris, was Jonas, scratched and bruised and breathing heavily. “If anything,” Jonas said weakly, “make sure I never do that again.”


As they helped get Jonas to his feet, the dust slowly cleared, either settling on any surface it landed on or seeping out under the door. “How were you able to even cast a spell so strong?” Julie asked.


“I just tried,” Jonas coughed, “There wasn’t much more than that. Wedyf mentioned it to me once, but he said it was a ridiculously difficult spell and that I wouldn’t be able to cast it. Maybe we’re all just better at different things.”


“I’ll take that,” said Julie, “but next time-”


“What’s that?” Robin interrupted, pointing at the far side of the room.


In the area that was the hidden room, a desk stood alone near the corner. On its surface, a candle was burning on the right, and to the left was a sheet of parchment that lay flat on the wooden surface. Robin ran to it, and naturally the other three followed out of curiosity. Robin stopped in front of the desk and held up the parchment.


Robin looked at the candle, and back at the parchment. “Someone was here, most likely minutes ago. But how?” he asked, “Nobody could have gotten out; we would have heard him.”


“And it wasn’t magic,” said Jonas, “or I would have noticed.”


“This is a strange puzzle,” Julie said.


“And the paper, it’s a map of some kind,” Robin noted, “What does it mean?”


The parchment was indeed a map, and on it a full cartography of the Wynn province, drawn in thin ink. All of them pondered for a minute, and then Robin started acting strangely.


“What do you mean it’s directions to the Weapons?” Robin asked, apparently to himself.


Julie looked at him. “What?”


Robin continued talking to himself. “How would you know that? Who would just leave a map this valuable sitting on a desk in an empty building? And look! There aren’t even any symbols or even text! It’s just geography!”


Julie turned to Jonas and rolled her eyes. “What in the name of Salted is he talking about?” she said.


“If- Oh, sorry, Julie. I think I started losing my mind,” Robin shrugged.


Julie still seemed suspicious, but chose to just look at the map. Then Robin suddenly blurted out, “I can say what I want, you know!”


Sam said, “Umm, is Robin going insane or something?”


Julie laughed. “I thought he already was!”


Robin shook his head violently, like a dog after swimming. “I’ve been feeling a bit dizzy, lately,” he said, “I’m sure it has to do with the poison. Anyone got any ideas on how to figure this map out?”


“Yes,” Julie said sarcastically, “Restore your sanity. Then everything will suddenly become more plain! It’s almost like magic!”


Sam and Jonas laughed, but Robin frowned. Catching a quick look at the map, Jonas realized. “Stand back; I think I’ve figured this out.”


Robin handed him the map and backed away. Sam followed. Julie however, only took one step in the opposite direction before covering her ears with her hands. Jonas thought for a moment, then shouted, “In the four lights, find me a way!”


A blinding flash of light caused everyone to close their eyes as the map illuminated the room, then dimmed down until the room was as dull as it was a minute ago. The candle was still lit on the desk as if nothing happened at all. Robin peeked over from behind a flipped table, and Julie merely took one step over to exactly where she was before. Sam emerged from a pile of rocks. Jonas didn’t move; he just stared at the map, his eyes darting across every corner until he spotted the difference.


“Come over here and look!” he yelled.


They quickly came and peered over his shoulder. “I don’t see any difference,” said Julie.


“Neither do I,” Robin said.


“Look further to the left, where Ragni is! See it now?”


Everyone’s eyes shot directly to where Ragni was on the map. “I see it!” yelled Sam a minute later, “That tiny spear on that house! What does that mean, though?”


Jonas paused dramatically. “It means that we have found the Quake.”

 

Ode To Gavel
By me with lots of help from a friend

The time came and long it glowed
The people of Wynn were bestowed
The world has changed in so many ways
And it took far more than a matter of days.

The two years it took to write down the lore
Built up the land and opened the door
And now all of us can plainly see
What a wonderful place Gavel can be.

The lands are much stranger, full of new secrets
But still in the kingdom there’s peace
Adventures are waiting, full of new danger
In a world of both man and beast.

The world is limitless, so much to discover
With even more items for us to recover
Our powers, our magic, both by weapon and tool
Are used for the protection of our majesty’s rule.

There are heroes and villains, yet one has a sneer
There’s so much to praise and so much to fear
Now it all seemed so plain therein
A long time ago when we only had Wynn.

So go buy a boat, and come on here
When you’re with me, you don’t have to fear
There are so many roads for us to travel
Now that we live in this new land of Gavel.

 

tl;dr

.....

 

I might have made this chapter a week and a half ago, but Gavel came out, so naturally I would completely forget about this and all the necessities of life, because GAVEL.

Chapter XXVI
Foreign and Fungi​

Even for a bright early afternoon in a desert, it felt surprisingly warm. Robin staggered down the last flight of stairs in Almuj, just behind Julie, Jonas and Sam. They were back at the lowest side of the city; a marketplace. He could hear humans and villagers alike conversing, but quite warmheartedly even for simple manners such as trade or barter. Even an old man with a missing eye was talking as if no evil had ever happened in the world.


“What’s happening?” Robin asked his companions. “I’ve never, ever seen people so happy.”


Julie opened her mouth, looking ready to make some sarcastic comment, but a group of humans ran by, and overheard his question. They stopped in front of them.


“What’s happening?” one of them asked rhetorically. “The villagers are opening the gates to Gavel, that’s what! Don’t bother us now, we’re off to sail to Gavel! Yeah!” then they all ran off, cheering loudly and waving spears and wands and bows in the air.


“That definitely explains a lot,” Robin said, directing his gaze over to two people trading a painting of three animals for some liquified emeralds. “Should we go there? We might find clues.”


You don’t have to, Macy said from inside his head. There’s only one clue you might find in Gavel; it’s not worth the effort.


“In what way?” he asked aloud.


You’ll know when the time comes. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to ponder for a while. I might be a semi-dead human with nothing but a conscious and a soul, but I have things to do.


He felt her presence slip away.


Several minutes of silence followed, with no sounds but the thudding of their shoes on the hard sandstone walkway and the chatter of happy people talking about emeralds and Gavel, and how much money they could make on the other side of the ocean now.


“Hey, Jonas,” Julie asked as they passed under the gate to Almuj, “It seems like lots of profit can be made in Gavel. Why not go there?”


“Wedyf told me that we can’t go back now that we’ve started. We should at least find the first Weapon; it would be a waste now that we’ve gone this far not to,” replied Jonas.


Robin never bothered entering the conversation; he just kept walking along with everyone else. Sam started looking bored, and even Julie and Jonas grew tired of repeating the same things over and over. They passed hostile and calm ocelots, and they passed the site Robin ate that poisonous flower. He felt a small pain in his stomach when he looked back at that lone house in the savanna. He forced his stare to the pathway below him, and attempted to drive the events of the flower out of his mind. However, while the flower did fade away, the man in blue took its place, leering at him through his mind’s eye. He sighed loudly, which finally was able to clear his mind.


Once or twice, when he decided to check the surroundings for anything of interest, he noticed a blurry figure standing just beyond his range of vision, and when he pulled out a dirty pair of glasses from his pocket and put them on, he saw only three ocelots playing in the grass. He shook his head slightly, returned the glasses back to his pocket, and continued watching the road ahead.


The next two hours were an absolute drag; by the time the dry grass transitioned into the central plains, even Jonas and Sam were looking like they might fall asleep at any moment. It was only then that a great stone wall peeked over the horizon.


“Look... Detlas,” Jonas said, and then passed out.


“Something tells me that we should go there,” Julie said weakly.


“I think we should just take a… break… we’ve been walking non-stop for over two hours now,” said Robin.


“I agree!” Sam yelled faintly, then collapsed onto the floor and began snoring.


“Well, that’s settled,” Julie said, then sat down under the shade of a nearby tree.


Robin sat down in the hot sun, breathing heavily and looking around. That strange figure was nowhere to be seen. Closing his eyes and lying down, he observed his surroundings by ear. A very light breeze swayed the grass tips and tree leaves, and Sam’s snoring was louder than anything else he could hear. Nothing happened otherwise.


Twenty minutes later, Robin heard a moan, and opened his eyes quickly. He stood up, and saw in relief that there was no zombie, but Jonas had sat up. Sam heard the moan too, and seemed to wake as if he wasn’t asleep at all.


“Calm down, everyone,” said Julie, still sitting under the tree. “It’s just Jonas waking up.”


Jonas looked up at the sun and said, “How long did I sleep?”


“Only twenty-something minutes,” Julie replied.


“Phew!” Jonas said in relief. “I thought I had missed something important.”


“Nope. Nothing important. Just us resting. Unless you count that as a significant global catastrophe, I wouldn’t consider it important.”


“That’s okay. Shall we head to Detlas now? It would make a nice place to visit, and I just feel like we might find something important there.”


“I honestly don’t care,” Robin said, “Besides, all the bad things seem to have happened outside city walls, so it wouldn’t hurt.”


“He has a point, you know,” said Julie.


“Let’s not waste any time talking and just head to Detlas,” Jonas said with commitment, then turned around and started marching straight towards the great stone wall.


Julie looked at Robin, shrugged, and followed Jonas. Sam came after and finally Robin, who lagged behind due to his frequent stops to make sure nobody was watching them. They walked over a few hills when a wagon came by, and the driver waved at them, so Sam waved back with enthusiasm as the carriage drove past. The horses driving it neighed and the wagon began driving a little slower, enough to be noticeable. Robin saw a pair of keen eyes in the back of the vehicle, and it was glaring at them under a hood. After a minute, the carriage was out of sight.


“I have a bad feeling about that weird figure in the back of that wagon,” Robin said. “It looks exactly like this strange person that’s been watching us ever since we left Almuj.”


“What strange person?” Sam asked, shaking.


“I noticed a silhouette just far enough that I couldn’t see his face. When I tried to put a pair of glasses on and look again, there was nobody there.”


“You have glasses?” Julie asked mockingly.


“I decided to take them just in case… besides, that person in Almuj wasn’t paying attention to his pocket, so it was his fault….”


“Whatever. Anyway, it looks like we’re in a horror story where there’s a mysterious figure stalking us and then it attacks one night but we magically survive anyway,” Julie said.


“Not even close,” said Jonas. “Something tells me that we’re not dealing with cliche horrors; that’s just for scary children’s stories. If anything, I have the feeling that the person in the back of the wagon was the same person who tried to attack me and Wedyf a few nights ago!”


“What brought you to that stunning conclusion?” asked Robin dubiously.


Jonas inhaled. “One thing Wedyf taught me about was sensing traces of magic. I picked up the same feeling from this person and the person from a few nights ago! Something tells me we have a bigger problem than just an occasional attacker on our paths. I say we go to Detlas with utmost haste; I really don’t want to afford a disaster. At least we can be sure of people there.”


“Whatever he says, because I honestly can’t care less,” said Julie, and they continued their walk to Detlas.


The Detlas wall grew larger and larger in perspective as they drew nearer to the city. When they were just before the wall, Sam yelped behind them.


A cow had tackled him to the ground, but it was no ordinary cow. The normal brown shade of a cow was mostly replaced with a mushroom red color, and three red mushrooms on its back contributed to its fungal form. Its eyes were pitch black, and looked down on Sam with an empty gaze. More of the odd mushroom cows began crowding around them. Julie drew out her bow and arrows, Jonas his wand and Robin his daggers.


“You know what?” Jonas said. “I think it’s time to see how well we can fight.”

 

I love that reference to the painting... and time to meet Yahya (or at least, his minions).

 

Three things: One, my internet was incredibly sluggish while I was writing this. I might as well have done it all in slow motion. Second, this chapter makes the story over twenty-five thousand words in total! Thirdly, and most importantly: FOR YAHYA! BestBattleCry2k16

Chapter XXVII
The Wrath of Yahya
These Roman numerals are getting kinda long​

“Moo!”


More and more mushroom cows slowly approached, enclosing them in a giant circle. Several of them mooed loudly as they closed ranks, while others just slowly tromped ahead, one red foot after the other. Jonas raised his wand high in the air, but Robin pulled his arm back down slowly.


“If you want to cast any spells, at least keep it subtle, and don’t cast anything that might end up killing us all,” Robin whispered in his ear.


He lowered his hand, then closed his eyes. “Meteor…” he began muttering under his breath. “Commonly used for crowd control… generally powerful against mobs... excellent,” he smiled. “Meteor.”


A large, burning rock suddenly appeared way up in the sky, which instantly began to succumb to gravity. A few mushroom cows sensed the object and scattered, but most continued their approach towards the four. Sam was still on the ground, just a few feet away from Jonas’ predicted site of impact. For a large rock falling from the sky, it was surprisingly quiet. Only the distant crackles of the fire burning away the meteor could be heard, which sounded like a bonfire up in the heavens. Jonas nudged, Robin’s shoulder, pointed up towards the giant deflagrating rock, and down to where Sam lay unconscious. Robin nodded in haste, and took a quick step forward. He hesitated, though, as he looked through the crowd of mushroom cows, who were all looking back at him and mooing. He took another hasty step towards Sam, then another, then broke into a full run. The cows immediately responded by charging at him, but he swerved past every time, though most often just barely. After most of them had charged and missed, Robin slowed his sprint to a run; cows aren’t entirely quick at changing direction and attacking again.


“Sam, wake up!” he yelled hopelessly, as soon as he reached the figure lying unconscious on the grass.


Sam didn’t respond.


“It looks like I’ll have to do this the hard way.”


Robin grabbed Sam by the arms and carried him as fast as possible through the charging crowd of mushroom cows who were running at them from every direction. The meteor can’t have been more than a hundred feet off the ground, where it would have still looked fairly small in the perspective of someone who was standing on solid earth. Jonas stood back, breathing heavily and thinking intently about what to do next; he could attempt to help stop the cows, or try to slow the meteor enough that Robin and Sam would escape just outside its blast radius when it lands. He chose the former.


Jonas raised his wand, and pointed it at a mushroom cow charging at Robin. “I don’t want you here,” he said, and then with wave of his wand the mushroom cow froze in its tracks, and without being able to move, it fell to the ground easily. Robin stumbled as he looked down at the stupefied cow on the grass behind him. Julie saw what he was doing, and aimed an arrow at an oncoming mushroom cow. Just then, the meteor hit the ground, creating a large explosion that was yet just a small thud to someone confined within the walls of Detlas. Bits of dirt and debris flew everywhere, knocking out several of the cows but luckily missing Julie, Jonas, Robin and Sam, though just barely.


“Wow,” said Jonas, looking at the impact site. “That is one huge fire.”


Nobody responded, but rather watched the great fire that briefly erupted over the grass before fizzling out into smoke. Nobody in Detlas seemed to have cared; it’s not uncommon for things like that to happen in Wynn. It took a minute for the smoke to clear out, and when it did, yet another crowd of mushroom cows collected at the other end of the crater. Some odd-looking villagers stood behind the cows; they were green, and covered in fungi. They held spears that were forged of mushrooms, and they pointed the spears towards their targets.


“This does not bode well,” Robin said quietly, setting Sam down on the grass, and then he promptly vanished.


“I hate that vanishing thing already, and I’ve only had to deal with it for less than a day,” said Julie.


The mushroom cows and mushroom villagers readied themselves for a battle, the villagers wearing warlike expressions and the cows blank ones. Then one of the mushroom villagers spoke.


“For the Mushroom Man!” it said in a low, hoarse and stuffy voice.


“For Yahya!” replied the rest as a battle cry, and then they charged forward.


The battle cry echoed in Jonas’s ears for a second before the noticed the stampede rushing forward.


“Stand back, I’ll try to hold them off!” said Jonas bravely, yet on the inside he was trembling with fear.


The apparent leader of the fungi-villagers mounted a mushroom cow and charged ahead with the rest of the cows. Jonas stared at the dry grass at his feet with concentration, attempting to both ignore and listen to the stampede approaching at the same time. His ears gradually lost focus to the outside world, and rather listened to his mind speaking. Just another few seconds… just a little closer… almost there… now!


Without warning, he turned his wand-tip towards the oncoming crowd and shouted, “Ice Snake!”


A serpent made of solid ice blasted out of thin air before him, which gave a great icy roar before slithering into the stampede, knocking over cows like bowling pins. Julie used the distraction to fire some more arrows into the oncoming crowd, and meanwhile Jonas felt felt himself gain some level of control over the great frozen snake that had been throwing cows to the hard earthen floor. Robin was still nowhere to be seen.


“I think we’ll have to retreat somehow!” Jonas yelled to Julie over the roars of the snake and the constant mooing of the mushroom cows.


“With an unconscious Sam and a mob of hostile shroomified cows and villagers, I can’t exactly see how that would be easy!” Julie responded loudly, taking down another cow with a well-aimed arrow..


The crowd advanced quickly, their putrid mushroom smell causing Jonas’s head to spin. The ice snake lost its strength, and crumbled into a thousand bits of ice. Please tell me Robin is working on some miracle, Jonas thought to himself. We won’t last another minute like this.


A particularly large cow tackled him to the ground, sending a moo into the air with triumph. Jonas exerted his force into shoving the cow off him, but he was far from possessing the physical strength to wrestle a cow, no matter its size. Jonas saw another cow stop in front of Sam, turning its head downwards. It used its mouth to get a hold of the back of Sam’s shirt, and began dragging him across the ground, Julie fell a few seconds later, forced to the floor by the pounce of yet another cow. By then, the mushroom-villagers had caught up, and were examining their prey. One of them prodded Sam with a spear as a cow dragged him out of sight. Then another of them poked Jonas crudely using a keen javelin.


“Ow!” Jonas moaned, unable to keep his mouth shut.


A mushroom-villager somewhere to Jonas’s far right grunted, and then a second later a very hard object slammed against the top of his head. This time, he did not cry in pain. He was completely and immediately devoid of energy from the blow, and his vision was fading quickly. All he could see was a blurry moving image of a mushroom-villager walking past him… then it let out a very distant cry of pain… then two unrecognizable figures appeared and kicked it down together… the mushroom cows retaliated… all Jonas could tell from his last second of consciousness was that those two people were winning the fight.

 

Just wondering, do you write these chapters using the forums? Because I would recommend writing them on a programme on your computer (there should always be a programme you can write in somewhere. I use Microsoft Word myself but there are plenty of things that can do this) for two reasons. First, if something happens you always have a backup. Second, you don't have to worry about internet lag while writing them, because the forum lags a lot if you try to make a large post.

 

The entire story is written in Google Docs; it's been that way since I started writing it last July.
It's nice to know that you actually care, though. It makes me feel like I have a purpose in life.

 

Thanks! And Google Docs, because it is on the internet, I guess would be laggy... so now I actually know that there is a disadvantage to it (I've previously only used it for school stuff, not for writing huge texts). Also, I like this lore a lot! It adds all sorts of interesting things. Just wondering, which house in Nemract was the one where the main characters lived in, or was it just a random house? And is the Gavel Update going to affect the story in any way?

 

Back when I wrote the first chapter, I never bothered to really choose a house in Nemract to be their house; I just made one up. If anything, it would be the one behind the mansion from Mansion Delivery, but that one is one-roomed, and the one I imagined had four. I guess their house really doesn't exist as one in-game. And yes, the Gavel Update will have somewhat of an impact; my plan is that a major character visits the new province... or maybe two....

 

i cri

Chapter XXVIII
Doom of Denial​

The setting was once again the dining room of an old, abandoned house. A candle flickered dimly in front of a short, narrow and young man, who sat on a far side of the long table and gazed nervously at the flames dancing on the wick. A mysterious figure leaned back on the chair opposite the table from him. The bustle of activity could be faintly heard outside, but that seemed to be a lifetime away. Gilroy looked over at the person, who was very deep in thought.


“Your meetings with me always start like this,” Gilroy said, “Dead silence before I open my mouth, then you begin rambling and kick me out.”


The other person shifted in their seat. “So what if that is the pattern? Patterns are indeed interesting and often complicated things. In fact, I was just thinking about one.”


“What pattern?” Gilroy asked, holding his arm in front of his face as though expecting a blow.


“It’s about all those stories I used to have told to me. I only recently realized something that might be the downfall to everything I’ve worked on for years.”


“What are you even talking about?” he asked, straightening his posture.


“I’ll assume you’ve read at least one story concerning a prophecy before,” the person began. “Every time someone obtains an unwelcoming foreshadow of their future, their first response is to go through all measures to prevent it from happening, when in truth, all those precautions are exactly what causes it to happen. I fear that I may have made that mistake.”


Gilroy stayed motionless for a moment, and he attempted to bring in this information. “M- Master,” he began, trembling quite heavily on that word, “Why worry about that now? Everything seems to be going on track.”


“Do you know the fatal errors I have performed over my entire life, and the last eleven years especially? I saw the future, and now I see the past; they are nothing but uniform. It all began that one night, when I made the worst mistake of my entire existence. I had not seen the signs; I was young, arrogant, and blunt, just like the family that I used to have. I thought killing those people would have ended my problems. But no, I had only begun them. Sure, the path seems clear at the moment, but only for the moment.


“He has come, and there’s little I can do now that he knows. My best plan is to simply do as little as possible until the perfect time comes. Only then can I act with minimal threat; going now will be just like jumping straight into Mount Wynn, just like Bulbo’s Clock. In fact-”


“Excuse my interruption,” said Gilroy, “But I’ve never heard of that clock before. What’s so special about it?”


The person shuddered briefly before ceasing movement. Then, a gloved hand slowly slipped under the table, but retracted after a sudden change of thought. “There was a Hobbit near the city of Detlas by the name of Bulbo, and when he was exploring a cave one day long ago, he came across a creature that worshipped a clock, which it wore around its neck at all times. Bulbo managed to steal it and escape, and he began wearing the clock around his neck, too. I won’t go into details, but things started getting weird for the old Hobbit.


“But just when he was at the brink of being driven to insanity by that infernal contraption, a kindly hero came along, took the clock to Mount Wynn, and threw it right into scorching molten magma, and Bulbo lived happily ever after. The end.”


“What does that story at all have to do with you, Ma- Master?” asked Gilroy, still trembling on that word.


“Oh, just comparisons and differentiations. I am curious as to which part of the story I would be: The Adventurer, Bulbo, or the Clock? I feel as though I know, and my reasoning is not positive. But enough storytelling; I am getting tired of the ticking in my head after every tale I tell. I prefer discussions based on something happening in my life, like you trying to report me to the King of Ragni!”


“What?” Gilroy asked, shocked. “I never sent any letters to the King!”


“Then what would you call this?” yelled the person, slamming a sheet of folded parchment on the table and sliding it over to Gilroy.


Gilroy slowly reached out to the letter, then quickly snatched it away and unfolded it. “Dear King,” he read under his breath, “it has come to my attention that there is someone in Wynn that is plotting to kill three teenagers. Please help me at... Signed, Gilroy….”


“You got that right, didn’t you?” the voice said, but instead of being across the table, it was behind him.


He looked down to see a sword pierced straight through his torso, and now that he was aware of it, he felt pain and agony beyond anything he had ever felt. It felt to him as though a million punches to the stomach were all combined into one. Blood streamed onto the chair as his head began spinning. The person removed the sword from and looked down at the chair.


“What a shame,” Gilroy heard the person say behind him very, very faintly. “Those bloodstains might never come off that chair. And to think that it was the same one I used to sit on when I was little and childish; just like your motives, Gilroy.”


Gilroy’s last shreds of life faded away, and he slumped to the side and fell off the chair.

 

Not Gilroy!

________________________________

Not Gilroy!

 

:(

He will be remembered

 

I just found the old thread title when it was first posted in July. Good times.


The plot thickens....
Has anyone noticed any patterns yet? I've been putting a few in (at least, I hope I have).

Chapter XXIX
Memories and Mysteries​

A young boy peered out the window of the caravan. “Mommy, who’s that strange person?” he asked.


“I’m...not sure. Your father is fighting them, and help is on the way. Just hang in there.” she replied with a soft, calming voice. His breathing slowed just a tiny bit.


“Do you know when they’ll come?” a boy next to him asked. “Nemract can’t be far from here, so it can’t take that long!”


“It shouldn’t,” the mother replied. “But I’ve never seen someone like this. I’m not sure how long Elwood can keep going.”


Just then, a loud voice issued from the scene of the battle. “Bambi, come and help quick! The kids can wait!”


“Oh lord,” she said. “I must go. But remember: Everything will be okay.”


She quickly dug through the pile of things stored in the caravan in search of a weapon. Drawing out a long spear and grasping it with two hands, she dashed out of the caravan and out of sight. The kids huddled in the back, frozen in fear.


“Do you think they’ll be all right?” the girl asked.


“I really hope so….” replied the taller of the two boys.


A scream came from outside, cutting through the three children like a sharp knife. The smaller boy screamed, but then silenced himself quickly. Another scream shortly followed, the latter twice as agonizing as the first. He opened his mouth to scream again, but the other boy shushed him. An eerie silence quickly fell.


“Jonas!” he hissed. “I hear someone.”


They all hid quietly in the wagon, hoping someone would come and help. A shadow passed over the window, casting a glare of darkness into the caravan. Jonas curled up under a pile of random possessions to hide himself from view. The other two followed silently. Quiet footsteps crunched the grass outside, but compared to the silence, it was as loud as a gunshot. Jonas gazed in silence at the window, as if for one last shred of hope. The same shadow passed by again, but this time it stopped. It turned around, looking into the caravan. Jonas noticed that he had stopped breathing. After several seconds of complete silence and stillness, the shadow moved on. Jonas exhaled softly.


A loud plunk sound at the entrance to the wagon made his easiness scatter as if it had been blown away by a hurricane. Two more steps allowed the figure to proceed into the caravan, and closer to the three children who were hiding from it. Jonas felt once more a sudden emptiness in his lungs as he became paralyzed with fear. The polished floorboards creaked slightly as the thing loomed over the piles of ornaments and boxes in which they were hiding behind. It took in a gulp of air before lifting its arm, holding a burning pair of knives in its hand.


“The most powerful daggers in the world,” it spoke. “I wonder what the creator thought it would be used for...I doubt it was this.”


With a flick of the wrist and a wave of the arm, the caravan burst into flames. Turning around, the figure walked out of the caravan casually before suddenly disappearing into the night. Moments later, shouting could be heard in the distance. Jonas trembled under the heat and tried to listen to what the people were saying.


“There’s a burning car-van over there! Quick, look to see if there’re any people inside! I hope I don’t get blamed for this like last time….”


“I’m on it!” someone responded, and the thudding of footsteps became gradually louder while the fire grew fiercer.


The roof support of the wagon collapsed, and Jonas suddenly felt the pressure of the roof above all the other things he was underneath. Fire began to lick the floor just around where he was trapped, and all he could do was watch….


“I found a youngster over here!” the person yelled. “Kid, are you all right, and is there anyone else you know of in there?”


“Y-yes,” said a choked voice that sounded like Robin. “My brother and sister are in there….”


“I’ll try to get them out, quick. Kid, run over to Nemract and scream for help. If all goes well, they’ll be out in five minutes, max.”


Jonas could barely hear soft footsteps that began heading away, but then they stopped.


“AHHHHHHHHH!” Robin screamed suddenly, for an unknown reason.


Jonas instinctively responded. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”


He sprang up out of a soft bed, still screaming. His eyesight was completely clouded, and all he could see were blurry moving figures rushing towards him.


“Hush, little one,” a voice said somewhat sarcastically. “We’re in Detlas now, all nice and safe.”


It took Jonas a moment to realize that it was Julie speaking. Several people seemed to be crowding around him, or at least it seemed to be several.


“What happened?” said a familiar voice.


“Robin?” Jonas replied groggily.


“Yes, it’s me. You seemed to be having quite the nightmare.”


“I did have a nightmare...the same one again.”


“They told me you were prone to nightmares. It seems as though they are correct,” said another voice, but this one he could not recognize.


“Wh-who are you?” Jonas asked.


“Who am I? That is a good question. I am Fahim, or the Flicker as most people call me. Your brother ran into the city calling for help, and I was anything but unprepared. The mooshrooms are dead. You are safe.”


“That barely answers any questions…,” replied Jonas.


“You are not ready for answers. Nobody is; yet.”


“Just ignore his riddle-talk. He saved your life,” Robin said.


“But-”


“There really isn't a point bothering. We couldn't get anything out of him, either,” he heard Julie say.


Finally, Jonas’s vision had cleared up enough that he could see fairly well. Julie was sitting at a chair near the back of the cobbled house. Sam was lying on another bed a few feet away from his. Robin and Fahim stood side by side next to Jonas. If he could describe Fahim with words, Jonas would say he was about as tall as Robin, and with a very intellectual feel, but he could barely tell, as a hood covered the upper half of Fahim’s face, concealing his eyes. Sam coughed.


“Don't worry about your smaller friend. He may have been badly hurt, but he's recovering fine. He is certainly very tough,” said Fahim calmly.


Jonas slided off the bed and stood up, and Robin backed away. Fahim remained standing where he was. The house was definitely a habited one; heirlooms were placed on shelves, the room was very clean, and there was the filling sentiment that this place was a safe haven from the outside world.


“How...how long was I unconscious?” Jonas asked.


“Just a few hours,” said Robin. “But the bruise on your head will probably last for a few days.”


Fahim slowly stepped away to a table that had several plates worth of food on it. “I have food,” he said. “But as for the cow meat...don't ask where I got it from.”


“I'm more of a vegetarian anyway,” Jonas replied, attempting to force back the images that his mind drew of where the meat may have come from.


Jonas then took one look at the food before running over and stuffing his face with everything he could get his hands on. Robin put his palm against his face and Julie laughed. Sam followed Julie and began laughing too, and Fahim stood motionless.


“Why did I bother…,” Fahim murmured to himself.


Several minutes passed before Jonas grew tired of eating. He stepped back and took a deep breath. It was just then that his nightmare revealed another mystery. He stopped dead.


Julie was the first to take notice of Jonas’s sudden stillness. “Um, Jonas, did you die or something?” she asked.


“I…. I think I realized something,” Jonas replied heavily.


“Is this another one of your magical ideas that almost gets us all killed?” Robin asked.


“I wasn't thinking then!” Jonas shouted. “But do you remember the night our parents died?”


“This is another one of those magical ideas that almost gets us all killed,” Robin said matter-of-factly.


“No, it isn't! That person who killed our parents…. That person had the Inferno. That's why the caravan caught fire. That's probably what made the person powerful enough to kill Mother and Father. I know it.”


Fahim, who had sat down a minute ago and began writing something, jumped and spilled ink all over the parchment.


“What was that?” Jonas asked.


“I…nothing. I've heard of those weapons, though. In fact, I was just beginning to write a letter to a friend who was once interested in them. I'll tell him about what you said...he might figure something out from that,” Fahim said, cleaning up the ink spill.


“But what kind of lead does that give us?” asked Robin.


“Not much...but it's probably worth noting,” Jonas replied.


Fahim began to talk as he wrote the letter. “Anything about those weapons are worth noting. I doubt the creator of them goes along without tricks up his or her sleeve.”


“You mean the creator is alive?” Jonas blurted out.


“I never said that,” Fahim responded. “But there's a slight possibility. The creator would have to be more than a hundred years old, though.”


Jonas’s heart sank a little, but then he spoke. “But if the creator is alive…would that mean that if we found him, we might be able to get answers out of him?


“That's always a possibility, but I do not know. After all, I never have met the creator personally, so I cannot answer that for you.”


Robin cleared his throat loudly. “If I may interrupt, the creator would likely be either dead or hiding. After all, Jonas, you said that he or she has not been seen in a hundred years! There's a very good chance that we'd be looking for someone who isn't even alive anymore. We should just continue our search on something that we know still exists. Who here is with me?”


Sam silently raised his hand slowly. Julie hesitated, but raised her hand, too. “I’m not casting a vote,” said Fahim. “It looks like there’s a majority towards not finding the creator. Sorry, Jonas.”


Jonas sighed. “You win, Robin.”


Robin smiled gloatingly, then sat down. “Don’t worry, though,” he said. “If we find out that the creator is alive, then we can search for him or her. But for now, we should focus on the Weapons.”


Jonas smiled, too. “Thanks.”


The moment was broken when Fahim stood up loudly, drawing everyone’s attention. “I am going to send this letter, then head out,” he said. “Don’t expect for me to return here. Though I may see you again some day, I shall bid you farewell for the time. You may stay in this house for a few days, but if you remain any longer, the owners will likely get a little disgruntled. Though,” he paused. “To repeat myself, I may see you again. I do not know when or where or why, but I can sense it. But, again, farewell for now.”


After casting his gaze over everyone in the house and ending at Sam, he turned around and strode out the door.

 

bump cuz muy bueno

________________________________

and @stlast could you give me a link to a google doc or somethign?