Chapter 1 - the Beginning
In which nothing much happens.
Ein stood outside the Crystal Caverns, staring intently at a nearby tree, on which someone had carved a string of nonsense.
"Hrover does not own Riviera;The Promised Land" he read. "I wonder what that means..."
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Lina was bored.
No, scratch that, Lina was really bored.
Bored with the special kind of mind-numbing boredom that only the Sprites of Elendia could possibly fathom.
When you've just been running around Riviera fighting epic battles with vicious demons in a desperate attempt to save the world, coming back to Elendia was a total drag.
Elendia. A quiet peaceful village.
Elendia, which The Hitchhiker's Guide to Riviera describes as "A quiet peaceful village, population of well below a hundred, net exporter of crystals, applecots, signpost fairies and bottled spring water."
Elendia, with it's total lack of commercial facilities, educational establishments, medical centres, religious buildings and...
"Playgrounds" thought Lina, "Lina wants a playground, then Lina can play there with Gill and Molan and Ein and everyone!"
Pleased with her idea, Lina immediately ran off to tell her friends.
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Lina wasn't the only one of our heroes suffering from a case of Elendian boredom that day.
Serene sat on a chair outside Fia's place, absent-mindedly sharpening her ridiculously large scythe as she contemplated the fairy before her.
One of Elendia's signpost fairies, similar in appearance to Fia's housekeeper, Coco, but in actuality a completely different species altogether. These fairies were famous for their limited vocabulary, as well as their boundless patience and non-existent intelligence.
Serene had once made the mistake of asking Claude about these fairies. The dryad had seized the opportunity to show off his wealth of information, and it was a good hour before Serene was able to escape. In that hour she had learned more about the fairies than she could possibly have wanted to know. Their eating habits, sleep patterns, natural habitat, evolutionary adaptations, bone structure, lung capacity, average rate of hair growth, common diseases, life span, eye colour, and a hundred and one other things that she wasn't the least bit interested in.
It was said that signpost fairies functioned much like tape recorders, repeating the first sounds they heard over and over for the rest of their natural lives.
Rumours abound of the day Ritz got drunk on applecot wine and walked in while Claude was setting a new batch of fairies.
On some nights, it was said that if you sat outside the guild and listened really carefully, if the wind was blowing in the correct direction and the crickets were silent. Sometimes, you would be able to hear a thin, wispy voice singing "Don't Cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"
Of course, Ritz denies everything.
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Meanwhile, Fia was occupied with...housework!
The amount of useless junk lying about the house was simply amazing. The results of Lina's compulsive need to search for treasure as well as Ein's strange rock fetish now filled up a good amount of space, space which was in high demand as Ein and Serene were now staying in the house.
Fia had collected most of the junk and deposited it in a pile by the front door. "Now" she thought, "How will I get rid of this?"
Suddenly an idea came to her. A smile brightened up her youthful features as she extracted her rosary from somewhere about her body. Gripping it tightly with her left hand and extending her right in the general direction of the pile, our virtuous maiden prepared to use one of her overskills in a totally inappropriate manner.
As she closed her eyes and quietly recited the words to this familiar spell, Fia could feel the power rushing out from the crucifix, flowing through her body, and accumulating in the region of her right index finger.
"Evil ones, begone..."she intoned, barely suppressing a chuckle as to the absurdity of the situation, but trigger words were trigger words, she had to say them.
"Banishment!" cried the attractive girl with the impossibly green hair, as light spread out from her outstretched hand, travelling towards the pile of junk at the speed of...well...light.
It was unfortunate that Lina chose this exact moment to walk into the house.