EDIT-A/N (3-21-2010): For those who have already reviewed, thank you, I truly appreciate your feedback. But if you are new to this story, please do not review unless you have constructive criticism to give me. I don't want to be told how good I am or how much I sucked if you don't have a reason for saying so. I'd rather you say nothing at all if you can't tell me why you liked or hated something. If I am out of character, if my writing sucks, if my plot sucks, if my description sucks, if my dialogue sucks, if my style sucks, if my vocabulary sucks, if I'm not interesting you, if I put in a deal-breaker, if I irritated a pet peeve, if I am missing something, if I don't meet expectation, if you think I have potential but have too much to say, if you wish I had done something--anything-- differently, if you just plain hate what I've done with a character, plot, action, description, suspense, if I failed at an attempt at using a writing tool, if I have spelling errors, if I repeat words, if I use the wrong word, if the first sentence didn't grab your attention and you want to hit the back button, if I have grammar errors, or any kind of errors at all for that matter, if something is wrong or doesn't feel right and you just can't put your finger on it, if you hate my title or summary, even if all you can say is, "you want to know why, but I'm not sure so I can't tell you. It just doesn't work" with a copy of the quote that doesn't work for you, please do me the honor of telling me so, even if it's in the form of an email, PM, or review, I don't care how you do it, just tell me. Yes, I am begging for concrit. But please don't leave feedback that simply says "that was good. Nice job." I want to know the why. Thank you.

Original A/N: I tried playing the SNES version as a rom on my computer and I've never been so frustrated in my life. I can't fight as anyone but Cless and when I got Klarth, I felt like pulling a shot gun. Cless died, therefore I couldn't run, I couldn't do anything, and I had no life bottles to bring myself back. The harpy had only 30 HP left, and Klarth had well over 350 HP. I sat and watched, writhing in PAIN as Klarth merely stood there allowing the harpy to beat him into a bloody pulp. I am so pissed off with him that I decided to punish him in the worst way I could think of:

Klarth's Punishment

by Baby Kat Snophlake

Klarth hadn't had a decent night's sleep since then. It was nighttime when he finally wandered into his front door. Within seconds of him banging the door shut, Milard hurried from the bedroom to see him standing with heavy eyelids in the middle of the room. He jerked forward and mumbled something under his breath.

"Klarth! Did you find what you were looking for? Did you help those kids?"

He threw her a warning look and pulled a chair out from the table to sit. Milard sat next to him. She pulled his hat from his head and smoothed the helmet hair. She tried to look into his face. His eyes were bloodshot with bags that could replace a backpack, his skin was pale and thin as if he hadn't had proper food or blood circulation in a while. "What happened, Klarth? Do you need to rest?"

His head dropped heavily to the table. He was still mumbling so low that she couldn't hear him. Then his head snapped up again, his eyes wide. "Stop it!" He swatted somewhere behind him, blindly searching for a fly that didn't exist.

"Klarth? I really think you need some rest."

His eyes fell on her. "Yeah, but I've been trying to sleep since it happened."

"Since what happened? What's going on?"

Klarth stood, sauntering towards the bedroom with hunkered shoulders. Milard took his arm to help him stop swaying until he stiffened, whirled on his heel and shouted once more. "Stop it, damn it! Knock it off!" He ruffled his hair with his hands in frustration.

Even Milard felt it. The room went deathly cold and the image of a harpy appeared before him. He squeezed his eyes shut, clinging to the safety of darkness as tightly as Milard's nails were digging into his arm. She screamed, ducking as the harpy flew over them and disappeared again. Shivering in cold sweat, Milard cowered at Klarth's feet. She didn't dare ask again what had happened. Klarth stood over her, thoughts and memories running through his mind. For the first time, he was finally still.

He knew what he had done. He looked down to Milard who was still clinging to his leg for dear life. She hadn't noticed the warmth return to the air. He patted the top of her head. "Get up, wench."

She did stand. Her eyes were blazing with tears and fury and she slapped him across the face. "What did you do?! You stubborn ass!"

"There were harpies everywhere. Cless tried to kill them, but he was already weak from fighting so many before. They ended up getting the best of him. That left me and Mint to fight them off. Mint died too. I don't know how to swing a sword. I've never used an axe in my life. There was no way for me to live, so I ran. What else was I supposed to do?"

"Whap them with your books?"

"I'd never do that! But anyway, ever since I ran, Cless has been chasing me down, poking me every time I try to sleep. He is not happy."

"I should say not! You have to go back and revive that boy or he'll haunt you forever."

"Yeah, but I have this feeling that, you know, he's not the only one angry with me. I keep hearing this voice saying that 'I'm a coward', 'use my book', and 'just do something!'"

"You're… hearing voices?" Milard stepped away. "Klarth, being haunted by Cless is one thing but… hearing voices?"

"The voice is pretty angry…" Klarth noticed her stepping away, her skin paling almost to his shade. "What? I'm not crazy. I just refused to fight and now I'm being haunted."

"Yeah, I think you can start researching on your own now."

The village elder stood watching an unmoving grave. The name carved into it was a familiar one. The man had been a member of this village for years.

"No one knows what happened to the kids who claimed they could take down Dhaos. Klarth, who was said to have traveled with them, had returned home and was quickly sent into isolation where he went completely insane. Some say he was haunted by a spirit. Others say he was depressed about Milard leaving him, but why did she? And still others claim Klarth felt guilty for the deaths of those kids. Even more believe he killed them himself. When he finally stopped hollering, the guard went in to check on him, and he had curled up against the wall. His clothes were covered in rips and tears and when the coroner examined his body, it seemed that he wasn't alone in that cold cell. Was it Cless? What really happened? I suppose we'll never know."

HAHAHAHA! Take that you worthless summoning troglodyte! --pees on his grave-- And to make matters worse, the first time I died, and revived myself, he ended up killing a harpy and I threw a party because he had actually DONE something! And out of all the harpies that I had to kill (by myself might I add) he has only attacked twice the entire time. I can NOT wait until he can summon something. If I had met Klarth in this game instead, I would not love him at all. -.-

--Kat