Classic Fantasy Adventure

By Anone

Inside the marbled entrance of the Warrior's Guild was a cavernous room, built into the mountain from which the Guild was fashioned. Weapons of every kind imaginable were sold in this room, from swords the length of two moon-howlers to daggers as crystal and deadly as an icicle in the dead of winter. But there were a few weapons that undoubtedly outshone all the rest. In the very center of this room, nestled on a blanket of wine-colored velvet and covered with a glass case, was the most magnificent sword Yohji Kudou had ever seen. It's hilt was made of a gleaming rose-gold, and fashioned in the shape of a dragon rising from a bank of clouds, molten fire swirling from it's mouth. The dragon's eyes were glittering rubies that seemed to hold a flickering flame deep inside of them… they seemed alive. The blade itself was wickedly curved and white, veined with blue, as if made from a sheet of marble.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Yohji asked, his eyes wide and shining as he looked upon the golden-hilted sword.

"It looks like a awfully gawdy sword to me, Yohji-kun." His friend Omi Tsukiyono answered. "And look how thin the blade is! You wouldn't be able to cut through cheese with that!"

Yohji backed away from the display, sighing blissfully and wringing his hands as if he could feel the sword already gripped within them. "Oh, but its made with Alcater, the Elvin stone that retains not even the slightest smudge. I've heard that a phantager once stepped on a piece of it as thin as a fingernail and the phantager was the one that ended up broken."

"Who told you this now? Some drunk I imagine," Omi said, chuckling.

"Ay, but it's true!"

"I'm sorry to say this, but you'll probably never get a hold of a sword like that. As rich as your family is, you saw how much they were selling it for."

Yohji's dark green eyes seemed to get darker, and he unconsciously clenched his hands as Omi's demoralizing words tried to squirm into his heart. "Don't you say that! I will have that sword." Angry, he turned and strode away, his heavy boots ringing loudly through the room. Omi cast a glance at the sword, and turned to jog after his friend.

As they entered the busy center of the village, the smells of all sorts of foods—roasting prong-beasts and the tender clawfowl, steaming bread, and sickeningly rich stews closed around them like a warm blanket, and they found themselves massaging their stomachs as growls welled from within. People pressed around them, the roar of their conversations rising, smothering and drowning out everything else. The vendors called out their goods jovially, waving them in passing faces and fluctuating the price to gain buyers.

Yohji jumped a little as his stomach twisted in hunger, disturbed by the racks of golden brown sizzling curlfish they had just passed.

"Are you sure you don't have any money, Yohji-kun?" Omi whined, his fingers clenching over his tunic.

Yohji glanced at him hurriedly, their eyes not meeting, and he brushed past, pulling Omi with him. "Let's go over to those benches, and then I'll tell you."

He pushed Omi through the crowd, leading him to two stone benches under a sparsely-leafed tree, away from the bustling square of the market.

They sat down and Yohji handed Omi a grilled clawfowl leg, cooked so tenderly that the pink meat was nearly sliding off the bone.

Omi's bright blue eyes widened, and he grabbed the stick quickly, holding it near his chest as if he would kill to keep it safe.

"So…you did have money?" He asked hopefully, knowing his friend's penchant for stealing.

"No."

Omi sighed, looking down at the meat dejectedly. Yohji meanwhile, helped himself, ripping it from the bone and not bothering to wipe the trickle of seasoned juice that ran down his chin.

"Yohji...I'm going to take this back."

The older boy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stared at him. "Why?"

"You know why."

He rolled his eyes. "Well, we can't exactly pay back all the grievances we've caused people if we're dead from starvation, now, can we?"

Omi noticed his mouth was watering as the aroma of the clawfowl assailed his nose. He watched Yohji take a big bite and watched the juice coat his fingers and couldn't hold it any longer. He took a big mouthful and devoured it ravenously from there.

After their quick lunch they sat under the scraggly tree and played dice for chipebbles, which were the customary gift that Mankin gave to one another to show their emotions. They were shiny, small, stones that had holes in the middle, in which people would thread through a string, and around their neck they would wear their chipebbles, to show off to others. Each color meant a different thing. Green was beauty, blue grace, pink peace, and so on. Red was given only from lover to lover, while the gold stone "friendship" could be given to any sex or race, as a sign of thankfulness for a relationship. Some stones, such as the black, or black and gray dappled, stood for negative traits. The law would require one to wear a black chipebble, for instance, if they had stolen, so those around them would be weary.

Both Omi and Yohji had a gold chipebble around their neck, glimmering in the hot noonday sun. Next to Yohji's gold one was a long procession of green stones, which he had been given by the girl's of his village, and next to the green were two blacks, which he tried his best to hide under his wavy brown hair.

Omi had numerous yellow pebbles, which stood for joy, or more. "bringing joy to others."

Chipebbles were a sign of your status. Anyone without a necklace of chipebbles was not to be taken kindly.

Yohji laughed as the dice landed on 6, the number he'd called. Delicately he took from their pile a green chipebble, and a clear one, which was rare, and very flattering to the person who received it.

"Awww! No fair Yohji-kun! You're not playing with trick dice are you? Cheater! Cheater!"

"Hey hey, don't be a poor loser now."

Omi pouted and picked up the dice, shaking it fiercely in his cupped hands and letting it go across the grass. When it stopped, six dots faced up. Omi clenched his fists, leaping on Yohji and pounding him on his chest.

"You beast! I knew it! RAGH!"

Yohji was laughing so hard at his discovered secret that he could do little as Omi pinned him against the tree and dug his knee deep into his gut, laughing malevolently. While grinding with his knee he grabbed a handful of Yohji's honey-colored hair he so prized, rubbing it against the crumbly bark of the tree and watching as it snagged and wound around the knobbly trunk and did other damage.

Only when Yohji stopped laughing and started coughing did Omi crawl off of him, breathless with laughter. Yohji calmed down and sat up, looking as if nothing had happened save for the tiny bits of wood tangled in his hair. He looked over Omi's shoulder, squinting towards the marketplace. "What's going on?"

Omi turned around, and saw that everyone in that marketplace had converged in the middle, and a terrible ruckus was coming from the middle of them.

Curious, Yohji strode over to the gathering of people, yelling into the ear of the nearest person. "What has happened?" He shouted, struggling to be heard over the din.

The rough-looking man turned around, his crooked teeth caught in a leer. "They caught some hoodlum girl tryin to steal and tried to box 'er ears, but then comes this gent, her brother I think, and started attackin em. But the guards broke a couple a' 'is bones, me thinks. They got 'em chained down there and 'er layin into him, teach 'im a lesson."

Breathless, Yohji nodded his thanks and squeezed through the people, struggling for a glance of the perpetrator. Over the voices of the gathered crowd he heard a crack and a muffled scream, and he winced. He himself had felt the same whip's sting countless times before.

At last he broke through and was standing, bewildered, at the edge of the crowd. His eyes had trouble taking everything in. An alarmingly pale body was chained over the whipping block, but his eyes would only take in the blood…the blood rolling in big fat drops down the stranger's heaving sides, the tears spilling from his bright, slanted eyes… his hysteric groans of pain. As he watched the display, his fingers clenched on his breeches…he could feel every lash of the whip as if it had fallen on his own back.

Before long the young man was beaten into half consciousness, body twitching as the whip continued, eyes dull and half-closed. A feeling of foreboding tightened in Yohji's stomach.

He nudged a skinny man next to him. "What is his offense?"

                The man looked at him gravely, his eyes squinting in the hot noonday sun. "He assaulted a Market Guard. 50 lashes."

Yohji recoiled, gasping. "Fifty!? And what damage did he do?!"

                "Not sure… he started after some guy for getting after the girl he was with, but some other guards came and caught up with him, and the whipmaster caught him soon after that."

"Fifty lashes for an undetermined amount of damage?!"

The man shrugged turning, to watch the display.

Gritting his teeth, Yohji strode into the slightly sunken whipping pit, the center of the market square, where thieves could receive their justice under the eyes of witnesses.

The crowd grew hushed around him, but he paid them no heed. The whipmaster stopped, his unshaven and food-caked face swiveling to glare at him. Obviously he'd been interrupted from a meal. "What're doin boy?! Does you want to join this one 'ere?!" He bellowed, his beefy hand flexing on the whip handle.

Yohji stared, his hands clenching at his side. "I think it is only fair, that you let this boy go. I was told you know not of what damage he did, and at this rate, you are going to kill him."

The whipmaster sneered. "Dun't matter, he dun't even have 'is pebbles, lookit." With the hilt of his whip he tilted the boy's face up, exposing the milky skin of his neck. There was not chipebble necklace to be seen. Yohji took a step back, his stamina failing. Just then a hysterical scream came from the crowd, and he whirled to see two crotchety old woman holding back a little girl, her eyes streaming with tears. His heart went out to her. It must have been the infamous girl who the boy had been trying to defend.

He looked to the whipmaster, and sighed, rubbing his head. "How many lashes has he left?" A murmur rose up into the crowd, surprised, touched…and some angry and protesting.

The blubbery man scratched his enormous belly and seemed to be in deep thought. "About twenty."

Yohji cursed inwardly, groaning. Ten lashes alone was ten too many.

A familiar cry came from the crowd, and Omi staggered into the clearing panting, his face flushed and beaded with sweat. He looked up at the whipmaster determinately, as the crowd roared around them. "Then give us each ten, and spare the accused."

Yohji felt relief wash over him. He would not have traded even all the land's wealth for Omi's friendship at that moment.

Without waiting for a response from the whipmaster, Yohji tugged off his shirt, exposing bronzed skin, marred by the pale whipmarks from experiences long over.

Omi followed suit with his tunic, feeling a tiny tug at his heart. He had never been in trouble like his friend had,and whipmarks on his back would surely brand him as a suspicious.

 "Are you sure you can handle this, Omitchii,?" Yohji asked him, leaning against one of the wooden poles that prisoner's were sometimes bound to when punished.

Omi looked at him nervously. "Yeah." With his fingers hidden, he weaved a small spell of numbing for Yohji, watching as the oily glimmer of magic, barely visible to the untrained eyes, settled over his friend's back, and before he could prepare one for himself the whip came down on his back, feeling more like a poisoned hook tail than a whip. He hunched forward unable to breath, and the whip came down on Yohji, and then him again. His breath caught in his throat with a startled sound. Yohji twitched. Show off.

An eternity later, Omi staggered away from the pole, pulling his tunic back over his molten shoulders and tying the clasp at his collar bone. He felt dirty and festering…and he wanted nothing more than a cold bath. Yohji handled it with only a miniscule amount of greater dignity: standing up stiffly with a muffled hiss, and flicking his gleaming golden hair over his shoulder as if he had mussed it up.

He turned to the whipmaster, noting the solemn crowd. "What will happen to this boy?" He said, his voice strong and intimidating. The bald man glared down at the still body slumped over the whipping block, and then to the girl, panting and sobbing in the gangly woman's arms.

"Sell 'em to a guild probably."

"You have no right."

The man glared down at him, the audience growing slightly uneasy as ripples of whispered conversation ran through them.

"E's a no good outsider."

"He is an elf." From the crowd came a new voice, and all heads turned to see a young boy pushing into the clearing, his doll-like eyes angry. A few bursts of laughter came from around him, as if unsure of the joke.

The whipmaster looked down at him ferociously. "What is it with you boys… can' ever just leave things alone…"

The boy paid no heed. "He is an elf…and you've nearly killed him. Now, wherever all the ancient clans have hidden, they will come for this town." More laughter, this time not as uneasy.

The large man looked down at the boy disgruntled. "It's hot out here and s'much as I'd like to stay and discuss 'ese elves…I'd like to get back to my lunch, I would. Take the "elf", as much as I care."

The crowd chuckled jovially, dispersing slowly as they left and cast looks at the four boys left in the whipping pit.

The young boy looked around frantically. "Where is the girl…where is that girl?"

Yohji bridled, alarmed, and looked around for her also, though there was no sign of her. Slumping in defeat, he set his large hand on the young boy's shoulder. "Hey… whoever you are, we'll find her….but for now let's get this..el—er…guy somewhere where he can rest."

"The elves will come for them….in only a matter of days…they can sense when their own kind has been hurt… we have to get out of her….we can leave the girl…they will find her no matter what, and I don't think anyone here would want to kill her before that…but this one needs attention immediately, he will die if he doesn't get help."

                Yohji looked down at the boy strangely. "Who are you…?"

                "Nagi… Nagi Naoe…apprentice to the Sorcerer Guild Master, Schuldig."

~*~*~*~*~

There we go, I like this better.  ^-^ In case you don't know what I'm talking about….I just rewrote this chapter…it sucked before…. Please read and review!! It would sure encourage me to write more! And BTW, thanks purple hotagi, for your review!